Magic the Gathering fat pack worth

Previous Fat Pack post

It's been awhile that I posted a grouchy post about the Magic the Gathering fat pack.  I might have even mused on whether the fat pack was worth it.

The funny thing is, I kept on buying every expansion's fat pack.  My last post about the fat pack was way back Shards of Alara was released.  There has been recent "improvements" on the fat pack.

To wit:

- 9 booster packs.  It used to be 8.  So far, I'm digging it.  Any additional product that they can put in at its current price is an improvement.  Sadly, I forgot which expansion Wizards started the 9 boosters per fat pack.

- 2 card boxes.  I'm pretty sure this started in Scars of Mirrodin block to clearly distinguish between Phyrexians and Mirrans.  If I'm mistaken, correct me.  The 2 card boxes are quite important for me as containers for whatever extra cards I get that I don't place in the fat pack box (lands, tokens, other extra cards).

- 40 lands.  Quite an improvement over the previous land count.  This was a sweet improvement when Zendikar and Worldwake were released.  The extended art lands are a favorite.

I'm still sticking to getting a fat pack from every expansion.  Once started, it has to be completed.

Which of the Five Guilds to Play in the Return to Ravnica Prerelease (part 3)?

Part 1 and Part 2 are right below.

Last criteria is the prerelease card.  All five cards are certified bombs.  Via ranking all five prerelease cards, I’m not so sold on the Selesnya prerelease card (a land).  In this criteria, it is probably the worst of the 5.  The Azorius prerelease card is a little bit on the expensive side but considering the guild’s Detain ability, it is still a viable plan.  The Izzet prerelease card is a pure bomb and the added ability is just a plus.  Golgari and Rakdos both have prerelease cards that might be more difficult to deal with given the right situation.

Based on the above assumptions, I wouldn’t go for Selesnya.  Golgari and Rakdos come out on top.  To add, for sheer Standard playability of the prerelease card, Izzet is a viable option as a guild of choice.

So, in conclusion, which is REALLY the better guild to choose?  Azorius is a wonderful choice for winnability.

In the end, any guild of your choosing (as long as it’s any of the five) is good enough as long as you know how to play the cards out.  Play towards the strength of each guild and hopefully the card pool will provide for enough firepower to be able to follow the game plan.  The 14 or 15 cards in the guild boosters should help.

To add, I’ll be playing Golgari.  My decision stems from the talk that the prerelease card is a possible playable Standard card and that the guild colors also provide access to Vraska the Unseen (a new planeswalker) – which are all different reasons not cited in this post.  Like I said, any guild of your choosing is good enough.  And if you know how to build your Sealed deck, it really shouldn’t matter.  You should be able to play any of the five guilds without having to choose which is better.

Have fun in the prerelease!

Which of the five guilds to play in Return to Ravnica prerelease? (part 2)

(Part 1 of my post is right below.)

Here is a more in-depth look at the guild selection situation.  This time, there are only two criteria left to ponder upon: guild abilities and the prerelease foil card.

Of the five guilds, Rakdos has the worst ability.  Unleash is a creature specific ability.  Reflective upon the guild, the Unleash ability is an “attack or die trying” type of ability.  For the +1/+1 counter, the drawback being the inability of the creature to block.  Some twists can be added though.  Several creatures might have additional abilities depending on whether it has a +1/+1 counter or not.

I’m not yet convinced over Izzet’s Overload ability as a convincing reason as since Overload is just the opposite of Unleash.  Overload is a sorcery or instant spell specific ability, which unfortunately would amount to an average of 7 cards in a 40-card Sealed deck.

The 3 other guilds’ abilities are all easily playable.  Selesnya’s Populate ability should easily be enhanced by the guild’s ability to create token creatures but it is still a scary proposition (what if there are no token creatures to populate?).  Golgari’s Scavenge ability is an additional available growth for creatures which happen to use lots of in a creature-centric format.  Azorius’ Detain ability is just what a control player would want to have.

 Based on the above assumptions, Golgari and Azorius somehow come up on top.

Part 3 to follow.

Which of the Five Guilds to Play in Return to Ravnica prerelease

There are five guilds in Magic the Gathering's latest expansion, Return to Ravnica: Azorius (white and blue), Izzet (blue and red), Rakdos (red and black), Golgari (black and green), and Selesnya (green and white).  Previous expansion prereleases (and most especially Core Set prereleases) encourage the combination of allied colors (white-blue, blue-black, black-red, red-green, or green-white) and discourage the combination of enemy colors and more than two colors.  A word of caution: playing more than 2 colors in a prerelease is not for the beginner because it takes quite a skill to play 3 colors with only 17 to 18 lands available in a 40-card deck.  Fortunately in Return to Ravnica, such a decision is moot with the game designers putting in the above 5 guilds in the expansion.

            

 GatheringMagic.com site recently featured an article on how to play and enjoy the prerelease.  Those are only the basics in building a sealed deck.  What was left out was the decision on choosing which of the five guilds to play.

Choosing which guild is important because it has to be known before the tournament starts.  Return to Ravnica has added a few new twists to the prerelease play.  Only 5 regular booster packs will be provided with the 6^th booster pack belonging to the chosen guild.  Also, there are 5 prerelease foil cards and the player will get a prerelease card based on what guild was chosen.

Here’s a quick rundown based on previous experiences.  As always, it is worth noting that threats (with evasion) and a little bit of removal are always better than lots of removal and little bit of threats.  All possible threats can be dealt with but not all threats can be removed.  A threat can be matched by another threat from an opponent resulting in a stalemate.  Thus, threats with evasion are very important in Sealed Deck play.

All colors have the capability of providing threats.  The biggest ones can be commonly found in green (always the color of creatures).  Common evasion ability found in green is trample, which can be a key ability as long as the creature stays 1 point toughness ahead of opponent’s creatures.  In no particular order of importance:

·         White has flying, first strike, and vigilance abilities.  Both flying and first strike may appear in minimal dosage among creatures.  Meanwhile, vigilance, if it would be considered as an evasion ability, is almost exclusively a white ability.

·         Blue has flying, hexproof, and being unblockable.  Like in white, flying appears in minimal dosage.  Hexproof can be treated almost similarly to vigilance.  An unblockable blue creature can be a bomb in limited environment as long as it has more than just 1 point of power.

·         Black has deathtouch.  What black lacks in creature evasion is relegated by creature removal.   Black also gets regeneration in minimal dosage.

·         Red has first strike.  Like black, it almost usually has a suite of creature removals by way of damage dealing.  Red also has haste creatures (though this can’t be treated as creature evasion).

·         As mentioned already, green has trample.  Green also gets a bit of regeneration, hexproof, or deathtouch here and there.

If green is more likely to get more creatures, it doesn’t get much love in terms of creature removal.  Black and red are more likely to get the brunt of creature removal.  White gets enchantments as its way of creature removal (a la Pacifism type of enchantments) and a few damage here and there to attacking or blocking creatures.  Blue gets bounce and counter magic.

Based on the above assumptions, I wouldn’t be surprised that most players would choose Rakdos (black-red) simply because of the availability of removal spells.  I also wouldn’t be surprised that Selesnya (green-white) would be in the same debate (green-white is an easy color to choose because of the availability of large creatures in both colors).  A middle ground between Selesnya and Rakdos would be the Golgari guild (black-green): removal from black and beasts from green.  My personal opinion is choosing Azorius (white-blue).  The availability of flying creatures and a few removal here and there is enough to sway me to that guild.