Ravnica Mixer Premier Draft Event Guide (And How to Crush It)

Hey everyone! A real drafting treat is just around the corner! The Ravnica Mixer, which is Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, and War of the Spark all being drafted together, is coming to Arena on October 29th until November 5th!

I’ve always been a huge fan of drafting entire blocks of Ravnica, whether it was Ravnica, Guildpact, Dissension or Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and Dragon’s Maze. It’s such a chaotic and unique drafting experience, so today I want to break down the Ravnica Mixer and give you the tips you need to not only win; but to also enjoy the format as much as possible!

The most important knowledge you’ll need before drafting the most recent Ravnica block is to know what guilds are supported in each pack and what the overall power level of each guild is. So let’s start with laying out the guilds of each pack in order of strongest to weakest as well as discussing the basics of each specific format.

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Guilds of Ravnica

Guild Rankings

1. Dimir
2. Izzet
3. Boros
4. Selesnya
5. Golgari

Guilds of Ravnica is going to be the first pack, which means that most players will go into pack two as one of these guilds. I particularly disliked this format because of the enormous gaps in power level between the guilds, with Dimir being spectacular and while it felt nearly impossible to win with Selesnya or Golgari.

Dimir has the best creatures, removal, and late game with all the Surveil and card advantage at its disposal. Disinformation Campaign is crazy good and an absolute nightmare to play against unless you’re blisteringly fast. Devious Cover-Up was also great in this format (unlike in Midnight Hunt) since this format is way slower and the games often drag on to the point where milling out becomes an actual concern.

Izzet and Boros are both solid and similar; they both aim to be aggressive with Boros relying on curving out with powerful Mentor creatures like Wojek Bodyguard and Sunhome Stalwart whereas Izzet hopes to establish a board presence and then out-tempo the opponent and quickly kill them with cards like Sonic Assault and Wee Dragonauts. Keep in mind that because of Mentor, most haste creatures or small creatures with good keywords (like Healer’s Hawk) are going to perform well.

Selesnya relies on Convoke and building a huge board, except they have almost no good creatures, removal, or card advantage which more or less makes the archetype about sticking an early Siege Wurm and hoping that it doesn’t get answered. Golgari is somehow even worse, with there being little to no good Undergrowth enablers or payoffs. Green is honestly just really bad in this set, so I would steer clear of the green guilds unless you open a bomb like March of the Multitudes or Find // Finality.

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Ravnica Allegiance

Guild Rankings

1. Gates
2. Orzhov
3. Simic
4. Gruul
5. Rakdos
6. Azorious

Ravnica Allegiance did a way better job balancing the power level of each guild, however Orzhov is still far and away the best of the bunch because of it’s great removal and Afterlife creatures. This guild shines at gumming up the ground with Ministrant of Obligation, Orzhov Enforcer, and Imperious Oligarch and then ending the game quickly with Grasping Thrull and Ill-Gotten Inheritance. Also do keep in mind that Dead Revels is amazing in both Orzhov and Rakdos because both have surprisingly good creatures at their disposal.

Simic is about adapting your creatures to get powerful effects and then outclassing the opponent on the board. Sharktocrab is the best non-rare in the entire set, and the combination of solid creatures, decent counters synergies, and nice tempo tools like Chillbringer and Applied Biomancy make me a really big Simic fan.

Gruul is more straightforward and relies mostly on hasty Riot creatures to get underneath your opponent early so that you can get the game to the point where the opponent can be finished off with a Flames of the Raze-Boar clearing their board or a Collision // Colossus pushing through those last few points of damage.

Rakdos relies on Spectacle to cheat out aggressive creatures, however their creatures get outclassed by Gruul and Simic while also being weak to Orzhov’s abundance of Afterlife creatures. It’s an absolute nightmare to rely on low-toughness aggressive creatures to get the job done when everything of theirs makes more creatures after trading. Blade Juggler is a beating though and quite possibly the best common, so still don’t sleep on this guild.

It pains me to say this because I won the top 8 draft of the PTQ that qualified me for Mythic Championship II in London off the back of Azorius. However, I was the only Azorius drafter at the table and ended up with a busted deck, which is the nice thing about this set. Unlike Guilds of Ravnica, any guild here can shine assuming that it’s open enough. Azorius, as always, banks on good flying creatures and good tempo tools like Arrester’s Admonition to get the job done. Abusing Clear the Mind in Azorius also ended up doing work in the format, however that’s going to be nearly impossible to pull off in the Ravnica Mixer event.

Gates was the best archetype when it was open and properly pulled off. After all, Gatebreaker Ram, Archway Angel, and Gates Ablaze are all crazy good if you get enough gates. Despite this often being the best archetype in triple Ravnica Allegiance draft, I would steer clear of it here because you only get one pack of payoffs and because War of the Spark only has Gateway Plaza as the only gate in the set.

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War of the Spark

Color Rankings

1. Black
2. Blue
3. Red
4. Green
5. White

No guilds in War of the Spark, so there are 10 color combinations with Dimir, Izzet, Rakdos, and overall just Grixis being the best. Blue and Black have insanely good Amass spells like Toll of the Invasion and Callous Dismissal, while red has some of the best commons in the entire set: Spellgorger Weird and Jaya’s Greeting. Having busted Planeswalkers like Kaya, Bane of the Dead, Ashiok, Dream Render, Angrath, Captain of Chaos, and Vraska, Swarm’s Eminence in conjunction with amazing common removal is ultimately what makes black the best color in the set.

Selesnya and Simic are about counters and Proliferate, but I never really liked drafting these archetypes unless I picked up a bunch of late Bloom Hulks and Evolution Sages. White is far and away the worst color in this set because it’s an aggressive color in a format that is nearly impossible to be aggressive in. Trying Heroic nonsense is just not going to work when the other colors have such good removal and card advantage. This format is also crazy bomb heavy, so I suspect chaos will ensue when you’re Simic going into pack three and you open a God-Eternal Oketra or Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin and need to figure out how to splash them.

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What you should be doing

Now that I’ve broken down each individual set, let’s examine how they will mesh together. Right off the back, you need to know that there’s a good chance that you end each draft three or more colors. The abundance of fixing in the first two packs allows for this, and by being three colors you open yourself up to three full guilds while giving yourself the highest chance to take a powerful rare or planeswalker that you open because it’s in one of your colors.

Being Esper for example would work out nicely since you would get Dimir from the first pack, Orzhov and Azorius from the second, and still be able to take powerful Dimir, Orzhov, and Azorius cards in pack three. Keep in mind, this makes it way more difficult to cobble together a decent aggressive deck. Sure, Boros is solid in Guilds of Ravnica, but you’ll get little to no support in pack two, which means that you’ll either need to splash another color to get enough playables or play some really questionable cards, neither of which seem particularly great to me. The mana in limited is never going to be good enough to where you can play a three color aggro deck and consistently be able to curve out. That incentivizes you to look towards drafting the slower guilds because you should be expecting to splash.

• Prioritize gates and fixing heavily in the first two packs because there are almost none in the last. Not to mention that War of the Spark has the most powerful cards in it of the three sets, so you’ll want to use your picks on the powerful planeswalkers and efficient removal when that pack comes around.

• Simic or Orzhov are what I guess are going to be the best two color combinations in the block. Both of these guilds make good use of the second and third pack, while also having strong mono-colored options to get from the first pack. I particularly like Simic because you can make really good use of mediocre cards like Ironshell Beetle and Prey Upon, which work perfectly with the big Simic Adapt creatures. Simic Proliferate from War of the Spark also pairs nicely with what you’d be getting from Ravnica Allegiance. Not to mention that a lot of players are likely going to start in Izzet or Dimir, so by avoiding the powerful guilds in the first pack you’re more likely to get paid off later on!

• Aim to be a multi-colored midrange pile. The two color aggressive decks are just going to have a way too high fail rate.

• Go for shards that have guilds that pair well together. Abzan, Naya, and Bant strike me as the worst ones because they consist of the weakest guilds or guilds that don’t pair well together. Esper, Grixis, Temur, and Jeskai would be my guess for the best shards because they make great use of the guilds that are loaded with good interaction and creatures, while still be able to create some synergies between the guilds.

• Don’t be afraid to get a little crazy with some of the “AABB” costed spells. I wouldn’t go out of my way to play Truefire Captain or Sunder Shaman because they aren’t going to perform well at every stage of the late game. However, you better believe that I’m gonna go out of my way to play Rakdos Firewheeler, Crackling Drake, and Golgari Findbroker because those cards are powerful even if I’m not able to cast them until turn 8+. There comes a point where it’s not feasible to cast them though, so don’t throw a Basilica Bell-Haunt in your six island deck.

• Prioritize the lockets higher than you normally would. They’re not great, but they do go late and help facilitate splashing!

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What you shouldn’t be doing

• Starting the draft in Golgari or Selesnya. Not only are both of these guilds awful, but there’s no support for them in the next two packs. Even in the last pack; sure you have access to powerful multicolored payoffs like Leyline Prowler and Deathsprout, but everyone is going to be gunning for those cards anyway so it’s not like you’ll be able to wheel them and take advantage of being in Golgari. Pledge of Unity and Huatli’s Raptor are also great, but they really only shine if you’re only Selesnya. If you open a Trostani Discordant or Underrealm Lich, just do everything you can to splash them.

• Trying to go for payoffs that only exist in one pack. The gate synergies are great for example, but don’t expect to get the payoffs and enablers you need from only one pack.

• Passing busted cards. I know this goes without saying for most people, but this mixer format is going to be especially slow and awkward because the three sets being combined were not designed with the intention of being drafted together. Undergrowth and Amass, Convoke and Proliferate, etc don’t work well together despite being in the same colors! Games are going to go long and you’re often going to be able to have time to recover after a mana stumble. So do everything you can to squeeze as many bombs as possible into your deck!

• Playing Kasmina’s Transmutation. That card is way worse than it looks, so don’t get duped into playing it!

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End Step

Here’s hoping that these tips will give you a leg up on the combination as well as highlight what you should and shouldn’t be trying to pull off during the draft. I have incredibly fond memories of drafting various Ravnica blocks. Just a few months back I was drafting Return to Ravnica block with some friends and having a blast! You better believe that Bob and I faced during it and I won the third game at two life while he had an Annihilating Fire in hand but only one red source. Ahh, good times! Best of luck in the draft queues and hopefully you make some sweet Ravnica block memories for yourself too!

You may prefer to save up your Gold and Gems for the upcoming set, Innistrad: Crimson Vow. It’s coming to MTG Arena on November 11, and previews are ongoing. As always, we’ll be covering new cards as we go and review each one for limited! You can find all that all in one place and more, at our Innistrad: Crimson Vow hub:

Innistrad: Crimson Vow (VOW) Set Guide: Release Date, Spoilers, Guides, and More

Thanks for reading!