I must have gotten super lucky or something, because Izzet did great for me. Went 5-1, 4th out of 52 people. Only round I lost was against a Rakdos aggro deck, got mana screwed game 3. Pool was great, pulled Niv Mizzet from my guild pack (only got to play him 3 times, and 2 out of the three my opponent was already at 3 or less life...). Had quite a bit of removal, some good Detain stuff, and lots of draw. Mostly got there with 2-4 power fliers.
My thoughts for the Prerelease. Izzet needs a good pool to work with, I was the only one who went those colors that got Top 8. Rakdos was super fast, but if you could hold out long enough to stabilize then you could get it. Golgari was weird, Scavenge was pretty irrelevant in most of my games because I could chump them out or kill in response. I only faced one Azorious deck, but he didn't do much. Just kinda durdled with a couple Detain cards and didn't play much, probably just got unlucky. Didn't play anyone who was Selesnya, but I watched a couple games and Populate seemed super strong. Unless you had some kind of boardwipe it was tough to deal with. And Trostani was a bomb, saw one guy go from 2 life to 18 in two turns. Overall I was impressed with how balanced the guilds were. Yes Selesnya was the strongest and Izzet the weakest, but with a good pool you could be competitive regardless.
Two games I lost to Jund, one thru Deadbridge Goliath scavenging counters into the Swampwalk scavenge guy, the other I never drew my removal and my creatures couldn't compete with the bigger golgari beasts.
The other game I lost I played against a guy who had three Hypersonic Dragons, way too hardcore.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Yes sir, I take fantasy art and character design commissions, PM me for rates.
I picked Azorius as my guild and got basically two rares from the packs in those colors - the guild promo and a Palisade Giant - otherwise I opened a Vraska the unseen, underworld connections, and grave betrayal. I ended up playing Azorius but I had enough cards to make a RBG Golgari/Raknos sideboard deck. My first intent was to build RBG but there was a conspicuously low number of playable creatures in that category. My Azorius deck won vs Izzet and Azorius and then bombed hard against rakdos (not enough detain goodness), and then in the last round I lost the first game against a selesnya deck with Armada Wurm and crazy shennanigans with growing ranks, so I said "Screw it" and pulled out the other one. Vraska was my only enchantment destruction.... And I ended up winning the last round. 3-1, 3rd place and 3 more packs. I opened up a Dreadbore and some other decent rares. Not bad for my first time back in Magic in 7 years. I definitely got my money's worth. I'll admit that I made many mistakes but still won those games. I was very polite about opponents taking back their mistakes, but they weren't so nice in return so I'll probably be a rules jerk tomorrow.
Thoughts: Azorius could have been great but even with the guild pack I just didn't get the cards.
Palisade Giant - Your opponents will either underrate or overrate the value of this card. Either way it sets up significant card advantage opportunities and should always be included in an azorius deck.
Grave Betrayal was freaking awesome. If you're behind, it will make your opponent think twice about sending in the alpha strike, and if you're ahead your opponent is in a tough position when declaring blockers. killed my opponent's lure dude, got him back with a +1/+1 counter, and swung for lethal.
Vraska: I never used her ultimate, even when I could have. She was more useful for taking out the immediate danger threats with the -3 ability.
And lastly, the shop owner's wife baked chocolate chip cookies for us. The shop itself was freaking awesome, the owner's a good guy. I'm definitely giving them my business from now on.
Evil is boring. The universe is friendly. Life is on your side. Joy is your birthright. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. In fact, all of creation wants you to succeed. Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. . . Life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
Seriously, this is the nuts when you want to blow someone out on aggro swings and you have 4 mana open when you do this.
Do it early if possible because most hard removal is either sorcery speed or expensive. And the ones that aren't are either rare or don't stop you from trading and gaining the 6 life.
I went Golgari, splashing W for an Armada Wurm, Centaur Healer, Rootborn Defenses and the 6 mana populate removal. I went 2-2, and both my wins were against Rakdos, and my losses were to Izzet and Selesnya (Utavara Hellkite and multiple 8/8 Vigilance Elementals did me in respectively)
Despite initially being rather backbreaking, I found Rakdos to lose steam after you are able to stabilize the board, and Selesnya tends to win the attrition wars due to Populate
The breakout cards for me? Stab Wound, which won me more than a couple of games, and, oddly enough, Daggerdrome Imp. This little imp helped keep me in the game longer than expected. Not sure if it'll achieve the same results in a draft environment, but it's pretty sweet for Sealed
What I found odd were the Guild Packs. Both myself & the guy to the side of me pulled Jarad as our rare, my friend across from me and the guys to the other side of us pulled Abrupt Decay. Two of my other friends seated at another table managed to secure 2 Lotleth Trolls each.
I was about to lament the fact that I had once again been dealt bad luck during yet another prerelease until I opened my other packs. Archon of the Triumverate & Sphinx's Revelation back to back (I was groaning), Overgrown Tomb and Armada Wurm back to back (ok happy now!), and a Guild Feud in the last pack. My prize pool got me a Steam Vents and a Rest in Piece. Considering my luck in previous pre-releases, it was almost like winning the lottery (until my friend who opened up 2 Lotleths opened a Vraska in his prize pool...)
All in all, I think RtR is a superb return to form from previous sets, and I can't wait to draft it
Wow so no one's commenting on the new Jace? Here's my results:
Midnight event: I played Selesnya. It was ok. I went 2-0 and had to drop because it was four in the morning before round 3 even started. There ended up being 7 rounds overall so I think I made the right choice. From what I could tell that night, Selesnya was ok. The promo land seemed really good, and it was easy to pull out an 8/8 with it. Overall though I wasn't impressed. Some things felt clunky, the curve just didn't feel as good as other aggro decks there, and I never really had any options other than "play more creatures".
Today: I picked up Azorious this time and was not let down. I pulled a second archon, detention sphere, and the new jace. I had two of the 2 mana unsummons, two of the 1/4 bounce guys, two of the detain bears, and a plethora of other control cards with a healthy side of fliers. The deck felt ridiculous at times. I went 4-2 overall, with my losses only really coming from players that got ridiculous card pools and god mode draws. The new Jace was amazing. I won many games off of him. The amazing part is I rarely even cast his -2. It was always just +1 until I got to 9, then ult and start all over. By then though it was practically done. Detain was great at shutting down anyone trying to kill Jace. New Jace is a winner in my book, at least in limited. First pick material, hate draft material, splash material. You name it.
Over all Azorious seems like the best I think. They have the best and most reliable key word overall, as well as tons of common and uncommon cards that are just amazing. Golgari or Rakdos the next best. They have great efficiency on creatures and great removal overall. I never played a dedicated Izzet deck really, but outside of a few good burn spells, they just didn't have much oomph I though.
I think it will be interesting to see how draft turns out though. Sealed played pretty different this time because we all got the guild packs along with being able to use the promo. I'll be curious to see how things shape up once we don't have a guaranteed finisher for each guild.
Oddly, not a single Jace was pulled at our prerelease, as far as I know. We had 22 or 24 people. After it was over, the owner asked if anyone pulled Jace and no one left in the shop had gotten one and no one remembered seeing anyone play it. My friend did open Vraska AND Abrupt Decay, and a second Vraska in one of his prize packs. It was pretty crazy.
But yeah, lots of mythics flying around. Lots of people pulled their guild leaders. One Selesnya player got TWO Siege Wurms. I know another one of my friends got at least three mythics. Sadly I only got one and it was off-color. Also tons of shocklands too. I think almost every person I saw pulled at least one shockland.
I opened an awkward pool with a Selesnya guild pack ... It didn't have a whole lot of long game in GW aside from 8/8 tokens, and the one time I actually managed to make several 8/8s I lost anyway to Archon of the Triumvirate (from a Golgari deck with a very, very greedy splash). I did, however, open 2 Chromatic Lanterns, 3 Transguild Promenades, and a Rakdos Keyrune, and 5 6-drop flyers, so my deck ended up a weird 4-color control thing with Chaos Imps, Launch Party, Azorius Justiciar, and 3 copies of the Skywatch 3/3 flyer that detains. (Side note: this was the hardest Sealed pool I've ever had to build.) I lost my first round in short order to a Rakdos deck that successfully curved out in a very nasty fashion both games. Then I beat an Azorius player who for some reason always played his flash guys at the beginning of my precombat main phase ... it was quite easy. I went 1-1 in games against a Golgari-splash-Archon monstrosity in round 3 and when I won game 2 in extra turns he conceded because drawing leaves neither of us with prizes and he knew his deck and play style was slower. Round 4 was the only really good match ... I lost a pretty close game 1and then completely detained him out of both games 2 and 3. Chaos Imps finally showed up at a relevant time in g3 and completely took over the game after I put my opponent all in on scavenging the Giant Spider guy up to e big enough to kill it, and then detained it on the turn that mattered.
I didn't open my prize packs yet because I'm going to draft with them later this week.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
In regards to the 2 people defending Izzet as strong, take in mind that BOTH opened Niv-Mizzet, whom most consider the biggest bomb in the set. Not trying to doubt anyone's ability as a player but just to clarify an on topic issue, given we are mostly talking about guild strength. So, I guess you could say, Izzet still seems to be the consensus weakest of the guilds on it's own... unless you get the single best mythic in the set which happens to be in those colors.
Went 5-1 with Azorius. Finished 4th, as there were three other 5-1's and I somehow didn't play any of them.
Got the appropriate support to play Azorius, but it was a bit weak in the 22nd and 23rd slots, so I splashed red for Mizzium Mortars and Izzet Staticaster. Also had two Annihilating Fire, but with no actual fixing for my splash, I decided not to get greedy. I don't think my pool was off the wall, but it was certainly above average.
I knew Azorius would have great flyers and stall cards, but I was worried about its lack of good removal. Fortunately my rares totally bailed me out on that front.
Best cards in my sideboard were Armory Guard, Azor's Elocutors, Cancel, Counterflux, 2x Swift Justice, 2x Knightly Valor, Inspiration. So yeah, it wasn't a super deep pool. I tested one game with a Swift Justice, and immediately removed it for a Paralyzing Grasp. Skies deck doesn't do much with combat tricks, and Paralyzing Grasp is solid in a color combo with weak, weak removal. I went with the above list all day without changes or sideboarding.
Some card evaluations:
Azorius Arrester. Shrug. It is what it is. It gave me early game presence against the super fast Rakdos decks, but it was otherwise nothing special. I would only choose to not cast it on turn 2 if my Stealer of Secrets was in my hand.
Lyev Skyknight. As good as it looks. Not much to say here, because it's obvious how strong this card is. The 1 toughness was not as annoying as you'd think.
Izzet Staticaster. I saw a lot of posters say they were unhappy with this card. Honestly, I thought it was just fine. I was happy that I chose to splash it. And in a deck with 4 flash creatures, it really fit the game plan. It killed a lot of x/1s, Or simply helped my blockers trade with bigger creature. And a 0/3 wall is not anything to scoff at. Really, I thought it was fine. And it rocks against Goblin Rally.
Stealer of Secrets. MVP. Seriously, this card is incredible for Azorius. I can only imagine how good it will be in draft, where you might have multiples and 6+ detain cards.
Hussar Patrol. Very strong. This card almost always took down a blocker for free. Not much else to say, it is totally worth playing.
Soulsworn Spirit. I would definitely first pick this guy. He won a lot of stalemated games on his own.
Skyline Predator. Obviously I wish you got a little more for 6 mana, but this card should still make your blue deck. It always killed a blocker and was then the biggest body in the sky. I was very happy to have 2 of these.
Archon of the Triumvirate. After a few rounds, I began to realize that Azorius might have gotten the weakest pre-release promo. 7 mana is A LOT more than 6. That said, this card did win the games it came down in. Although I was always annoyed to draw it early.
Dramatic Rescue. A great card. Fits Azorius's game plan perfectly.
Mizzium Mortars. Azorius removal really is weak, so this splash helped me sew up that weakness. Obviously, this card is better if you're actually able to Overload it, but it still pulled its weight in my deck.
Azorius Keyrune. Permitted me to cut down to 17 land. But maybe I should have still gone 18 because of the Skyline Predators and my Archon. Shrug. The keyrune was fine. My deck had serious skies agro and the keyrune added to that.
Avenging Arrow. One of the mediocre removal spells you may find yourself running in Azorius. Kind of necessary with Carnival Hellsteeds running around. Really, it wasn't awful, but I always wished it were a little more reliable.
Detention Sphere. Alright, I guess I should stop *****ing about how average Azorius removal is. Yeah, I was disappointed to not get an Arrest, but this thing is obviously even better. It bailed my out of disgusting Judge's Familiar, Civic Saber, Civic Saber start one of my opponents pulled on me.
Paralyzing Grasp. I remembered never running this in Zendikar, so it didn't make my first draft of the deck. But Azorius common removal spells are weak. And bombs were everywhere. This card was obviously mediocre, but I was happy to have it on several occasions.
Martial Law. The most devastating card in my deck. I never lost a game after resolving this thing. Not much else to say.
Trostani's Judgment. Another average common removal spell. Still perfectly worthwhile.
--
My brother and I got 18 packs between us for 2nd and 4th. Armada Wurm was the only mythic. Also got a couple shocks and a foil Mizzium Mortars. Not awful. Wanted a Jace, though!
I went Rakdos and ended 4-1, coming in 9th out of about 80 people. My pool had virtually no removal, leaving me to run only a Launch Party and an Assassin's Strike. But I did have a fast curve and a couple of bomb rares in Desecration Demon and Rakdos's Return, the latter of which completely wrecked a couple of Azorius opponents.
Speaking of which, Azorius definitely seemed like the most popular guild and I played against them in 3 out of 5 rounds. My only loss, however, came to another Rakdos deck. Game three was literally over on turn 5, with both of us swinging for the fences every turn.
I think every guild placed well except for Izzet. If I had to do it again I'd play Selesnya just for the token shenanigans. Overall it was a very fun format and I can't wait to draft it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
actually it's pretty strong for its unleash considering how at best in 3 turn i have around 3 unleashed creatures that grindin opponent's life...
(my friend even overwhelming the board byaround turn 5-7 for having a Thrill-kill Assassin, a hellhole flailer, couple gorehouse chainwalker and Rakdos, lord of riots)
im pretty sure Rakdos would giving Red sligh a fresh air in standart
I chose Golgari, and had a ridiculous pool. After pulling Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Vraska the Unseen, and Armada Wurm, it was pretty clear that I was going Junk colors. I don't think my deck was bad, but everyone else had really strong decks and I had god aweful draws/ luck. I went 0-3 drop, but I definitely got my money's worth, so all in all, a good day!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sig by myself! If you'd like a banner done, pm me! Avvie by DNC from Hero of the Planes Studio
In regards to the 2 people defending Izzet as strong, take in mind that BOTH opened Niv-Mizzet, whom most consider the biggest bomb in the set. Not trying to doubt anyone's ability as a player but just to clarify an on topic issue, given we are mostly talking about guild strength. So, I guess you could say, Izzet still seems to be the consensus weakest of the guilds on it's own... unless you get the single best mythic in the set which happens to be in those colors.
pulled Niv Mizzet from my guild pack (only got to play him 3 times, and 2 out of the three my opponent was already at 3 or less life...)
So yes. Izzet is the weakest guild. You definitely need a few lucky pulls. The only way to make them work is to build around synergies and card advantage, and even then you're just a slower Rakdos or a less controlling Azorious.
Another thing I noticed that I didn't mention in my other post. The 2 strongest decks I saw were WGB. I believe both of them picked Selesnya, then splashed black for removal (one of them also had Vraska...that worked out well). If the mana in your pool supported it, this really seemed like the way to go. They both gained a huge board presence while killing off their opponents biggest threats, it was really solid. If I did another Prerelease I would probably try to pull this off.
strange how Izzet's Interaction on pre-release that it lacks solidity on specific section although its very flexible
people in my place love splashing Izzet but not as the backbone, they treat the izzet as the tool to their Azor's detain-tempo or removal for Rakdos super-aggro
Also, Niv didn't really do anything for me. By the time he came down the game was already mine.
So yes. Izzet is the weakest guild. You definitely need a few lucky pulls. The only way to make them work is to build around synergies and card advantage, and even then you're just a slower Rakdos or a less controlling Azorious.
Another thing I noticed that I didn't mention in my other post. The 2 strongest decks I saw were WGB. I believe both of them picked Selesnya, then splashed black for removal (one of them also had Vraska...that worked out well). If the mana in your pool supported it, this really seemed like the way to go. They both gained a huge board presence while killing off their opponents biggest threats, it was really solid. If I did another Prerelease I would probably try to pull this off.
Sorry, I was a bit misleading in that original post, considering the substance of what you said. Given that however, I think we'd both say (for the sake of people looking at this thread to get a feel for the power level of different guilds) that the primary aim of my post is true. You need a stronger pool for Izzet to be competitive then other, more naturally powerful guilds (i.e. Azorius, Selesnya).
One bit of advice I'd have for anyone playing Selesnya in pre-release is to pre-print a bunch of token cards on paper, cut them out, and bring them to the event. You're going to need ALOT of 3/3 Centaur tokens, and a decent number of the other tokens as well. I also played Pack Rat and it would have been nice to have some Pack Rat tokens too. I did it by bringing a notebook and pen and ripping out a piece of paper and writing the token name and power/toughness on it, and any relevant abilities (vigilance, trample), but having some pre-printed tokens to pull out of a box would have been sweet.
Went Rakdos and took 12th out of 40. Had Jund for my first two rounds before cutting the Green for a Blue Splash for the remaining 4 rounds.
Rakdos-Shred Freak, Rix-Maadi Guildmage, and Stab Wound holy crap do they do work. Frosburn Weird is a great card as well, really hard to deal with sometimes. Desecration Demon was a thorn in my side the two rounds I saw it. Or at least one round. Second round I saw it, Launch Party was played the moment I untapped. My favorite card that came from the Blue splash had to be Essence Backlash. Counter a Desecration Demon for 6 damage or a Hypersonic Dragon for 4 damage while they tapped out to play it? Too good sometimes.
Azorius is the best. No question. Five people including myself were 6-1, 4 were azorius, and a large part of the 5-2's.
Detain is way stronger than I expected. I mean I expected it to be good, I had 8 detain creatures and it was just ridiculous.
I splashed green for healers and collective blessing after losing round one. Didn't lose a round after that. I really was disappointed at first after opening my pool because I opened no money except verdict, but many non-rares ended up being bombs. The roc that bounces when it attacks was, as expected, amazing. Collective blessing is one of the absolute best rares you can pick up. It was pretty much unbeatable and won me several games.
Also: Pack Rat is one of the biggest bombs in the set. The friend I went with won several games with just it, no other spells were necessary when it came out turn 2.
If you open powerful Detain cards, Azorius might be the best.
But if your pool is just average/slightly above average, Selesnya will probably be better in the end. Populate is a mechanic that is much more powerful than it appears, and it shows up on tons of cards. Rootborn Defenses is a common, but it is frequently a complete blowout where you get to kill mutiple of your opponents guys in combat AND make a copy of some token. Selesnya also has Centaur Healer, which unquestionably should have been an Uncommon.
The problem I had with Detain is that it has no real curve. Azorius Arresters is pretty much never going to be cast on T2, because his ability will be blank. The uncommon that Detains 2 is either fantastic or terrible. Detain is a great mechanic if you manage to also open multiple quality flying creatures(which doesn't always happen, because most of the best fliers are uncommon), but it is an unexciting mechanic if you miss there. Relatedly, I don't feel like Arrest needed to be uncommon. All of the other colors have quality removal at the common slot, frequently at Instant speed. Arrest could have stayed Common and still been fine.
I was forced to play 3 colours because I couldn't open the great cards for my guild, and playing 3 colours seems to be the way to go. There are many sweet strategies between the guilds. For my second prerelease, I was playing Azorius and added some of the red Unleash cards that I could push through the opponent's defences with the Detain cards, and it was great! (I went 5-0)
I feel like this set is gonna be great for limited.
Stab Wound was an all star across the board at the prerelease I went to. A ten turn clock in limited that's hard to remove is pretty awesome.
Centaur Healer was pretty good; the life gain was a nice bonus to keep things going.
Izzet seemed like the weakest guild, with Rakdos seeming the strongest, though close to Selesnya. Azorious seemed to be too slow. I didn't play much against Golgari, but it seemed like you really had to have solid pulls to run it. I was the only one who pulled an Abrupt Decay from a booster (I was Selesnya), so I think not having one surely didn't help the Golgari players.
Rakdos typically had enough early beats to lock the game up and force other players into largely defensive strategies. A few pulled Tablet of the Guilds, so they were gaining life regularly on top of it all.
Not that they are wrong, mind you; I got a 2-0-2 on my Izzet flight only thanks to splashing white with Trostani's Judgment and Angel of Serenity to help clear out the threats, otherwise I might not have won any match.
Reminds me to the other poll thread where people say Izzet is only good when paired with other guilds. Very spot on.
My thoughts for the Prerelease. Izzet needs a good pool to work with, I was the only one who went those colors that got Top 8. Rakdos was super fast, but if you could hold out long enough to stabilize then you could get it. Golgari was weird, Scavenge was pretty irrelevant in most of my games because I could chump them out or kill in response. I only faced one Azorious deck, but he didn't do much. Just kinda durdled with a couple Detain cards and didn't play much, probably just got unlucky. Didn't play anyone who was Selesnya, but I watched a couple games and Populate seemed super strong. Unless you had some kind of boardwipe it was tough to deal with. And Trostani was a bomb, saw one guy go from 2 life to 18 in two turns. Overall I was impressed with how balanced the guilds were. Yes Selesnya was the strongest and Izzet the weakest, but with a good pool you could be competitive regardless.
Decks:
GWMidrangeGW
URBurning VengeanceUR
EDH:
URNin, the Pain ArtistUR
BROlivia VoldarenBR
WIsamaru, Hound of KondaW
RGWRith, the AwakenerRGW
WUBRGCromatWUBRG
Two games I lost to Jund, one thru Deadbridge Goliath scavenging counters into the Swampwalk scavenge guy, the other I never drew my removal and my creatures couldn't compete with the bigger golgari beasts.
The other game I lost I played against a guy who had three Hypersonic Dragons, way too hardcore.
Thoughts: Azorius could have been great but even with the guild pack I just didn't get the cards.
Palisade Giant - Your opponents will either underrate or overrate the value of this card. Either way it sets up significant card advantage opportunities and should always be included in an azorius deck.
Grave Betrayal was freaking awesome. If you're behind, it will make your opponent think twice about sending in the alpha strike, and if you're ahead your opponent is in a tough position when declaring blockers. killed my opponent's lure dude, got him back with a +1/+1 counter, and swung for lethal.
Vraska: I never used her ultimate, even when I could have. She was more useful for taking out the immediate danger threats with the -3 ability.
And lastly, the shop owner's wife baked chocolate chip cookies for us. The shop itself was freaking awesome, the owner's a good guy. I'm definitely giving them my business from now on.
I barely scavenged at all. I just played it straight aggro like a Rakdos deck.
For this, my mvp is the combination of Stonefare Crocodile and Giant Growth.
Seriously, this is the nuts when you want to blow someone out on aggro swings and you have 4 mana open when you do this.
Do it early if possible because most hard removal is either sorcery speed or expensive. And the ones that aren't are either rare or don't stop you from trading and gaining the 6 life.
Oh yeah, Deadbridge Goliath helped tons. Two stab wounds and an abrupt decay was basically my removal, yet the latter I never ever drew.
Despite initially being rather backbreaking, I found Rakdos to lose steam after you are able to stabilize the board, and Selesnya tends to win the attrition wars due to Populate
The breakout cards for me? Stab Wound, which won me more than a couple of games, and, oddly enough, Daggerdrome Imp. This little imp helped keep me in the game longer than expected. Not sure if it'll achieve the same results in a draft environment, but it's pretty sweet for Sealed
What I found odd were the Guild Packs. Both myself & the guy to the side of me pulled Jarad as our rare, my friend across from me and the guys to the other side of us pulled Abrupt Decay. Two of my other friends seated at another table managed to secure 2 Lotleth Trolls each.
I was about to lament the fact that I had once again been dealt bad luck during yet another prerelease until I opened my other packs. Archon of the Triumverate & Sphinx's Revelation back to back (I was groaning), Overgrown Tomb and Armada Wurm back to back (ok happy now!), and a Guild Feud in the last pack. My prize pool got me a Steam Vents and a Rest in Piece. Considering my luck in previous pre-releases, it was almost like winning the lottery (until my friend who opened up 2 Lotleths opened a Vraska in his prize pool...)
All in all, I think RtR is a superb return to form from previous sets, and I can't wait to draft it
Midnight event: I played Selesnya. It was ok. I went 2-0 and had to drop because it was four in the morning before round 3 even started. There ended up being 7 rounds overall so I think I made the right choice. From what I could tell that night, Selesnya was ok. The promo land seemed really good, and it was easy to pull out an 8/8 with it. Overall though I wasn't impressed. Some things felt clunky, the curve just didn't feel as good as other aggro decks there, and I never really had any options other than "play more creatures".
Today: I picked up Azorious this time and was not let down. I pulled a second archon, detention sphere, and the new jace. I had two of the 2 mana unsummons, two of the 1/4 bounce guys, two of the detain bears, and a plethora of other control cards with a healthy side of fliers. The deck felt ridiculous at times. I went 4-2 overall, with my losses only really coming from players that got ridiculous card pools and god mode draws. The new Jace was amazing. I won many games off of him. The amazing part is I rarely even cast his -2. It was always just +1 until I got to 9, then ult and start all over. By then though it was practically done. Detain was great at shutting down anyone trying to kill Jace. New Jace is a winner in my book, at least in limited. First pick material, hate draft material, splash material. You name it.
Over all Azorious seems like the best I think. They have the best and most reliable key word overall, as well as tons of common and uncommon cards that are just amazing. Golgari or Rakdos the next best. They have great efficiency on creatures and great removal overall. I never played a dedicated Izzet deck really, but outside of a few good burn spells, they just didn't have much oomph I though.
I think it will be interesting to see how draft turns out though. Sealed played pretty different this time because we all got the guild packs along with being able to use the promo. I'll be curious to see how things shape up once we don't have a guaranteed finisher for each guild.
Oddly, not a single Jace was pulled at our prerelease, as far as I know. We had 22 or 24 people. After it was over, the owner asked if anyone pulled Jace and no one left in the shop had gotten one and no one remembered seeing anyone play it. My friend did open Vraska AND Abrupt Decay, and a second Vraska in one of his prize packs. It was pretty crazy.
But yeah, lots of mythics flying around. Lots of people pulled their guild leaders. One Selesnya player got TWO Siege Wurms. I know another one of my friends got at least three mythics. Sadly I only got one and it was off-color. Also tons of shocklands too. I think almost every person I saw pulled at least one shockland.
Trades
Pucatrade with me!
(Signature courtesy of Argetlam of Hakai Studios
I didn't open my prize packs yet because I'm going to draft with them later this week.
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
Got the appropriate support to play Azorius, but it was a bit weak in the 22nd and 23rd slots, so I splashed red for Mizzium Mortars and Izzet Staticaster. Also had two Annihilating Fire, but with no actual fixing for my splash, I decided not to get greedy. I don't think my pool was off the wall, but it was certainly above average.
I knew Azorius would have great flyers and stall cards, but I was worried about its lack of good removal. Fortunately my rares totally bailed me out on that front.
Let's see if I can recall my deck from memory...
1x Azorius Arrester
1x Lyev Skyknight
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Stealer of Secrets
1x Sunspire Griffin
1x Tower Drake
2x Vassal Soul
1x Hussar Patrol
1x Runewing
1x Soulsworn Spirit
2x Skyline Predator
1x Archon of the Triumvirate
1x Dramatic Rescue
1x Inaction Injunction
1x Mizzium Mortars
1x Azorius Keyrune
1x Avenging Arrow
1x Detention Sphere
1x Paralyzing Grasp
1x Martial Law
1x Trostani's Judgment
2x Azorius Guildgate
6x Island
6x Plains
3x Mountain
Some card evaluations:
Azorius Arrester. Shrug. It is what it is. It gave me early game presence against the super fast Rakdos decks, but it was otherwise nothing special. I would only choose to not cast it on turn 2 if my Stealer of Secrets was in my hand.
Lyev Skyknight. As good as it looks. Not much to say here, because it's obvious how strong this card is. The 1 toughness was not as annoying as you'd think.
Izzet Staticaster. I saw a lot of posters say they were unhappy with this card. Honestly, I thought it was just fine. I was happy that I chose to splash it. And in a deck with 4 flash creatures, it really fit the game plan. It killed a lot of x/1s, Or simply helped my blockers trade with bigger creature. And a 0/3 wall is not anything to scoff at. Really, I thought it was fine. And it rocks against Goblin Rally.
Stealer of Secrets. MVP. Seriously, this card is incredible for Azorius. I can only imagine how good it will be in draft, where you might have multiples and 6+ detain cards.
Sunspire Griffin, Tower Drake, Vassal Soul, Runewing. Foot soldiers that give Azorius its teeth. All are worth playing, but the Griffin is obviously the best of the four.
Hussar Patrol. Very strong. This card almost always took down a blocker for free. Not much else to say, it is totally worth playing.
Soulsworn Spirit. I would definitely first pick this guy. He won a lot of stalemated games on his own.
Skyline Predator. Obviously I wish you got a little more for 6 mana, but this card should still make your blue deck. It always killed a blocker and was then the biggest body in the sky. I was very happy to have 2 of these.
Archon of the Triumvirate. After a few rounds, I began to realize that Azorius might have gotten the weakest pre-release promo. 7 mana is A LOT more than 6. That said, this card did win the games it came down in. Although I was always annoyed to draw it early.
Dramatic Rescue. A great card. Fits Azorius's game plan perfectly.
Inaction Injunction. Ditto. So good with Stealer of Secrets.
Mizzium Mortars. Azorius removal really is weak, so this splash helped me sew up that weakness. Obviously, this card is better if you're actually able to Overload it, but it still pulled its weight in my deck.
Azorius Keyrune. Permitted me to cut down to 17 land. But maybe I should have still gone 18 because of the Skyline Predators and my Archon. Shrug. The keyrune was fine. My deck had serious skies agro and the keyrune added to that.
Avenging Arrow. One of the mediocre removal spells you may find yourself running in Azorius. Kind of necessary with Carnival Hellsteeds running around. Really, it wasn't awful, but I always wished it were a little more reliable.
Detention Sphere. Alright, I guess I should stop *****ing about how average Azorius removal is. Yeah, I was disappointed to not get an Arrest, but this thing is obviously even better. It bailed my out of disgusting Judge's Familiar, Civic Saber, Civic Saber start one of my opponents pulled on me.
Paralyzing Grasp. I remembered never running this in Zendikar, so it didn't make my first draft of the deck. But Azorius common removal spells are weak. And bombs were everywhere. This card was obviously mediocre, but I was happy to have it on several occasions.
Martial Law. The most devastating card in my deck. I never lost a game after resolving this thing. Not much else to say.
Trostani's Judgment. Another average common removal spell. Still perfectly worthwhile.
--
My brother and I got 18 packs between us for 2nd and 4th. Armada Wurm was the only mythic. Also got a couple shocks and a foil Mizzium Mortars. Not awful. Wanted a Jace, though!
EDH
Azami (video)
:symw::symb::symg: Teneb (video)
Drana (video) (retired)
:symw::symr: Brion (video)
:symb::symr: Wort (video)
Arcum (video) (retired)
:symr::symg: Stonebrow (video)
B Shirei (video)
WU Rasputin (video) (retired)
R Urabrask (video)
WUR Zedruu (video) (retired)
W Isamaru
UB Grimgrin
U Mistform Ultimus (video)
UBR Gwendlyn (video)
URG Animar (video)
RG Thromok
WB Selenia
Standard
WU Geist of Saint Traft standard EDH (video) (retired)
WUB Battle of Wits!
Speaking of which, Azorius definitely seemed like the most popular guild and I played against them in 3 out of 5 rounds. My only loss, however, came to another Rakdos deck. Game three was literally over on turn 5, with both of us swinging for the fences every turn.
I think every guild placed well except for Izzet. If I had to do it again I'd play Selesnya just for the token shenanigans. Overall it was a very fun format and I can't wait to draft it.
actually it's pretty strong for its unleash considering how at best in 3 turn i have around 3 unleashed creatures that grindin opponent's life...
(my friend even overwhelming the board byaround turn 5-7 for having a Thrill-kill Assassin, a hellhole flailer, couple gorehouse chainwalker and Rakdos, lord of riots)
im pretty sure Rakdos would giving Red sligh a fresh air in standart
Sig by myself! If you'd like a banner done, pm me! Avvie by DNC from Hero of the Planes Studio
Umm, did you actually read my post?
Also, Niv didn't really do anything for me. By the time he came down the game was already mine.
So yes. Izzet is the weakest guild. You definitely need a few lucky pulls. The only way to make them work is to build around synergies and card advantage, and even then you're just a slower Rakdos or a less controlling Azorious.
Another thing I noticed that I didn't mention in my other post. The 2 strongest decks I saw were WGB. I believe both of them picked Selesnya, then splashed black for removal (one of them also had Vraska...that worked out well). If the mana in your pool supported it, this really seemed like the way to go. They both gained a huge board presence while killing off their opponents biggest threats, it was really solid. If I did another Prerelease I would probably try to pull this off.
Decks:
GWMidrangeGW
URBurning VengeanceUR
EDH:
URNin, the Pain ArtistUR
BROlivia VoldarenBR
WIsamaru, Hound of KondaW
RGWRith, the AwakenerRGW
WUBRGCromatWUBRG
strange how Izzet's Interaction on pre-release that it lacks solidity on specific section although its very flexible
people in my place love splashing Izzet but not as the backbone, they treat the izzet as the tool to their Azor's detain-tempo or removal for Rakdos super-aggro
Sorry, I was a bit misleading in that original post, considering the substance of what you said. Given that however, I think we'd both say (for the sake of people looking at this thread to get a feel for the power level of different guilds) that the primary aim of my post is true. You need a stronger pool for Izzet to be competitive then other, more naturally powerful guilds (i.e. Azorius, Selesnya).
Rakdos-Shred Freak, Rix-Maadi Guildmage, and Stab Wound holy crap do they do work. Frosburn Weird is a great card as well, really hard to deal with sometimes. Desecration Demon was a thorn in my side the two rounds I saw it. Or at least one round. Second round I saw it, Launch Party was played the moment I untapped. My favorite card that came from the Blue splash had to be Essence Backlash. Counter a Desecration Demon for 6 damage or a Hypersonic Dragon for 4 damage while they tapped out to play it? Too good sometimes.
Standard
RWUAmerica TempoUWR
& More...
Modern
URXGrixis/Tarmo/Tempo TwinURX
And yet, they're not ...
Azorius is the best. No question. Five people including myself were 6-1, 4 were azorius, and a large part of the 5-2's.
Detain is way stronger than I expected. I mean I expected it to be good, I had 8 detain creatures and it was just ridiculous.
I splashed green for healers and collective blessing after losing round one. Didn't lose a round after that. I really was disappointed at first after opening my pool because I opened no money except verdict, but many non-rares ended up being bombs. The roc that bounces when it attacks was, as expected, amazing. Collective blessing is one of the absolute best rares you can pick up. It was pretty much unbeatable and won me several games.
Also: Pack Rat is one of the biggest bombs in the set. The friend I went with won several games with just it, no other spells were necessary when it came out turn 2.
But if your pool is just average/slightly above average, Selesnya will probably be better in the end. Populate is a mechanic that is much more powerful than it appears, and it shows up on tons of cards. Rootborn Defenses is a common, but it is frequently a complete blowout where you get to kill mutiple of your opponents guys in combat AND make a copy of some token. Selesnya also has Centaur Healer, which unquestionably should have been an Uncommon.
The problem I had with Detain is that it has no real curve. Azorius Arresters is pretty much never going to be cast on T2, because his ability will be blank. The uncommon that Detains 2 is either fantastic or terrible. Detain is a great mechanic if you manage to also open multiple quality flying creatures(which doesn't always happen, because most of the best fliers are uncommon), but it is an unexciting mechanic if you miss there. Relatedly, I don't feel like Arrest needed to be uncommon. All of the other colors have quality removal at the common slot, frequently at Instant speed. Arrest could have stayed Common and still been fine.
I was forced to play 3 colours because I couldn't open the great cards for my guild, and playing 3 colours seems to be the way to go. There are many sweet strategies between the guilds. For my second prerelease, I was playing Azorius and added some of the red Unleash cards that I could push through the opponent's defences with the Detain cards, and it was great! (I went 5-0)
I feel like this set is gonna be great for limited.
Centaur Healer was pretty good; the life gain was a nice bonus to keep things going.
Izzet seemed like the weakest guild, with Rakdos seeming the strongest, though close to Selesnya. Azorious seemed to be too slow. I didn't play much against Golgari, but it seemed like you really had to have solid pulls to run it. I was the only one who pulled an Abrupt Decay from a booster (I was Selesnya), so I think not having one surely didn't help the Golgari players.
Rakdos typically had enough early beats to lock the game up and force other players into largely defensive strategies. A few pulled Tablet of the Guilds, so they were gaining life regularly on top of it all.
Want to be a better Magic player? Read the rulings forum and check out the comprehensive rules!
Not that they are wrong, mind you; I got a 2-0-2 on my Izzet flight only thanks to splashing white with Trostani's Judgment and Angel of Serenity to help clear out the threats, otherwise I might not have won any match.
Reminds me to the other poll thread where people say Izzet is only good when paired with other guilds. Very spot on.