15-hour workdays will be the death of me, I swear it. A few days late again, but my busy period is nearing its end!
Ravnica drafts are upon us. Triple Ravnica started on Wednesday (the 16th) and last until the next one (March 23rd), at which point Guildpact will be added to the mix (until March 30th), and then the final week, until April 6th, will be the full block, i.e. RGD.
Many would say that original Ravnica block was the best draft format ever at that point. Universally loved for its relatively flat power curve and multicolored guild system, RGD is one of the real classics. This is also a multicolored format where sufficient colorfixing is actually present; in triple Ravnica, with only four guilds, it's generally not necessary to be three colors, but with all ten guilds available in the full block, players would almost always play three or four colors. This is in large part thanks to the bouncelands and the signets. Both cycles were common and very good; in particular, bouncelands soared in value as the format progressed, and are early picks. Bouncelands and signets being everywhere not only made playing additional colors a lot less of an issue; they also made seven- and even eight-drops actively good cards to put in your limited deck. You essentially need two fewer lands to cast that Tidespout Tyrant if two of them are bouncelands, after all.
In triple Ravnica, the four guilds are obviously archetypes. Selesnya is all about token makers and convoke, unsurprisingly (Selesnya Evangel is a key common); Boros is the aggro deck sporting cheap men, tricks and reach; Golgari is typically a midrange/control fatty deck. Dimir contains two fairly distinct archetypes: the mill deck featuring Vedalken Entrancer and Psychic Drain and such, and the skies deck, taking use of Snapping Drake (a 3/2 flier for four mana was a very good deal back then) and Vedalken Dismisser among other things.
Just to note, the tri color combos with 2 guilds are Sultai, Abzan, and Naya. All have access to Civic Wayfinder, which in addition to bounces+signets makes you mana very smooth. However, Selesnya Evangel and Thundersong Trumpeter can put some strain on naya manabases. I've actually ended up base BUG 4/4 times so far, splashing R twice and W once.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
I've been using this article as reference when playing the full block, and it's definitely helped in understanding it better. I'm addressing RRR below.
I think the natural strategy in triple Ravnica is to focus in one of the 4 guilds. If you really don't want to draft a guild, then I think it's worth noticing that there's two green, white and black guilds, but there's only one red guild and one blue guild. Since people are most likely drafting guilds because, well, it's the best strategy, that should mean there's more red and blue monocolored cards being passed around, given that those are used by less guilds, so UR is probably the safest non-guild deck to go for. There's enough mono red/blue cards that this is playable, but I've no doubt that the power in the block is in the multicolored cards and would refrain from doing that unless you have a very strong reason for it.
The format has a lot of mana fixing in the bounce lands, shock lands, signets, Terrarion, so you can go with multiple guilds. The thing is that, while the guilds have very strong inner synergy between their own cards, I've a harder time seeing synergy between different guilds. The one deck that I think is more noteworthy is Selesnya/Golgari (GWB), since a) a good part of the best fixing is green (Civic Wayfinder, Farseek), and b) the guilds share, to an extent, a tokens strategy. I mean you can do other combinations or even 5-colors, to be able to pick the cards with the highest individual value, but in my view combined value is more important than individual value in triple RAV, and I think the clearest strategy is to capitalize on inner guild synergy as much as possible.
Dimir is split between the mill strategy and an "aggro strategy". I think it's important to understand when to go for the mill deck, because the "small mill" cards alone don't seem to win very consistently, you need at least one big push for the deck to have a solid chance. I think the big sign to go for the deck is opening Glimpse the Unthinkable, since you can easily transmute into it through Dimir Interceptor or Muddle the Mixture. With that 10 cards mill that you can use reliably due to transmute, the small ones become capable of doing the rest of the job. Szadek is the other massive mill, but in his case I'm not so sure if you can reliably transmute into him, and he's the bomb of the ages anyway, so if you get him you don't have to do the mill deck, you can do a normal Dimir tempo deck and if he gets out and doesn't get removed, he should be able to do the work by himself.
Boros is definitely the aggro guild but that doesn't mean you have to rush all out, controlling the board a bit with Thundersong Trumpeter until you have amassed a good number of creatures and then swinging with Rally the Righteous works pretty well.
The three guilds above are very solid and you can draft good decks quite consistently. Golgari, in my view, is pretty clearly inferior, and you need a very strong reason to go for it, probably Vulturous Zombie. It has a number of cards with high individual value, but the way I see it the guild synergy is not on par with the other guilds. I think Dredge is kinda suspect in limited, particularly when there's a mill deck around. I've seen people going Golgari dredge and splashing blue for Mnemonic Nexus, maybe that can work for you.
A side note for people who enjoy the format: you if like drafting it, Ravnica block constructed is also a very nice casual format, running the very thematic guilds against each other. Competitive play wasn't as fun, dominated by 3-4 colored decks that all looked pretty similar, and the guild balance was questionable. Also, Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard is one of the most interesting ever, Ravnica-TSP is the Dragonstorm standard, but if you ban that deck out, it's also a decent one.
Let's do some brainstorming! Both triple Ravnica, RRG and the full block are among the drafts I find most fun, I'm very interested in learning more about them and exchanging ideas!
Back in the day, my experience with RRR was that if you were Boros, you wanted to make your curve as low as you could get it. I was still pretty newbish about drafting at the time, but the Boros decks that played only a few 3-drops, no 4-drops, and lots of combat tricks were the scariest ones to deal with for my store at the time.
Way back when Tahn wrote on article for this site about his experience drafting a deck packed with as many Thundersong Trumpeters as he could get his hands on.
If you mean that a mill deck relying on instants and sorceries doesn't exist, I would say that's true. However, the deck that eventually mills your opponent with Vedalken Entrancers is the mill deck, so I'm not entirely sure what you meant in your post. It was a very good deck.
I think he means that to think of it as a deck whose plan is primarily to mill is a mistake. Rather, it's a deck that wants to play a control game, and eventually you end up winning by milling someone.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
Let's put together a list, and maybe figure out if it's playable? To ensure it's something that doesn't rely too much on variance, I'm going to restrict myself to 2x of any common and 1x of any uncommon, and to 1 rare that's the one we happen to open 1st pick.
Not claiming this is brilliant or anything, but looks reasonably realistic and I think I'm comfortable playing this and confident I have a shot? Didn't count how many uncommons I added, but some are definitely not necessary and could likely be replaced by commons without compromising the deck.
I've a lot of defenders that are difficult to overcome and I think the key thing is that it doesn't necessarily take forever to mill, so we don't give too much time for Selesnya to build a token army or Boros to setup a really scary Rally.
I haven't drafted this 200 times, but I do recall losing to decks that looked similar to this a couple times. I also recall beating the mill deck a few times, it can sometimes be slow. I definitely feel like the few turns that Glimpse the Unthinkable buys you should increase the win expectation a good deal, which is why I argued that opening the card is important to go for the deck, although obviously I can't really demonstrate this mathematically, it's just a feeling.
By the way I'm just focusing on this because it's being discussed, but it's not like it's a favourite deck or anything. I'm definitely more confident playing non-mill Dimir.
Yeah that was kind of my point. If your plan is to establish board control and eventually win by milling you are a mill deck. The rest is just semantics. Anyway, sounds like we all agree.
Man, after playing a few of these it reminds me that RRR was a pretty abysmal format. The whole block format is MUCH better. Just way too many unplayable commons in Rav leads to the worst kind of grindy games (and I tend to like grindy games).
So now that Guildpact is upon us, are there any words of wisdom from folks who have played this "middle" format before?
I've played a couple drafts and the format seems slower than 3x RAV. And the picks in pack 3 feel really weird after the linear drafts of 3x RAV.
Note: the post below is incomplete concerning the possible paths, check microStyles' post below for a complete list. I'll try to post an updated comment with all paths later!
First thing I think is that it's important to know by heart which guilds are in each set:
Like in 3xRAV, it seems to me that a solid generic premise is that the power in Ravnica block is in the multicolored cards. There's also good mono-colored cards, but a big percentage of the formats' best is multicolored. So you should plan ahead in order to ensure you've got a guild to pick from in the last booster, in order to make the most of it, which means in this format we aren't drafting a single guild anymore. Also, because we no longer have 3x boosters from the same guild to pick from, we're no longer prioritizing guild synergy, but instead prioritizing high individual value.
Another premise, maybe a bit more controversial. This block has very solid mana fixing, which surely allows you to go 5 or 4 colors if you want to. But in my view, this isn't an optimal strategy here. Comparing to another hugely multicolored format: Alara block, which has a similar amount of fixing, maybe actually slightly inferior to Ravnica. In Alara, going 5-colors is a main strategy, with a high success rate. But I see two key differences: first thing is that when you go 5 colors in Alara, you'll have to prioritize fixing, but you're still guaranteed to pickup a lot of power in the Conflux booster, since it includes specifically 5-colored cards, and you're only competing for those with the other players who happen to be doing 5-colors as well, which isn't going to be everyone. In Ravnica, the only similar thing are the Nephilims, which are rares and not even enough of a reason to go out of your way to prioritize fixing. So basically you're having to let good cards go in order to prioritize fixing, but you're competing for the same cards that most players can pick anyway. The other thing is that in Alara nearly every card is playable, so you're going to get good late picks anyway. In Ravnica, even if I don't think the average card value is low at all, the late picks are going to be very poor stuff like Zephyr Spirit, Gate Hound, Tin Street Market, that is, stuff you're not going to be able to run.
I've seen people do 4-5 colors, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Overall my feeling, which I've tried to support with these couple poorly written paragraphs, is that in both RRG and RGD, the best strat is to go 3-colors. So after this generic thinking about the format, if we conclude that we're going with 3 colors and we must be sure we have a guild to pick from in every booster, this means that there are 3 main paths you can go for in the RRG draft:
1- GRW, picking from Selesnya and Boros in the Ravnica boosters, and from Gruul in Guildpact;
2- BGW, picking Selesnya and Golgari in the first two packs, and Orzhov in the last;
3- UBR, going for Dimir in RAV and Izzet in GPT.
GRW, with Boros and Gruul, is definitely the aggro path, pick solid creatures and spells to support them. BGW, we've commented before that Selesnya has a major token strategy, Golgari a minor one (mostly uses for sacrifices, e.g. Golgari Rotwurm), and Orzhov also has a token theme in cards such as Skeletal Vampire, Belfry Spirit, Teysa, Orzhov Scion, pumps like Orzhov Pontiff, and the Haunt mechanic interacts well with the Golgari sacs. Note that I mentioned a bunch of rares, but if everything comes together there's a solid token deck in there, although it's probably safer to simply prioritize high individual value. Dimir/Izzet is going to be the more control-oriented archetype, Dimir typically plays a lot of sorceries and instants which Izzet synergizes with, and the tempo-oriented idea goes well here also. You do have less options in path 3 since you're picking from just two guilds instead of three (third one would be Rakdos, which is in Dissension - Dimir/Izzet/Rakdos is a path in RGD), so abstractly it would seem like this could be inferior to the other 2 due to the reduced number of options when picking, but in practice it looks like it works at least just as well, the guilds go well together.
I'm usually doing 2-4 pieces of mana fixing when going 3-colors. You can sometimes play less than 17 lands with the bounce lands and signets, but the format has a Ton of good activated abilities with mana costs and I typically find that having mana to spare late game is highly useful.
Let's work together to learn more about the format! Stats, if anybody has access to them, would be very, very interesting.
First thing I think is that it's important to know by heart which guilds are in each set:
Ravnica: Selesnya(GW), Boros(RW), Dimir(UB), Golgari(GB)
Guildpact: Gruul(GR), Izzet (UR), Orzhov(BW)
...
1- GRW, picking from Selesnya and Boros in the Ravnica boosters, and from Gruul in Guildpact;
2- BGW, picking Selesnya and Golgari in the first two packs, and Orzhov in the last;
3- UBR, going for Dimir in RAV and Izzet in GPT.
Why only those three? I drafted a jeskai deck yesterday, I think any three-color combination that has a guild in each pack is a consideration.
WUB (Esper):
-RAV: Dimir
-GPT: Orzhov
UBR (Grixis):
-RAV: Dimir
-GPT: Izzet
BRG (Jund):
RAV: Golgari
GPT: Gruul
WRG (Naya):
-RAV: Selesnya, Boros
-GPT: Gruul
WBG (Abzan):
-RAV: Selesnya, Golgari
-GPT: Orzhov
WUR (Jeskai):
-RAV: Boros
-GPT: Izzet
WBR (Mardu):
-RAV: Boros
-GPT: Orzhov
Of course, not all the combinations are equal. Looking at the list, the combinations that put you in the most guilds are Naya and Abzan. These also both give you two guilds in RAV, the pack you get two of, making these the safest colors to go into.
Guild balance matters as well. From my experience so far I suspect that Golgari and Gruul are the weakest guilds. Golgari primarily because the dredge mechanic is difficult to take advantage of, especially with a viable milling archetype in the format. Gruul have generally poor commons as far as I've seen. Enabling bloodthirst is doable if you draft with it in mind, but the bloodthirst cards are generally not paying you off enough for your efforts. If this is true then it primarily hurts Jund as it has both colors. Abzan and Naya may be able to take the hit since they have two other guilds to rely on, but it could make pack three tough for Naya.
I've seen the other guilds do well, so I'm not sure how to prioritize after that. Izzet and Orzhov have been pretty strong in my experience, so I'll probably stray further away from Naya and Jund as they get access to neither of them.
^ I had just noticed the post was incomplete with the missing paths, will try to post another comment with all the paths as soon as I have some time. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll add a note to the post to avoid confusing people.
So now that Guildpact is upon us, are there any words of wisdom from folks who have played this "middle" format before?
I've played a couple drafts and the format seems slower than 3x RAV. And the picks in pack 3 feel really weird after the linear drafts of 3x RAV.
Izzet is the best guild by a mile, followed by Orzhov, followed distantly by Gruul. The Gruul gold commons are just extremely underwhelming aside from the 6/4 Wurm for 3 (which coincidentally can easily be splashed in Izzet decks). Scab Clan Mauler was a great constructed card, but you aren't bloodthirsting it on turn 2 or even turn 3 very often. The rest of them are just pretty marginal.
* these obviously include four 2-guild combinations, but I don't see why you'd restrict yourself like that if you've chosen a combination that allows picking from 3 guilds.
Based on generic considerations alone, the 3-guild combinations give you the most pick options and in principle I'd call them the main paths. I've less experience in this format than triple RAV, which is definitely more popular, but in my limited experience the 2-guild paths didn't appear to be much inferior.
Since I can't find Ravnica block limited deck databases, I thought some links to constructed tournament results could be useful. Notice that a) these are full block and b) it's constructed, which is a totally different beast. But, given that we have no results or stats or anything, maybe these can give us some remote pointers concerning what to prioritize.
A little late for this, but you wanted to be in 4 colors for RRG. The color fixing are among the best cards anyway, since it is all card advantage (Civic Wayfinder/Bouncelands) or ramp (Signets). Aggressive decks aren't a thing, so it's hard to get punished for not having a color for a while. I think my record in the RRG queues was about 30-7 or so. Limited rating up into the 1870s, should hit 1900 during RGD. I will switch to another account to play SOI release stuff, and when Coldsnap and Time Spiral block hit in a month or so I should be able to hit 2000 limited rating for the first time ever.
You're claiming you'll reach 2000? That is very bold. Screenshot will be required.
I will oblige. In fact, I'll post a draft by draft "diary" over the course of the format's availability.
When Time Spiral block is available, my rating has made it to 1900+ every single time, and generally continued to climb. The limiting factor has always been the amount of time its available. This time, I expect my rating to be starting above 1900 when Time Spiral becomes available (it's usually right around 1800), and the format will be around for 3 weeks.
I have probably drafted Time Spiral block more than all but a handful of people in the world. It's my favorite format by far. I have several hundred copies of basically every common in the block in my accounts from over the years. Time Spiral is also probably the least new player friendly limited format in Magic, giving me a ridiculously large advantage over anyone just dipping their toes in the water in the format.
However, as I've just logged into the client after the current down time, I am not seeing a rating displayed in my account. Is this just something temporary, or did they find a way to get rid of ratings again?
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Ravnica drafts are upon us. Triple Ravnica started on Wednesday (the 16th) and last until the next one (March 23rd), at which point Guildpact will be added to the mix (until March 30th), and then the final week, until April 6th, will be the full block, i.e. RGD.
Many would say that original Ravnica block was the best draft format ever at that point. Universally loved for its relatively flat power curve and multicolored guild system, RGD is one of the real classics. This is also a multicolored format where sufficient colorfixing is actually present; in triple Ravnica, with only four guilds, it's generally not necessary to be three colors, but with all ten guilds available in the full block, players would almost always play three or four colors. This is in large part thanks to the bouncelands and the signets. Both cycles were common and very good; in particular, bouncelands soared in value as the format progressed, and are early picks. Bouncelands and signets being everywhere not only made playing additional colors a lot less of an issue; they also made seven- and even eight-drops actively good cards to put in your limited deck. You essentially need two fewer lands to cast that Tidespout Tyrant if two of them are bouncelands, after all.
In triple Ravnica, the four guilds are obviously archetypes. Selesnya is all about token makers and convoke, unsurprisingly (Selesnya Evangel is a key common); Boros is the aggro deck sporting cheap men, tricks and reach; Golgari is typically a midrange/control fatty deck. Dimir contains two fairly distinct archetypes: the mill deck featuring Vedalken Entrancer and Psychic Drain and such, and the skies deck, taking use of Snapping Drake (a 3/2 flier for four mana was a very good deal back then) and Vedalken Dismisser among other things.
Best commons: Faith's Fetters, Civic Wayfinder, Last Gasp, Viashino Fangtail, Compulsive Research, Vedalken Dismisser, Galvanic Arc
Best uncommons: Mark of Eviction (don't underestimate this little badboy here), Ribbons of Night (possibly the best uncommon), Moldervine Cloak (others have cited this as being the best uncommon), Lightning Helix, Keening Banshee, Selesnya Guildmage
Lastly, in terms of value, prices are predictably plummeting, but as of March 18th, here are valuable cards from Ravnica:
Dark Confidant - 10.03
Golgari Grave-Troll - 7.45
Glimpse the Unthinkable - 7.00
Life from the Loam - 5.99
Chord of Calling - 4.31
Sacred Foundry - 3.98
Temple Garden - 3.28
Watery Grave - 3.11
Remand - 1.48 (uncommon)
Anyways, yay Ravnica is back. Hopefully some game breaking bug doesn't pop up again like waxmane baku.
Personally looking forward to making the Drake Familiar deck with all the insane ETB aura's avaliable. Already managed to have some fun times with a Drooling Groodion, Dowsing Shaman, and a Fists of Ironwood.
Man who doesn't love this format
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I think the natural strategy in triple Ravnica is to focus in one of the 4 guilds. If you really don't want to draft a guild, then I think it's worth noticing that there's two green, white and black guilds, but there's only one red guild and one blue guild. Since people are most likely drafting guilds because, well, it's the best strategy, that should mean there's more red and blue monocolored cards being passed around, given that those are used by less guilds, so UR is probably the safest non-guild deck to go for. There's enough mono red/blue cards that this is playable, but I've no doubt that the power in the block is in the multicolored cards and would refrain from doing that unless you have a very strong reason for it.
The format has a lot of mana fixing in the bounce lands, shock lands, signets, Terrarion, so you can go with multiple guilds. The thing is that, while the guilds have very strong inner synergy between their own cards, I've a harder time seeing synergy between different guilds. The one deck that I think is more noteworthy is Selesnya/Golgari (GWB), since a) a good part of the best fixing is green (Civic Wayfinder, Farseek), and b) the guilds share, to an extent, a tokens strategy. I mean you can do other combinations or even 5-colors, to be able to pick the cards with the highest individual value, but in my view combined value is more important than individual value in triple RAV, and I think the clearest strategy is to capitalize on inner guild synergy as much as possible.
Selesnya is the guild I'm most comfortable with drafting. You're picking token generators like Selesnya Evangel, Scatter the Seeds, Bramble Elemental with Fists of Ironwood, Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree. I think the most elegant win conditions are the mass pumps, Overwhelm and Selesnya Guildmage, which is both a token generator and a late game win con, which makes me rate him as the best guildmage for performing both roles, even though all 4 are good cards. Alternatively, you can use big stuff with Convoke as your win cons, such as Siege Wurm, Conclave Equenaut or Root-Kin Ally.
Dimir is split between the mill strategy and an "aggro strategy". I think it's important to understand when to go for the mill deck, because the "small mill" cards alone don't seem to win very consistently, you need at least one big push for the deck to have a solid chance. I think the big sign to go for the deck is opening Glimpse the Unthinkable, since you can easily transmute into it through Dimir Interceptor or Muddle the Mixture. With that 10 cards mill that you can use reliably due to transmute, the small ones become capable of doing the rest of the job. Szadek is the other massive mill, but in his case I'm not so sure if you can reliably transmute into him, and he's the bomb of the ages anyway, so if you get him you don't have to do the mill deck, you can do a normal Dimir tempo deck and if he gets out and doesn't get removed, he should be able to do the work by himself.
If you don't settle for the mill deck, then I'd ignore it completely and focus on the "aggro" strat (probably plays more like a tempo deck?), using Moroii, Snapping Drake, even Dimir House Guard isn't that bad, it's unblockable a fair amount and the ability is actually a factor, it synergizes with some cards like Surveilling Sprite; Tidewater Minion is a solid pick. These will be backed up by good cards such as Consult the Necrosages, Clutch of the Undercity, Remand, Vedalken Dismisser, Convolute. Note that the format is quite slow and Strands of Undeath is going to discard 2 cards a massive amount of the time. If you end up with a couple Dimir Infiltrator, getting a Necromantic Thirst isn't a bad idea (the fliers are also targets).
Boros is definitely the aggro guild but that doesn't mean you have to rush all out, controlling the board a bit with Thundersong Trumpeter until you have amassed a good number of creatures and then swinging with Rally the Righteous works pretty well.
The three guilds above are very solid and you can draft good decks quite consistently. Golgari, in my view, is pretty clearly inferior, and you need a very strong reason to go for it, probably Vulturous Zombie. It has a number of cards with high individual value, but the way I see it the guild synergy is not on par with the other guilds. I think Dredge is kinda suspect in limited, particularly when there's a mill deck around. I've seen people going Golgari dredge and splashing blue for Mnemonic Nexus, maybe that can work for you.
A side note for people who enjoy the format: you if like drafting it, Ravnica block constructed is also a very nice casual format, running the very thematic guilds against each other. Competitive play wasn't as fun, dominated by 3-4 colored decks that all looked pretty similar, and the guild balance was questionable. Also, Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard is one of the most interesting ever, Ravnica-TSP is the Dragonstorm standard, but if you ban that deck out, it's also a decent one.
Let's do some brainstorming! Both triple Ravnica, RRG and the full block are among the drafts I find most fun, I'm very interested in learning more about them and exchanging ideas!
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2x Lurking Informant
1x Psychic Drain
1x Dimir Infiltrator
2x Muddle the Mixture
1x Belltower Sphinx
2x Induce Paranoia
2x Vedalken Entrancer
1x Junktroller
1x Dimir Machinations
2x Drift of Phantasms
2x Consult the Necrosages
1x Dimir Guildmage
1x Remand
1x Tidewater Minion
1x Clutch of the Undercity
1x Disembowel
9x Island
8x Swamp
Not claiming this is brilliant or anything, but looks reasonably realistic and I think I'm comfortable playing this and confident I have a shot? Didn't count how many uncommons I added, but some are definitely not necessary and could likely be replaced by commons without compromising the deck.
I've a lot of defenders that are difficult to overcome and I think the key thing is that it doesn't necessarily take forever to mill, so we don't give too much time for Selesnya to build a token army or Boros to setup a really scary Rally.
I haven't drafted this 200 times, but I do recall losing to decks that looked similar to this a couple times. I also recall beating the mill deck a few times, it can sometimes be slow. I definitely feel like the few turns that Glimpse the Unthinkable buys you should increase the win expectation a good deal, which is why I argued that opening the card is important to go for the deck, although obviously I can't really demonstrate this mathematically, it's just a feeling.
By the way I'm just focusing on this because it's being discussed, but it's not like it's a favourite deck or anything. I'm definitely more confident playing non-mill Dimir.
Wasn't the monoU Drowner Initiate/Memory Sluice deck pretty turbo? I wasn't playing very competitively then, so I might be misremembering.
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I've played a couple drafts and the format seems slower than 3x RAV. And the picks in pack 3 feel really weird after the linear drafts of 3x RAV.
First thing I think is that it's important to know by heart which guilds are in each set:
Ravnica: Selesnya(GW), Boros(RW), Dimir(UB), Golgari(GB)
Guildpact: Gruul(GR), Izzet (UR), Orzhov(BW)
Like in 3xRAV, it seems to me that a solid generic premise is that the power in Ravnica block is in the multicolored cards. There's also good mono-colored cards, but a big percentage of the formats' best is multicolored. So you should plan ahead in order to ensure you've got a guild to pick from in the last booster, in order to make the most of it, which means in this format we aren't drafting a single guild anymore. Also, because we no longer have 3x boosters from the same guild to pick from, we're no longer prioritizing guild synergy, but instead prioritizing high individual value.
Another premise, maybe a bit more controversial. This block has very solid mana fixing, which surely allows you to go 5 or 4 colors if you want to. But in my view, this isn't an optimal strategy here. Comparing to another hugely multicolored format: Alara block, which has a similar amount of fixing, maybe actually slightly inferior to Ravnica. In Alara, going 5-colors is a main strategy, with a high success rate. But I see two key differences: first thing is that when you go 5 colors in Alara, you'll have to prioritize fixing, but you're still guaranteed to pickup a lot of power in the Conflux booster, since it includes specifically 5-colored cards, and you're only competing for those with the other players who happen to be doing 5-colors as well, which isn't going to be everyone. In Ravnica, the only similar thing are the Nephilims, which are rares and not even enough of a reason to go out of your way to prioritize fixing. So basically you're having to let good cards go in order to prioritize fixing, but you're competing for the same cards that most players can pick anyway. The other thing is that in Alara nearly every card is playable, so you're going to get good late picks anyway. In Ravnica, even if I don't think the average card value is low at all, the late picks are going to be very poor stuff like Zephyr Spirit, Gate Hound, Tin Street Market, that is, stuff you're not going to be able to run.
I've seen people do 4-5 colors, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Overall my feeling, which I've tried to support with these couple poorly written paragraphs, is that in both RRG and RGD, the best strat is to go 3-colors. So after this generic thinking about the format, if we conclude that we're going with 3 colors and we must be sure we have a guild to pick from in every booster, this means that there are 3 main paths you can go for in the RRG draft:
1- GRW, picking from Selesnya and Boros in the Ravnica boosters, and from Gruul in Guildpact;
2- BGW, picking Selesnya and Golgari in the first two packs, and Orzhov in the last;
3- UBR, going for Dimir in RAV and Izzet in GPT.
GRW, with Boros and Gruul, is definitely the aggro path, pick solid creatures and spells to support them. BGW, we've commented before that Selesnya has a major token strategy, Golgari a minor one (mostly uses for sacrifices, e.g. Golgari Rotwurm), and Orzhov also has a token theme in cards such as Skeletal Vampire, Belfry Spirit, Teysa, Orzhov Scion, pumps like Orzhov Pontiff, and the Haunt mechanic interacts well with the Golgari sacs. Note that I mentioned a bunch of rares, but if everything comes together there's a solid token deck in there, although it's probably safer to simply prioritize high individual value. Dimir/Izzet is going to be the more control-oriented archetype, Dimir typically plays a lot of sorceries and instants which Izzet synergizes with, and the tempo-oriented idea goes well here also. You do have less options in path 3 since you're picking from just two guilds instead of three (third one would be Rakdos, which is in Dissension - Dimir/Izzet/Rakdos is a path in RGD), so abstractly it would seem like this could be inferior to the other 2 due to the reduced number of options when picking, but in practice it looks like it works at least just as well, the guilds go well together.
I'm usually doing 2-4 pieces of mana fixing when going 3-colors. You can sometimes play less than 17 lands with the bounce lands and signets, but the format has a Ton of good activated abilities with mana costs and I typically find that having mana to spare late game is highly useful.
Let's work together to learn more about the format! Stats, if anybody has access to them, would be very, very interesting.
Edit: typos, card links - please wait for update concerning paths!
Why only those three? I drafted a jeskai deck yesterday, I think any three-color combination that has a guild in each pack is a consideration.
-GPT: Orzhov
-GPT: Izzet
GPT: Gruul
-GPT: Gruul
-GPT: Orzhov
-GPT: Izzet
-GPT: Orzhov
Of course, not all the combinations are equal. Looking at the list, the combinations that put you in the most guilds are Naya and Abzan. These also both give you two guilds in RAV, the pack you get two of, making these the safest colors to go into.
Guild balance matters as well. From my experience so far I suspect that Golgari and Gruul are the weakest guilds. Golgari primarily because the dredge mechanic is difficult to take advantage of, especially with a viable milling archetype in the format. Gruul have generally poor commons as far as I've seen. Enabling bloodthirst is doable if you draft with it in mind, but the bloodthirst cards are generally not paying you off enough for your efforts. If this is true then it primarily hurts Jund as it has both colors. Abzan and Naya may be able to take the hit since they have two other guilds to rely on, but it could make pack three tough for Naya.
I've seen the other guilds do well, so I'm not sure how to prioritize after that. Izzet and Orzhov have been pretty strong in my experience, so I'll probably stray further away from Naya and Jund as they get access to neither of them.
Izzet is the best guild by a mile, followed by Orzhov, followed distantly by Gruul. The Gruul gold commons are just extremely underwhelming aside from the 6/4 Wurm for 3 (which coincidentally can easily be splashed in Izzet decks). Scab Clan Mauler was a great constructed card, but you aren't bloodthirsting it on turn 2 or even turn 3 very often. The rest of them are just pretty marginal.
List of paths in RRG drafts
3-guild paths:
GWR - Selesnya+Boros / Gruul
GWB - Selesnya+Golgari / Orzhov
* these obviously include four 2-guild combinations, but I don't see why you'd restrict yourself like that if you've chosen a combination that allows picking from 3 guilds.
2-guild paths:
UBR - Dimir / Izzet
UBW - Dimir / Orzhov
BRW - Boros / Orzhov
RWU - Boros / Izzet
GBR - Golgari / Gruul
Based on generic considerations alone, the 3-guild combinations give you the most pick options and in principle I'd call them the main paths. I've less experience in this format than triple RAV, which is definitely more popular, but in my limited experience the 2-guild paths didn't appear to be much inferior.
Since I can't find Ravnica block limited deck databases, I thought some links to constructed tournament results could be useful. Notice that a) these are full block and b) it's constructed, which is a totally different beast. But, given that we have no results or stats or anything, maybe these can give us some remote pointers concerning what to prioritize.
Link 1 Link 2 Link 3
Link 4 Link 5 Link 6
Link 7 Link 8 Link 9
I will oblige. In fact, I'll post a draft by draft "diary" over the course of the format's availability.
When Time Spiral block is available, my rating has made it to 1900+ every single time, and generally continued to climb. The limiting factor has always been the amount of time its available. This time, I expect my rating to be starting above 1900 when Time Spiral becomes available (it's usually right around 1800), and the format will be around for 3 weeks.
I have probably drafted Time Spiral block more than all but a handful of people in the world. It's my favorite format by far. I have several hundred copies of basically every common in the block in my accounts from over the years. Time Spiral is also probably the least new player friendly limited format in Magic, giving me a ridiculously large advantage over anyone just dipping their toes in the water in the format.
However, as I've just logged into the client after the current down time, I am not seeing a rating displayed in my account. Is this just something temporary, or did they find a way to get rid of ratings again?