I've wanted this for years.

At Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes in Amsterdam, the Top 8 will feature Booster Draft, and that's what will decide the eventual winner.

It's no secret that I love Booster Draft. I have an (extremely) long-running podcast on that exact subject, I wrote the Limited Information column on DailyMTG for years, and I've drafted most days during that time frame thanks to Magic Online and MTG Arena.

But getting to see (and commentate on) such a beautiful, skill-testing, and exciting form of Magic that decide the next Pro Tour champion is really on another level.

Draft is always important at the Pro Tour, but this time it's even more important, with the Top 8 featuring a draft after two drafts over the prior two days, mixed with a bunch of rounds of Modern to fill things out.

This might be one of the most skill-testing Pro Tours ever, and I cannot wait for the draft on Sunday.

Wiggle Room

The set for all three of the drafts in Amsterdam is, of course, Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes, an exciting set that released on June 26.

The last stretch of Pro Tours has seen a quick turnaround from when the featured set for Limited digitally released to when the players sat down to draft. On average, all they had was about a ten-day window to prepare.

But this time, it's different. The set will have been out for about a month by the time the first Play Booster is opened on Friday morning in Amsterdam.

That means that everyone has had the opportunity to do plenty of drafts and really get their head around the Limited environment before the Pro Tour.

The big testing teams will still have the advantage, as they will be able to go deeper into edge cases, underrated cards, and backup plans for when Plan A goes awry, but I expect a more level playing field as a result of the bigger gap between release day and the Pro Tour.

What We Know About Draft Thus Far

What have the players discovered about this format?

The headline is simple. White is the best color, and it is at its best when paired with blue or sometimes with green.

The white-blue deck has run rampant for the initial stretch of drafts after the release of Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes.

White is the anchor color here, but blue also impresses, and the results show that white-blue is the most drafted archetype and the most winning archetype.

That is a rare and impressive combination, and one that means there could be three or four players competing for the same color pair during drafts in Amsterdam.

Hero in Training
Trickster's Stratagem
S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone
Murdock's Crusade
Web Up

Looking at some of the premium common cards for white-blue, you can see that it's not the typical aggressive, white-based shell you'd probably expect but instead a well-rounded group of value-providing creatures and removal.

White-blue is mostly a Hero-based deck, leveraging the Hero creature type to garner value along the way. But it's really the powerful commons that make this color pair stand out.

Hero in Training is absurd. It's the mythic common for the set, and it's possibly the best common card we've had in years. It's better than almost all the uncommon and rare cards in the set as well. It's really that good.

Trickster's Stratagem is a real removal spell for blue with some upside. S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone keeps it straightforward by adding two bodies to the board for one card.

Murdock's Crusade is perhaps the most surprising card of the bunch, as it appears to be a narrow removal spell that's hard to set up and often won't have targets. In this environment, however, it's none of those things. It's just a great removal spell that hits more expensive creatures while giving you the opportunity to remove an important enchantment. Exiling those targets can really matter in this set as well.

Web Up is a solid removal spell that also exiles its target, which seems to come up repeatedly. It's also noteworthy that it doesn't get hit by an opposing Murdock's Crusade.

If you're looking for the boogeyman of the format, it's white-blue. And because of that, there is a kind of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality about this archetype.

Possible Alternatives to White-Blue

What can you do if you're locked out of white-blue and need to draft another color pair?

You may be tempted to go the villainous route and draft a black-red Villains deck. But going off the data so far, this is not advisable. Heroes, not Villains, almost always win on the battlefield in Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes drafts.

No, if you want to try a different deck that isn't white-based and isn't Black-Red Villains, a good bet is probably green-blue.

I think of this deck as being based in green-blue, as you'll often splash for at least one extra color, usually black for removal or any other colors for your bombs. You get to play the powerful blue cards that white-blue uses and some solid green cards.

Rapid Rescue
Undercover Skrull
Ant-Man's Army
Go Nuts!

Rapid Rescue goes well with Undercover Skrull, and both are important and useful plays in the early turns of the game, which can be hard to come by in this format. Undercover Skrull in particular scales well with the game, acting as mana ramp and fixing in the early game and transitioning to a nice beatdown creature as the game plays out.

Ant-Man's Army has a good home here, as a Treasure token can unlock a key removal spell or bomb.

Go Nuts! is an efficient removal spell that can swing a combat step in your favor in a big way, all for the low, low price of just one mana! Order yours today!

There's some real power at the uncommon level here, too.

Ka-Zar of the Savage Land
She-Hulk, Jade Defender
Punishing Punch

Ka-Zar of the Savage Land is an amazing value play, providing two creatures for one card, all with the added synergy of playing land from the top of your library, triggering your Zabu token. Amazing card.

She-Hulk, Jade Defender pulls double duty in this deck as it is a critical blocker for flying creatures thanks to reach while answering for a bunch of important artifacts and enchantments in the set, like Sagas, Plans, and even some creatures.

Punishing Punch is exactly what it looks like: an efficient removal spell that's capable of really messing with combat.

But again, even at the common and uncommon level, you'll often be splashing for cards like these:

Cruel Alliance
Killmonger, Scourge of Wakanda
Hour of Defeat

While you certainly aren't locked into splashing black, it's a common color to splash because it fills the gaps that this color pair can struggle against by providing hard removal spells and more bombs.

Killmonger, Scourge of Wakanda is a good example of both things, as he is often a 5/4 that kills an opposing permanent, which is something that blue and green wouldn't normally have access to.

Both Cruel Alliance and Hour of Defeat are hard removal, which has obvious uses in-game.

Subterranean Cavern
A.I.M. Scientists

Fixing is pretty easy to find, as you get gain lands at common, plus basic landcyclers and Undercover Skrull to get the job done.

I mentioned that one important reason to splash for another color is the bombs, and—holy smokes—the bombs in this format are something else.

The Best Rares of Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes

If you're wondering which cards would be exciting to open in the Top 8 of the Pro Tour, you have many to choose from in this set, that's for sure.

Take a look at the top two rare cards in the set:

Captain Marvel, Earth's Protector
The Super Hero Civil War

I've had more people tell me stories about The Super Hero Civil War than any other card in recent memory. It's the kind of card that can violently turn a game you were losing into one where you are most certainly winning, and that's not something you see very often.

Captain Marvel, Earth's Protector has so much going for her, it's almost hard to believe this card is real. She's big, has flash, lifelink, flying, and even a power-up ability that makes her both bigger and gives her an indestructible counter. Yeah. That's going to win some games.

But maybe you want value instead of just raw power?

Leader, Super-Genius
Doctor Doom

Leader, Super-Genius is probably my favorite card in the set so far. His ability to filter through cards and let you outright draw them while improving your board state is unrivaled. The longer he sits on the battlefield, the better your chances of winning. Doctor Doom is another absurd late-game finisher that makes it almost impossible to attack on the ground while fueling you with extra cards.

What if you want to get the game over quick by pumping up your whole team?

Agent Phil Coulson
Avengers Assemble!

A turn-two Agent Phil Coulson is the kind of card that, if left unchecked, will quickly take over the game. It even does well in the late game to boot. (Pair him with Captain America, Living Legend for some real nonsense.)

Somehow, Avengers Assemble! can be a blowout in the middle of combat and a card-draw engine? How is that possible? It's both of those things and, if properly built around, can win games easily.

There are more cards to discuss, but I'll save them for the Pro Tour commentary.

See You in Amsterdam

Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes offers a range of playable archetypes, splashy spells, and some of the best bombs we've seen in a while. And we get to watch a Pro Tour be decided over a draft as well. Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes looks like it will be an exciting event and a celebration of Limited.

I hope you'll join me and Paul Cheon for our draft coverage this weekend. The broadcast begins on Friday, July 17, at 5 a.m. ET (11 a.m. CEST/6 p.m. JST). See you there!

@Marshall_LR