Magic: The Gathering C/D

horncaller's chant actually seems... playable

man oh man do i fucking hate this draft format

haha why

i like that they actually stuck in a common that's a passable finisher in the ramp deck

it's also a fine sideboard card if your opponent is playing the x/4 walls deck

I'm bummed that they didn't include 1 or two more walls that could ensure that the walls deck was viable in every draft

i don't think they were trying to push it that much since they already did a walls deck in rise of the eldrazi which was just a couple years ago.

oh that makes sense

I have a limited perspective w/ recent sets

haha why

i never seemed to get very good at it before i got bored of it. like i started doing things like forcing b/w enchantments or psychic spiral or like mono civic saber (not an archetype it turns out) before i really had that great a handle on the format since i dont like the way the guilds warp and limit draft strategies and most of the guild-based archetypes are really terrible and unfun. also i just kinda dont like most of the non-rares and was never excited to open packs the way i was in even avacyn when itd be like 'sweet kruin stirker' or w/e rtr just feels like 'shock for value?' because none of the commons or uncommons are that good.

also i hate losing and was barely above 50% in rtr drafts when i quit

not saying I could convince you otherwise but I pretty much disagree with every single part of that

I guess we could concede that most draft strategies are guild-centric, but there are multiple ways that each guild can play out. I guess the thing I'm wondering is what exactly is unfun about those strategies? Are they just too predictable?

And yes, the part about no good commons or uncommons is pure challops

guildmages 4 example

@frogs sure, and even the stuff i think is more objectively true in my critique can still seem like a virtue depending on your own reaction to the set. its a very fluid and difficult and interesting set to draft, card evaluation seems to me to be heavily contextual which is good!

i think the fact that this has been a challenging set to draft has made it less interesting to draft in some ways? because the value of most cards fluctuates widely enough to make it difficult to really establish a consistent pick order i felt like ppl on mtgo ended up really trying to force the 'proven' good archetypes like populate and fast rakdos. which meant that the best counter strategy was first a tempo izzet build and then, as people started to actually take frostburn wierds, a midrange golgari one. like the more linear and archetype-driven other drafters are the more it narrows your own best draft strategy?

idk the guildmages suck, theyre powerful but not exciting to me. but thats just my own reaction to the cards. i think there are more polarized cards in this set than im used to tho

To me that's what makes a good and interesting format. Being high on Frostburn Weird since day 1 has led to a lot of my early success on RTR and then learning how to play Golgari when nobody would take it is what's getting me by now. Formats where there is a consistant pick order are the ones that get dull in my opinion.

I had similar thoughts to Lamp about Shadowmoor, which was a very fluid set, and one I didn't like drafting. IIRC a lot of people defaulted to one-color decks because it was easy and consistent, myself included (also there was a cycle that rewarded it). Playing two colors was a head trip because you could play about 50% of the set (!) but had to carefully balance power vs. having a decent manabase. Haven't felt that way about RtR though, something about it is easier to get my head around.

signal reading seems paramount w/ the guild distribution and so I think the set rewards good drafting more than luck

but I have been winning a lot so I would think that

I think it also punishes you for forcing a guild.

I honestly think there are very few commons and uncommons in this set that can't find a viable slot in one of the major limited archetypes. Percentage-wise, there are probably more rares that I'd pass on because they are either too situational or too complex to provide any dependable value.

As far as guildmages go, the azorius, izzet, and rakdos ones are all pretty powerful, selesnya is ok, and the golgari one is the weakest because it doesn't synergize well with a golgari strategy.

i don't think this set is nearly as difficult as innistrad, which i found difficult to the point of frustration for the first 30-40 drafts. that set really heralded the limited game's shift from card advantage strategies to board advantage ones and for an old player returning to the game it was hard to grasp. M13 was more 'old-fashioned' in regard to this spectrum and unsurprisingly i did a lot better with it.

i think there's a reasonable balance in RTR between the linear 2-color guild strategies and the more modular midrange/control decks you can make, though the former definitely have the advantage. i understand why that is though, because they want to give the single-guild strategies a chance to shine since the full block draft format is likely going to shift the default number of colors from 2 to 3+ like in the old ravnica block.

As far as guildmages go, the azorius, izzet, and rakdos ones are all pretty powerful, selesnya is ok, and the golgari one is the weakest because it doesn't synergize well with a golgari strategy.

crazy talk, it goes

1. selesnya
2. rakdos
(small gap)
3. azorius
(gap)
4. golgari
(big gap)
5. izzet

Moodles you're crazy, the selesnya guildmage is like a top 10 card in the set, better than most of the rares. the only way to beat it is to kill it or be well ahead on board already.

the azorius one has played weakest for me, it's very mana hungry and essentially plays out as an expensive Blinding Mage a lot of the time. izzet is okay but is designed more for the slow izzet deck which is the hardest of the 10 'guild archetypes' to draft. playing the rakdos one is like turning on godmode when you're curving out in an aggro deck but it's not as impressive elsewhere. golgari one is my favorite, its very flexible, its abilities play on both offense and defense, and it gives much-needed evasion to the golgari decks.

yeah rakdos as a 2 drop is just unfair

i'd rank them
selesnya > rakdos > golgari > izzet > azorius

biggest gap there is between golgari and izzet

but it also has value late game w/ its damage ability. can do damage in large increments. xp

My problem with the Selesnya one is that the abilities are a bit too redundant with other selesnya cards rather than complemenatary. The first ability is very expensive and only makes sense in emergency situations while the second is reasonably costed but doesn't end up getting used a whole lot.

I'm surprised at the lack of love for the izzet and azorius ones. I've definitely seen both izzet abilities and the azorius flying ability have a major impact.

6 mana to make a 3/3 is not expensive when a) it doesn't cost you a card and b) it allows you to make a free 3/3 for 4 mana from then on

don't think of the selesnya guildmage as a 2-drop like the other ones, think of it the same as, say, archon of the triumvirate, it's something you play mid-to-late game that turns your mana into an unbeatable board presence

by selesnya guildmage i mean vitu-ghazi guildmage of course, but the old selesnya guildmage was a similarly unbeatable card in the long game

I've just found that there are so many token generators and populate spells that the guildmage doesn't end up getting much play. Doesn't mean I'd pass on it if I'm in selesnya.

I'd switch Izzet and Azorius Guildmage but I otherwise agree with the rankings. The flying ability actually comes up a fair bit even in UW, and the detain can be invaluable if the game goes long. For whatever reason, my Izzet games don't usually go long enough for the abilities to come up, and they're both long-game abilities. Selesnya Guildmage is a bomb like an Archon, except you can randomly win on turn 4 if you happen to have a Centaur out.

the last magic online newsletter had a stats dump of the most successful first-picks in RTR draft by win % and vitu-ghazi guildmage was #1

actually it was by gross wins not % i think since pack rat was only #6 below some commons/uncommons. but still that means it's the best non-rare.

interestingly, collective blessing ranked above pack rat on the list

Yeah I dunno how you're down on Vitu-Ghazi guildmage. It's even crazier if you get a Grove of the Guardian or a Slime Molding. It's not like Rakdos where it's really relevant as a 2-drop but the thing just takes over the game on turn 6. All the guildmages are great. Also I disagree that Kurozda (the Golgari one) doesn't really fit into the B/G strategy - first ability pushes through damage, second allows you to sac your walls or pumped dudes, works with Scavenge, and is insane with Chorus of Might. Maybe not as much of a guild fit as the other four but if I'm G/B I'm hardly ever passing one of these.

I had similar thoughts to Lamp about Shadowmoor, which was a very fluid set, and one I didn't like drafting. IIRC a lot of people defaulted to one-color decks because it was easy and consistent, myself included (also there was a cycle that rewarded it). Playing two colors was a head trip because you could play about 50% of the set (!) but had to carefully balance power vs. having a decent manabase. Haven't felt that way about RtR though, something about it is easier to get my head around.

I liked Shadowmoor because the one-color decks really didn't feel like one-color, but I agree it was really confusing. Going just red gives you R/G and R/B cards, while going red/black adds B/U cards into the mix, some of which were really hard to cast since they'd be all black mana. I agree it was a wonky set to draft but I think it was generally fun.

shadowmoor is one of the few sets i haven't ever drafted, the others being lorwyn, coldsnap, and most of the old core sets

i did a sealed of SHM/EVE once though and my main impression was that it was way imbalanced towards red

the last magic online newsletter had a stats dump of the most successful first-picks in RTR draft by win % and vitu-ghazi guildmage was #1

could you post the rest of this? v interesting

its only top 10, and doesn't reweight to account for rarity so i don't know how useful it is but:

Top Ten Return to Ravnica First Picks
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Stab Wound
Call of the Conclave
Collective Blessing
Annihilating Fire
Pack Rat
Auger Spree
Mizzium Mortars
Skymark Roc
Desecration Demon

I wonder why Pack Rat is only the second most powerful rare on the list? Is it because a lot of newer players dont grasp its power and pass it? (whereas "all your creatures get a lot bigger" is easy to grasp for everybody)

Also, Annihilating Fire > Auger Spree is strange. Fire is removal and therefore good but Spree kills so many more things in this format.

i suspect it's just because forcing selesnya from pick 1 leads to better decks than forcing black from pick 1, and collective blessing isn't that much worse than the rat

They're both auto "you win" cards 90% of the time but Blessing takes six mana which you may not hit, I guess. (ditto on the Morters, another card you can't help but get destroyed by)

Likewise I guess Fire > Spree kind of suggests Rakdos is not winning so much anymore?

i dunno, i much prefer spree

this data's from about 3 weeks ago, keep in mind. limited trends do change much like constructed ones

I don't think it suggests rakdos isn't winning as much as 'it's easy to be an also-run rakdos / rakdos-splash deck'

also some of that is gonna be 'cards popular w/ good players as much as cards that, themselves, added wins'

I guess 'cards included in winning decks' is a better metric for that reason?

I don't think it suggests rakdos isn't winning as much as 'it's easy to be an also-run rakdos / rakdos-splash deck'

The idea is that decks that take Fire can also be Izzet which wins more than Rakdos? I dunno. Spree is much better.

it's better - and I don't think izzet wins more? - but you're locking yourself in w/ a guild w/ your first pick. (alt. throwing it away)

i'm not sure i understand what you're saying here

a strong rakdos deck would be marginally better off w/ spree, but picking spree first only has a certain correlation w/ ending up w/ a strong rakdos deck, has a decent chance it will be a wasted pick if you go w/ anything else

like I'd bet the % of winning decks w/ a spree in it is higher than the % of winning decks w/ a fire in it, but that doesn't necessarily make it a better p1p1

I'd argue that it is, because you can't really play the Fire in every red deck either. Neither blue based three-color (Izzet/Azorius) nor green based (Rakdos/Golgari) are really able to get RR consistantly enough; I've sadly had to cut Fire from both those decks. Fire goes in Izzet of course but for Rakdos and the Rakdos/Izzet decks you want the Spree. Unless people just don't play 3 colors as much as I do?

I would imagine that as a whole winning decks are slightly more likely to be two color than they are to be three color

Agreed but I wonder what % of people play 2 color as opposed to 3? And how many take Fires/Sprees wind up in sideboards?

Anyway, I wish we could get the top 20 instead of 10. I wonder how all the rares (not mythics) rank. I'd put 'em like this:

1. Pack Rat
2. Mizzium Morters
3. Collective Blessing
4. Archon of the Triumvirate
5. Desecration Demon
6. Deadbridge Goliath
7. Chaos Imps
8. Righteous Authority
9. Supreme Verdict
10. Loxodon Smiter

With special mentions to Deathrite Shaman (which just gives you so many advantages over the course of a game) and Grove of the Guardian (awesome by itself, really sick with populate)