BUILDING ALLEGIANCE

Form your own bonds in Ravnica Allegiance – take on a Two-Headed Giant prerelease with a teammate for double the fun and glory. Combine your sealed pool with a friend’s and build the best two decks. With more cards to use, Two-Headed Giant decks will generally be stronger than their single-pool counterparts, so craft yours accordingly. Here are a few tips to help guide you toward this format’s HIDDEN GEMS.

Some notes specific to RAVNICA ALLEGIANCE

BETTER WITH FRIENDS

As we mentioned earlier, 2HG matches are best of one. You want as many of your cards as possible to be efficient and flexible. That doesn’t only mean packing cards that answer different threats; it can also mean engaging with your teammate.

BETTER WITH ENEMIES

The word “each” gains a great deal of power in multiplayer formats. Here’s the list of cards in Ravnica Allegiance that impact each opponent, often doubling their effectiveness:

Awaken the Erstwhile – This is a dangerous gambit, but one that you can potentially leverage as a team. In the format of board stalls, sometimes the best plan is to empty everyone’s hand and leaving evasive threats to do the talking.

Basilica Bell-Haunt – Incidental discard is quite valuable as we saw in Guilds of Ravnica . This effect on a creature can be quite useful at the right moment.

. This effect on a creature can be quite useful at the right moment. Dagger Caster – This card is a great way to clear out afterlife tokens and surprise your opponent with bonus damage post-combat.

Grasping Thrull – A six-life swing on entering the battlefield plus decent evasive stats make this an easy include in any Orzhov deck.

Ill-Gotten Inheritance – This is the ultimate control win-con for the format! It’s a three-life swing each turn and it you can pay to deal the final points or gain some extra life when it’s exhausted its other usefulness.

Priest of Forgotten Gods – “Any number of target players” is almost always going to be both opposing heads. This generates significant value for what can be a heavy cost, but if you can reliably activate this it will pay off dividends for your team.

Rafter Demon – While not an impressive body, tacking on discard to a creature has proven valuable in recent sets.

Spawn of Mayhem – An oddball mythic, this deals 1 damage to each player which includes you and your teammate! 2 damage to each team each turn is significant but you’ll probably be on the up and up with a 4/4 flier on your side.

Spear Spewer – 2 damage per team per turn starting on turn two? Sign me up! This card can generate considerable pressure by itself but it really shines if you’re the aggressor. This doesn’t fit in every build but the inevitability is strong when you’re ahead – remember that it damages you too!

Vindictive Vampire – Similarly to Ill-Gotten Inheritance, this creature offers inevitability. Do note that it only triggers off the death of your creatures and not your teammate’s.

Some cards benefit from the Two-Headed Giant format either through shared life totals, more players or simply more flexibility. Here are some notable cards to be aware of:

Angel of Grace – As a team, this keeps your collective life total from going below one for one turn due to damage.* You can still lose the game through other types of life loss. Also, thanks to shared life totals, you can set your team’s life total to 10 with its activated ability but only you gain the life.

Azorius Skyguard – Reducing the power of the whole enemy team is quite strong. Do watch out for instant speed removal mid-combat!

Captive Audience – This is incredibly strong for this format for multiple reasons. Reducing one player’s life to 4 changes the whole team’s total. Devastating! Additionally, ‘each opponent’ creating five Zombie tokens means your team comes away with ten threats ready to swing in during the next turn. It’s expensive, but it packs a serious punch!

Ethereal Absolution – Having multiple graveyards means there are more creatures to be conscripted as Spirits. The P/T boost and reduction can also wreck some boardstates, clearing out opposing Spirit tokens and other small creatures. Keep in mind that the anthem doesn’t impact your teammate.

Eyes Everywhere – Double the players means double the potential tasty targets for exchange. If you can trade with a player without access to Blue mana, all the better!

Macabre Mockery – Two graveyards to choose from means a higher likelihood of a good reanimation target.

Revival // Revenge – Thanks to shared life totals, you get to double your whole team’s life total with Revenge and reduce the opposing team’s life total by half. This can be quite the swing!

Smothering Tithe – In the vein of ‘Rhystic’ cards from the past, this gives your opponent the choice of paying mana or letting you get a benefit. In this format, you’re potentially getting two treasures per turn during your opponents draw step! At worst, you force them to tie up their mana to keep you off of accumulating mana of your own.

As a quick note, board-wipes scale very well in multiplayer formats. Cry of the Carnarium, Gates Ablaze and Kaya’s Wrath all become more valuable when they can destroy more creatures. Being able to pair these effects with a teammate that can rebuild on the same turn is exceptionally useful.

HIDDEN DUDS

These cards may be fine on their own but they either don’t work as well or limit your choices for how to play them thanks to the format.

Forbidding Spirit – This card’s ability won’t stop your opponents from attacking your team since they can just choose the other player as the defending player when they attack.** Unless you need a 3/3 for three mana this card will be underwhelming.

Rubblebelt Recluse – This creature has great stats but the lack of choice can be debilitating. This will often charge heedlessly into threats thanks to its ‘must attack’ clause. This can be effective if you can keep its path clear, but keep in mind that there are seven creatures with deathtouch in this set and a combat trick that grants it.

TOP 10

These are the cards I feel get the biggest boost from being in a multiplayer environment, not necessarily my top picks overall. You should still prioritize solid removal and efficient creatures but I personally value these cards and others like them highly.

Top 5 Common/Uncommon picks



Top 5 Rare/Mythic Rare picks

We’ve reached the end of another missive! Was this helpful? Did I miss any cards you thought should be mentioned? Did you take down your own 2HG prerelease? Let me know in the comments and may good fortune follow you until we meet next spoiler season!

Kade Goforth is a L2 Judge from Oklahoma

* CR 810.9 – Damage, loss of life, and gaining life happen to each player individually. The result is applied to the team’s shared life total.

** CR 802.3 – As the attacking player declares each attacking creature, they choose a defending player or a planeswalker controlled by a defending player for it to attack.