Top 10 Red Cards in Wilds Of Eldraine Draft

Magic: The Gathering‘s latest expansion set, Wilds of Eldraine, isn’t quite as powerful as the original Throne of Eldraine, but it still features plenty of great cards for various formats. Some Wilds of Eldraine cards are primed for Commander and Standard, while others are obvious must-haves for booster draft Limited.

Building a strong draft deck in any color means combining a set’s unique mechanical identity with the core essentials of draft, and that applies to Wilds of Eldraine‘s red cards, too. These cards make use of cool effects like Bargain and Celebration, but they also rely on red’s traditional strengths such as burn spells, pushing damage with aggressive creatures, and shutting down enemy blockers. The best red cards for Wilds of Eldraine draft represent the best of both worlds.

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10 Cut In

Red mana is usually tied with black mana for the best removal in any expansion set, including cards like Cut In. Being sorcery speed may annoy some aggro players who must budget their mana carefully, but in return, Cut In can hit a majority of creatures in Wilds of Eldraine, since many of them have higher power than toughness.

Cut In is a costlier Flame Slash, which is acceptable in draft, where removal is a must, efficient or not. Despite its cost, this card is actually better in aggro archetype decks than midrange red/X decks because the Young Hero enchantment Role does the most work on a low-toughness creature.

9 Edgewall Pack

Cards like Edgewall Pack are clearly designed with two booster draft Limited archetypes in mind: black-red Rat “aristocrats” and white-red Celebration aggro builds. Edgewall Pack’s ability to make one Rat is great for aristocrats who want to sacrifice expendable creatures or go wide with numerous Rats.

Edgewall Pack puts two bodies onto the battlefield to enable Celebration, and getting four power and toughness for 3R is a great rate, too. The downside is that Celebration has very few flicker effects to reuse Edgewall Pack’s ETB effect. Still, Stockpiling Celebrant should work, while the Saga card The Princess Takes Flight can do the job with Chapters I and III, but is much slower.

8 Goddric, Cloaked Reveler

Goddric, Cloaked Reveler is one of several red cards in Wilds of Eldraine that works well in the red-black and white-red archetypes and is an excellent flying finisher for either one in case the board state becomes stalled. Its Celebration ability is easily used with Rat tokens, enchantment Roles, and white cards like Hopeful Vigil.

Since Goddric, Cloaked Reveler has haste, it may count itself for the Celebration effect’s requirement, which is vital since this Celebration effect is based on attacking. A player can cast Goddric in the mid to late-game alongside a cheap permanent, such as Cheeky House-Mouse, and turn Goddric into an attacking Dragon immediately.

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7 Hearth Elemental

Red creatures like Hearth Elemental are a reminder that not all red cards are about reckless speed and aggression. Red mana isn’t just the attack-oriented color — it also has a strong spell theme that it shares with its enemy color blue, which is what makes Izzet decks run. Sure enough, Wilds of Eldraine has a cohesive blue-red “spells matter” draft archetype.

Stoke Genius is excellent if the player has an iffy hand or if they have one or zero cards in hand, and best of all, it may put instants/sorceries/Adventure cards into the graveyard early if desired. Then, in a spell-heavy deck, Hearth Elemental can be cast for cheap as a much-needed beater in a color combination that’s light on beaters.

6 Imodane, The Pyrohammer

Build-around cards like Imodane, the Pyrohammer tend to shine the most in Constructed decks, such as in Standard, but if their stats are good, they’re still viable for Limited. That’s the case for Imodane which, even if its effect is never used, is acceptable as a midrange beater.

Fortunately, Imodane has plenty of good burn spells to work with in booster draft Limited in Wilds of Eldraine. Burn spells target creatures more often than they do players, so Imodane’s ability can trigger a few times to finish off the opponent on a gridlocked board state. Burn spells like Cut In, Frantic Firebolt, Stonesplitter Bolt, Torch the Tower, and Witchstalker Frenzy are all viable options.

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5 Realm-Scorcher Hellkite

Mythic rare creatures often serve as game-winning bombs in draft sets, and for Wilds of Eldraine players in red, that bomb is Realm-Scorcher Hellkite. Efficient flying Dragons are almost always must-haves as late-game finishers, and Realm-Scorcher Hellkite has a few extra tricks to make it even better.

The Bargain mechanic will add enough mana to use this Dragon’s damage-dealing ability twice up front, great for picking off flying defenders or even taking out low-loyalty Planeswalkers. If the opponent survives that attack, the second ability will greatly speed up the game with so much extra damage to the opponent’s face. In corner cases, the player might use that four mana to cast another permanent spell for Celebration purposes.

4 Redcap Gutter-Dweller

Redcap Gutter-Dweller is an amped-up version of Edgewall Pack in the rarity slot, and will likely be used in similar ways in booster draft Limited. Redcap Gutter-Dweller is primed for black-red Rat and white-red Celebration decks, but unlike Edgewall Pack, Redcap Gutter-Dweller is clearly stronger in the Rat deck.

Unlike Edgewall Pack, Redcap Gutter-Dweller actually has an “aristocrat” ability, the main factor that sets them apart in draft. Entering the battlefield with two additional bodies is slight overkill for Celebration triggers, so this card is most efficient for Rat sacrifice builds and might get bulked up into a semi-evasive finisher, something every “aristocrat” deck needs.

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3 Song Of Totentanz

Song of Totentanz, based on its name and effect, is best used in the black-red Rat deck. This efficient card can go wide either to sacrifice lots of Rats to creatures like Redcap Gutter-Dweller, or keep those Rats for once and attack with them. To do the latter, Song of Totenanz needs some support.

Just having lots of 1/1 Rats may not be enough to overcome enemy blockers and hit their life total. A draft deck using Song of Totentanz needs the likes of Gnawing Crescendo, Totentanz, Swarm Piper, and Imodane’s Recruiter. Notably, those cards aren’t too great in draft on their own, but combined with Song of Totentanz, they become powerful.

2 Torch The Tower

Torch the Tower isn’t a flashy card, and it may not win games on its own, but aggressive red decks in Rakdos and Boros colors need cheap spells like this to clear out early blockers. Also, one-mana spells like this make it easier to use removal and cast a creature to enable Celebration effects, unlike costly burn spells like Cut In or Taken by Nightmares.

Without Bargain, Torch the Tower is passable as a Shock spell, but if the player has spare Bargain fodder from Celebration-oriented cards like Hopeful Vigil or various Roles, then Torch the Tower becomes a better Lightning Bolt, which is saying a lot and lets the card scale up a bit in the mid-game. The added scry 1 makes this pseudo-Lightning Bolt a star, and smoothing draws is vital to avoid drawing a redundant land card when attack-oriented creatures are needed.

1 Two-Headed Hunter

Damage-doubling effects like Two-Headed Hunter’s Adventure mode aren’t easy to evaluate for draft, since double strike means much more on some creatures than others, based on their power and/or evasive abilities. Ideally, this is used on the likes of Realm-Scorcher Hellkite or Goddric, though players shouldn’t count too much on that.

Still, the Twice the Rage effect can be used after blockers are declared, so an unblocked creature can finish off the opponent with this surprise effect. Failing that, Two-Headed Hunter is a decent attacker that can quickly thin out an enemy board state of chump blockers like 1/1 Rats, assuming the opponent won’t just eat the damage.