Last updated on May 7, 2026
The Dawning Archaic | Illustration by Josu Solano
Secrets of Strixhaven has been on Draftsim’s Draft Simulator for a few weeks, including about ten days prior to the set’s digital release on April 21. It’s a great time to review data and see what the Draftsim community picked highly in SOS before the set dropped to see how players’ evaluation of the Draft environment has changed what cards go high and what cards go late.
I’m checking out the three cards with the highest average pick rate from the Draftsim community prior to the set’s digital release on April 21 and comparing them with their current data!
Emeritus of Ideation
Emeritus of Ideation was the highest-picked card during the 10-day period between April 10 and April 20, the period of time the format was live on Draftsim before the digital release. Its average pick was pick 1.33—hardly surprising considering the buzz Ancestral Recall gave the prepared creature.
It’s also a reasonable card to see picked highly, as a massive, flying threat with ward and great card draw draws players to blue, which is why it received the highest Draftsim internal rating of 4.50. Draftsim’s expected pick for the Emeritus is Pick 2.18, so there’s a mild difference of +0.85, meaning the Draftsim community was taking Emeritus of Ideation slightly more often than expected—but who can blame players for over-drafting such a shiny toy?
Post-release, the Emeritus still boasts the highest average pick rate, which has actually risen to pick 1.20, in turn increasing the pick rate difference to +0.98. The Draftsim community takes it nearly a full pick earlier than expected. The chart for the digital release includes the 17lands average pick rate, so we can see that players on MTG Arena are taking it very slightly less than the Draftsim community; in both cases, slightly earlier than the expected pick of 2.18.
The Dawning Archaic
The Dawning Archaic had the second highest average pick rate at 1.35, but is a dramatically weaker card, which indicates it was highly over-drafted: With an expected pick of 6.91, the community taking it so high resulted in a major difference of +5.56.
TDA is an enticing card; it’s a battlecruiser with cost reduction based on instants and sorceries, the core theme of the set, and it’s colorless. But just because any deck can play it doesn’t mean they should; for example, creature-dense Silverquill and Witherbloom decks might not have the instant and sorcery count to support it. Even in decks like Prismari and Lorehold, it takes time to get enough instants and sorceries in the grave. And, while it’s a big threat, TDA has no immediate impact on the board and the format has more than enough removal to handle it before its attack trigger. It’s perfectly understandable why players would take this card so highly, but a little more consideration proves it to be over-drafted.
Post-release, The Dawning Archaic lost a lot of stock, kicked down to the 32nd place with a much later pick rate of 2.83—which still leaves it considerably over-drafted as it’s getting picked 4.08 picks sooner than expected. I guess big, splashy mythics will always have an appeal.
Together As One
Together as One had the third highest pick rate before the set went live at 1.44. Like the other options, that leaves it being over-drafted but it was by far the closest with a difference of +0.74. It has the same expected pick and rating of Emeritus of Ideation, at 2.18 and 4.50, respectively. Like the Emeritus, it’s stats have remained relatively static:
It’s risen to the second highest average pick rate, at 1.43. Taking second versus third has more to do with The Dawning Archaic being criminally over-drafted than anything else.
It makes sense that the card would be such a high pick, too; as a colorless bomb, it fits in many possible decks and has a much lower floor to The Dawning Archaic; instead of needing lots of instants and sorceries and a little luck, this needs a dual land or two to kick converge into 3 or 4 colors. Because the floor is so low and it fits into so many decks, TOA is the card everybody thought The Dawning Archaic was: One of the strongest bombs that could theoretically fit into everything.
If you want to poke around the Draft Pick data, subscribe to the Draftsim Patreon, and check out our official SOS Draft Guide:
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