Archetypes in draft for the Magic: The Gathering 2011 Core Set are certainly different than Rise of the Eldrazi's synergies and selections, but there are still some great opportunities to construct a deck around a cohesive ideology.
Mono red has some surprising strengths in M11 Limited play, if you can deduce that the color is open early in the draft you'll have no trouble making it all the way.
A lot of players are reticent getting into red in M11 drafts due to the rather restricted nature of the common slot, but in the context of a pure red deck some of the commons get a lot better than they look. Fiery Hellhound, for instance, gives the player the option of swinging with a Fireball on a body every turn.
Fire Servant is the card you're going to be looking for, the definitive ace in the hole for the mono red draft deck. You can get by on just a single Fire Servant, but multiples will take your deck into the realm of absurdity - You'll want to go as high as pick one for these dreamy damage doublers.
The Fire Servant ability stacks with multiple copies of the card - two Fire Servants on the board and a single Lava Axe is 20 points of damage in a single sorcery, and that's something worth thinking about.
Mono red has some terrifying swing damage available with Act of Treason combined with Fling, opening up an avenue of attack for your creatures, pushing all in with your opponent's best creature combined with your own army, and then hurling the temporarily controlled creature at the opponent after combat.
Mono red is a very workable draft deck composition, with many of the tools needed relatively easy to acquire. Note that it's not essential at all to stick with pure red if you start to see some great things in other colors, another color can easily be added to the red package for just a slight hit to your Fiery Hellhound efficiency.
Try out Fire Servant and the rest of the red package during your Magic: The Gathering 2011 Core Set draft events and you'll be Lava Axing for forty in no time!
M11 Best Draft Commons: Red, Black, Green, White, and Blue.
Want more M11? Check out our draft guide (commons), prerelease guide, Intro Packs, and single card commentary!
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