Welcome back to another Meat and Potatoes edition of Untapped!
Dragon’s Maze is nearly here, and we finally have the full spoiler to round out our return to Ravnica! Dragon’s Maze is a purpose-built set designed to complement and finalize each guild’s identities through the reiteration of guild mechanics while introducing the new fuse mechanic. There are some sweet looking cards wandering through the Implicit Maze. As a small-format set, the choices are more limited (pun intended) but can provide the last push you need to make a killer deck. Prereleases are coming up this weekend, so let’s get down to business and look at the best Limited cards in Dragon’s Maze.
Dragon’s Maze will have two unique facets of play in Limited. First, the Prerelease will offer you the opportunity to play with primarily Dragon’s Maze cards while splashing into Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash to fill out your colors and your guild choices. On that note, you are able to choose which guild you represent in this Prerelease and are provided with a “mystery” allied guild who shares one color with your chosen guild. With all this choice and added variance, no two Prereleases, matches, or individual games will ever play out the same, and that’s what every Limited junkie wants to hear!
The other facet will carry on beyond the Prerelease—RTR Block Draft—and this is just as exciting. Original Ravnica Block Draft is my favorite Draft format ever (right alongside triple Zendikar), and I can’t wait to give this a spin! Also, as a side note, did you notice that the slang term for Ravnica Block Draft (RGD for Ravnica, Guildpact, and Dissension) can be used again this time? Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and Dragon’s Maze! Cool!
Anyway, this Limited format will be much more dynamic than pure Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash Draft. Choose one guild, then another, and then bolster both! In this way, Dragon’s Maze will be a refining set. Your first two packs will provide you the base, and Dragon’s Maze will provide that crucial curve filler, finisher, or removal spell to help take your deck from good to great!
If you’re not familiar with my Limited set reviews from the past, I highlight ten (usually an eleventh makes it in, too,) of the best cards in the set for Limited with one important distinction: no rares or mythics! While those flagship cards are powerful and awesome, they can’t be relied on draft after draft, so they shouldn’t influence your drafting and deckbuilding decisions as much as the commons and uncommons that make up the bulk of the set—the “meat and potatoes,” if you will. After that, we’ll look at the new guild champions as well as my opinion on the best guild combinations to pick on Prerelease day.
It turns out that once I’d narrowed down my list, every guild got one card that I thought was their best card, with one guild getting an additional candidate. None of the mono-colored cards stood out to me as better than those found on this list, though many of them (including the big Maze elemental cycle and the Gatekeepers) will definitely see play and you’ll be happy to let them.
We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s hop right in with our obligatory eleventh card.
Honorable Mention: Zhur-Taa Druid
Return to Ravnica block has been missing something very important: an unconditional mana dork. Sure, there’s Greenside Watcher (who requires a Gate), Gyre Sage (who is pretty useless without evolve triggers), and Axebane Guardian (who can’t get in the red zone), but this Druid has none of those issues. Except for its restrictive mana cost, it can just add a mana, providing the Gruul player the opportunity for that awesome turn 3 play.
Skipping a turn in a format like this can help you overpower a weak defense or resolve a powerful, unkillable blocker a turn faster. The ability to passively deal damage without attacking and without sacrificing ramp is icing on the mud pie (what Gruul clansman would eat instead of cake, I’d wager). Over the course of the game, he will provide enough damage to erase extort, punish slow decks that don’t have life gain, and reach beyond their blockers for the last few points of damage all without spending mana or effort. I’m very excited about this tree-hugger.
10. Unflinching Courage
Oops! Wrong card.
Joking aside, a functional, updated reprint of a much beloved enchantment is just what the doctor ordered. This ain’t no Behemoth Sledge, but it does a great job of swinging a game in your favor. Putting this on any moderate to large creature will create a must-answer threat for your opponent. Hedge your bet on that junk Rubbleback Rhino in pack one and be rewarded!
This card vies in-block with Gift of the Orzhova, an excellent, evasive, and flexible enchantment itself. However, the additional stats that the Courage Cloak offers are worth it in my opinion. It adds another point of power to the lifelink mechanic, and it fits in colors that already want an effect like this and have the large creatures to back it up, while Orzhov, Boros and Dimir lists from Gatecrash often had fairly small guys to which they could apply this effect.
9. Haunter of Nightveil
Curse of Death’s Hold was one of the best cards in Innistrad, and you’d draft it you could remotely cast it. Haunter of Nightveil gives us the important half of that effect on an acceptable body. Slower Dimir decks will love an effect like this because it allows the Spirit to hold off 4/Xs and X/3s much more easily, an important creature size to answer. It also shrinks puny fliers and allows more profitable attacks; gang blocks are much less impressive when you have to add twice as many creatures to the defensive order of battle.
Furthermore, your non-evasive cipher guys can get in more easily without fear of getting two-for-oned. As an uncommon, you might even be fortunate to open or draft two in your next Limited event, and they are even more effective in pairs. It affects the board right away and with no further commitment, another hallmark sign of a valuable Limited card.
8. Carnage Gladiator
Rakdos’ offering is a neat one that has relevance in most any matchup. Blocking becomes less profitable with this bloke out, and with all the unleash and/or haste guys you’re drafting alongside the Gladiator, you don’t care so much about blocking anyway. Trading becomes profitable for you, and as with the Haunter above, he can start making combat math tricky the moment he resolves.
As a creature, he’s entirely reasonable. Four power for four mana with the option to regenerate is going to make blocking him tricky for everything but a first striker, and he also blocks really well for the same reason, though you’ll be taking a point if you do.
7. Maw of the Obzedat
Orzhov is a guild that loves incremental advantage and dissuading your opponent from doing something risky. However, they were having trouble in the late game once the board got clogged and spells dried up. As an answer to your heavily taxed prayers, the Maw of the Obzedat is here! This amorphous Thrull is the perfect tool for your team of small, extort-laden critters. Once the Thrull resolves, combat math becomes very challenging for your opponent. Even if your goal is to win by just extorting everything you cast, the Maw is still the blob for the job since he makes your opponents wary to attack.
Free sacrifice outlets have always been powerful, shrugging off powerful enchantments and targeted spells, and if it lets you turn your weakest creature into a Glorious Charge at no cost, that’ll be something you’ll want to remember. On that note, it can be used for a carefully calculated alpha strike. I picture lots of Basilica Screechers, Sunspire Griffins, and Bird tokens floating idly by, and then I picture you grinning as you throw your ground team into the Maw and smashing for a lot in the air.
6. Trostani’s Summoner
Bestial Menace, party of four.
I’ve been there, folks.
You’re in a draft with friends or on Magic Online. It’s game 3, and you have a few life points left and an empty field to defend you. You have a useless card in your hand (like Smite), and you have to rip. You watch the upkeep step roll by, place your hand carefully on your library, and draw.
How many times have you ever wanted to draw this? Ten power across four creatures! Boom!
This is the card you’ll always want to draw if you have the mana, as few uncommons will impact the board this much. They’re not just 1/1s either; you get a beefy Rhino, a hearty Centaur, and a vigilant Bear! Populate plays very well with her, and because she’s a creature and not a sorcery or instant, she is more easily recurred, Blinked, and copied for added triggers.
5. Krasis Incubation
Make no mistake, folks, this is a Simic Arrest.
For four mana in colors that are not often offered a hard, permanent answer for a resolved creature, the Incubation can lock down your opponent’s best creature. Even if you ignore the second ability, you are getting a bona fide removal spell in UG. That being said, the second ability does allow you to move the enchantment if you really have to, but giving your opponent a Bear’s worth of power to do so is often inadvisable unless you have a pretty lofty defense up.
You can recover it to avoid removal, though, and it can also be used as a slow, but recyclable way to pump your own squad. Incubate an attacker or blocker that’s not quite ready for the big time, hold up counterspell mana, and recall the Incubation at your opponent’s EOT. Slap it on their best blocker and smash! You will be using this as a one-time removal enchantment 95% of the time, but diverse options are what help good players play and win great games.
4. Turn // Burn
“There Izzet season, burn, burn, burn…”
Blue loves transmogrification. Turning a mighty dragon into a toad or a sheep or a jellyfish will brighten any ovinomancer’s day. Much like Krasis Incubation did for Simic, Turn // Burn provides in one card something that Izzet mages never had in the past: a permanent answer to a rowdy, resolved creature.
Damage-based removal can only go so far, and Polymorphing is only helpful if you have a creature to deal the damage to it (either combat or noncombat). This fused card lets you do both! Even if you’re only able to cast one half of this card, you will often get your mana’s worth. The “Burn” side’s ability to go to the dome is just gravy.
3. Deputy of Acquittals
The Deputy is an efficient, highly effective, and versatile creature for a color combination that loves having a bounce effect. A 2/2 for two with flash is already great; the ability to save your best creature from removal is outstanding.
There are occasions where you will run her out on curve, but if you have the time, you’ll be slow rolling her for maximum value. Leaving up UW isn’t just for Azorius Charm anymore. It may be for a much nastier trick. I predict that people are going to get blown out by this card for months. An easy first pick in a weak pack.
2. Putrefy
For those who don’t know, Putrefy is a beloved reprint from the original Ravnica set. For the majority of those who do, you’ll recall that this was a feel-good removal spell. Admit it; it’s fun to just point a spell at something and say, “It’s dead. Nope, don’t tap that regeneration mana or check for a restriction on my spell. It’s gone.” No backlash, no downside. Just pure, moldering bliss.
Much like its Rakdosian (?) cousin Terminate, Putrefy is one of the more versatile spot removal spells in Magic history, and you will pick up as many of it as you can hold. The artifact clause will be nearly irrelevant in Limited; I suppose you can kill a Keyrune with it before or after animation! Yeah, not as exciting.
1. Warleader’s Helix
I know it’s not Lightning Helix, but we were spoiled by undercosted burn for too long. Let’s take look at the new Helix. In a Limited format where removal is as sketchy as a back alley, Warleader’s Helix doesn’t mess around. Flame Slash plus Sacred Nectar instantly and at a comfortable place on the curve. Dedicated Boros decks will love to have this on turn 4: play cheap battalion guys, clear the path of a powerful blocker, and then smash away!
Is it the most efficient burn spell made? Far from it. Will it see Standard play? Probably some. Will you play this if you can cast it? You bet your socks you will. This is about as good and versatile a removal spell as you will find in the whole block, and it can kill the vast majority of the creatures you’ll encounter, it can help you win a damage race, and it can even aim for the brain!
The top slots of my list were clogged up with removal, true, but trust me—in the last pack of a draft when you’re staring at twenty playables, eighteen of which are creatures, you’ll be ravenous for removal.
Dragon’s Maze caters to the Commander player in us, too, offering us ten new commanders in the form of guild champions! These Maze-running representatives of the ten Ravnican guilds each embody the spirit, both flavorfully and mechanically, of their respective organizations. From a Limited perspective, some are better than others. Unlike most other rares, the champions will come up frequently; about one in four packs will have a Champion resting in the back, so they will undoubtedly affect your Limited decisions. As a mini-list, let me highlight my favorite Champions in order of their Limited effectiveness.
10. Melek, Izzet Paragon – Too narrow, too small a body, too expensive, and too much information.
9. Vorel of the Hull Clade – Super fun and combo-tastic, but ultimately ineffective in helping you win in conventional decks.
8. Emmara Tandris – Costly and nearly vanilla, but sturdy. Golden if you’re the nuts Selesnya deck.
7. Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker – Very powerful when he connects a couple times and/or in a mill-intensive deck, but low stats and getting stopped by any X/3 flyer sort of defangs him.
6. Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts – Powerful, unblockable, and synergetic with the life padding of extort, but she is expensive and still requires that you be hit to be as effective as possible.
5. Ruric Thar, the Unbowed – A true bruiser, but his required attack (even with vigilance) leaves him open to troublesome blocks. The noncreature clause need only trigger once to get its use.
4. Lavinia of the Tenth – For a tempo/aggro deck or a slow, controlling deck, Lavinia provides you a very efficient creature for her colors and very powerful effect on or off the curve. Protection from red is also pretty relevant.
3. Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch – Perfect on the curve, exactly what Rakdos wants, and nearly impossible to block early. Works well with scavenge and evolve creatures, allowing for blowout attack phases, and she’s an awesome blocker if you need one.
2. Varolz, the Scar-Striped – Free regeneration and getting an extra use out of every single creature in your graveyard makes Varolz the real deal for any deck that can cast him. He’s worth splashing every time.
1. Tajic, Blade of the Legion – Nearly unkillable and unstoppable in every combat ever. Give him haste and two pals to swing with and win target game.
Funny, now I want to make Commander decks with every one of them…
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Oh, where was I?
Finally, I want to give you my thoughts on which guild you should choose, depending on your play style, for the Prerelease this weekend. Only two of your six packs will be affected by this decision, but each is filled with that guild’s cards, which can be enough to completely transform your game plan. Each archetypal guild has a preferred ally from the other set that you can hope to be especially complementary if that’s the one you receive.
Aggro – Selesnya (Boros/Gruul Ally)
Selesnya was my pick for best guild in the RTR Prerelease, and it turned out to be fairly accurate from my experience at my local event. Selesnya offers tons of creatures and tokens for Boros’ battalion triggers while providing some of the top end Boros needs to finish the job. If Gruul is the ally, bloodrush allows even your shrimpiest token to become a contender, and Gruul’s removal and ramp offers Selesnya the push it needs to get its best spells and creatures out on time.
Midrange – Simic (Golgari/Azorius Ally)
If you want to make your smaller creatures too big to block while delaying or out-tempoing your opponent, I believe Simic is the choice for you. The spells are cheap, and evolve offers you the chance to make early plays while leaving your mana open later for detained/bounce spells in the Azorius direction or relevant scavenges with Golgari to make your best creatures shine. Both Azorius and Golgari have evolve-friendly creatures, either with huge stats on one side (Azorius has things like Jelenn Sphinx) or with big all around stats and synergy (Golgari’s Corpsejack Menace, for example) to help you reliably evolve your team.
Control – Orzhov (Azorius/Selesnya Ally)
Extort is backbreaking in large quantities. Choosing Orzhov helps guarantee you at least a few extort cards in your Gatecrash pack, and Dragon’s Maze has plenty of nifty extort triggers (including the exciting Pontiff of Blight). Azorius and blue both can give you excellent defensive creatures, powerful flyers, and the draw power needed to keep your hand full of answers. Selesnya can also clog up the ground with tokens while you look for your finisher.
With this being a removal-light block (though it seems like I say that about every block), big creatures are highly relevant, often impacting the board immediately and continuously. Therefore, control is a viable—though riskier—strategy in this format. I think Dragon’s Maze will slow the format back down from the two-colored bruiser decks of Gatecrash, so it may even rise to dominate.
There’s my thoughts and hopes for the Limited life of Dragon’s Maze! I can’t wait to get in there with Draft and Sealed events alike, and I hope you’re pumped, too. This is looking to be one of the most exciting Draft formats in years; there is so much variety to test out and so many viable strategies, synergies, and combos to explore. I hope you’re just as stoked as I am! #evanerwin
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend this weekend’s Prerelease, so I expect you all to have as much fun as you can in the meantime!
Next week, we’ll start digging into Standard post-DGM, and I’ve already got a dozen or so lists to delve into. Join me then, and until then, don’t forget to untap!
– Matt
CaptainShapiro on Magic Online