Locations
I’ll start by discussion some of these card evaluations and then move on to talk about some of the general strategies I tried while drafting.
Over / Under
If you didn’t read my first article on Return to Ravnica Limited when it was published, you can check it out here.
Of the other top five lists, only Korozda Monitor on the Selesnya list should be valued a bit differently. I think it should be valued a bit lower, perhaps below Centaur's Herald. I feel that the better Selesnya decks get, the more they rely on populate. What I mean by this is that the most absurd Selesnya decks you will see will be the ones making some 3/3 tokens fast and then casting populate spell after populate spell until they can overwhelm their opponents.
In general, the populate spells were better than I initially thought. For example, Eyes in the Skies doesn’t seem all that good on paper, as most of the time, it is a Midnight Haunting that costs 1 mana more. However, when I played with it, it actually felt like a good card even though I was only making a couple of Birds. The fact that it is an instant goes a long way toward making it a good card, allowing you to ambush 1-toughness creatures with the Birds. If you have bigger tokens around, even better, as you get to do the ambushing with Centaurs instead of with Birds. Selesnya can be a bit tricky with all the instant populate cards available, meaning combat can go quite badly if you are attacking a Selesnya player with mana open and a token out.
Archetypes
I had the chance to try out some different archetypes during the weekend, and a few of them seemed to have real potential. Now, it’s worth noting that due to the limited number of Drafts I actually had time to do, some archetypes might well feel “too good” at this point. Once you have the chance to draft twenty or thirty times, you start forming that actual feel of the format, where a couple of good Drafts with a certain archetype don’t skew your whole perception. However, as I still feel it’s worth talking about these, here we go.
Another archetype I thought was good was Selesnya tokens. This is more of a midrange strategy, as your main strength lies in overwhelming the opponent and gaining incremental advantage with the various populate spells. All the talk about incremental advantage might make you think this deck is slow, but once you start churning out 3/3 Centaur tokens, the game is over pretty quickly. In one of the Drafts, I was passed a Grove of the Guardian, which was insane with any kind of populate spell, and it’s just very good just on its own. Turns out a 6-mana 8/8 vigilance creature is seldom bad.
These are some of the general thoughts I have about the format. If there is interest in the topic, I’ll be sure to write more about it after the Pro Tour. Once Return to Ravnica is available on Magic Online, I’ll be able to do more Drafts and form a better picture of the format. Overall, it feels that some of the aggressive strategies are really good, but it is worth noting that there is a certain balance to the format. The midrange Selesnya decks are strong against most aggro decks, but they’re not that strong against control decks or decks with a lot of flyers. You should really think about these inherent strengths and weaknesses of your deck while drafting, and try to pick up suitable sideboard cards when possible.
Helsinki to San Jose
By the time you read this article, I will most probably be on my way from Helsinki to San Jose via Chicago. I’m really looking forward to the Grand Prix, as it is not often that I have the chance to play Team Limited at a competitive level. If you didn’t already, be sure to check out my article on the subject, which was published last week. We have actually not had much time to test for the Pro Tour yet, but we still have about five to six days of nonstop testing ahead of us once we arriving in the US. I hope we will come up with a sweet Modern deck, even though I feel there is not nearly as much room for innovation as before the last Modern Pro Tour.
If you have any restaurant recommendations or sightseeing suggestions for either San Jose or Seattle, be sure to let me know either via Twitter or the comments section below. The same goes for any ideas, critiques, or suggestions you might have.
Thanks for reading, and best of luck to those of you attending Grand Prix: San Jose,
Max
@thebloom_ on Twitter
Maxx on Magic Online
You can find my music on: http://soundcloud.com/bloomlive
