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What is this?
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This is a list of each card in Set 8 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 (though this is a generally a good idea for the first few picks at least). Figuring out when to do and not do this takes thought and practice; you should think about synergies with strong cards that you've already drafted and intend to play, as well as what the current influence requirements are of the good cards you've drafted. (This is a format where you can often touch on 4 or 5 colors, but taking great double influence cards in P and S should make you more hesitant to take a double influence card in J after that, for example.)
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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 (Set 6 and earlier), 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 that is true in basically every draft format 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 this format, the influence fixing (e.g. Feln Stranger, Token of Menace) is powerful and plentiful (even after the recent changes halving the frequency of the Feln Stranger cycle in the curated packs) and you should expect to be in a lot of factions. On the low end this might mean having 2 main factions and splashing a few cards in a third faction, while on the high end you can easily have three main factions and splash cards from the two remaining factions! For this reason, it's even less important than usual to worry about which factions are better/deeper than others - take the good cards that you see, and then figure out your colors.
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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 2-3 main 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 8 isn't a particularly fast format; dedicated aggressive decks don't really exist, and raw card quality (including synergies) is more likely to decide the game than getting run over early is.
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The main synergy in the format is between all the cards that want you to sacrifice a unit (Nahid's Faithful, Combust, Sol's Fury, etc) and all the cards that provide good fodder for sacrificing (mainly corrupted units, since you can either trade off the corrupted unit and sacrifice the shade to another card, or sacrifice the corrupted unit to another card in order to use the shade's activated ability.
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There are other synergies that come up, but they usually involve specific cards and take up only a small portion of your deck. Some examples: Outcast Elite + 4-5 other unseen, Precision Plunge or Majestic Skies with a bunch of fliers, 1-2 Bladecrafters with a couple strong relic weapons and a few backup weapons. The stranger synergies might be tempting, but they mostly aren't great because your opponent will have random strangers in their deck too. There's no guarantee that you'll get more out of your Steely Stranger than your opponent will, and at that point you are just playing a 2-cost 1/3.
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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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