Return to Ravnica has been released on MTGO! Playing in one of the earliest 8-4 queues available, I thought I was ready to return to Ravnica: Five guilds. Two colors each. Powerful gold cards. I thought I was ready. I wasn’t.
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This is a somewhat crazy thought, but in R1G1, knowing that your deck was out of real answers to the board stall, and suspecting that the game might end in a decking, I think the right play might have been to put the Righteous Authority on one of your opponents defenders, in an attempt to make him draw the rest of his deck.
ty 4 this draft… crazy deck.. rlly… thats shows, how deep this format is…
I’ve drafted this archetype a few times and had some really good success with it. I think it’s actually better as straight G/W/B maybe splashing one other color for a bomb depending on the # of vines/guardians. G/W/B has some of the best mana-sinks out there, the guildmages are both incredible mana-sinks as is salvage. There is also obvious synergy with excellent defenders like Trestle Troll and the Jailbreaker. The selesnya guildmage is best, especially since it’s not uncommon to have 10+ mana to be able to use the ability and populate in the same turn. The golgari guildmage isn’t shabby either, and again has excellent synergy with the rest of the deck since its second ability is perfect for getting value out of excess gatecreeper vines/other defenders as well as having a mana sink in its first ability.
In regards to some of your picks: I think you may value straticaster/electrickery too highly. They’re both cards that would be sick in many formats, but I’ve actually found that there aren’t too many low toughness creatures outside of Rackdos. Selesnya has birds, but if they’re populating birds then you’re probably winning anyway. For similar reasons, I also think Skymarc Roc is overrated (as much as a 3/3 flier for 4 can be). I’ve played with and against it many times where it was just a 3/3 flier for 4, since its ability is dead a surprising amount of the time. I’ve seen it stated countless times that it’s the “best uncommon in the set” but I think the G/W guildmage is quite a bit better. I would even take Call of the Conclave over it because a populate deck w/conclaves is nigh-unbeatable.
Finally, I think even though you thought you might have too many green sources, I think it’s possible you had too few. The deck just doesn’t work at all w/o a green source, and 8 is few enough that there is a significant % of hands that won’t have one. I think it’s ok to go up to 10 green sources to all but guarantee the ability to play vines/guardian, and then add +5 to all your non-green sources.
Anyway, I’m interested to see what others think concerning the points I brought up because the format is still young and I could easily be wrong w/my evaluations.
moin
thanks simon as usual good drafting!
there is a big difference between you and all the other **** on this page. spike was one of the good drafters/players but now went to fireball.
to be serious you and the funny drafts of those “goodplaying-****” are the only reason why i keep this page in my bookmarks.
wouldnt that 1/3 blue defender not be a realy nice “backdoor”-wincondition?
i thought it some times during draft that you should take at least one at some point..
now after first match it looked like it could have done some work.
thanks again and keep it up, i also enjoy your bro-drafts, you should make one with ravnica
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regards, ben
*Edited by admin. Please refrain from name-calling profanity. Thanks!
also what brain said, i dont remember if you took an electrickery over that 1/3 defender but it would have been a good point in my point of view.
Sorry, Simon – I would have drafted a completely different deck than you would have starting with the Growing Ranks and the Phantom General – I counted at least 6 populate cards I could have picked up (mostly Rootborn Defenses and the enchantment blower) – but 2nd pack might have had more populate cards handed to you had you pulled Ranks and General with your first few picks!
And then I could have played that Round 1 a whole lot better than your opponent did – he did not attack with his Pegasus for about 4 rounds when you didn’t have a flyer and before your troll hit the table and then he should have never ditched all of his birds once he had Growing Ranks out – a 2/2 flyer every turn is nigh unbeatable. I don’t know if he ever had Rootborn Defenses, but according to my draft I would have had both of the ones I had seen!
Yay
I was really waiting for your column Simon, I’m looking forward to watch the draft !!
Great vid, as always Simon! I was wondering if you’d ever consider streaming on Twitch? I saw you did it once for a modern PTQ but nothing since. Your commentary is the best out there and I would love to see you draft live or even do a Standard Daily or something.
Keep it up, love your stuff.
Its worth noting that this type of deck is getting much more difficult to draft. People have caught on to the value of gatecreepers, 4/4 defenders, and 0/3 mana guys. Not that you can’t get them, but tis getting much tougher to get them after the first 5-6 picks – much less wheel them late like Simon was able to do in this draft.
Its certainly a fun archetpye when it comes together though!
haha this draft seems pretty fun so far, I’ve noted that in addition to your gatecreepers, axebane guardians, and jailbreakers you could have had 3 doorkeepers and 1 or 2 hover barriers to make the ultimate defender mill control deck, might be something to consider in the future as defender mill has wrecked me in the past with those cards
Wow, it was really interesting to see you navigate through these packs. I would have totally trainwrecked the draft because there was no clear path for shortsighted people like me. I mean, I’m also a surfer but this stuff was nervewracking. A great lesson in staying level-headed!
Oh, and bonus points for the Codex Shredder / Guild Feud kill.
Hi Simon. Thanks for your excellent content once again. I’m really excited to see RTR drafts! You’ve built a fascinating deck. I was really dubious that the manabase would work out at all, but you clearly built a solid base that came through for you every time. I know you wanted to try to strick with a Golgari base, but I wonder if Doorkeepers would have been good? As you said, you won the first match on the back of a mill strategy, and he has great synergy with the Axbane Guardian. I’ve even toyed with a fun standard durdles build that runs Axbanes, Doorkeepers, Fog Banks, Gatecreeper Vine, Hover Barrier plus Jace Memory Adept and Increasing Confusion. Not the most competitive deck (though the turtling works surprisingly well if I survive the first several turns), but amusing in its own way. At any rate, you built half that deck in limited! Could Doorkeeper be any good in this format, or more specifically in the sort of defensive deck (with big late game win cons) that you built here?
Agree with the praise of others here.
Nice deck, far more farsight than I have in this, very good eye for the manabase, the combo and the overall balance of your plan! It worked out in nearly every game, so the probability of that happening with a bad synergy is quite small
But yeah, Doorkeepers could’ve helped you a bit. Not against the last deck, he had such good cards piled together, way faster than you did. Next time a little bit of removal and you’re fine (killing the monocoloured catapult would be a good thing for example. I know the monocolourkiller isn’t that exciting, but for the sideboard definitely worth a look, if you see something nasty, board it in for game 2)
Oh and I just found out that you are German o.O
What are the odds, I live in Germany at the moment, though in Mainz. Hi *big wave*
I disagree with your first pick even though I liked how the draft turned out. 5 Color green doesn’t really need a random 3/3 guy that’s vulnerable to bounce and you know you’re going to get cut from Selsneya because you’re passing the playable rare that goes in the same archetype.
I would’ve taken the Ultimate Price. It’s an excellent card that’s less archetype dependent and it certainly would’ve been better in the deck you ended up drafting. Let the players downstream fight over GW
Thanks for all the comments! You bring up some very good points.
First of all, Doorkeeper (the 0/4 defender) would have had a place in the deck, replacing some of the lategame cards I played instead. However, both would have relied on having an Axebane Guardian to reasonably cast/activate them. Given how difficult it was to win games with my high-powered creatures, milling them would have been a good alternative. The reasons why I ended up without Doorkeepers were 1) I ended up this archetype by accident and had to manage earlygame, lategame and mana requirements simultaneously, 2) I was confident that my Jailbreakers and 5-7 mana fatties would carry me home once my engine was running. All the defenders of this set look very promising for limited play, and it’s going to be interesting to see what archetypes develop around them (5c Axebane and URW control already seeing some play).
@Keith: It didn’t occur to me to put Righteous Authority on one of his defenders as I thought my deck still had ways to win at this point.
@Brian: I agree with most of your points. I just wanted to stress that I didn’t ever plan to go into this archetype. That’s why my mana sinks were overcosted commons rather than Guildmages. It’s also very possible that my deck should have had 1 or 2 additional green sources, I would have to rewatch the deckbuilding though.
@guest: Criticm is best when it is a) polite and b) constructive. Bashing the work of others in this comment section is neither. For those interested in my German series “Görtzen & Görtzen”, it went up today at planetmtg.de.
@frizzell66: No need to be sorry if you disagree with my picks. I don’t like Phantom General at all but Growing Ranks is a very reasonable first pick. There is also no doubt that my first round opponent could have played better.
@Gudnarr: Thank you.
@Zippopirate85: Thank you as well. Regarding streaming, I’m planning to do it again in the future, I just won’t have time for it until November. Follow me on twitter and I’ll let you know.
@Robin: The amount of late Jailbreakers and Axebane Guardians was astonishing, but as I said, it was one of the first 8-4 drafts on MTGO.
@Nuegun: That’s exactly what I was alluding to in the intro text :).
@EdwardGein: I should have picked up some more removal. I thought that all those 4-power creatures would give me a very good lategame, but that turned out to be wrong. And yes, for those interested, I am in fact German.
@Dave C: I disagree with your argumentation. Firstpicking Call of the Conclave and passing Growing Ranks, I am the one that can cut my left neighbor from Selesnya, not the other way around. I also believe that CotC is better than Growing Ranks in Selesnya decks because it fills a more important role. Ultimate Price is a reasonable first pick, but I found that it doesn’t kill all that many important creatures in the format.
R1G1 – I’m guessing blocking at 18 with your 0/2 defender was just a punt?
You had 18 life, and you were thoughtflaring next turn. Your 0/2 defender was basically Utopia Tree, because of the axebane.
In your deck, would you chump five damage with a mana source at 18 life, the turn before drawing four cards?
I assume that this was just a mistake, but since no one has mentioned it… thoughts?
Also, knowing that the 5/5 was the result of ethereal armor… it could easily have grown to a 6/6 or larger. Definitely seemed like the wrong time to gain five life.
Hi Simon — I wanted to mention a vague idea for a future introductory video. (I love your intros — they are one of the features that distinguish your content from others’, making your videos still more useful and informative. I’m certainly not complaining about the lack of an intro this time, though. I know that you were working hard to get us RTR content ASAP, for which I am grateful.) I’d love to hear your thoughts on drafting multi-color archetypes with an eye toward power, consistency, and manabase construction.
I really don’t draft very much (though I like watching video content in limited better than constructed, for various reasons), but when I do, I’m typically extremely reluctant to splash even a third color, as color screw frustrates me so much. Again, I must reiterate my delighted surprise at your ability to build a 5C deck that ran so smoothly. So unless you’ve already made such an intro and I’ve forgotten it or missed it, I’d be anxious to listen to what you have to say about when and why to splash a third, fourth, or fifth color, and how to build a manabase for such contingencies (though you explain the latter quite well during this deck building session, I must say!).
Thanks, as always, for the delightful and informative videos!
CoTC is a much stronger card than growing ranks. No argument there. I don’t think its all that close but if I see that growing ranks pick 2 I still read that as a signal. I don’t think its worth cutting yourself off the best Selsnya cards pack 2 if there’s another powerful option. Unless your deck is very aggressive or full of populate CoTC is worse than a removal spell. Being in one color over two is an added benefit to Ultimate Price. I value staying open pretty highly and that plus my belief that Rakdos is the strongest deck would probably be reason enough for me to go with Ultimate Price over CoTC but it is close. The better signaling is just a bonus.
r1 – what a dirty victory…
oh wait…”this was simon goertzen with my FIRST EVER rtr draft”
so who made the draft, which result we’ve seen during the drafting video of this one?
…tse, tse, tse…
@Xeth: this episode was my first RTR draft for the Academy and my first non-prerelease RTR event on MTGO. The draft before that was a prerelease event I recorded with my brother. What point are you trying to make with your comment?
not to bother you – that’s for sure