Drafting WUBRG (Ravnica Allegiance edition)

The cards in Ravnica Allegiance are almost too good.  Drafting five-color gates is an accepted strategy now, which means other people at the table might be going for it.  Still, I've managed to have some success.  As with Guilds of Ravnica, I expect you'll do better at a bigger table.  The real key, as always, is: Pick The Gates!  (Unless you draft, like, over 14 gates, you know you're going to run the gate, but you might not run the other card.)

Here are the immediate-pick cards you're looking for: (These are in order of how highly I value them.)

• Gate Colossus: Absolute bomb. 
• Gatebreaker Ram: Super good efficient creature for the deck.  This is a turn four 5/5 or 6/6.  In my last draft, this was my only green card.  No regrets.
• Gates Ablaze: Good early game if you can hold back, and great late game as a complete board wipe.
• Gateway Sneak: This is nearly as good as the second half of Guild Summit.  Get in there for value over and over again.  This card is so undervalued.  It wheels around the table all the time.  Still, take it early.  These may be the majority of the gate-relevant cards you see.
• Archway Angel: This actually will probably get taken before the sneak, so I would take this first against the sneak, even though I don't like it as much.  I've had opponents scoop to this card.
• Plaza of Harmony: I got to play with this once.  Solid land.
• Open the Gates: I've never bothered to draft this.

Other cards to go for: (This is less explicit than the last list.)

• Good rares.  People generally tend to lock in to one guild here, so other rares are going to show up in the second and third
• Removal.  There's lots of removal in this set.  Don't let it all go by.
• The split cards are real nice.
• High Alert.  Don't let someone else build around this card.  Also, there are a lot of non-Azorius cards that play well with this.  Bonus: people always forget about the third ability.
• Rakdos Trumpeter.  I keep being happy to see this one.  Good on offense and defense.

I have had one draft where I went 1-2, and one where I went 2-1, but the other four or five have been 3-0 wins.  (The 1-2 time was crazy, because I didn't get many gates-matters cards, but I did manage to grab both Tome and Glass of the Guildpact. After my first round win, I thought I had it in the bag.) 

I won the last two drafts with only three gate-relevant cards in my deck (2x Sneak and 1 Ablaze; and 1 Colossus, 1 Ram, and 1 Sneak).  That, combined with all the other great value cards that come around, make it happen.  Two drafts ago I was in a pod of only 6 people, and it still worked even though someone else at the table was going 5-color gates. 

Last night I won with 13 gates: the most ever, and I was only in a pod of 6.  I still wish I had had more gates.  (Note, the player on my left knew what I was going to be doing, so he hate drafted a Ram from me.  He was also the only player to win a game against me.)  Here's the list:

Gates:

• 1x Gateway Plaza
• 3x Azorius Guildgate
• 3x Gruul Guildgate
• 3x Orzhov Guildgate
• 3x Rakdos Guildgate

Other lands:

• 3x Island
• 1x Godless Shrine (Always nice to see valuable duals pop up.)

Gates-matters-cards:  (All of these showed up in pack 3.  That keeps happening to me.  Wait, wait, wait, oh great!)

• 1x Gate Colossus
• 1x Gatebreaker Ram
• 1x Gateway Sneak

 Everything else:

• Judith, the Scourge Diva
• Priest of Forgotten Gods
• Theater of Horrors
• Warrant/Warden
• 2x Carnival/Carnage
• Dovin's Acuity
• Forbidding Spirit
• Spire Mangler
• Arrester's Zeal
• Bladebrand (I've never cast this card.)
• 2x Bring to Trial
• Chillbringer
• Imperial Oligarch
• Knight of Sorrows
• Lawmage's Binding
• Noxious Groodion
• Rakdos Trumpeter
• Senate Courier

Overall, I feel like I was more successful with Guilds of Ravnica, mostly because I was never competing with other people trying to run this strategy.  In fact, one tactic I've considered is to tell the table that I'm going to run five colors to warn others against trying it.

My biggest question right now: are gates-matters cards going to be showing up in War of the Spark?  I hope I'll still be able to force five colors.