Return to Ravnica League - 40 Cards

Our three-person league kicked off the week after the pre-release. It's a little unconventional in that we start with our sealed pool from the pre-release and add two new booster packs each week, starting with the first week. Conveniently, our local store gives out two boosters to everyone who participated in the pre-release, so we were guaranteed to have the packs we need in week 1. We also split a booster box giving us another 12 packs each, which weren't available until week 2 of the league. We took advantage of a deal that involved getting a $20 gift voucher at our local store as well as getting the buy-a-box promo card, which is Supreme Verdict. We agreed to put up both of these for prizes, the voucher going to the first place winner and the promo card the prize for second place.

We also agreed on exactly the same structure as last time: seven weeks, starting with eight packs (sealed pool + two boosters) and building up to a total of 20 boosters. We'll play the first four weeks with 40-card decks and then shift up to 60-card decks for the final three weeks.

At this point, we've completed the first four weeks - the 40-card decks. Below is a summary of each of the weeks and the standings up to now.

Week 1

Here were the contents of my two booster packs for week one:

White
1 Azorius Justiciar
1 Sunspire Griffin
1 Rootborn Defenses

Blue

1 Crosstown Courier
1 Soulsworn Spirit

Black

1 Drainpipe Vermin
1 Stab Wound
1 Shrieking Affliction
1 Ultimate Price
1 Perilous Shadow
1 Catacomb Slug
1 Launch Party

Red

1 Pursuit of Flight
1 Cobblebrute
1 Tenement Crasher

Green

1 Giant Growth
1 Korozda Monitor
1 Axebane Stag

Azorius

1 Search Warrant
1 Dramatic Rescue
1 Azorius Guildgate

Rakdos

1 Rakdos Shred-Freak
1 Slaughter Games

Selesnya

1 Risen Sanctuary
1 Coursers' Accord
1 Selesnya Keyrune

Golgari

1 Trestle Troll

Izzet

1 Counterflux

A handful of potential goodies for Azorius and not much to pull me in another direction. Ultimate Price and Stab Wound are good cards, but not enough even combined with my other Black to make me jump ship. Blue-White-Black (a.k.a. Esper) is not one of the tri-colour combinations supported by the mana in this set so there's little incentive to make major changes. Furthermore, I have neither Selesnya Guildgate nor Izzet Guildgate in my pool, so beyond the one copy of Transguild Promenade and the newly opened Selesnya Keyrune there aren't really any mana fixers to support a natural splash.

Meanwhile, another Azorius Guildgate makes my on-guild mana a little better. Azorius Justiciar and Sunspire Griffin #2 also seem like auto-includes. The cards that are debatable from my perspective are Crosstown Courier, Soulsworn Spirit and Dramatic Rescue #3. The Courier's upside is not really something that is likely to greatly benefit my deck, so it would be included simply to have another 2-power beater on turn 2. It is more aggressive than Concordia Pegasus, for example, and is probably worth trying just to see how it performs. Soulsworn Spirit continues the detain shenanigans that the deck really relies on to get the job done. It is also an unblockable threat, though without any equipment it's a little slow for a 4-drop. Perhaps it would make me consider playing a card like Ethereal Armor - I don't have Civic Saber. Evasion is very strong though and it seems like it should be worth playing. Finally, Dramatic Rescue is actually just what the deck needs, but I'm not really sure that it needs 3 copies. If I find that it does, then this card is available, but I'll leave it in the sideboard to begin with.

The cards that seemed to under perform included Palisade Giant and Concordia Pegasus. The pegasi can come in from the sideboard against heavy aggression if necessary. I'm conscious of the fact that if I remove 2 2-drops that's bad in general, but if I replace them with a 2-drop and a 3-drop and replace the giant with a 4-drop then overall I think my curve is adequately dealt to. The question is whether I can fit another 4-drop in. I decided to play the Soulsworn Spirit in the end.

I managed to defeat Gund 2-0 with his Rakdos build.

Meanwhile, Michael got the prize for being first to abandon his guild, and he did it grand fashion, switching from the Green and White of Selesnya to the Black and Red of Rakdos. This means that I have to play against all Rakdos all the time. Michael's deck was fast, too, and he played well, stocking up on burn to finish me off when things seemed to be stabilizing. I went down 1-2. With Michael defeating Gund as well, Michael jumped out to the early lead in the standings.

Week 2

Unfortunately, I forgot to write down what I opened and shuffled it all in with the following weeks before I realized. After opening, I did sent the following email summarizing: "I opened nothing and Supreme Verdict".

So, the question is, would you play Supreme Verdict in a tempo deck? If it's in your opening hand, you can craft your game plan around it. But if it isn't, it pretty much works against what this deck is trying to do. I'd be interested to know what other people think. I ended up playing it. It was stuck in my hand more than once and I never ended up casting it which of course only reinforces my thoughts. But maybe I wasn't thinking about it the right way.

I ended up beating Gund 2-1. His deck has Pack Rat which scares me, but I always seem to have a way to deal with it - usually Detention Sphere. That card is just always there when you need it.

I also beat Michael 2-0. It was a big reversal from the previous week. Michael also lost to Gund, erasing his early lead in the league standings.

Week 3

Once again I didn't open enough of anything to steer my pool on any course other than the Azorius detain plan. Here are the relevant cards that I opened:

1 Sunspire Griffin
1 Runewing
1 Stealer of Secrets
1 Crosstown Courier
1 Dramatic Rescue

I don't need another bounce spell. The 2-drop could be a consideration if I'm looking to reduce my curve, but I'm more drawn to the two fliers. Stealer of Secrets I was unsure about. I decided to try it just to see how it plays. My thinking was that if I'm detaining and bouncing things, it might just get through and do some good work.

The rares were Nivmagus Elemental and Death's Presence, neither of which I see much use for in my established deck. The Elemental really requires a build-around instant and sorcery theme and the Enchantment doesn't seem like enough to put me into Green. It's interesting to note that I'm building up some decent Rakdos in my pool, but not enough for a really strong deck and I definitely don't want to play Rakdos mirrors the whole week.

I ended up with the exact same record as the previous week, defeating Gund 2-1 and Michael 2-0. Michael managed to defeat Gund but I had a 6-point lead in the standings after week 3.

Week 4

Here are the relevant cards that I opened for Week 4:

1 Soulsworn Spirit
1 Keening Apparition
1 Trostani's Judgment
1 Avenging Arrow
1 Fencing Ace
1 Crosstown Courier

Swaps: +1 Keening Apparition
+1 Soulsworn Spirit
-1 Crosstown Courier
-1 Supreme Verdict

I was thinking that Trostani's Judgment might be a bit too slow in the harsh environment that I'm playing in - two Rakdos decks. Avenging Arrow is also mediocre here where you're looking to stop damage rather than take it. Fencing Ace would be good in some environments, but I don't have ways to pump it unless I play Ethereal Armor, which just seems subpar.

Supreme Verdict has been awkward in a deck that is trying to tempo the opponent out. I left it in for Week 3 but decided to remove it for Week 4.

I won 2-1 over Gund - the games were close and I felt like I was on the back foot most of the time. I also got a little colour-screwed in two of the games, which made them a little closer.

I lost 0-2 to Michael. Once again I felt on the back foot a lot, even though the games were close.

The standings are close after the first four weeks as I'm holding on by a slim 3-point margin.

Next week we shift to 60-card decks. This changes things a bit and potentially provides a good opportunity to reassess the deck. In particular, I think that I need to consider whether my card pool can put together a strategy that can beat two Rakdos decks rather than just playing what my card pool does best.

Returning to Ravnica

I didn't go to Ravnica the first time around. Or, at least, I didn't go with everyone else on the big bus tour around the place. I've made a few side trips on my own, but sometimes it really is nice to get the thorough tour, complete with guide. Or something like that. In any event, I'm as excited as everyone else is to be spending the next year in the City of Guilds.

It's been a couple of weeks since the Return to Ravnica pre-release and that means that our new tradition of running a league at work is underway. Before I get to that, however, today I want to talk about the pre-release itself. Michael, Gund and myself all attended the pre-release at Vagabond, our local store, again. There was a pretty impressive turnout for our area - we counted more than 40 people, and while plenty of stores in larger cities have more, that seemed pretty strong for our smaller town. To be honest, there really wasn't room for more people.

I had been wanting to play both Izzet and Azorius. However, after the cards were spoiled on magicthegathering.com, I was very unimpressed with the cards in the Izzet guild - I'm talking about commons and uncommons here, the majority of what you have to work with in Limited. As a result, I decided to go with the Azorius guild pack and see how it ran.

Here's the pool that I opened:

White 2 Keening Apparition 2 Concordia Pegasus 1 Sunspire Griffin 1 Palisade Giant 1 Eyes in the Skies 1 Soul Tithe 1 Ethereal Armor 1 Trained Caracal 1 Seller of Songbirds Blue 3 Voidwielder 1 Isperia's Skywatch 2 Inaction Injunction 1 Paralyzing Grasp 1 Mizzium Skin 1 Search the City 1 Psychic Spiral 3 Doorkeeper 1 Blustersquall 1 Dispel Black 1 Drainpipe Vermin 1 Cremate 1 Daggerdrome Imp 1 Thrill-Kill Assassin 1 Sewer Shambler 1 Mind Rot 1 Perilous Shadow 1 Destroy the Evidence 1 Zanikev Locust Red 1 Electrickery 1 Pursuit of Flight 1 Splatter Thug 2 Lobber Crew 1 Viashino Racketeer 1 Batterhorn 1 Goblin Rally 1 Minotaur Aggressor Green 3 Drudge Beetle 1 Stonefare Crocodile 1 Axebane Guardian 1 Oak Street Innkeeper 1 Aerial Predation 2 Chorus of Might 1 Axebane Stag 1 Horncaller's Chant

Azorius 2 New Prahv Guildmage 1 Vassal Soul 1 Hussar Patrol 1 Archon of the Triumvirate 2 Dramatic Rescue 1 Detention Sphere 1 Search Warrant Rakdos 1 Rakdos Charm 1 Hellhole Flailer 1 Slaughter Games Selesnya 1 Heroes' Reunion 1 Sundering Growth 1 Centaur Healer 1 Growing Ranks 1 Coursers' Accord 1 Risen Sanctuary Golgari 1 Golgari Charm 1 Trestle Troll 1 Golgari Longlegs Izzet 1 Izzet Charm 1 Frostburn Weird 1 Chemister's Trick Lands 1 Azorius Guildgate 1 Rakdos Guildgate 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Transguild Promenade Artifacts 1 Azorius Keyrune 1 Street Sweeper

I built the following deck, though some cards were a bit fluid throughout the day. One of the things that I really like about pre-releases is the ability to switch your deck around as you learn more about the new cards.

RTR Prerelease Sealed Deck
Lands (17) 8 Plains 8 Island 1 Azorius Guildgate Creatures (15) 2 Keening Apparition 2 Concordia Pegasus 2 New Prahv Guildmage 1 Sunspire Griffin 1 Vassal Soul 1 Hussar Patrol 3 Voidwielder 1 Isperia's Skywatch 1 Palisade Giant 1 Archon of the Triumvirate
Other Spells (8) 2 Inaction Injunction 2 Dramatic Rescue 1 Paralyzing Grasp 1 Detention Sphere 1 Azorius Keyrune 1 Eyes in the Skies

After my initial build, I played a practice game against Michael after which I decided to swap in the 2 Dramatic Rescue - I took out Mizzium Skin and Soul Tithe. I had originally thought that Dramatic Rescue only targeted your own permanents, but upon closer inspection it bounces any creature, so that fit in pretty well with all of the detain in the Azorius deck. I actually swapped the Soul Tithe back in against opponents with a lot of big guys but generally was happy not to have it. In retrospect I don't think it's very good. I also swapped out Palisade Giant several times. I was pretty disappointed with it, since usually it just bought me one turn - my opponent would swing for 7+ damage and just kill it. The only other change I made was after the first round, during which I found Transguild Promenade to be far too slow and unnecessary in a 2-colour deck.

Detain is a mechanic that performs better than I expected in practice. I guess I must have initially thought that it just bought you half a turn - either the block if you played it on your own turn, or their attack if you played it on theirs. However, since it lasts until your next upkeep, you actually get both, making it pretty effective in a tempo-based deck. I also notice afterward that all of the detain cards occur at sorcery speed anyway, so the point is moot.

Inaction Injunction was pretty good - not fantastic, but pretty good. It usually did what you wanted and it cycles for another card making it's cost actually pretty low. Sometimes stalling and digging for another card is exactly what you need to do. The number of times that I've needed a land, played Inaction Injunction and found my land - both during the pre-release and since - is actually pretty impressive.

Keening Apparition was mostly pretty average because it gets outclassed so quickly. However, against my round 3 opponent who had a Collective Blessing, it proved invaluable, destroying it both games. It's also pretty good against Stab Wound, and sometimes you just need a 2-power dude to start beating down on turn 2. So while not fanstastic, it turns out to be a pretty useful card.

Concordia Pegasus looked bad, seemed good in the first match, and then didn't really seem very effective after that. I think it has it's place to stop the early beatdown and can be an effective sideboard card in this deck, but probably should not be maindeck if I have other options.

Hussar Patrol was pretty great on the day. People didn't seem to play around it and it managed to eat something in many games, giving me the 0-for-1. It's a nice pairing with Eyes in the Skies, since you could have either when you pass with 4 mana up.

Voidwielder, especially having 3 copies, played extremely well into the detain plan. In general, bounce is a natural companion to detain and I was very happy with these all day. I do think that they're very expensive and as I add more cards to the pool for league I think they may just be too slow. But I do think they were the right call during the Sealed event.

Detention Sphere is obviously a great card, but I just seemed to always draw it as well. An answer card always seems much better when you always have it.

Round 1 I played against a Rakdos guild pack that splashed Green. His deck had some threatening dudes but I always seemed to have something to hold him off. I would come to find out that this is the bread-and-butter of the Azorius detain decks. There were some good games here and I felt like I just managed to pull off the win. Most games ended with me staring down something like a Chaos Imps.

2-1

Round 2 I played against a solid Golgari deck with Underworld Connections. My opponent, Jeremy, seemed to bury me in card advantage but somehow I pulled off the victory. Once again, I felt like I barely got away with it and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, staring down a Corpsejack Menace or an "active" Ogre Jailbreaker.

2-1

Round 3 I played against Kelly with an aggressive Selesnya build with a very low curve. These games seemed less close, but that's largely because "I always had it." By "it" I actually mean whatever wrecked his well-laid plans. To wit - both games Kelly played Collective Blessing and both games I had Keening Apparition to neutralize it; both games I had Detention Sphere to take out multiple 3/3 or 4/4 tokens. My deck gave me what I needed when I needed it, and I was ecstatic to go 3-0 for the flight.

2-0

I'd be interested in knowing whether you would have built the deck differently and if so, why. I've been hearing that certain Izzet-aligned cards are maybe better than I thought so I wonder whether I should consider any of them. Should I have played Blustersquall? If so, over what? Were any cards in the pool worth splashing for in your opinion?

I ended up playing a Rakdos guild pack in the afternoon and went 2-1 with a good strong deck that I was very happy with. In the final round I made many very bad play mistakes and deserved to lose. Prior to that I was 5-0 on the day. Overall I was pleased with my 5-1 record and felt like the two guilds that I played were good choices. The other guilds didn't seem to come together as well, but that may just have been a result of my small sample size. One friend opened an Izzet pack and ended up building what was in his own words "an average Azorius deck" - that's just how poorly the Izzet cards were initially received. Of course, that's the deck I lost to in the final round of the afternoon flight, so it couldn't have been that bad.

In any event, the Azorius pack is the one that I'm using for league. Not only did I like it, but it seems right given that Michael and Gund didn't play the afternoon flight so this is the pack that we opened at the same time. Plus, Gund opened a Rakdos guild pack and Michael opened a Selesnya guild pack, so I'm all for diversity. More on the first week of league in my next post.

A League of Our Own

Finding time for a few casual games of Magic:the Gathering can be difficult, especially now that I've reached the point in my life at which family, career and mortgage(s) naturally claim priority. I was therefore pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when I noticed a couple of the guys at work slinging spells in the lunch area on our floor. After a bit of a chat, we decided to hold a Magic night at the office each week. When the Magic 2013 (M13) Pre-Release event rolled around at the local gaming store, Vagabond, all three of us decided to attend.

At the event, we each built and played our Sealed Deck with the six booster packs of M13 cards provided. The store also gave out an additional two boosters to all participants. Afterwards, I had the idea to start a League, having played in a couple of Leagues a few years ago when they were supported on Magic Online. To this end, the three of us decided to split a booster box (containing 36 packs of M13). This meant that, in addition to the six starting packs, we'd have an additional 14 packs each. I had thought that we might add one pack per week, but the guys were eager to crack packs and get at their new cards. We agreed to add two booster packs per week, for a total of seven weeks of Sealed Deck League play.

We toyed around with different scoring systems. Most organised Magic events award three points for a match win (a match being best 2-of-3 games) and zero points for a loss, regardless of whether you win any games. Draws are possible, and in that case each player gets one point. For our League, I wanted to reward game wins as well, so we went with the following:

• 1 point per game win
• 1 point per match win
• 0 points for game or match draw
• 0 points for game or match loss

Basically, this means that if you win the match, you get 3 points as normal. However, if you lose the match but win one game, you get a point for your troubles.

Our booster box came with the buy-a-box promo foil Cathedral of War, and since the card isn't much good torn in three, we decided to put it up as the prize to the winner: just a little something to make it interesting.

With that out of the way, we got down to playing our games each week. Since this post is after the fact, I won't get into the week-by-week details. However, the key stats are listed below:

It was interesting to see the decks evolve both as a result of new cards added to the pool each week as well as in response to what the other players were playing: our own little metagame developed and we all spent our deckbuilding time strategising our best path to victory. Michael and Gund went through their own deck transformations, though Gund was largely on the White/Black exalted plan, sporting both Sublime Archangel and Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis from very early on. Michael built some interesting Green-based ramp decks featuring Thragtusk and multiple Duskdale Wurms.

At the pre-release I had played Green/Red with an overall week card pool, and only went 1-2. After talking to some friends at the event, it turned out that I was under-evaluating Duty-Bound Dead which had caused me to believe that I did not have enough playables in Black. As it turned out, I should have been in Green/Black.

The two new boosters for Week 1 of our League provided mainly goodies in Green, and so I ended up running with Green/Black the first few weeks to great success. At one point I was in Jund (Green/Black/Red) and after opening a foil Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (along with a Gem of Becoming) I just had to play Grixis (Black/Red/Blue) that week. The final couple of weeks I ended up in White/Red as the expanding pool provided agressive options in these colours. I was specifically interested in fliers and burn to overcome Michael's natural advantage on the ground in the late game.

I initially supported the decision to switch to 60-card decks for the final three-weeks. The theory was that this would preserve the "Sealed feel" even as our card pools increased. However, I found that the mana became terrible and the decks were stuffed with filler to make numbers. I think that I'd probably rather see the 40-card decks evolve to become more powerful and focused in their strategies. I know that eventually it would be necessary to make the jump to 60 cards, I just don't think that it needed to happen during the first 20 packs. Aaron Forsythe wrote an article a few years ago describing a "box league" in which players had an entire booster box of 36 packs to build decks, and they were also able to trade with one another. I think it's clear that 60-card decks are required in this scenario, but at what point that becomes true is still a mystery to me. In order to test my 40-card theory, the other guys obliged me and we all built 40-card decks from our pool for the week following the official end of the League. I was pretty happy with the result and I didn't feel that the decks were too powerful, but we'll see what the guys think next time.

Speaking of next time, I'm excited for the Return to Ravnica. I think that we're likely to run another League, and if we do I plan to post more detailed information each week. It would be good to have a fourth to make better numbers - and we're working on that - but I'm keen either way. League seems like an excellent way to provide a little structure to casual card slinging for several weeks every few months.