[FUR Friday] Integration, Pt III: Archetypes

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia, the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, we're revisiting our draft archetypes. Third times' the charm!

White/Blue

    This color pair isn't changing much. Blockers on the ground, attackers in the air-- it's a classic. The seasoning that gives it that little extra oomph this time around is the artifact theme. While blue had commerce before ("whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control, [effect]"), now white has it too, allowing for a broader range of effects. We also have the flicker tech from earlier versions of FUR, which can now be used to repeat commerce triggers.

Blue/Black

    Continuing our "classic archetypes with an artifact theme" trend, blue/black is, of course, control. This time around, the twist is Treasure-- while every color has at least one in this set, black has more than the rest. That means that the control deck can splash more easily, granting access to off-color answers, additional removal, more win conditions, or whatever synergy-based scheme the player wants to dream up. While it's not the five-color deck, it should still have more variety than the average blue-black archetype.

Black/Red

    Sacrifice meets blood in the black/red corner of the color pie. (Actually, I think the colors are the corners and the pairs are edges, but you get the point.) Black/red decks love to sacrifice things, and tokens love to be sacrificed, so it's a match made in heaven. You know, because heaven loves blood sacrifice.

Red/Green

    Nothing says red/green like some chunky beasts turning sideways. While there's not necessarily a ton of artifact synergy in this deck, red and green get Vicious ("Whenever this creature deals combat damage, if you control no blood, create a Blood token"). Those blood tokens can be crucial for finding lands in the early game, or pitching dead draws in the late game. We might incorporate a minor "discard matters" theme to add synergy, but I'm also fine with this being a straightforward beatdown deck.

Green/White

    Green/White's go-wide strategy is augmented by Vibrant ("If three or more colors of mana were spent to cast this, [effect]"). Players are encouraged to splash other colors-- red for burn, black for removal, and/or blue for flying. In addition to green's usual color fixing, Treasures make it easier to achieve this. Even without playing cards of other colors, cards with Vibrant reward the effort with boosted effects.

White/Black

    Orzhov is always a weird one-- white and black don't have much in common besides life gain, and there are only so many times that you can run that particular con. Here, there's a handful of synergistic interactions-- black gets Blood and Treasure, while white has commerce and vibrant. As a result, this is a flexible archetype that relies on synergies to accrue incremental advantages.

Blue/Red

    With commerce on one side and Blood on the other, blue/red takes on an artifact-based tempo strategy. Blue disruption and red removal keep the opponent on their back foot, while flyers, hasty creatures, and burn chip away at their life total. Blue commerce triggers and red sacrifice effects help squeeze as much value as possible out of every artifact.

Black/Green

    I'm a sucker for ramp, and between black Treasures and green color-fixing, this one is shaping up to be a five-color ramp deck. Black removal controls the board while green sets up your mana base. Once you're set up, you have access to a broad range of win conditions to close out the game.

Red/White

    Suit up might be gone, but its spirit lives on in the red/white archetype. The red and white aura slots at common and uncommon, plus a colorless sot at both rarities, have been dedicated to equipment. This plus the artifact synergies in both colors add up to an aggressive deck with staying power. Taking a page from Strixhaven's book, this color pair can also lean on its ability to access the graveyard for additional value in the later game.

Green/Blue

    We already have a ramp archetype, so green/blue wants to do something a little different. While red and white's aura slots have been converted to equipment, the remaining colors have used those slots for spells that grant ability counters. This archetype aims to build around counters-matter synergies to overpower opponents.

The Aristocrats

    That's all we have for this week. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on the subreddit here, or let us know your favorite draft archetypes in general! Or have a go at this riddle: How is today's article like Wall of Runes?

    Next week, we've got a Wednesday Workshop featuring a new custom Elemental mechanic; FUR Friday is going to cover the new set skeleton, including *drumroll please* the uncommons! If you missed it, check out last week's FUR Friday to learn more about the new mechanics, or see where the archetypes started in the previous iterations (Vision Design, Pt II and Pt IX).

See you soon!