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This thread is for discussion of this week's Limited Information, which goes live Tuesday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Two Drops Matter

What I want to add that I've been learning about draft is that 2 drops matter very little. 1/1s, 2/1s, and 2/2s just don't cut it. Once t3rd/4th hits, things start getting fat or with great abilities. Your 2 drops are your set-up, they need to have some synergy with what you're doing for the rest of the game, but if there's nothing they can actually contribute, they generally won't matter. There's some great 2 drops that fit into specialized decks like Kruin Striker and Butcher Ghoul , but vanillas turn out to be irrelevant most of the time. It's almost like there's a gentlemen's agreement, though, that both players have some kind of 2-drop on average in their opening, just so the opponent doesn't get a free score of damage and field position.

One of main problems is your 2 drops need to either be able to race or trade against aggro strategies. RW Humans is such a strategy; but if you don't have 2 drops that First Strike, you most likely can't even trade with what they're setting up. Against RG Aggro, you may not even be able to block at all with your 2 drop; if you can, if it's one of the more choice 2 drops, it will at least catch Pillar of Flame

Swinging for 5 or 6 on turn 2 doesn't sound too bad to me... and there are a lot of ways to do that, especially in R/G. Two drops are great in this format, whether it's a Wandering Wolf that you pump late in the game to make him unblockable, Timberland Guide to beef up a guy who needs it (like, say, Wandering Wolf), the Kruin Striker you mentioned, the Lightning Mauler that soulbonds to give haste, the Nearheath Pilgrim to give Lifelink, Nightshade Peddlar to give deathtouch, Tandem Lookout to turn someone into Ophidian... yeah, two drops matter. I drafted a deck with 8 2-drops, and still went 2-1 with it (losing a match only cause I punted by not miracling Thunderous Wrath). Especially in R/G/W based strategies, 2-drops are amazing, and that forces the other colors to have ways to respond to them.

Edit: Heck, I even saw people playing Midnight Duelist profitably at GP Minneapolis!