Hi people. I’ll be your SCG Daily writer for the week. No, I’m not as funny as Yawgatog. I’ve come to terms with that fact. Instead of tickling your funny bones, I’ll inundate you with a Sealed deck build every day. You’re also getting exhaustive card analysis. This week will only be successful if you throw your two cents in on the forums, so go ahead and voice your thoughts. I stocked up on kevlar and asbestos.
I went out and bought three boxes and a fat pack of Ravnica. That, coupled with the product I acquired and won at the Prerelease, makes for two or three thousand cards. This seems like good times to you, I’m sure. I put aside enough for a few goes of Sealed Deck and various goofy draft product with my friends. And then I went nuts.
You probably don’t live in Japan. You don’t live in the land of no space. For those of us who live in the urban reaches of the Isle of the Rising Sun, there is a war, an endless struggle that cannot be won. Like entropy, the battle for living room, open space, and the freedom to exercise in the manner of choice never ends. I must stand up and swing my Obi-Wan lightsaber and get my blood going in the morning, and I can not do such activities when there is a lack of open space. The struggle to prune the cards and other clutter that could accumulate without constant vigilance just goes on and on, without stop or an end in sight.
There are times when I seriously consider buying into Magic Online. Why work? Let the computer do all the work for you!
Once upon a time, I wasn’t so compulsive. I had acres and acres of room. A basement, a bedroom, and two chests of drawers. It’s amazing how much intense you are aware of your domestic surroundings when they’ve contracted by 80 percent.
I keep just enough Ravnica cards so as to build the decks I need, and the rest go to the great cardboard beyond. We’ll take a look at a sealed deck build later on, but for the time being hear out my thoughts on Ravnica Limited.
One of the subtle intricacies of Ravnica Limited is that it rewards players for breaking convention. Obviously it makes players draft decks with two colors or more. That’s patently obvious. But they’re draping dust covers over other subtle rules. Finding the new rules and how they break precedent is key to solving any new Limited format.
What lesson will we examine today? Years and years of playing Limited left a rule burned in my head; do not put all your eggs in one basket. One single removal spell could ruin your day. Terror received a Coercion tacked on for free. In Ravnica, putting most of your eggs in one basket looks better than usual. Whether the tactic becomes good or not has yet to be seen.
Take a look at Brainspoil. It’s one of the most powerful common removal spells printed in recent memory. Yeah, it costs five mana. It can target Black creatures. It can be transmuted into any number of things. It costs five, but that can be somewhat reasonable considering that most big threats in the format cost four or five mana. Mana acceleration makes Brainspoil not only possible but likely to get played.
The big perk of Brainspoil is that it’s reliable. Sisters of Stone Death, Guildmages, Gleancrawler, Viashino Fangtail, or any other random creature drops dead when Brainspoil targets it. In almost any other set where you can reach five mana easily, Brainspoil gets accolades. But with the cycle of quality CIP enchantments (Galvanic Arc, Strands of Undeath, Faith’s Fetters, Fists of Ironwood, Flight of Fancy), it loses its luster.
What’s more, Ravnica has other enchantments that you want to play on your burly man. Look at Pollenbright Wings. It’s a token producer and can lift your Indentured Oaf into the air. If your opponent has a flier on his side of the board and you haven’t, it’s likely that he won’t keep his flier on defense. But when you give your big man flying, you get enough little Saprolings on the table to be able to block with as much capacity as you would have if you left the now flying fattie at home.
There are other good creature enchantments that I haven’t mentioned yet. Moldervine Cloak comes immediately to mind. Flickerform sounds nice too, though it is rare. For the sake of argument, though, I’ll limit the confines of this discussion to Pollenbright Wings.
That leaves the issue of instants. The only common instant removal spells that will allow your opponent to keep your card investment trick from working are Disembowel, Fiery Conclusion, and Sundering Vitae. Disembowel is ridiculously expensive. (Yet another reason why you should play Pollenbright Wings on a fattie. Your opponent may not have the mana handy to Disembowel your man. We’ll get back to Sundering Vitae in a second. As for Fiery Conclusion, well… unless you have a Gather Courage as backup, you are in for trouble.
If you’re truly gunshy, don’t play Pollenbright Wings on a creature with toughness less than four, since the other guy could have Last Gasp. But that’s assuming the guy has two mana open. Devouring Light is even trickier, since your opponent could have his lands tapped out and spring this surprise. White’s numerous vigilance men make this trick easy to pull off. Check blisterguy article about the combat tricks in the environment you’ve got to keep track of.
Remember to consider the consequences of your (presumably) successful strike. The turn after you play Pollenbright Wings and hit, your opponent is going to leave a flying blocker back if at all possible, because churning out four or five Saprolings a turn is scary stuff. Six mana is steep, yes. Your opponent will also be less than thrilled with the inability to Brainspoil your enchanted man.
It seems patently obvious, but it bears repeating: Wizards was kind as to produce an easy and accessible fattie to drop this onto. Bramble Elemental is pretty reasonable. He makes extra little men. What isn’t to like about this man?
Yes, I know there’s an issue I didn’t resolve. Good old Sundering Vitae. You didn’t think I’d forget about it, did you? Sundering Vitae suddenly lands your attacking fattie into harm’s way. But since it’s a fattie, at least you’ll get a good trade out of it. Now, if you had played your Pollenbright Wings on a little guy, the odds are you’d get nothing out of the deal. Sundering Vitae doesn’t do so much against Galvanic Arc or Fists of Ironwood or Strands of Undeath. (It can be modestly helpful against Flight of Fancy, however, even though they got their two cards. Sundering Vitae makes Wile E. Coyote look down.)
Wizards should be commended for printing such a fine removal spell as Brainspoil. It’s eminently fair and creates dilemmas for players. It takes conventions and twists them. In this and other Limited articles, readers should seek out new dilemmas and attempt to answer them.
With that said, the waiter now serves us the main course of the article, the Sealed deck build. Time to dig in.
Red
2 Dogpile
Fiery Conclusion
Goblin Spelunkers
Indentured Oaf
Instill Furor
Ordruun Commando
Rain of Embers
Sell-Sword Brute
Sparkmage Apprentice
White
Conclave Equenaut
Dromar Purebred
Festival of the Guildpact
Leave No Trace
Nightguard Patrol
Screeching Griffin
Seed Spark
Veteran Armorer
Votary of the Conclave
Wojek Siren
Green
Birds of Paradise
Bramble Elemental
2 Civic Wayfinder
Dryad’s Caress
Elves of Deep Shadow
Greater Mossdog
Overwhelm
Perilous Forays
Rolling Spoil
Sundering Vitae
Ursapine
Black
Brainspoil
Clinging Darkness
Disembowel
2 Infectious Host
Keening Banshee
Mortipede
Sadistic Augermage
Shred Memory
Stinkweed Imp
Blue
Compulsive Research
2 Dizzy Spell
Flight of Fancy
Grayscaled Gharial
Lore Broker
2 Muddle the Mixture
Snapping Drake
Stasis Cell
Surveiling Sprite
Tattered Drake
2 Terraformer
2 Wizened Snitches
Zephyr Spirit
Gold and Guild Mana
(I combine Signets and similar guild-aligned artifacts here, for clarity.)
Lightning Helix
Rally the Righteous
Chorus of the Conclave
Glare of Subdual
Seeds of Strength
2 Selesnya Sanctuary
Dark Heart of the Woods
Gaze of the Gorgon
Putrefy
Shambling Shell
Dimir Infiltrator
Dimir Signet
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Shadow of Doubt
Non-aligned artifacts
Grifter’s Blade
Here is your designated white space.
Having fun?
I hope so.
I’m going to quickly explain how I’m going to evaluate each color. Playing the most powerful cards in your pool, provided you can support them with solid cards in their color, works. (Most of you are saying “duh” by now.) In Ravnica, the most powerful cards tend to be gold. So we’ll start by looking at each guild’s gold cards and see what predispositions we can have before we look at the actual colors.
Boros has Lightning Helix and Rally the Righteous. Two solid cards, no doubt. If you’re playing Boros, you’ll want to play no fewer than 3 Rallies. I’ve seen game after game go to the little guys, whipped into a frenzy by this spell. It’s easily splashed by Selesnya guilds who want to make those Saproling tokens hit hard.
Selesnya has not one but two rare bombs. Glare of Subdual is completely ridiculous in Limited. You can constantly keep your opponent from blocking or attacking while continuously swinging with your good men. The fair number of Vigilance creatures that White has makes this card even sweeter. In Draft, I would always pick this card over any other common or uncommon I’ve seen used yet.
Chorus of the Conclave appears to love bonsai. It does cost eight mana, but it turns every late game creature you draw into an utter monster. If the mana can support it, we’re playing it. Seeds of Strength is a superlative combat trick. Two Selesnya Sanctuaries help us pack more late game mana punch, so it looks like Chorus may indeed be playable.
Golgari offers greatness and sketchiness. Dark Heart of the Wood requires two land sacrifices to make itself barely worthwhile, and while Mark of the Gorgon can be helpful when you provoke a gang block, it’s fairly expensive and your opponent probably expected to trade anyway. (And if he or she smelled a trick, then Gaze isn’t going to be optimal for you anyway.) Then again, you also have Putrefy and Shambling Shell. I shouldn’t have to tell you why Putrefy is ridiculously good. Shambling Shell deters many attackers and makes their combat math a nightmare. I love that guy.
Dimir fails to attract. Dimir Infiltrator is a passable two-drop, but rarely is worth transmuting. The Signet helps fix mana, so we’ll keep that in mind. Duskmantle is slow and pricy to use, though it has potential. Shadow of Doubt … well, there isn’t any doubt in my mind that I’m not going to play this narrow card.
So far, if the gold cards are any indicator, Golgari and Selesnya lead the pack.
The Red doesn’t impress me too much. Dogpile can remove a blocker of three power if you are Boros most of the time, but that’s all. Fiery Conclusion is quality, and if your opponent has a utility creature you must absolutely rid yourself of, Instill Furor and a blocker will take care of the issue. Rain of Embers can clear away Saprolings, but it’s no substitute for Wojek Embermage.
None of the Red men call out to me either. Sell-Sword Brute is efficient but easily dies to a pair of Saprolings. Ordruun Commando demands a constant supply of white mana as support, or it’ll die to weenies. Sparkmage Apprentice can clear away a pesky 1/1, but how many solid one toughness creatures are there in the format these days, anyway? Maybe Sparky will be good if Guildpact or Dissension brings back the gating mechanic. Until then, I remain unimpressed. Only Indentured Oaf and Goblin Spelunkers seem good, and since most decks don’t run Mountains in the current format, the Spelunkers are only passable.
At this point I think we can write off Boros.
White has some fair creatures, but lacks solid oomph. The curve moves smoothly, going from Veteran Armorer to Nightguard Patrol to Screeching Griffin to Conclave Equenaut. All four are solid if unamazing creatures. They lack aggression, but two have flying, and flying is at a premium in Ravnica.
Yeah, I could be playing with Votary of the Conclave. He’s a 1/1 that costs three to regenerate. That’s positively awful. Dromad Purebred stalls up the ground, so we’ll have to think about him.
The white spells are mediocre but can find a role. I look at Festival of the Guildpact as a one-mana cantrip in most decks, but in the late game it has the flexibility to act as a cantrip Fog. That’s a redeemable trait. Leave No Trace and Seed Spark are fine 22nd and 23rd cards. Seed Spark and other artifact destruction can often function as mana denial in the format, so don’t be afraid to use it early. I’m not a big fan of Wojek Siren in Selesnya, however, so we’ll give that a miss.
The first Green card I notice is Birds of Paradise. This sealed pool comes close to paying for itself. There’s also Elves of Deep Shadow and a pair of Civic Wayfinders, so playing big expensive spells looks viable. We have Greater Mossdog, Bramble Elemental, and the vicious Ursapine, so there are some good big men. Suddenly Chorus of the Conclave looks more and more attractive.
Once again, as with White, the Green spells stand in the corner, quietly, modestly. They’re all competent with the exception of Dryad’s Caress. Six mana for a mass untap plus half a Congregate is an awfully steep price to pay. With all the mana our creatures provide, Perilous Forays is overkill, but I’ll keep it in mind for future reference. Overwhelm can win games but needs to take the long view, and Rolling Spoil doesn’t look bad, if we’re playing black. You’re losing mana creatures, but the odds of your opponent losing more than you looks good. And as for Sundering Vitae … well, see my thoughts above. Unfortunately, it’s competing with Seed Spark for space.
Black has four cards any player would be happy to play with here. Brainspoil is a fairly reliable kill spell for five mana. Keening Banshee flies and 187s, though we’ll be mindful of the double black in its cost. Stinkweed Imp throws fear into the hearts of expensive quality creatures everywhere, and if you absolutely must have that opponent’s creature dead, you can always Disembowel it. Rounding out the support cards are Mortipede, who can turn any ground stall into a slaughter, and Sadistic Augermage provides a fair amount of punch for three mana.
Inferior cards come with every color, and Black has some stinkers here. Two Infectious Hosts do nothing for me. Shred Memory could fetch me a Seeds of Strength or Veteran Armorer, but its Transmute cost is steep. And as for Clinging Darkness, the threat of an opponent turning a Darkened creature into card advantage with enchantment removal bothers me too much to want to play it. Am I being too paranoid about Clinging Darkness? Tell me so in the forums.
The pool’s Blue cards abound with awfulness. Stasis Cell is simply too expensive and doesn’t tap the creature that it attaches to. Muddle the Mixture only counters four to six spells in most opponent’s decks and insists that you pay two blue mana. Lore Broker is symmetrical, and helps your opponent as well as you. Grayscale Gharial won’t have many Islands to swim through. As for Zephyr Spirit, well … if Rosewater claims that it’s the worst card in the set, believe him.
Snapping Drake is the only card in this pool that makes me want to play blue. It’s ruthlessly efficient, and there aren’t many fliers in the set to get in his way. A pair of Wizened Snitches are reasonably competent blockers. Tattered Drake is simply too expensive to be worth it. Terraformers are reasonably efficient, but there’s no reason you would ever want to splash them in Limited. Flight of Fancy and Compulsive Research are good sorcery speed card drawers, but if you play blue there won’t be much on the table to keep your opponent at bay.
I respect Dizzy Spell. Blue isn’t usually expected to play combat tricks involving the numbers on the bottom right part of the card, but this time it does, and it can keep a creature at bay. There aren’t many one mana spells I want to play in the format either, but later on Dizzy Spell may pick up in value.
After all those colored cards, we find by its lonesome Grifter’s Blade. I’ll always play with this in any draft deck; it balances the long-term dominance of Vulshok Morningstar with the short term quality of a Giant Growth.
Here’s the deck that I came up with.
1cc: Birds of Paradise, Elves of Deep Shadow, Festival of the Guildpact
2cc: Veteran Armorer, Seeds of Strength
3cc: 2 Civic Wayfinder, Nightguard Patrol, Shambling Shell, Stinkweed Imp, Putrefy, Sundering Vitae, Grifter’s Blade
4cc: Greater Mossdog, Screeching Griffin, Mortipede, Glare of Subdual
5cc: Ursapine, Bramble Elemental, Disembowel*, Brainspoil
6cc: Conclave Equenaut
8cc: Chorus of the Conclave
7 Forest
4 Plains
4 Swamp
2 Selesnya Sanctuary
Visual curve breakdown (as stolen from Craig Stevenson wonderful articles)
1: CCS
2: CS
3: CCCCCSS
4: CCCS
5: CCSS
6: C
8: C
Four mana fixers let me slide with only four plains for eight cards that I want to play in the early game. They also support my Sanctuaries in helping me ramp up to the higher cost spells. There are a few holes in quality, but with patience you should be able to win most games.
I’d rate this as a decent, if underwhelming card pool. Good players will be able to make a passable deck with this, but the cards won’t be doing any newbies any favors. If you draw Glare of Subdual and any number of creatures, your long game should be fine, and you’ll certainly win most games.
Are there any glaring mistakes? Is there something that you dispute? By all means, bring your thoughts to the forum. All I request is a civil tone.
Thank you, you’ve been a beautiful audience.
Eli Kaplan
[email protected]
gaijineli on #efnet