47 Cards to Go: Drafting Legendaries in Empire of Glass

This article originally appeared at https://letstalklimited.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/47-cards-to-go-drafting-legendaries-in-empire-of-glass/

Fine. You win. You’ll get your article about Legendaries, but only after I make these jokes at your expense.

Youth basketball coaches worldwide have my sympathy. I’m over here trying to help people like “ok, kids, let’s talk about fundamentals. Time to practice free throws.”

The Farming Eternal Discord : “HOW DO WE MAKE HOOK SHOTS FROM HALF COURT?!”

Coach Schaab: “… We’re practicing fundamentals. Free throws”

Twitch Chat: “WHAT TIME IS THE DUNK CONTEST?!”

Coach Kasendrith, who’s supposed to be helping me out: “Boooooo free throws! Boooo Coach Schaab! TIME FOR THE HALF COURT DUNK CONTEST!!!”

My goal, always, is to educate readers about limited. Fun promotes learning, legendaries are fun, so let’s use them as a teaching tool. I mean, let’s talk about CHONKY MONSTER BOIS, amirite kids!? I won’t even tell you which of these cards you shouldn’t play. I won’t write a single bad word about them.

You opened an Empire of Glass legendary card! Hooray! Let’s be real, you’re taking it and putting it in your deck. Only 47 more cards to go, so what kind of cards do you want? Are we building boring decks? Nooooo (yes). We’re playing our legendary as often as we can (by following fundamentals)! That’s not boring! Let’s Talk Limited!

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The Speaking Circle

I’ve only looked at one card and my brain is broken. What is even happening here? What does this card do? All I know is my opponent can’t play sites. Crisis averted. It’s colorless so just play it in any deck that can get to 6 power, find out what it does, and let me know. Starting with colorless cards was a bad idea. Let’s just do them in order of appearance on Eternalwarcry.

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Kyoju Elevator


If I understand this correctly – and someone please correct me if I’m wrong- but you still need an actual valkyrie in play to warp all of the non-valkyrie units, right? And the valkyries themselves won’t necessarily have Valkyrie-Warp?

Stonescar is probably the best place for this card because it has the highest number of common and uncommon valkyries that you already want to play. Plus, you get to draft Metalfang if its one of the 47 cards passed to you. Don’t pass Metalfang. You could also play Kyoju Elevator in Rakano thanks to all the justice valkyries.

The best strategy might be to draft as many Valkyrie Emulators as you can for your 2-drops and try to give all your other units warp. I don’t know. Just don’t pass
Metalfang.

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Deheen Blitz

Other 47 cards considerations: Draft fire cards and a fire weapon for your market. That’s all. Great cards are easy to evaluate. Next card.

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Opum, the Gemblazer

The name Opum makes me think this is Wump’s servant, but the art and rest of the card tell me otherwise.

Other 47 card considerations: Draft Rakano or Praxis for best results. A lot of the cards you already want are sentinels, so you don’t have to go far out of your way to draft them. This turns anything in to a big threat and is an auto-include in any Fire deck.

A Wump & Opum card would be awesome. Truly next level analysis today.

The dream: turn 1 Okessa’s Audience, turn 2 coretap maximizer, turn 3 Opum.

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Izha Chi, Daredevil

Pfffffft okay. So this is good. We know that. The question is: can we draft an Autotread to make it truly busted?

Just drafting Izha Chi (Easy E, in my head) and attacking is an excellent plan, but there are probably also a lot of ways to abuse this card by hitting it with ping effects.

Update: If your opponent blocks with multiple units, you get 4 or more cards.

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Onoris Roa

A 5/5 overwhelm for 5 is great. The spell damage bonus will matter in some matchups, so that’s cool. Being able to amplify it later in the game helps you come back from behind and triggers your amplify synergies. As Mrs. Schaab’s celebrity crush would say “alright, alright, alright.”

Other 47 card considerations: Some of the amplify payoffs are busted, so this would probably be best in an Elysian deck but really you can put this in any Time deck. Maybe you could even play Cyber Combustion for a one-sided board wipe. Go nuts.

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Send an Envoy

Skyguard sentinel seems really good in this format because flyers are hard to deal with so far. The triple Time influence for a single sentinel isn’t ideal but fine. So, the amplify. I’d be happy to discard sigils for this effect, but play them depleted? Sure.

Other 47 card considerations: I thought my love for trail maker and amber acolyte had reached full capacity but they just continue to be tremendous. As usual, dont pass a waystone gate if you see it. And I’d be plundering all of my irrelevant cards into sigils later in the game given the opportunity. High floor, high ceiling. This card is cool.

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The Great Kudzu

We’re not trying to play a 7/7 that gains three health. That’s boring. We’re trying to ultimate this at 10. Ya know what we’re gonna do? Steal cards from the boring nerds.

Unlike Send an Envoy, we don’t need sigils in our hand – we just want to get to 10 power any way we can. Coretap maximizer is the best way to do that. Steal as many as you can from the boring nerds so you can ultimate your humongous mandrake at least once. Same goes for apprentice mages and trail makers.

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Rhum, First Constructor

This sentinel is big! Really big!

Cards like Coveted Gemstone that ramp you and can grab Rhum from your market when the time is right become more playable.

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Lord Steyer’s Tower

Lord Steyer’s Tower is a site in limited. Draft it, play it, look at the art! Card art isn’t my thing but Lord Steyer’s Tower is gorgeous.

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Plea for Aid

There are a lot of playable 1-drops in this format. That’s what I’ll say about this legendary card.

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Argo Ironthorn

I must’ve looked at this card five times before I realized her name isn’t “Aggro,” but I knew the card was busted after reading it once.

Other 47 card considerations: Draft Rakano, Combrei, or Hooru. My gut reaction is that it’s best in Combrei because Send for the Reserves is an insane common.

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Titan Foundry

Oh good. A card that costs twelve. This would probably be best in Rakano because barricade basher makes this 5 cheaper all on its own. This is way more playable than it looks because of the cost reduction. Are there problems with this card? Nahhh we’re living in magical Christmas land! You could probably cast it in Combrei sometimes too!

Okessa’s Audience makes a sentinel with 5 health, so those go up in value even more if you see them in your next 47 cards.

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Daru Lee

Now we’re talking. You can play Daru Lee early and bash with it in an aggro deck, you can hold it in your hand and play her as a 6 drop. It’s obviously better with more soldiers but this card is great without much effort. Draft it, add to your collection, and play it happily. It’s even splashable as a 6-cost pseudo-dragon!

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Matriarch Zende

Other 47 card considerations: Draft Xenan, Elysian, or Feln. You’ll get the synergies naturally with other cards you already want to play.

Playing a mandrake on turn 2, 3, or 4 and then playing this and another card on a follow-up turn is probably the ideal play pattern.

I liked Matriarch Zende before I even read the card it creates, Balm, which is obviously great because it says “draw a card.”

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Replication Cell

Let the shenanigans begin. This card will lead to some gross games. If your goal is to have fun with your legendary card, this is the one you want to open.

Stabilize, play Replication Cell, win.

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Thundrus & Snooze

BEST CARD! Just look at the size of that napping bear! Snuggling up for some sleep next to my mini-bear, River, is great and Snooze would be a happy addition to our pack.

How does Thundrus even keep Snooze fed? Does Snooze hunt for his own food? I wonder how many calories he has to eat. Surely he can’t hibernate all winter. Does he snore? How old do we think Snooze is?

Anyway, I guess you could also play Eternal with this card.

The downside of coming into play stunned is annoying but who cares? It’s an 8/8 with killer. An 8/8 doesn’t really need regen unless the creature it’s bashing in to has deadly but it’s a nice bonus.

Best card.

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Arach, Razorshaper

Whoa. If you’re going to first pick and build around a legendary, you could do far worse. I’d try to play this in stonescar because the temptation of playing it with Scrapmetal Fury is too great, but it would also be stellar in Feln grenadins, which is an odd sentence to type.

With two or more grafters, I’d consider putting this in my market so it always comes into play with two power, but this card needs no help. Draft it, play it, be happy.

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Diabolic Machinations


Turning one card into two is good, so that’s positive. Card selection is good. Cards that can trigger amplify payoffs are good. So yeah, I said a lot of nice things.

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Snapyx, Deathstalker

It all works out. Just amplify Diabolic Machinations with Snapyx in play! A quick search for amplify cards looks like this would pair nicely with Primal, but this card will be great no matter what other 47 cards you draft.

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Krull, Xumuc Occultist

It took me a few tries, but I get it now. Draw Krull – it deals damage to you – you get a unit back from your void. Then if Krull hit your opponent, you play a unit from their void that costs 7 or less.

Look, I’m not talking about downsides today so I won’t mention the casting cost and I’ll phrase another thought this way: How funny would it be if your opponent had Krull and it killed them when they drew it in the late game? lolz

Here’s how I’d be having my fun if I first picked Krull: by drafting every Darkwater Vines and Shoaldredger I can find.

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Goldplate Goliath

Well at least we’re back in the faction with ramp. You’re on the Coretap Maximizer plan. You should win the game one way or another once Goldplate Goliath is on the battlefield.

If your one goal is to play the sweet legendary you drafted, go ahead and play Fire Sale if you see one. It’ll even activate all the maximizers you stole from the nerds.

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Blow the Dam


There’s so many cool words on this card! Double damage! Lifesteal! So cool.

Other 47 card considerations: Have 5 cards in your market I guess.

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Battlemaster Kitaxius

You’ve really done it, my friend. Not only did you open a legendary card but it looks fun, fine when it’s bad, and phenomenal when it works.

The following Empire of Glass cards become a much higher priority in draft:



Deathwing is as good as ever, and there are plenty of valkyries in Argenport. Battlemaster Kitaxius is awesome.

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Align the Tesseract



12/12 grenadin beast seems good.

Real talk: this card is castable in limited. Easy? No, but possible. Medibot station gives me a lot of hope. Primal grenadin are new so you won’t see them in the draft packs but a quick glance at the Empire of Glass cards says there might be enough to support Feln grenadins.

If not, it really might be possible to play skycrag or stonescar grenadin and try to splash the double influence. It’s a lot easier to do with symbols, especially if you’re aware of it from pick 1 onward.

Weirdly, I think Align the Tesseract might be easier to cast than it looks.

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Cast Iron Furnace


This is doable. There are a lot of good factionless cards in this format that could end up in your void.

If all else fails, draft a lot of plunder cards to make treasure troves. And bannerman is in the format! And seek power! Getting your factionless legendary power to work might not be as crazy as you think.

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Big Picture

Make sure you’re having fun. If you want to draft and play legendaries, go for it. That aspect of the game left me a while ago but this has been a nice reminder that not everyone’s idea of fun is maximizing their win percentage at all times. We’ve looked at all the Empire of Glass Legendaries, so now we can start asking more of the important questions:

Is Snooze unique or is there a whole army of napping bears? Does he prefer to nap after meals or at a scheduled time of day? How long would it take me to befriend Snooze? Happy drafting! Does he kick in his sleep like the dogs do?

– Schaab
Draft Enthusiast
Valley-Clan Sage Fan Club President

Big thanks to Stever who runs Eternalwarcry.com for making all cards easy to find and continuing to publish my articles on the site.

If you’ve been enjoying the content I create, please check out Let’s Talk Limited’s first Patreon Promotion! Thank you to the two fantastic individuals who joined recently, officially doubling Let’s Talk Limited’s number of Patrons! Only 8 more to go before I’m giving away some fetchlands.

This article was prompted by a conversation that happened the day after I published my articles about rares. My Patrons, for sure, get what they want.