Breaking Down Aetherdrift: Deep Dive into Early Format Data

The first week of Aetherdrift is complete, and the data is in, giving us a clearer picture of how the format is shaping up. Early trends indicate a slower, two-color-focused format where late-game strategies thrive. Green and Black seem to be the dominant force in this early phase.

In this format update, we’ll analyze format popularity, color trends, archetype performance, and key takeaways to help you win more drafts moving forward.

Format Popularity

The first week of Aetherdrift saw a slightly below average level of player engagement, with 292,306 games played in Premier Draft. Compared to other sets released in the last year, this places Aetherdrift in the middle of the pack, ranking 5th out of 7.

Among Standard-legal releases, it has the lowest number of games, but only by a small margin. To account for seasonality of Arena players an interesting comparison is to look at Murders at Karlov Manor (269,395 games), which was the set released exactly a year ago. Murders at Karlov Manor was considered a weak-performing set, so Aetherdrift surpassing it significantly is a positive sign.

For Traditional Draft, Aetherdrift has logged relatively fewer games than other sets, with 34,475 games — comparable to Bloomburrow. An explanation for this could be that more players are interested in these formats that are socialized with Best-Of-1, the primary game mode of Arena.

Color Preferences and Win Rates

This format seems to be a clear two-color set. Looking at the distribution, over 60% of decks are strictly two-colored, with another 25% including a splash. Based on win rates it’s also clear that adding more colors leads to a decrease in win rates.

As the format evolves, this may change as more players prioritize stronger archetypes. This will leave everyone with fewer premium cards and forcing them to reach into splash colors more to get enough power to compete in the late game.

In terms of color popularity, Green is the most popular and at the same time strongest color. Closely followed by Black in terms of win rate.

As we will see later in more detail, these two colors dominate the archetype rankings, leaving the Jeskai colors (White, Blue, Red) way behind in these first days.

Archetype Performance

When grouping the archetypes into tiers the following structure emerges:

• Tier 1: Golgari (Black/Green) and Simic (Blue/Green) are the clear front-runners of the format so far.
• Tier 2: Selesnya (White/Green) and Gruul (Red/Green) are a notch behind the other green decks but still above average.
• Tier 3: Rakdos (Black/Red), Dimir (Blue/Black) and Orzhov (White/Black), the non-green black decks are pretty much on the same level.
• Tier 4: Izzet (Blue/Red), Azorius (White/Blue) and Boros (White/Red), the Jeskai color pairs coming in last

One archetype worth highlighting is Orzhov (White/Black), which has an average win rate despite being the least drafted This archetype has an average win rate while being drafted the fewest times. As soon as people will be fighting more over Green this has potential be an underdog in the next couple of weeks.

Splash and Multi-Color

For the most part, splashing is hurting your win rate by 2-3%. One exception to this is Azorius which has a slightly higher win rate when including a splash, which will most likely be Black for the artifact synergies.

Splashing a third color is particularly awkward for Rakdos, Izzet, and Boros. This might be that Rakdos and Boros are playing a more aggressive strategy that doesn’t want to stumble on mana issues or that Izzet has too much of its own thing with discard synergies.

A glance at the three-color archetypes shows that Temur (Blue/Red/Green) is the only one performing at an average win rate. Since the format is still in its infancy, it can be assumed that the community will figure out how to play multicolored decks, since the fixing is plentiful, between dual lands and playable mana rocks.

Archetype Breakdown

For a detailed breakdown of each two-color archetype, check out our new Archetype Overview pages. There you get access to several interesting data-generated metrics, like

• Top Performer
• Over/Undervalued Cards
• Secret Gold Cards
• Trap Cards

Key Takeaways

• Format pace is slower than usual – Aggressive decks are struggling, while late-game strategies are thriving. Keep this in mind when evaluating cards.
• Green is dominant – The best-performing color by a significant margin. Take advantage of underdrafted green powerhouses before the meta adjusts.
• Two-color decks are optimal – Multi-color decks generally underperform, with Temur (Blue/Red/Green) being the only viable three-color option.
• Splashing can hurt win rates – With the exception of Azorius, most archetypes see a 2-4% win rate drop when splashing.
• Orzhov looks like having potential - White/Black is currently undervalued but performing decently. It could be an under-the-radar option in upcoming drafts.
• Boros is the weakest archetype – Avoid if possible, as it is the lowest-performing deck in the format.
• Stay updated! – The Aetherdrift meta will continue evolving. Subscribe to our Newsletter to stay ahead of the competition!