Since Altered’s release, every game I’ve lost has been to Sigismar & Wingspan, across draft, sealed, and constructed. I’ve internalized a lot of what makes the hero feel so powerful from the opposite side of the table and so went into the draft biasing pretty heavily towards Ordis.

The draft

Note: this draft was run with Kickstarter boosters.

I started with a Bravos Bladedancer (F) as a cheap, on-rate play that would get a lot better if I ended up in a boost-heavy deck. I followed this up with an Ordis Cadets (R), a premium go-wide card that leaned towards Ordis.

Sure enough, the hero in the third pack was Sigismar & Wingspan, which I snap-picked. Coincidentally, the next pack also had a Sigismar, and while there were other good cards, including a solid Ordis card, I opted to take Sigismar out of the pack. I mostly didn’t want to sent a false signal that Ordis was open, but there’s some merit to the argument that Sigismar is strong enough to warrant a hate-draft.

Ordis continued to flow, as I picked up a p5 The Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C). I prioritized Ordis cards for the rest of the pack, but I did take a relatively late Magical Training (R), figuring a cheap and flexible option for card advantage would complement an aggressive deck with a lot of low-cost cards.

I believe it was in early P2 when I speculated on Axiom with a Bravos Vanguard (R), quite a bit stronger than the other on-faction cards in the pack. It helped knowing I had a Monolith, so I might be able to take advantage of Axiom’s permanent synergies.

The rest of the draft was mostly straightforward. The early Sigismar and Monolith made it easy to prioritize token-generation (Ordis Gatekeeper (C), Foundry Armorer (C)), cost-reduction of permanents (Foundry Mechanic, The Frog Prince (F)), and token synergy (Anubis (C), Boom! (C)). Counting on my Ordis Recruits giving me an early lead, I took above-rate 1-drops (Ordis Trooper (R), Yzmir Stargazer (R)) extremely highly, though I felt I got them later than I probably should have. I was of course happy to take generically strong cards like Baku (R) and Dorothy Gale (C).

I made playables pretty comfortably and was able to “rare-draft” a lot of heroes as a result. I realized after the fact that heroes wheeling might have been because some people didn’t know that scanning a duplicate foil hero adds a common foiler to your collection. I wish I had made a point to announce this; it’s something non-obvious that I think everyone should be aware of before a draft with Kickstarter boosters.

The games

Round 1 (W): Subhash & Marmo (Axiom-Lyra-Muna)

My opponent created a Brassbug to beat my Ordis Recruit by putting a Muna Caregiver (C) into reserve. I put my Foundry Armorer (C) hero-side so they could win no more than one side. Fortunately for me, they had a 0-stat character, so we traded on T1.

They put Coppélia (C) into reserve with their hero ability and played it asleep for free. Being the second player here helped, since my Foundry Armorer (C) from reserve let me distribute the Brassbug and my Foundry Mechanic (R) to squeeze out a win on both sides.

T3 was a strong tempo turn for them. Their Coppélia (C) woke up, and their aggressive use of their hero power put them way ahead on stats. The downside was that it also left them with few cards in hand. I replayed my Foundry Mechanic (R), they played a character, then I played the Baku (R) that I had kept in my opener to snipe the last card in their hand. I took losses on both sides but felt massively favored on the next few days.

They may have not registered that my Baku (F) would trigger from reserve, as they spent an Alice (F) after you as the starting player to let me replay Baku and hit their only card in hand. I won that day and the next handily, while they had to Harvest (C) to recoup their resources.

My opponent did have a pretty sweet Amahle, Asgarthan Outcast (R) play, discarding three cards from reserve to draw three, but I was able to play to the other expedition and close out the game.

Round 2 (W): Waru & Mack bureaucrats (Ordis-Yzmir)

My opponent this round surprised me with a full-on bureaucrats draft deck. They mentioned they had drafted a few Axiom cards but didn’t end up running any of them, ending up in a fully two-faction deck!

They led with a slept Ordis Attorney (C) on T1. I had kept a 1-drop and a Magical Training (R) and was free to play both to get a double-advance.

I played The Council (C) on the side with just an Ordis Recruit while they slept another bureaucrat on T2 to trade.

T3 was awkward, as I kept an Ordis Gatekeeper (C) without realizing that neither region required mountain. I had to dedicate a few more resources than I was expecting but managed to secure a single advancement.

T4 was the turning point of the game. With 6 mana, I led with the Ordis Gatekeeper (C), this time in a mountain-only region. My opponent slept an Issitoq (C) in the opposite region for all their mana. I had kept a Boom! (C), and got a huge blowout here, turning the other region back on while only needing to sacrifice one of my two Recruits, letting me advance on both sides.

This ended up being an especially brutal play because my opponent had The Kraken (R) in hand but never had a token to sacrifice since I discarded their Issitoq. I won by ensuring single-side victories over the next two days.

At the end of the game, I noted that I had kept Baku (R) in my opener, but my opponent had plenty of cards due to their Ordis Attorney (C), so going down on tempo to play Baku never felt worth it.

Round 3 (W): Fen & Crowbar (Bravos-Muna-Lyra)

In R3, I played against the deck drafted by the player on my left. They were in the three factions that I was not, which speaks to their signal-reading and explains why my factions felt open from both directions.

I kept a the Frog Prince (R) + The Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C) combo with a Magical Training (C) to fill out my T1 curve.

I led with a Magical Training (R), and they responded with a Martengale (R) companion-side. My 2-drop was a Frog Prince (R), which I begrudgingly played against their Martengale to trade. They finished with a Kitsune (R) hero-side, which resulted in the rare quadruple-advance.

On T2, they led with a Haven Bouncer (R) sabotage. They chose to sabotage the Ordis Cadets (R) I had resupplied from their Kitsune. Hitting the token generation would be a reasonable choice against most Ordis decks but got massively punished when I spent my turn using The Frog Prince (F)’s support ability to play my Monolith for a discounted 4 mana. They advanced on both sides again, already just three regions away from victory, but I would be getting a huge boost in power from here on out.

I played my Monolith Rune-Scribe (C) and Ordis Gatekeeper (C) the following turn, getting 4/4/4 in value from my Monolith after counting the Sigismar token. The best they could do was block one side with the Haven Bouncer from reserve.

The next turn, they Fen resupplied a Paint Prison (C) with an Issun-bōshi in reserve. I was the starting player, so I led with the Gatekeeper to guarantee max boosts in case they topped my Monolith. They did - no surprises there - so I replayed my Rune-Scribe, then snuck out a win with an Ordis Trooper (R) from hand. They had dealt with the Monolith, but only after it had generated 7/7/7 in value, and only by spending 2 reserve-cards and 3 mana.

They played Amahle, Asgarthan Outcast (C) next turn. I led with the Trooper to make sure they had exhausted their mana before freezing the Amahle side with Issitoq (C). The following turn, slow-rolling into Dorothy Gale (C) gave me the last advancement I needed for the win.

Takeaways

Sigismar & Wingspan is my highest pick in Beyond the Gates limited, excluding uniques. If your Ordis Recruit puts you just one region ahead in the early game, that can snowball into a massive amount of pressure on your opponent.

The Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C) is a limited bomb. I was worried that taking a turn off to play it would put me too far behind, but once it’s online, you can make it hard for your opponent to even advance on one side. This only gets better with cheap plays and cost reduction for permanents.

1-drops that offer above-rate stats are premium cards. They can make the difference between advancing or not in the early-game, and in the late-game they can force your opponent to act first while still making a reasonable contribution in stats.

Overperformers

  • The Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C): For the above reasons.
  • Issitoq (C): This can be treated as removal. But where most removal can only be played reactively, Issitoq can proactively invalidate all of your opponent’s later plays to the other expedition.
  • Boom! (C): This can deal with anything and only costs Sigismar & Wingspan their hero ability. No one else wants this card, so I got my copies pretty late in the pack.

Underperformers

  • Robin Hood (C): It’s hard to know whether you’re playing this on a turn that will meaningfully disrupt your opponent. There was one turn where I had this and The Council (C) in hand, and I didn’t think twice about keeping The Council (C) as the solid, on-rate play.
  • Ordis Carrier (C): Every turn I could have played this, I had the option to play another card to win an expedition, which always seemed like the more desirable move.
  • Open the Gates (C): I was never happy to see this card, in large part because it never lined up with my Monoliths. It obviously would have been great if I saw them together, but so would almost any other play once The Monolith is down.