“Twice in one week? For a guy that doesn’t play, you sure spend a lot of time around card rooms!”
Shameless quote, I know. But it’s not often I write two articles in the same week.
Every year when a new format begins I always get the feeling that I’ve just bought a great new video game and I’m filled with excitement about figuring out how to best exploit it. The hype for Ravnica is even higher than usual for me as I’ve been bored with CBS for about a month now. Not only that, but Ravnica rewards you for playing three or more colors with powerful gold cards, and we all know how much I like splashing bombs and playing five colors.
This series is going to be a slight departure from my usual card valuations articles (though I will still do some of those in the coming weeks) in that I am going to give you guys an inside look at the drafts I do, mistakes I make, and especially the important insights and conclusions I come to about the new Limited environment. What I’m going for here is a deeper approach to helping my readers understand the format and how I go about evaluating cards and archetypes through actual draft experience.
Phew, that was a mouthful. I feel like I’m back in college with that semi-thesis statement up there.
Well Boys, It’s Time to Skimp on Lands
The first thing you need to know about this format is that it’s not at all easy to draft.
I’m not saying this to discourage anyone, but on Monday I did four 3-on-3 drafts and had a combined record of 3-9 in matches. Considering that I was usually guaranteed 2-1 or better in CBS, you can see how this would be pretty frustrating. The reason is simply that there are a lot of things going on in this format and it takes a bit of adapting. The good news is that the format is way more skill intensive than CBS was and also allows quite a bit of innovation. Thankfully, by Tuesday I had acquired a better grasp of the environment and ended up with a much better 10-2 record in matches from 8-man drafts.
The next thing you should know is that the mana situation is surprisingly manageable for playing multiple colors. Not only should you be able to get the colored mana you need easily with common and rare double lands and Signets, but you are actually able to skimp on lands a bit!
The basic formula is 16 lands (14 basics and 2 of the common double lands), and anywhere from 2 to 4 Signets. By running the double lands and Signets you can cheat on land a bit and still have a very stable color base. Signets actually accelerate as well as fix your mana, and since you’re playing fewer lands you will effectively get manaflooded less often. There are some decks that can run as low as 15 total lands, and also some that may still need 17 in addition to Signets and double lands, but I think the norm will tend to be 16 if you have some help from the nonbasics and the new “mana Myrs.”
My advice is to enjoy this information while you can because once everyone figures it out you will have to start picking the Signets a lot higher since you probably won’t get them late.
Just How Good is Dredge?
As far as an ability goes, Dredge is a pretty strong one. I do think however that most people are overrating it in terms of draft purposes. In Constructed I can certainly see Dredge being insane with something like Gifts Ungiven, but in Draft you far too often would rather just draw a random card. There is also the real possibility of decking with only 40 cards.
Let’s take a look at some Dredge cards and their applications in draft.
Greater Mossdog
This guy is a mana overcosted in terms of a Green 3/3 as we’ve seen Trained Armodon, Gnarled Mass, and others in the three slot in recent sets. Since he costs an extra mana, we have to determine whether or not we are going to use the Dredge ability in order to make him worthwhile.
From my experience so far I haven’t been in many situations where I’d ever want to skip my draw step and mill myself to get this guy back. Most of the time I need to draw into removal or a better creature or something, and this guy never gets recurred. If you think it’s trivial to worry about the milling aspect, you should realize that the Dimir guild has a very solid Limited archetype based around the Vedalken Entrancer that plans on decking you. Do you really want to help them out?
It turns out that a 3/3 for four in Green is actually pretty good in the format, since you usually play Elves of Deep Shadow or a turn 2 Signet and a four-drop fits well with those accelerators, but I wouldn’t recommend picking this guy highly with the intention of having an “unkillable” 3/3.
Nightmare Void and Shambling Shell
Here are examples of two non-rare Dredge cards that are actually worth recurring in certain Draft situations.
Nightmare Void can be quite cumbersome and doesn’t always get reused, but the nice thing about it is that you can strip an opponent of his creature removal before you play your good men and then you leave him in topdeck mode. It’s also nice that it’s only Dredge 2, but it’s still a pretty situational card and a lot of the time you will just cast it once or twice and be done with it. When you find the right situation though, it can be absolutely brutal if you have no pressure on you and you can strip through the enemy’s entire hand.
Shambling Shell gets recurred for a different reason, and that reason is that he is great in combat and can also be used in the mid to late game to create a huge evasion creature and speed up the clock quite a bit. Believe it or not, drawing a +1/+1 counter every turn can actually be better than a random draw step in some mid-game scenarios.
The Control Archetype
Now that I’ve talked a bit about the land situation, let’s take a look at some actual draft decks and what I learned from them.
The first archetype I was trying to figure out was U/B/G in some combination of main colors and splashes. Believe me when I say I’ve drafted a bunch of similar decks in this archetype and I’m still not sure about a lot of things.
Here’s a straight U/B deck with just a small splash for Putrefy.
Voyager Staff
2 Clinging Darkness
2 Golgari Signet
Dimir Signet
Dimir Guildmage
Putrefy
Terraformer
Stinkweed Imp
Drift of Phantasms
Wizened Snitches
Flight of Fancy
Moroii
2 Dimir House Guard
Mortipede
Belltower Sphinx
Glass Golem
Tidewater Minion
Ribbons of Night
2 Vedalker Dismisser
Ethereal Usher
Golgari Rot Farm
Dimir Aqueduct
7 Island
7 Swamp
This deck is a good example of how to abuse the Transmute mechanic. Dimir House Guard and search up Moroii on turn 3. Most decks have a bit of trouble dealing with a 4/4 flyer on turn 4. I can also Transmute for Putrefy and Vedalker Dismisser with some of my other cards.
As far as the archetype as a whole, you can go a couple of different ways. The first is the evasion route where you plan to win with strong men like Dimir House Guard, Snapping Drake and other fliers. The second of course is the mill deck which relies on the Entrancer, Lurking Informant, and Induce Paranoia. Third, you could base yourself more in Green and go for something more along the lines of Golgari Rot Wurm or Drooling Groodian if you manage to get them. It all really depends on which colors are your main ones and which are being splashed.
No matter which version of the deck you are playing, you will want to draft the Drift of Phantasms and Tidewater Minions pretty highly, as they are both really strong Blue cards the I don’t think most people will like initially. Tidewater Minion is a great blocker, can be used to untap your Entrancer and mill again, or simply create a mana (or two if you have a double land). In the late-game he can lose defender and bash as well when you have mana lying around, and he makes a good target for Flight of Fancy. Another great common that goes around late is the Vedalken Dismisser since at first glance it looks overcosted, but in actuality is very strong.
Blue as a whole seems to be underrated from what I’ve read online and is in actuality a very strong color in the new format.
Who Says You Have to Play Guild Colors?
Most people are right when they say that the better decks are usually those taking advantage of the gold cards and other guild options that Ravnica has to offer. However, there is a single common in the set that begs for attention and only fits into the R/W guild, and therefore goes pretty late since there can’t be that many R/W drafters at the same table. This common I speak of is the Viashino Fangtail.
2 Boros Signet
Dimir Signet
Lurking Informant
Galvanic Arc
2 Drift of Phantasms
Compulsive Research
Vedalken Entrancer
2 Viashino Fangtail
Wojek Embermage
Indentured Oaf
Snapping Drake
Flight of Fancy
4 Tidewater Minion
2 Belltower Sphinx
Hammerfist Giant
Vedalken Dismisser
Dimir Aqueduct
8 Island
8 Mountain
And here, ladies and gentlemen is a great reason to not play guild colors. What do you get when you add three pingers with four untap guys? I think they call it a gattling gun.
Out of the eight drafts I’ve done so far, this deck is definitely the best one I’ve had and it ran the gauntlet at 3-0. Hammerfist Giant is also quite nice with Flight of Fancy.
Other Thoughts
Black seems to be very deep in this set, with tons of common removal in the form of Disembowel, Last Gasp, Darkblast, and Clinging Darkness. Don’t forget too that the Dimir Infiltrator is a solid creature on his own and can be used to Transmute into one of your removal spells at any time which is a big help. Dimir House Guard is a great evasion man and the sacrifice ability can stop some of the good effects on removal cards like Flash Conscription or Ribbons of Night from happening, as well as obviously making the Fear man very hard to kill. Strands of Undeath is a great discard tool as well as a game-winning combo with Mortipede if you have access to Green mana. Besides, when was regeneration bad in Limited anyway?
Junktroller looks like it is unplayable at first but after you play a few matches of this format you will understand why it is actually a great card. First off, it can stop Dredge dead in its tracks by putting the card in question back in the deck. Second, it helps prevent decking, which can be very relevant in the control archetype I was talking about before, or against the Dimir milling deck. Third, it is a strong ground blocker and also an artifact so that it can block the Fear shade or the Dimir House Guard. I initially discounted this card and it ended up costing me two matches because I decked myself with my Dimir Guildmage and would’ve easily won if I had the ‘Troller to recur a card of my choice every turn.
Finally, the Dowsing Shaman seems to be underrated so far in the drafts I’ve done, and can singlehandedly win the game in combination with a lot of cards. If you have Galvanic Arc in combination with it, you can just cast the Arc on the opponent’s creature. This will kill the creature, and the Arc, and you can repeat it killing all creatures with three toughness or less. Even something as simple as recurring a Clinging Darkness, Flight of Fancy, or Fists of Ironwood can provide a huge swing for you.
This format is a lot of fun and I’m only hitting the tip of the iceberg here. In the coming weeks I plan to dig a lot deeper into the format and come back with a better understanding of what archetypes are the best and what cards are key in what color combinations.
I’m tentatively planning to write about the W/R aggro deck for next week. One thing I’ve realized is that when everyone is screwing around with four color decks and cumbersome spells that being the aggro deck is a very good thing. I’ve only drafted W/R once, and I didn’t lose a game, so needless to say it got me curious. In the next week I’m hoping to do a bunch of drafts and also try to draft this archetype more and report back with my findings.
Enjoy the new format and remember that it never hurts to try things out. This set is wide open and the only thing you need is a good imagination.