Magic: The Gathering C/D

okay tonight's my first night actually drafting rtr
please organize all the wisdom so far and present it to me

figure out ASAP whether a single guild is open, especially selesnya or rakdos since they have the most powerful linear strategies and benefit the most from sticking to 2 color. if no single guild is wide open just take the best cards you see and enough mana fixing to tie them together into a deck.

one thing i learned last night is that figuring out how high people are going to draft the guildgates and transguild promenade is tough and can really make or break your draft - i was taking them early and then ended up wheeling more of them instead of playable spells. i think it's correct to pick them high if your deck isn't really linear but new folks who haven't drafted a multicolor set before can skew things a lot.

how many gates/promenade should a 3 color deck aim for? is 3 color screwed w/o mana fixing?

4 color ever worth it? let's say p1p1 and p2p1 are bombs w/ 4 different colors in total

Did one yesterday, took first with GB/W. Maybe the packs opened were weak but it didn't seem like there were any two-color decks that did well. Like, if you want to draft just one guild, I feel like that guild has to be pretty open. Then again, I've only done this once. I think having a 'main' guild and one back-up guild is nice. Also, like the original Rav block, fix color fixers early if you're doing three colors.

This way, you have a base color, and can draft accordingly:

Primary: White Secondary: Blue and Green
Primary: Blue Secondary: White and Red
Primary: Black Secondary: Red and Green
Primary: Red Secondary: Black and Blue
Primary: Green Secondary: White and Black

Anyway the point of all this is that when you do a solid 3-color split, value cards of your "primary" color higher. For example with G/W/B I was running 8 Forests, one B/G Gate, 4 Swamps, and 4 Plains. First off, you want more Gates/promenades than that. Secondly, I had to do such a radical mana split because my deck simply wouldn't function without Green. Without White or Black, sure (and obviously I had games where I didn't draw one), but without Green, no way. So cards that were "mono-white" I tended to shy away from, unless they were high-mana (like Trostani's Judgement) or really good anyway (like Arrest). For example the 1WW 2/3 flyer isn't really playable unless your primary is White.

As far as which guild to draft, they seem pretty balanced at common, but I feel it all comes down to whatever bomb uncommons/rares come your way. Again, don't underestimate Frostburn Weird, outside of maybe Stab Wound he's my pick for favorite common in the set. Also, green has two color-fixing commons, which do work together (and can be deadly with the guildmages). The Vine (0/2 gatesearch for 1G) is excellent. Don't be afraid to draft him early.

i played 4 color last night, i had 5 guildgates, 2 gatecreeper vines, 1 axebane guardian. its totally worth it if you get enough powerful cards but i didn't really.

i think for straight up 3 color, having 3-4 gates/promenades is ideal. most of your 3 color decks are going to be more like 2.5 colors though, where the 3rd color is just removal and stuff later on the curve, in which case you can get away with 1-2 easy.

Also I do agree with cider, G/W and R/B are the most focused strategies and probably have the best plans for turns 1-4. Both blue guilds seem to focus more on the long game so you can definitely play three colors there. G/B splashes well with the other two guilds though make sure you don't scavenge on unleash creatures that didn't have the counter before because that does in fact screw you over :)

One final remark, the Daggerdrome Imp (1/1 flying lifelink) is kinda crap, but works very nicely with Scavenge

ha I didn't think about that

w/r/t unleash

oh yeah frostburn weird is the best non-removal common in the set, centaur healer and splatter thug probably 2nd and 3rd. these are important things to know imo since they're less obvious than the removal if you haven't played a bunch of games with/against them.

the removal seems mostly crappy this time around. is it still always high pick just cause it's removal? the 1RR lightning bolt esp tough if you're running 3 colors and red isn't your base, I would think.

the thing with Frostburn is that he buys you so much time, throwing a wrench into the early game plans of G/W and B/R, since they can both drop a lot of early 3-power creatures. he trades with nearly any creature you'll see if you have mana open and if he goes unblocked you can get him up to 4. really great value for a two-drop.

one card I'd be interested to try is Stealer of Secrets. seems like Azorius has so many ways to temporarily wipe out blockers. Not just all the detain stuff, but there is also Arrest and two commons that bounce creatures (the instant one is very good vs. populate)

nah its still fine unless your red is just a small splash. the 2 red burn spells, stab wound, auger spree, trostani's judgment are all high picks just for being good removal, even if they're awkward in various ways

also one card which is non-obviously insane is Thoughtflare. its not good in aggro and there might be a couple other uncommons that are better than it but if i'm midrange or control i'm going to windmill slam it almost every time, and will happily splash it as my only blue card

anyway if it wasnt obvious, this format seems pretty difficult - maybe not quite as difficult as 3x innistrad, but yeah don't be discouraged if your first few draft decks fail to do anything

haha on saturday i realized at the end of pack two i had 15 playables at a stretch and... 8 guildgates :/

stuff i have realized: goblin electromancer is really good but requires some work, unleash seems like it ends up overdrafted, blue slightly underdrafted, non-flying evasion is really important.

one thing I'm kinda realizing is that Golgari doesn't really have a whole lot of synergy. you can build up creatures but when you look at the commons it has there is little outside of the Imp that really WANTS those +1/+1 counters. I have a hunch that G/B is a trap unless it's part of a 3-color splash, but can't say for sure.z

yeah golgari is probably the weakest guild and is definitely the guild that most wants to be the lots of colors / ramp deck, the hard part is finding an endgame that actually goes over the top. big ground guys don't really do it.

I do like how Scavenge is built in card advantage, but the creatures are often trading down so it's not really a huge thing. It reminds me of M13 blue or AVR white, you can really do well with it if you get enough bomb-ass uncommons and rares - but many of them will be splashed by Rakdos and Selesnya players, so first-picking a Golgari Guildmage seems like it can really lead to an ineffective deck with a weak early game and a bad late game, with Guildmage functioning as your best card. That said it really worked well for me, but I think my deck was kind of a fluke.

on the contrary, i think the guildmage is the exact type of card you need but could have trouble getting - the golgari cards are interchangably good at generating board stalls but can't break them

What I'm saying is that the Guildmage is excellent but the deck as a whole is not going to be good without other power uncommons and rares, and you can't count on them coming to you. On the other hand you can build good Selesnya or Rakdos decks that use 18-20 commons. First picking the Guildmage can certainly pay off but I think you're also kinda likely to be first-picking a Drudge Beetle in pack 3, wondering how things went so wrong. Unless of course you splash red or white.

I think Golgari is going to have trouble coming up with 23 playables, that's all

Yeah, Scavenge is less impressive than I was expecting. The best thing I can say about it is that unlike the other guild mechanics, you don't have to actively use it for it to have an effect. Just having creatures with Scavenge in play will cause your opponent to think twice about killing them (similar to Undying).

I drafted G/W/B last week and mana fixing was definitely an issue. I came up with very few gates and found myself stalling out in the early game. I guess the flipside to that is to avoid overdrafting small multicolor cards. Maybe multicolor needs to be a bigger factor after the first bunch of turns.

The Green and Black Scavengers are both different; the Green ones are generally on the curve but have a higher scavenge cost, while the Black ones are under the curve but scavenge for much cheaper. The 5B 3/3 bug is kind of interesting scavenge for only 2BB is a good deal; with Grisly Savage you can essentially draw 2 (or more) cards for BG, the second being something like "2B: put two +1/+1 counters on a creature"

does detain actually make much of a difference in games?

yep, it plays pretty well

the detain guys are way more powerful when used as goblin shortcutters instead of for stalling

like you can just tempo your opponent out of the game completely with a well timed Justiciar

it's a great mechanic when you're racing, and the cards it appears on only add like a one-mana "surcharge" for it (besides Lyev Skynight which is insane)

Have yet to do a draft but the detain cards were all very good in my experience, even the 2/1 guy.

I'm playing in a PTQ this weekend and feel hopelessly unprepared. Is there an article that lists all of the combat tricks? I remember reading one for another set a while back.

Here are the ones you'll need to watch out for:

Populate stuff - not only can it make instant-speed blockers, but they're combat tricks as well. Rootborn Defenses and Trostani's Judgement can be blowouts. The fog isn't as good but note that it only prevents damage to players, making it a little better, as they can kill exploit blocking matchups.

Swift Justice - it's been talked up a bit on this thread, I'm coming around on it since it really does do a lot for a one-mana card. I think it's one of those Unsummon/Vapor Snag things, the lifegain is just enough to make it playable.

Chorus of Might - worth noting in games where you've landlocked your opponent and are winning with flyers, because there is a common that can give your opponent a giant trampler and if you don't block conservatively enough it could cost you games you should win

Giant Growth/Savage Surge - the Surge is a lot more dangerous, keep it in mind if your opponent is making "suspicious" attacks

Common Bond - instant-speed Travel Prep

Dramatic Rescue - nerfs populate if you only have one token; if your opponent has UW open, try to have at least two tokens out before you populate, if possible

Golgari Charm - particularly "regenerate all creatures you control" and "creatures all get -1/-1"

Hussar Patrol - 2/4, 2UW, Vigilance, Flash. easy to walk into

Any others I'm missing..?

Cool, thanks for the primer. I keep forgetting that Giant Growth is in the set, feel like it's been a while since it was in a non-core set.

It can be deadly. One game I got attacked by a Centaur token, played Auger Spree on it to kill it, then he Giant Growthed it, turning it into a 10/2 which I had to eat. The lesson is, maybe play Auger Spree on your own turn vs. green.

my draft went okay last night, I went 1-2, 2-1, bye and got screwed w/ the placing, but I pulled isperia in my p2 while already drafting the colors.

phantom general is a fun little draft archetype. it's surprisingly good, especially cuz you can get stuff like seller of songbirds and eyes in the skies pretty frequently. i wonder if while everyone is falling over themselves chasing 3/3 centaur tokens, 1/1 birds can be had for a song. i played a draft on cockatrice just now, picked 4 sellers of songbirds, didn't see my collective blessing once, and still steamrolled it. the only game i lost was the one where i didn't see the phantom general.

also, rootborn defenses is really, really good. it's never been anything less than a 2 for 1 for me.

Nearly top 8'd at the PTQ on Saturday but got absolutely crushed in my last round, even with what I thought was an awesome starting hand game 1. 2 Splatter Thug, Izzet Charm, the 5 mana damage spell, 2 mountain, 1 island on the play - I'd bet on that hand to win most of the time. However, it loses to my opponent playing turn 4 Detention Sphere. :-/

Meant the 6 mana for 5 damage spell.

kinda surprised that packs of RTR are going for only 3.47 on MTGO right now. lots of money rares plus really high demand for draft

there's just so many people playing this set, it's shattered MTGO records so far. with so much supply i can't imagine the cards will be worth much until the 'best decks' for standard get established

thats kind of what i envisioned a month down the line but not right now!
I mean M13 boosters are only like 20 cents cheaper

for a late draft pick Traitorous Instinct is a hell of a beating. Turn 2 3/2 unleash, turn 3 3/4 unleash, turn 4 Instinct their blocker, whoompo

I've still only drafted rtr once cause I had to miss my normal draft / can't do fridays

are you guys liking it more or less than m13 overall?

it's more fun than m13, though also much more difficult.

I've noticed in the last couple drafts I've done that selesnya is pretty wide open, people don't seem to be drafting it. There's much more demand for izzet, Rakdos and azorius. Are you seeing the same?

Makes me think that I should just force selesnya next time instead of splitting all the Rakdos cards with folks. Does this make sense as a strategy?

i havent seen that at all - selesnya is the strongest guild so if anything people here have been overdrafting it. i guess the people at your gamestore haven't figured this out yet.

maybe its just variance. i've gotten forced into Rakdos a lot and it's worked really well. IMO Selesnya and Rakdos are the two best, Izzet and Golgari the two worst (though it's easy to splash the power cards). Azorius is somewhere in between. What it comes down to is that Selesnya and Rakdos have the best plans for turns 1-4 and are capable of starts that just overwhelm the opponent, whereas Azorius is a lot more reactive, Izzet really only plays a long game, and Golgari is too slow.

izzet only really plays a long game

oh yeah. i admit i haven't done much with Izzet, just that the cards seem to be slower. i think i've only made one 'core' Izzet deck which really just tried to build advantages over time and got crushed by faster decks (unless you get Frostburn Weird early)

that said I'm looking at Stealer of Secrets as a great late-pickup in both Izzet and Azorius. Izzet can cast a Fire/Charm/Traitourous Instinct to clear the way and Azorius has lots of detain stuff to clear blockers.

- i'm an izzet fan insofar as it pairs nicely with azorius and rakdos. the key, of course, is stealer of secrets. if you aren't running at least 2 of those izzet is probably not the guild to play, but if you can consistently get one of them out you are in a god situation.

- goblin electromancer is also good, and works really nicely with key izzet cards like traitorous/inspiration/inaction etc. the izzet creature base isn't bad either considering you have all the nice red unleash guys to pick from.

- people don't seem to realize yet how vital centaur's herald is to selesnya decks. at my draft last night i saw them tabling.

- pack rat is the best limited card i know. it's pretty much unbeatable. it works a little bit better in golgari decks with grisly salvage, stall tactics, etc, but is worth switching colors pack 3 to play. there is no reason to EVER pass this up.

- pack rat is the best limited card i know. it's pretty much unbeatable. it works a little bit better in golgari decks with grisly salvage, stall tactics, etc, but is worth switching colors pack 3 to play. there is no reason to EVER pass this up.

https://twitter.com/Juzam_/status/259715165707194368

on another note, sphere of safety is the most hardcore lockdown card in multiples (which is easy). if you get 2 out, each creature has to pay 4 to attack you, and that's not even considering any other enchantments you can play. i almost lost against this nice little combo yesterday, but managed to stab wound other d00d to death.