Example Winchester Draft: Part 1

Winchester is a draft format for two people that I learned about when reading a Tom LaPille article a while back.   The gist of it is that you shuffle together 6 packs (84 cards), and put one card in each of four piles.  The first player takes one of the piles, and then you put one more card on each of the four piles.  Keep at it until you run out of cards.

The advantages this has over other two player draft formats are:

1) It is simple.  There are something like 25 total decisions to make between all parties.

2) It is fast, you can get right to the playing.

3) It exemplifies draft in that if you take a powerful card, you have to leave behind some other cards, which makes future picks potentially stronger than your current pick.

4) You get around 12 picks to assemble ~23 playables, so you can't over-value single card piles, or you just won't have enough to play.

I decided to try this for my first "solo draft" walkthrough because it involves a small number of pictures (~25), and decisions, while letting me get a feel for the idea of doing this on a grander scale later.

I used a "starter cube" I made to help teach my fiance Kristina the game.  It has around 15 cards of each color, 10 artifacts, and 12 lands, for a total of ~90 cards, which was just enough for this exercise.

Pick one showed at least two good options.  Welkin Tern is a pretty aggressive creature, but I picked Borderland Ranger, because it will help fix my mana, and I assumed I'd have to play three colors in this format.

Player A Picked: Borderland Ranger

Revealed but not picked:  Ravenous Rats, Welkin Tern, Goblin Piker

Pick two put probably the best new card, with the best remaining card, so it was pretty easy to snag the two blue cards, and stay "open" as far as a second card for the time being

Player B Picked: Essence Scatter, Welkin Tern)

Revealed but not picked: Hinterland Harbor, Plague Beetle, Rotting Legion.

Pick three gave a couple options for ways to go.  Pile 1 had a removal spell, and some mana fixing, pile 4 had two aggressive red cards, so Player A stayed on-point with the mana-fixing and removal spell of the first pile.

Player A Picked:  Pacifism, Hinterland Harbor, Ravenous Rats

Revealed but not picked:  Raging Goblin, Thunder Strike, Goblin Raider.

Player B has just two blue cards, so they have the option of a removal spell, or a pile of red and black creatures to fill out their selection.  They ended up going with the pile of creatures.  I figured at this point they could be Red/Blue, and maybe the black would be okay.

Player B picked:  Hill Giant, Goblin Raider, Rotting Legion, Goblin Piker.

Revealed but not picked:  Essence Drain, Glorious Anthem, Keldon Warlord.

These piles seemed pretty marginal at this point, so player A grabbed the mana fixing of the land to go with what would likely be a multi-color deck.  A case could be made for pile 1 or 2 being superior, because pile 3 actually only has one relevant card at this time, so Essense Drain, Anthem, or even Nether Horror could be better than the land.

Player A picked:  Isolated Chapel, Keldon Warlord, Thunder Strike, Plague Beetle.

Revealed but not picked:  Giant Growth, Nether Horror, Dragon Fodder

Player B grabs the first pile here, with another spell being added to it.  No blue cards, and no great red cards mean we need to consider other options, and three "removal spells" is a fine reason to snag a pile.  Maybe pile 4 will "wheel", since it is basically terrible at this point for player A, and it could be useful for our 2-drop "tempo" deck.

Player B picks: Ambition's Cost, Giant Growth, Essence Drain

Revealed but not picked:  Youthful Knight, Duskdale Wurm, Wave of Indifference.

The addition of Terramorphic Expanse to pile 2, when player A is already "in" green and white, and looking for multicolor fixing makes pile 2 a fairly easy pickup for player A.  Player A is likely hoping that pile 3 i not chosen by player B, since it could be a fine top-end for them.

Player A picks:  Terramorphic Expanse, Youthful Knight, Nether Horror, Glorious Anthem, Raging Goblin.

Revealed but not picked: Mind Stone, Assault Griffin, Rampant Growth.

Sulfur Falls adds some much-needed mana-fixing to player B's setup, along with a couple spells that will likely help them win in the mid-game.  It sucks to pass pile 3 here (or pile 1 to be honest), but we need playables, and pile 4 is where they're at for player B.

Player B picks: Sulfur Falls, Rampant Growth, Wave of Indifference, Dragon Fodder.

Revealed but not picked: Fangren Hunter, Squee's Toy, Bottle Gnomes.

Pile 3 didn't get much better for us with this pick (we'd play the Divination or the Smite), but we need to take it anyway.  Pack 1 was a close runner, since it offers a similar ability of cards, but I didn't remember I had Hinterland Harbor for some blue-fixing, so I was only comparing the green, white, and artifact cards when I made this pick.

Player A picked: Merfolk Looter, Bottle Gnomes, Assault Griffin, Duskdale Wurm

Revealed but not picked: Divination, Mons Goblin Raiders, Smite the Monstrous.

Not much good here for player B, so we take the only halfway good card, and maybe some fixing.  We also ensure that player A doesn't get a juicy mana fixing plus acceleration plus fattie pick here "for free".   Unfortunate all around though.  Hopefully nothing good gets put on top of the Ranger to make the next pick super-easy for player A...

Player B picked: Clifftop Retreat, Divination, Fangren Hunter, Mind Stone

Revealed but not picked: Child of Night, Sylvan Ranger, Harbor Serpent.

Roaring Primadox is a super-fun card, and player A can't resist taking this, along with a removal spell we can (theoretically) cast.  Picking any of the other piles might be defensible as well, for the mana fixing in pile 3 (or 2), or the cheap brick-wall that is the Courser....

Player A picked:  Roaring Primadox, Harbor Serpent, Smite the Monstrous

Revealed but not picked: Centaur Courser, Dragonskull Summit, Unsummon.

Quite out of focus here, but we have one clear pick for player B.  Deny the Ranger to the omni-color deck, pick up a tempo spell and a removal spell in the form of the just-revealed Blisterstick Shaman.  Unfortunate that player A seems to have several good options now, but that's what picking mana fixing does for you I guess?

Player B picked: Blisterstick Shaman, Unsummon, Sylvan Ranger

Revealed but not picked: Master Decoy, Restless Dead, Vulshok Berserker

Player A sees three solid playables in pile 1 here and can't resist.  Pile 2 is getting very large here, but outside of the fixing, it doesn't offer too much that they care about.  If the Righteousness was instead a blank, I think we would have seen player A scoop up pile 2 for the sheer volume + value.

Player A picked:  Righteousness, Master Decoy, Centaur Courser

Revealed but not picked: Woodland Cemetery, Sunpetal Grove, Gravedigger.

Player B's about had enough of how the piles have been falling, so they scoop up pile 2 here, with some black mana fixing to go with the likely splash there, and a few aggressive creatures to fill out their pile.  Pile 4 is probably their second choice, since it has a couple cards on-color in theory.

Picked: Llanowar Elves, Woodland Cemetery, Restless Dead, Dragonskull Summit, Child of Night, Mons Goblin Raiders, Squee's Toy.

Revealed but not picked: Venerable Monk, Feral Shadow, Crushing Vines.

Player A saw a Birds of Paradise roll off, and snapped it up, along with some other mana fixing and a potential flyer.  Pile 4 was a hard pile to pass by, and maybe pile 3 is more likely for player B to NOT take, so taking pile 4 may have been the right decision.  Card advantage to the max there...  We decided we wanted to be sure to be able to cast our spells though.  Not an easy pick.

Player A picked: Birds of Paradise, Feral Shadow, Sunpetal Grove

Revealed but not picked: Drowned Catacombs, Savannah Lions, Jayemdae Tome

Player B had a hard choice here.  They realized here that they probably need to be playing a third color, because the good red and blue just isn't coming, so taking a high-impact 6-drop, and a mana fixer, might help their cause here.  Very unfortunate to pass pile 4, since it also has a couple cards they could use.  It's unlikely that either pile 1 or pile 4 would come back, given that I "saw" player A in Green-White-Black colors as central.

Picked: Phyrexian Gargantua, Drowned Catacombs, Venerable Monk.

Revealed but not picked: Fire Elemental, Prey Upon, Stormfront Pegasus.

Now the blue and red cards start flowing...  Pile 4 is an easy pick-up for player A, since they view themselves in GWB and the value is overflowing there.  (Also, player A doesn't see anything else that is comparable, and player B could reasonably take pile 4 if we take one of the other piles)

Player A picked: Grizzly Bears, Stormfront Pegasus, Jayemdae Tome, Crushing Vines, Gravedigger, Vulshok Berserker.

Revealed but not picked: Siege Mastodon, Scroll Theif, Volcanic Dragon.

This pick was not easy for player B.  Pile 3 offers two very solid finishers, some of the bigger creatures in the cube, but pile 2 has three good cards, so I went with that.  Pile 1 and 3 are equally likely to be taken by player A on his next pick, so let's just hope they get something good in any pile but three?  Bah.

Player B picked: Aven Fisher, Scroll Theif, Fire Elemental, Savannah Lions

Revealed but not picked: Benalish Veteran, Air Elemental, Archaeomancer.

Player A couldn't refuse the fixing of evolving wilds, to pair with a big ground blocker in the elephant, so they stuck with their overall strategy here.  It's possible that pile 3 was superior, because we probably have a fair amount of red fixing, and Prey Upon is not bad.  (And player B can't use pile 1, they have to take 2 or 4 just for the playables, we hope?)

Player A picked: Evolving Wilds, Benalish Veteran, Siege Mastodon

Revealed but not picked: Claustrophobia, Flame Slash, Primal Clay.

Finally good cards for player B are showing up (Red and Blue cards).  The pick between piles 3 and 4 (or even pile 2) was not easy, but player B is hurting for playables, so 4 cards is better than 3, and huge evasive guys and a removal spell isn't bad.

Player B picked: Coral Merfolk, Flame Slash, Air Elemental, Volcanic Dragon, Prey Upon

Revealed but not picked: Tundra Wolves, Phyrexian Rager, Man-o-War.

What can I say, player A is a jerk.  This was the last revealed pile (bug in Winchester, player A gets the first pick and the last (new) pick?), and player A gets one playable out of pile 4, and one more good playable from whatever of the other three piles are left, so they just denied the more problematic cards with this pick, and made player B's life tough on playables.  Player B actually has 5 sources of blue with one Island in his deck, which is pretty insane...

Player A picked: Flying Men, Man-o-War, Primal Clay, Archaeomancer.

Revealed but not picked: Giant Spider, Alpha Myr, Midnight Guard.

Player B takes pile 2, which, in retrospect was only slightly worse than pile 4 in terms of playables, and it has a "real" removal spell and some card advantage.  It sucks that we give up a spider here, but such is life.  I think in the future, using 4 more, or 4 less cards would be advisable, at least when drafting this with a "cube" (rather than packs).  Player 2 seems like they're always on the back foot here.

Player B picks: Alpha Myr, Phyrexian Rager, Claustrophobia.

Revealed but not picked: None.

Player A grabs the spider, and Wolf from pile 1

Player B puts the Midnight Guard into the garbage can, and my first attempt at a Winchester draft is over!

For the deckbuilding and play, we'll have to wait for part 2, it's Kristina-time now =)

Format Proposal - Best Draft Decks (Part 2)

Alterations/conclusions on the last post:

1) "Best Draft Decks" is better than "some other confusing name", because it implies what this deck is.  A sort of competition to see what the best draft deck would be, with rarity based limitations to keep things "fair" (and not too "constructed" feeling).

2) Set isolation seems necessary.  A set tends to be self-contained, and it has all the tools in it (at least in the Return to Ravnica block) that you need to build a deck.  If we open up the entire set, it will just lead to more broken decks and removal is sniped from other sets, and it should not open up much of the guild "feel" that you don't already have.

Being quicker to set up, quicker to start playing, and quicker to change, along with preserving the guild "flavor" makes set isolation better in my mind.

3) We should include both sets in the block.  Without both sets, there won't be enough variety in the decks.  With both sets, you have multiple choices for guilds in each role, and even sometimes roles inside each guild.  It wouldn't be just "play Boros" if you want to be aggro, you could choose Rakdos, Simic, Selesnya (or something else), and these more subtle differences in style will appeal to a wider range of players than the idea that if they want to attack there is only one option for them.

4) I am most worried about an aggro dominated format at this point, because curve matters most there, and you can set up cheap creatures plus removal to bash through, and overrun a somewhat slower deck, but deck designers will have to keep the format in mind, and not just play 4+ drops unless they are suicidal.

Just sitting here, I can see strong arguments to playing Boros, or Rakdos as the aggroeyist of the aggro decks, but it's not clear that they will certainly be superior to slightly slower decks from other guilds, that are adapted to the meta.  (And then if slightly slower is more prevalent, slightly slower than that is better, and so on, until everyone is playing "fair" and the over the top decks win, at which point Rakdos/Boros will run everyone over again).

It's also not clear that a three color deck splashing for removal or powerful uncommons wouldn't necessarily be the best (Golgari comes to mind here, with their plethora of defenders and mana fixing)

I am pretty excited about this as a format, and I'm ready to start brewing decks for it.  Since my prerelease guild was Selesnya, I'll toss out one of those here, as a middle-of-the-pack offering...

Land:
2x Selesnya Guildgate (C)
8x Forest
7x Plains

1cc:
2x Giant Growth (C) (over a bunch of other pump effects that would be reasonable)
1x Dryad Militant (U)
2x Centaur's Herald (C)

2cc:
1x Selesnya Charm (U)
1x Call of the Conclave (U)
1x Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage (U)
1x Keening Apparition (C) (over Concordia Pegasus)
1x Brushstrider (U)

3cc:
1x Arrest (U)
1x Security Blockade (U)
2x Centaur Healer (C)
1x Rootborn Defenses (C)
2x Seller of Songbirds (C)

4cc:
1x Phantom General (U)
1x Slime Molding (U)
1x Chorus of Might (C)
2x Eyes in the Skies (C)

5+cc:
1x Collective Blessing (R)

Note: I started sorting by rarity, and I had around 35 cards competing for 23 slots.  I was able to cut it down to about 28 cards, but then I had to sort by casting cost for it to make sense at all.  There were a lot of cards I cut near the end that I did not think I would, and in the end, this has become more of an aggressive deck, since the expensive (removal) spells got cut.

Even the last three to five cuts were very hard, and you could end up with a very different deck if you include different cards.  As is standard for RTR, there are a million three drops, so you'd have to be sure to not overload there.  I didn't include much pump, only the cheapest and/or most lethal, because removal should be somewhat more prevalent now.  I didn't include Common Bond, which is widely considered to be a strong pump spell, because it costs a huge 3 mana, but including that could be quite reasonable.

You could also go quite a bit slower/bigger, but we don't exactly have a ton of removal here. (Also cut Trostani's Judgement, since it costs a million)

Overall, what I'd like to stress is that even in this relatively limited problem space, there are still a ton of decsions to be made, and I'd be surprised if any of 10 builders of "Selesyna" came up with the same 40 card list.

Happy brewing!

Format Proposal - Constructed Limited (needs new name)

While watching a recent broadcast of GP London on Twitch TV (zoom to minute 53:15), I saw a "time filler" event the announcers had during the breaks during a sealed/draft deck, that stuck with me.

The idea is that you simulate a limited environment by putting restrictions on your deck based on rarity.  Now, some formats like Pauper try to do this on a grand scale by saying "only commons", but Pauper does not feel at all like limited, because commonality through the history of MTG does not exactly lead to "balanced power level".

What this format does is place limitations on your deck, as follows:
Max 2 of each Common
Max 1 of each Uncommon.
1 total Rare.
0 Mythic Rares.
40 card decks.

There's no real reason to limit the user to only two colors, though that was the "theme" of the recorded exercise.  With potential access to Guildgates, Prophetic Prisms, Verdant Havens, and Greenside Watchers, you could try for a omni-color deck and be okay on mana.  The problem with such a deck would likely be power level of individual cards.  In a draft or sealed environment, you would play all the colors so you could snap up all the rares/mythics that get passed to you by people not in those colors, but in this format, you are limited to one total rare.  You could use the multi-color strategy to basically splash all the uncommons you want....  How good that will be depends on how slow you have to be to take advantage of it, and how fast the aggro decks are, with basically ideal curves.  In any event, I see no reason to disallow it.

Additionally, the decks were built off just Gatecrash cards.  That's a strong limitation, but to complete the "cycle" of guilds, you could bring in Return to Ravnica, and do the same thing with either the sets treated independently, or mixing the sets together to allow more of a full block feel.  For the moment, I'd advise keeping the blocks separate, because it places more limitations on your choices, and leaves each guild with the cards specifically designed for their "feel".  (It also somewhat limits the "all removal" deck).  There are arguments both ways here, so I wouldn't draw a hard and fast line as to whether I'd mix the sets or not.

Why is this better than block?
Low entry cost. No need to get a bunch of cards, can probably done with (at most) one proxy per deck, and 1-2 boxes worth of cards opened (the leftovers from a sealed or draft).

Switching decks is easy.  You don't need to get 30 rares, dual lands, etc, and then have to restart the process when you decide you'd rather play something else.

Good decks, but not "perfect" ones.

Deck building isn't overemphasized.  You don't have an infinite number of decisions to "get started", but you can still go a lot of different directions with your deck.  Does emphasize some non-traditional skills (more based on limited) in that your deck needs to be built around solid uncommons and commons.

Can you give me some gatherer links to start thinking?
Rares - The "Ace" of your deck.
The only card I saw while glancing through this list that set off alarm bells is Pack Rat, but the common defenses against Pack Rat (have an aggressive deck, have early removal) should be considered during deck construction.  There are a few sweepers in Mizzium Mortars, Merciless Eviction, Supreme Verdict, Cyclonic Rift, and so on.

Uncommons - The "power cards" of your deck.
What would concern me if you could choose RTR and GC would be having too much of this in your deck.

Commons - The backbone of your deck.
Removal, fixing, and filler creatures are staples to be found here, along with some good examples of your guild mechanic.

Finishers in GWx

If you have a deck with Farseek, Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, and 30+ mana sources, your goal is to get to the end game.  The question remains: What do you do when you get there?

That is the domain of the finisher.   Let's think about our likely situation for the late game.

1) We've established some sort of parity in board position against an aggro deck.  We have some bigger creatures in the form of Thragtusk/Angel/Smiter, so they can't attack freely, and we just need to finish the game off before they demolish us with Mortars, Bonfire, or just a swarm + Searing Spear.

Against the most blitzy of aggro decks, this is the scenario where any sort of dedicated win condition is probably "win more".  They're unlikely to make a big "second push", and we're likely to draw things that cost 3-4 more mana than they are likely to draw, which is going to put them away almost by definition.  If we do it sooner rather than later, it's good, because we do have some chance of losing (Conscripts, Mortars, etc), but the game is most in our favor here.

Against more midrangey aggro decks, packing things like Thundermaw Hellkite, Wolfyr Silverheart, Falkenrath Aristocrat, or Boros Reckoner as their top end, we are never really safe.  They can deal damage in big chunks, and try to fight through our stabilization play by just playing a spell that costs 4+, which is part of their core game plan.  If we get this sort of game into a board stall, we need our finisher to end the game.

Against the mirror, things can swing wildly from one turn to the next, as haymakers are drawn.  We need to make sure that our haymaker actually puts them away, rather than continues the game with us in a somewhat more favorable position.  This sort of idea leads to the absurdity of 4x Angel of Serenity mirrors, where you spend your Angels on your own stuff, because there is no way either deck can actually push through to win, they just build up ever more impressive boards.

2) We've gotten some damage in against a more controlling deck, and have maybe a couple creatures out (end of turn flash creature, leftover Thragtusk Beast), and need to put them away before the Nth revelation buries us under relentless card advantage.

3) We're in board parity against some kind of over-the-top combo deck.  Likely some kind of reanimation theme.

The board is likely to be clogged up with Thragtusks, Huntmasters, and a myriad of other small creatures.

======================================

The thing about all these scenarios is that "card advantage" persey doesn't really matter.  Even normal spells like Thragtusk or Restoration Angel are "3:1"s, so drawing three more cards isn't really going to unlock a board stall, or kill your opponent before they draw a revelation, Wrath you, or Unburial Rites to infinite-life you, or mill you out, or whatever else the kids are doing these days.

The thing that will win you the game at this point, is actually doing something to win the game.

Probably the best spell at actually doing this regardless of casting cost is Craterhoof Behemoth.

There are several advantages to the 'Hoof.

In any sort of board stall, you win the game.   
It doesn't matter whose creatures are bigger, it doesn't matter what their or your creatures are, or who has more, or anything along those lines.  All that matters is that you have any sort of board presense, and you win the game.

With 3 1/1's in play, this generates an attack for 24 trample.  Note: The deck doesn't actually play any 1/1's.  If you cast a Restoration Angel and Sel-Charm-Knight end of turn, you attack for 19 with this guy.  If you LingeringSouls-Flashback into this, it's 34 damage.

Whatever your combined power and toughness is, you're going to add (n+1) squared +5 to your side, where n is your creature count at the start of the turn, and they just aren't going to be able to soak that when n gets above 3 or so.

It's not dependent on their creature's survivability/hardiness.
Predator Ooze, Thragtusk, Angel of Serenity, Strangleroot Geist, Cartel Aristocrat, etc, etc, are quite good at living through traditional sweeping effects in some form (Bonfire, Mortars), to either come back smaller, leave a roadblock, or just be immune.

All of these things are typically good for blocking also, and blocking is not a good solution to a arbitrarily high amount of trample damage.

Even high-toughness is not necessarily good enough, as the count of your creatures gets higher.  With 8 creatures, they're staring down a minimum of 75-90 trample damage, they'd need an absolutely massive board presense to even try to survive.

It's not dependent on drawing well after you "finish"
Because the game is over.  You can't draw lands, or more draw spells, or be re-trumped, because they are just dead.

It's hard to interact with.
It can be immune to counters with Cavern-Beast (one of the two things you want to cavern)
It is hasty.
You have flash creatures to combo with it against sorcery speed removal.
Removing the 'Hoof in some way does not prevent the effect (it only slightly reduces it) (unless it is your only threat/you have no board)

So, why are we even talking about this?
Well, one thing to consider if you don't see any reasons not to do something is to examine your assumptions.

Assumption 1: We have any sort of board position whatsoever.
We might be board wiped out of the game, which is a real problem with this deck as-is.  We put alot of our interaction on the table, so if it's removed, the impact of the 'Hoof is greatly reduced.
Mitigation: Counter-wipe effects, like Golgari Charm, Rootbound Defenses, Boros Charm.  Not overextending.  Lingering Souls.

Assumption 2: We are still alive when we get to 8 mana.
This is hard to ensure, harder the more 8-mana spells we put in our deck.  A "game-winner" like Cyclonic Rift helps us get to the late game by being cast for 2 so we don't die.
Mitigation: We have alot of interaction in the early turns.  Sel-Charm, 3-drops, Angel prolong games, and ensure we'll have the time we need to cast our boom-boom.

Assumption 3:  Mana is not a concern.
8 is a whole lot of mana to pay for an effect, so we shouldn't be too surprised that it helps us win the game (immediately).  Studies show that 8 is actually more than one mana more than 7, it's actually more like 2-4 more turns, and 7 is 1-3 more turns than 6.  So having a dead card until it wins the game (on turn n) is a definite concern.
Mitigation:  We may need some kind of early card drawing in order to realistically find a 1-2-of 'Hoof, and the mana to cast it.  We also need early interaction, which we have by including the early dorks we have here.

Cards like Sphinx's Revelation, Rakdos' Return, Cyclonic Rift, and even Angel of Serenity are cheaper, more modular, and do something at lower casting costs.

Assumption 4:  We even need something to finish them once we've stabilized.
In some of the scenarios above, 'Hoof would just be a win-more.  So obviously, in the aggroey-ist of aggro matchups, we'd be taking whatever finisher out in favor of more early interaction and top off with Thragtusk.

Other Contenders:

These seem like some of the more popular options, but I don't like them.

Maybe I just don't like how people play Angel of Serenity, but both of these seem to be played to extend the game.  You need to use whatever else you have in your deck to presumably win the game against whatever your opponent decides to do, which in the worst case scenario, is JUST WHAT YOU DID, or better.  If both of you Revelation, you get into a board stall, that Revelation doesn't break up.  If both of you Angel, whoever Angels last wins.

If you have 'Hoof in your deck, there is no Revelationing or counter-Angeling to come back from it, they just die.

Also, both of these options want you to have more and more of them in the deck, because they feed off each other.  The further you go that way, the more you push your deck into a late game durdle deck, by potentially sacrificing early interaction....

As a certain broadcaster I like says, the point of Magic is not to .  Drawing cards is fun, getting card advantage is fun, but winning is also fun...

These are actually some good options in my opinion, because they have strong secondary functions, and aren't dead early.  Rift is interaction by definition, and Wolf Run helps you cast your spells, and is a fireball late game.  I just happen to like Black more than Blue or Red at this point, and Orzhov Charm and Gavony Township are different angles on these cards....  They are guaranteed inclusions in the Blue and Red versions though.

GWx R vs B vs U

So to recap, what we're looking for from whatever color(s) we'd want to splash would be:

1) Easy to cast creatures, very easy to cast spells. (single-off-color costs)
2) Removal (we don't have much now outside combat)
3) Solid sideboard options. (trumps to strategies)
4) Early/cheap interactive spells (instants)
5) Card drawing. (we have some danger of flooding with ~32 mana sources)
6) Upgrades to what we already have.  (Less important, unless it's a big upgrade)

Removal/Cheap Interaction:
Let's talk about this first, since it is the direct competition:

Blue:

Blue isn't exactly known for it's removal, but we actually have some solid options here.

Detention Sphere "handles anything", as long as it's not a land.  It also does a nice job at containing the most explosive starts from aggro decks, by removing duplicate early-drops.  I see people play one of these, and I'm honestly surprised that it is not more of a 3-4-of.  It is not the best against Abrupt Decay, especially with haste creatures, but that is more of a footnote to me than an actual problem.

This does a pretty good job of being superior to Acidic Slime.

Negate is probably the best example of a "removal" spell you'd want from blue, but counterspells are more of a sideboard card than main-deck now.

Tamiyo is amazing, but hard to "splash".  Garruk is more pro-active, so I'm not sure this is an upgrade, outside the legend rule problem with just running more Garruks.

Cyclonic Rift is a fine early "removal spell" plus finisher.  It should win the game when it resolves against a board stall, it resets planeswalkers, as well as any township counters.  It's also an instant, and super easy to cast.  I like this more than Az. Charm, because it wins the game late, and stalls acceptably early.  With Az. Charm, you're hoping to draw better than your opponent, and there's only so much of that you can do in a 30+ mana source deck.  Creatures today have haste, comes into or leaves play effects, or bloodrush, so there's no guarantee that Az. Charm will do much for you in the long run.  Az charm is also quite a bit harder to cast on turn 2, and that's when you need it.  It really sucks that you can't use Charm in response to auras like Rancor, that is also not a problem with Rift.

What about Simic Charm?  (Unsummon/Giant Growth/Hexproof).  Cloudshift is better for your own guys, Rift is better for their guys, and both are easier to cast, or have far higher upsides.  It might be worth having one, but it just seems like it is always the worst option between Cloudshift, Sel-Charm, or even something like Rootborn Defenses (Indestructable-Populate) in White.

Blue Summary:
Detention sphere, and a one-of Rift are the real selling points here for me.  D-Sphere is super versatile, relatively cheap, and works okay against aggro and (planeswalker) control.  Rift is a solid early and late instant, which is just what I want out of a one-of.

Black:

If you're looking for removal, Black is a strong contender for the best color in magic to get that sort of thing.

At the two or less casting cost, instant level we have these, and many more options to choose from. (Tragic Slip, Victim of Night, Ultimate Price, Devour Flesh), but first let's talk about Sever the Bloodline.

Sever gives great value.  It prevents Reanimation, it contains aggro starts, it gets things like Predator Ooze, Geralf's Messenger, and Falkenrath Aristocrat that are normally pretty resilient to removal.  It is easy to cast, though not "fast" in any sense (sorcery, costs 4).  It also delivers some value late, through flashback.

I'd max out at one of these, because it doesn't help much against planeswalkers, and can be awkward in the mirror, but given that, it's still a fine one-of.

The other slots are quite a bit harder to evaluate, just because of the sheer options available.
Golgari Charm is removal for weenies, mana creatures, tokens, but it gets shut off on some weenies if they grow out of range.  It's removal for enchantments, which can be tricky permanents to answer, but it is absurdly good as an answer to wrath effects, which is something this deck is not strong against.   This is probably the worst of the three as a removal spell, but the least dead against control.

Orzhov Charm says "kill target creature" on it, which is pretty rare to find these days.  I listed quite a few options above, but none of them kill target creature.  The third mode is likely unusable in this deck, but self-unsummon does some work against point and area removal.  The life payments might add up, but between Tusk and Healer (and maybe Vault), it shouldn't be too high of a price to pay to remove a problem creature.

Abrupt Decay does a good job of "hitting" in the early turns, and keeping you alive, which is what we want out of this slot.  It kills anything from Reckoner on down, but once threats start rising to the Aristocrat/Dragon/Beast level, there are

Vraska could be a cool one-of.  Destroying non-land permanents is fun, but her other abilities aren't amazing.  Acidic Slime is probably comparable or superior, since it answers the land problems that can cause trouble on a stalled board.

Curse of Death's Hold rounds out the top end.  It's exceptional in some matchups, and useless in others, so we're likely looking at that out of the sideboard.  Golgari Charm approximates this, and is probably main-deck worthy as a one-of?


Black Summary:
Black is very good at destroy target creature, we even get the option to branch out to other permanent types when we combine with Green and White.  Orzhov Charm is the front-runner, but the other "charms" and charm-like spells are all contenders for inclusion.

Sever the Bloodline seems like a strong one-of.

Red:

Pillar has it's uses, but we will only have 8 (at most) sources of untapped Red on turn 1.

Clan Defiance is really cool, but since we plan on having a board presence, Mizzium Mortars seems like it would do a passable Cyclonic Rift impersonation in terms of killing our opponent off, while answering their early Volcanic Strengths, or Smiters.  Getting all of them is likely superior to getting two (maybe) of them as well as them (for more mana most of the time)

Huntmaster of the Fells is another solid blink target with Restoration Angel, and we are looking to have a fair number of instants (from the non-red colors, unfortunately), so we might be able to pass and flip more.  I'm not really wild about Huntmaster, because the life gain is so small, as are the roadblocks, but once he "gets going" he can be hard for an aggro or control deck to beat.  It's pretty unreliable as a removal spell, but there you go.

Red Summary
Huntmaster and Mizzium Mortars are the reasons to be Red now.  Mortars is a Sorcery, and doesn't do anything to control, but it's easy to cast, not too bad to overload, and devastating when it happens.

Overall Removal/Interaction Summary:
Red seems like the worst removal color right now.  It has the biggest blowout (Mortars), but D-Sphere and O-Charm, along with the other black instants are hard competition for what we're trying to do.

Blue seems like it has the best general-purpose removal spell (D-Sphere), and a good one-of (Rift), but Black has more, cheaper, somewhat versitile, faster, removal, so since we have a board presence, it seems like the Black removal is going to serve us the best (we're not as afraid of planeswalkers since we have creatures.  We're more afraid of wraths, so cards like Golgari Charm do double-duty)

Cards:
There are fewer candidates here, let's boil it down to the best of each color:

































I actually don't think this is a Sphinx's Revelation deck, even though we have so much mana.  I think Sphinx's Revelation is a terrible (counterable, hard to cast) Craterhoof Behemoth.  Behemoth ends the game.  Revelation hopes to do enough to prolong the game, and hopes to draw a Behemoth.

Amass seems like the better card drawer in GWx, because it is easier to cast, cheaper, and putting a card (land) back is rarely relevant.  It's critical with Amass that you have cheap interaction, so you can play it after Amassing.  It's unfortunate that blue is the worst color at giving us cheap (hard) interaction.

Faithless looting is Amass for Red.  You draw one more card, but merely have to discard three more for the same effect.  You get it in a more modular package, and for less mana (leaving more up for interaction), and late-game, it can easily be draw "three spells".

Disciple, I'm not wild about, but it is card drawing.  One thing to remember is that you GAIN the life, which helps make up for the board position you are losing.  The body on this guy isn't terribly impressive either, and the sacrifice is NOT a MAY, so post-combatting this guy is likely the way to go.  I need to think about this guy before I can say he's strictly worse than Garruk, Primal Hunter, but it sure feels like that, now that I've posted the card image in, and thought about it some.

Card Draw Summary:
Blue.  May your gasping begin.  Red really isn't that far behind though.

Upgrades(?)/Misc:

Lingering Souls is a amazingly powerful card.  It ensures death with Craterhoof Behemoth.  It threatens Planeswalkers.  It's good against counters and discard.  It applies pressure.  It's great with Township and Vault.

It's just a really hard card to deal with, which is why they printed a million hosers.  Good thing noone's playing any of those!

People are actually starting to play more cards that Souls are explicitly good against, like Liliana and Devour Flesh.

The only problem with this card is that the Smiter/Healer slot is already pretty good.  As chumpers, Smiter/Healer probably survive, and they work better with Angel as surprise blockers, or brick walls.

This is one of the best creatures in the format these days.  And we're already in white, so this guy should be a breeze to cast right?  Well, not exactly.  He forces our hand with Cavern to no useful purpose, and is probably only playable in Red, because all our duals would tap to cast him.

Even with that though, we'd have utility lands, potentially Caverns that wouldn't help cast him.  In non-red, we'd have up to 8 duals on top of these that wouldn't help cast him at all, which probably makes him a 5-drop, which we already have plenty of.

He's very good.  Very very good.  but how much better than Smiter?  He's certainly harder to cast...

Going for "value" here with a one-of.  As Thragtusk #5-6, this one-of isn't bad.  He's also not bad against control, who'll be trying to mill you out.  Ooops, Behemoth!

Can't go too overboard on this guy, because 5 isn't really a "fair" price for a Smiter or Angel with nothing to blink, and there is a fair amount of sideboard hate against graveyards (Rest in Peace), and the main point of this deck is to get the beatdowns on turn 3-5, not set up.

Sorin's pretty powerful, but we have Garruk, PH, is this guy really better?  1/1 Lifelink is not as good as 3/3 no abilities.  Pumping Power is okay, but our guys are big.  The ultimate is the same time to achieve, and should also get close to winning the game.

The big benefit would be if we went with a tokens sub-theme with Lingering Souls. 

I really like this card, it does a ton of work.  It's pretty reasonable with Angel/O-Charm/Cloudshift too.

This is murder on opposing planeswalkers, and just delivers the damage.  It's easy to cast, and not too expensive, but we have to have our beatdowns on for this gal to work out.

A pretty good way to fight against Sphinx's Revelation.

This gives you something to do with any single creature off the top, and it is one of the premiere threats in creature slogs.

This card alone is probably the best reason to play Red, it just represents so much reach in a deck with creatures.

Whether it is better than Gavony + Lingering Souls + Vault, or Cavern of Souls, is another question...

So many good lands...

We are less likely to need the life, but it does put us out of range of racing.

The deathtouch combines best with another card on this list, Lingering Souls.  Nice creatures....

It's pretty hard to race a vault, but since it doesn't stack with itself, maxing out on one (+ Townships) is probably the way to go.

A premiere threat against the control decks, or really any deck at this point.  Sel-Charm, Resto Angel, Cloudshift, are all pretty great with this guy, and damage adds up.

Unfortunately, there's this Boros Reckoner guy, and Devour Flesh is seeing a lot more play, so the time may not be right, but it is by no mistake that Geist is one of the most powerful creatures in standard.










Upgrades(?)/Misc Summary:
Kessig Wolf Run and Lingering Souls lead the charge in this category.  Both are very powerful, but both have real costs.  We already have reasonable lands, and three drops.  It would take playing with them or the matchup to know which is preferrable.

This is a complicated problem!  Are there any Blue, Red, or Black cards I'm missing?  What aggregate of options would you consider to be the best?