Assessing Guilds of Ravnica Limited

Ah, here we are again – the best time of the year. Okay, to be fair, we are very lucky to have "the best time of the year" about four times each year. This time though, Guilds of Ravnica is looking to be a phenomenal Limited experience.

To be honest, evaluating multicolored sets is difficult because we are not simply looking at five individual colors, like what we did in M19. We must assess every card for each guild that it can be played in. And even go beyond.

How Many Colors Do We Play?

Having such a heavily-focused multicolor set usually leads to playing more than two colors on average. To give people the possibility to play all the multicolor cards, Guilds of Ravnica is filled with more and better mana fixers than usual. Every guild has access to their Guildgate, which shows up twice as often compared to other commons because it has two different artworks, therefore taking two different common slots. There is also an extra Guildgate called , which is functionally a . In addition to the Guildgates, the set also features new mana rocks called "lockets", which can be sacrificed to draw two cards later in the game. Finally, Ravnica wouldn't be Ravnica without the valuable shock lands, which are rare and very good at mana fixing. These are the only colorless fixtures, with green (as usual) offering a little more.

You might have noticed that this set is heavier in mana requirements than others. It's like Oprah and her free cars, but instead of cars we get more mana symbols. Specifically, each guild has one very strong multicolor uncommon creature that needs two of each of the guild's colors. Since these cards are extremely potent, we want our deck to cast them reliably. , , and are borderline oppressive when cast on turn four. And with those copies in our deck, we don't want to pollute our mana base with other less important cards. While we still need two of the same two mana for other cards, and don't really need to be cast on curve and both allow more flexibility.

It's not that this set has too many mana symbols. The ratio between the colorless and the colored mana symbols seems partial to the colored side. If you add one for each colored symbol and subtract one for each colorless symbol, Guilds of Ravnica gets 64 (ignoring cards that cost X and counting hybrid mana). On the other hand, Return to Ravnica had 62. Although these numbers are close, the difference becomes more obvious when only count the commons and uncommons. Return to Ravnica only got 42 while Guilds of Ravnica gets 56. This is about 30% more colored mana requirements. You could also argue that Return to Ravnica has two excellent late-game mechanics, overload and scavenge, while Guilds of Ravnica only has average late-game mechanics, undergrowth and convoke.

At first glance, it seems that we are heavily inclined to stick to our two-color guild plan. After all, we want to be able to sacrifice the lockets later in the game for additional advantage. It might also be possible for the green guilds to actively plan for more colors, since they get , , and as premium mana fixers, making them much more attractive.

How Fast Is Boros?

To evaluate how deep we can go into value town, we need to know how fast and consistent the fastest deck will be. It is obvious to me that Boros will be the deck to consider in that category and Selesnya will probably end up on the expensive and splashier side more often than not.

One of my first things will be to draft the most aggressive Boros deck I possibly can. This includes about every one-drop and reasonable creature with mentor and from the looks of it, this will be one of the best decks. While others are building their mana base, you are assembling a force with cards nobody else wanted, leaving your good picks for red and white removal cards and your late picks for and . Drafting a lot of one-drops allows you to skip picking Guildgates, which other players might need to be able to draft deftly. This means while they are busy picking lands, we are picking good playables instead. Overall, Boros seems deep when it comes to aggro commons without missing strong uncommons and rares as well.

Even in Sealed, where it is much harder to assemble a streamlined deck, I see a world where a lot of pools have to build Boros because their fixing might not be enough to play all the good cards. Individual cards in Guilds of Ravnica have a high power-level, but they are also harder to work with, especially in Sealed. If you don't find the right Guildgates for your multicolor bombs, you might end up having to defer to a solid deck of single-colored commons and uncommons. That could very likely be Boros.

Normally, my default setting in a new Sealed format, specifically for multicolor sets, is to be on the draw (and that will probably not change anytime soon). However, if after a few rounds of Sealed where Boros seems to be taking over just because of how easy it is to build, I might quickly change or include worse two- or three-drops for defense.

How Good Are the Cards?

As I have explained, multicolor formats have a special tax when it comes to building Sealed decks. Since boosters include a lot of cards, you might not always be able to play due to bad fixing. In other words, the level of variance in Sealed is increased by adding an additional factor that makes normal pools sometimes worse or sometimes better.

To keep the same level of variance as before, the general level of cards has to improve. Imagine a Sealed format wherein your deck stinks about half the time because you can only find 18 playables. This is definitely unenjoyable because many pools will be unplayable by default. Thus, mono-color cards need to be stronger, so every player can get a high, reasonable chance for a playable deck. Furthermore, multicolor cards are stronger because they more difficult to cast. This leads to fewer unplayable cards, more flexibility, and bigger possibilities. If a hundred people ended up building the same pool, the outcome will be much broader than, let's say, M19 or Dominaria even if you are restricted to only five guilds.

This means you should always be prepared to react to your opponent. Somebody said, "If you don't sideboard in a Sealed match, chances are high that you are making a mistake." That is certainly true. It is especially true in multicolor sets, since a lot of cards are similar in power level, although vastly different in their effect. Sometimes, you even end up having to change your deck. This is much more likely when your pool offers you multiple ways to build it.

Surfing vs. Forcing

Drafting strategies are broadly separate into two: surfing and forcing. Surfing means picking good cards in multiple colors for flexibility. Your goal is to find the colors your right neighbor isn't drafting for a rewarding third booster. Forcing, on the other hand, means, means sticking to a certain plan, often risking a lower power level of cards if your neighbor is in one or both of your colors. Forcing usually leads to a better second booster, when you are giving better signals to your left neighbor.

Both strategies have their pros and cons and you typically choose which one to employ when already drafting. But the distribution of how often you (should) use either one is mostly dependent on the set. The lower the power level of most cards in the set, the more you should surf. If the set has strong cards in a variety of levels, you should force. Sometimes, it is even possible to surf/force the same color combination where there are multiple synergies within one color. Ixalan, for example, allowed for two drafters of the same color next to each other because of the strong tribal synergy that mostly excluded each other. Taking strong, neutral green cards in the beginning leave both merfolk and dinosaurs open.

With so many powerful options, even within one color, Guilds of Ravnica seems to be a prime candidate for forcing – opening a very good multicolor card will naturally lead to this. Usually, it's not good to take the stronger multicolor card, but I would say that a signal in Guilds of Ravnica is heavily defined by the multicolor cards you see. It is true that mono-color cards have a higher possibility of going in your deck, but only if your deck has high chances of being good in the end. If the later-picked cards aren't worse, then it matters that your multicolor cards are better.

Here's an example:

Let's say we have a choice between mono-color card A and multicolor card B. A is a 7/10 and B is a 9/10. If your deck is likely to end up as a 5/10, picking A is much better, since it combines with four other colors, meaning it is played about four times as often as B. This is totally worth it.

If your deck ends up as a 6.7/10 on average, picking A doesn't become worth it because it doesn't improve your deck enough. If we also assume that we are heavily incentivized to play A in one of two decks only (the two guilds in that color), the total power level can even become lower. B becomes the right pick.

Which Guild Is the Best?

Honestly, I can't tell you. If I have to make a guess, then it would be Boros. But scrutinizing multicolor sets is much more difficult and all the guilds are probably a fine pick. The real question is, however, is it worth going for non-guild color combinations and is the mana fixing good enough to fuse two guilds for a three- or even four-colored deck?

Both options have significant downsides. Playing non-guild combinations deprive you from playing good multicolor cards (which seems like a horrible idea), and playing more than two colors makes you, potentially, much slower. I feel like none of these are valid options, which means ending up in exactly one of the five guilds has a very high percentage. But this is a question for another time.

Speaking of next time, I will be looking deeper into the questions, how did the guilds perform individually, and which cards are over and underrated?

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy exploring Guilds of Ravnica. If you have any opinions, comments, or nice stories from your events, please feel free to comment in the section below.

Toffel

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Cardmarket.