Ah, Boros. If ever there was a colour pair to get people up in arms about a limited format, it's red-White. A vocal minority of limited players do not like their games ending quickly, and when Boros is good, that can be an issue. Red and White combined almost always ends up being an aggressive deck, and you will see this play out in the list below. What all of these sets have in common is aggressive cards being allowed to flourish and that is where Boros does its best work.

Tarkir Dragonstorm

We don't have to go back far to find a good red-White limited deck. Boros flourished in TDM, getting to double-dip on aggressive cards from both Mardu and Jeskai. Boros players also go to take advantage of Salt Road Packbeast and Twinmaw Stormbrood, two of the 'winningest' lowest rarity cards in the set.

Interestingly, though, Sonic Shrieker was the best uncommon in the entire set and the stats say that Boros didn't lose much from splashing. Typically, you expect aggressive decks to want to avoid dipping into a third colour, but in TDM it wasn't so bad. Yeah, a splash took Boros down by almost two percent, but it was still the best "two-colour + splash" deck in the format, thanks to Mardu Devotee. It was significantly better than going fully three colours, too, which is maybe not a great look for the three-colour clan set, but that's a topic for another article.

In the end, TDM was full of strong Boros cards that were good at building a wide board and then paying you off for doing so. Mobilize was a very powerful mechanic, and it was on a lot of good cheap cards. Cheap cards synergize nicely with casting two spells to trigger Jeskai's Flurry mechanic, and it all built to a perfect storm of pumped-up Warrior tokens smashing people's faces.

Duskmourn

I didn't play much Duskmourn. I was a bit burnt out after Thunder Junction, so it was a bit of a surprise when, in researching this article, I saw that Duskmourn, not Bloomburrow, was the set where Boros was the best deck. I guess playing against Manifold Mouse and its kin nonstop in Standard might have taught me the wrong lessons.

The reason I bring it up is because this section will all be based on 17lands data, since my own experience of the Limited format is, er, limited.

Starting with the rares, it makes sense to me that the red and White Overlords were the best ones in limited. Repeatable removal and repeatable token creation are never to be sniffed at in draft. Ghostly Dancers is a classic "unbeatable in Limited, irrelevant in constructed" set-mechanic rare. Dollmaker's Shop, I did have the misfortune of playing against in one of my few drafts, and yeah, that being near the top of the list makes sense.

It's at lower rarities where limited formats live and breathe, however, and Boros players were respiring very nicely in DSK. Sheltered by Ghosts is incredible, and its buddy Optimistic Scavenger is only a single percentage point behind it. Midnight Mayhem slipping in between them with 61.2% win rate is no huge surprise. Then at common we have a slew of efficient removal spells, including two more enchantment removal spells in Trapped in The Screen and Glassworks. Enchantments mattered in this set, so having your removal spells synergise with your other good cards was clearly a recipe for success.

Murders at Karlov Manor

MKM was the poster child, in my mind, for Boros aggro decks being hated on. What separates MKM from some the other sets on this list is that we all seemed to figure that out quite quickly that Boros was the best deck. The set was much-maligned, whether you play limited or not, but it certainly didn't help that the draft format quickly devolved into White mirrors: Selesnya was the second most successful deck and both Orzhov and Azorius were solid, too.

What made White - and therefore Boros - so strong? Well, all of the top five commons were Red and/or White, with Novice Inspector topping the list. Interestingly, though, this wasn't really about a strong mechanic. Only one of those five cards had Disguise. The rest were all efficient spells that helped you to get on-board and go wide, or helped push damage through. Dog Walker was far and away the best gold card at common and Person of Interest really helped the deck to go build a board presence while being tricky to block.

I think the most telling thing about MKM, though, is the fact that On the Job had a 55.6% win rate overall. Cards like this are game enders in the right spot, but borderline unplayable if not. MKM was very much the right spot. Even when it didn't quite read "you win the game" it made blocking horrible, leaving many games as good as done, even if that wasn't literally true. The fact that it gave you a clue token, just in case, almost feels sarcastic in retrospect.