LR 461 Uncut

LR 461 - Guilds of Ravnica First Impressions 

CFB

Pete 

PQotW

Sean Kelly

I’m curious about the life of a professional player. What do the pros pay for, and what (if anything) is given to them through sponsorships?  Also what is the threshold of success before a big sponsor like CFB would sign someone?
Thanks for all the pods!

GRN Crack a Packs (do 2 or 3)

When it comes to the guilds, I’ve been thinking of them by asking questions around these two topics:

What is the baseline strategy for this guild, how good is that strategy, and how consistent is that strategy?

How does the guild’s signature mechanic interact with that baseline strategy?

Guild Rankings:

Dimir/Izzet

Boros

Selesnya

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Golgari

Dimir has been the most consistently good guild for me because of how incidentally good surveil is. It’s not the most directly powerful mechanic, but it’s EVERYWHERE. You get it essentially for free on a ton of cards you’d play anyway like Deadly Visit, Dimir Informant, House Guildmage, Notion Rain, Price of Fame, Unexplained Disappearance, Watcher in the Mist, Whisper Agent and even Thought Erasure. 

Common and Uncommon Surveil Payoff Power Rankings:

Disinformation Campaign

Dimir Spybug

Darkblade Agent

Thoughtbound Phantasm

Whispering Snitch

When the payoffs are good, the ability is everywhere (there are 21 cards in the set that let you surveil!!), and you pack that in a totally reasonable control shell, you have a winner. 

All three counterspells have been good in sealed, and I’ve played all 3 in draft as well and would again.

Decking is a problem with some builds, but is usually avoidable and not something you see a ton of in practice.

Dazzling lights has overperformed, especially with one of the four deathtouch creatures in these colors (Hired Poisoner, Pitiless Gorgon, Nightveil Predator, Darkblade Agent)

Note on sideboarding and win conditions again.

Izzet seems to have the highest ceiling of all the guilds; when you get a great Izzet deck iit can feel hard to lose with it.

Jump-start has proven a solid value mechanic. Doesn’t feel broken but it’s very good. It’s actually the payoffs for casting instants and sorceries that are the driving force behind many of the jump-start cards being in the deck (I’m looking at you Radical Idea)

Common and Uncommon Izzet Payoff Power Rankings:

Murmuring Mystic

Wee Dragonauts

Piston-Fist Cyclops

Leapfrog

Fire Urchin

Smelt Ward Minotaur

Electrostatic Field

Izzet can win games out of nowhere (as we saw at GP Montreal this weekend) but it can also play a more controlling game with good red and blue removal, counters, and card draw, and then set up a for a big finish down the line. 

Izzet is one of the harder guilds to draft - it has two distinct izzet decks (control and aggro) and card value fluctuate wildly in between the two. This is a playable-rich format, especially if you’re in an open guild, so you don’t always have to choose, but knowing when you care about Capture Sphere vs Sonic Assault is really important.

Sideboarding is also clutch with Izzet - you can often have a core of 16-18 cards, and the last set of cards you add determines how aggressive vs controlling you are. That gives you the flexibility to sideboard into either deck, which is really important (give examples).

Boros was supposed to be the fastest and most aggressive guild, and it is. A good Boros deck is very much the fun police in this format, and that’s a good thing if you are the Boros player. Early creatures, a few mentor triggers, some combat tricks and removal and your opponent can find themselves dead in a hurry. 

Boros plays out in a very CABS centric way, with virtually every card contributing either by being a creature, combat trick, or removal spell. Mana curve is critical, and one-drops like Healer’s Hawk play a big role once they pick up even a single +1/+1 counter. 

Skyknight Legionnaire has been fantastic. 

Boros 2-drop Power Ranking:

Legion Guildmage (I’d switch these two)

Boros Challenger

Sunhome Stalwart

Goblin Cratermaker

Ornery Goblin

Fresh-Faced Recruit (I have this above Orndogg)

Skyline Scout

Fire Urchin

Tenth District Guard

Goblin Locksmith

Mentor has proven quite powerful, and what we talked about in the set review about getting even one +1/+1 counter on a creature being so powerful.

Selesnya has been a little disappointing. The interesting question right now is are we supposed to be drafting a more midrange style convoke deck to take advantage of Siege Wurm and Flight of Equanauts or are we supposed to be drafting a super fast GW aggro deck with Healer’s Hawks and Ironshell Beetles?

At GP Montreal Ari Lax had some success drafting Selesnya — which seemed open for his seat — by going very very aggressive rather than going for the convoke plan. The theory being that Selesnya’s baseline game plan is too slow to beat a good Dimir, Izzet, or Boros deck, so instead you need to try to get underneath those archetypes by just being faster and prioritizing a good curve filled with 2 and even 1-drops. 

This feels counter to what we are being “told” to do by R&D, which is to flood the board with small creatures and power out huge ones with convoke. 

One annoying thing about this set in particular is the amount of deathtouch in it. There are five creatures with deathtouch and all of them are either common or uncommon. For comparison sake, there were 2 in M19, 1 in Hour of Devastation, 2 in Amonkhet, This can make for a very hostile environment if your end game is Worldsoul Colossus or Arboretum Elemental. 

Convoke Power Rankings:

Conclave Tribunal

Rosemane Centaur

Siege Wurm

Flight of Equenauts 

Loxodon Restorer

Sprouting Renewal

Worldsoul Colossus

Arboretum Elemental

Pack’s Favor

Ledev Guardian

Pause for Reflection

Golgari has been bad. Compare undergrowth to surveil. Surveil makes it easy. Undergrowth has a relatively high setup cost. Getting creatures in the graveyard for free basically doesn’t happen. The problem is that you don’t want to discard them, but you also you don’t want to surveil them away. You want to mill them for “free” but there aren’t any ways to do that outside of Glowspore Shaman which is uncommon and kind of not great anyway.

And even if you do put in the effort, the payoffs aren’t even that good. 

I have it slightly better than this - it is the last-place guild, but when it’s open, it’s good. A big part of this format is finding the open guild, and golgari does have enough good cards that it can be fine. It also combines nicely with dimir to make a 3-color brew, and Sultai is a viable archetype. I did a little better with golgari once I stopped worrying about undergrowth as much as drafting good cards in these colors, as there are plenty and you can be solidly controlling (70%) or aggro (30%) if the colors are open.

Undergrowth Payoff Power Rankings?

Kraul Harpooner

Rhizome Lurcher

Necrotic Wound

Lotleth Giant

Vigorspore Wurm

Golgari Raiders

Kraul Foragers

Moodmark Painter

Molderhulk

High setup cost, bad payoffs, slow baseline game plan.

Bad.

Have Luis tell us about his collection of very good golgari cards from his stream.