Alara Reborn Draft Strategy

On the wizards.com website, we finally got a look at the theme of Alara Reborn. Alara Reborn will be a totally multicolor set. That's means there will be no one drops or even lands.

How will this set affect the Shard of Alara draft format? I actually think there will be a return to draft decks that are more Shard based like in triple Shards of Alara draft. Conflux had cards that rewarded five color decks. For example, the domain cards like Voices from the Void were powerhouses in five color decks. Also, all the mana fixing in Conflux fixed every color while the Shards of Alara fixers only fixed shard colors.

However, Alara Reborn will have no lands and all its artifacts will be colored. This may mean there won't be many fixers in Alara Reborn. If you look at the fixers in Shards of Alara and Conflux, most of them were colorless lands or artifacts. For example, there are the Panoramas, comes-into-played tapped lands, and Obelisks in Shards of Alara while Conflux had Rupture Spire, Armillary Sphere, and Unstable Frontier.

Still, Alara Reborn will have some fixers since it's a multicolored set. I looked at the Alara Reborn visual spoiler and found one fixer that could be the template for the other fixers.

Pale Recluse
4WG
Creature - Spider
4/5
Reach, Forestcycling 2, Plainscycling 2
Common

Pale Recluse is an interesting card. It fixes for colorless mana unlike the landcyclers in Conflux. However, it can only fetch a Forest or a Plains. This seems to show that the fixers in Alara Reborn are shard centered like the fixers in Shards of Alara.

Sure, you can put Pale Recluse in an five color deck with Esper as its main colors but it's definitely more effective in a deck with green and white as its main colors.

Also, as I looked at the Alara Reborn visual spoiler, I found that most of the cards were shard centric. There were no five color cards like Maelstrom Archangel, Child of Alara, Fusion Elemental, and Progenitus.

Therefore, when initially drafting Alara Reborn, I would tend to stick with a shard instead of forcing four color or five color decks. Make sure to read signals well to find out what colors the player on your right is drafting. This will help you pick the right shard to be in and make your deck stronger as a result.

Good luck with your drafts and hope to see you at the Alara Reborn prerelease!