Joined: Oct 01, 2014 Posts: 251
Identity: Able of Reproduce
Preferred Pronoun Set: Call me whatever; I find it enlightening
This is more for personal organization than anything else. The other day, I was curious to see if I could come up with four decks for each of the guilds during Kami/Rav/CSP era. I haven't exactly fleshed out why I want to do this, but I do know that I want them to be reflective of the time, fairly distinct, and showcasing some of the more famous cards. I also allow a few splashes, but I don't really want true three or four color decks. This means no Zoo, Solar Flare or Beach House, though I do try to incorporate some of the styles into other decks. All in all, there's not a good means for me to look at all the decks at once and get a better picture of how to tweak things.
Things to do: 1) Final decisions on which decks to use 2) Finalize main deck lists. Try to use more unique cards if possible and minimize the use of more universal cards if they drastically change the feel of games, leaving them in decks that need power boosts or decks where the card feels highly synergistic to themes of the deck. *cough* Jitte *cough* 3) Decide on sideboards. 4) Figure out what means I might actually want to use these decklists for.
Here's the initial decks so far:
Azorius
Spoiler
Azorius being one of the third-set guilds means it didn't have a lot of time in the sun. However, with Wrath of God and the good counterspells in the format, a basic WU control deck could be built at any time in the format, just with a weaker mana base than most of the other guilds until the third Ravnica set released.
I remember the deck mostly as an old Extended deck that uses Invasion Sac Lands, but it did see play in Standard as well. It mainly aims to get Form of Dragon out with Zur's Weirding, using Meishin, Mask and Dovescape for protection.
Martyr Tron was more of a RAV/TSP deck, but the important pieces are all from Ravnica Block and Coldsnap. The idea is to recur Martyr of Sands with Proclamation to gain tons of life each turn. It definitely needs testing to see if any Kamigawa cards are useful. I do like the mind games of revealing Shining Shoal with Martyr, though.
WotC knew WU Control was already strong before Dissension came out, so they went with a different direction and made WU more of a Skies deck in the set. So here's the WU weenie deck of the format. Meloku wasn't common in the deck, but I like the synergy with Pride of the Clouds and Anthem. Plus, I'm looking to give the different aggro decks different flavors than the colors of their mana bases.
Here's the basic WU control deck. I took the Snow land package from Coldsnap because it likes WU Control's play style and also, as Azorius was one of the last guilds I was doing in the initial deck listing, I kinda got bored at the stereotypical Kami/Rav mana base. Windreaver probably isn't worth it anymore with damage on the stack gone, but... memories.
Dimir
Spoiler
Dimir was one of the Guilds in the first set of the block, so it always was available. With Boros, it was one of the two guilds in the first four that only overlapped with one other guild. This ultimately helped with making it easier to find two color decks. Unfortunately, Dimir's mechanics didn't. Transmute didn't particular care about staying in Dimir's colors, and mill is... mill.
The great thing about original Ravnica was that while each guild had a definite play style it wanted, there was also a bone thrown to different play styles in those color combinations, like Moroii. With Jitte in the format, it wasn't hard to make an aggro deck in any set of colors that you want (except monoblue... actually, never mind that, any color combo).
This feels like more of an artifact from the previous Standard, but it was in CHK/RAV too. It's more of a classic monoblue control deck with an Azami/Jushi card draw package. I saw a list or two with Confidant, but looking at it again, it's probably not needed. I want keep some black representation in the list, so they might turn into Dimir Guildmages.
Originally, this spot was Battle of Wits, but having a 250 card deck list seems unwieldy with some of the potential routes I saw with what I might actually want to do with this project. So, I found a rogue mill deck from 2005 Champs. It was a little weak, but it was more interactive than I normally think for a mill deck. Later I found Scepter and swapped it in for Telling Times in the original deck list, and it played sweet in the deck. The deck is still weak though.
Look! It's one of the original Counter Top decks! Originally, the deck was WUB, using white for Condemn and Wrath of God. I cut it down to two color to match the goals of this project, and so it's a touch weaker than it was. Considering Counter Top though, I don't think I mind.
Rakdos
Spoiler
Rakdos is the runt of the litter of the original Ravnica Guilds. There were almost no decks to pick through to try to make decks for the project. Coming in the third set with a poor keyword that also had a poor execution along with a generally weak constructed color combination will do that with you. As a whole, these decks need the most work.
I found a single control deck. It actually looks like it has a good base to work off of. It can really hit those creature decks. Unfortunately, It doesn't look that strong against non-creature decks. I might want to add Cranial Extraction later, but for the initial take, I leave it rather unadulterated.
This is the only deck I absolutely had to build from scratch to make this project, and I don't think it's good. Kamigawa also had the Demon/Ogre thing I could have tried to build off of, but the general CMC of those cards scared me off. I remember Hellbent being bad, but it's worse than I remember. A good chunk of the hellbent cards are priced as midrange stuff, which means stuff gets stuck in your hand; either stuff you can't pay for all at once, or an endless supply of land. One with Nothing is actually needed to make sure you get hellbent at a decent time. (Sideboard isn't much better...)
Burn deck burns. I added Skred since the deck was already running Snow lands, and it's nice not to have to waste multiple burn spells on problematic creatures. Plus it adds to the diversity of decks.
Satanic Sligh is the most populous of the Rakdos decks I could find, but it also had extremely loose deck list consistency for the decks I found. I pushed it a bit towards a Rats direction, but I might want push it in a different direction since I like Rats more in a different color combination.
Gruul
Spoiler
The Guildpact guilds were some of the strongest guilds in competitive for the CHK/RAV standard. While Gruul initially tends to come across as one note compared to the other two, that "one deck" actually had a ton of variation. There's enough that I tried to split it off into three separate decks. I could have pushed it to four with a fourth more pure midrange option, but opted otherwise for deck diversity in Gruul.
Here's the most famous variation of Gruul: the type that won that Pro Tour Honolulu so many years ago. It's pure almost-no-tricks no-holds-barred aggro, winning your heart and the match by running you over before you can blink.
Choosing deck names is hard for Gruul. Anyway Joshie Green decks where monogreen decks at the time that played green landwalk/evasive critters with pump cards and enchantments like Blanchwood Armor. Some variations of Gruul used some of the same cards and strategies. I might swap out the Jittes for more Warhammers to cut down on the overall number of Jittes and also because this deck likes attacking with Birds.
This is basically a made up deck. Kiki-Jiki wasn't really played in this format. The original inspiration was an Adrian Sullivan creation from the previous Standard, but since Eternal Witness isn't in the format, it's hard to call it a successor. Anywho, the idea is to play a bunch of rampy dorks and play fatties. Homura and Patron can be used to make your rampers actual fighters and Kumano can just machine gun stuff. Hulk can be used to find the things you want, while Kiki-Jiki just goes awesome with almost anyone else in the deck. Hussar is there for infinite shenanigans with Kiki. Rootrunner + Kiki is just a mean artifact from the Sullivan list.
And here's the land destruction midrange version of Gruul. It combines strong individual clocks with versatile land destruction that can hit Jittes or other problem cards if need be. Like Gruul, it's rather straightforward. There are some remote elements of Sea Stompy here.
Selesnya
Spoiler
Oh Selesnya. Finding pure Selesnya decks is actually somewhat hard. That's because Selesnya, like it's similar problem child Golgari, are aimed as midrange decks with the green as one of its two colors. Green was the god of the splash at the time though. Gruul got around this by being mostly aggro (Though Zoo, Sea Stompy, Dark Zoo, etc also existed), and Simic just got lucky... ridiculously lucky.
Here's where I made my decisions about splashes. This deck primarily wants to get a Dovescape down quickly and uses Augustin to do so. It also occasionally use the Demand side of the split card as well. Besides that, it's pretty much a Selesnya deck. It uses Patron to make opponent's Dovescape tokens mostly meaningless. On recollection, these Selesnya decks can be rather similar. I'm wondering if styles of tutor cards available can make them feel more different.
Ghazi-Glare was a creature deck that followed up strong creatures with Glare and tokens to control the board. Seedborn Muse wasn't used that often, but once I saw her in a deck list, I fell in love with her for the deck. Of the Selesnya midrange decks, this might be the least dependent on the non-creature cards in the deck for its overall strategy.
They probably should've called it "Miren, the Dragon Well" considering its main uses in Standard at the time. Anyway, this is the more controlly midrange Selesnya deck of the time. It usually also had black, but considering my goals I made it Selesnya. The general idea is to sacrifice Yoseis to Greater Good to draw cards and make your opponent cry. Knell wasn't always in the lists, but I'm also only running one of the Kamigawa dragons here.
Selesnya was the least popular two color combo of the three zoo colors for aggro decks, but it was by no means unpopular (except it really didn't have a fun name ). In general, the creatures are stronger than Boros or Gruul pure aggro decks, but the tricks are tamer. I saw O-Naginata in a list, and it looked like a fun equipment for the deck since it can attach to anything once an Anthem is out.
Orzhov
Spoiler
Oh boy, Orzhov is the Ravnica poster child for deck diversity. There are three well known aggro decks alone here. On top of that, there where more less-streamlined versions of WB aggro as well, along with probably the most popular builds of Rats as well. On top of that, there were different flavors of control. Cutting down what style of control I wanted to use was hard, and I'm open to different opinions.
This probably the most beloved Orzhov deck from the era. It's by no means the strongest, but it has a ton of things like Auras and Kamigawa spirits that all your MtG mentors told you were bad. It also played pitch spells to tutor for said auras to use as fuel for other pitch spells. This deck is just childhood fun wrapped up in a corrupt, slave-making, dastardly flavored shell.
Ah, here's everyone's favorite sacrifice outlet, Natuko Husk. While the Rally deck back in KTK/BFZ days was a multicolor monstrosity, back in the CHK/RAV days, it was just a two color deck. Here, Husk would just sit back, waiting to hit you with 12+ power once a Promise hit the board. Until then, it'd just play good cards.
If all the good removal is multicolored, that means protection is stronger than normal. What's more annoying than aggro? Aggro with creatures your removal can't hit and with abilities that eat up all your creatures in combat. Hand in Hand was a rather KISS strategy compared to the other Orzhov decks, but sometimes simple is perfect.
Due to the format of this project, I knew there might be some popular cards that didn't make the cut since they were used in three or four color decks, or there were better deck choices for the color (RIP Shrieking Grotesque and Plaxcaster Frogling), so I was happy to find an Orzhov build with Beach house engine Dimir House Guard and also Solar Flare namesake Angel of Despair. Overall, the deck functions as mix between Beach House and a Greater Good deck without Greater Good. You can use the Guard to tutor for Extraction against control/combo and Wrath against aggro. Miren + Knell give inevitability.
Izzet
Spoiler
Don't let the flavor fool you. Izzet players were cruel sadists at the time of CHK/RAV. If you sat down against a U/R player, kiss your lands goodbye. This is the era that kicked previously innocuous Boomerang out of the realm of core set staple to a WotC poster child for "unfun." Izzet players flocked to all the counterspells and land destruction that snuff out beginning players' hopes and dreams of happiness and sunshine in Magic. Or the player was playing a zany, offbeat rogue strategy you never saw coming. That could happen too.
I remember back when Tron meant a control deck. This deck would play tron to get out strong fatties after clearing a board with Wildfire (or if using dragons, you could play it before the Wildfire). Artifact mana was key for this deck, allowing it to quickly rebuild after clearing the table of lands. Choices of finisher also varied, but I included some of the more popular ones here.
The Annex is a call out to Eminent Domain, a U/R land stealing deck that didn't make the cut.
Did you know that when Kamigawa was being previewed, they intentionally called out how the Arcane cards were weaker than normal cards and that it was good design? Did you know one of the showcased cards was Eye of Nowhere? It turns out, that being a sorcery was a big deal, and gave reason for people to consider playing it over Boomerang. That reason? Magnivore. You know what else is also typically sorcery speed? Land destruction. Be sure to bring a tissue box with you as you play, as grown men will be brought to tears.
Who are we kidding? You always played both Eye and Boomerang.
Like a dietician will tell you, your favorite junk food isn't good or bad; it all depends on if you eat it with moderation. In Magic, we typically say card draw is good. Against Owling Mine, card draw is bad. It's very bad. One of the most famous decks of the era, Owling Mine was the deck that popularized the Boomeranging lands concept. It played Howling Mine effects and bounced lands to prevent the opponent from playing the massively growing stockpile of cards in hard. Then it played the Owl and Impact to punish the opponent for having a full hand.
Even though there were more competitive U/R decks, I decided to put in a deck for the Izzet player who doesn't see fun as a zero-sum game. This is actually a mashup of two rogue decks, one a pseudo aggro/burn deck with Guildmage + Spike + Ritual infinite combo thrown in, and the other a Gelectrode rapid fire deck. They had a lot of overlap, so here ya go. I swapped in Magpie over the original Ninja of the Deep Hours for the evasion and added Peer for card selection. I also added Eye as a potential copy target for the Guildmage combo. It doesn't win the game like Spike, but it'll clear the board.
Golgari
Spoiler
Golgari, like Selesnya, suffers from Green's inability to remain faithful. Also, the Dredge mechanic was rather fair during CHK/RAV, since there weren't many things that wanted to dump everything into the graveyard... er... at least good cards. So while there were a lot of decks that played both black and green, there weren't many that only play black and green. As such, I took a little liberty with the deck lists. They were all played, but I tailored them more than normal to get more unique decks.
At the time, Rock pretty much just meant BG goodstuff. I just emphasized the possible dredge cards that could be in a Rock deck. While Greater Good is in the deck, it's not as central to the game plan.
This is probably the most bastardized list in this project. Initially this was just going to be another Rock list with creatures that could survive a Plague Boiler. Once I decided I could be slightly more lenient about splashes, I allowed it to be a Greater Gifts deck. In order to differentiate from other Greater Good decks, I took a few of the ideas Gifts block deck ports at the beginning of the season. With Gifts in the picture, it allows a lot of freedom with tweaking the deck.
Golgari tended to be very good stuff, so when I saw a rogue deck with a lot of good stuff cards, but a unique goal plan, I just had to include it. Other than Pact and Vulturous Zombie, it plays a lot of commonly played cards (though Husk is slightly odd in BG). However those two cards make things like Sakura-Tribe Elder have that much more impact.
While Orzhov Rats was more popular later on due to Shrieking Monstrosity, Putrid Rats was the initial port from the previous standard. Pretty much the idea is to use Ninjutsu to recur ETB effects. Since Nekrataal has first strike, you can actually Ninjutsu after first strike damage and before normal damage, allowing both the Nekrataal and the Ninja to do damage. There's a lot of fun variations, and after trying to incorporate a good number, it looks like the deck could use some cleaning up.
Boros
Spoiler
Everyone remembers Boros as an aggro color in the CHK/RAV time, but there was a good amount of control for the color as well. Like a lot of aggro decks of the time, Boros aggro had a lot of variation ranging from almost White Weenie to practically Burn.
Here's the Boros control deck. While Firemane Angel control was mostly Jeskai, there were a few variations that were more Boros focused. Searing Meditation allowed life gain to be weaponized, making things like Angel triggers also removal. With the double Honden action going on, it could be hard for things to stay on the board. And removal doesn't mean much when Angelfire's threats all recur.
This is the Weenie Rush spectrum of Boros Deck Wins. I'm also taking some notes from the White Weenie decks of the time with Hokori and Charge Across the Araba. One thing to note with Charge is that you don't return lands until the spell actually resolves. So if stuff happens to your critters, just don't return any lands. Also Charge is an instant. Other than that, it's a pretty typical aggro deck with some burn for reach. Oh it has Shining Shoal as well, but a lot of decks had that card as well (So good against Pyroclasm).
And here is the burn spectrum of Boros Deck Wins. While other versions of burn could get card advantage from the second color, Boros had to rely on colorless sources like Mikokoro and Bottled Cloister. In return, White offered the most 2-powered one drops in Standard at the time, one of the best burn spells, and Wrath of God.
This wasn't a deck so much a two different packages from two different decks that happen to play well together. Sunforger was more used in Boros Deck Wins to fetch out finishing burn spells or removal. Luckily, Hide//Seek still only has a CMC of 4 after the recent split card rulings change, and is thus still fetchable. Godo, on the other hand, was more played in Izzetron decks, fetching a Tatsumasa and threatening to hit for 16 on the next turn. Here I combined the two and added a few cards that play well with equipment to make a more midrange Boros deck. It's not the strongest deck listed, but it can hold its own. If they did see play together, it was mostly in Fungus Fire, which sadly can't make this list of decks since it was a pretty evenly split Naya deck.
EDIT: Due to the split card rules change, Hide//Seek was changed to Smash. EDIT:...CMC 4 or less... Hide//Seek back in.
Simic
Spoiler
Since Green and Blue were both quite strong, there were already Simic decks before Dissension came out. Once Dissension hit, and the mana base was available, a lot of different styles popped out. However, as it was at the end of the season, it's a bit hard to find a lot of the decks. While Graft decks were initially played with, ultimately they gave way to other strategies as the premier Simic decks.
In a general sense, Critical Mass was just green ramp and blue fatties and draw. It had been around since the beginning of the format. It's also the most generic of the Simic strategies. After Dissension, Critical Mass did sometimes opt to take a few of the Graft creatures. However, here, I decided to take some of the more famous cards of the era that didn't see as much play. Since the deck already played Meloku and Vinelasher Kudzu, I went with Azusa for a land fall theme, adding a Life from the Loam engine I saw in a Snake deck. Trade Routes entered for the LftL to turn into a draw engine. Simic Sky Swallower, who only occasionally appeared in Critical Mass decks is there since it was a popular finisher at the time in three color tron decks and it felt odd to leave him out of the lists as a whole.
While I wouldn't initially think about Heartbeat as a Simic deck, the vast majority of its cards are. The top tier combo deck of the day used Heartbeat of Spring and multiple Early Harvests to generate a ton of mana for various tutors and eventually kill with Invoke or Maga. While the deck was good in regular competitive, it really shined in team competitive. It was strong and took up few coveted cards, especially since it ran only basic lands.
I mostly remembered Erayo from Ninja Affinity from the end of previous standard, so I was surprised to see that it popped up again at the end of the next season as well. The idea is to use Repeal/Remand on 0-mana artifacts to quickly flip Erayo. Ninja is there to draw cards and pick up the cheap fliers. Originally the only green card was Birds, so I added cloak to give a touch more green.
This deck is built around Sosuke's Summons. It was one of the best Jitte decks at the time because of how easily it made bodies to carry the pointy stick of doom. It would finish the game with a swarm of tokens after landing a Coat of Arms or Seshiro. Seshiro's draw ability might look awesome, but most of the time it didn't matter because the opponent was dead from the pump. The Snakes deck offers a real conundrum because Cold Snap gave us Ohran Viper which could replace Ninja. However the deck is full of ETB effects that Ninja can help abuse.
Feel free to offer any deck replacement options or deck refinement. Remember, this is Kami block + Rav block + 9th Edition + Cold Snap only.
EDIT: I added preliminary sideboards. For the lesser used decks they're far from tuned. It was also a bit rough for traditionally three color decks. The end goal is differentiation and even playing level, not to get the most fine tuned deck of each version. It'll take some effort to lessen the representation of some of the more staple cards.
EDIT: I decided to look back and saw typos. May I cry in my grave.
Last edited by Monobluegruul on Tue Jul 30, 2019 9:55 am, edited 8 times in total.
I miss Ghost Dad so much. That list is missing Teysa, Orzhov Scion and Indomitable Will though. Teysa was a quality beater that you could pitch to either Shoal, and Will saved Tallowisp from getting Wildfire'd. Also, I feel like A Sully's Eminent Domain should be on the list somewhere, probably under Izzet (instead of Splice). It might be too close to 3-color though.
Edit: Managed to find the decklists from PT Honolulu 2006.
Someone please explain to me how Indomitable Will made it into a pro tour deck. I mean, I'm assume there's some reason it was useful, but even with Tallowisp, I don't see it.
It was mostly to get around Wildfire at instant speed. You'd Shining Shoal, pitching something, prevent a few damage to one of your dudes, saving it. Tallowisp would fetch Will. You'd play it at instant speed on Wisp to save it. Then you'd blink Ghost Dad if you could.
There were other uses for it, of course, to create a decent blocker against Zoo/Gruul or to get Wisp out of Char range. You could also attach it to Ghost Dad to allow it to swing into a dragon. If it was Keiga/Yosei, you'd blink it with damage on the stack, so they couldn't take it or tap it.
Edit: It was still bad though, probably the worst card in the 60. I think, in my build, I just played the 4th Pillory over it.
Joined: Oct 01, 2014 Posts: 251
Identity: Able of Reproduce
Preferred Pronoun Set: Call me whatever; I find it enlightening
Teysa is an oversight that should probably go into one of the Ozhov Ghost Dad or Ghost Husk lists. Indomitable Will's place in Ghost Dad was always marginal. It's the weakest of the Ozzhov aggro decks, so there's less room for marginal.
I kinda mentioned it in the Izzet section, but, in terms of amount of play, Eminent Domain should definitely be the fourth Izzet deck. However, it's kinda like the Gruul section. The fourth Gruul deck in that regard should be a normal midrange deck with a lot of the same cards in the other three. I just made up a completely new deck for Gruul to vary the Gruul deck play styles. All the four main Izzet decks are essentially in the same area of slow decks trying to essentially prevent your opponent from casting anything (Eminent Domain and Magnivore in particular are quite similar to play even if they don't look it.). So I cut it down to three and put in a more tempo deck just for the different play style. I definitely want to reference it though (Confiscate in Izzetron and Annex in Magnivore).
Joined: Oct 01, 2014 Posts: 251
Identity: Able of Reproduce
Preferred Pronoun Set: Call me whatever; I find it enlightening
I cast Raise dead. Recent conversations made me want to work on this a bit more.
I added preliminary sideboards, using some oddball cards if I see them. Some of the less popular decks were rough. Hellbent's needs a lot of work. Hellbent just needs a lot of work in general.
Next (actually quite hard) step is limiting the appearance of some of the more game play dominating staples. *cough* Jitte *cough" It's time to decide which, if any, decks really use it as a theme of the deck and really need it versus decks that just run it because they have creatures.
Teysa added to Hand in Hand. Due to split card rules changes, Hit//Run is replaced with Smash in Godo Sunforger.
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). In general, the creatures are stronger than Boros or Gruul pure aggro decks, but the tricks are tamer. I saw O-Naginata in a list, and it looked like a fun equipment for the deck since it can attach to anything once an Anthem is out.
