Welcome back to Ars Arcanum, the MTGO stats-based column. This week, we have a special installment, as well be looking in depth at Ravnica/Guildpact/Dissension draft, but we will also be taking a look at the spoiled mechanics and cards from Return to Ravnica. The first section of the article will focus on RGD draft, but if you are the kind of person that isn’t really interested in drafting old formats, then you will want to skip down to the section that discusses the new mechanics and cards. The data for the RGD section comes from watching over 200 matches of RGD 4322s on MTGO, and the information on the RTR section comes largely from articles posted on the mothership, as well as some spoilers from the PAX party on the first of September.

I’ve been excited to write this article; Ravnica/Guildpact/Dissension is a beloved draft format, and it is also amazingly complex, which makes it a great candidate for an Ars Arcanum article. Furthermore, covering this format is surprisingly relevant because of the imminent release of Return to Ravnica. Although there will probably be many differences between RTR and RGD, there will still be enough similarities to make this analysis beneficial. We will also be better able to evaluate the changes made between the two sets and how they are likely to impact the draft environment. Most importantly, this can help you play better in RGD drafts when they come around. It is such a popular format that WotC brings it back quite often, and playing in an RGD draft is much more enjoyable when you have a little bit of an idea of where you are going with the draft.

I’m also very excited to be talking about the new cards and mechanics. One of my great loves in Magic is being able to look at the spoiler as it is released and figure out what is going on in the set before everyone gets there hands on it. For example, I wrote this article about a year ago which discusses the Innistrad Mechanics in a limited context. I’ve since backed off of doing this kind of analysis since I started doing statistical studies of limited formats, but this is a perfect opportunity to talk about Return to Ravnica, since we also have our RGD data to look at.

With that said, let’s dive into the data!

RGD Draft

Ravnica: City of Guilds was released in October 7, 2005, and was followed by Dissension and Guildpact. There has been a lot of information on these sets on the mothership lately, as part of the buildup to Return to Ravnica. I should note that it is a multicolor format based on the existence of 10 two color guilds representing all of the two color combinations. Those guilds are Azorius (WU), Ozhov (WB), Dimir (UB), Izzet (UR), Rakdos (BR), Golgari (BG), Gruul (RG), Boros (RW), Selesnya (WG), and Simic (UG). There was also an enchantment theme, though it definitely plays second fiddle to the multicolor component. RGD is also arguably the best draft format of all time, and it is certainly one of the most popular and beloved draft environments. It was incredibly complex and rewarded a diverse number of play styles. Just about every card in the set is related to two or more themes, which gives the draft experience a unique depth that is comparable to a format like triple Innistrad.

RGD is also one of the more intimidating draft formats for new players. You open up the pack, and see a bunch of cards with a lot of text, and many of them are multiple colors. There are so many different themes going on that it can often be difficult to piece together what parts of the game you are supposed to be caring about. Furthermore, the guilds are not evenly balanced between all three sets, which means that new players don’t know what to expect as far as which guilds and colors they are going to see represented in each pack.

In this article, we’ll be looking at a broad swath of the metagame in order to give players a better understanding of how to approach an RGD draft. With this information, you should be able to enter the draft with a plan, instead of just reacting to the cards that are placed in front of you.

Conventional RGD draft wisdom says that you should focus your draft on 5 specific 3 color combinations. I’ll refer to the 3 color combinations as shards throughout this article, in order to conserve space, though there are actually five shards and five wedges. A shard features three colors that are next to each other on the color pie, while a wedge features two allied colors and their mutual enemy color. For the shards, Bant is GWU, Esper is WUB, Grixis is UBR, Jund is BRG, and Naya is RGW. There aren’t official names for the wedges, so I’ve chosen popular EDH generals as they’re names. For the wedges, Kaalia is WBR, Riku is URG, Ghave is BGW, Numot is RWU, and Damia is GUB.

Because of the format of the three sets, there are three combinations that allow you to maximize your ability to pick relevant cards for your deck. Ravnica has the Dimir, Golgari, Selesnya, and Boros guilds; Guildpact had Orzhov, Izzet, and Gruul; and Dissenion had Azorius, Rakdos, and Simic. Respectively, that is UB, BG, GW, RW; and WB, UR, RG; and WU, BR, UG. The conventional strategy is to pick a shard or wedge that has a guild in each set, which meant restricting yourself to Esper, Jund, Numot, Kaalia, and Grixis. For example, if you were drafting Esper, then you could pick Dimir cards in the first pack, Orzhov cards in the second, and Azorius carsd in the third, which maximizes your playable cards. If you are playing Ghave, for example, then you will have Golgari and Selesnya in the first pack, Orzhov in the first pack, and then you won’t have a guild in the third pack. As we go through this article, we’ll be examining this strategy, to see if it holds up under statistical analysis. The other strategy with RGD that often gets mentioned is to take all of the Signets and all of the Karoo lands and then, since you have all the fixing, you can just take all of the powerful cards. We’ll look at how the 5 color decks hold up as well.

But first, we’ll look at the speed of the format.

Speed

Ending turn of RGD Drafts

Ending turn of RGD Drafts as compared with M13, AVR, and OLS

These charts depict the speed of RGD in comparison with other sets. RGD peaks at turn 10, though it has another high point at turn 8. RGD is about three turns slower than AVR and two turns slower than M13. Turns 7 through 10 take up about 55% of the overall games played. However, it is interesting that the bulge is skewed more towards the right. Another interesting thing is that a little more than 37% of RGD games end after turn 10, while only 16% of RGD games end before turn 8. Compare this with AVR where nearly a third of the games ended before turn 8. Even OLS had 20% of its games end before turn 8. What this means is that RGD is a very slow format, slower even than OLS, and much slower than modern limited environments.

There are three major reasons why RGD is so slow. First, the Karoo lands mean that you are often skipping a turn in the early game just to play a land. These lands are exceptionally powerful, but they also really cut into the early turns of an aggressive deck. Second, RGD decks are almost always three or more colors; it is typical to either play a three color deck or a three color deck with a small splash from one of the other colors. This means that you often need to spend the early turns fixing your mana, and it also means that you often cannot reliably cast your spells in the early game, which slows your game down a little bit. Third, RGD features a lot of common creature with low power, as well as many common creatures with high toughness relative to the set’s average power. It’s made up largely of cards like Elvish Skysweeper, Coiling Oracle, or Mourning Thrull in the cheap slots, while the 3 drop slot has lots of cards like Drift of Phantasms, Golgari Brownscale, or Silhana Starfletcher that all do a good job at gumming up the ground.

This slow pace has a few notable effects on the format. First, almost all RGD games end with either one or both players topdecking. A card like Ocular Halo would be a serious liability in almost every draft format, but in RGD, you will usually save it until the late game, and your opponent will no longer have any removal. You can then safely run it out on a creature, and it will often get you enough cards to leverage a serious advantage over your opponent. Flight of Fancy, for example, is quite good in RGD, since it gives you a few cards in the late game, as well as giving one of your creatures flying, and allowing them to start closing out a long, stalled game. Second, RGD games tend to end with both players having a lot of open mana. Mana sinks are great in these instances. Not only do games tend to go very long, but decks often play two or more Karoos, which act like two lands, as well as two or more signets, which accelerate your mana. Most RGD games see both players with 8 mana, and it is typical to see players end up with ten mana for several turns in a row. Mana sinks like (Train in Thought) or any of the guildmages are great in these mana heavy games. Third, you can often reliably cast expensive cards in RGD. Cytospawn Shambler is a card that is surprisingly valid in RGD draft, since it is a large creature that can dominate a late game, as well as having the potential to make any cheaper creatures you draw into live draws.

Popularity

Popularity of Colors in RGD Draft

Popularity of Guilds in RGD Draft

Popularity of Shards and Wedges in RGD Draft

These charts show the popularity of colors, guilds, and shard in RGD draft, respectively. Specifically, it shows the percent of decks that were these colors, guilds, or shards. For example, about 64% of decks in RGD are base red, about 37% are base Izzet, and about 17.5% are base Riku (URG). Because Ravnica is so much about guilds, I decided to make a chart dedicated entirely to them. By using a combination of the three charts, we can gain a reasonable idea about how people are drafting the set.

First, we should deal with three major outliers in the “shard popularity” chart. The first of these outliers is the popularity of Riku, which is the Blue/Red/Green deck. Riku is ahead of the next competitor, Esper, by a full 6 points. At 17.5%, you can reasonably expect 1.403 Riku decks to show up in any given RGD draft. This is about a 50% higher representation than the rest of the decks, and a 100% higher representation than half the decks in the field. The Esper deck, which is the next closest, only comes in at 11.78%, which means that you can expect to see .942 of those decks in an RGD draft. The difference is that there will almost always be a Riku deck, while the Esper deck will only show up in most drafts, though it will often not be there at all. However, it is important to note that since there are only 1.403 Riku decks in the field, it isn’t like the deck is being heavily overdrafted; we can probably assume that there are 2 or 3 Riku drafters at a normal RGD table, and that one or two of them get cut too hard to stay in the draft, while one person is doing the cutting and getting the majority of the powerful commons. Also, since Izzet and Gruul are both in Guildpact, the majority of the Riku cards are showing up in pack two. Since there are usually around eight good picks for these decks in these packs, you can usually build a reasonable Riku deck if you try to do so. It isn’t until the Dissension pack that you start to feel the crunch as you fight over Simic cards.

The second outlier is that the next five decks after the Riku deck all feature black. Black is still only the second most popular color overall, but it achieves that without being part of a deck that is nearly twice as popular as the other decks. Apparently the main choice that people are making in this block are to either be the Riku deck, or to be a deck with black. A big part of this is that black gets a large amount of powerful removal spells, from Darkblast all the way up the mana curve to Ribbons of Night, and a large amount of that removal comes in the first pack.

The next important outlier is that four of the bottom five decks all have white as a base color. While White also shows up in the popular Esper deck and the relatively popular Ghave deck, it is mostly regarded as a poor option. Furthermore, the three most popular White decks are all Orzhov based. Since this is a multicolor deck, white still shows up in 50% of the decks in the field, but this is quite a bit lower than even green which is in 55% of the field. Every draft format has a color that people avoid, and apparently that color is White in RGD.

One thing that I wanted to look at specifically is the popularity of the Esper, Jund, Numot, Kaalia, and Grixis decks, which are the decks that are supposed to be the best choices by conventional wisdom. What we see is that five of the top seven decks are from this group, and all three of the least popular decks are not from this group. The only two relatively popular decks that aren’t part of this group are Riku, which features the popular Izzet and Gruul guilds, and Ghave, which features Selesnya and Golgari. The Ghave deck is particularly interesting; if you go into WBG, you’ll have a lot of picks in the first pack, then you’ll have Orzhov in the second pack, but you’ll be severely limited in your choices going into the third pack. Selesnya and Golgari also feature the most powerful commons and uncommons on average in the first pack. It seems like these drafters are mostly the ones who are going into RGD without much background knowledge in the format. They choose what look like the best cards in the pack throughout the first pack, but they really have no idea about what is coming in the next two packs. Because of this, they solidify themselves into a Ghave deck, but then are probably surprised to see that their colors suddenly stop flowing. This is especially important, because focusing your deck on cards that are only found in the first pack is a very weak strategy; it is much weaker than trying to draft the Riku deck, which doesn’t have any guilds in the first pack. This is because the players around you are less committed to color in the first pack, and they are generally just taking the most powerful card for the first half of the pack, regardless of that card’s color. In past formats, we’ve seen that this means that you generally get fewer cards in your colors during the first pack, but by the second pack everyone is more solidified in their deck choices, and they are less likely to cut powerful cards that are off color. Focusing on the Ghave deck means that you are putting all your eggs in one basket, and it is a basket from which it is easy for anyone to steal.

Now that we’ve taken a look at what decks are popular, let’s take a look at how these decks are performing.

Win Rate of Colors, Guilds, and Shards

Win Rate of Colors in RGD Draft

Win Rate of Guilds in RGD Draft

Win Rate of Shards and Wedges in RGD Draft

In these three charts we see the win rates of colors, guilds, and shards in RGD draft. The first thing that we should notice is that there are five shards above 50%, five guilds above 50%, and three colors about 50%. This suggests that the format is relatively well-balanced overall. But it is also important to note that the three top shards have a commanding lead overall of the other competitors, which each picking up a more than 60% win rate. Furthermore, we see a common thread between these three shards; they all contain blue. Furthermore, two contain red, two contain green, and two contain black. This shows a particular dominance by the Izzet and Simic guilds, which we see reflected in the guild win rates.

There are three other key things that we should notice about this chart. First, we see that four of the top five decks are base red. If we look at the guild win rates, we see that three of the four red guilds perform better than 50%, with only Boros, the RW guild, performing at less than 50%. Green is also a high performer, with three of the four green guilds performing at over 50%. Overall, the three colors of red, green, and blue are in a tight race for the color with the highest win percentage. Blue falls a little short because of the overall weakness of the Dimir and Azorius guilds, but it is also part of the two most powerful guilds in the formats.

The next key thing we should notice is that every deck that does not exceed a 50% win rate is a deck that is base white. All of the bottom six decks are white based, and all of the bottom four guilds are white based. Furthermore, while black is hugging the 50% win rate line as the fourth “worst” color, white is nearly at the 40% line, which is not a good place to be. In the popularity section, we saw that people were avoiding white as a base color, and this information shows us why. It simply isn’t a good choice for winning packs.

What is it that is making the Riku, Damia, and Grixis decks so good? We see the key in the guild win rate chart; the Simic (UG) and Izzet (UR) guilds are substantially outperforming the other guilds. The Izzet guild is in Guildpact, which is the second pack in an RGD draft. The Simic guild is in Dissension, which is the third pack. The most powerful strategy in RGD draft seems to be to draft with the intention of taking advantage of these two guilds.

Our winningest guild was Simic, which achieves this position through three main factors: Graft, efficient and evasive creatures, and card advantage. This guild shows up in the third pack, Dissension, and focuses mainly on the Graft mechanic. A creature with Graft X enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters. Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may move one of those counters onto the new creature. This is a particularly powerful mechanic in RGD, since it is a format that features long games and often stalled boards. Graft allows you to spread out your power and toughness in the most efficient way to break through a creature stall. This often means putting your +1/+1 counters on evasive creatures. Simic gets several efficient and evasive creatures like Silkwing Scout, Trygon Predator, Assault Zeppelid, Patagia Viper, or Helium Squirter. The Squirter is a particularly key part of the Simic strategy, since it allows you to throw any creature with a +1/+1 counter into the air which allows you to kill your opponent. Since there are a lot of Graft creatures in the guild, and because you can often pick up a couple of Thrives, it isn’t hard to put away stalled games with the Simic guild. Finally, Simic also gets powerful card advantage spells like Coiling Oracle, Patagia Viper, and especially Leafdrake Roost, as well as several other less powerful spells. Each of these cards is particularly useful in a long game where you are fighting for every bit of resources in order to beat your opponent. Leafdrake Roost in particular will usually take over a game completely if it isn’t dealt with immediately.

Izzet is our second winningest guild, and only comes in slightly behind Simic. Izzet also uses card advantage and evasive creatures to leverage long term advantage, but what really sets the guild apart is the abundance of flexible removal and bounce spells. In Guildpact, which is the second pack, we get Repeal, Pyromatics, Electrolyze, Gelectrode, Hypervolt Grasp, Steamcore Weird, and Ogre Savant which all allow you to get a creature off the board while also providing you with a measure of card advantage. On top of this, you also get Izzet Chronarch which can get many of these spells back from the graveyard. The one major weakness of Izzet is that its creatures tend to be small, but pairing it with Simic is a particularly powerful strategy, since you get so many graft spells which allow you to turn your small Izzet creatures into powerful threats.

There is another important reason why the Izzet and Simic guilds perform so well, and especially why the Riku deck is the best and most popular deck in the format. This is because neither of these powerful guilds are in the first pack. The blue guild in Ravnica is Dimir and the red guild is Boros, both of which are less powerful in the abstract when compared with their Golgari and Selesnya neighbors. Because of this, many players shy away from blue and red cards in the first pack, and instead pick the powerful removal and efficient creatures in the two green guilds. But this means that the Izzet player has a tremendous advantage going into the second pack. He or she will be getting to choose the best of all these incredible Izzet spells that are particularly well suited to the environment, while his or her competitors are fighting over the Orzhov and Gruul guilds. If the Izzet player doesn’t see a good UR card to take, then there will probably also be a powerful RG card to take from the Gruul guild. Then, in the third pack, that player will be able to supplement these powerful Izzet cards with the Simic cards, which makes for a powerhouse of a deck. Both of the other top three decks also leverage the ability to manipulate the flow of the packs in order to best take advantage of these powerful guilds. This is an important and non-intuitive lesson; success in RGD draft is largely predicated on not just taking the most obviously powerful cards in the first pack, but on making a plan that will allow you to take advantage of the more powerful cards that are coming up in the next two packs.

This is why the people gravitated to the conventional RGD strategy of picking shards and wedges that have guild representation in each pack, which means taking Esper, Jund, Numot, Kaalia, or Grixis, but it is important to note that that strategy is actually not the best way to win in RGD. In fact, decks from the conventional strategy only put up a 47.2% win rate, while the other five shards put up a 55.43% win rate. This is mostly because the conventional strategy means focusing on three white based shards, which we’ve demonstrated is the least powerful color in RGD. Furthermore, none only two of these guilds take advantage of drafting Izzet, while none of them take advantage of Simic, which is the most powerful guild in the format.

Normally at this point I would show you the information for the decks going 3-0 in their drafts. However, I’m pushing up against a large word count. And most importantly, the information wouldn’t show us anything different. What it shows is that the Riku deck is ahead with a comfortable lead, which further supports our findings from the other sections of the study.

Recommendations

In conclusion, here are the main points that we learned about RGD:

1. RGD is an especially slow format. This means that it is important to pick cards that provide card advantage and that allow you to sink in your mana in the late game.

2. Furthermore, RGD is a format where you often have access to large amounts of mana, which means that you can play more expensive cards than you would in most formats.

3. The most powerful guilds are Izzet and Simic, and the most powerful shard is Riku. These decks are able to leverage a lot of card advantage and evasion in order to win long games.

4. Success in RGD draft means using the structure of the packs in order to best take advantage of the powerful cards from guilds in the last two packs.

5. The conventional RGD draft strategy proves to be ineffective, largely because it relies on drafting white decks, which is the weakest color in the format.

Although RGD drafts will be down by the time this article goes up, I hope this will let you better enjoy the format when it is inevitably opened for drafting on MTGO again. It’s also useful to see how the structure of the format impacts draft strategy so much, which is particularly relevant with the imminent release of Return to Ravnica. Many of these same principles will apply as we add more sets to the format.

Return to Ravnica

Mechanics

As promised, I’ll be doing a brief review of the mechanics in RTR and their likely impacts in limited. You can find the mothership article discussing those mechanics here.

Detain

Detain is an ability word mechanic and it belongs to the Azorius (WU) guild. Detain targets a permanent, and that permanent’s activated abilities cannot be activated. Additionally, if that permanent is a creature, it cannot attack or block until your next turn.

Detain is an obviously powerful mechanic in limited. He have seen cards like Goblin Shortcutter that prevent a creature from blocking, and the ability has proven quite useful. We’ve also seen things like Niblis of the Mist that tap down a creature. This ability is also very good. Detain is better than either of these. Like both of these cards, it allows you to get a blocker out of the way in order to get some damage through. But it also makes those creatures unable to attack.

The most important thing to understand about Detain is that it leads to a very tempo oriented environment. It allows you to play efficient creatures and then play spells that allow you to punch through your opponent’s defenses. I would not expect Return to Ravnica to be as slow as RGD was, largely on account of how well Detain enables aggressive decks to punch through opposition.

Overload

Overload is a keyword mechanic for the Izzet (UR) guild. When you play a card for its Overload cost, it changes each instance of “target” in the card’s text to “each.” This allows you to get past Hexproof. Also, any Overload spell with harmful effects will have the phrase “target X you don’t control” while Overload spells with beneficial effects will have the phrase “target X you control.” This means that you don’t have to worry about Mizzium Mortars killing all your own creatures when you Overload it.

Overload is obviously a powerful mechanic. It is also very comparable to the Replicate mechanic from Guildpact. Most importantly, it gives you a spell that you can easily use in the early game for a noticeable effect, as well as a powerful late game card that can potentially end the game. Overload is packed with virtual card advantage, and I suspect that most of the Overload cards will be playable, if not outright good. Also important to notice is that it is another powerful tempo mechanic. While it seems like it would go best in a control deck, keep in mind that casting an Overload spell will often mean that you can make way through an entire stalled board to win the game. Something like “UR Instant Target creature you control gains +1/+0 and flying. Overload 2UR” seems like it could easily be printed, which effectively gives you a Falter effect that can just close out a game.

Another important note is that Overload is particularly powerful against Selesnya, whose mechanic focuses on putting out a lot of creature tokens. More Overload targets means you’ll get a bigger advantage.

Unleash

Unleash is a keyword mechanic for Rakdos (BR). When a creature with Unleash enters the battlefield, you are presented with a choice: you can put a +1/+1 counter on it, but if it has a counter on it, then it cannot block. This means that you have to carefully consider how best to use your Unleash creatures.

I’ve heard from several players that this mechanic is weak and unexciting. They couldn’t be more wrong. It doesn’t seem that powerful when you look at it, but the flexibility of being able to play creatures with a +1/+1 counter is amazing. Grim Roustabout is unlikely to be the best common Unleash creature that we see, but it is hard to imagine a BR deck that doesn’t want him in the pile. A 2/2 that can’t block for 1B has been a staple in many limited formats, largely on account of the fact that black often comes with powerful removal spells and weak creatures. Usually you just need something to present a clock in order to win the game. Because this has regenerate, you can attack into a lot of early boards, without worrying about losing your creature. This will often be like a Welkin Tern on the attack, simply because of threat of activation.

All of this is quite good, but you also get the additional benefit of being able to play a (Dredge Skeletons) if you really need it. Unleash is likely to be the most skill intensive mechanic in the format, which is exciting for an aggressive deck. Instead of just being the “play creatures and attack deck” these aggressive decks will have to make careful decisions with their Unleash creatures in order to present the best board against their opponent’s strategy. Also, once again we see a tempo oriented mechanic.

Scavenge

Scavenge is a keyword mechanic for Golgari (BG). When a creature with Scavenge is in your graveyard, you can activate its ability any time you could play a sorcery by paying the Scavenge cost and exiling the creature. You then put +1/+1 counters equal to that creatures power on target creature.

Scavenge is an incredible limited ability. It allows you to get extra use out of your creatures, which essentially gives you a form of card advantage. It also allows you to put a bunch of counters on one creature in order to punch through a stalled board, which is a powerful tempo play. It is a mana sink in the late game, which means you will always have something to do which can affect the board.

Scavenge is most comparable to the Graft mechanic from Dissension. Like that mechanic, it allowed you to move around the power and toughness of your creatures in order to create the best board position for punching through your opponent’s board. The biggest difference is that a creature with Scavenge can trade with another creature and then move over the counters after dying. It is a versatile strategy that will probably be the basis of some of the most powerful decks in the format.

Populate

Populate is an ability word mechanic for Selesnya (GW). When you populate, you put a token onto the battlefield that’s a copy of a creature token you control. It can copy any token, but it also doesn’t require a token in order to use the card. Also, the mothership article states that most, but not all, populate cards will put a token onto the battlefield before you populate.

Populate is a mechanic that has me worried. Cloning something is a potentially powerful ability, but it is also very swingy. If you don’t have a token on the battlefield, then it is very bad. If all you are copying is a 1/1, then it is not very potent. But as soon as you start copying 2/2s or something bigger, like an 8/8 Vigilance creature, you are starting to put a lot of value into an inexpensive card. There are two reasons why this has me worried. First, populate is a parasitic mechanic. It doesn’t play well with the other colors in the set. It also requires you to pick up a lot of token generators, or your populate cards will be generating a pretty miserable effect. This means that decks based around Populate will be forced into very narrow strategies. Second, this is a very swingy mechanic. Sometimes it gives you nothing, in which case it is terrible. Sometimes it gives you a 1/1, which probably means that you got enough value to barely justify casting the spell. But sometimes you are going to get something tremendous. I predict that a lot of players are going to get chewed out on MTGO for playing “terrible populate” decks and just “getting lucky” when they get a big creature. I hope that R&D makes sure that this mechanic is balanced appropriately, but I still predict that it is going to have a strange warping effect on the environment.

Gates

Gate is a type word that is added to a cycle of “dual lands” from both Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash. These are important for two reasons. First, this means that we are getting a cycle of dual lands at common. These fixers will probably be a central piece of the limited environment, and you will likely want to pick them fairly early. Second, the Gate type brings benefits for creatures like Ogre Jailbreaker, which become better when you have gates on the battlefield.

Three important times we’ve added types to other parts of the game as major elements of a set were Tribal, Snow, and Artifact for Lorwyn, Coldsnap, and Mirrodin. In the case of Lorwyn and Mirrodin, these extra types ended up being very powerful. In fact, the Mirrodin artifact lands ended up being banned, and they were a key part of the draft environment. In Coldsnap, snow mana was an essential part of the environment, and picking up snow lands at the appropriate time was important for turning on some of your most powerful cards. In any case, type lines on lands or spells that enable other cards usually end up being more powerful than they look at first glance.

Conclusion

This article is now pushing up against 6000 words, so I’m going to go ahead and call it a day. In the future, we’ll be able to go into greater depth on the mechanics and cards from Return to Ravnica, but for now, we can see that almost all of the mechanics encourage a tempo based environment, probably similar to something like AVR or Triple Innistrad. I very much doubt that we’ll be seeing a format as slow as RGD. Mana will be an important part of the format, which will slow things down a little, but I still predict that tempo will be a vital feature of the environment.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you’ll be able to use this information to better evaluate the RTR spoilers as they are revealed during the coming weeks, and be better able to react to the new environment.

As always, you can follow me on Twitter @oraymw for updates about articles, to drop me a comment, for to see my random musings on anything MTG related.



