Here’s a hint: Not all of the decks in the Top 8 are the best ones. Often the players 6-0 their drafts and then scramble their way into the top 8 with a mediocre deck backed by a great player and some luck. Remember Jon Finkel’s result in Pro Tour SOI? No one else managed to do anything with that deck. Remember the Monoblack Devotion from a few years back? At the end of its run, it was having around 40% win percentage, but since so many people played it, someone always did well with it and it always seemed to be on the top. So, maybe you shouldn’t go with the “big” deck.

On the other hand, if you scour the lists, you’ll find hidden gems that can attack the metagame from a different angle. There just aren’t that many players playing them, so they don’t get the spotlight they might deserve. Maybe there are great decks that have fallen out of favor, but are still great (there was a player, who went 9-1 with pretty basic Wr Humans at the PT).

Here’s a few decks I liked:

Pedro Carvalho’s Izzet (9-1 points)

This might not be Ravnica, but I think the Izzet would approve of [scryfall]Thermo-Alchemist[/scryfall]’s work. I’m not a fan of Jace and I don’t really like playing [scryfall]Tormenting Voice[/scryfall] in a format with [scryfall]Spell Queller[/scryfall] (although it didn’t make as big a splash as one would have thought), but otherwise this is a nice burn deck with some nice blue additions.

[deck]
[creatures]
4 Thermo-Alchemist
3 Thing in the Ice
2 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
[/creatures]
[spells]
2 Tormenting Voice
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Collective Defiance
2 Dispel
2 Unsubstantiate
3 Fiery Impulse
2 Lightning Axe
4 Fiery Temper
4 Fevered Visions
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Wandering Fumarole
4 Shivan Reef
3 Highland Lake
9 Mountain
3 Island
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
[/lands]
[sideboard]
1 Dispel
1 Fiery Impulse
3 Goldnight Castigator
2 Weaver of Lightning
1 Rending Volley
2 Negate
1 Spell Shrivel
2 Bedlam Reveler
2 Nahiri’s Wrath
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Also note [scryfall]Nahiri’s Wrath[/scryfall], [scryfall]Goldnight Castigator[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Weaver of Lightning[/scryfall] in the sideboard.

Nick Ball’s Naya Legends Toolbox (7-2-1 points)

We saw [scryfall]Thalia’s Lieutenant[/scryfall] moonlight with the legendary angels in a white-black control deck, but here they have widened their field to bunch of other cards. Is Sigarda good here? I don’t know, but there must be situations where it is, so you have pretty good access to it.

[deck]
[planeswalkers]
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
[/planeswalkers]
[creatures]
4 Sylvan Advocate
3 Tireless Tracker
3 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 Thalia’s Lancers
1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
1 Bruna, the Fading Light
1 Archangel Avacyn
1 Sigarda, Heron’s Grace
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Dragonlord Atarka
1 Linvala, the Preserver
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Declaration in Stone
2 Tragic Arrogance
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Stasis Snare
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Evolving Wilds
5 Plains
5 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Cinder Glade
4 Canopy Vista
1 Fortified Village
2 Needle Spires
1 Battlefield Forge
[/lands]
[sideboard]
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
3 Rending Volley
2 Radiant Flames
2 Quarantine Field
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Surrak definitely isn’t getting enough love.

Yuki Matsumoto’s Four-Color Dredge (7-2-1)

Funnily enough, the deck can’t even cast the four main deck [scryfall]Kozilek’s Return[/scryfall]. The mana seems horrible to me, but apparently it sort of works, or maybe Matsumoto was the one player who managed to make it work.

[deck]
[creatures]
4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
3 Noose Constrictor
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
4 Haunted Dead
1 Stitchwing Skaab
4 Elder Deep-Fiend
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Gather the Pack
4 Grapple with the Past
4 Kozilek’s Return
[/spells]
[lands]
3 Forest
2 Lumbering Falls
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Yavimaya Coast
4 Llanowar Wastes
3 Sunken Hollow
[/lands]
[sideboard]
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
3 Distended Mindbender
2 Dragonlord Silumgar
2 Languish
3 Duress
1 Mountain
3 Ultimate Price
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Daniel Cathro’s Almost Monoblack Zombies (6-3-1)

Ondrej Strasky did better with a deck with more blue in it, but since I always enjoy monocolored deck, I decided to highlight this deck instead. I especially like the [scryfall]Sinister Concoction[/scryfall]s, which I haven’t had the balls to pull the trigger on my self yet.

[deck]
[planeswalkers]
3 Liliana, the Last Hope
[/planeswalkers]
[creatures]
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Relentless Dead
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Haunted Dead
4 Voldaren Pariah
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
[/creatures]
[spells]
1 Murderous Compulsion
1 Collective Brutality
3 Dark Salvation
4 Grasp of Darkness
2 Sinister Concoction
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Choked Estuary
2 Geier Reach Sanitarium
14 Swamp
[/lands]
[sideboard]
4 Negate
4 Languish
3 Fleshbag Marauder
4 Distended Mindbender
[/sideboard]
[/deck]