What Ravnica Allegiance could bring to the table

Hello there, it’s been a while hasn’t it. 
First of all I want to begin by apologizing for my very long absence, as much as I would love to be able to produce an article or two every week I had to keep pushing them further and further back due to responsibilities in other aspects of my life. This is even harder when a new Magic set rolls around. I had tried to find the time to knock out 7 articles covering all of the cards from Ravnica Allegiance to be released over this week but alas that hasn’t been the case. So, I have decided to change the format slightly: Instead of 7 articles over one week showcasing all of the good, the bad and the ugly from the new set, I’ve decided to take a chunk of cards from Ravnica Allegiance and talk about what will be impacting the formats the most. This allows me to miss out some of the less interesting cards that, in a perfect world, would be shown off like all the others in a set review, but alas time is not on my side. So without further ado, let’s get started.

What I’d like to do in this series is first take a look at what is currently making appearances in standardsee what Ravnica Allegiance could add to it.

Standard has been quite healthy recently and since the time of Aetherworks Marvel decks and Temur Energy it’s become very varied and competitive again, yay!

Currently in standard there are a smattering of decks being covered by a smattering of decks all looking to do something different. Control decks in the form of Blue White, Esper (blue, white and black) and Grixis (blue, black and red), Midrange decks with Golgari and Selesnya tokens and Aggro decks like Boros (red and white) and Mono Red are the main archetypes covered. However even the mixed archetypes are getting some proper love. Mono Blue tempo has been making waves for a while now and Izzet (blue and red) Drakes was a big contender for the top deck at the very start of the new standard season. Both are great examples of tempo control decks, decks that like to put a lot of stock in one or two creatures on the board and protect them. These decks use the early game mainly to disrupt their opponent before snowballing into the late game with a lot of card advantage and resilient creatures to keep up the pressure.

With the addition of Ravnica Allegiance there was always going to be a shift in the metagame with the influx of the last five guilds suring up the support with dual lands just for starters. Using the jumping off point of the decks I’ve listed above I set out to see what modifications could be made to the existing meta along with what new decks and strategies could pop up.

The card I want to look at today is Hero of Precinct One. I’ve heard the Young Pyromancer comparison a lot recently when talking about Hero of Precinct One and without wanting to get overzealous, this comparison is incredibly accurate. Instants and Sorceries are much easier to come across naturally than multicoloured spells but it’s negligible in my opinion and in the current card access it’s not going to be hard at all thanks to being on Ravnica. The first deck my mind went to when thinking about Hero of Precinct one was obviously Selesnya tokens possibly taking the spot of Adanto Vanguard in the two drop slot. Hero plays really well with the go wide mentality of the deck along with the mass of multicoloured cards it has to offer: Flower//Flourish, Emmara and March of the Multitudes to name a few.

Hero of Precinct One gives Selesnya tokens more consistency with its token making allowing for more threats and blocking options. Unfortunately these tokens don’t have Lifelink like any of the Selesnya made ones but having extra bodies on the fly is still useful. The other current deck Hero of Precinct One could see some play in would be Boros but that deck is a very heavy white deck with some red in it, because of that it means that there is a distinct lack of multicoloured spells to trigger Hero of Precinct One.

It obviously won’t just be existing decks that will showcase Hero of Precinct One’s powerful effect, I have a feeling it will see some play in a Mardu (back, red and white) midrange list, along with some other new powerful cards: Bedevil, Judith, the Scourge Diva, Mortify and Pitiless Pontiff.

All of these cards can be brought together to make a fantastic looking Mardu tokens list that can take a similar form to a deck of old, Aristocrats. Aristocrats used creatures that could gain bonuses by sacrificing smaller, less significant creatures like tokens. Judith is a great kicker to this type of strategy by giving your creatures added value, though she doesn’t play the best with any tokens being sacrificed but at least she helps out with tokens in play getting the power boost. Having access to a creature like Pitiless Pontiff gives you a great on board presence that can go toe to toe with most ground creatures if you can give it enough fodder. Pitiless Pontiff is also a multicoloured spell that can trigger Hero of Precinct One, instantly giving you a token to feed to Pitiless Pontiff. So that’s the ground sorted but what about the sky, that’s where Mortify and Bedevil come into play by being cheap effective answers to a wide array of threats including creatures. Aristocrats is the type of deck that revels in a midrange format as it usually gets an edge in the midrange mirror by having more longevity on board and by being quicker to rebuild, so if the format is a little slow then this could be the deck to go for.

Earlier, I alluded to previous standard formats. Among these standard formats decks like Temur Energy and Mono red aggro were big things, both of which consisted of Glorybringer, a five mana 4/4 hastey dragon with a very impactful combat ability. Glorybringer almost defined standard for a long time and thus was a card with a big target on its back along with being an absolute powerhouse in its own right.

Skarrgan Hellkite is the new five mana dragon in town and I think it’s going to make just as big of an impact as Glorybringer, it’s just as ravenous and even though it can’t shoot creatures for 4 when it attacks it’s a great mana sink later on in the game. One upside that Skarrgan Hellkite does have over Glorybringer is that Skarrgan Hellkite’s ability can target a Glorybringer, though that would be eight mana to deal with one creature and that’s a lot.

Anyway, I think Skarrgan Hellkite will fit into a couple of existing decks, like Mono red aggro as you top end, and even Grixis control with its tap out nature. Mono red aggro would definitely use a creature like Skarrgan Hellkite as a sideboard surprise than in the main deck at the top end, although one might not be a bad idea. Grixis control is one of those weird control decks that isn’t really a control deck but more of a tempo tap out deck that tries to put dents in your opponent’s board, hand, deck and life total at every turn and usually spends all of its mana doing so.

After exploring the cards from Ravnica Allegiance I came up with what could be a nice tempo ramp shell that Skarrgan Hellkite would fit right into.

Skarrgan Hellkite wants to get going as quick as possible and and this could be the perfect shell for that to happen. From what we have access to right now you could throw together a straight up green red ramp deck with Llanowar Elves and Druid of the Cowl to power out the five mana dragon but I think you could go another way about it. Temur has always proved a strong strategy and thanks to cards like Gyre Engineer and Growth Spiral you can viably go down the ramp route of Temur, both cards allow you fix your mana and ramp and Growth Spiral even gives you a card for your troubles letting you dig to your big bomb top end. Alternatively, Nikya of the Old Ways is the perfect late game one-two punch to start with before dropping into some like Skarrgan Hellkite. The drawback of not being able to play non-creature spells shouldn’t be that much of an issue if you’ve built this type of deck right. As we learned with Lorwyn all those years ago, creatures are just as good as spells if you know what you’re doing and Nikya can really help hammer those creature based spell effects home. Nikya does sit on the curve along side Skarrgan Hellkite but if you can find your way to having both in play then I actually don’t think it’s possible to lose with all that mana and the ability to shoot almost anything for 2.

Wilderness Reclamation is a card that has intrigued me from the start of the spoiler: the effect it offers can be immensely powerful and if used well can be very abused. Imagine dropping Wilderness Reclamation on turn four and Skarrgan Hellkite on turn five and then being able to untap your lands to keep mana open for Skarrgan Hellkite’s ability. If your opponent has gotten off to a slow start and has little to no board presence then it’s safe to say that they aren’t winning. Even better, casting Wilderness Reclamation in the late game can give you so much more value as the cost it will be closer to negligible and you can protect it slightly easier.

Hydroid Krasis is another option for a ramp deck like this due to the fact that it’s versatile on the curve and offers so much upside including a possible huge body and card advantage. The best part of Hydroid Krasis is that the gaining life and card draw is a cast trigger, so no matter if it gets countered you will still get the triggers.

Lastly, I’m going to look at control.

Esper and Blue White control have been a thing from the beginning of standard and after a couple of little speed bumps - mainly Boros aggro running under them really quickly and easily - they have become viable, competitive decks. Ravnica Allegiance brought with it the Azorius and Simic guilds both of which can offer a lot of card advantage and permission value spells so the building of tempo or just straight up hard control decks wasn’t far behind. Thanks to both of these guilds appearing in the same set the upstart of Bant is a big target that I’m sure most controlling players have already started brewing.

When you’re looking at a tempo control deck you want to make sure that you can do two things: apply consistent pressure and play spells that help you apply consistent pressure. Ravnica Allegiance is happy to oblige and offers you creatures like Deputy of Detention and Frilled Mystic, both fantastic creatures to help you not die and apply pressure. Particularly, having access to Frilled Mystic in standard is going to be a huge turning point, back in the day Mystic Snake was a brilliantly powerful creature that got a lot of people and Frilled Mystic is that and a load of gravy. Angel of Grace is another perfect way of insuring you won’t die while also installing a surprise 5/4 flyer onto the battlefield. This 5 mana angel can save your gormless arse while also providing you with a great blocker out of nowhere, oh and when it does die later on it gives you a little reset which could be just enough and buy you just enough time to start mounting your assault. All of these pressure applying creatures are nice and can easily fit in with existing control powerhouses such as Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Lyra Dawnbringer but what about finding them?

Precognitive Perception is one of if not the best draw spell available right now, five mana for three cards is a good rate and for when you find yourself having nothing to do on turn with five mana laying about then why not drop it in your main phase. With this choice you get to dig up to six cards deeper and that’s a tenth of your deck which gives you very good odds to find whatever you’re after. With a draw spell like Precognitive Perception I think control and big mana decks are going to find a level of consistency they haven’t had for a long time and if they’re able to utilise a spell like this well then the decks will be very powerful and hard to beat.

So those have been some of my picks for what Ravnica Allegiance will add to standard. There is certainly a lot more to explore and over the coming months those strategies will mull around while players try to refine them. I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at what Ravnica Allegiance is bringing to the table and keep checking back for more from Game Changers.

Happy gaming guys!