General [GRN] Guilds of Ravnica

TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Peter LaCara said:
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EDIT -
I just read the flavor text. RIP Isperia.
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Ok so Kind of off topic, but I read MaRo's Article today, and he said something I found very, very interesting.

Mark Rosewater said:
The Creative team then split the guilds in half. Five would fall under Bolas's influence, and five would not. (Although, I should point out that each guild has elements pulling in both directions.) The five guilds that fell to Bolas would each have a planeswalker, beholden to Bolas, who would lead the guild. The creative team spent a great deal of time picking which five would fall to Bolas. Their choices were swayed a lot by the story that they wanted to tell.
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So, if I'm interpreting this correctly, then half of the guilds will fight for bolas and half will fight against. Providing that the guild war is color-balanced, then we know which guilds in the next set will be fighting for bolas:

Orzhov
Azorius
Gruul

This may seem like a weird mix, but stop and think about it for a second.
-The Orzhov like money and their leadership is already made of ghosts. Why wouldn't they side with bolas?
-Vraska appears to have just killed Ispera, so Bolas can install a planeswalker pawn.
-Gruul likes to say "Crush them", "We Eat", and, in general, just watch civilization crumble around them. Bolas could help them with all three of those things.

So, then, what about the Izzet, Golgari, and the guilds that didn't join bolas?
Izzet- Even though Niv-Mizzet will probably fight against Bolas, he's away with a research project right now, so Ral is leading the guild. Ral is a pawn of Bolas, so it's obvious they would join him.
Golgari- If you read the Ixalan story the reason they join bolas is pretty self-explanatory.
Dimir- The Dimir want to be the ones pulling the strings. Bolas also wants to pull the strings. String-pullers don't get along too well.
Simic- Although it's purpose has been twisted, the Simic guild originally was formed as a health department of sorts. Bolas is known to be very un-healthy.
Boros and Sylesnya- they're goody-two-shoes guilds without any strings to be pulled at this time. Killing Trostani or Aurelia probably wouldn't have benefited bolas in any way, and as such are not being manipulated.
Rakdos- These idiots are too crazy to be controlled, even if they do like to watch the world burn.

This "color-balanced-war" thing would make sense for draft in the spring set. Since all 10 guilds will be represented flavorfully (just not fleshed out), it would make sense that draft would represent the war. I think the evidence we have supports this theory. If you look at the cover of the "Ravnica" novel, you can clearly see what appears to be a new U/W PW and Kaya, Ghost Assasin
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I think these guys are going to be taking over the Azorius and Orzhov guilds respectively. It especially makes sense if Kaya is in charge of the Orzhov since she is a known Ghost-Slayer and probably killed the Obzedat.

Just some random (time wasting) musings on my part.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
izonithousandeyed.jpg

Oooooo

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Interesting. I dunno if i've ever cared about creatureball, but convoke is a big game. Imagine regrowing this!

dimirinformant.jpg

This is a real good body for this effect!

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I'm not sure if I need either of these yet but I'm excited about both. A sweeper and 2cc Soul Salvage is solid, and the red white one has a good floor attached to a situationally powerful card. These are really nice effects to be tied to eachother.
 
Velrun

Velrun

TrainmasterGT said:
Simic - Although it's purpose has been twisted, the Simic guild originally was formed as a health department of sorts. Bolas is known to be very un-healthy.
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“You have a low level of potassium. Eat those bananas, drink that apple juice Mr. Bolas!
- Kind regards, your doctor Velrun”
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
TrainmasterGT said:
Ok so Kind of off topic, but I read MaRo's Article today, and he said something I found very, very interesting.
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I would think the Simic are in league with Bolas, because they like manipulating things as well, and he lets them :)

Also, you would immediately assume Dimir is under Bolas's sway, since either's schtick is secrecy and conspiracy, plus Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is fricking {U/B}! But then there's this flavor text...

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Which is pretty awesome, because that pretty much proves Ravnica's professional schemers are up against the multiverse's ultimate schemer. FIGHT!
 
sigh

sigh

They seem to be playing out a Bolas arc. Wondering if this is actually the climactic block of that arc?

Izoni is really tempting as a replacement for the Gitrog Monster tbh... I like that it isn't a great body, so it incentivizes building a deck for it rather than just jamming it into any old deck that can run it. Slightly trickier casting cost also helps with this.

Edit: honestly, the trouble I've been having with WotC is that their Golgari cards (two so far just this set!) are just slightly too good/perfect for Golgari... my archetype doesn't need the help! But they are so cool! :confused:
 
Aston

Aston

The MaRo article today says that this is the end of the Bolas arc. They wanted a popular place to set it so that players were invested in the story, but also didn't want to go to Ravnica without having guild sets, so that's why we've got three sets in a row: half the guilds, the other half, then the Bolas arc finale without specific guilds.
 
genericco

genericco

GalacticTraveler12 said:
Yeah that looks like evidence that WOTC is upping common complexity a bit; the State of Design article earlier in the thread (I think?) mentioned that they regretted the extreme simplicity of Ixalan and wanted to swing it back a bit. Hopefully this is the first set coming out of the tubes with more complex design. I'm hoping for not only neat cube cards (especially more complex yet low-powered commons/uncommons) but some goodies for Pauper as well!
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This seems to vary a bunch from set to set, possibly based on who's responsible for the set. Dominaria broke a lot of their own rules when it comes to complexity on uncommons.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Dear lord, why?

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It's not even legendary? How is that third ability a serious enough drawback that you can make it a 6/6 for four mana?!

I know which green four drop I like better...

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Heymaker

Heymaker

inscho said:
I think the 2nd ability is the bigger drawback...I'm into it. Pretty fun design.
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I'm into this as well. I feel this will play far more interesting than it looks at first glance. The mind games around "bringing down the barrier" on this guy, on both sides of the table, is where I expect to hear some interesting stories.

IMO, Hexproof should have always worked something like this, where targeting is possible but requires something additional. I know we've seen this type of effect typically in blue, but I hope to see it used more as a replacement for strict hexproof abilities.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Onderzeeboot said:
"severe"

You've got a 6/6 hexproof on the board for {2}{G}{G}...
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You are beating around the bush.

You announced the card with a “How is that third ability serious enough drawback to that you can make it 6/6 for four mana”

And you got your answer. It is not enough drawback but luckily it has other drawbacks.

And now you are just ignoring the discussion by stating that the card is good.

I think we can all agree that the card looks pushed on first sight.

And I also agree that I like the mini-games it will bring. I also really like it when hexproof can be paid to ignore like Frost Titan.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I would like it a lot better with shroud as well, though I appreciate that the lower shields ability adds some much needed interactivity to the hexproof mechanic.

I think in terms of flavor, shroud is also better here than hexproof. The creature is supposed to be really anti-magic, you would think it would be allergic to being enchanted!
 
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