Ravinica Draft

[Johny Cee]

Some comments were made in the Friday Night draft thread,  so wanted to get a new one going that was more relevant.

I did a release event at a local store last Sunday, format was 1 sealed deck and 2 boosters and build from that.  Went out 4-1,  and was robbed out of 2nd when the undefeated guy conceded to a friend allowing them to finish 1 and 2.  Still, 8 packs prize, foil Dimir Guildmage, and a life counter wasn't bad.

From my experience: 

You will be running 3 colors easily.  For mana fixing,  you have tons of options.  The new dual lands,  the common guild lands (pay 1, tap to produce 2 colored mana of whatever guild it is.  So:  Boros land,  pay 1 and tap, produce WR), and the common signets (pay 1, produces one each of the colored mana of the associated guild).  This leaves out traditional green colorfixing as well.

Green has a Farseek (like Rampant Growth, but can fetch the new dual lands), Birds, and a common or uncommon 2/2 for 3cc that you go find a land in library.

Dredge is FUCKING HUGE.  The best decks will have lots of dredge synergy.

Some really good removal in red.  Black is a little lighter on the removal this time, comparatively. 

Got a report from someone at the release who's been enjoying the Ravinica beta drafts, as well.

I think sealed/league formats will be really interesting in Ravinca.

[Jain Zar]

Ravnica is so dope I ordered a box of boosters from my comic shop.  That's how good it is.
I was doing really well with a precon deck tweaked with cards from a fat pack today.  A little tweaking, some more cards,
and some trades with the harcore players who REALLY want certain cards for tourney play (the come in tapped or pay 2 life
untapped duals are gonna be HUGE.  A foil Blue Black of these?  Already going for 75 ish in the right (crazy) circles, 25 more
realistically.) and I will be doing some damage.

Black Green is SICK.  In fact every Ravnica built deck I have seen so far has been a BG, though 1 kid was working on a BB.

Dual color decks are now VERY playable, and tricolors are now doable.  Ironically single colors finally get hosed.  Too many cards
have destroy all targets with same color as target card on it.  Or howabout a Dark Banishing for 1 B 1 G 1Colorless that buries any
target creature or artifact with no regeneration allowed?  Oh fuck yes.

I have NEVER bought a booster box in 12 years of playing Magic.  Ravnica is so good I finally broke that streak.

[Johny Cee]

Ravnica is so dope I ordered a box of boosters from my comic shop.  That's how good it is.
I was doing really well with a precon deck tweaked with cards from a fat pack today.  A little tweaking, some more cards,
and some trades with the harcore players who REALLY want certain cards for tourney play (the come in tapped or pay 2 life
untapped duals are gonna be HUGE.  A foil Blue Black of these?  Already going for 75 ish in the right (crazy) circles, 25 more
realistically.) and I will be doing some damage.

Black Green is SICK.  In fact every Ravnica built deck I have seen so far has been a BG, though 1 kid was working on a BB.

Dual color decks are now VERY playable, and tricolors are now doable.  Ironically single colors finally get hosed.  Too many cards
have destroy all targets with same color as target card on it.  Or howabout a Dark Banishing for 1 B 1 G 1Colorless that buries any
target creature or artifact with no regeneration allowed?  Oh fuck yes.

I have NEVER bought a booster box in 12 years of playing Magic.  Ravnica is so good I finally broke that streak.

B/G is solid, through and through.  The other factor in it's popularity is that you can substitue commons/uncommons for chase rares and still have a pretty decent deck.  The Elves of Deep Shadow for Birds of Paradise, for instance.

The other deck that's going to get played alot is WW/r.  Essentially, white weenie with lightning helix and Char (4 damage to target, 2 damage to yourself), maybe a volcanic hammer.

I'm working on either Neorift (lifegain + burn through Searing Meditation) or W/R control (less lifegain, more reliance on board clearers and wildfire,  with a side of Hunted Dragon).  I see alot of potential in the 9th and Ravinica White and Red.

Lots of pretty high quality uncommons and commons.  Moroii (4/4 flyer for 4, and a negligable upkeep?  YES.), Lightning Helix (the chase uncommon of the set), Consult the Necrosages (3cc, target player draws 2 cards or discards two cards, your choice), Shambling Shell (1GB; 3/1; sac to give a creature +1/+1; dredge 3), PUTRIFY (1GB, destroy target creature or artifact, no regenerate), etc.

Devouring Light is the best white targetted removal in a while, also. 

Still have a Reanimator built, and been playing around with it a bit.

[Margalis]

From what I hear BG is very good in draft, partly because B is also in UB and G also in WG. The problem with drafting something like WR is that R isn't in any other guilds. It means that if you try to go BG and someone else is drafting your guilds it's easier to switch colors or make due with lesser cards.

[Raging Turtle]

From what I hear BG is very good in draft, partly because B is also in UB and G also in WG. The problem with drafting something like WR is that R isn't in any other guilds. It means that if you try to go BG and someone else is drafting your guilds it's easier to switch colors or make due with lesser cards.

That could cut both ways.  Unless RW is solidly better than the other archetypes, there's a chance there may be only 1-3 red drafters at the table, improving your cardpool (except for burn which everyone plays) as everyone else grabs for the other colors.

Of course, I haven't done a single draft of Ravnica, and won't until it goes online. 

[Margalis]

Yeah, the thing about draft is that it is self-balancing, if one color or guild is really good then everyone drafts it while the odd men out get their pick of everything else. In the end what you really want to be drafting is the color/guild where the ratio of quality to popularity is high.

[Johny Cee]

From what I hear BG is very good in draft, partly because B is also in UB and G also in WG. The problem with drafting something like WR is that R isn't in any other guilds. It means that if you try to go BG and someone else is drafting your guilds it's easier to switch colors or make due with lesser cards.

It's balanced.  W is set up with both G and with R.  B is set up with both U and with G.

At the release,  if you had the action in B/G/U or in W/R/G you were golden.

[Johny Cee]

Well....

Had some experience with Ravinica Type 2 lately.

Lot of aggro.  White weenie is well represented,  with green (watchwolf, anti-jitte stuff) or red (helix,  Boros Swiftblade aka the double-striker).  Elf aggro decks,  with tons of elves and green pump.

Green/black is everywhere.  Putrify is great removal,  especially when combined with Plague-boiler to clear the board and hand disruption (Shortfang, Hypnotic Specter).  Grave-shell scarab is a badass.  So are Gleancrawler and Kokusho.

Some Gifts type decks.

I played a Reanimator build similar to what Schild and I worked on in Mirrodin/Kamigawa.  Ripped up people.

It's so nice to see Tooth and Mono blue Urzatron gone.  It may be enough to make Constructed fun-playable on MTGO.

[Margalis]

I've never found constructed very fun. Thankfully most of the Urza-builds are gone. Although the Urzatron itself is still around a lot of the helpful fetch and the targets for it are gone. (Tooth and Nail, we hardly knew ya!)

White weenie seems like it should still be strong, most white weenie didn't use much Mirrodin. Same with Rats and other non-control black decks.

To me red looks to be the hardest hit. Red lost the two best creatures it had by far. (Arc Slogger and Slith Firewalker) With the Slith out of the picture it really hurts any sort of red sligh or aggro of any sort.