Speculating

[Maleficent]

I don't like the Kamigawa block, so I ignore it. They have the Pro Tour for only single blocks anyway. So only conerning Ravnica, what does everyone think the strongest guild/strategy is? Are 3 colors worth a shot? Or 4? How about milling? Any expensive cards worth using?

I personally think the strongest guild is Boros (despite how boring I think it is); play a bunch of weenies, burn whatever's in your way, and Rally the Righteous to victory. Almost sounds like Sligh.

As for the other guilds, Golgari and Dimir are too slow, and Selesnya seems too weak. Sure, you get a 5/5 trampler for about 4 mana, but it'll just get killed. Mr. Wurm, meet Devouring Light :x.

But how about decks outside of guilds? I think Blood Funnel should definitely be an awesome deck somehow.. it just breaks almost all non-creature cards. It could work well with some kind of dredging.. play a spell for 2 less, sac a Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug, or maybe even Golgari Brownscale.. throw a bunch of cards in your graveyard, fetch lands (even non-basic ones) with Life from the Loam, dredge some more, gain some life to stay alive...

ugh how to use the graveyard most efficiently though.. it's too bad Eternal Witness is gone. Recollect sucks with dredge. Golgari Germination can keep it going. Surveilling Sprites are good for drawing, maybe turn it into a combo deck?

Eye of the Storm will only cost 3:u::u: or less, and any spell you play for it will be cheaper. Scary thought: someone plays a counterspell with EotS, not every card is a counterspell :shock:. Have Scatter the Seeds to counter spells and get more creatures to sac or chump block then sac (by playing an instant in resp to combat with EotS), and even if a spell is countered it still goes on EotS.. wait.. would it? How does that work?

[Insane Hermit]

Speculation, eh? Well here is, in general, what I see from the guilds now:

:manabg: : Although it can be formatted into a very fast Aggro deck (I have played with one, they are superb), the Golgari are undenyably a mid-game guild. It isn't exactly slow, but it also isn't generally quick. It's control staple, The Rock, will win mid-to-late game in most situations.

:manarw: : I have spoken before about this guild's resemblance to Sligh, and I think that that is the most viable way to play the Boros. A quick deck with burn. What better way to play the over-zealous enforcers of spot-fabricated laws? However, mass removal like Razia's Purification has lead to some very decent R/W Control.

:manaub: : The Dimir are obviously good for Control, some Aggro/Control, and, of course, Decking. Another lagging sort of guild, the Aggro here isn't all that aggressive.

:managw: : In my opinion, Selesnya just sucks. They're all over the place! Brilliant, efficient creatures like Watchwolf go to waste on YET ANOTHER slow-ish guild. Don't play Selesnya, pretty much at all.

Now for some speculation on how the not-yet-released guilds will be:

:manawu: : Ridiculous, feindish control. White being fascist and repressive in its extremes, and blue ending out with little feeling and passion puts the Azorius in a position to be a great control guild.

:manawb: : This one is a little more interesting. It could go a couple of different ways. See my deck Mad Cow, which showcases how well a quick Weenie/Aggro deck fits B/W even now, before GP. But mass removal is also one of the main themes of both guilds. I predict that for the Orzhov, there will be none of this Golgari/Dimir sort of mid-game lagging. It will either be fast and efficient or slow and controling.

:manaur: : I see the Izzet as a quicker guild, but not quite as aggressive as, say, the Boros. I think some fast, efficient creatures coupled with burn and card draw will make this a speedy guild.

:manarg: : I figure that R/G will go one of two ways. Flavor-wise, the Gruul have to be aggressive. This leads me to believe that we could have a resurgance of R/G Beats decks, or an tourney environment loaded with LD.

:manabr: : The Rakdos are just crazy. It's like, "Shoot first, ask questions later," but without the "ask questions later" part. They will undoubtably spawn decks that are just B/R versions of Suicide Black. I predict undercosted creatures with drawbacks as well as a couple decent removal cards.

:managu: : I figure that U/G will be control with a few very good finishers. I can imagine also that it may be one of the mid-game guilds.

[PerfectCell]

See, the key is to yank the Selesnya habit of making a billion tokens and stick it with the Golgari habit of sac'ing everything to do cool stuff. Groodions become useful spot removal when you've got tons to feed them, Blood Funnel is amazing when you can afford to sac more than two creatures a turn no sweat, and if you can swing something like Glare of Subdual too you've got strong control out of nowhere.
The problem is, Boros is so freakin' fast. Leading off with stuff like Recruit, which basically shreds most one and two drops, and then backing it up with absurdly fast evaders, plenty of burn, and even land destruction if he's smart, your average Boros player is going to swinging for so much that you simply run out of stuff to throw by sixth turn if not well before. Swiftblade is sickening, especially with a Rally lurking around (or Sunforger, if they slow down long enough to chuck it out there). Char basically nukes virtually every key player in the format, easily keeping advantage with them while eliminating anything short of a six or seven drop.
Frankly, if you don't go Boros, you better swing some amazing control. Suppression Field is worth splashing for white over, and frankly with Azorius on the horizon, that card is going to become insane. The best control I've seen so far is straight blue, splashing for a little white for Devouring Light, Field, and black for Last Gasp and Dark Confident, and a few other things along those lines. If you don't play Boros, be prepared to stop escalating damage from it (ie playtest at 2 damage 2nd turn, 4 damage 3rd turn, 6-8 damage 4th turn, etc.)

[Maleficent]

So Boros is just thee best? Unless someone builds a deck just to beat them. Hm I can see a Boros deck with Rally the Righteous and Master Warcraft doing some serious damage, but a few counterspells and/or mass destruction could probably ruin it. Boros is really fast but their late game power sucks methinks. They have to win early or don't win at all.

So something with blue would probably own Boros, I'm thinking the Izzet. It should be somewhere in between aggro and control, fast creatures and burn with counterspells. It could stabilize the early game with some quick creatures and burn, lock the board, and take over with.. DRAGONS! or whatever lol. Blue and red also have a lot of copying... copy a burn spell a few times.. heh.

[Insane Hermit]

Boros isn't the best at all! Rakdos will have better fast Aggro, and Control, as long as it isn't really slow, can own 'em. They are very good, though.

[PerfectCell]

Look, Burn + Counters = teh win. Until Izzet hit the streets, though, you're tough out of luck.

[Maleficent]

Originally posted by Insane Hermit
Boros isn't the best at all! Rakdos will have better fast Aggro, and Control, as long as it isn't really slow, can own 'em. They are very good, though.

Hm I dunno... red/black... wouldn't that have a lot of drawbacks? The Orzhov could be fast too with white weenie and black weenie, but white is always cheap and efficient and red has good burn and efficient creatures as well, so I'm not sure you can get much faster than Boros. Rakdos would probably be able to control it though since they like to kill everything... buncha sadists.

So I assume the Golgari and Dimir aren't worth trying, unless they're just helping something else. They both are really, really slow, and even though Grave-Shell Scarab is awesome, especially with some Birds of Paradise, faster decks like Boros can just Char the stupid thing once they play it and finish them off.

However I could see the slower decks being decent with cards like Civic Wayfinder; get a ton of lands while blocking the quick little creatures with that and Carven Caryatid until they get enough lands to play some big creatures to overwhelm them.

Hm... how about non-guild decks?

[Twinkee]

In terms of speed i think Rakdos will probably be the fastest. just imagine a Sui-black creature with burns+removal backing it up. I think there is going to be a new Phyrexian negator going to be born from this guild.

W/B will be very interesting indeed.. perhaps some sort of taxing in the 2 color.. will we see something on the lines of balance? (not that cheap in CC and power ofcourse). I think this guild will play in an aggro/control style that just chip away at your opponent economically on the board. Which will be hard to balance imo... But I suspect wizard will nerf this guild to the ends of time.

U/W guild will be the slowest sluggish guild of all the guilds. But I think there is a possibility that it can be a powerful contender.. but without decent counterspells and board swipers.. I don't think this guild will live against Boros and Rakdos.

Quite honestly.. I'm hoping for the top3 guilds being R/G, U/W, and W/R. But more than likely it may be W/B in the place of U/W should U/W be too slow for the format.

Twink

[Maleficent]

U/W could be slow, or it could be an aggro skies kind of guild, or both. But either way it should be able to slow down the other guilds no problem, since U/W is like control incarnate.

Why do you say R/G though Twinkee? It could be good with land destruction... but Boros can get around that pretty well.

[Twinkee]

U/W will be a control guild I can almost assure it. From the storyline so far they are the government, they create the laws to do stuff... it just doesn't sound like a u/w flying guild. Plus with Boros being a sligh-like guild, U/W will just get killed in the meta.

I say R/G just because it's capability of screwing U/W control or other other control decks for that matter. Control decks needs consistent mana more than other archtypes, almost all the control decks needs around 4-5consisntent land drop since most control decks have a high-ish mana curve. The R/G guild can essentially slow everyone of the control deck down by one or 2 turns or more depending on they shape to be that will just be a lot of trouble for control. Ofcourse extremely fast aggro guilds will probably run them over.. just some weird speculations.

Twink

[Maleficent]

Right but they should be a bit more dynamic that control and that's it. Probably mostly control though. Ah okyz, I bet any kind of LD could ruin it too, and since G/R is probably a lot of LD, it could be splashed into the Boros.

Speaking of which, since R/G could be good for screwing over control decks and W/R can screw over everything else with its speed, mix the 2 and wala, screw everything over with one deck.

Hm.. well I've been playtesting some decks I've made, and I'd say they're about equal power, and milling can destroy Boros. I had 2 Lurking Informants and that was game, didn't even need them both. Just give them a ton of lands, counter the spells that matter, kill off a few annoying creatures with Last Gasp, and block the rest with that 0/5 flying wall or Vedalken Entrancer (1/4). Dimir is quite powerful methinks.

[Maleficent]

Well here's an idea for control that might work:

Lands - 24
10x Swamp
10x Island
4x Watery Grave

Creatures
4x Thoughtpicker Witch
4x Lurking Informant
4x Surveilling Sprite
4x Sadistic Augermage
4x Golgari Thug or Infectious Host
4x Dimir Infiltrator

Other Spells
4x Last Gasp
4x Telling Time
4x Necromantic Thirst

Basically the idea is to screw over your opponent for the rest of the game with the witch and informant.. the augermage helps some too when sacrificing it to the witch. Necromantic Thirst can keep creatures coming to be sacrificed, especially with the help of Dimir Infiltrator.

Does this look like a decent idea for a tournament deck? It should be able to go against weenie easily, block with something then sac it to the witch and they'll never get anything they need while you finish off the last of their creatures with Last Gasp.