Tips for Ravnica Allegiance Draft on MTG Arena

The new Arena season is almost upon us, and when the ladder resets the new Limited format of choice will be Ravnica Allegiance. Although Ravnica Allegiance is a companion set to Guilds of Ravnica, the two sets feel like they draft very differently. Here are some early thoughts that may help you find some success!

Splashing is In Again

In Guilds, it wasn’t all that common to draft three color decks (except for grindy Grixis decks). The synergies and strategies were far more constraining, and although you could splash Blue in your Boros deck for something like a Sonic Assault, in reality you’d rather have another two drop or Sure Strike.

Ravnica Allegiance feels as if there are far greater rewards for going outside your guild. Of course the slow and methodical Azorius are happy to splash for Black removal or Green finishers. But even the wrathful Gruul would be happy to splash Skatewing Spy so that their Rioting creatures can break through a ground stall, and the aggressive Rakdos might not mind a few Green finishers of their own. Math genius Frank Karsten put together a handy guide for how many color sources you should have in your deck when splashing. 

What does this mean? Simple enough: Gates are higher picks than in Guilds. This is especially true since…

Wow, Those Gate Payoffs!

The Gate payoffs in Guilds were good - a slow drawing card enchantment, a big but easily destroyed flyer -  but not great. In contrast the Gate payoffs in Ravnica Allegiance are amazing. You have an early and must-deal-with threat in Gatebreaker Ram, you also have a finisher in Gate Colossus, a card draw engine in Gateway Sneak, and even a conditional board wipe in Gates Ablaze. Gates are definitely a thing in Limited, and I’ve won games simply by curving a turn 3 Gatebreaker Ram into another Gate.

     

Of course that means there’s also some added decision making needed. In certain circumstances Gates may not be an auto-play as a land that comes into play tapped. Maybe you’ll need it later in case they kill your Gate Colossus and you want to put it back on top of your deck, or maybe you’ll want to draw some cards with your Gateway Sneaks a turn or two down the road.

The other thing that helps Gates deck is incidental: the Limited format feels slower than in Guilds. Rakdos is the aggressive deck, but it doesn’t spiral out of control the way Boros did with Mentor triggers and +1/+1 counters. That doesn’t necessarily mean you want to skimp on your two drops though. Speaking of which...

Common Two Drops I Like

Here are some common two drops I’ve been pleasantly surprised by:

Impassioned Orator : Games frequently turn into races. Life gain is important!

Prowling Caracal : I thought a 3/1 would be terrible, but the Caracal has been useful in trading off with some of the more aggressive Gruul and Rakdos cards such as Hackrobat or Zhur-Taa Goblin. The card struggles against decks with lots of afterlife, so you want to sideboard it out then if you're playing Traditional Draft but it still has it uses. 

Faerie Duelist : Eats up 3/1s or smaller and provides a slow but annoying clock.

Sage’s Row Savant: The 2/1 body is not as good as the Omenspeaker ’s 1 / 3, but the Scry 2 is still amazing at sculpting your game plan.

Rakdos Trumpeter: An evasive Spectacle enabler that can also just flat-out finish off your opponent’s life total.

Sauroform Hybrid : The classic Green “Grizzly-Bear-with-upside”, it has considerable, uh, upside.

Rakdos is Not All-Out

I thought my very first Ravnica Allegiance draft was a trainwreck. An early Judith, Scourge Diva  put me firmly in Rakdos, but I didn’t get enough small threats or burn or removal or... well, pretty much anything that seemed particularly good for Rakdos. Desperate for a 23rd playable, I stuck in one of my begrudging picks:

To my surprise Ill-Gotten Inheritance won several of my games for me, and after I won the draft I understood that it was simply a great Rakdos card. Why? Because unlike Boros, Rakdos decks don’t require its creatures survive in order to win. Instead they just need to chip in some damage in the beginning of the game, and once the opponent stabilizes they have the tools to finish things off with slower cards such as Ill-Gotten Inheritance or Spear Spewer.

Orzhov Creatures Don’t Have to Live, They Just Have to Die Usefully

I vastly underestimated Orzhov Afterlife cards. Creatures which died and left behind measly 1/1 fliers didn’t seem like such a great deal to me - and if that’s all Orzhov creatures did, I think my assessment would be right. Here’s the card which changed my perspective:

I was playing a reasonable Gruul deck, full of creatures that could smash through Orzhov - or so I thought. It didn’t take me long to be brickwalled by Debtor’s Transport , which traded with all of my beloved big-bodied creatures - and left behind a rapidly increasingly clock to boot. So don’t be fooled by the Orzhov’s lack of toughness. Similarly to the Golgari, their creatures are meant to trade and create value.

Of course, the “trade” part of that equation can be difficult to achieve. Which is why a card that guarantees a trade can be especially useful:

Yes, that’s a freaky clown - but Bladebrand is an Orzhov card through-and-through. So if you’re drafting an Orzhov deck and find yourself lacking some removal, don’t sleep on this card!

Gruul Can’t Just Smash

Well, maybe sometimes it can just smash. Curving a two-drop into a three-drop into a four-drop is still a good recipe for winning any game. But not all games play out so smoothly, and even the Gruul might find themselves in desperate need of a way to come back from behind.

One of the best cards to do so? An uncommon!

Not only can Flames of the Raze-Boar be a one-sided board wipe, it can be an instant speed one-sided board wipe - and one that can win you the game if you combine it with tricky trample math.

Of course, Flames of the Raze-Boar is only truly great if you control a four-power creature. That increases the value of cheap (3 drop or less) four-power creatures such as Steeple Creeper and Spikewheel Acrobat (and even the 2 / 3 Hackrobat can turn into a 4/1 in a pinch). If I draft a Flames of the Raze-Boar, I will definitely take these cards more highly.

Random Commons and Uncommons that Have Impressed

Enraged Ceratok: Better than Frenzied Arynx when facing off against a fleet of Orzhov spirits.

Chillbringer: An evasive threat that also interacts with your opponent’s creatures, I’ve splashed Blue solely for this card.

Sentinel’s Mark: This flashy enchantment (lol, get it) actually does three things: acts as a limited removal spell aka a combat trick, gains life for a race, and increases pressure on the opponent. Pretty good!

Slimebind: I thought this card was mediocre semi-removal; after having had it played against me, I now think it’s excellent removal, especially when drafting a flying Azorius deck because leaving them with a ground blocker is not an issue when all of your creatures fly.

Syndicate Messenger: This is a key Orzhov common. It stops 2/X attackers, provides a threat, and leaves behind a spirit when it dies.

Let us know in the comments which tips helped you the most and what your favorite guild to draft is!