Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

A Draft Masterclass: Campus Renovation, Pacing, Lands, and Card Advantage

In March of the Machine: The Aftermath, two colors collide not just on the battlefield but in how we shape a balanced draft plan. Campus Renovation — a red and white uncommon from MAT — invites a player to take a moment, recalibrate the board, and pivot from tempo to value. With a mana cost of {3}{R}{W} and a compact, high-leverage effect, this sorcery rewards players who are paying attention to their graveyard and their exile piles as a resource. It’s not a one-turn wonder every game, but when landed with the right support, it becomes a powerful engine for a deck built around artifact and enchantment synergy 🧙‍♂️🔥💎.

Let’s unpack how Campus Renovation operates in practical drafting terms. The spell’s first clause — “Return up to one target artifact or enchantment card from your graveyard to the battlefield” — is a strong foothold for red-white strategies that lean into recursion. In a format where every card slot matters, being able to reclaim a key artifact or enchantment can swing a game around a single play, especially if that card has immediate or near-term impact. The second clause — “Exile the top two cards of your library. Until the end of your next turn, you may play those cards” — compounds the mindset of tempo with a dash of two-card surprise value. You’re not drawing more cards, you’re provisioning your next turns with two additional spell options, effectively turning a late-game investment into a targeted two-turn surge 🔥⚔️.

For a draft environment, Campus Renovation asks you to consider pacing. The card trades raw power for a higher upkeep of mana and board state: you don’t just pay five mana; you need to ensure you have a clear plan to leverage a returned artifact or enchantment while your deck has something to do with the two exiled cards. If you already control a couple of resilient creatures and a handful of removal spells, Campus Renovation can be a bridge to a dominant midgame where you cheat value from the graveyard and then keep your opponents honest with a steady stream of threats. The flavor text — “Reconstructing the past is Lorehold’s specialty.” — is a wink to a college that thrives on turning yesterday into today’s advantage, and it translates neatly into the draft table: understanding how the past life of your deck’s pieces informs its present tempo 🧙‍♂️🎨.

Strategically, the card shines brightest when your build contains compatible artifacts or enchantments in the graveyard. If you’ve drafted auras that attach to your threats, or artifacts that enable activated abilities or evasive draw, returning one of those from the graveyard can be the difference between collapsing under an aggressive start and stabilizing for a profitable midgame. The “exile the top two” clause nudges you to curate a plan for those exiled cards. Do you want raw damage? A quick defense? A spell that can be cast with your available red or white mana? Your answer should guide your color fixing and land selection, because a successful MAT draft hinges on two-color consistency and a reliable mana base.

“Reconstructing the past is Lorehold’s specialty.” This line isn’t just flavor; it’s a reminder that in a set where artifacts and enchantments frequently collide with dynamic graveyard play, the best decks do more than swing with creatures — they imprint a narrative of recapture and reuse. Campus Renovation rewards players who lean into this theme and translate it into practical board states.

Draft play patterns and deckbuilding tips for Campus Renovation boil down to a few core ideas. First, look for redundancy in your artifact and enchantment targets. If your graveyard already contains a couple of impactful pieces, you’ll maximize the first clause while using the second clause to keep the pressure on. Second, commit to a two-color mana base that reliably supports red and white. InMAT drafts, that often means prioritizing sources that fix both colors early and then filling in with a mix of cheap-removal and card-advantage spells so that you can survive the early game while curating a late-game engine. Third, plan for the exile window: the two exiled cards are playable only until the end of your next turn, so you want to set up either cheaper spells to bridge that window or a threat that makes use of those two additional plays immediately. This is where synergy with other cycle-draw or ramp effects becomes valuable 🧙‍♂️🎲.

In terms of meta-read, Campus Renovation can be a sleeper hit in boards where your opponents expect fast starts from aggressive red-white synergies. If you manage to stabilize into a midrange board with a couple of artifacts to reanimate and good removal to hold the fort, you’ll find that the card pays off not only in card advantage but in actual tempo — two extra plays can be just enough to push through a final swing or to dig you out of a narrow deficit. The uncommon status helps you dodge heavy competition from the boldest rares, while still offering a meaningful engine if you tilt your draft toward support artifacts and durable enchantments. And yes, the art’s bold energy fits MAT’s theme of reconstruction and renewal — a little spark of pyrotechnics in red and white that keeps the table buzzing 🎨⚡.

On the collector side, Campus Renovation’s foil and nonfoil printings give it a modest but real value for a card that can slot into multiple decks. Even if you don’t end up in a heavy artifact build, the ability to retrieve a key piece from the graveyard for a turn or two and then cast a couple of exiled spells can be a noteworthy addition to your late-game plan. It’s not a one-card win condition, but with the right support, it becomes a flexible engine that rewards thoughtful deck design and precise timing 💎.

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