In Return to Ravnica we see the concept of the guilds continue. Each guild will have a spanking new keyword specific to them and none of the originals will be present. Some leaders from the previous set are the same, but all leaders will have a brand new mythic card.

Jace with Niv-Mizzet; both of which are getting new cards in Return to Ravnica

As far as guilds per set, Return to Ravnica will have five major guilds represented while the second in the set. This is the first deviation from the original set up of Ravnica, which had four in the first set, three in the second set, as well as three in the last set. Whether the specific card archetypes per guild will stay is unknown.

The Return to Ravnica Guilds:

Azorius /

Izzet /

Rakdos /

Golgari /

Selesnya /

The second set, named Gatecrash, will have the next five guilds.

Orzhov /

Dimir /

Gruul /

Boros /

Simic /

The selection of the guild colors was well thought out, with an even split of the five colors. This should make for a much easier draft, with many more options to build a deck off of. Return to Ravnica will be drafted with three booster packs of itself as per normal in the first set of a block. Then, Gatecrash will continue on the same trend, having five guilds that weren’t in the previous block and being drafted with three boosters by itself. Finally, the final set codenamed “Sinker” will shake things up having all ten guilds together in the set, and drafting a pack of Sinker first, then Guildpack, then Return to Ravnica. These should make drafts particularly entertaining to watch and see how players will build their decks.

Gideon with the new Boros Leader

So here’s the part that gets money out of the pocket, how prereleases will work.  Read more [+]

Five years after the release of Invasion, the Ravnica block appeared in 2005 to revive the multicolor cards in Standard. The popularity of the multicolor system, the hybrid cards and the unique guild dynamic, quickly made it a popular set for players at the time. Its popularity still lives on in Modern, making the announcement of the newest block “Return to Ravnica” an exciting development for players old and new.

Players have already begun to speculate on which cards will be returning in the new block, but for those that aren’t familiar with the original block, here’s what it had to offer. Following the popularity of Invasion, Bill Rose (the VP of R&D was at the head designer) wanted to revisit the multicolor mechanics at a later date. Five years later, the task fell to Bill’s replacement, Mark Rosewater.

Mark and his team faced the daunting task of making a new multicolor block that would stand apart from Invasion rather than feeling like a sequel. Their solution was the addition of guilds. In this plane of the multiverse Ravnica is a massive city that spans an entire planet. In order to run a city of that size, most of the power is controlled by the ten guilds. In order to make a game represent this, many of the cards “belong” to a specific guild. Each of the guilds is represented by two of the five standard colors, making the majority of the cards limited to certain guilds while in Invasion you saw friendly colors creating harmony and enemy colors being used for specific effect.

In order to make the guild concept work smoothly, each guild had certain types of cards that act as members of the guild.

Leader – the mana cost is two of each of the guild colors.

Champion – the mana cost is one of each color

Signet – a common artifact that tap for both of the guild colors at the same time

“Bounce” Land (aka Karoos) – returns a land to the players hand as it enters the battlefield but produces both mana of the guild colors at the same time

Guildhome Land – produces colorless mana but has an added ability that will benefit the guild

“Shock” Land – a dual land that comes into play tapped unless you lose 2 life, taps for a mana of either color and has the land subtypes of those mana

Guild Affiliated Artifact

Three Hybrid Mana Cards, one per rarity with the uncommon always as a “guild mage”

The other aspect involved in the guild architecture is private keywords or ability words, like “Dredge”. Each guild had a specific keyword it used. This continued the theme of limited abilities based on guild and changed up the game.

Now that the past of Ravnica has been discussed the next post will talk about the future with Return to Ravnica.