Hey all, got back into MtG after RTR was released (hence missed the RTR prerelease) and curious as to how the guild pack will affect my sealed pool. I've heard folks say you'll pretty much play the guild you choose to rep and shouldn't even try to splash for a third color; others have said it's about 50/50 whether you'll have the cards in your 5 generic boosters to make your guild pack work; and some say that you can reasonably successfully play your guild while splashing an allied color for bombs & removal.
I'm assuming that GTC mana-fixing will be pretty much the same as RTR, so can folks sum up how their RTR prerelease decks shaped up to give me some idea as to how GTC might go?
Well, the guildpacks for RtR contained, as far as I remember
- The guild's keyrune
- The guild's charm
- Two of the guild's gates
- A few commons in the guild's colors
- A few uncommons in the guild's colors
- A rare in the guild's colors
- The guild promo
Then you get 5 boosters that are just normal boosters. I played a prerelease with 3 different guilds and while I did splash a third color on two of those, it's extremely unlikely your chosen guild will not be the best guild to play given your cards.
Dunno where that information is coming from. I didn't have my keyrune at all. I had the charm, but I don't know what pack it was from. I had only one guildgate, but I don't know what pack it was from.
The only thing I know for sure which was in my guild pack was Dreadbridge Goliath.
I think just like in it a draft you shouldn't be locked in on your first pick or the guild you've selected. I think you should go into the sealed with flexibility in mind. You may get super lucky and play your pre-release promo and go 2 colored with your smooth mana base. I was unlucky with my Rakdos sealed and ended up with a much better deck in Azorious splashing Green.
In RTR some of the decks were quite fast so you definitely needed some 1 and 2 drops to be able to survive. It's unclear if that's going to be so necessary in Gatecrash.
I played with three guild packs at my LGS; two at pre-release and one a few months later when they did a sealed tourney with some leftovers. I did not play the guild pack's guild in any of them. The five boosters in each one pointed me in a different direction. So don't go into the GTC pre-release assuming that you'll play the guild you select. A lot of people at the events I attended did, but not everyone could or wanted to once they saw their pool.
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My Decks:
Innistrad-RTR
UWR Flash: 7-1, 1 FNM Win-A-Box
Rakdos Aggro: 20-8
UW Flash: 11-5
Boros Aggro: 3-1
Jund: 42-12-3, 4 TNM Win-A-Box, 2 Koopa Standard IQs, Gatecrash Game Day Champion, M14 Game Day Champion
Well, the guildpacks for RtR contained, as far as I remember
- The guild's keyrune
- The guild's charm
- Two of the guild's gates
- A few commons in the guild's colors
- A few uncommons in the guild's colors
- A rare in the guild's colors
- The guild promo
No.
The only guaranteed things in guild pack was the promo and a guildgate of your guild. See here for details.
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Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Ye I saw that thread earlier. My memory failed me on the keyrune and the charm.
Regardless, you will still get a full booster worth of cards in your guild's colors, one of which is a rare etc, so it's not entirely false. Your five random boosters are going to have to be pretty damn synergestic and/or bomby to not end up playing your two guild's colors and I can't imagine someone not playing at least one of the colors.
That said, it's not impossible, just not likely.
Your guild stuff could certainly be crappy, too. The point is just to keep your eye out for all possibilities.
The guild pack provides 11-14 playable [edit] cards for your deck in a guild. If you are constructing a 40 card deck with 22-23 cards, that is at least half of your cards in most cases. You will have 70 more cards at various rarities to find the other 11-13 cards for your deck.
Those numbers are good. Granted you may just pull better from your regular packs, but keep in mind, they are building the guild packs for you, with the intention of making a deck with a specific guild.
They aren't shafting people on these cards, they are giving you the foundation for the given guild's deck. I believe there were 8 different variations of each combinations' guild pack... if I remember correctly from the MaRo tweet.
I played 5 flights for the RTR pre-release and found just because you pick a guild, doesnt mean that pile of cards will be in the guild you picked. Some try and force the guild because of the guild 'pack' but I personally think that is wrong. My suggestion would be to open the other 5 packs first and see where you are power level wise in what colors then open your guild pack. Dont go in thinking just because you picked 'X' guild, thats the guild you have to play.
Huh, really got my hopes up with that first list including the keyrune, charm, etc. That seems like it would have been a fun almost-constructed meta in which to play.
But regardless, thanks for the responses all; very helpful. I shall go in with an open mind, just like I would with any sealed event.
I played 5 flights for the RTR pre-release and found just because you pick a guild, doesnt mean that pile of cards will be in the guild you picked. Some try and force the guild because of the guild 'pack' but I personally think that is wrong. My suggestion would be to open the other 5 packs first and see where you are power level wise in what colors then open your guild pack. Dont go in thinking just because you picked 'X' guild, thats the guild you have to play.
I think that this is wrong.
The default mode for people should be to build a two colour deck in their guild's colours, and only deviate from that if they have a good splash and decent fixing, or a weak guild and 'off-colour' bombs.
Here's what I will do at the pre-release, assuming I am Dimir. Sort the cards into the following piles:
1 core: U/B cards + UG/BW hybrid + colourless
2 white splash: Single splashable white cards plus BW fixing
3 green splash: Single splashable green cards plus UG fixing (noting things like Fathom Mage)
4 unplayables: Everything else (noting things like Firemane Avenger)
That very quickly reduces the complexity of the cardpool down by reducing the number of cards you have to look at. From there it should be pretty easy to see whether your primary guild is deep enough to comfortably support a two colour deck, and whether your cardpool has enough fixing and power to warrant dabbling in a third colour, and which colour should be splashed.
Every deck at my table at the RTR pre-release was two colour only (disclaimer: since I was with a bunch of kids, I built all of their decks, so there may be some confirmation bias going on there).
I think a good thing to do would be to study the completed spoiler. A lot of times you can get a feel for what will be good in limited just by the card pool. For instance, Selesnya was universally the best pre-release guild to pick if you wanted to win (not playing for fun/flavour) and this isn't too surprising considering the power of the commons/uncommons available to be opened in your guild pack. In contrast, Izzet was very poor in the pre-release sealed due to a guild ability that is generally weak in limited.
Looking at what we know so far, we now have the 5 guild abilities. Of them, my instincts for limited push me more towards either Dimir or orzhov, as both abilities reward you for doing things that you want to do in limited games anyway. The boros ability, while swingy, makes you want to overcommit and your plans can be spoiled easily by removing only 1 attacker. Gruul is ok, but I just have bad luck in those colours (and a bad taste from Avacyn reborn). Izzet seems too fragile and slow, it's very similar to Golgari.
Anyway, these impressions can change once we have the full spoiler, but something to consider.
In contrast, Izzet was very poor in the pre-release sealed due to a guild ability that is generally weak in limited.
I think izzet is very strong in limited. It was just bad at the prerelease because a lot of its high impact cards are uncommons and rares, as opposed to other guilds who have more powerful commons. Therefore, the guild pack was generally worse than what other guilds got.
However, there was the added aspect of unfamiliarity with the format. I don't think people really figured out the power level of cards like frostburn weird and pursuit of flight until later, so the izzet decks people played at the prerelease weren't quite up to par, just out of inexperience with the format.
Still, the prerelease is really more about having fun, so you should choose whatever seems best to you and/or what you will enjoy playing.
Yeah, I played all my Doorkeepers at the pre-release. They weren't good even then.
Understanding the nature of the successful aggro archetype, preferring black over white as a splash, and developing a healthy disdain for control and milling version did wonders for my win rate with Izzet.
I'm assuming that GTC mana-fixing will be pretty much the same as RTR, so can folks sum up how their RTR prerelease decks shaped up to give me some idea as to how GTC might go?
Thanks!
The only thing I know for sure which was in my guild pack was Dreadbridge Goliath.
It was nice having three Sluiceway Scorpions, though with the Corpsejack Menace, I had a LOT of 4-drops.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
In RTR some of the decks were quite fast so you definitely needed some 1 and 2 drops to be able to survive. It's unclear if that's going to be so necessary in Gatecrash.
Innistrad-RTR
UWR Flash: 7-1, 1 FNM Win-A-Box
Rakdos Aggro: 20-8
UW Flash: 11-5
Boros Aggro: 3-1
Jund: 42-12-3, 4 TNM Win-A-Box, 2 Koopa Standard IQs, Gatecrash Game Day Champion, M14 Game Day Champion
RTR - Theros
RDW 6-0 1 TNM Win-A-Box
Esper Control 7-4
Boros Burn 3-1
RW Devotion 3-1
Monoblack Devotion 8-4
No.
The only guaranteed things in guild pack was the promo and a guildgate of your guild. See here for details.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Your guild stuff could certainly be crappy, too. The point is just to keep your eye out for all possibilities.
Those numbers are good. Granted you may just pull better from your regular packs, but keep in mind, they are building the guild packs for you, with the intention of making a deck with a specific guild.
They aren't shafting people on these cards, they are giving you the foundation for the given guild's deck. I believe there were 8 different variations of each combinations' guild pack... if I remember correctly from the MaRo tweet.
But regardless, thanks for the responses all; very helpful. I shall go in with an open mind, just like I would with any sealed event.
I think that this is wrong.
The default mode for people should be to build a two colour deck in their guild's colours, and only deviate from that if they have a good splash and decent fixing, or a weak guild and 'off-colour' bombs.
Here's what I will do at the pre-release, assuming I am Dimir. Sort the cards into the following piles:
1 core: U/B cards + UG/BW hybrid + colourless
2 white splash: Single splashable white cards plus BW fixing
3 green splash: Single splashable green cards plus UG fixing (noting things like Fathom Mage)
4 unplayables: Everything else (noting things like Firemane Avenger)
That very quickly reduces the complexity of the cardpool down by reducing the number of cards you have to look at. From there it should be pretty easy to see whether your primary guild is deep enough to comfortably support a two colour deck, and whether your cardpool has enough fixing and power to warrant dabbling in a third colour, and which colour should be splashed.
Every deck at my table at the RTR pre-release was two colour only (disclaimer: since I was with a bunch of kids, I built all of their decks, so there may be some confirmation bias going on there).
Looking at what we know so far, we now have the 5 guild abilities. Of them, my instincts for limited push me more towards either Dimir or orzhov, as both abilities reward you for doing things that you want to do in limited games anyway. The boros ability, while swingy, makes you want to overcommit and your plans can be spoiled easily by removing only 1 attacker. Gruul is ok, but I just have bad luck in those colours (and a bad taste from Avacyn reborn). Izzet seems too fragile and slow, it's very similar to Golgari.
Anyway, these impressions can change once we have the full spoiler, but something to consider.
I think izzet is very strong in limited. It was just bad at the prerelease because a lot of its high impact cards are uncommons and rares, as opposed to other guilds who have more powerful commons. Therefore, the guild pack was generally worse than what other guilds got.
However, there was the added aspect of unfamiliarity with the format. I don't think people really figured out the power level of cards like frostburn weird and pursuit of flight until later, so the izzet decks people played at the prerelease weren't quite up to par, just out of inexperience with the format.
Still, the prerelease is really more about having fun, so you should choose whatever seems best to you and/or what you will enjoy playing.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
Understanding the nature of the successful aggro archetype, preferring black over white as a splash, and developing a healthy disdain for control and milling version did wonders for my win rate with Izzet.