Teaming Up

Will and Rowan Kenrith team up to make The Royal Scions, a deceptively powerful U/R Planeswalker with the same major draw as set poster boy Oko, Thief of Crowns.  Millions of loyalty.  I can honestly say that this is my most opened Mythic rare in any set I've ever played by percentage, and as such I've got more experience drafting with it than most of the Rares in the set, and even some of the uncommons, like Revenge of Ravens.  The Royal Scions is the only Planeswalker I've had multiple copies of in any Limited deck.

The Royal Scions primarily works well with:

• Any Blue or Red "Draw Two" card, such as Mad Ratter and Improbable Alliance.
• Conditional cards, like Fires of Invention or Fling, as you have access to lots of selection.  Conditional cards get to shine, but also turn into something else when they don't.
• Cheap cards, especially high impact ones like Scorching Dragonfire.  As you want to discard all of your excess lands, cards that are strong when operating off of 5 or fewer lands in play get better.
• 2 Mana creatures, such as Corridor Monitor or Jousting Dummy.  The ability to loot repeatedly and work toward the ultimate wants a 2 drop to help protect the Royal Scions.

While this card is a strong pull toward U/R, I've been happy to splash it in my effectively mono-Red decks, as they work well off low land counts and make good use of the pump ability.

Becoming an Expert

On this blog I love to talk about incentives, and repeatedly seeing a given rare or mythic will help get you up to speed on a card's respective incentives fast.  While it's incredibly fortunate for myself to have my most opened rare/mythic be a strong Planeswalker, this phenomenon is incredibly common; everyone will have cards they open at high rates, and everyone's experience will be different.  Intuitively we'd expect to open a relatively even distribution of every rare and mythic, but as we're unlikely to draft often enough for things to even out, despite having the same odds you'll simply see some cards more often.  Drafting tons is my thing and it has been for years, and I've had formats where I've opened the same Mythic 5 or 6 times as often as any of the others, such as Naru Meha, Master Wizard from Dominaria.

Taking advantage of however this effect effects you is just another way you can increase your equity, as that above-average rare you seem to consistently open will quickly become a card you understand better than everyone else.  I've certainly been guilty of bemoaning my luck when not opening the best of the best cards in the set, and in doing that I've missed out on a lot of ways I could have gained my own unique edge on fellow drafters.

Sample Decks

While not a shining example of a deck featuring Royal Scions front, the above deck is doing everything I want to do, just at a power level I wasn't happy with.  Mantle of the Tides and Bloodhaze Wolverine get massively better when you can ditch them for something else later on, as well as having their abilities active consistently.  Our curve here is super low, but we can afford to play a lot of lands taking advantage of our various looting and rummaging effects.

Another deck that didn't have the power level I wanted, but here I was easily able to throw The Royal Scions into my deck as the most powerful off color card I had.  It was tough for my opponent to effectively attack it when they had so much pressure on their life totals, and my 2-1 record was much more a product of my playset of Jousting Dummy, rather than The Royal Scions underperforming.

Draft Strategy

The Royal Scions is a good first pick, and is one of the better cards in the set overall.  With that said, it's an incredibly committal one, and lacks the power of Oko or Garruk, which are the closest cousins.  Generally if I've first picked The Royal Scions, I want to put myself into either Blue or Red, but not both unless it's incredibly obvious it's open to you.  As most of the cards that go well with it have a single colored mana symbol, it's easy to play The Royal Scions and some cards that go well with it in a deck that plays 12/5.

This is not a Planeswalker to get married to, as while there's certainly a pay-off you're not going to do much winning in your 22 bad cards and a Royal Scions deck.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg

Article schedule is a tad backed up this week, thing should return to normal by Saturday.