Blargh.

Hmm, weird snafu here earlier, when Blogger somehow double-posted the Selesnya portion of my Ravnica set review. Can't quite figure that one out. Oh well... I finally noticed, and deleted the errant post.

In the meantime, I'm gearing up for a midnight Return to Ravnica prerelease event in about 3 hours (from the time I'm posting this). I signed up a week ago, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I'm playing Izzet tonight, and Azorius tomorrow. That might be backwards, but either way, those are the two guilds I'm playing.

Yeah, they just happen to be the two guilds with Blue in them... I'm not usually That Guy, but I picked Izzet because they looked the most fun to play, and Azorius because they just look like the best-suited to winning me lots of packs. 

Rakdos was out because B/R is an archetype that has not usually been good to me, except in the RoE release draft, where both flights I first-picked a Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, got passed a shitload of burn, some black removal, and just went B/R uber-control. My deck BOTH TIMES was nothing but removal and bombs.

Rakdos allegedly supports a more control-oriented build, but from pouring over the spoilers, I think trying to force control when the guild really wants to be suicide Aggo will lead to a weaker deck. The actual Aggro deck might be amazingly powerful for all I know, but as a player, it just doesn't fit my playstyle at all. I think I could build the deck perfectly, and still lose do to misplaying it. So I just want to avoid that.

Selesnya has some huge potential, and is the guild I'm most worried about losing too (one of the reasons I chose Azorius!), but it also feels like a glass cannon to me. It probably has the most powerful game plan, if left totally unmolested, but disrupting their Populate shenanigans seems really easy to do if you have any removal at all.

I could be wrong, and like I said, it's the Guild I feel most likely to just stomp a path through me, but it also felt like the guild most likely to randomly screw me over with wonky draws - drawing all Proliferate spells with no token-makers, etc... I much prefer losing to my opponent's deck than to my own.

Golgari make a strong case as well, and I was honestly a little surprised I didn't wind up in Golgari for one of the flights. Frankly, the main reason I didn't chose them was that my friend Chad has already signed on to the Swarm, so I wanted to do something different.

Anyway, that was my rationale going into this thing. We'll see how my theorycrafted evaluation of the set shakes up once I actually play the damn cards. All I know is, most folks playing Izzet will be praying for a Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius in their guild pack, but while that wouldn't make me sad to open, I personally think a Mizzium Mortars or Cyclonic Rift will be way more swingy and win more games, so I'll be happy with either or both of those.

As for the Azorius pack, I'm actually hoping for Isperia - she looks insane in a duel, where your opponent really can't help but attack you. Supreme Verdict would, of course be welcome as well.

Outside of Limited bombs, goodies I'd love to open include Vraska, any amazing foils (duh), and about fifteen copies of Chromatic Lantern.

Okay, pointless post is over. Next update will be a report of how the prerelease actually went, instead of this magical Christmasland wishlist garbage.