Dissension has hit store shelves, meaning everyone is now trying to figure out what cards fit into which deck. When a new set comes out, most people instantly try to find the great constructed cards. But there’s another format that we shouldn’t be forgetting so quickly. With the release of Dissension, Ravnica block limited has taken a massive turn.

Before I get to that, however, I want to take a look at the craziness that is Rav/Guild/Diss draft. Generally, the idea of booster draft is to go two colors and sit with that. Looking at recent formats, this has generally held true. Onslaught block held to this teaching fairly well. Mirrodin block did as well, but at times a mono-colored deck was viable. There were times when a one-colored deck that ran 16+ artifacts was able to be competitive. Those decks came in all variations. Pros tended to dislike blue in the Mir/Mir/Darksteel draft, so there was generally one blue drafter at the table. Because of that, he was able to get into a mono-colored artifact deck. There was also the equipment lover build that was basically little white weenies and a boat-load of equipment. The few white spells that deck ran were things like Blinding Beam and equipment lovers like Leonin Den-Guard and Skyhunter Cub. But Fifth Dawn also gave us the other end of the spectrum, with the 4 or 5 color sunburst decks. You could conceivably have a table with a mono-color drafter and a 5 color drafter.

Kamigawa block draft was basically figure out your two colors no later than pick 6 in Betrayers and settle in. It said never run three colors, and if you have to splash, do it with one card, two at the absolute most. Unless you are Geoffry Siron; then you can run a mono-red deck.

Then came Ravnica. When the format was Rav-Rav-Rav, it was fairly straightforward. Four guilds with two colors each set up nicely for two people drafting each guild, each being two colors. It definitely didn’t always work out that way, but it was good in theory. With the signets and Karoo lands, splashing for a third color wasn’t all that uncommon, however.

When Guildpact entered the format, that all changed. Because you don’t really want to miss out on the gold cards in any packs, booster draft really switched to a two color-splash a third format. For the most part, it isn’t truly three color, because there was only one pack that was off-color for gold cards. The other interesting thing Guildpact brought to the format was the limitation of color-combinations that were viable. Three color combinations like Black/Blue/Green weren’t possible, because the U/G guild hadn’t been released.

Now Dissension has hit the format, and hit it hard. Over the course of a year, limited players have gone from drafting primarily two color decks to running four or five colors with regularity. Even Invasion wasn’t this crazy of a draft format. The once-frowned upon Nephilim are now somewhat viable cards in draft. Why is four-color so accepted? Simply put, there aren’t enough three color combinations to go around. There are only five possible three-color combinations you can get into in R/G/D, assuming you want to take gold cards from each pack (trust me, you do). They are:

Blue-Black-Red
Blue-Black-White
White-Red-Blue
White-Red-Black
Black-Green-Red

In theory, it is possible to force those color combos, but in the craziness that is booster draft, it won’t always happen. Also, if you open a Selesnya bomb, you’ll be going four colors. This is somewhat ironic, because the Selesnya Guildmage is considered to be the best card in Ravnica limited. Selesnya also has bombs like Evangel and Glare of Subdual. If you don’t mind being four colors, watch for those cards to start slipping through later and later, as people fight for Dimir and Boros. Dimir and Boros offer not only the best chance at three color decks, but also the most options going into Guildpact. If you start with Golgari, your only chance at three colors is B/G/R. Golgari in the first pack, Gruul in the second, and Rakdos pack three.

If you prefer to go three colors, and want to take gold from each pack, what color combo is best? While your colors are usually determined by the quality of cards you open, Ravnica block offers more of a chance than normal to force the colors you want. Let’s break down each archetype individually:

Blue-Black-Red (Dimir-Izzet-Rakdos)

This is an interesting build, because the guilds seemingly contradict themselves. Rakdos wants to drop its hand as quickly as possible to get to Hellbent, but blue loves drawing cards. Card advantage is considered to be key in this format, so cards like Thirst for Knowledge are at a premium. The card advantage/drop your hand debate aside, U/B/R allows for a solid aggro flying type deck. Snapping Drake and Torch Drake are solid fliers from the common slot, so you deck will probably get at least one of the two, if not both or both in multiples. Roofstalker Wight is a great late pick for this deck, because it gives you an aggressive two drop flier. At uncommon, Moroii is a great addition to this deck.

Blue-Black-White (Dimir-Orzhov-Azorius)

This is a tricky one to make work well. It has a lot of potential, but your draft has to go well for it to work. This combo tends to be a little more on the control side. This is another deck that will look to the air more often than not to win. While there are a few good groundpounders in these colors, Snapping Drake, Blind Hunter, Grotesque, First-Wing, and random uncommons and rares like Belfry Spirit will help round out the air-strike.

Red-White-Blue (Boros-Izzet-Azorius)

The All-American draft strategy has some real potential. Boros out of pack 1 gives you aggressive guys and quick beats. Izzet gives you some utility stuff, as well as guys like Steamcore Weird and Ogre Savant to clear the way for your beaters. Torch Drakes aren’t to shabby either. The last pack gives you some air support, as well as good cards to shore up any defensive laggings your deck may have.

Red-White-Black (Boros-Orzhov-Rakdos)

There are a lot of ways you can go with this trio. You can go with the aggro build based in Boros, or you can go with the more controlling build with a bunch of walls, enchantments, and pingers. The latter version will usually involve removal in the form of Faith’s Fetters, Pillory of the Sleepless, Seal of Fire/Doom. Because of this, be careful about Azorius First-Wing, as it has the potential to absolutely wreck this deck.

Green-Red-Black (Golgari-Gruul-Rakdos)

As opposed to the above, there aren’t too many ways you can go here. Basically, this trio wants to smash the face and sprinkle in a little removal. There is usually no flying in this deck, so that may be a bit of a concern. However, with enough removal, it shouldn’t be a problem.

One thing you may have noticed, and I said it before—there are no Selesnya trios possible if you go gold per pack. Green-White has gone from arguable the strongest color in this block, to the color with a sign that says “stay away.” I think pro player Quentin Martin said it best when he said, “take the best card, take the mana fixer, and stay the hell away from green-white.”

After looking at all the possibilities in R/G/D draft, its time to delve in and look at how the pros look at this format. Luckily, the pro tour that uses this draft format happened the weekend the set came out, so all the strategies the pros use are out in the open right away.

The Trio to Draft

Without a question, the most popular trio of colors at PT Prague was Green-Blue-Red. This color combo is so potent because of the awesome interactions between the mechanics of Graft and Bloodthirst. After all, what’s more fun than a Simic Initiate on turn one, followed by a 4/4 Scab Clan Mauler on the next turn? This “bloodgraft” combo has sent many people to 3-0 in pods over the weekend. If you’ll notice, this combo doesn’t take gold from Ravnica. If there is a pack that you should be willing to skip gold from, Ravnica is that pack. Because Ravnica is the large set in the block, it has the most mono-colored cards. Not drafting gold is less likely to hurt you in Ravnica than it is in Guildpact or Dissension. To take a look an example of a RGU deck, we will once again be using Wizard’s Draft Viewer.

Click here to open the viewer.

This is the draft of Takuya Oosawa. It was the last draft on Day 2 of the pro tour. When he was sitting down, Takuya knew that he only needed to go 1-0-2 to make top eight. The scenario was win your first match, and you can draw the next two. If he would have lost the first match after this draft, he would have had to win both of his next two.

The first pick offers up the choice of Lightning Helix, Civic Wayfinder, and Veteran Armorer. For most casual players, it would take about 3.4 seconds of thinking before Helix hit the table from this pack. Oosawa was clearly looking to push his way into RGU, so the Helix is dismissed. For the RGU deck, the best card is clearly Wayfinder. Remember Martin’s advice—draft the best cards, draft the fixers. Wayfinder is both. So, Civic Wayfinder goes face-down into the pile. Click the next arrow to see pick 2.

Pick two shows a few good black cards, a quick little red beater, Entrancer for blue, with Bramble Elemental the only green card. Shipping a Thundersong Trumpeter is a good signal that Boros is open, as Helix went left in the first pack. The bad thing about that is a Boros drafter has a 50/50 chance of drafting Izzet out of pack two, thereby cutting you off. But the beauty of the RGU trio is that if Izzet gets cut, you simply take the Gruul cards. Anyway, back to this pack…the choice comes down to the red Grizzly Bear or ‘Ole Brambly. Bramble is the better card, so Oosawa solidified himself in green.

The first thing I noticed about the third pack is that someone is going to get a gift in Last Gasp fourth or fifth. For Oosawa, this pack came down to a choice between man’s best fungus, the Greater Mossdog, or Cleansing Beam. Removal is good, and there will be plenty of time to pick up creatures. Cleansing Beam has board-sweeping potential, so Oosawa snatches up the red card.

The fourth pack convinces me that no one on Oosawa’s right is in Boros. Skyknight shouldn’t have made it halfway around the table. This pick is probably the most curious of the draft for me. Fists of Ironwood on a Bramble Elemental is four guys plus a 4/4 trampler. Blue offers up both Tidewater Minion and Peel from Reality. Oosawa opted for the Peel for Reality. I guess he likes it better in RGU than Fists. Peel + Izzet Chronarch is a fun little trick in limited.

Pick five is an example of something I haven’t covered yet, but I’m sure just about everyone knows what it is: hate drafting. This pack really doesn’t have anything Oosawa wants for his build. Terraformer maybe, but shipping someone a sixth or seventh pick Clinging Darkness after the last gasp a few packs back is too good. Darkness gets D-drafted away from the pack.

For the rest of pack 1, Oosawa grabbed a few removal spells in the form of Dogpile and Elvish Skysweeper. There was nothing else of note coming back around, save for a War-Torch Goblin 12th that possibly makes the deck. We’re going to jump to the Guildpact packs now. So change the drop-down arrow on the top of the screen to Guildpact, and make sure to reset to pick one.

Pack Two, pick one: This is a saucy pack. Gruul Guildmage, Pyromantics, Starfletcher, and Steamcore Weird are all extremely good cards, and that’s just in his colors. The pack also has a Pillory of the Sleepless, a Euthanist, and a Spelltithe Enforcer. While the Euthanist and the Enforcer may not be first pick quality, they’ll make someone downstream pretty happy. This pack offers an interesting choice. Do you go with the awesome removal spell, or do you go with a solid creature? The count on playable creatures isn’t exactly high at this point. So far for playable guys he has: Bramble Elemental, Civic Wayfinder, Elvish Skysweeper, maybe Sabertooth Alley-Cat, and maybe War-torch Goblin. With three on-color playable creatures in the pack, Pyromantics gets shuffled to the back. So that leaves Guildmage, Weird, and the archer. At this point, Oosawa’s blue count is low, with only a Peel from Reality to note. Blue may look to be a splashy color at this point, so the weird goes away. The Guildmage is pretty much straight up better than the Starfletcher, so Guildmage hit the pile, and Starfletcher made someone to Oosawa’s right happy.

Pick two is pretty much a no-brainer. Scab-Clan maybe drew some interest, but the pumping cantrip is too good to pass up. Wildsize hits the table. (Note the missing rare: Skeletal Vampire, arguably the best card in Guildpact limited, went to the player on his left.)

Another fairly simple pick in pack three. Ghor-Clan Savage is a house in limited. With nothing else in the pack to even take a second look at, the Savage is the pick. Cerebral Vortex is mediocre at best, for those of you wondering.

Notice the late Blind Hunter, but take even more notice to the very late Ulasht, the Hate Seed. I’m not sure if this is a great signal that Gruul is open (which it appears to be), or just people extremely undervaluing that card, but Ulasht fourth is a gift. Steamcore Weird and Starfletcher aren’t even in the same ballpark with Ulasht. I would have liked to see how fast Oosawa slammed it down to the table.

The power level of pick five falls a little from the previous picks. Bloodscale Prowler, the Signet, and maybe the Magemark vie for the best on-color cards. With no auras to speak of, Magemark gets shuffled away pretty quickly. Bloodthirsty guys are generally better picks this early in the pack than signets, so it should be no surprise that the Prowler goes over the signet.

Steamcore Weird at pick six is a nice little surprise. Wee Dragonauts gets scooped in the seven-hole, and Burning-Tree Bloodscale joins the pile at eight. Nothing else of real note came in the rest of this pack. Rabble-Rouser at ninth pick makes it if he’s scratching for playables.

Time to go to Dissension; this is what we’re here for.

A twenty dollar bill shows up in the first pack, but he’s not black-red, so it’s going to someone else. The cards he’s really looking at are Assault Zeppelid, Coiling Oracle, and Plaxcaster Frogling. Anyone remember Soratami Rain-Shaper from Champions draft? It was a first-pick quality card. Well, Frogling is better than Rain-Shaper. Frogling heads to the pile.

Pick two doesn’t offer up quite the options that pick one did. Sporeback Troll is decent, but Aquastrand Spider is simply better. Giving your bloodthirsted guys the ability to block fliers is a great trick in this format. Not to mention he’s a base 2/2 for 2.

Pick three didn’t really offer a surprise. Simic gold may be drying, but with two decent Simic cards, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Oracle vs. Worm is the debate here, with Oracle being the better card. Even if it whiffs on a land, you still net a card. Card advantage is never a bad thing.

Pick four shows the Simic gold is truly drying up a little. Rakdos looks underdrafted, but its way to late in the game to switch now. But never fear, because Strive plus Aquastrand Spider and the Frogling is a great combo.

A little more Simic gold shows up here in the form Vigean Hydropon, affectionately called the Hat Rack. Ragworm makes another appearance, but the deck so far is looking for guys to spread the +1/+1 counters around. The Hat Rack does that very well. Simple pick here.

The Hat Rack shows up again in pick six, but Utopia Sprawl also makes an appearance. I go back to Quentin Martin’s advice: “pick the best cards, pick the mana fixers.” Utopia Sprawl will help sort out the mana situation a lot faster than the Hat Rack. Actually, the Hat Rack will never sort out mana problems. Utopia Sprawls gets picked over the Hydropon.

Nothing overly spectacular made it back around the table; accept for the Ocular Halo Oosawa opened in his first pack. Its too bad he passed on both Ragworms, because Ocular Halo set to Ragworm is insane card advantage. [Click on this link to see Greyfell's Ocular Worm deck from an article earlier this week.  ~Streetz~]

That, in a general sense, is what the RGU decks that a lot of pros drafted this weekend tries to do. It gets solid mono-colored guys and fixers from Ravnica, then gets the bloodthirst guys from Guildpact, then gets the graft guys from Dissension. Oosawa’s deck did exactly what he wanted it to do. He won his first match from the pod, then intentionally drew the next two, ensuring himself a seat at the final table on Sunday morning.

Well, there you have it, for now at least. Ravnica block is the most complex, yet most fun draft format in recent memory, and possibly ever. If you are just discovering booster draft and the fun it brings, you are entering at a great time. If you are confused about what’s going on, don’t worry. I’ve got a few months to break this format down even deeper. There are also tons of websites that carry articles about limited. Don’t be afraid to go do some homework on the format.

To close, I’d like to ask for some reader feedback. What do you think about using the draft viewer to analyze drafts? What about the idea of draft walkthroughs altogether? Do you like straight-up analysis of archetypes, or do you like it when I present a pack and walk through the thought processes. Maybe a bit of both mixed together? Let me know in the forums.

That’s all for now. Everyone out of the pool!

~lionden_56~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
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