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What is this?
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This is a list of each card in Set 7 and the associated draft packs, rated based on how strong we think the card is specifically in the context of the format, and accompanied by comments explaining ratings. A few things to keep in mind regarding that:
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1. This is not a pick order; the rating is how strong we think a card is, but you aren't always supposed to take the strongest card. Figuring out when to do and not do this takes thought and practice, but one thing we'd specifically like to mention is multifaction and factionless cards; early on a multifaction card is -much- less likely than a single faction card to end up being playable, given you don't know what factions you are; meanwhile, a factionless card is always playable. A good rule of thumb for the first few picks is to adjust factionless cards up one letter and 2 faction cards down one.
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Also, exhaustively ranking all the B's and C's would be a lot of annoyance for not much gain. Cards with the same grade tend to be close in power; you'll get your own feel for some of this as you draft and play.
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2. You'll notice that the contributors obviously do not all agree on every card, and you may notice that some of them have different rating tendencies than others. That's unavoidable, and it's part of why several of us rated. Collectively, our best guess is the average rating, but just know that there's some uncertainty to all of this.
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3. The commentary isn't completely exhaustive, but if we didn't make a note about something, it probably is not interesting in the format as we see it. If you feel you need notes about something we didn't go into detail on, feel free to ask, although we don't guarantee a response. Obviously, one commenter's opinion doesn't necessarily reflect anyone else's.
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4. If a card has a low rating, this does not necessarily mean the card does nothing, or that it is NEVER worth playing - we've all played cards like this, and we've all lost to people playing cards like this. It means that in most decks, we think the card is too weak to be worth running; if it's a buildaround, it means we think that the card is difficult enough to build around that most attempts to do so will fail and result in a worse deck. In some cases, what you've drafted is GREAT with such a card; you'll have to recognize these situations yourself, but don't be too eager to walk into traps.
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What's with these letter grades?
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In earlier draft formats, we used a 0-5 scale inspired by Luis Scott-Vargas's. The problem with this was that the difference between grades on the edges rarely mattered. A card rated 0.5 was hardly more likely to see play than a 0.0, and a 4.5 was a bomb you really wanted to play even if it wasn't a 5.0.
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To make our ratings more helpful and informative, we merged together many of those ratings at the edges - the 'F' grade includes both 0.0s and 0.5s, 'E' includes 1.0s and 1.5s, etc. Cs and Bs (formerly 3.0s and 3.5s) are the meat and butter of draft, and this new system makes that clearer.
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What faction should I try to be in this format?
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The simple answer is that you should take whichever factions are open. Every draft is different, and all of the factions are viable as main parts of your deck.
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In practice, some of the colors are deeper than others. Time, Justice, and Shadow have more strong commons in Set 7 than Primal or Fire, and so they tend to be open more often. You can use this as a tiebreaker in tight decisions, but the effect isn't strong enough that we would recommend forcing those colors / avoiding P or F entirely.
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I don't know how to draft/don't understand this format at all! Can you help?
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That's beyond the scope of this document, but we can say a few things. Generally, we (that is, the TDC contributors) draft by picking good cards, trying to read open factions to be in, and being flexible about what we're willing to play. A lot of strategies can be successful, but you should have a plan for each stage of the game; particularly, you can't ignore the earlygame, doing nothing for the first 3-4 turns is a good way to lose.
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For a rough deck construction outline, your deck should have 2 factions and 45 cards in it. 18 of these should be power (sometimes there's a reason to have more or less, but 18 is always close to correct), and the add power button probably gives you a good enough influence split. Ideally, you have 18 or more units, although in this format sometimes 15ish units is acceptable. And again, you should have a plan for each stage of the game; particularly, don't neglect the earlygame, and don't overdo the lategame.
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That said, Set 7 isn't a particularly fast format; it's possible to draft a hyper-aggressive aggro deck (particularly in Rakano), but most decks want to really think about how they're going to outvalue the opponent and win the mid and lategame. Silence is more valuable in format than usual, due especially to Exalted, and there are a lot of very large, weaponed-up creatures, which improves single-target unconditional removal and (to a lesser extent) bounce effects.
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Don't overvalue synergies. The 'curse deck' is real, as is the 'dragon deck', the 'muster deck', the 'oni deck' and (perhaps, perhaps) the 'mill deck', but you'll rarely land in the correct combination of enablers and payoffs to make those synergies more than a nice bonus to whatever cards you wanted to play anyway. Malaise, Spell Queller, Electropy: don't play these over good cards for a couple of minor bonuses.
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If you have any questions about the list, or about drafting in general, most of us can be found in the #draft channel on the discord (link below) occasionally, and there are other helpful people around sometimes too (not that we always agree with everyone's advice, of course). We don't always guarantee an answer, but there's usually someone around.
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Official Eternal Discord
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