I've no doubt that Historic Standard needs a custom ban list in order to be properly balanced. The problem is that we need to generate more stats first in order to understand what needs to be changed from the historic ban lists. And since the format has never became popular so far, it's been hard to get enough tourney results samples to figure out if there's anything really overpowered. Of course we can have our opinions - I've some ideas about things that could be changed, for sure - but the proper way to do a ban list is to use math, that's the only way to be seriously objective and fair and ensure everyone is happy with the final list.
This is my favorite format ever, unfortunately I've no idea about where it can be played nowadays (it used to be quite popular in Magic Workstation during the 2000s). If anybody finds out where this can be played online currently, I'd appreciate it a lot.
It's similar to the Historic Standard format, but decks are at block constructed rather than standard power level, which is significantly lower, leading to a slower format with a much lower chance of coming across broken decks. The last time I played this must have been around 2009, I've no idea how the balance is affected by the more recent blocks, and it's true that average card power has increased significantly in the 2010s, so there's a chance that some of the older blocks will no longer remain competitive, but I suppose we'd only know that for sure by playing.
Well, the older standards have a lot of powerful color hosers: Flashfires, Tsunami, Boil are all in the format, along with cards like Anarchy or Perish. The mass basic land destruction spells tend to be better against older decks, recent decks tend to run a much higher percentage of nonbasic lands, although of course this varies a bit. Tsabo's Web has turned out to be quite strong in my experience. Circle of Protection:Red is available for lots of Standards and deserves attention.
One thing I've noticed is that several of the format's probable top decks run lots of artifacts, particularly those that include Urza's, Mirrodin or Scars blocks, which are among the strongest blocks. Shatterstorm and Creeping Corrosion should be appearing a lot in sideboards. Decks that manage to run main board artifact removal that's not dead in non-artifact matchups have an advantage - Pillage in Tempest-Urza land destruction shines a lot.
There's quite a few graveyard based decks - Replenish, RecSur, Living Death; so strong graveyard hate is noteworthy, like Relic of Progenitus or Rest in Peace. Combo decks are a factor in this format (Prosbloom, Replenish, Enduring Ideal, Dragonstorm) and sometimes quite vulnerable to removal of specific cards through Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, maybe Lobotomy as an example of an older, less efficient version of this idea.
Very tough to give this a good rundown with no established meta, though!
Found three versions in this link from Magic-League (see "Opposition" archetype), circa March 2000. I haven't tested any of these, but M-L is the best database I know for old decks, I trust the level of play there. AFAIK it was created in 2000 so unfortunately can't be used for pre-2000 decks. Decks in the link are pretty different from each other, also.
Hey mate sorry for not replying sooner, my dog had an accident and broke two teeth and it was a mess to deal with the problem.
Braids is a fun tricky deck but was tier 2 in Odyssey constructed, I tested it only once in HS just because I remembered it being cool, but don't think it has a very high chance of doing well in it. I recall UB versions of the deck as well. Balancing Act, never saw the deck in action so far. About the lock with Opposition idea, there are also some mono-blue Opp-Orb decks from 2001 with Merfolks, Opposition and Static Orb, I know those were competitive in that format so may be worth a try, but there are counters.
There's surely room for improvement and tweaking for Historical Standard.
This article discusses Odyssey-based MBC, but it's a block version. I've seen Standard lists on magic-league.
Another classic control deck that should have a future in HS is Tradewind Awakening, linked article contains a deck list if you scroll down a bit, it's a block version, which fares well in Historic. My first line of thought would actually be to bring it to Standard by including Mirage instead of Urza's, because I think Memory Lapse and Wall of Roots have a place here.
Nice research! I'll try to comment to the extent I'm capable...
- 99 Bargain deck: I've been playing with Yawgmoth's Bargain banned, so I can't comment on this deck's performance. Some people lean very strongly towards Bargain having to be banned for the format to be playable. Historically it wasn't banned, and when you actually look at 99-2000 tournament results, it's pretty clear that the card wasn't so dominant in those standards: the winning decks don't run it, the ones that do often run it as a 1x. But, given that it's banned where I play, I really can't comment on how it performs.
- 2000 Trinity: I've run this deck a few times, it looks strong. I've a good amount of experience with an Urza's Block Constructed deck called Squirrel Prison that shares a lot of cards with this, and it looks strong in Historic Standard even in block version, so maybe that's a version that's also worth giving consideration (you can also play it in Block Party - any block constructed deck from any block)!
- 2000 Tinker: this deck... is overpowered, I don't run it because I'm worried that people might get pissed! So far nobody has run it against me either. But I'll venture saying that this is a top deck anyway. I think banning Tinker is worth consideration... Since I've been making an effort to make the format popular, I've been avoiding certain things until we eventually form a community that can get together to discuss potential balance problems and all.
- 2000 RG land destruction - both RG and mono-red urza-based land destruction decks are super competitive. They also fall under the category that people can complain about them, so I've been avoiding these in casual games. But the times I did run these, it was clear they should make "Tier 1". I can see an argument for eventually banning Wasteland.
- 2000 Replenishence: This is strong, consistent and reliable. When people aren't expecting it, it wins a massive amount of the time. But if you're expecting to run into it, it's pretty easy to sideboard against it: Relic of Progenitus, Surgical Extraction or whatever. My view is that if this is a surprise, it's really good, if people anticipate it, it's easy to deal with it. Anyway, if eventually people see this deck as a balance threat, banning Replenish is reasonable and solves the problem.
2001 Nether-Go or other control decks: I haven't seen these do too well, but I can't resist mentioning that Masques-Invasion BW control is one of my favourite Standard decks of all time, maybe even my favourite [deck linked on a post below]. This is a discard deck that also runs solutions like Vindicate, gains card advantage through Phyrexian Arena and finishes with Desolation Angel, which is just cool. Definitely wins over 50% of the time and has good matchups, but didn't reach top 8 in 2001 and I doubt it can be considered a top deck. But I think it's another one to have in your repertoire.
2002 Psychatog - I don't like Tog and don't run it, whenever people ran it against me they ended up losing, so unimpressed so far. My opinion is to try mono-black control in 2002 instead, it destroys creature decks, and historical standard has very fast aggro decks that you're going to come across a lot. Surprisingly good control matchups as well with Mind Sludge and Haunting Echoes, but of course it's not what it's usually tweaked against.
2003 - we've discussed Slide previously, haven't seen anyone try the UB control deck (bit skeptical in principle, but who knows), I don't play Mirari's Wake, *one* dude took it once against me and I got demolished, but needs a better sample to come to a conclusion.
2004 - haven't seen anyone run the UW control yet, would be interested in knowing how it does!
2005 - haven't seen anybody go with MUC from this year yet, list looks sensible of course. There's a few control decks among the WC top 8 decks (Karsten's 2nd place, Carvalho's UB control).
2006 - Running Niv-Mizzet gains massive coolness points! I've run Izzettron ("similar" UR control) a good amount and it does pretty well, in principle I'd say it looks stronger, but 100% understand why you'd want to run Niv-Mizzet, actually I'm definitely going to give this a try later! Second list reminded me of Magnivore decks, I don't think these are major contenders for top tier but they're pretty unique and fun and actually reasonably competitive.
2008 - Faeries: I think this deck really belongs in Block Party (any block constructed deck from any block) since it's mostly Lorwyn block, but it does gain a couple cards like Ancestral Vision. It shows up in the format every now and then, has been pretty average so far - it really can't hold against the fastest aggro decks and also seems to lose the battle against top control ones, but it does win sometimes as well. I'd definitely not run Terror main, it may have made sense in the 2008 Standard's meta, but I don't like it in HS at all.
2014 - UW Control: This is probably the most played control deck in the format, I have to say that... it's one of the most boring decks I know! It gets run over by the fastest aggro decks in HS, which are *very* fast - Affinity, Goblins, tempest-urza sui black, Jund. But, against stuff that's not super fast, it manages to stabilize and start gaining card advantage, and also has an advantage in that it induces mistakes by getting the opponent to fall asleep.
Sorry for not quoting, would probably become more readable but I wanted to avoid a wall of text! Hopefully more people will share their views as well!
Hey rx303, this is a super cool idea! I'm very much interested in trying it out. However, whenever when I start a draft, after the first pick I get stuck every time in the "Please wait" screen. Am I doing something wrong?
Jace and Mystic are currently legal, although I understand that they're big candidates for getting eventually banned. Another deck that seems to fit what you're looking for is WUR Enduring Ideal, I like this deck a lot and it's been proving very competitive.
About Slide: the GW version won the 2004 World Championship, against Affinity, which is easily a top aggro deck in Historic Standard, while RW versions like the one previously linked are known to be strong against Goblins, also a top aggro deck. So I think it's a major favourite against pretty much every creature based deck, but against other control decks or combo, because it dedicates so many cards to creature removal, it can definitely struggle. I mostly played Slide in Onslaught block constructed, so I'm not sure to what extent Standard lists can be tweaked to have better matchups vs. control/combo. I think it tends to be a favourite against pretty much any aggro deck, but should have bad matchups against the top control and combo ones.
My suggestion is, if you're going to spend money on this, why not pick one of the free apps, either Cockatrice or Xmage, and test how it performs first?
@Vedast, first strong UW control deck in the format that comes to mind is Caw-Blade, check out the link for a sample list. Top Onslaught-Mirrodin control deck is definitely AstralRift, it's a pretty good deck as well. I've not seen anyone run the Donais list, would be interesting to check out how it performs.
Looks like I found a problem in the 1st Standard's implementation, and Feyd_Ruin caught another one in 6th Standard. It would be really nice if the people who originally figured out the format would show up and verify if everything is really correct. Maybe the topic was inactive for so long that they've stopped checking on it, perhaps if someone knows Tinfoil_Hat they could try to tell him that the topic is active again?
* 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.
^ 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.
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.
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.
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!
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/event-coverage/magic-gathering-invitational-2000block-party-decks-2015-12-18
http://www.magic-league.com/deck/17669/rath_black_hatred.html
This is my favorite format ever, unfortunately I've no idea about where it can be played nowadays (it used to be quite popular in Magic Workstation during the 2000s). If anybody finds out where this can be played online currently, I'd appreciate it a lot.
It's similar to the Historic Standard format, but decks are at block constructed rather than standard power level, which is significantly lower, leading to a slower format with a much lower chance of coming across broken decks. The last time I played this must have been around 2009, I've no idea how the balance is affected by the more recent blocks, and it's true that average card power has increased significantly in the 2010s, so there's a chance that some of the older blocks will no longer remain competitive, but I suppose we'd only know that for sure by playing.
One thing I've noticed is that several of the format's probable top decks run lots of artifacts, particularly those that include Urza's, Mirrodin or Scars blocks, which are among the strongest blocks. Shatterstorm and Creeping Corrosion should be appearing a lot in sideboards. Decks that manage to run main board artifact removal that's not dead in non-artifact matchups have an advantage - Pillage in Tempest-Urza land destruction shines a lot.
There's quite a few graveyard based decks - Replenish, RecSur, Living Death; so strong graveyard hate is noteworthy, like Relic of Progenitus or Rest in Peace. Combo decks are a factor in this format (Prosbloom, Replenish, Enduring Ideal, Dragonstorm) and sometimes quite vulnerable to removal of specific cards through Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, maybe Lobotomy as an example of an older, less efficient version of this idea.
Very tough to give this a good rundown with no established meta, though!
Braids is a fun tricky deck but was tier 2 in Odyssey constructed, I tested it only once in HS just because I remembered it being cool, but don't think it has a very high chance of doing well in it. I recall UB versions of the deck as well. Balancing Act, never saw the deck in action so far. About the lock with Opposition idea, there are also some mono-blue Opp-Orb decks from 2001 with Merfolks, Opposition and Static Orb, I know those were competitive in that format so may be worth a try, but there are counters.
7 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
9 Swamp
2 Desolation Angel
3 Nether Spirit
2 Addle
2 Chimeric Idol
4 Dark Ritual
3 Death Grasp
4 Duress
4 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Phyrexian Arena
2 Rout
4 Vindicate
2 Wrath of God
1 Disenchant
2 Last Breath
2 Orim's Chant
3 Rebel Informer
1 Vendetta
3 Voice of All
1 Wrath of God
There's surely room for improvement and tweaking for Historical Standard.
This article discusses Odyssey-based MBC, but it's a block version. I've seen Standard lists on magic-league.
Another classic control deck that should have a future in HS is Tradewind Awakening, linked article contains a deck list if you scroll down a bit, it's a block version, which fares well in Historic. My first line of thought would actually be to bring it to Standard by including Mirage instead of Urza's, because I think Memory Lapse and Wall of Roots have a place here.
- 99 Bargain deck: I've been playing with Yawgmoth's Bargain banned, so I can't comment on this deck's performance. Some people lean very strongly towards Bargain having to be banned for the format to be playable. Historically it wasn't banned, and when you actually look at 99-2000 tournament results, it's pretty clear that the card wasn't so dominant in those standards: the winning decks don't run it, the ones that do often run it as a 1x. But, given that it's banned where I play, I really can't comment on how it performs.
- 2000 Trinity: I've run this deck a few times, it looks strong. I've a good amount of experience with an Urza's Block Constructed deck called Squirrel Prison that shares a lot of cards with this, and it looks strong in Historic Standard even in block version, so maybe that's a version that's also worth giving consideration (you can also play it in Block Party - any block constructed deck from any block)!
- 2000 Tinker: this deck... is overpowered, I don't run it because I'm worried that people might get pissed! So far nobody has run it against me either. But I'll venture saying that this is a top deck anyway. I think banning Tinker is worth consideration... Since I've been making an effort to make the format popular, I've been avoiding certain things until we eventually form a community that can get together to discuss potential balance problems and all.
- 2000 RG land destruction - both RG and mono-red urza-based land destruction decks are super competitive. They also fall under the category that people can complain about them, so I've been avoiding these in casual games. But the times I did run these, it was clear they should make "Tier 1". I can see an argument for eventually banning Wasteland.
- 2000 Replenishence: This is strong, consistent and reliable. When people aren't expecting it, it wins a massive amount of the time. But if you're expecting to run into it, it's pretty easy to sideboard against it: Relic of Progenitus, Surgical Extraction or whatever. My view is that if this is a surprise, it's really good, if people anticipate it, it's easy to deal with it. Anyway, if eventually people see this deck as a balance threat, banning Replenish is reasonable and solves the problem.
2001 Nether-Go or other control decks: I haven't seen these do too well, but I can't resist mentioning that Masques-Invasion BW control is one of my favourite Standard decks of all time, maybe even my favourite [deck linked on a post below]. This is a discard deck that also runs solutions like Vindicate, gains card advantage through Phyrexian Arena and finishes with Desolation Angel, which is just cool. Definitely wins over 50% of the time and has good matchups, but didn't reach top 8 in 2001 and I doubt it can be considered a top deck. But I think it's another one to have in your repertoire.
2002 Psychatog - I don't like Tog and don't run it, whenever people ran it against me they ended up losing, so unimpressed so far. My opinion is to try mono-black control in 2002 instead, it destroys creature decks, and historical standard has very fast aggro decks that you're going to come across a lot. Surprisingly good control matchups as well with Mind Sludge and Haunting Echoes, but of course it's not what it's usually tweaked against.
2003 - we've discussed Slide previously, haven't seen anyone try the UB control deck (bit skeptical in principle, but who knows), I don't play Mirari's Wake, *one* dude took it once against me and I got demolished, but needs a better sample to come to a conclusion.
2004 - haven't seen anyone run the UW control yet, would be interested in knowing how it does!
2005 - haven't seen anybody go with MUC from this year yet, list looks sensible of course. There's a few control decks among the WC top 8 decks (Karsten's 2nd place, Carvalho's UB control).
2006 - Running Niv-Mizzet gains massive coolness points! I've run Izzettron ("similar" UR control) a good amount and it does pretty well, in principle I'd say it looks stronger, but 100% understand why you'd want to run Niv-Mizzet, actually I'm definitely going to give this a try later! Second list reminded me of Magnivore decks, I don't think these are major contenders for top tier but they're pretty unique and fun and actually reasonably competitive.
2008 - Faeries: I think this deck really belongs in Block Party (any block constructed deck from any block) since it's mostly Lorwyn block, but it does gain a couple cards like Ancestral Vision. It shows up in the format every now and then, has been pretty average so far - it really can't hold against the fastest aggro decks and also seems to lose the battle against top control ones, but it does win sometimes as well. I'd definitely not run Terror main, it may have made sense in the 2008 Standard's meta, but I don't like it in HS at all.
2014 - UW Control: This is probably the most played control deck in the format, I have to say that... it's one of the most boring decks I know! It gets run over by the fastest aggro decks in HS, which are *very* fast - Affinity, Goblins, tempest-urza sui black, Jund. But, against stuff that's not super fast, it manages to stabilize and start gaining card advantage, and also has an advantage in that it induces mistakes by getting the opponent to fall asleep.
Sorry for not quoting, would probably become more readable but I wanted to avoid a wall of text! Hopefully more people will share their views as well!
Edit: some fixes
About Slide: the GW version won the 2004 World Championship, against Affinity, which is easily a top aggro deck in Historic Standard, while RW versions like the one previously linked are known to be strong against Goblins, also a top aggro deck. So I think it's a major favourite against pretty much every creature based deck, but against other control decks or combo, because it dedicates so many cards to creature removal, it can definitely struggle. I mostly played Slide in Onslaught block constructed, so I'm not sure to what extent Standard lists can be tweaked to have better matchups vs. control/combo. I think it tends to be a favourite against pretty much any aggro deck, but should have bad matchups against the top control and combo ones.
My suggestion is, if you're going to spend money on this, why not pick one of the free apps, either Cockatrice or Xmage, and test how it performs first?
Looks like I found a problem in the 1st Standard's implementation, and Feyd_Ruin caught another one in 6th Standard. It would be really nice if the people who originally figured out the format would show up and verify if everything is really correct. Maybe the topic was inactive for so long that they've stopped checking on it, perhaps if someone knows Tinfoil_Hat they could try to tell him that the topic is active again?
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
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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!
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.
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!
Edit: fixing card links