By now most of you have had the experience of drafting Ravnica some, either at the prerelease or from product friends have won at the prerelease. I'm sure this will generate quite a few flames from the readers, but based on my own experience and results (I say this without a doubt), A Blue/Black Mill Deck (when properly built) is the strongest archetype in the format. The combination of Black removal, Blue bounce and stall, and the assorted milling cards makes for a very, very strong deck. Additionally, the fact that the early buzz is that Blue is the weakest color in the format means you can often pick up the crucial Blue cards to the deck late in the pack. When drafting the U/B mill deck, you almost always want to start with the Black removal to keep your options open, then branch into the Blue mill effects if they're available. As nice as rare bombs are, this archetype is truly about the bread and butter commons and uncommons. Your general strategy will be to kill their problem creatures, muck up the board with large back-ends, and mill them to death.

When drafting this deck, always go for the removal first. Ribbons of Night will be your favorite removal. Kill a guy, gain 4 life, and draw a card all in one spell makes for an amazing swing. Of the remaining removal, I'd list Last Gasp first. It may not be able to deal with everything, but -3/-3 at instant speed for two mana is hard to beat. This gets followed up with (in no specific order) Disembowel, Brainspoil, and Keening Banshee, followed by Gaze of the Gorgon, then bringing up the rear, Darkblast, Stasis Cell and Clinging Darkness. Gaze of the Gorgon may stand out as a bit odd on that list, but this deck does a great deal of blocking and no one ever worries about losing a guy attacking into an 0/5 wall. Hex is the number one removal card you can hope for in this deck. It is of course rare, so won't show up often. With all your defensive creatures, your opponent must commit a lot to the board to beat you, and killing one of your guys with five of theirs is still 5-for-2 card advantage. Twisted Justice is noticeably left off the above list. When you are sitting behind your walls, your opponent will have some small guys on the table you are going to just ignore. A six-mana Edict which might draw you a card or two (or none if they have any token creatures) and ignores their large threat is not what this deck needs.

Assuming you have sufficient removal, this deck will not require very many creatures. I have gone 3-0 playing a deck with only nine creatures in it. The two most important creatures are Drift of Phantasms and Vedalken Entrancer. Drift, with it's five toughness and flying, will get in the way of just about every common creature in the set, short of a couple wurms. The transmute ability on Drift of Phantasms is not especially useful, but it is worth noting that both of the common Blue card drawing spells cost three mana. Entrancer has four toughness, allowing it to stall the ground effectively, and the one power will discourage attacks from early beaters like Centaur Safeguard or Nightwind Patrol. Its tap ability is, of course, your primary win condition. Two cards milled per turn, combined with one card drawn every turn, and any additional mill effects you may have, can reduce a forty-card deck to zero in relatively short order. With both of these being Blue, and neither of them being of much use for other strategies, you can often pick them up quite late. However, to pull this strategy off effectively, you will need at least two of each of them, so don't be afraid to take them early if necessary.

Filling out your creature base (hopefully you only need 5 to 7 more) Circu, Dimir Lobotomist and Szadek, Lord of Secrets are both nice fits, but both rare, so don't count on them. Szadek also does come with a hefty 7 mana price tag, and is close to useless outside of the mill strategy so don't pick it too highly since it may come back, and even so there's probably something better in the pack early. Belltower Sphinx is an absolute house in this kind of deck. Brainspoil, Disembowel, Faith's Feathers and Putrefy are about the only common or uncommon cards which will deal with it without some significant milling. And whereas an opponent will send a pair of 2/2s into your lone 0/5 wall, they can't do that when you have a 2/5 blocker. And even if they have a pair of 3/3s, they're still trading 3 damage for 3 milled cards. This doesn't seem like a great deal at first, but the numbers*** show it works out just fine for you.

For your other creatures, it's often nice to have a few creatures which can attack for the win should it be necessary, but still do well on defensive duty. The mighty (but rare) Cerulean Sphinx does quite well in this role. Often times he is a 6-mana 5/5 wall which discourages all but the largest of attackers, but he can enter the red zone if necessary. Dimir House Guard and Undercity Shade (yes, the five-mana 1/1) are far more readily available as common. Fear is going to spend another year as a very strong ability, and between the regeneration and the pumping, both creatures are quite resilient. Snapping Drake, while not exciting here, can also make the cut. It trades one-for-one with most of the White fliers and should you find yourself attacking, a three-power flier for four mana is nothing to laugh about.

Two other creatures worth mention are Lurking Informant and Thoughtpicker Witch. Neither is terribly exciting, but both can do a lot of work over the long game. Lurking Informant's one card milled per turn is the approximate equivalent of one damage per turn. And if the opponent finds himself in topdeck mode, the Informant can help make sure he finds nothing worthwhile to topdeck. If you find yourself digging for answers or looking for bombs, the Informant also helps you filter through cards faster. Thoughtpicker Witch sits on the table and annoys the opponent into submission. Every creature your opponent kills turns into one more card milled, and it effectively prevents your opponent from getting any card advantage from radiance spells like Cleansing Beam. Tidewater Minion, as a 4/4 for five mana makes for a solid blocker which can sometimes give you an extra Entrancer activation. Also, as a footnote, don't ignore the Dimir Guildmage. He's incredibly slow, and being forced to use his abilities only on your turn is a significant drawback, but if you find yourself in the very late game, he can generate a lot of card advantage, and he can always trade with random 2/2s early.

A few seemingly solid creatures are absent from the above list. First of all, Moroii. This guy is a beatstick, no question about it. A 4/4 flier for four mana with a marginal drawback is a house in most formats. However this isn't a deck where you are planning to do any amount of beating (I often win with U/B mill decks without ever attacking). And when you're playing defense, the one damage per turn can become very relevant. Also, there is Zephyr Spirit. This thing is a 0/6, it blocks just about everything. But, it also requires a five-mana investment every single turn. There's a reason why you'll find yourself getting them 15th pick. Roofstalker Wight is another solid beatdown creature, two power for two mana without drawbacks in Black. But, as with Moroii, beatdown is not your goal, so he probably sits on the sidelines.

The last part of the deck is your non-removal spells. This will generally consist of some card drawing, some bounce, and some countermagic. In card drawing you have Consult the Necrosages and Compulsive Research. Consult, while not the most exciting card, does get points for versatility. Rarely will you want to make your opponent discard unless they only have 2 cards in hand though. Compulsive Research is very good. Having to discard a land is usually hardly any drawback at all, so it's basically three mana for three cards. For bounce you get Clutch of the Undercity and Peel from Reality. Clutch is overcosted for what it does since the three life your opponent loses is rarely of any help, but is a significant drawback should you wish to bounce something of your own. Peel from Reality, on the other hand is quite stellar. For two mana, you can both save your own creature that is about to die and slow down your opponent by bouncing one of his. The two countermagic available are Convolute and Induce Paranoia. Convolute is good early, but close to dead late, for obvious reasons. Induce Paranoia usually gets overlooked (as it will by others at your draft table) since four-mana counters have never been too good in Limited. However, this is a very reactive deck, and the bonus of milling and countering is not to be underestimated.

There are a few other spells which don't fall into the above categories but are obvious inclusions. Glimpse the Unthinkable and Psychic Drain are both very solid. They equate to "RR: Deal 10 damage to opponent" and "XRW: Deal X to opponent, gain X life." Dream Leash is a Control Magic, but can also steal an artifact, enchantment, or even land as necessary. There are also some other cards which, while they don't fit the milling theme, can win games all by themselves due to sheer power level. Even though they're not mentioned here, they should still be taken, since in the end it doesn't matter how you win, simply if you win.

Here is an example of a U/B mill deck I drafted. I went 3-0 with it without losing a single game.

Maindeck
1 Belltower Sphinx
1 Compulsive Research
1 Necromantic Thirst
1 Convolute
1 Vedalken Dismisser
1 Gaze of the Gorgon
1 Lurking Informant
1 Peel from Reality
1 Consult the Necrosages
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Brainspoil
1 Stasis Cell
1 Last Gasp
1 Induce Paranoia
2 Disembowel
3 Vedalken Entrancer
1 Snapping Drake
1 Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
2 Drift of Phantasms
1 Undercity Shade

2 Dimir Aqueduct
7 Island
7 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Rolling Spoil
1 Elvish Skysweeper
1 Rally the Righteous
1 Farseek
1 Golgari Rotwurm
1 Flash Conscription
1 Selesnya Evangel
1 Convolute
1 Vedalken Dismisser
1 Zephyr Spirit
1 Reroute
1 Grayscaled Gharial
1 Wizened Snitches
2 Drake Familiar
2 Dizzy Spell
1 Sundering Vitae

*** Opponent's deck has 40 cards in it. 7 card opening hand takes it down to 33. The average game will usually go beyond 10 turns in this format, but for argument's sake, we can assume just 10 turns. If the opponent plays first, that means 9 cards drawn in those 10 turns. This takes them down to 24 cards. So, conservatively speaking, you need to mill 24 cards from their deck to win (not counting any card drawing or dredging they may do). When you consider there are very few effects in the format to counter milling vs. many to counter damaging a player (blocking, life gain, etc.), a deck designed to mill really doesn't have too accomplish anything more than a deck designed to deal 20 damage for the win, so a 1 damage vs. 1 card milled is a pretty close comparison.

A Little Bonus On Mana Bases
One of the biggest differences between Ravnica and blocks before it will be in the mana base. We have hybrid cards, gold cards, guild lands, dual lands (rare, but still show up on occasion), and Signets. All of this pushes us towards two-color combinations along the guild lines, but also facilitates easy splashing of a third (or sometimes fourth) color. Below is the cardpool a friend drafted recently. He basically drafted Green and White. Look through the cardpool below and see how you would've built the deck. Do you play straight Green/White? Do you splash Red, or Black, or both?

Green
2 Civic Wayfinder
1 Siege Wurm
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Farseek
1 Elvish Skysweeper
1 Greater Mossdog
1 Bramble Elemental

White
3 Faith's Fetters
1 Suppression Field
1 Gate Hound
1 Screeching Griffin

Green/White Hybrids
3 Seeds of Strength
1 Watchwolf
1 Selesnya Guildmage
1 Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi
1 Centaur Safeguard

Black
1 Infectious Host
1 Dimir House Guard

Red
2 Galvanic Arc

Blue
1 Terraformer
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mark of Eviction
1 Telling Time

Other Gold
1 Golgari Rotwurm
3 Thundersong Trumpeter
1 Rally the Righteous
1 Woodwraith Strangler
3 Perplex

Artifact
3 Selesnya Signet

Land
2 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
1 Selesnya Sanctuary

Now, having built the deck, the most important question: How many lands do you play?

Did you say 18 or 17? If so, you have some adjustments to make. 18 and 17 land decks are the norm in Kamigawa Block and Triple 9th Edition drafts. This however is an entirely different format, and even 17 lands is simply too much. Some of you hopefully said the answer was 16. If so, you're at least thinking along the right lines. Starting with the "normal" 17 for a draft deck, and then cutting to 16 because of Signets and Green mana acceleration. This is starting along the right path, but still coming up too short. As shocking as it might sound, we extensively debated whether the four-color deck should run 15 lands, or 14 lands! Yes, this deck could effectively run off of just 14 lands. Let's look at why. We have 4 Green mana accelerators/searchers (Elves of Deep Shadow, Farseek, 2 Civic Wayfinders), 3 Signets, and 3 guild lands. Our mana curve is relatively low, topping out at five with Bramble Elemental, Golgari Rotwurm, and Seige Wurm (sometimes costs less, but rarely more than 5 mana). Farseek and Civic Wayfinders allow us to access our red or black mana as needed, with elves of deep shadow and 2 B/G guildlands to assist with finding black. 3 Signets and 3 guild lands which all produce Green ensures that we'll have easy access to the Green mana early in the game necessary to get the deck going.

Last, but certainly not least, let's take a closer look at those guild lands. While of little, if any, use for Constructed, these commons will be a major driving force in Limited for the next year. The obvious drawbacks of these lands are that they come into play tapped, and that you must bounce another land to play them. Sure, an opening hand containing 2 guildlands with no other lands will always be an automatic mulligan, and lands coming into play tapped do slow development (though rarely enough to be significant in Limited), but these drawbacks are quite minimal compared to the advantages. The easiest advantage to see is that they tap for two colors of mana, allowing you access to either both your main colors, or a main color and a splash all from a single land. Also, the slightly more subtle advantage is in allowing you to hit the same number of land drops with fewer lands. An opening hand with two basic lands guarantees you get to hit your first two land drops. An opening hand with a basic land and a guild land guarantees your first three land drops.

All of this adds up to a significantly lower land count. While having to spend early turns playing Signets or lands which come into play tapped may slightly slow board development, the fact that you're getting the same amount of mana out of fewer lands means that in the mid- to late-game, your deck will draw more business spells and less dead land draws. If you're in the mindset that Limited decks run 17 lands, that mindset will need to change. Limited with Ravnica will feature a lower land count, and those who can't adjust to this will be swept to the loser's brackets by those who can.

Aaron Cutler
aaroncut@msn.com
Clariax on EfNet