Rav drafting thoughts

[Margalis]

Well in my first draft I took second. Played GBU, in the finals I played against an insane deck that had Moroii, Drooling Grozoth, Moldervine Cloak, Putrefy, and a couple of other great cards. I also had a Moroii and and a Moldervine Cloak. First 2 games were decided by mana screw, third game he just rolled over me. His mana base was really shaky though, in game 2 he had 5 lands in play and couldn't play a single card (Splashed white as well for a 4 color deck)

Anyway I wrote up my drafting "cheat sheet". It lists what commons and uncommons to look out for. I'm sure this will change as I play more. I listed them in Red - Boros - White - Selesnya - Green - Golgari - Black - Dimir - Blue order. Because there are some gold cards and such and also some cards like Ribbons of Night that are much better when plyed with guild colors even thought they don't have to be.


Question: How important are mana fixes, bounce lands, etc? A bounce land is better than a mediocre creature. More mana

potency (moer mana per card) and fixer as well.


Red:
Galvanic arc - removal + first strike is nice
Viashina fangtail - 3/3 for 4 with pinging
Fiery conclusion - removal
---
War torch goblin - annoying to deal with
Dogpile - good finisher in aggro or token deck

Uncommons:
Frenzied goblin - annoying in aggro deck
Greater forgling - attack and if blocked only pump if you need to kill blocker with high toughness
indentured oaf - red is edge color so pretty playable, efficient
cleansing beam - good in most matchups


Boros:
Thundersong trumpeter - poor man's master decoy
Boros fury-shield - save a guy and do some damage.
Skyknight Legionare - good in aggro deck
Rally the reightous - good defensive trick or alpha strike

Uncommons:
Guildmage
flamekin-zealot - nice finisher for aggro deck
sunhome enforcer - more stall oriented
lightning helix
Sunhome Fortress


White:
Faiths fetters
Veteran armorer
Conclave Equanaut
Screeching Griffon

Uncommons -
auratouched mage
divebomber griffon
devouring light
bathe in light
oathsworn giant


Selesnya:
Guardian of Vitu-ghazi - good if you can convoke
scatter the seeds - convoke enabler
Selesny Evangel
Seeds of strength

uncommons;
guildmage
watchwolf
Congregation at dawn? (no experience with it could be great)
Vhitu-Gazi City tree


Green:
Seige Wurm
Wayfinder - mana fixing
farseek - ditto
Bramble elemental - begging for fists of ironwood
Elvish Skysweeper - useful one drop
Greater Mossdog - nice and annoying

Uncommons:
Moldervine Cloak
Carven Caryatid
Overwhelm
Trophy HUnter


Golgari:
Golgari Rotwurm
Shambling Shell
Gaze of the gorgon
Elves of deep shadow - useful enablers

Uncommons:
putrefy
Vigor mortis
drooling groodion
guildmage


Black:
Stinkweed Imp
Last Gasp
---
Sewer Dreg
Brainspoil
Disembowel
Dimir House Guard

Uncommons:
Keening Banshee
Mausoleum Turnkey
Nightmare Void
Dark Blast


Dimir:
Nothing amazing here but watch for transmute cards for stuff you have

Uncommons:
Moroii
guildmage
Ribbons of night


Blue:
Compulsive research
Snapping Drake
Peel from reality
Stasic Cell
Terraformer - mana fixer

Uncommons -
Mark of eviction
Halcyon Gaze - good in high creature deck
Telling time



Notes on the guilds and colors:

Boros:
Can be played control with high defense guys, the uncommon who heals when dealt damage, etc. In that case probably good to pair with Selesnya as you stall while creating tokens and such. Played aggressively probably best to pair with straight black for removal or else just play pure Boros. The aggro-Boros wants to play some small drops, a Thundersong Trumpter, and finish with a dogpile, FlameKin zealot, etc.

Selesnya:
The meat of this deck is Seige Wurms and other convokers plus some tokens to allow for convoking. Throw in Golgari to sac tokens for various effects, or red for a dogpile. Overwhelm is probably the single best card for a token-based deck. Moldervine cloak is always good as well, just keep throwing it on tokens and sending them in.

Golgari:
This guild has some power at both common and uncommon. Rotwurm is very nice (especially with tokens, gaze of the gorgon and shambling shell are both solid. Uncommons are insane. Putrefy, Vigor Mortis, Drooling Groodion (especially with tokens) and guildmage are all great. Beware of overdrafting though.

Dimir
Really hurt by the fact that the mill-based cards don't really work well with non-mill cards. The Dimir uncommons are all solid, but the common Dimir cards are all pretty bad unless they can transmute into something useful. If you go blue/black as your primary colors it will be tough as blue doesn't really pull it's weight. May be better to play light blue for some draw and sifting and a couple of flyers. (Blue is pretty thin in flyers this time around though) Or have some balls and try to draft a mill deck.

[eldaec]

A few things I'd add.

 - Expect to be drafting 3 colours. The colour fixing stops it being a problem.

 - Dimir and blue are currently underdrafted; so are the signets and common lands.

 - Blue - red seems the most viable of the non-guild pairs.

And a few more commons to look for...

Stone-seeder Hierophant (2GG) 1/1.   t: untap target land. untap whenever a land comes into play under your control.
In effect gives you 1 mana + 1 mana per land that goes into play, all doubled if you have a common dual in play (so on a typical turn with a common dual in play you are getting 4 additional mana).

Mortipede (3B) 4/1.   3g: all creatures that can do so block this.
Lure, as ever, rocks.

Velkaden Entrancer (3u) 1/4.   ut: target player mills 2
Core of the mill deck.

Convolute (2u).   Counter target spell unless controller pays 4
Mana Leak, only it costs 1 more but works several turns later in the game.

[Johny Cee]

Golgari Brownscale (1GG; 2/3; dredge 2 or 3, gain 2 life when you return him to your hand from your graveyard) Great, great creature.

I think Seeds of Strength (can give creature/s a +1/+1) is very,very good as well.  Much better than Giant Growth ever was.  A few times now,  I've used it to change a situation from "three of my creatures wipe" to "kill two or three of his creatures".

Moldervine cloak is amazing.  Probably should be drafted over the rare,  unless the rare is gangbusters.

Golgari Thug is actually pretty decent, in the right build.  It lets you recur creatures without dredge,  or with an insane dredge cost.  Important if your creatures have nice abilities. (For example,  I basically wiped my board and most of my hand killing a Sisters of the Stone Death.  My opponent drops Golgari Thug next turn.  I can't attack him without seeing Sisters again next turn.)

The Vedalken Entrancer/Tidewater Minion combo is fairly effective at milling in a blue/black deck.  Especially backed up by lots of stall and creature kill.

[Raging Turtle]

Thanks for posting your cheat sheet.  I'm not even close to having this set figured out. 

Anyone up for a private Ravnica draft sometime soon?  Say..... Tuesday? 

[Margalis]

Stone Seeder is very nice if you have bounce lands. If you have a land in hand you can cast Sisters of Stone death with 2 lands in play if one is a tap land! (tap for 3, tap stone seeder to untap bounce land, tap for 5 total play land and tap it for 6, untap bounce land with untapped stone seeder and retap for 8 )

I do that in my league deck. Nothing like having 4 lands in play and Sisters comes out. As a 4/4 for 1 though really only good if you need tons of mana for huge spells or guildmage effects.

Golgari thug is nice. I played a draft deck with thug, woebringer demon, sisters and the WG uncommon spell that allows you to put 3 creature on top of libary. (I'm still not quite sure about this spell but if you have some bomb or utility creatures in your deck it can be well worth it) I put sisters and thug on top. Then I got milled with the mill X, gain X life spell. Next turn I get back thug, sac it to evlish skysweeper, here comes sisters. They get killed somehow, next turn get thug back again, sac to skysweepers again, here come sisters again! Gogari thug really shines if you have a way to sac him, like Rotwurm, Thoughtpicker, Skysweeper, etc.

I didn't put any mill cards in my list, I figure you I know what to look for when going for mill.

Moldervine coak IS amazing. Mix with other dredge cards so you can fill up your graveyard then hunt around for cloak or whatever else you need.

Brownscale hasn't done a lot for me. If he was 3/2 he would be 100x better. I'd rather be drawing for a bomb than recurring a 2/3 guy most of the time. Although he is good if you are ahead with some flyers or whatever and looking to stall.

I think blue/red is viable because blue and red are both edge colors (only part of 1 guild) so they tend to be underdrafted. I see a lot of good red and blue go by so far.

[Raging Turtle]

Bye bye good rating

[Margalis]

Argh my rating is back under 1600 now.

Nothing is more frustrating than your opponent having more good stuff on the board than you saw the entire draft. Actually there is...the guy starting with the exact same hand both games.

Game 1 he has Birds of Paradise out, turn 2 the guy you can sac to add +1/+1 (with dredge), turn 3 he casts Strands of Undeath on him. EXACT SAME THING game 2! Meanwhile I'm also getting the same hand both games - which is crap. I think literally 5 of my 7 starting cards were the same and his must have been as well. Very frustrating. Meanwhile my good cards like Oathsworn Giant, Seige Wurm, etc are just hiding out, along with the card that lets you tutor for 3 creatures and put them on your deck.

It's funny because when I made my deck I was afraid I would have too many fatties in it that I couldn't cast. I didn't end up seeing any of them in either game. Just one of those days I guess.

I also lost with a mill deck but I'm not upset with that because it was an experiment. MIll seems pretty viable. Mine didn't do so well but it wasn't constructed very well either.