As for Uncommons - this is where removal lives. Bothersome Noisemaker and Prowler have >67% opening hand win rate, showing the importance of impactful 2-drops. And we finally see some W and G cards. Mirkwood Pathmaker was particularly impressive when I played against it. 10/

Card to watch: Gandalf, Wandering Wizard. Win Rate is mid, but it's played in bad decks. On a small sample size it has an impressive 11%p IIH Worth maybe giving it a spin in one f the games to see how it performs. I'm not making any promises, but it potentially underrated. 9/

The R deal 3 spell is finally good. Pinecone strike is not as dominant as I thought it would be but certainly is strong. As one of the few optionsto stem the early bleeding - it looked impressive. I think it just is not great in BR decks and does much better in slower WR. 8/

U commons focus on drawing the 2nd card. I was low on Long Lake Nuisance but numbers prove I was wrong about it. A consolation is the high WR of Tarmogoyf, sorry, Lakeshore Apothecary I was high on in previews. Bilbo and Instructor were a shoe-in for top commons and delivered. 7/

Last 2 B cards in the top 10 commons look more like they are piggybacking, meaning their win rate is a corollary of color pairs they are in being just strong. Still, we need solid playables in our deck and Bilbo's Deadly Slice and Stony-Voiced Goblins certainly are those. 6/

Next we have a powerful Equipment package in black: Crude Bent Blade and Goblin Plate Mail both impressed me and I already had high hopes for those. Especially Blade - the power boost, cheap equip cost make any 2/2 into a proper threat. Those 2 also have a high IIH. 5/

The shocking top card after day 1 is Gollum, Silent Slinker (cross your Ts next time WotC). But this may not be a fluke. The lead is substantial and it also has a very high Improvement In Hand - usually indicating card is driving deck's win rate rather than piggybacking. 4/

As for individual cards, at common B is dominating. But U seems to be close behind, given low win rates of U decks this is a strong suggestion U might be the most powerful individual color that gets slightly hampered by its companion colors. 3/

Early data for the format is out and it's better than I predicted. Yes, Simic is trailing, but the difference between Rakdos and the rest is not big. Community came prepared and drafted RB high enough that the lane was not outrageously open. Other pairs did well too. 1/11

They are openly mocking you:

Important day 1 of the format PSA. Bifur doubles triggers on Dwarves with Enduring Story. There is plenty of Ward going around too. Ward is a triggered ability. So targeting something with removal with one extra mana to pay Ward 1, is not a good idea with storied Bifur on board.

Skeleton episode is up and I try to lay out my predictions for the format. Starting with how removal looks like and what are the consequences of that, through some, what I think are, ground rules for day 1 up to a neat collection of decks I built based on my pondering. youtu.be/xbswbxO6beQ

Here are some of my 5+ win decks from the last week (RG one 7-1ed). They don't look anything like what will people remember format by. Had the color power been more balanced, we may have gotten this healthy meta earlier. 3/4

🏆 I wanted to send Marvel Super Heroes on a high and behold this absolute masterpiece. Tons of micro synergies but not going ham on any of them. Rewrite history (that is the blue plan you see P13 in the pack) was smashing here. Ant-Men, Moon Girl all triggered reliably. 1/4

Furthermore both in WR, BR and BG there are some incredibly aggressive 1-drop into 2-drop curveouts available, I selected a couple to showcase it, and decks without R or W will have a hard time dealing with those. That makes me very sceptical of UG in this set. 6/

The unprecedented abundance of X/2s has, of course, some knock on effect on other sizings. Both X/3s and X/4s are both at all-time lows. There are reasonable numbers of creatures with toughness 5 or greater so the whole set is designed on a U-Curve - another first. 5/

That is an unprecedented number. If we look at sizing of the common creatures since Kaldheim, Hobbit is first. And yes, it is a small set so there can be larger stat swings, but SPM and TMT were also small sets and were not even close to HOB, so something is definitely on. 3/

HOB has almost no "small" removal. No -2/-2, nothing specifically dealing with X/2s at all. Pinecone Strike and Magnificent End are the only cheap spells. Removal is mainly unconditional or deals 5-6 damage. That in a set where Shock would kill 69% of C creatures. 2/

How is Hobbit looking like when it comes to creature sizing? Another wild set. And same goes for removal. Remains to be seen how that will impact the draft but it looks to me like it is going to be very aggressive and first turns will decide a lot. Here's why: 1/7

But looking at week 1 only, we still get a large bias towards some color pairs, and it is the same 3 pairs that show the largest bias: Izzet, Gruul and Selesnya. Time to admit. As a group of players, drafters are not immune to preferences. Wanting something to be good. 10/

I looked at the bias (in this case - deviation from how the set should be drafted based on the win rates) in week 1 of the format and in the last 2 weeks. And consistently I got a larger bias in the late format. Note the sample sizes are different, we draft more early. 7/

In fact, Izzet was overdrafted across 14 of 15 sets, Gruul underdrafted in 13 of 15. Those numbers look meaningful. Even the most grindy Magic demographic can't escape the allure of preferred color pairs. But why? There are several hypotheses possible there. 5/

The biggest offenders are Izzet (drafted more than it should be) and Selesnya and Gruul (drafted less). A more general trend is blue is overdrafted relative to power and green is drafted less. A simple explanation would be 17L users would rather lose fancy than win simple. 3/

Limited is often driven by card power and that is what most of the content is looking at. What is the best color pair? Which color has the most atrocious bombs? But what about us, the limited community? Are we biased? Do we draft some color pairs more than we should? 1/12

I did tho….

I think you would learn from the PT prep discord that it's not Big data, but

Day 3 and still deluding myself I can get a festival in a box. Today sporting pink Sierko tee. Say hi if you see me!

Going live with the latest Magic Numbers - which cards need a "special" home in MSH draft? Well, I'm gonna tell you. Join me at twitch.tv/Sierkovitz

This mixes with one of the unassuming but imho profound findings of @zergog.bsky.social and Jess (see Magic Numbers 186) - the on the play advantage in games where both players mulliganed, disappears. Fewer resources = lower total power of the hand. 11/21

Enter 2026. And we have seen two of the wildest card files in recent years. First, the spell-centric SOS, then MSH with a unique mix of tons of creatures, little removal and low impact 2 drops. Two are also basically stark opposites of each other. 6/21