I've been pleasantly surprised at the many possible archetypes you can draft in Magic 2011. In my experience, drafting base sets has been very well… basic. Base sets are rarely used for drafting at the Pro Tour. The first Pro Tour Los Angeles was an exception. It used two packs of 4th Edition and one pack of Homelands. Even then, at the very first draft Pro Tour, I used power drafting. I ignored Green and White. At every table I played either Red/Black or Red/Blue. My decks were all about X spells: Fireball, Disintegrate, Power Sink, Howl From Beyond and Drain Life. That was good enough for a third place finish and I've been a fan of power drafting ever since.

I started primarily power drafting M11, with a focus on Blue. One of the great things about writing weekly articles about draft is that I can try drafting any archetype, no matter how sketchy it seems and call it "research". To my surprise, I've learned that drafting mono-color decks in M11 is quite realistic and can even be desirable. One of my first M11 drafts, I went mono-blue almost by accident and I ended up crushing my opponents. This led me to become more open minded to mono-color in M11. I've seen solid decks in straight Green, Red and most frequently, Black.

I hadn't seen many successful mono-white decks, but at least in theoretical terms it seemed possible to me. My girlfriend Rada offered to force straight White in an on-line draft in the name of research and I happily accepted. I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised by the results.

It turned out she wasn't in a great seat for mono-white. She didn't see any Armored Ascension, Serra Angel, Armored Pegasus or playable White rares. Things were so bad, the only White card in her first pack was a Squadron Hawk. Things were even worse when she opened her second pack and the only White card was Holy Strength. Frequently, with six cards or less left in the pack, there weren't any white cards left. Yet by forcing White from the very first pick and never wavering, she not only had enough playables, she had a focused aggressive deck:

[cardlist]2 Squadron Hawk

1 Pacifism

1 White Knight

2 Cloud Crusader

3 Inspired Charge

3 Holy Strength

2 Infantry Veteran

2 Wild Griffin

2 Siege Mastodon

2 Mighty Leap

1 Elite Vanguard

2 Silvercoat Lion

1 Ajani's Pridemate

16 Plains[/cardlist]

While Rada completely lacked bombs and removal, the deck worked nicely in action. She frequently curved out, playing a one drop, then a two drop and then a three drop. Between the amount of Flying and creature pump cards she had, opposing blockers weren't really a problem. With a low-curve mono-color deck, it was reasonable for her to play 16 land. As a result, she had just enough speed and gas to sustain her offense and kill her opponents before they could get enough benefit from the higher power of their slower multi-color decks. Much to our surprise, Rada won her 8-4 draft easily.

With the possible exception of White Knight, Rada didn't have any cards in her deck that specifically rewarded her for playing mono-color. The main card in M11 that makes me salivate over being mono-white is Armored Ascension and Rada never saw one in her draft. Playing mono-color has other less obvious benefits, however. How much does it suck to draw an Elite Vanguard in your opening hand, but not draw a source of White until turn four? How many times have you desperately waited turn after turn for your second Swamp to play Diabolic Tutor? How much better is White Knight on turn two than turn five? I also like that when I play mono-color, it's often reasonable to play one less land than I would in a similar multi-color deck.

Forcing mono-color also has advantages during the drafting process itself. It makes things simple when you can ignore most of the pack and just take the best/most appropriate card in your color or perhaps even the only card in your color. Obviously it's painful when there aren't any cards in your chosen color, but you can start drafting a back-up color as a side-boarding option.

Mono-black is probably the most obvious one color archetype to draft in M11. Cards like Quag Sickness and Corrupt beg to be played in a mono-color deck. Black Knight, Sign in Blood and Liliana's Specter are an excellent fit when double black isn't an issue. I've even played Relentless Rats as a weak three drop to be the last card in my deck when I needed the help for my mana curve. Black has many solid playables that reward you for a commitment to Swamps. I've become a fan of Nightwing Shade, and Reassembling Skeleton usually makes the cut. Both are happier when you have access to large amounts of Black mana.

Rada drafted mono-black recently and had the bad luck of losing to an opponent that played turn two White Knight two games in a row. I think the existence of White Knight in the format should actually influence you when drafting mono-black: draft flyers and Black Knights even higher, place a premium on artifact creatures and take Corrupt over almost anything.

Mono-red is terrific if you can get it. It should be drafted hyper-aggressive, to make sure cards like Arc Runner, Act of Treason and Lava Axe are solid picks for you. Ember Hauler, Fiery Hellhound, Shiv's Embrace and Earth Servant all reward you for committing to mono-red. Chandra's Spitfire and Chandra's Outrage are two of the best cards for this archetype and should be taken over almost any cards, except for Fireball and Lightning Bolt.

I've found the keys to drafting mono-blue to be: Scrying, Flying, counter-magic and bounce. Preordain, Harbor Serpent, Water Servant, Air Servant and Augury Owl are some of the best reasons to be playing mono-blue. Since Blue has so little creature control, I take Diminish and Ice Cage higher than I normally would.

I think Green is probably the riskiest color to draft solo in M11. It has most of the weaknesses of mono-white and few of the advantages. It has even less removal than White, no Flying, a slower creature curve and less creature pump. That being said, I still think it's possible to make mono-green work.

After our successful venture into mono-white, Rada was willing to try forcing mono-green, also in the name of research. Here is what she ended up with:

[cardlist]2 Sylvan Ranger

2 Runeclaw Bear

2 Greater Basilisk

2 Giant Growth

1 Sacred Wolf

1 Warlord's Axe

1 Cudgel Troll

1 Acidic Slime

1 Duskdale Wurm

1 Spined Wurm

2 Nature's Spiral

1 Hornet Sting

1 Giant Spider

1 Naturalize

1 Brindle Boar

1 Juggernaut

1 Prized Unicorn

1 Wall of Vines

17 Forest[/cardlist]

Like her White deck, I think it functioned better than Rada expected, but sadly she lost in the first round. Rada is a gifted drafter, but her inexperience hurt her in this draft. There were three important things she failed to focus on. First, when forcing a mono-color deck, it's hard to get enough playables, especially to give yourself sideboarding options. The best example of this was when she counter-drafted an Aether Adept instead of taking either Fog of Wall of Vines. Rada is used to drafting multi-color decks, where a card like Wall of Vines or Fog would have no shot at ever being played. As a result, these cards where practically invisible to her during the draft.

The second problem is that Rada didn't prepare for Flying enough. Flying is the most format defining ability in M11 draft and this creates big problems for mono-green. Cards like Plummet, Giant Spider, Wall of Vines and Fog become much higher picks than usual and all have the potential to make the main deck. The third issue is the need for speed. Due to the lack of removal and Flying, one of the best options is to just quickly push your opponent off the table before these things really matter. A Garruk's Companion over an Acidic Slime and a Llanowar Elf over Duskdale Wurm are some examples of picks that would have helped make her deck faster.

The best cards when considering mono-green are Garruk's Companion, Giant Growth, Giant Spider and Cudgel Troll. I think it's very rare that it's correct to draft mono-green and it's certainly not something to consider if you're following the tenets of power drafting, since Green is the weakest color in M11 draft.

The biggest question may just be: when do you draft mono-color? The way I ended up drafting mono-blue is probably an example of the best way for it to happen. The first couple packs, Blue cards seemed like the correct pick. After that, when in doubt, I took a Blue card, since I knew that I was definitely playing Blue. As I waited for a second color to jump out at me, good blue cards kept coming to me and piling up in my stack of picks. When this continued at the beginning of the second pack, I made a conscious decision to stick to straight Blue. The draft choices were easy from there. Given how much Blue came to me in the first pack, it was reasonable to expect to see more in the third. Given how thoroughly I cut off Blue in the first pack, it was also reasonable that I would see good Blue in the second one.

It's possible that mono-color will rarely be the right choice for you when drafting M11. I think one of the more common mistakes that drafters make is they don't even take the time to consider it as one of their options. If they do, they often don't know the right way to go about it. Mono-color is better suited to drafting some sets than others. In Zendikar, drafting mono-color was extremely powerful and highly desirable. In The Rise of the Eldrazi, I think it's usually a mistake. In Magic 2011, I think it's a strong enough option that you should take the time to learn it.