1st Pick : Ravnica

Farcear

I'm not a huge fan of limited play so what do any of you think are good colours/combinations/guilds to play in Rav Booster/Sealed?

MatthewVII

sealed seems to be dominated by 2 colour combinations: G/B/U (dimir golgari) and G/B/W (golgari selesnya). the latter seems to be more powerful, with efficient creatures, combat tricks, quality removal and such. G/B/U can be trickier to play, owing to a need for dimir cards, but can have great evasion if you get the cards you need.

In draft, any of the four guilds work, but its much more difficult to build a good Boros deck than any other, as you need certain cards to make it work. Golgari and selesnya are both great, and if you're stuck for cards you can always make an easy splash to another colour. UB dimir mill decks seem to work well, almost like the dampening thought decks of kamigawa block, but requiring some skill to play.

heres a list of commons which i think are the best in each colour:

White:
Conclave Equanaut
Benevolent Ancestor
Faith's Fetters
Veteran Armorer
Nightguard patrol

Blue:
Snapping Drake
Flight of Fancy
Peel from Reality
Vedalken Entrancer
Compulsive Research

Black:
Brainspoil
Disembowel
Dimir House Guard
Last Gasp
Stinkweed Imp

Red:
Galvanic Arc
Fiery Conclusion
Viashino Fangtail
Ordruun Commando
Sparkmage Apprentice

Green:
Bramble Elemental
Civic Wayfinder
Transluminant
Greater Mossdog
Siege Wurm

G/W:
Seeds of Strength
Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi
Selesnya Evangel

W/R:
Thundersong Trumpeter
Skyknight Legionnaire
Rally the Righteous

B/U:
Dimir Infiltrator
Consult the NEcrosages

B/G:
Shambling Shell
Golgari Rotwurm
Gaze of the Gorgon

MatthewVII

Now the top uncommons in each colour:

White:
Devouring Light
Divebomber Griffin
Oathsworn Giant
Festival of the Guildpact (A handy white Reach Through Mists with the possibility of preventing damage)

Blue:
Halcyon Glaze (broken)
Telling Time

Black:
Keening Banshee
Mausoleum Turnkey
Undercity Shade (great if you can use him properly)

Red:
Flash Conscription (its a bad Blind with Anger but still useful)
Indentured Oaf (A bad order of sacred bell, but still efficient)
Greater Forgeling
Wojek Embermage
Cleansing Beam

Green:
Carven Caryatid
Moldervine Cloak
Recollect
Perilous Forays
Trophy Hunter (works on green's weakness against flyers)

W/G:
Congregation at Dawn
Watchwolf
Pollenbright Wings

B/G:
Drooling Groodion (expensive to play and use, but has a poweful effect in the long game)
Putrefy (best removal spell in a long time)

R/W:
Boros Swiftblade
Lightning Helix
Sunhome Enforcer

U/B:
Moroii (one of the best creatures ever IMHO)
Psychic Drain (a great late game finisher or life gain to keep you in the game)

Of course, all the guildmages should be in there, all having solid abilities as they do and being easily playable 2/2's for 2. i rank the Boros as the best guildmage, with Dimir second, selesnya 3rd and golgari 4th.

MatthewVII

And finally the bomb rares you will want to first pick/autoinclude in your limited deck:

White:
Concerted Effort (since so many white creatures either have vigilance, flying or first strike. goes well with boros mage, swiftblade, nightguard and courier hawk)
Hour of Reckoning (mass removal is always a bomb in limited, as you can let them play out their hand, take a few hits, wipe the field and then lay out your own creatures. also works great with Selesnya token creatures both costwise and survivalwise)
Twighlight Drover (only to be played in certain decks, although you can easily build a token deck around it. combine selesnya and golgari cards to build a token sacrificing engine)
Hunted Lammasu (a risky card, works excellently in token-producing decks to chump block the horror. puts the game on a 4 turn clock and can outright win for you)

Blue:
Cerulean Sphinx (more often than not a vanilla 5/5 flyer for 6, which is a good deal, but its also immune to removal and can prevent you decking yourself)
Followed Footsteps (costly, but amazingly powerful)

Black:
Helldozer (one hell of a bomb, he's a fatty who can destroy lands if you come to a stalemate)
Hex (despite having to destroy 6 creatures, this is an amazing card for wiping you opponents good creatures with the possible collateral damage of one or two of your bad ones)
Necroplasm (great against white decks which use weenies or creature tokens. note that at the end of the first turn you play it, it will destroy all tokens on the field)
Woebringer Demon (a personal favourite of mine, its a risky card to play, but can reap huge benefits. a 4/4 flyer for 5 ain't bad either)

Red:
Char (even though this doesnt feel like a rare, its quality burn)
Hunted Dragon (IMO the best hunted creature, can win games easily)
Flame Fusillade (great as either a late game finisher or as mass removal, works well with a lot of land or tokens in play)

Green:
Birds of Paradise (the best mana fixer/accelerator ever)
Golgari Grave-Troll (a very nice and hard to remove creature who just keeps growing)
Primordial Sage (a creature your opponent has to find an answer to soon or he'll lose)
Vinelasher Kudzu (great in limited, can often grow too fast for your opponent to deal with)

W/G:
Glare of Subdual (one of the many cards that work great in a token deck, this card can lock down an opponent totally)
Loxodon Hierarch (one of the best Ravnica Creatures, very hard to deal with)
Privileged Position (costly, but makes all of your opponents removal useless)
Tolsimir Wolfblood (boosts your army and can remake a 4/4 over and over again. nuff said)

B/G:
Vulturous Zombie (this thing is a house, coupled with removal and maybe U/B milling, this thing gets out of control very fast, and to top it all off, it flies)
Grave-Shell Scarab (a decent 4/4 body for 5, and just keeps coming back for more. Blinking Spirit with a bit of kick)
Gleancrawler (hugely synergistic with the golgari, easy to cast and trample, with a 6/6 body for 6. hugely efficient)

U/B:
Glimpse the Unthinkable
Dimir Cutpurse (with some evasion, can generate huge hand advantage)
Circu, Dimir Lobotomist (great for milling and control)
Dimir Doppleganger

R/W:
Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran (amazing with R/w creatures)
Master Warcraft (Boros' "i win" card)
Razia's Purification (risky, but can pay huge dividends)
Firemane Angel (a 4/3 for 6 with flying and first strike, useful life gain and graveyard recursion. sign me up)

Some rares i have left out for either being too costly or too slow (eg woodwraith corrupter, mindleech mass, sisters of stone death, blazing archon etc). i dont know exactly how the ravnica limited game is going to shape up, but it is looking to be a great deal slower than kamigawa so perhaps these cards may be worth playing after all.

MatthewVII

So i reckon that the best type of deck will be one centred around G/W token generation, with a splash of either red or black for removal. a G/W/B deck with tokens and dredge will be very hard to play around in the creatures department, and the creatures can work synergistically with cards like Woebringer demon, glare of subdual and hour of reckoning. ive faced a deck like this before and its rather frustrating to play against. aggressive red/white decks just lose their tempo too fast to it, and black centred decks cant draw enough removal to stop it. the only speedbumps are:

Creatures with Evasion:
this is why trophy hunter and possibly elvish skysweeper are so crucial to the deck. you might even consider running goliath spider if you have nothing else. the black splash would help keeping fear creatures under control. large creatures with trample can be dealt with over time by creating a lot of tokens and cards such as Shambling Shell

Milling Decks:
This type of deck, centring around cards like belltower sphinx, glimpse the unthinkable, vedalken entrancer and psychic void are becoming increasingly popular. the only way to play around them is through fast beats. this is made difficult by blue bounce and counters, and defensive creatures such as Drift of Phantasms. watch out for Peel from Reality and try to remove milling creatures such as thoughtpicker witch, lurking informant, sphinx and vedalken before they make a large impact on your library

MatthewVII

A R/W deck is also a possible option, but this deck needs to win by turn 6 or so or else it wont win at all. having Thundersong Tumpeters and Rally the Righteous is key to winning, and its also imperative to have a late game finisher such as Master Warcraft. It is also important to draft mass removal such as cleansing beam and razia's purification to deal with token creatures in large amounts, but the specificity of the cards you need makes this deck archetype tricky to build successfully

MatthewVII

The U/B deck can win in two ways: evasive aggression or milling

In evasive aggression, your gem cards will be the almight Moroii and multiples of Snapping Drake. The real strength of this deck type is tempo. blue has access to good card draw such as flight of fancy (which ties in brilliantly with the evasion stategy) and compulsive research. Drake Familiar can also be used to great effect in combination with Flight of Fancy or Strands of Undeath. Drift of Phantasms is a great blocker, and surveilling sprite makes for a nice speedbump. Dimir House Guard is also a must have, and it can also transmute itself into a Flight, Drake or Moroii if you need one, or if your opponent has black creatures in play. This archetype also has access to quality removal, with keening Banshee being the best black card for this deck. Last Gasp and Brainspoil round out the removal. Stinkweed imp is also a great card to use as a flying pinger or removal

The Mill deck is a much harsher mistress. You need to be very lucky (in sealed) or very focused (in draft) in the cards you choose. your main win condition will be cards like psychic void, and drafting cards like Drift of Phantasms and stinkweed imp as defences in the early game is essential to avoid being swarmed while your belltower sphinxes, vedalken entrancers and lurking informants cut away at your opponent. playing Thoughtpicker Witch might be a bit risky, as your mill creatures are your main resources. this deck is a great anti-dredge deck, and is very fun to play as one of the few control style decks in the format. with this in mind, removal is again very important, with Ribbons of Night being premium removal as it also gives you life, important for surviving in the long game against aggro decks.

Farcear

One question...did you write all that yourself for here, for somewhere else or was it a copy and paste job from Salvation?


Thanks for the info though!

MatthewVII

Of course i wrote it myself *swishes cloak* i am an illustrious writer on the topic of Magic Limited.

Farcear

MatthewVII wrote:

Of course i wrote it myself *swishes cloak* i am an illustrious writer on the topic of Magic Limited.

lol, yeah. Right after i posted I noticed the timestamps. Great work

I'm now slightly better...actually now that i think about it I had the weirdest dream involving the "suppresion field" last night..or it could have been a few nights ago. Such a haze...

It didn't work like it was supposed to, doing something else instead.

...

I really need a break from Magic!

MatthewVII

Hey, don't knock suppression field, its a great card. It looks at Jittes and melokus and laughs. Who knows, once the U/W Azorius Guild come out, U/W might be playable again

Ivan

Ever heard of edit

sephirosis

your replies lack a certain..........."scathe", matthew. im ever so disappointed. *turns away shaking head*

MatthewVII

I'm sorry seph, i guess i was too busy being better than you at magic to scathe to my full potential. you're lucky that you're not hindered by such a handicap :P

sephirosis

the cat's got claws i see ¬_¬

MatthewVII

*marks magic board as his territory*

Farcear

*cleans board with a strong anti-odour disinfectant*

Bad kitty!

Zona

not so sure festival of guildpact or flash conscription are what i'd call 1st picks.

conscription is not only worse than blind with anger because of mana cost, but in rav/rav/rav its not as easy as in kamigawa to kill 2 creatures, sometimes hard to kill one.

MatthewVII

They are absolutely not first picks, but very handy if you can get them late, and higher picks than say, wojek siren or some random red card.
Flash conscription is a great card. sure it has a high mana cost, but with red/white lacking removal and it being a slower format, flash conscription has found a niche. Jon Finkel in his RavRavRav draft deck used 2, and if we cant trust him, we cant trust anyone.
Festival of the Guildpact is a slightly edgier card. obviously you'd prefer Devouring Light, but with only 1 white in its cost its very splashable, and draw power in white is very useful. ive seen some players use this to great effect. i guess the only way to see its usefulness is to try it for yourself.