General [GRN] Guilds of Ravnica

safra

safra

No obvious dud mechanics, which is nice. RIP Cipher. Graveyard-scry is something I've thought about doing with customs for a while, and I think it'll play really well. Jump-start sounds positively bonkers. A fixed version of Epic?
 
Aston

Aston

I think Jump-Start is Retrace but with any card, and the card is exiled instead of discarded.

Actually on second reading I don't know whether the card from your hand or the card you're jump-starting is exiled. So it's either Retrace or Flashback but you have to discard a card. Neither sounds that insane.
 
ravnic

ravnic

No native speaker, but isn't surveilling when you spy on someone else, flavorwise? Dimir getting selfmill feels also odd, like theire mechanic is fueling Golgari's and Izzet's ... It is cool per se, but I feel like they never get my guild on point. Transmute still my favorite.

I'm pretty high on Jump-Start, hope it will be better executed than Replicate, which was handled too carefully.
Mentor seems worse and more boring than battalion, but let's see, it's okay I guess.
Not sure what to make of undergrowth. Is it just like Threshold with not certain amount to reach?

Convoke is great and we all know that.
 
sigh

sigh

Surveillance is generally constant observation of a place or person to gather information, which could include spying I suppose. It's a very cool mechanic, and I do think that it's a good flavor fit for Dimir, albeit a little different than we've seen before.
 
Rowan_CB

Rowan_CB

Excited about Surveil. Even though I hated almost everything about Ixalan block, Explore was an excellent mechanic, and Surveil seems to be along similar lines.

Jump-Start is a clunky keyword, but I'm intrigued by it for cube as it reads to me like a form of flashback that enables madness at the same time!

Mentor is another nice reminder that you can't take the boring out of Boros.

Would like a little more info about how Undergrowth is supposed to work.
 
genericco

genericco

Yeah, apparently the jump-started spell exiles itself. So flashback with a discard cost attached, not retrace that you can cast with non-lands.

Which seems sweet. Flashback is one of the best mechanics for supporting the various flavors of spells-matters that we enjoy. Any help in getting izzet to play nice with madness would be a bonus
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Wow, these actually all look interesting for the gydy formats I like. Surveil has a lot of potential: negative variance reduction that also feeds the yard. I wonder if we're going to get a blue cantrip that does that.

I wouldn't say excited until I see some cards, but I'll actually be paying attention.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Rowan_CB said:
Mentor is another nice reminder that you can't take the boring out of Boros.
Click to expand...
Yould rather Wizards stop pretending and just call the guild Boringos? :) I do like mentor though, and it could be potentially extra cool if they include some "when this creature mentors another creature, ..." effects.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
The more I think about it, the more excited I am about Surveil. I'm assuming it gets valued close to scry, so I'm hopeful there will be some interesting cards with the mechanic that aren't horribly overcosted. This should be a great tool to enable some shenanigans in cube!
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I like that the graveyard mechanics interact with each other in a smooth way. Should encourage drafting certain three-color pairs. Whenever I drafted RTR things felt really disconnected.
 
sigh

sigh

I like mentor more than most boros/RW mechanics. Fusion of "attacking" and +1/+1 themes could lead to some interesting stuff. Also gets some token theme in the mix. Echoes Jason's sentiment. Tokens can be a pretty natural bridge between the boros and selesnya mechanics, so I really do dig how even the non-GY mechanics play off of each other at least decently well
 
ravnic

ravnic

I think Battalion was/would have been a better payoff for tokens. Especially now that Selesnya seems to be more about the masses again, like it was in Ravnica 1 and should have been in Ravnica 2.

On a related note: If we get 0 Selesnya cards that produce Saprolings, I'll be mad. I'm most likely playing Dimir at prerelease anyway, but still, don't make me mad.
 
sigh

sigh

That is true, but Battalion is narrower and harder to balance, I think, and I can imagine in the next set we might get some more tie-in to +1/+1 themes. Or not, and they just did it for Laffs :rolleyes:.
 
ravnic

ravnic

But Simic is the counters guild. Bloodthirst and Scavenge made sense, cause they were half Simic colored. Boros isn't though ...
 
sigh

sigh

Rakdos used counters in the last Ravnica, and gruul in Rav 1. So it still stands that there is future potential for the +1/+1 portion of the mechanic meaning more once the other half of mechanics are revealed.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Oh true, I always forget about unleash. Compared to unleash, Mentor sounds as thrilling as freeclimbing on skyscrapers
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Unleash was barely even a mechanic. I think in practice I've put the counter on the card 90%+ of the time. Maybe that's a cube bias though.

Only this one ever gets put on blocking duty:
Image.ashx
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
The boros mechanic feels a bit strange to me flavorwise. It seems more like something you would expect from G/W (helping small creatures become big, like bolster), but I won't complain too much about attack triggers that can grow small creatures into the midgame. I feel though, that its only really going to shine on a couple 1-2cc beaters, and end up being a super marginal mechanic as far as cube is concerned.

I really hope we get some good convoke cards. It gives more meaning to go-wide board states in G/x based decks, and gives another cog for making token ramp a thing.
 
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