Ravnica Allegiance Pre-Prerelease Reevaluations

After listening to other set reviews like Lords of Limited and Limited Resources and looking over the cards a bit more, here are a couple quick updates to my Ravnica Allegiance card rankings, as linked in this tweet.

First part of my First Pick at Ravnica Allegiance Limited Review: the rankings spreadsheet. Based off @MikeSteinMTG 's template.

Blog posts to come talking about bigger structural things that are lost in the individual rankingshttps://t.co/BzaJXVApQ4

— Ari Lax (@armlx) January 13, 2019

Justicar's Portal - Now D+, Was D-

My first read of this card was a bad combat trick that didn't have many enters the battlefield effects to trigger, but looking more at the set I think it's a solid way to protect relevant threats from removal. A lot of this is tied to Slimebind looking great, adding another high priority common enchantment removal spell to Lawmage's Binding. The good hard removal is also very expensive, so it's fairly easy to line this up with Consign to the Pit. It still doesn't have any direct effect on how your creatures line up with their larger stuff and therefore has really diminishing returns, but I expect that the first copy is not a terrible last playable.

Archway Angel - Now B-, Was C

This was just a big miss. I was looking at how the average deck worked out to gain two or four life. I think that in a longer game or just a slightly different deck you can make this six or eight life, which is fairly absurd. Open the Gates makes this even easier. Six is still a lot of mana, but this will be absolutely game swinging.

Skitter Eel - Now C, Was C-

The C- to C jump is one of the larger ones, as the implication is it goes from a card I expect to play most of the time to a card I'm hoping to cut but probably will have to play some of. 

Here, I think I underestimated this just being one of blue's few ways to stand up to larger Gruul creatures. Think Douser of Lights last set. Not a really exciting package, but the numbers just did the job. This is a little worse as the sizing is less immediately good, but three mana adapt is easy enough to slot into a turn with multiple plays.

Skatewing Spy - Now C+, Was B-

I'm just really coming down on the rate on this card. Even if there aren't many instant ways to interact with this and bring your creatures out of the sky, there also aren't many inexpensive +1/+1 counters ending up on creatures. This is a low C+ that is probably a worse finisher than Chillbringer.

Chillbringer and Slimebind - Now B-, Was C+

Just a quick recalibration of the blue commons. I didn't change how much I liked these, just moving them relative to other C+ cards. Though the more I think about it the more I think Chillbringer might be miles ahead of the green five drop options in Simic and that my initial "close enough" take could just be wrong.

Bloodmist Infiltrator - Now C, Was C-

On the other side, this is a C that is close to a C+. After looking at the set, I think there are less ways to punish this for having 1 toughness and more ways to utilize it as a really unique effect. There aren't many other good sacrifice outlets, meaning this is a way to enable a unique subarchetype. If you end up with two copies of this card you can leverage late picks like Act of Treason way better than most opponents, and as a result I'm willing to prioritize it a bit higher knowing the fail case is still a fine card.

  

Debtor's Transport and Orzhov Racketeers - Now both C-, was D+ and C respectively

This is just a clean logical failure, along the lines of the vanilla test. Limited Resources and Lords of Limited ran into the exact same trap. Mike Stein is smart and figured it out though.

These cards are functionally the same when attacking. Taking five is about as bad as discarding a card and taking three. On defense, Debtor's Transport is clearly better in the same way all high power, slightly lower toughness creatures are. It trades up. Both suck when they get removed via exile or an aura, with Orzhov Racketeers being even more vulnerable due to Grotesque Demise. Both are costed to be a clunker.

So why is one significantly better than the other? Is Orzhov Racketeers even actually better than Debtor's Transport?

So I met in the middle. If I liked Orzhov Racketeers and thought Debtor's Transport was too clunky, that means both are probably solid engines in a can that are a bit clunk. C- all around.

Steeple Creeper - Now C, Was C-

I think I missed on this as a Gruul card. It triggers Territorial Boar for some real hard hitting starts, and splashing a jump creature there off a Simic Guildgate is real bad for opponents. Still largely a dingus three drop, but one with good implications rather than mediocre ones.

Syndicate Guildmage - Now B-, was B

I misread this as tapping creatures with power four or less. Oops, everyone is due for one or two of those. Still a fine card, but tapping four or less would be a much more important tempo play. Tappers are way better on the offensive than as removal spells with an upkeep, this is more of a B- than a B.

Small note on the near total lack of multi-color spells being reevaluated: It's because they are all stupidly good compared to the mono-color ones. It's hard to mess up how good an obviously well costed removal spell is.