Locations
Welcome back to my series about building the Full Ravnica Cube. You can check out the previous installments on the sidebar. This week, I’ll be concluding my review of the guilds with Azorius, Rakdos, and Simic. I hope you guys have been having as much fun reading about my pet project as I have writing about it.
First up, I’m going to look at Azorius. At first glance, it seems that the old Azorius cards are at cross-purposes with the new ones. Cards with forecast tend to lead to long, drawn-out games, whereas cards that detain are all about tempo. I think that’s actually a good thing, as I like there to be a variety of W/U decks. Obviously, a R/W/U aggro deck is going to look for different cards than a W/U/B control deck, and I’d like to accommodate both strategies. Besides, there are plenty of aggressive cards in Dissension and plenty of controlling cards in Return to Ravnica. Let’s use the same template I’ve been using as a starting point.
High-pick Draft commons and uncommons – Azorius First-Wing, Azorius Herald, Azorius Justiciar, Court Hussar, Dramatic Rescue, Lyev Skyknight, Minister of Impediments, Plumes of Peace, Sky Hussar, Skymark Roc
Sweet rares – Archon of the Triumvirate, Detention Sphere, Govern the Guildless, Martial Law, Pride of the Clouds, Righteous Authority, Sphinx's Revelation, Supreme Verdict
This is about where I want to be for this particular guild; I just need to make a few cuts. Unsurprisingly, the guild hall is one of them. In this case, the effect is good, but it is way too bloody expensive to activate. The other cuts I’m making are Azorius Justiciar, Dramatic Rescue, and Martial Law, mostly because they’re the least exciting cards remaining. Dramatic Rescue was the one I debated the most, but it should be fairly replaceable with a mono-blue card.
Here’s the final list:
Nothing says “all-in” more than Rakdos’s two mechanics. Hellbent rewards you for dumping your whole hand as quickly as possible, and unleash exemplifies the always-be-attacking strategy. I plan to make this guild as aggressive as possible, so curve is going to be really important. There won’t be too many expensive cards unless they’re completely bananas. Let’s apply the template first and see where I need to make changes.
High-pick Draft commons and uncommons – Auger Spree, Bloodfray Giant, Cackling Flames, Dead Reveler, Gore-House Chainwalker, Hellhole Flailer, Hit // Run, Rakdos Cackler, Rakdos Ickspitter, Splatter Thug, Thrill-Kill Assassin, Twinstrike, Wrecking Ball
Sweet rares – Carnival Hellsteed, Chaos Imps, Demonfire, Dreadbore, Rakdos's Return
I rather like this mix of creatures with one exception: Rakdos the Defiler. The card is just awful in most decks, and if were to include it in my Cube, I can be sure it will go last pick almost every time. There are a few too many noncreatures, so I’ll be cutting the ones I deem to be either too weak, to be not interesting enough, or to have too much similarity to other cards in the Cube. Here’s what I came out with:
This guild is very much skewed toward Return to Ravnica because, quite frankly, the Rakdos creatures in Dissension suck. Dissension does offer some good spells such as Cackling Flames and Wrecking Ball, but overall, it’s almost entirely Return to Ravnica. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I think it will lead to better games.
Last, I’ll take a look at Simic. Between graft and evolve, you’d better bring a ton of dice with you if you plan on drafting G/U. There are a ton of cards that make use of +1/+1 counters, so I expect the Dissension and Gatecrash to mesh well together. Let’s apply the template and see where that takes us.
High-pick Draft commons and uncommons – Assault Zeppelid, Cloudfin Raptor, Coiling Oracle, Crocanura, Drakewing Krasis, Experiment One, Frilled Oculus, Leafdrake Roost, Nimbus Swimmer, Patagia Viper, Plaxcaster Frogling, Plaxmanta, Shambleshark, Simic Fluxmage, Trygon Predator, Urban Evolution
Sweet rares – Cytoplast Root-Kin, Fathom Mage, Master Biomancer, Simic Manipulator, Simic Sky Swallower
Okay, I may have gone a bit overboard on the creatures. Simic does tend to be very creature-heavy, but I’ll have to make quite a few cuts in that department. The list of spells seems fine to me so far, so I don’t see the need to make any changes there. Here’s where I landed:
I made most of the cuts for curve reasons, as there were too many 2-, 3-, and 4-drops. There were a lot of cards I wanted to include over cards that did make the cut, but I decided not to so as to have a variety of casting costs. Having too many choices is a good problem to have, so I know if I have to cut cards for budget reasons later on, I won’t have problems finding replacements.
Now that I’ve covered all ten guilds, I’ll be concluding with the nonguild cards and Dragon’s Maze. I have a pretty good idea of how I’m going to approach them, but if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave me a comment.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you guys again next week.
Take care,
Nassim Ketita
arcticninja on Magic Online
