Magic: The Gathering
Magical Thinking: Guilds of Ravnica
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. Today we dive into the beginning of the end, the end of the massive Gatewatch/Nicol Bolas saga, taking place in everyone’s favorite plane. Yes, this week we look at October 2018’s Guilds of Ravnica.
But first, I should explain something. This is gonna be a little different from my previous reviews. Unlike with most of my previous articles, I’ve actually played with these cards. Extensively. You see, a few years ago I was into a game called Hearthstone, an online card game which is very similar to Magic. But after Blizzard entertainment, Hearthstone’s publisher, censured player Blitzchung after he showed support for the Hong Kong protests, I decided I could no longer in good conscience support Blizzard (and as it turns out that was just the tip of the iceberg as far as bad behavior that company has been up to). So, I was in market for a new online card game, when my attention was brought to Magic: the Gathering Arena.
Technically, I came into Arena around the time Throne of Eldraine had come out, but this set and the next couple were still standard legal at the time. Because I played with and against these cards extensively, I have a bit more substantial commentary on these sets than I have before. This is gonna continue for the next few sets until we hit Strixhaven, at which point I’d dropped out of actually playing Magic again.
So with that admin out the way, let’s get on with things.
Guilds of Ravnica takes place on Ravnica in the Autumn. The guilds are in turmoil, fighting internally as Nicol Bolas attempts to manipulate them to his own ends. The guilds featured in this set are the Selesnya (White/Green, Hippies meet the borg), Boros (White/Red, The police), Golgari (Black/Green, Zombie farmers), Izzet (Blue/Red, she blinded me with SCIENCE!) and Dimir (Blue/Black, super sneaky spies). What will happen to the guilds? Will Bolas triumph? What is his evil plan? Let’s find out.
Naughty goblins will go in the shame tree until they atone for their sins.
When I started playing, I saw this card a lot. Because you can use it on non-land permanents, I thought it was pretty powerful until Banishing Light came back in Theros Beyond Death and blew it out of the water. Also, I like they couldn’t come up with a new keyword for Selesnya so they just gave them convoke again.
Now this one doesn’t look powerful on its own. I mean the card draw is good, but a 1/1 token for 4 isn’t that impressive. But…
Imagine being able to drop a Serra Angel for four mana whenever. Now that is power. One of the decks I made was a Selesnya convoke token deck, and let me tell you there’s nothing more fun than flooding the board with a mass of angels.
Oh. OH. THIS CARD. THIS HECKIN CARD. I’m sorry, but you’re gonna see in a few expansions why I hate this card. Whenever I saw this in an opponent’s opening play I was like “Oh here we go.”
An elephant never forgets…to go to church on Sundays apparently. I can dig it.
Hey, more things that make Angels with Divine Visitation. As for the Ghost Council… more on them next time. Hee hee.
Jump-Start is the Izzet keyword this set. Basically, you can cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a card and exiling it. I really liked this effect. Actually most of the mechanics from this set are pretty strong.
Surveil is the Dimir keyword. It’s basically like scry, only darker and edgier, oh I cut my finger on the card it’s so edge. Basically you look at the top cards of your deck, and you can leave them there in any order, or you can chuck them in the graveyard. Pretty neat effect.
Part of the fun of doing this is seeing the closeup for card art I missed because it was too small on the game screen. I saw this card a lot I never noticed the TENTACLES.
Drowned Secrets pretty much made mill decks a thing when I was playing. Basically it’s “Whenever you cast a spell, mill your opponent”. It was great (Not so much to play against). As a mill aficionado, I really enjoyed it.
This was another theme from this set, the guildgates. We’ll get to this later, but the guildgates are dual color lands which come in tapped and don’t do anything else except be gates. Those gates interact with a bunch of other cards which can make some really annoying effects. I never played the deck myself but I played against it so I have a special hatred for them.
OH CRAP, TINKERBELL HAS GONE ROGUE. SCRAMBLE THE BLACK HAWKS. NOT THE HELICOPTERS, I MEAN THE ACTUAL HAWKS. I think I missed the landing on that joke.
Top ten things you really don’t want to see outside your window at night. Number eight: That guy.
Fun fact: I actually made a mono black discard deck briefly when I was playing. I played it like twice, then took it apart because I felt it was too evil to inflict on the world. Seriously, discard focus decks are not fun. A little discard is fine but discard focus is just mean.
Pretty sure this has never been played in any instance except to be a form of removal.
Fun story: I was playing a mill deck against a Golgari deck, getting close to killing them, almost had them, then they dropped this bad boy, and I closed my eyes and accepted the embrace of death. I wasn’t even mad.
Undergrowth, the Golgari effect, does something based on the creature cards in the graveyard. So always remember your Tormod’s Crypt or your Leyline of the Void I guess.
Here’s another card I saw often as just pure removal. If you play it alone you basically make them sacrifice themselves. I honestly forgot it has a discard effect too.
Oh boy, this card. This is a card that’ll just ruin your day, let me tell you. Especially if you are playing red or Selesnya. Because remember, tokens have a converted mana cost of zero.
Of all the mechanics in Guilds of Ravnica, Mentor, the Boros mechanic, was probably the worst, or maybe just the least interesting. You add a counter to a weaker creature you attack with. Whoopty doo. I’m sorry it just never popped off for me like the other mechanics in this set. You can make a deck around convoke, how do you make a deck around mentor?
I wonder if that thing is related to Atogs. I never encountered this card, sadly, but I love this art.
I remember encountering a few times a deck built around this card which basically spammed spells en masse to burn you down in an instant. I think it was either with this card or another card like it, but it was super annoying.
And just like that, Ali Baba has an apprentice. It only took them like eighty expansions to give him one.
Yeah, the Boros are still the worst.
But this card was amazing. Lava Coil is pretty much an auto-include in any red deck as removal. It’s cheap, does great damage, and doesn’t leave a mess for the graveyard. It’s fantastic.
Risk Factor was always a fun card because it always put your opponent in an awkward position. Either you let them kill you or you give them cards, which they will use to kill you. I had a lot of fun with this card.
I did not come to appreciate Torch Courier until I started making mono red goblin decks later on, at which point I really liked this card. You’ll see the reason why in a few sets.
I think it gives target creature +3/+3 until the end of turn, but I can’t be sure.
And for the longest time this was pretty much an auto include in any Green deck, as well as any gate deck. I saw this card a LOOOOOT.
For some reason I thought this card was in Throne of Eldreaine, but nope, Guilds of Ravnica. Anyway this is what I like to call a snowball creature. You can probably guess why.
I mean, that’s a pretty big wurm, but I think we can go bigger.
Again, this was a card I played a lot when it was out, but the significance of the art eluded me until now; Vraska done killed Isperia, the leader of the Azorius. Yeah, Bolas set this up and it leads to the Azorius being taken over by a Bolas stooge, but I’m not even mad. Seriously, fuck the Azorius.
Aurelia was a card I played with a bit when I was playing. She’s pretty fun, especially since she can buff herself with her effect, making her a 4/5 with vigilance.
This was pretty much an auto include in any Izzet deck. The name of the game is playing a lot of spells, so it’s always gonna have a high attack.
Ah yes, this was always a favorite of mine. Cheap, synergizes with convoke, and can really get the ball rolling on making a huge army of tokens. Pretty sure she was my favorite brawl commander at one point.
“I WILL create the ultimate Everlasting Gobstopper! Willy Wonka can kiss my scaly ass.”
This was another auto-include for a Izzet deck. This article has been fun because it’s a real walk down memory lane for me.
This and the next set also have a cycle of guild mage cards which each have a two different effects based on their colors. They were…okay. I don’t even remember all of them to be honest.
And here is pretty much your finisher for a Selesnya token deck, because this will basically double your tokens in one go if you convoke everything. Selesnya is coming to play and bringing all of the friends.
Niv Mizzet is the personification of “curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back to life.” That is a pose that says “I am supremely chuffed.”
The thing about Izzet decks is some of them are super super SUPER complicated, and the really complicated ones usually used this spell.
Trostani is another fun creature card I really enjoyed. She’s a lord card, she creates tokens, and she gets your stolen stuff back for you. A must have when dealing with Blue decks.
Behold the bane of all lifegain decks. The best part is her +2 doesn’t even need you to sacrifice anything. Just hit it for a free +2 until you can get that sweet One-hit KO.
Oh hey, the split cards are back. Those are always fun. Remember what I said about super-complicated Izzet decks? Right here. Like those are the kind of decks that’ll blow you away and you won’t even realize what they did.
And another must-have for the Selesnya deck. I think most people played it for the flower side, but don’t quote me.
Apparently this is from Return to Ravnica and I didn’t even realize. I never used it but it did show up a lot in certain decks.
Well, that’s charming advice.
But yeah, the lockets. Mana rocks you can sack for a quick card draw. I didn’t see many of them in play. I think these are the sort of things they save for commander decks.
And here is one of the aforementioned guildgates. We will see more cards that interact with them as time goes by.
But we aren’t ending on this card. Oh no…
Yes. YES. YEEEEEES.
Look at that big boy! You had to actually craft that in Arena WHICH I DID. And yeah, it’s not the best card, doesn’t even have trample, but fuck it, 16/16 indestructible. It’s a thing of frigging beauty. No lie, the Eldrazi took one look at Ravnica, saw this thing, and kept right on driving.
Whew, that was fun. Tune in next time as the big finish to the Bolas arc continues, with Ravnica Allegiances, and we meet the objectively best Planeswalker of them all. But until then, Stay Magical.
