Magic: The Gathering
Magical Thinking: Gatecrash
Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look back at the cards and art of Magic: the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning, through the eyes of a casual fan. This week we continue our look at the Return to Ravnica block with the second set of the block: February 2013’s Gatecrash.
We continue our return tour with Blue planeswalker Jace Beleren exploring more of the secrets of Ravnica. Now the race is on to find a magical font of power by tracing the ley lines of Ravnica through the guildgates.
Speaking of guilds, this set looks at the five remaining guilds of Ravnica. Coming up to bat this week are:
- House Dimir: The Blue/Black guild, the spymasters of Ravnica. They know your secrets. And they will make sure you never know theirs. In fact, they’re gonna wipe your memory so you won’t know jack squat when they are done.
- The Gruul Clans: The Red/Green guild, a group of displaced tribes who banded together out of their mutual desire to tear down the system that stabbed them in the back. They aren’t here for a long time, just a good time. And by “good time” I mean “burning everything to the ground”.
- The Orzhov Syndicate: The White/Black guild, equal parts church, bank, and crime family. The Syndicate exists to make money, and anyone who owes them money when they die will be enslaved to work off their debt as spirits. In addition, their leaders are a council of ghost bankers who exist to make money and can never die. I think Peter Thiel has been beta testing that in the real world.
- The Boros Legion: The White/Red guild, a military force led by an angel who act as Ravnica’s police force. And if you thought I was hard on the Azorius Senate last week, WOAH BOY.
- And last but not least the Simic Combine. The Blue/Green faction, they are all about self improvement, and I’m not talking about self care and working out. No, I mean as in growing crab claws and gills. They are the biologists and geneticists of Ravnica. They are also in charge of health care on Ravnica apparently, which should worry everyone involved.
Now that we are reacquainted with the guilds, let’s jump into the cards. And I can’t even pretend to give the Boros a chance because White is up first and we all know what’s coming.
The second card of the set. Second. CARD. And already we find out the Boros have their own version of Guantanamo Bay. Like, what even?
And in case you thought the Orzhov was any better. By the way, say hello to Extort, the Orzhov keyword this set, which lets you pay extra on spells to add a little life drain to them. Extort is a 6 on the Storm Ccale, so I’m not sure if we will ever see it again.
Here we have the Boros keyword: Battalion. Basically Boros cares about weenies (huge swarms of tiny creatures). So when a creature with Battalion attacks with their buddies, it does something. In this case making all your creatures indestructible. Now your puny minions can attack with impunity. Eh? See what I did there?
Here’s our favorite slab of muscle Gideon, who is once again a planeswalker who leads from the front. He’s not afraid to step into the melee and get his hands dirty, and when the chips are down he just powers up more. He’s basically the planeswalker version of Rocky Balboa.
Knight of Obligation, when you need to rescue a princess from a tower, and also balance your checkbook because your financial situation has really gotten out of hand.
I really like the flavor here. Just like in real life, the more powerful the creature killed, the more the cops actually care about solving it. Both flavorful and depressing.
Man, I haven’t seen a guy get messed up that bad since the last time we dropped in on Aladdin’s Ring.
Finally, a Magic card for me! Well, not really. I’m not agoraphobic. I’m just an introvert, but I to would like to sit in my room and wait for all this craziness to blow over. Sadly it’s not in the cards (ha).
You can always count on the Simic to provide us with some super weird looking creatures.
Here we have the Dimir keyword: Cipher. You give this spell to a creature as an ability to go off when they deal combat damage. It’s kind of a high risk, high reward deal. Also it’s Storm Scale 9, so don’t expect to see it ever again after this block.
I really love the idea of faeries adapted to city life. Faeries in glens and meadows and forests are great, but I like me some dirty urban faeries living in bird feeders or doll houses.
I really like vedalken, but you knew that.
Evolve is the new Simic mechanic. Whenever you summon a creature bigger than a creature with evolve, that creature goes “Oh crap, I need to step up my game” and they grow slightly. This guy takes it a step further by using those counters to steal your opponent’s creatures. That’s some creative use of counters.
And here it is, the beginning of a legend of Fblthp. Fblthp is a homunculi with the worst sense of direction ever, who would become a legend in his own time. This little guy is going places (just don’t ask him which places cause he has no idea).
The dangers of a zombie flash mob. Or are all zombie hordes a flash mob? Hmm, what even is a flash mob? I don’t know, BUT WE KEEP FIGHTING, TO FIND THAT ANSWER.
You know, I changed my mind, I do NOT want to go to a Rakdos McDonalds. Also, this card implies that you are forcing your opponent to eat one of their creatures. Which is…yeah.
This set also has a theme around the gate cards, which you may recall are the dual-colored lands that come in tapped. I’ve had experience with these kind of decks in the past.
Given the current situation, I’m not gonna make a joke on this one. GET VACCINATED PEOPLE. I’M SERIOUS.
I got to play around with this card on Arena, both in Jumpstart and with a historic rat deck. It was fun. Also, obligatory Shrek joke.
Hey, it’s Hedorah! You know, they should have reprinted this for Ikoria and gave it alt art of Hedorah with the other Godzilla cards. Let’s be real, it would not have been out of place.
Law and Order: All-Flesh-Must-be-Eaten Unit.
Yikes! I guess this is what Baron Harkonen got up to during his days as a circus performer. Honestly, I kind of prefer this art to the angry angel we usually see on this card.
I like the flavor here. It’s like your creatures are causing collateral damage by attacking, and the fire continues to spread and consume everything. WE DON’T NEED NO WATER, LET THE MOTHER BURN!
Wait, I thought Niv Mizzet was the only dragon left in Ravnica. Did I miss something? Also, I like the flavor here where this dragon makes you hoard treasures in order to win. That is some strong dragon energy right there.
Okay, I’ve been kind of hard on the Boros, but this right here? Thumbs freaking up. It’s cops vs. capitalism and whoever wins, we also win. Let them fight.
And last but not least we have the Gruul mechanic. Bloodrush lets you discard the creature and add its stats to one of your attacking creatures. Why summon a creature and wait to use them when you can cut out the middle man and just hit them with the creature using another creature. Beat a guy with another guy! That’s the Gruul way.
At least they don’t have to deal with racist relatives ruining Thanksgiving.
Not much to say here except I love it when guys use huge balls and chains as weapons. It’s such a great aesthetic.
Another thing I love about Simic creatures: Seeing how many creature types we can shove on a creature. I imagine eventually we will get Simic creatures with changeling.
Remember how I said I was iffy on the Simic as your health care providers? Yeah…
Well good for you buddy.
Yeah, pretty much: If you just clone your best worker you don’t have to pay them. Orzhov are just the worst, and I say that in a setting with the Azorius and the Boros.
And she’s gonna follow those roads all the way to CENTAURWORLD.
Yeah, I binged it on Netflix. What of it?
Also there was a cycle of these guys this set: The Primordials. They’re big and bad and do awesome stuff.
Hey, and if they ever fight the Golgari, it would be…PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES.
I’LL BE HERE ALL WEEK FOLKS, BECAUSE I CAN’T FIND THE EXITS. SEND HELP.
Here we have the leader of the Boros, Aurelia. She’s so hot-blooded she lets you attack twice. Still, I think I prefer Avacyn.
I watched a video about some of the most controversial rulings in Magic tournaments. Apparently this big guy was quite the powerful card back in the day, and a cornerstone of many winning decks. Good for you, Borborygmos. I hope you run the Gruul clans forever and don’t get replaced by some smug wanna-be punk.
Aw, they just want a hug.
The one thing I love more than mill are cards which let mill win in ways other than just destroying an opponent’s deck, like creating a huge minion to crush them with that gets bigger based on the cards in their graveyard.
Oh hey, it’s this little shit. I mean, if not for Sarkhan this would be my most hated planeswalker, for reasons that we will get into once we get to War of the Spark. Domri is a little squirt who joined the Gruul clans, and had his spark ignited when he was buried alive as part of their initiation. Personally I think he should have stayed buried.
“I predict…I will catch a fish THIS BIG.”
Seems like this would be a good card to punish players who run a lot of high Mana stuff.
Eh, I expect my Simic characters to have more in the way of tentacles and such. I mean, this is just boring. Come on, step it up lady.
The Gruul version of Harvest Moon makes Call of Duty look like Minesweeper.
I love how the Gruul charm is deliberately forged into a weapon. The Gruul are becoming one of my favorite guilds. Of course I love all the guilds (even the ones I hate) but Gruul are standing out.
And here we have everyone’s favorite guy of a thousand faces, Lazav. I haven’t seen him since…actually all things considered you could see him every day and not know it. It’s why he made it and Volrath didn’t. Lazav laughs at Volrath’s weak shapeshifter game.
Yeah, that’s pretty much “Capitalism: the Card”, isn’t it?
Speaking of, it’s these assholes. Don’t worry, next time we get to Ravnica they’ll be getting there’s, just you wait and see. I can’t wait.
Here we have the Simic leader… I think. Not gonna lie I don’t really know that much about Zegana compared to the others. She’s really cool looking though.
Seriously, why would you ever go to the Orzhov for confession? Why is that even a thing in Ravnica? I don’t think the Orzhov are the Catholic church. No no, nothing about this adds up at all.
This is what I want to see from my Simic mutants. The weirder the better.
“Okay, how do we improve Ball Lightning?”
“Um…Stick it in armor?”
“…You. Keep talking.”
Whatever works, right?
This is the opposite of urban decay, or maybe urban decay in fast forward. I’m not entirely sure.
Because that’s really a reasonable response to pick pockets. Shooting them with FLAMING ARROWS. No no, flaming MAGIC arrows yet. The Boros are every Lawful Stupid paladin who went around smiting anything that registers as evil.
Also, is this what happened to the one guy who left behind just their shoes on Smite up above?
The Simic are absolutely dedicated to inventing Godzilla. Man, Ravnica is a fun, fun place to live, isn’t it?
Milling will continue until morale improves.
Not gonna lie, I’m starting to think the Gruul have the right idea. The other options are the super cops, the evil spies, ghost capitalists, and the guys who are gonna turn you into a giant space toad.
Ride to the guild gate in style in the 2013 Ravnica Armored Transport. Now with airbags, anti-lock breaks, and giant pincers to help you get through those traffic jams.
The Obedzet spend all their time writing articles about how Millennial Gargoyles are ruining their businesses. But at the end of the day, aren’t we all Millenneal Gargoyles? No, some of us are Gen X or Gen Z Gargoyles. Hey, I got a million of them.
And we got more key runes!
All the world’s a stage. And everyone is a clown.
And on that note, we finish our gate-crashing for the week. Come in next time when our return to Ravnica concludes, taking us deep into the Dragon’s Maze. But until then, stay Magical.
