We still don't have all the previews yet, and that means we don't know what the Draft archetypes are going to look like. The most important question is what a color's three best commons are; and the second most important question is how many 1, 2, 3, and 4 cost cards are at common, and we won't know the answer to those until all the commons are released. But we have seen enough of the rares that we're starting to have a good idea what the colors are offering in Constructed.
First of all, let's talk about the major archetypes from before rotation:
Ramunap Red
Good old Red Deck Wins. The deck is almost entirely Amonkhet with a few Kaladesh cards poking around the edges. Most versions use a couple Innistrad cards, but the Gorger and Incendiary Flow are extremely replaceable. Lightning Strike is back, and Lannery Storm might find a place, but basically Hazoret.dek is pretty much exactly the same and will still be good.
Mardu Vehicles
On the other end of the scale, Mardu Vehicles is dead. Every white card in the deck except Toolcraft Exemplar is from Zendikar or Innistrad, and they all rotate together. No Inspector, no Gideon, no Avacyn. Moving forward, Mardu Vehicles will not exist because it won't be Mardu anymore. However, the Red and Black portions of the deck are basically Kaladesh Block plus Glory Bringer and haven't changed. Moving forward, expect it to be Grixis Vehicles, Jund Vehicles, or just plain Red/Black Vehicles.
God Pharoah's Gift
The Gift itself is of course from Hour of Devastation and does not rotate. The deck did have multiple color options. The best pre-rotation versions used Red to fill the grave quickly because Insolent Neonate plus Gates to the Afterlife is the fastest way to get the Gift onto the field. The Neonate and the Sin Prodder are gone, but Cathartic Reunion stays. Red is less attractive as a Gifts color, White and Black are about the same. Blue gets Chart A Course, which is a strict upgrade on Tormenting Voice as well as the Search For Acanta good old Blue Ramp that fills the yard. So Blue may actually bbe good enough at Gifts that it doesn't need help. But probably it's going to want to pair with White or Black or Both.
Green/Black Constrictor
Snek is alive and well.The Delirium versions can't exist because all Delirium cards are rotating. But Green/Black Counters and Green/Black are doing just fine. There are even more reasons for such a deck to splash Blue or Red.
Temurge
Emurge is dead. All Eldrazi cards rotate.
Temur Energy
Temur Energy is a Kaladesh block deck and is unchanged. Still very powerful.
Zombies
Half the Zombie payoffs are in Innistrad and that all rotates. Zombies is dead as a tournament archetype.
Monument
The White/Blue Spirits variant is dead because Innistrad's Spirits are gone. The White Eldrazi variant is dead because the Eldrazi are gone. All the incredible Westvale-based Go-Wide synergies are gone and your boardwipe protection of Avacyn and Selfless Spirit are also gone. So it's dead, right? I don't think so. White/Black Vampires is coming in as a go-wide deck, and it's a great fit for Monument strategies.
Approach
Most White decks take it in the nuts because the best White cards rotate. But Approach only really cared about Board Wipes, card draw, and its own crazy win condition, and there are plenty of both still in the set. Mana is also a little bit better for allied color decks, so that's a thing.
New Perspectives
Talk about an all-in combo deck. New Perspectives loses zero cards because it's an Amonkhet Block deck. Blue gets some interesting card draw and filtering options, so the deck is basically just better than it was before rotation and facing a thinner field.
Blue/X Control
Blue Control decks are going to be much better moving forward. The Sweepers that go away are pretty minor. Gear Hulks are still nuts. And Blue gets some amazing tempo plays. Opt. Spellpierce.
So now let's talk about the directions you can take the various colors.
Green Dinosaurs
We herd you like ramp.
If you can figure out a way to do small amounts of damage to your own creatures (trivial in Green/Black Sneks or Red/Green Stompy), you can have a ridiculous amount of mana. To the point where I don't know what you're supposed to do with it. I think the answer is "draw a bunch of cards and play a bunch of 4/5s." That seems like it's usually going to be good enough.
Green Merfolk
Charge!
So the Green end of Ixalan Merfolk are extremely Aggro. We're nearly in Wild Nacatl territory here. I don't know if this is remotely viable, because unlike when Red pulls this shit, there aren't a lot of sources of Reach for this deck. But Turn 2: Attack for 2, Turn 3: Attack for 5 seems like a solid way to start the game.
White Dinosaurs
I'm hoping there are more pieces here, because so far this doesn't seem like a workable strategy. You got cheap delaying tactics and you got ridiculously expensive combo pieces that you can spend shit loads of mana to tutor for. If there was some way to just skip to the part where both players have 8 mana on the table, you'd just win. But there doesn't seem to be any ramp to make this happen or any particular synergy with the ramp that exists in other colors. Unless some bridging element gets released, I don't think White Dinosaurs is going to be a package many decks are interested in.
White Vampires
Squadron Hawk is now a Bear instead of a Sprite
White Vampires is all about fitting in under Dusk to Dawn and spamming the board with Tokens. I don't know if there's a payoff other than just swarming your opponent with tiny dudes, but sometimes that's enough. This is the core of the new Monument decks. There's a new Vampire Stay-Out-Of-The-Sun-Titan, but I don't know that Vampires cares, because the guy has a power of 3, which makes him awkward for Dusk To Dawn shenanigans.
Blue Merfolk
So far, none of the spoiled Blue Merfolk cards are aggressively statted 1 or 2 cost dudes. I assume you're supposed to use the blue package to turn the corner and get resiliance, value, and reach. So like, you back-foot your opponent with some Green face-grabbing and then you start making your Explorers unblockable and hard to target and stuff. This module seems dubious. But obviously Modern Merfolk can't stop touching itself over Kopala.
Blue Pirates
Pirates is pretty low curve but bizarrely also makes Treasure that would let you cast expensive spells if you cared. Blue Pirate decks are automatically tempo decks. You get a frickin Mana Leak. You get a flying man that you can sacrifice to cast Turn Aside. There's also an Anthem for flying creatures if you wanna go that way. But Tempo Control seems to be the order of the day.
Black Vampires
Not very many Black vampire cards have been spoiled so far. It all points to a Swarm strategy, and I don't see how you can do that without White on board. I don't really like the Sanctum Seeker or the Bishop. I think the fact that their power is too high for Dusk to Dawn really hurts and the fact that they don't do rider damage for the random 1/1 Human Warriors you get also really hurts. Fortunately, the Aether Revolt vampires are still legal, so we're talking about Yaheni and Gifted Aetherborn as your main curve fillers. The deck looks solid, but so far the Paladin is the only Black Vampire that Black/White Vampires seems to care about.
Black Pirates
Black Pirates are great sources of Tempo and great sources of Aggro. Functional reprint of Brain Maggot and lots of various types of evasion. Red/Black Pirate Aggro looks like a thing, Black/Blue Pirate tempo looks like a thing. Black can be slotted into other decks that are looking for Aggro or Tempo options.
Red Pirates
Very few of the bread and butter Red Pirates have been spoiled, so it's a little hard to say what's going to be going on. There are some weird Big Red Pirates that do big things, but I don't think they will see any constructed play The Arsonist at 5 mana is probably as big as I could imagine, but the synergy with Lannery Storm is pretty bad. Storm wants you to crack treasures before combat, and the Arsonist wants to be cast after combat. It's important to remember that Kari Zev is still a Pirate, so your Red/Black Pirate Aggro curve is good enough even if they don't print any more low cost Red Pirates. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of 1 cost Red Pirate, and that's almost certain to be in high demand.
Red Dinosaurs
Red Dinosaurs, on the other hand, is shaping up nicely. You get the solid enablers that Green Dinosaurs was looking for. And the gold cards are definitely ready for prime time. There's some possibility of having Red Dinosaurs as a low curve aggro color, but I see it as being pretty much always paired with Green and going Midrange.
So where we are at with the tribal decks:
- Green/Red Dinosaurs: This is a Midrange deck that is totally legit.
- Blue/Black Pirates: This is a Tempo Control deck that is also totally legit. Also you get to run Pirates and Censorship in the same deck.
- Red/Black Pirates: This is probably a workable deck. Low curve Pirates backed up by removal and burn come to beat face.
- White/Black Vampires: This is probably a workable deck. Bust out the Monument from Amonkhet and the Aetherborn from Aether Revolt and you're good to go. This might go from Workable to Fucking Awesome if we get a few more 2 power Black Vampires.
- Green/Blue Merfolk: I'm dubious. I like playing a 2/2 on turn 1, but the deck doesn't seem like it offers enough.
-Username17