Drafting Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, the newest card set for Magic: The Gathering has been live on Arena for a couple weeks, and it’s a blast! I decided to learn the set by diving right into Limited Play. I’ve drafted four times since Kamigawa was released, and I learned something new each time. You can view all of my decklists here and check out the live gameplay VODs on Twitch below.

Kamigawa Draft #1 - Jeskai “Midrange” - Watch on Twitch

For my very first draft, I had almost no knowledge of the set or individual cards. No surprise, I came out with a 1-3 winrate running this janky pile of Jeskai. I didn’t pay much attention to the color pie drafting archetypes that are baked into the set, so I basically went through the first couple picks just choosing the highest value Azorius cards in Hinata showed up. That pick pushed me solidly into Jeskai, and I ended up with a good mix of permanents/removal. I didn’t count on the high level synergies that Kamigawa suggests in its design and paid dearly. Biggest thing learned, archetypes are important!

Kamigawa Draft #2 - Boros “Samurais” - Watch on Twitch

For my second draft, I wanted to get a little more focused on one of the draft archetypes of the set. My first couple picks led me down a Boros path with a focus on Samurais with plenty of equipment and combat tricks, and the games were really fun and dynamic. I officially posted a 2-3 winrate for this event which is still below my break-even goal, but everything felt a lot more intuitive from draft table to gameplay. The biggest thing that I learned is Kamigawa is fast and dynamic, so you have to run a lot of interaction to keep up. Synergies aren’t enough to come out with a winning record but they are absolutely necessary in this format.

Kamigawa Draft #3 - Gruul “Modified” - Watch on Twitch

This particular draft was part of the Midweek Magic series on MTGA and was a free phantom bot draft, meaning there was no time limit on the card selections (great for learning new cards!) and you didn’t up getting the cards you drafted in your collection. Even without the collection-boosting benefit to drafting, I had a ton of fun during this event. I just wish they could figure out a way to allow multiple drafts during the same event.

Technically this one would’ve gone 2-3 like the last one due to a mana-screwed opening game, but I ended up finishing 3-3 overall. With this one, I really leaned into the “Modified”, a brand new keyword introduced with the set referring to creatures that are enchanted, equipped, or have counters. Like the enchantments support, I think this archetypes is one of the strongest additions to the standard realm and most likely to affect older formats like Modern and Commander. The biggest thing that I learn in this one is everyone drafts removal, so go big but don’t overcommit.

Kamigawa Draft #4 - Azorius “Ninjabots” - Watch on Twitch

About a week after those first three games, I earned a draft token from leveling up the Mastery Pass, and I couldn’t resist jumping back into Limited. This time around, I picked a high power Ninja early on and decided I would give Ninjutsu a try. I ended up getting really excited about how some of the blue Ninja cards interact with the white Vehicles and lost a bit of focus. I ended up only going 1-3 again proving my prior point of leaning into a single archetype and not spreading myself out. Another big takeaway is that the Enchantments deck is insanely powerful in Limited.

Needless to say, I’ve had so much fun with drafting Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, but I still have a lot to learn about the set, the meta, and drafting in general before I’m rolling in the gems. I definitely recommend checking out Limited in general. It’s a great way to learn about new cards coming out and it boosts your collection! Now that I have a headstart on filling out my collection, I can get to crafting some new decks for ranked. I’m still sitting in low gold this season…