Obviously it depends on your card pool, but which guild do you think will perform the best at the Prerelease, and why? I am guessing Boros with a blending of Selesnya cards will be played the most, and I think Boros will be the guild people play the most because they are most suited towards limited play. In addition, which Guild will you personally be playing? I know people play a couple prerelease events, but which Guild is your first pick?
After doing quite a bit of limited practice so far, I think golgari splash blue for card filtering or white for fliers will likely be best. Rhizome Lurcher is just insane at common almost always hitting as at least a 6/6 for 4 if not bigger. There are 2 common deathtouchers along with the 3 Mana 1/2 cat that draws a card etb and the 1/2 rat that make opponent discard etb. The latter two both give you really easy ways to enable undergrowth while not really losing card advantage and the deathtouchers can trade up easily even on fliers with prey upon. The 4 Mana fight with deathtouch card is also very good for hitting almost everything.
Both Golgari and Boros will probably be the most played (not necessarily best) in the Prerelease. Golgari not only for the obvious reason, but because it seems to rely less on synergy and more in powerful standalone cards, which is always a good strategy for a new format. As for Boros, it's definitely the easiest one to build, and seems overall quite strong.
I'll be going Izzet, 'cuz it does seems pretty strong, but as per usual in UR, it's always easy to mess up your spells/creatures ratio, either by poor deckbuilding or just getting bad packs.
I'm no experted on limited but it seems Golgari is a really safe pick. Black and especially black green have a lot of removal tools at their disposal as well as big finishers. The best finishers might be the blue fliers but a blue splash in a golgari deck is probably easier to do than a green splash in a Dimir one. The early G/B cards seem more impactul than the U/B ones.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong but Vraska's one of the possible promos for the Golgari seeded pack, right?
Dimir seems strong, but Selesnya can go big quickly with Convoke. Don't know for Boros and Golgari seems the worse, except you have access to black removal. Izzet would seem rather powerful if you can set up the spell matters theme with the defender creatures and Faerie Aeronauts etc.
I would pick Boros if I would choose the best, but I need some cards from the Selesnya pack (Knight of Autumn and Assure // Assemble) so I'm picking Selesnya.
From youtube videos all selesnya guild packs had Siege Wurm imo that is the best pack, cause one garanteed bomb is always nice. (and wurm is common soo u could get more).
The guild gates at common are pretty good too. If i had to pick a seccond best it would be Izzet cause u can have acess to dimir and boros removal pretty easy.
So I believe very strongly that Selesnya is going to be your best bet if you want to almost always have a solid pool to build from. My reasoning is this:
Most of selesnya's pool involve cards that are independently good. This means that if your board is being controlled, each creature you have in your arsenal will likely have a bigger impact than something like golgari which rely on creatures in your graveyard, or mentor which requires you to have a board state established. Additionally, this guild has several very reliable bombs that are extremely difficult to deal with that can be relevant in bot mid game and end game such as the convoke 7/5 hexproof. Lastly, bot green and white have solid contending guilds, which make splashing in another color to make up for what you are missing, very doable. Dimir boxes that splash izzet will struggle with the aggro of boris and the sheer numbers of selesnya and dimir splashing green will likely have a pretty split time as the mechanics play beautifully with each other, but then you have to rely on two of the largest card pools in the set, which means you have to deal with a solid possibility of getting nothing of real use outside of your seeded pack.
To support my stance the top 5 in our 50-man event last night had 3 selesnya, 1 boris, and 1 dimir. Both boris and dimir splashed colors... selesnya all went full guild.
I largely agree with both Avatar and TheInternets. I think Selesnya has the deepest pool of "decent cards," but Dimir and Izzet have more potential to be insane. I think Boros is just "okay" and probably better in draft. Golgari just doesn't seem well supported, and I think it's solidly the worst guild for prerelease, whatever the order of the others.
My experience is limited to two Magic Arena sealed events, 7-2 and 7-0 (I was fortunate enough to pull Niv Mizzet in both, and largely rode him to victory with Jeskai and Izzet decks respectively. I will say that Izzet is stronger than it looks.
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Trolljutai, YOLOghan, Swagumgar, Bromoka, and Derptarka, the Elder Dragons.
I went Selesnya and got pummeled by Dimir and Izzet-themed decks.
Boros steamrolls over Dimir from what I witnessed today. I think it largely depends on what your promo card is. Mine was Dawn of Hope but it only saw the battlefield like twice.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Boros is stupid strong. Having Mentor enablers and cheap token access (I drew 3 of Sworn Companions plus 8 mentor enablers including Tajic, Legion's Edge and Light of the Legion ). I went 3-1 and only lost 2 games in round 2 vs flooding. Could have easily went 4-0.
Yep, Boros was rocking. The common mentor were really scary really... The ones with Tajic where really scary, up to 9 damage on turn 3... that was almost b*llc*** would have liked some more commum mentors with cmc4+
If boros is on the play and perform the "snowball" theres little that stops it, unless the opponent also has a curve of removal that fits right the creature you present.
If dimir and friends want to have a reasonable defense they badly need the 1 drop deathtouch to at least throw them in the way as a removal.
However, if Boros has any rares it becomes just crazy as they can win so quickly in sealed.
----
Selesnya can fairly easily splash for red and reap the rewards of the good Boros cards almost equally (as they tend to cost only 1 red mana anyway, so a guild gate alone does the trick).
A stream of 4/4 and bigger creatures is also very difficult to deal with for Dimir, as they simply dont have that kind of sizes and need removal against them all the time.
(In the Prerelease my Dimir opponents could at some point draw lots and lots of cards each turn, but they all struggled to get any reasonable presence of creatures on the board and when you cant kill attackers with your blockers, they just become bigger and bigger due to mentor)
----
In draft however a lot changes, as the best red mentor creatures are equally good for Izzet and the white mentor work for Selesnya too, so putting together a strong Boros deck is much more difficult (especially as the green guilds can splash red or white quite easily and steal the removal and bomb rares).
Izzet seems much better in draft as so many cards are really only good in a dedicated Izzet deck that the other guilds can almost not use at all, so you get a lot more cards and not fight for them (especially the Izzet rares have crazy color commitments, so you really have to be Izzet to play them at all).
I have chosen Dimir as my kit, as I felt that Dimir is the least dependent on making your deck around the mechanic. You just use surveil for filtering and get to your good stuff.
The problem was...I have got REALLY bad kit. No bombs in my colors, no good stuff to get to. 2-3 removals (Price of Fame and something else), Ritual of Soot. Two Boros rares - Foundry and Tajic. For another rare, Mausoleum Secrets that had nothing relevant to tutor for.
No Artful Takedown, no Deadly Visits, heck, not even Disdainful Stroke or Sinister Sabotages.
From multicolored cards, I got about 11 BG cards, compared to 2-4 from any other combination.
(My friend, who took the last Golgari pack, got Hatchery Spider as promo, another in pool, foil Charnel Troll and Doom Whisperer. Well, it has to compensate somewhere. He went 4-1, losing only to an insane Boros mentor deck)
I made a BUg that I transformed into BuG after second round. To add insult to injury, I played all five rounds against the same colored decks (once just pure UB with a crapload of counters and removal), not even seeing other guilds in action. The games were painful to play. I managed to win twice, but it was a torture. The other decks usually even have both counters and removal I lacked.
Basically, every time it came to the point where the other deck showed me their bomb (Vraska, Nullhide Ferox, etc.) and then it ended quickly.
From what I have seen, Dimir was the most demanded guild, followed by Golgari. Izzet was the least.
From what I saw Selesnya and Boros were the top guilds.
I chose Golgari and got a good pool and still lost to them. The problem against Selesnya is that Golgari mostly goes 1-for-1 except for a few key cards. Especially the removal is 1-for-1. Meanwhile, Selesnya goes wide. Some of it's cards are just unfair on that front, for example the 4/4 centaur that creates two 2/2. Add to that the convoke combat tricks to blow you out, and the guild just hums.
Boros is mostly dependent on curving out. I lost one game to my opp having 3 3/3 attacking on turn 4 on the play, with combat tricks and removal backup. Then I won on the play. Then I lost to the 6-damage to the dome finishing spell in the 3rd game. Giving such reach to Boros will be a design mistake for limited, in the long run, IMO.
My un-MVP was clearly ritual of soot. Too many of your own card get hit by it, and not playing early threat is just too dangerous. Even against Selesnya it's not that great because they have many tokens but their bombs start at CMC 4. That card is just a trap in limited. Not once did I cast it when I drew it. (Well, once i'd have stabilized against Selesnya, but they played trostani the turn before I was goingn to fired it off to deal me lethal. Seems an army of 2/2 is stronger than an army of 1/1. Who could have known?)
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I'll be going Izzet, 'cuz it does seems pretty strong, but as per usual in UR, it's always easy to mess up your spells/creatures ratio, either by poor deckbuilding or just getting bad packs.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong but Vraska's one of the possible promos for the Golgari seeded pack, right?
I'm sure you can think of something by yourself.
My choice would be then:
Dimir
Izzet
Selesnya
Boros
Golgari
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The guild gates at common are pretty good too. If i had to pick a seccond best it would be Izzet cause u can have acess to dimir and boros removal pretty easy.
Most of selesnya's pool involve cards that are independently good. This means that if your board is being controlled, each creature you have in your arsenal will likely have a bigger impact than something like golgari which rely on creatures in your graveyard, or mentor which requires you to have a board state established. Additionally, this guild has several very reliable bombs that are extremely difficult to deal with that can be relevant in bot mid game and end game such as the convoke 7/5 hexproof. Lastly, bot green and white have solid contending guilds, which make splashing in another color to make up for what you are missing, very doable. Dimir boxes that splash izzet will struggle with the aggro of boris and the sheer numbers of selesnya and dimir splashing green will likely have a pretty split time as the mechanics play beautifully with each other, but then you have to rely on two of the largest card pools in the set, which means you have to deal with a solid possibility of getting nothing of real use outside of your seeded pack.
To support my stance the top 5 in our 50-man event last night had 3 selesnya, 1 boris, and 1 dimir. Both boris and dimir splashed colors... selesnya all went full guild.
My experience is limited to two Magic Arena sealed events, 7-2 and 7-0 (I was fortunate enough to pull Niv Mizzet in both, and largely rode him to victory with Jeskai and Izzet decks respectively. I will say that Izzet is stronger than it looks.
Boros steamrolls over Dimir from what I witnessed today. I think it largely depends on what your promo card is. Mine was Dawn of Hope but it only saw the battlefield like twice.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
If dimir and friends want to have a reasonable defense they badly need the 1 drop deathtouch to at least throw them in the way as a removal.
However, if Boros has any rares it becomes just crazy as they can win so quickly in sealed.
----
Selesnya can fairly easily splash for red and reap the rewards of the good Boros cards almost equally (as they tend to cost only 1 red mana anyway, so a guild gate alone does the trick).
A stream of 4/4 and bigger creatures is also very difficult to deal with for Dimir, as they simply dont have that kind of sizes and need removal against them all the time.
(In the Prerelease my Dimir opponents could at some point draw lots and lots of cards each turn, but they all struggled to get any reasonable presence of creatures on the board and when you cant kill attackers with your blockers, they just become bigger and bigger due to mentor)
----
In draft however a lot changes, as the best red mentor creatures are equally good for Izzet and the white mentor work for Selesnya too, so putting together a strong Boros deck is much more difficult (especially as the green guilds can splash red or white quite easily and steal the removal and bomb rares).
Izzet seems much better in draft as so many cards are really only good in a dedicated Izzet deck that the other guilds can almost not use at all, so you get a lot more cards and not fight for them (especially the Izzet rares have crazy color commitments, so you really have to be Izzet to play them at all).
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The problem was...I have got REALLY bad kit. No bombs in my colors, no good stuff to get to. 2-3 removals (Price of Fame and something else), Ritual of Soot. Two Boros rares - Foundry and Tajic. For another rare, Mausoleum Secrets that had nothing relevant to tutor for.
No Artful Takedown, no Deadly Visits, heck, not even Disdainful Stroke or Sinister Sabotages.
From multicolored cards, I got about 11 BG cards, compared to 2-4 from any other combination.
(My friend, who took the last Golgari pack, got Hatchery Spider as promo, another in pool, foil Charnel Troll and Doom Whisperer. Well, it has to compensate somewhere. He went 4-1, losing only to an insane Boros mentor deck)
I made a BUg that I transformed into BuG after second round. To add insult to injury, I played all five rounds against the same colored decks (once just pure UB with a crapload of counters and removal), not even seeing other guilds in action. The games were painful to play. I managed to win twice, but it was a torture. The other decks usually even have both counters and removal I lacked.
Basically, every time it came to the point where the other deck showed me their bomb (Vraska, Nullhide Ferox, etc.) and then it ended quickly.
From what I have seen, Dimir was the most demanded guild, followed by Golgari. Izzet was the least.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I chose Golgari and got a good pool and still lost to them. The problem against Selesnya is that Golgari mostly goes 1-for-1 except for a few key cards. Especially the removal is 1-for-1. Meanwhile, Selesnya goes wide. Some of it's cards are just unfair on that front, for example the 4/4 centaur that creates two 2/2. Add to that the convoke combat tricks to blow you out, and the guild just hums.
Boros is mostly dependent on curving out. I lost one game to my opp having 3 3/3 attacking on turn 4 on the play, with combat tricks and removal backup. Then I won on the play. Then I lost to the 6-damage to the dome finishing spell in the 3rd game. Giving such reach to Boros will be a design mistake for limited, in the long run, IMO.
My un-MVP was clearly ritual of soot. Too many of your own card get hit by it, and not playing early threat is just too dangerous. Even against Selesnya it's not that great because they have many tokens but their bombs start at CMC 4. That card is just a trap in limited. Not once did I cast it when I drew it. (Well, once i'd have stabilized against Selesnya, but they played trostani the turn before I was goingn to fired it off to deal me lethal. Seems an army of 2/2 is stronger than an army of 1/1. Who could have known?)
Golgari Gravedigger- Dredge w/ Jarad https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11297-golgari-gravedigger-dredge-w-jarad
Simic Rules- +1/+1 Counter Deck with Ramp: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11293-simic-rules-1-1-counter-deck-with-ramp
Vampire Tribal-Black/White Expensive Stuff: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11291-vampire-tribal-black-white-expensive-stuff
Elf Tribal- Ramp and Nissa: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11288-elf-tribal-ramp-and-nissa
White Weenies- Mono white Humans: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/10887-white-weenies-mono-white-humans
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝