I started playing when I was quite young around the original Ravnica block. I want to build a drafting environment that simulates putting together guild decks with all the cool two-colour cards. I see no reason to restrict myself to the Ravnica blocks, as there are great gold and hybrid cards from other sets that fit really well.
My main problem is how to restrict decks to two colours. I want to make it either very difficult or impossible to stray outside two colours during drafting and deckbuilding. Any ideas on how I can do this?
I don't know if you can build a limited environment that uses lots of gold cards and enforces two-color. Core sets encourage two colors only by having a shortage of mana fixing, people will splash for one card in a third color but full-on three color is hard in those environments. 3xRTR and 3xGTC both were two-color focused, but you'd see the occasional 3-color deck. Strong two-color 2drops that you really want to run but requre CC mana might help? I know if I got a couple Tithe Drinkers in my pool I'd rather play her on curve than splash a third color.
Most of us that run EDH cubes enforce color identity restrictions. You could always have a "generals only" pre-draft phase, where your players pick a guild identified card (doesn't have to be a legend, if you're not running an edh cube), keep it secret from the rest of the players, draft, then build a deck that conforms to the color identity they selected.
There are no feasible ways to do this actually. If you look at DGM drafts there will always be a third color.
This is because restricting yourself to 2 colors gives you access to only 1/10 of the gold cards.
The mana fixing makes it easy to splash a 3rd or even 4th color.
I am also building a ravnica inspired peasant cube and I am speculating this as well. Here are the options I have mulled over:
- having randomized guild packs in which players pick randomly
- having guild packs that are exclusively mana fixing (karoo, signet, gate, keyrune, cluestone)
- no restrictions
- play only 2 colors restriction
I wrote an article about a mini-cube called a "square". In it I highlighted a RtR Square I had finished. Here's an excerpt:
I first started experimenting with this concept during M13 but solidified a build during Return to Ravnica Block and by Pro Tour Gatecrash in Montreal I had a pretty good limited style Square that I would take with me to most events and play pretty regularly in the hotel or at the airport. My goal was to make every guild draftable but in the end that was not attainable due to the sheer number of gold cards, so instead I started looking at three color combinations and it started to feel a lot like how Dragon’s Maze would end up. Cards that unsurprisingly shined in this environment were the Keyrunes and Guildgates. We even discovered an unintentional 4 or 5 color draft strategy filled with removal and Keyrunes we called “Keyrune Control”. Through playtesting the Square with other friends I adapted it to this and made it possible to beat that strategy if you saw it coming, with either fast aggro or more pure control strategies. Despite that, we didn’t nerf Keyrune Control and it is still a popular and powerful archetype in the RtR Block Square.
"A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness." - Wizards of the Coast Official Reprint Policy
My main problem is how to restrict decks to two colours. I want to make it either very difficult or impossible to stray outside two colours during drafting and deckbuilding. Any ideas on how I can do this?
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
This is because restricting yourself to 2 colors gives you access to only 1/10 of the gold cards.
The mana fixing makes it easy to splash a 3rd or even 4th color.
I am also building a ravnica inspired peasant cube and I am speculating this as well. Here are the options I have mulled over:
- having randomized guild packs in which players pick randomly
- having guild packs that are exclusively mana fixing (karoo, signet, gate, keyrune, cluestone)
- no restrictions
- play only 2 colors restriction
And here's a link to the whole article: Presenting the Square
You can find my list on cube tutor: http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/56
I'm in the middle of a large change, but you can follow the change log. The last "complete" list was right before the Dimir overhaul.
View on CubeTutor
Draft it!