In October 2005, the chaos from Mirrodin block finally rotated out of Standard, replaced by the colorful world of Ravnica. The two years of this Gauntlet are Kamigawa–Ravnica Standard (2005–2006) and Ravnica–Time Spiral Standard (2006–2007). In both environments, decks tended to play lots of colors, as the power level of multicolor lands finally caught up with designer intent.

Note: This event can be found in the Limited Leagues area of Magic Online play lobby.

Ravnica Standard Throwback Standard Gauntlet League

Start Time: February 14, 2018, at 10 a.m. Pacific

End Time: Entries end February 20 at 11 p.m. Pacific; matches end February 21 at 2 a.m. Pacific

Location: Play Lobby -> Limited Tournaments -> Leagues

Entry Options: 10 Event Tickets 100 Play Points

Number of Players: 8–5,000

Product: One randomly-selected phantom deck from the below list. The cards in the deck will no be added to your collection.

Structure: Deck review, followed by 3 Swiss rounds

Prizes: 3 wins: 150 Play Points 2 wins: 100 Play Points 1 win: 40 Play Points 0 wins: 10 Play Points



Ghazi Glare

Early in Ravnica's Standard lifetime, the defining deck was Katsuhiro Mori's 2005 Worlds-winning deck from December of that year. Glare of Subdual was not as annoying to play against as Opposition was since it can't tap lands. Still, it was still good enough to build around, especially when the same color combination had Selesnya Guildmage and especially Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree.

Greater Good Gifts

Frank Karsten took second at 2005 Worlds with a pretty crazy brew. At first glance it's a ramp deck: a bunch of mana acceleration and a half-dozen Dragons sitting on top of his mana curve. Look closer, though, and you see that all those dragons are legendary creatures that can be reanimated for a turn with Goryo's Vengeance. And what better to do with your Dragon that's about to die than sacrifice it to Greater Good? I'll wait while you read that card. Yes, seriously. Oh, by the way, Gifts Ungiven lets you set all of this up. Enjoy!

Zoo

Yes, I know Mark Herberholz was the one who actually won 2006's Pro Tour Honolulu, but his "Heezy Street" deck, brilliant metagame call that it was, just wasn't as influential as the three-color Zoo deck that Craig Jones used to finish second. Besides, you know you all want the opportunity to burn your opponent's face, knock the top of your deck, and windmill slam a Lightning Helix for the win!

Hand-in-Hand

The deck on the receiving end of Craig's semifinal top deck was a grindy Orzhov deck that's kind of hard to describe. It's got a little bit of beatdown, a discard theme, and a heaping helping of value plays available to anyone who is into that sort of thing. The Orzhov guild was set up to be very grindy, and this deck is very capable of being exactly that. Plus, Umezawa's Jitte turns out to be a very powerful Magic card as well.

Owling Mine

This has got to be one of the most perverse decks to ever Top 8 a Pro Tour, but it was also one of the most requested Gauntlet decks when I asked Twitter what they most wanted me to include, so here we are. The plan here is to force the opponent to draw more cards than they can possibly play, via Howling Mine and Kami of the Crescent Moon, and then kill them with Ebony Owl Netsuke and Sudden Impact. The rest of the list is just ways to slow them down.

Solar Flare

One could argue that the entire future of competitive Magic changed at US Nationals in the summer of 2006. Two guys no one had ever heard of (outside of a few people whispering Magic Online usernames and wondering if that was them) came out of nowhere to make the US National team with a funky reanimator deck they called Solar Flare (for reasons I'm not sure I ever knew). Paul Cheon was the winner, and Luis Scott-Vargas was the leader of the Cheon-tourage accompanying him to Worlds.

Dragonstorm

Hall of Famer Makahito Mihara's signature win came at 2006 Worlds in Paris with this deck. The plan here is pretty straightforward. Cast a couple of spells, typically "dark rituals" of some kind, then a Dragonstorm all on the same turn. Four copies of Bogardan Hellkite add up to 20 damage when they come into play, which is usually enough to get it done. If not, the hasty 6-power Hunted Dragon is also available in case you draw a Hellkite. Sometimes you can just win by summoning giant flying monsters, too. Gigadrowse is shockingly good at buying time and/or taking away all the opponent's mana during their end step so you can untap and "go off."

Izzet-Tron

In the first round of Quick Questions from the Grand Prix Kyoto coverage in March of 2007, Japanese legend Kenji Tsumura boldly stated that an unknown amateur named Yuuya Watanabe would win the tournament. I think you know where this is going: Yuuya did just that, earning his very first Pro Tour invite in a career that led straight to the Hall of Fame without missing a single PT. This Izzet-Tron list was his weapon of choice. I still can't believe that's a real thing that actually happened, but it is. There was even an extra "amateur prize" back then, so Yuuya got to double-dip on his first prize money.

Pickles

A year after making the team with Paul Cheon, Luis Scott-Vargas won a US National Championship title of his own, and his career was truly off to the races. The ten years since then include eight Pro Tour Top 8s, a world-class commentary career, and the launch of ChannelFireball. But let's talk about how sweet this deck is. The name refers to Brine Elemental, and a large percentage of the deck's wins involve finding that one Brine Elemental with Chord of Calling and then copying it over and over again with Vesuvan Shapeshifter, effectively locking the opponent into never untapping ever again. (More precisely: threatening to do this usually prompts a concession.) A couple of months later, Paul won Grand Prix Krakow with the same basic strategy, making him the first American to win a European GP in over five years.

[Editor's Note: In honor of Paul recently joining R&D, we've decided to use his deck here even though it technically falls just outside this Gauntlet's window.]