News: Return to Ravnica Intro Packs Decklists Revealed!
Those waking up to the mothership today are in for a treat- the Return to Ravnica Intro Pack contents have been spoiled!
All five of the decks- Azorius Advance, Izzet Ingenuity, Rakdos Raid, Golgari Growth, and Selesnya Surge– are there in their full glory. Head on over and take a look!
24 Comments
Post a comment
Ertai's Lament 
Thanks for the link.
Looking at the Rakdos deck, I see Wizards are still putting utter crap from their core sets into the intro packs. Yeah, I’m sure the deck couldn’t possibly function without that canyon minotaur or those zombie Goliaths…
I’m more disappointed that both of the Rakdos rares are being released as promos elsewhere. It’s like they didn’t design enough good rares for the guild…
I think the problem is that they’re releasing 5 guilds per set (presumably with the intention of mixing things up somehow in the 3rd set), as opposed to 4/3/3 like in the last set. Since they’re not printing more cards, this means that each guild is rather thinly spread, to say the least.
This isn’t helped by their decision a while ago to introduce mythic rares, which means that some of the rares for each guild can’t be included in decks (and generally won’t be used as promo cards), meaning the pool of potential cards is even smaller.
When are the Precon Championships?
Right around the corner…and I think you’re gonna love the prize packages!
Well at least the rakdos finally has offensive creatures. On the down side, too much M13 filler and is that a golgari card in there? An argument could be made a guild synergy but 1) none of the other lists have off-guild cards and 2) the current cards with unleash don’t reward you for having +1/+1 counters, so the random golgari card doesn’t even make the deck more interesting. I really hope the rest of the block is better than this…
For those curious, here’s the full breakdown of “off-guild” cards in the decks:
Azorius Advance: 2 Battleflight Eagle, 3 Silvercoat Lion, 1 Angel’s Mercy, 2 Show of Valor (8 M13 commons)
Izzet Ingenuity: 1 Welkin Tern, 1 Chandra’s Fury, 2 Krenko’s Command, 1 Wild Guess (5 M13 commons)
Rakdos Raid: 2 Canyon Minotaur, 1 Ravenous Rats, 3 Tormented Soul, 2 Zombie Goliath, 1 Blood Reckoning, 1 Cower in Fear, 2 Crippling Blight, Sewer Shambler (10 M13 commons, 2 M13 uncommons, and 1 Golgari common)
Golgari Growth: 1 Acidic Slime, 1 Veilborn Ghoul, 3 Walking Corpse, 1 Disentomb, 1 Murder, 1 Serpent’s Gift (6 M13 commons, 2 M13 uncommons)
Selesnya Surge: 1 Arbor Elf, 3 Centaur Courser, 1 Healer of the Pride, 2 Bountiful Harvest (6 M13 commons, 1 M13 uncommon)
Izzet is the clear frontrunner here, with the fewest off-guild cards and only one (Welkin Tern) that feels not at all on-theme. Golgari actually makes out pretty well (despite the blah name). Even though it has the second highest M13 filler count, the filler feels actually on-theme. The Rakdos deck, though…ugh. Golgari gets Murder, but the demon lord of sadism couldn’t have spared more than two removal spells that actually kill creatures with a toughness higher than 1?
When I said “off-guild” I meant guild cards that weren’t part of the guild. I wasn’t counting M13, although the way I phrased it I can see how you could make the analysis =)
I have to say, I’d certainly consider Wild Beastmaster to be off-guild for Golgari. I suppose it can work with the mechanic, but it feels completely off-flavour from Golgari, and seems much more like a Selesnya or Gruul card. The fact that it’s one of the rares in the Golgari deck makes Wizards look pretty desperate…
Agreed…Death’s Presence or Underworld Connections would have been a much better choice.
Jay, can you delete my comment about the Precon Championships above? I misread the question.
No problem, it’s 86’ed!
I still haven’t chose my guild for the prerelease but seeing the intro decks I suppose it will be Izzet. Too bad, I was looking forward to improve an intro deck with my prerelease pool and I really like rakdos colors. I hope next expansion Orzhov will be handled better, since it’s my favourite pairing. What’s yours guild?
Well, despite my above bashing of the Rakdos intro pack, Rakdos will still be my pick for the prerelease. The Unleash mechanic, whilst not as exciting as Undying or Persist, is still relatively solid. Also, I just enjoy playing R/B decks – it’s easily my favourite colour combination, and I like having more gold/hybrid R/B cards.
If I had a second choice, it would be the Golgari deck. I enjoyed the old Golgari deck, and the Dredge mechanic was my favourite in the old Ravnica block. However, I just find the Scavenge mechanic a bit bland, and almost the opposite of the old Dredge.
Finally, I own a few copies of Lyzolda the Blood Witch, and am always looking for new creatures for her to throw at people…
I pre pick Izzet and Golgari for the prerelease and I must say that I am impressed with the set, these decks do leave a fair bit to be desired but the rakdos mechanic feels draft/limited oriented to start with. it feels like without jamming 1 of ever card with unleash on it in the deck they tried to make it more about b/r the unleash agro and it just feels like a flop. I’m excited to build an izzet powered talrand deck, a token or B/G counters deck and maybe even a detain deck so I think those decks hit the mark. lets just be glad the “top 5 worst precons of RtR” are already sorting themselves out.
I’m sure most of you will agree that there is no “clear” winner in regards too what prerelease guild to use, every guild could be sub par or drop dead broken, each has a unique feel but still plays well with others. the closest thing to a “parasitic” mechanic is populate and tokens will be around for a long time yet. all this having been said I will agree it does feel like wizards is putting alot less thought into thier precons of late
Actually, in the prerelease, Azorius is most broken. Appreciate how good detain is and see the enormous amount of creatures that have it, especially commons and uncommons. Look at the flyers that will be hard to deal with. Throw in countermagic and it is THE best.
That said, im still going for Izzet. It’s wacky, and I would like to win with board wiping. It, along with Rakdos, requires the most strategic planning to play, and I will take the challenge to kill Azorius players.
And I feel like the intro decks have deteriorated, when I got the M13 Intro Pack, it wouldnt compare to the Mirrodin Beseiged decks I got when I first started. Maybe thats just the Core Set though.
I think I’d agree with you there – Azorius does seem to be the strongest of the guilds. I think one of the strongest cards is the lowly Judge’s Familiar – a 1/1 with flying for 1 mana, which can inflict some early damage and also sacrifice itself to counter an instant or sorcery (or, at the very least, force your opponent to wait an extra turn before casting it). Although, I think Detain is one of the most boring abilities I’ve seen in a while (“I sure hope you like looking at your creatures, because you’re not going to be doing anything else with them…”).
I’ll be playing Selesnya at the prerelease (G/W is probably my favourite combination, and tokens are always fun to play; I also love the flavour of the guild). Azorius seems to be both the most powerful and popular choice, but the guild I want to see do well the most is Rakdos. They’re the weakest guild overall, and I’d love it if they came out on top – everybody loves the underdog.
I think that Rakdos was definitely one of the weakest Guilds (if not *the* weakest) in the original Ravnica set. It had a few good cards, but as a aggro guild, it compared poorly to both Selesnya and Gruul (the former having creatures that were just stronger outright, and the latter having a mechanic that was considerably easier to use (especially in the early game). Also, many of the cards with Hellbent either suffered from gaining relatively little even with hellbent, or simply being terrible either way.
I think that the new set has addressed some of these issues, and Rakdos now has some much more aggressive creatures. However, especially in the prerelease,my guess is that it will suffer from a lack of decent removal (which is generally how R/B decks are supported). Also, whilst it certainly seems functional, I really don’t think the Unleash mechanic is going to light the world on fire (which is ironic when you think about it…). I think it would have been nicer if they’d thought of something that linked back to the original mechanic (e.g rewarding you for having fewer cards in hand than your opponent, some sort of discard mechanic etc.).
I tend to agree. Their early game is certainly very strong, with cards like Rakdos Cackler, but I don’t think it’ll be enough to deal with Azorius’s tempo, Golgari’s sustain, Selesnya’s numbers and Izzet’s tricks in the long run. I do think cards like Dreadbore and Rakdos’s Return will make an impact on Standard.
Indeed, my prediction is that Rakdos will do some damage in the early game, then stall in the mid game (because of a large creature, or a regenerator or somesuch). After that, since their creatures can either be strong or can block (but not both), they’ll begin to fall to stronger creatures, without drawbacks, and be forced to expend unleash creatures as chump-blockers, before finally being overwhelmed.
I think one of the problems is that they seem really reliant on their rares to help them punch through in the mid-late game (whereas golgari can scavenge to creature strong non-rare creatures, Azorius has various fliers and quasi-removal, selesnya can swamp the field with tokens etc.).
Really? Izzets weakest, because without the exact right cards, it has not theme and no real way to win the game.
Rakdos has their charm and guildmage to win the late game, and they can easily curve out before any of the other guilds, making them dangerous along with haste. Golgari often takes too much mana to scavenge the cards and are only a force in the late game. Selesyna are dead in the water without that first token, and are especially susceptible to Rakdos Charm if they get going.
Azorius vs Rakdos will be THE matchup. I predict it.
This all made me think about the MTG Toolbox app. Wonder what’s going on with that. I still have it on my iPhone, but half of it doesn’t work since they pulled it from the App store ages ago. Hopefully, they’re pulling a Facebook and redoing it.
Prerelease gone bad. I took rakdos but I found only two Guild Feud as rare in color (not counting the promo). Another Rakdos deck won the tournament but he opened two hellsteed and rakdos himself.
I also picked Rakdos, and mine went a bit better (still didn’t win, but at least had fun and got some good cards). On the plus side, I actually opened Rakdos Lord of Riots, but on the other hand, he was the *only* Rakdos rare I opened – the others weren’t even in the right colours. I was actually tempted to try and go Azourius, since I opened two Azourius rares and Angel of Serenity. However, I didn’t have many uncommons/commons to back them up, so I ended up sticking with Rakdos.
My Rakdos deck did ok (won two matches 2-0, lost one 2-0 and another 2-1).
I’d like to say that my estimation of Rakdos not having access to enough removal was entirely correct (at least from my perspective). What I ended up with was:
– Auger Spree (probably my best piece of removal, which helped me win a couple of games)
– Launch Party (sometimes useful, but 2 life really wasn’t with the excessive casting cost or the 1 for 2 trade off)
– Electrickery (a bit situational, but actually very useful – especially against populated bird tokens)
– Street Spasm (Useful once or twice, but basically a dead draw against Azorius)
– Stab Wound (Gives you an idea of how desperate I was for removal…)
– Traitorous Instinct (qusi-removal – I included this in case I could ever win by turning an enemy blocker into an attacker. It was never once useful).
Generally, I lost because I couldn’t get rid of my opponent’s creatures – even a 1/3 with flying was an immense problem, when all I had was 2/1s and 1/1s.
Also, I hate Detain. It’s a strong mechanic, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also incredibly dull. Rakdos, Lord of Riots spent the entirety of two games in prison. Admittedly, it’s probably a good way to stop rioting, but it’s a little depressing when a creature that is basically Anarchy Incarnate can just be arrested and imprisoned by anyone with an Azorius badge and a pair of handcuffs.