Lately I’ve had some really weird dreams.
I know that there have been plenty of studies on dreaming and that usually you will dream about things that happened to you the previous day or other things that were weighing heavily on your mind, but lately my dreams have just been completely random. What I mean by this is that I’ve been taking a few days off of poker in preparation for a long trip to Atlantic City and instead focusing mainly on Magic. So how is it then that I haven’t played a hand of poker in the past three days and I keep dreaming about it?
I’m sure there’s some explanation but right now I just don’t get it.
Last night for instance I dreamt that I was dealt 77 in an online poker tournament and was in the pot against a very aggressive player when the flop came K72. Normally this would just be a very lucky spot for me, but then the dream took an odd turn. We ended up getting all of the money in on the turn card, which was a 3, and my opponent revealed his hand which was also 77 so that we both had middle set? Even if you don’t know anything about poker, you should realize that this is quite humorous just based on the fact that there are only four sevens in the deck.
But wait, it gets better.
Not only did we both impossibly flop the same set, the river came the Jack of Hearts and I found myself immediately confused when PokerStars sent the entire pot to my opponent. I began frantically scrolling through the hand history log trying to find some explanation of why my opponent had beaten me when we both had the same hand. To my dismay I found in the hand history that my opponent had somehow beaten me with a straight. Let’s not even get into the fact that my opponent had a set and therefore couldn’t have had a straight unless the board straighted, but instead realize that a straight wasn’t even possible on this board!
After having this wacky poker dream despite not playing a single hand of poker for three days, I had a dream that I was playing on Magic Online and my opponent somehow Convoked a Myr Enforcer into play at Instant speed. Since, you know, that’s possible.
So yeah, I guess the point is that I have weird dreams and that absolutely nothing I’ve written so far is in any way related to Magic: The Gathering.
As far as Ravnica draft goes, it turns out I was wrong about a lot of things.
My initial thoughts were that the format would be extremely open to innovation and splashing and that it was going to be a really hard set to crack. Turns out that the set is in fact extremely narrow and if you don’t follow the small set of rules you will end up with a pretty poor deck. I also feel kind of hypocritical because I was so excited for the new set and couldn’t wait to explore all of the possibilities and now here I am telling you guys how narrow and confining Ravnica really is. After a large number of drafts, I feel like I have identified the set of rules you should live by when drafting RRR.
This Time, The Rules Weren’t Meant to Be Broken
These rules should serve as something to think about when drafting the new set and straying from them will usually (but not always) result in a below average deck.
Rule # 1 : Always Draft the U/B Dimir Mill Deck if Given the Opportunity
Don’t get caught in the wrong mindset and think that this is just another of my pet decks when I say this. This deck is not Dampen Thought.
While I admit that the Dampen Thought archetype was definitely a pet deck of mine, it wasn’t nearly as accessible or strong as the Dimir deck in this block. The reason of course is that Dampen was uncommon and one had to be opened and make its way to you to make the deck work while the Dimir deck has tons of cards that can be used to mill out the opponent.
I really can’t be adamant enough about this “rule” as if you manage to get a good build of this archetype it is very hard to lose. My first three 8-4 drafts on Magic Online this week I forced the mill deck and didn’t lose a single match with it because nobody picks the Blue cards high enough and I found myself getting seventh pick Vedalken Entrancers. You don’t have to be as extreme as me and plan on forcing it before the draft, but you should at least be ready to go into the deck if you are given any signal that it is going to be open in pack one.
The only bad matchups for the deck are a really quick R/W deck with things like Incite Hysteria or multiple Thundersong Trumpeters to get past Drift of Phantasms or an equally quick G/W Convoke token deck that can swarm you before you get set up. While these are the problem matchups for Dimir, the funny thing is that they usually aren’t even that bad!
Because you have access to Compulsive Research and also creatures that serve as good blockers while also milling out the opponent, if he stumbles at all in his mana or creature development you should have no problem winning as you are unlikely to get flooded with Compulsive Research and ways to Transmute for it. If you take a cross-section of the format you will see that most of the decks you’ll play against are much slower than the blitzkrieg R/W or G/W problem matchups and the deck is usually ready to handle anything the slower decks will throw at it. If you give the mill deck time to get going, you will almost always lose barring a Lemony Snicket’s “Series of Unfortunate Events.”
Even if you can’t manage to assemble an entire mill construction, you can still end up with a good U/B control deck that wins through Dimir House Guard or other evasion. The control elements are all present in the form of good removal, Drift of Phantasms, Induce Paranoia, and Vedalken Entrancer.
I would go as far as to say that this deck is as dominant if not more dominant than the U/R Lavamancer’s Skill/Mistform Wall archetype that controlled the outcome of the last Pro Tour I played in, PT Chicago during the triple Onslaught format. Check out the archives of Sideboard.com if you can’t remember how sick that deck was.
My overall advice? Draft U/B as often as you possibly can until the next set comes out.
Rule # 2 : If you can’t draft U/B, draft R/W, G/W, or some form of G/B/W
So unfortunately the jerk in front of you has already read this article or otherwise had a lot of experience with the format and correctly decided to force U/B.
While this is obviously not the optimal thing you can have happen, you still have a couple of options. Note that I only said a “couple” of options whereas in other formats you would still have plenty of color combinations available to choose from even if there was one single dominant deck. This is the main reason I say that Ravnica is a narrow set. It has one dominant archetype that is way out in front of the others and then you only have a couple of other choices if you want to do well, there is actually little room for innovation.
I know some of you are now clicking the link to the forums to tell me how wrong I am and how viable a five color deck actually is with all of the manafixing, but I’m here to tell you that I’ve tried it and had mild success with it, but I would recommend sticking to the plan here. The end result is that even if your five color build is a little bit stronger in overall card quality you are giving up quite a bit in mana consistency and you are also probably conceding against U/B before the match even begins since five colors tends to be rather clunky.
Back to the matter at hand, if you can’t draft U/B, you do have a couple of choices.
In my last article I covered the Boros deck, which I believe is the second best archetype in the format. The Boros deck has the added benefit that it can win with dorky men like Boros Recruit, Viashino Slasher, or Sell-Sword Brute in combination with Rally the Righteous. It helps that none of these dorks are high picks too.
Since I did cover this archetype last week I’m not gonna waste more time going over it again now, but just think of it as your best alternative when you can’t get in the mill deck.
The other Tier 1 archetype in the format in my eyes is the G/W token deck which can also splash for removal. The usual splash would be Black for something like Last Gasp, Disembowel, or Golgari Rotwurm, but I’ve also seen Red splashed in occasionally with Galvanic Arc being the usual splash card.
The main reason for the strength of this color combination of course is the power of Selesnya Evangel. Other perks include the ability to fire off multiple Scatter the Seeds quite early and also deploy a quick Siege Wurm or Conclave Equenaut.
The main thing you should realize here is that if you can’t get into the U/B deck that you should be drafting one of these archetypes.
Rule # 3: Avoid drafting straight G/B
While it’s perfectly alright to splash Black into a G/W deck and sometimes even go as far as to make it almost solid three colors, I want to advise against drafting straight up G/B in this format. I know the cards look great on paper and Golgari Rotwurm and Shambling Shell are both awesome, but trust me, the deck doesn’t end up working out most of the time.
There are still some nice combos you can exploit in these colors like Mortipede with Strands of Undeath or Gaze of the Gorgon. Sadly the deck just doesn’t come together usually and can’t beat the top three archetypes. This is the main pitfall most drafters will encounter in this format as they see Rotwurm and Shell and figure they have an amazing G/B deck when in reality it doesn’t have a good matchup against any of the other decks.
My advice is to splash the good G/B cards into either G/W or a non-milling U/B deck and you should do just fine.
Rule # 4 : If you haven’t figured it out yet, non-guild color archetypes usually don’t work out well
Of course, there are exceptions to this one.
The only non-guild archetype that I’ve had any kind of consistent success with is U/R. This usually happens when you are trying to draft the U/B mill deck and all of the pieces don’t come into place but you end up taking a Viashino Fangtail or two or Galvanic Arc in packs with nothing else good, and slowly you slide into the archetype. My first article in this series contained an example of a strong U/R list in this format so you can refer back to that if you need to.
Aside from the obvious Fangtail + Tidewater Minion combo, the deck sports some other nice interactions. Sacrificing a Surveiling Sprite to Fiery Conclusion is never a bad thing, and you can abuse Flight of Fancy or Galvanic Arc with Drake Familiars or the powerful Mark of Eviction. Don’t forget that Mark of Eviction is also fine on a Sparkmage Apprentice as well.
Aside from U/R, I’ve seen a couple people try to draft G/R or U/W and it never really worked out. I can imagine a situation where you would end up in either of those decks but it won’t happen often and you’ll need a very good reason to avoid getting into a guild.
Rule # 5 : In case you didn’t get the memo Last Gasp is the best common in the set
I’ve seen some debate on this matter, and I just wanted to let you guys know where I stand on it.
Faith’s Fetters is very strong, as is Galvanic Arc, but nothing matches the raw power of the instant speed Gasp. When you toss in the fact that there are a ton of ways to Transmute for converted mana cost two and it deals with almost every problematic creature in the format while also killing Strands of Undeath, you end up looking at the best common in Ravnica.
Don’t be afraid to splash this card as well, just make sure you pick up some Signets, Elves of Deep Shadow, or common dual lands.
An Interesting Sealed Deck
Being that I’m somewhat bored with drafting (since the same thing seems to happen every time and most of my decks end up looking very similar), I decided that I’d play some of the Sealed Deck Release Events on Magic Online. The first of these that I played presented a very interesting cardpool that took near the maximum amount of time to find the right build. I’m going to post the list of cards and see if any of you can find what I feel is the best build for the deck. Just a warning, it’s not going to be easy.
White
Conclave Equenaut
Screeching Griffin
Veteran Armorer
Oathsworn Giant
Courier Hawk
Benevolent Ancestor
Conclave Blessing
Seed Spark
Leave No Trace
Blue
Convolute
Flow of Ideas
Peel from Reality
Quickchange
Flight of Fancy
Drift of Phantasms
Surveiling Sprite
Vedalken Dismisser
Vedalken Entrancer
Zephyr Spirit
Black
Dimir Machinations
Last Gasp
Clinging Darkness
Strands of Undeath
Dimir House-Guard
Hunted Horror
2 Keening Banshee
Thoughtpicker Witch
Sewerdreg
Red
Flame Fusillade
Incite Hysteria
Seismic Spike
Dogpile
Fiery Conclusion
Smash
Galvanic Arc
Instill Furor
Coalhauler Swine
Goblin Fire-Fiend
Greater Forgeling
Torpid Moloch
War-Torch Goblin
Wojek Embermage
Green
Sundering Vitae
Fists of Ironwood
Civic Wayfinder
Dowsing Shaman
Golgari Brownscale
Goliath Spider
Stone-Seeder Heirophant
Trophy Hunter
Scatter the Seeds
Elves of Deep Shadow
Artifact
Junktroller
Cloudstone Curio
Terrarion
Golgari Signet
Cycoplean Snare
Dimir
Dimir Aqueduct
Induce Paranoia
Dimir Infiltrator
Golgari
Golgari Rotfarm
Golgari Rotwurm
Woodwraith Strangler
Shambling Shell
Mortipede
Dark Heart of the Wood
Boros
Skyknight Legionnaire
Boros Recruit
Boros Fury-Shield
Selesnya
Selesnya Evangel
Seeds of Strength
Privledged Position
Autochon Wurm
Phew, that took a while to list. Anyway, I’m going to give you some time and would hope you try to build the deck on your own as I think it is helpful to anyone who wants to do well at sealed in Ravnica. The decks are not as intuitive and easily built as in past formats and it takes some playing around to find the right list.
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Done now? If so, you probably need to try to build it again because it’s not that easy!
If you finished rather quickly I’m guessing your build will look something like my first attempt at the deck.
First Attempt
Elves of Deep Shadow
Shambling Shell
Trophy Hunter
Golgari Brownscale
Civic Wayfinder
Junktroller
Mortipede
2 Keening Banshee
Dimir House-Guard
Golgari Rotwurm
Dowsing Shaman
Sewerdreg
Terrarion
Fists of Ironwood
Golgari Signet
Clinging Darkness
Last Gasp
Galvanic Arc
Sundering Vitae
Flame Fusillade
Strands of Undeath
Scatter the Seeds
7 Forest
7 Swamp
2 Mountain
Golgari Rotfarm
When you initially look at the cardpool, this is what looks like the best build. Unfortunately, it is far off from what you can do with this card pool. Take a look at the Green cards in particular and you will notice that they aren’t that strong. In particular Golgari Brownscale doesn’t do a whole lot and I can’t even guarantee casting it early, and all in all the deck feels like it doesn’t have enough creatures. When I built this deck and was looking at it on Magic Online I immediately felt like I wasn’t maximizing my cards with this list.
I began dabbling with a Blue splash for Drift of Phantasms, Vedalken Entrancer, and Flight of Fancy and switching the deck around a bit. The more I did this, the more I kept adding Blue cards and taking out the Green ones. This is when I realized that my problem was that I should be splashing Green instead of Blue and I arrived at what I feel is the optimal build for this deck.
Final Build
Surveiling Sprite
Dimir Infiltrator
Trophy Hunter
Shambling Shell
Drift of Phantasms
Civic Wayfinder
Vedalken Entrancer
Mortipede
2 Keening Banshee
Dimir House-Guard
Sewerdreg
Golgari Rotwurm
Dowsing Shaman
Vedalken Dismisser
Terrarion
Last Gasp
Golgari Signet
Clinging Darkness
Peel from Reality
Galvanic Arc
Flight of Fancy
Flame Fusillade
Strands of Undeath
5 Island
5 Swamp
3 Forest
Mountain
Golgari Rotfarm
Dimir Aqueduct
This deck can get away with only running 16 land because of the two duals which count as two lands, as well as Civic Wayfinder, Terrarion, and Golgari Signet helping to fix the colors. You may think it’s silly to run a fourth color here when I have an okay three-color build available but the three color deck just isn’t powerful enough to beat most of the decks I plan on facing. My mana is actually pretty good with the only potential problem being the double Keening Banshee but I have the duals, Signet, and Terrarion again to help there. I feel like I’m only sacrificing a little bit in mana consistency in this build to achieve a whole lot more card power. Let’s take a look at some of the tricks this deck can pull off.
First off, Dowsing Shaman will be game over almost every time if it becomes active. With Clinging Darkness, Galvanic Arc, Flight of Fancy, and Strands of Undeath the Shaman should find no shortage of targets. Don’t forget too that you can get the Galvanic Arc engine going by playing it on your opponent’s creatures so that it dies along with them and can then be dug up with Shaman.
Second, I have an excellent Transmute engine going and am able to tutor for virtually every strong card in my deck with the use of Dimir Infiltrator, Dimir House-Guard, or Drift of Phantasms. I used the Transmute ability on all of these cards at least once during my matches and was glad to have it available.
Lastly, Peel from Reality is just sick with 2 Keening Banshee, Vedalken Dismisser, and Civic Wayfinder. I also discovered that Mortipede with Galvanic Arc is also quite good and used it to put my opponent into a virtual abyss on multiple occasions.
The overall synergy of the deck was amazing and I won my first three rounds with ease. In rounds four and five though I actually managed to win game one both times and then get manaflooded in all of the remaining games. Seems weird considering that I’m only running 16 lands that I’d get flooded but it happens and overall I was happy with the deck’s performance.
Remember when you are playing the Release Events on Magic Online to take your time when building your deck and try to build in as much synergy as possible while also keeping your mana good. It’s a lot of things to balance in one deck but if you can find that balance you’ll end up with a much better deck overall.