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Welcome back for another installment for my Full Ravnica Cube series. This week, we’ll be tackling three more guilds: Izzet, Gruul, and Orzhov. Next week, we’ll finish off the remaining three guilds, and in the next couple weeks, we’ll be looking at the nonguild cards and Dragon’s Maze.
First up is Izzet. A recurring theme across both blocks for the U/R guild is instants and sorceries. Guildpact had the replicate mechanic, which had great tension between using your spell now or waiting to generate more value. Overload works in much the same way and has that same tension. In practice, there are slight differences. Overload cards like Mizzium Mortars and Cyclonic Rift are insanely powerful if you can overload them, but replicate cards like Pyromatics and Vacuumelt offer more flexibility by giving you more options.
Because Izzet is highly skewed toward spells, U/R/x decks will have to look elsewhere for their creatures. Let’s start by applying our template from last week and see if we need to make any cuts.
High-pick Draft commons and uncommons – Blustersquall, Electrolyze, Frostburn Weird, Gelectrode, Goblin Electromancer, Izzet Chronarch, Ogre Savant, Pyromatics, Steamcore Weird, Street Spasm, Teleportal, Thoughtflare
Sweet rares – Cyclonic Rift, Hypersonic Dragon, Invoke the Firemind, Mercurial Chemister Mizzium Mortars
That comes out to twenty-nine cards, so we’ll need to make three or four cuts. I’m also aiming for about half of the cards to be instants or sorceries, and we’re a bit short there. Last, I only want about a third of the total cards to be creatures. Here’s the revised list:
I had to cut a lot of the creatures to come up with the ratios I wanted, and the remaining ones I feel are the best candidates. It hurts me to cut Ogre Savant, as it was one of my pet cards, but Voidwielder does pretty much the same thing and is almost certainly making the cut in the nonguild section later. That left room to add a few more instants and sorceries such as Vacuumelt and Electrickery, the latter of which becomes better with Selesnya making 1/1 Saproling tokens.
Moving on, we have Gruul. The interaction of bloodrush and bloodthirst is probably the one I’m most excited about in this Cube. Chump-attacking never looked so good, as you can never be sure if a Gruul player wants or doesn’t want her opponent to block. She could have a bloodrush creature to force a bad trade or she could just be bluffing a trick to cast a huge threat post-combat. She could even have both!
Gruul is the polar opposite of Izzet when it comes to creatures versus spells, so we’re again looking at a highly skewed distribution—this time in favor of creatures. Let’s apply our template as a starting point.
High-pick Draft commons and uncommons – Burning-Tree Emissary, Ghor-Clan Rampager, Ghor-Clan Savage, Ground Assault, Pit Fight, Savage Twister, Slaughterhorn, Streetbreaker Wurm, Viashino Shanktail, Zhur-Taa Swine
Sweet rares – Burning-Tree Shaman, Clan Defiance, Domri Rade, Gruul Ragebeast, Rubblebelt Raiders, Rubblehulk, Rumbling Slum, Skarrgan Firebird, Wrecking Ogre
Again, we need to make a bunch of cuts. Because of the focus on creatures, I want to make sure there is a decent curve, so I’ll be making some adjustments there as well, mostly cutting some of the more expensive creatures and adding cheap ones. Here’s where I ended up:
The biggest challenge I found was figuring out which noncreatures to cut. All of the spells I was looking at are insane, and cutting any of them seems wrong to me. This may seem odd, but I decided to cut the Signet and the Keyrune. Gruul decks often don’t want these cards, and they tended to go around quite late in their respective Draft formats. Skarrg, the Rage Pits was a card I really wanted to include, but I just couldn’t bring myself to cut any of the above spells for it.
Sadly, I only found room for one bloodthirst card: Ghor-Clan Savage. Gatecrash offers far better options for the most part, and I don’t want to include worse cards just for the sake of having bloodthirst. Cards such as Rumbling Slum and Burning-Tree Shaman that were intended as bloodthirst enablers lose a bit of their value but still work great because of their power and toughness. It may go against my initial intentions for Gruul, but I think it will work out fine.
I’ll wrap up this week by looking at Orzhov. If there’s one guild that’s about slowly grinding out your opponent, it’s this one. The extort mechanic really drives that point home. Haunt, on the other hand, is a pretty confusing and awkwardly-worded mechanic that I won’t be emphasizing all that much, but that doesn’t mean Guildpact doesn’t offer its fair share of awesome cards. Let’s start by applying the template and see where we need to make changes.
High-pick Draft commons and uncommons – Basilica Guards, Basilica Screecher, Blind Hunter, Executioner's Swing, Gift of Orzhova, Kingpin's Pet, Mortify, One Thousand Lashes, Pillory of the Sleepless, Shrieking Grotesque, Syndic of Tithes
Sweet rares – Alms Beast, Angel of Despair, Deathpact Angel, Debtors' Knell, Merciless Eviction, Seize the Soul, Treasury Thrull
This is only a couple of cards over the limit, and I actually like the looks of it. There’s a nice curve, a good ratio of creatures to spells, and a lot of variety. I’m going to cut Orzhova, the Church of Deals, Orzhov Guildmage, and Pillory of the Sleepless from the above list. The first two are weak and uninteresting. Pillory is cut because of its similarity to One Thousand Lashes—a superior card in my opinion. Here’s the final list:
I’ve slayed some sacred cows this week by not including virtual auto-includes such as Guildmages and Signets, but I’m willing to do that in order to make the Cube better. Next week, I’ll wrap up the remaining guilds: Rakdos, Azorius, and Simic. Until then, enjoy the upcoming Dragon’s Maze prerelease.
Take care,
Nassim Ketita
arcticninja on Magic Online
