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MTG Guild Wars – Primer

Last Updated: Sept, 26 2012
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Return to Ravnica:
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Links
ManaDeprived.com/GuildWars/

Wizards Community Thread (MTGO Beta needed to access thread)
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Looking for a fun way to playing with the cards from Ravnica, while learning the card interaction that will make your limited game better, look no further, we present Guild Wars!

Overview

Format Overview
Guild Wars is a fun casual format where the goal is to play fun, exciting back and forth balanced matches with your friends using prebuilt decks. It is not meant to be a competitive format!

Guild Wars for Ravnica plays with singleton deck that use every card in the guild’s colors, even the “bad” cards which can become good in the right situations. Gameplay is surprisingly balanced because each deck has both bombs and duds. You’ll utilize cards you have never played with before and will likely never play with again in any other format!
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Gameplay

Deck Creation
The 130 card mostly singleton decks are composed of:

– 1 of every mono and multi-colored card in the guilds two colors

– No other guilds hybrid cards are allowed even if they share a color

– Only your guild’s Key Rune (other guilds Key Runes are not allowed )

– 1 of all other artifacts in RTR

– Rogue’s Passage & Transguild Promenade

– 4 each of the guild’s Shockland, Guildgate

– 18 each of the guild colors two basic lands

Optional: Add in 4x of the appropriate M13 or INN duals for a better play experience.

The decks have 50 land and 80 playables, except Selesnya with 51 land cause of Grove of the Guardian.

How to Play
Playing Guild Wars is like playing a regular standard match. Same rules. You are just using a Guild Wars deck. Ideally you would have all 5 decks pre built so that each player would be able to pick one and then Battle.

On MODO create a Freeform game and put Guild Wars in the comments. Although the decks are standard playable, most people playing standard rarely look at the comments before joining, using Freeform creates a visual cue.

Play out a Swiss queue or swap decks every round. How you organize your Guild Wars matches is up to you. We encourage you to have fun with it!
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Why Play Guild Wars

First and foremost. It’s fun. But if you need other reasons . . Let me set the scene if you will.

What are you left with after you buy a box of the latest magic set and rip it apart to get the 10-20 singles you need for your standard deck? You are left with a pile of garbage. This single fact has always bothered me about MTG. I never feel I get full value for the insane amount of money I pour into this hobby.

Now, with Guild Wars you get full value out of the cards you purchase. Start with drafting packs, then move to pulling out format staples and with what is left you can build your Guild Wars decks. Of course you may have to pick up a few cards here and there to fill it out, but I bet you would rather have some decks ready to battle with your friends in your closet rather than a moldy old shoe box full of commons you will never look at or touch again.

Insider insight on Limited, Block and Standard formats
What better way to learn a new sets mechanics, get an idea as to card interactions and even play some hidden gems that you never would have given a second look at before. Guild Wars exposes you to a side of the game you have never seen before.

Stepping stone for new players
Guild Wars is also an great way for new players with limited card pools to get into the game and learn how to play with the new set. It is also a gateway to Commander as well as a fun stand alone format to enjoy casually.
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Format Variants

Guild Wars – Budget Variant
Yes we’ll know getting all the cards needed to build all the guild deck can be daunting, so start small and work your way up. Just build decks without the expensive rares and mythics. This will definitely make gameplay less swingy and allow you to play with the real back bone of limited, commons and uncommons. The appropriate land count for these deck are ……

Guild Wars – 100 Card Singleton Variant
Following the Guild Wars rules above about limiting your card choices to those of your chosen guilds colors we advise that you tune the starting deck list down to 100 singleton cards. Then proceed as normal. This variant will help remove some of the oddball cards in the set and streamline your gameplay as well as give the game a competitive angle on crafting the ultimate tuned guild decks.

Guild Wars – 100 Card Singleton Variant
Build Guild Wars deck using only card with the guild’s watermarks on the cards. This will create a tighter synergistic interactions within the decks. Take it to the next step and add cards from the original Ravnica as well. Only problem is Ravnica has more cards than Guildpact and Dissension so the deck will be inbalanced, so cut card accordingly. We will do an article later expanding on this variant.
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Closing Thoughts

I hope you the players take this primer and run with it. Try new things, hell try wacky things and if they work hit us up on twitter and let us know about it!

GUILD READY.  FIGHT!!

We will steam some Guild Wars matches for your viewing pleasure on twitch.tv channel “Brewski Bistro” once Return to Ravnica goes live on MODO. So stay tuned for more updates on Mana Deprived.

Credits

@MarcelMTG
@MattyStudios

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