Magic: The Gathering
Magical Thinking: Guildpact
Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look back at the cards and art of Magic: the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning. And today we are looking at the second set of the Ravnica block, February 2006’s Guildpact.
Our story continues in Ravnica as we are introduced to three more of the city plane’s ten guilds. The Red/Green Gruul Clans were once the protectors of Ravnica’s wilds. Except there are no wilds anymore and they’re kind of peeved about it, so they’re gonna tear down the entire system, quite literally.
Next we have the Orzhov Syndicate, the White/Black guild, which is equal parts a church, a crime syndicate, and a bank, and whose MO is to trap people into eternal debt and then enslave their souls after death to work off what they owe. I would say this is the most blatant social commentary Wizards has ever done in Magic, but eventually we’re gonna meet a faction of Conquistadors who are literal vampires (And they’re also White/Black. Go figure).
Last but not least we have the Izzet League, the Blue/Red guild, and explorers of SCIENCE!!! And it’s the good-fun kind of science since it’s about blowing stuff up and shooting lightning.
This set also introduces the Nephilim, the old gods of Ravnica who have returned to destroy everything. Will they succeed? Spoiler warning, no they will not. But let’s get on with the show.
Yeah, that’s White, always starting us off strong. Actually I kid, but I always liked the idea of weaponized boredom. Also these guys I think are Azorious, not Orzhov. We won’t be meeting the Azorious Senate till next expansion.
Now here we have an Orzhov card, and an instance of the Orzhov keyword: Haunt. When a haunt card dies, it haunts a target creature, usually doing something when that creature dies. A pretty interesting and flavorful keyword.
However apparently Magic Big Wig Mark Rosewater did not agree. He considered the mechanic not fit for purpose and has no intentions of bringing it back. So for those keeping score of the five guilds, we’ve seen so far only one has had a mechanic balanced enough to bring back. Let’s see how the rest fare.
WOW, THIS GOT DARK IN A HURRY. I haven’t seen a card this dark since, well, The Dark, and that set had a disemboweled Goblin (RIP Gobby). Not to mince words, this is a picture of what looks like a little girl who was hanged and now her ghost haunts the tree (Also we’ll get introduced to the Rakdos next week).
Man, it’s a good thing Ravnica is the dual color block, right? I’d hate to be the stubborn person who insists on playing a Mono colored deck and keeps losing because they keep running into these guys.
Remember, an elephant never forgets…how much money you owe him. Luckily he’s pretty easy to bribe because he works for peanuts.
PS: Wizards, if you need someone to help with the next Un-set, I’m available. Call me.
Need to get that big Blue creature out of your hand but you only have four mana? Have I got a creature for you!
Gigadrowse sounds like a type of cough syrup you can’t legally buy because it has bath salts in it or something. Also, behold the Izzet Leagues keyword, replicate. It’s basically a more sane and balanced version of Storm, and although it hasn’t really been used beyond this, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it as an ability.
I had no idea leylines got their start here. I know about them because there was a cycle of them in core 2020 and I had a lot of fun with some of them. This is neat because it basically forces your opponent to be a singleton deck. I can imagine it can render a lot of strategies useless. Of course the key is getting it into your opening hand to maximize use.
Now I got this idea for a story where the adventurers go to a seer to cast the runes and it turns out they’re just playing Boggle.
I think this can be potentially even stronger than Storm. With enough mana you can just refill your hand with this thing and there’s no way your opponent can stop them all.
Caustic Rain, the less popular cousin to Chocolate Rain. Nobody’s singing a song about Caustic Rain, I can promise you that.
Pretty sure this is from a screen testing of the Snyder cut. Audience did not react well to it.
This was one of the leylines that was in the core 2020 set. And it’s one I both played with and had played against me. A very fun card that can shut down some decks hard.
Remember to have the necromancer stamp your hand when you hand them the ticket so you can get back into the crypt later.
Dammit I used my Shrek joke on an Ogre last week. Apparently Ogres are just like that.
And now we come to Red and the Gruul Clans, and their mechanic bloodthirst. AKA the mechanic you will always mess up because you instinctively want to play cards before your attack phase. In any case this is only a three on the Storm Scale, and showed up in Magic 2012, so it’s actually a rather successful mechanic. They are definitely improving with these keywords.
Okay I guess I take back what I said earlier. It’s not all Ogres (Become part of the conversation at #NotAllOgres, or don’t. I don’t really use twitter).
Alright, terrible joke incoming. Ready? I heard street violence was increasing BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS. *Tuba sound*
Oof. Someone get that guy an aspirin. Also, they kind of look like a toy from an 80’s cartoon. I could see He-Man having one of these.
Hey, sometimes a dryad wants the finer things in life: Jewelry, sparkling bottled water, and those little red cedar chips that smell nice and keep parasites away.
Yep, and it wouldn’t be Magic: the Gathering without the beast creature type being used for weird generic monsters. You always love to see it.
The Gruul sound simply smashing!
Okay, that was terrible even by my standards. I apologize. We will try and do better with the jokes in the future (but probably not though).
I really like the flavor of this one, since if gives one of your creatures a big Green epic mount, but you can also later dismount it to create a giant wurm.
And here is the leader of the Gruul Clans (At least at this point in the story). Borborygmos (And don’t expect me to spell that name ever again) is large and in charge, and he gets bigger the more he hits things, and makes sure all his friends get big too. Eventually he loses the Gruul Clans to a skinny little shit who bows immediately to a giant genocidal dragon. Like ya do.
Ah, the Nephilim. Just like with the Kamigawa double faced cards, I put the Nephilim in the pile of “Ideas that were close but not quite there”. I mean these guys look really cool, and are meant to be these big monstrous Gods, but the cards fall flat. First of all they are not legendaries when they really should be. Second they are all rather weak, with the biggest ones clocking in at a measly 3/3. Also they are four colors, which means it’s hard to work them into a deck since most people don’t play four colors (And I don’t see anyone building a deck around these things). Still, a good effort, especially on the art, and I think we see the beginning of a long road that will eventually end with the Eldrazi from these guys.
And here we have the rulers of the Orzhov Syndicate. A collection of ghostly bankers and autocrats obsessed with money and willing to do anything to get it. These guys may be the biggest villain Magic ever made.
Imagine taking a group of guys like Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch, and so forth, and then saying “These guys are now immortal ghosts. You can’t hurt them, and they will never go away. Ever. They are going to stay in power forever and keep making people’s lives miserable for the sake of money, which they are just going to eternally hoard because they can’t spend it on anything because, you know, ghosts.”
Like yeah, if you are not a fan of late stage capitalism, you may have a problem with these guys. Unfortunately their eventual comeuppance wont be coming for a while, but I’ll have things to say about it when they do eventually have to pay the piper.
And here we have the leader of the Izzet League, a super genius Dragon with an ego to match his IQ. Imagine if Tony Stark was a dragon, and ate his interns.
These little guys were reprinted in the recent Ravnica block so I actually played with them a little bit. They’re pretty adorable little guys, aren’t they?
I feel like at seven mana this is just an excuse to shock your opponent down with eight mana the next turn.
Once again we see the early embers of what would eventually become vehicles in a later set. Also, I think they’re plowing a lot more than snow with this bad boy. The thing about the Gruul Plow is even if they clear the road, there still won’t be any school because they plowed into the school. And also you are dead.
And I think we’re done here. Sorry if this is a bit shorter than usual but I’m dead tired from work. In any case join us next time for the final expansion of the Ravnica block: Dissension. See you then, and remember to Stay Magical.
