Guilds of Ravnica: Spoilers and Speculation
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Aug. 27, 2018, 12:04 p.m. by landofMordor
It's spoiler season!
There have been a few recent threads talking about new cards we might see in the new Guilds of Ravnica, but there's no central location yet.
So, enjoy: please discuss official spoilers as they become available, and until then, throw your hat in the ring for characters/cards/mechanics you think we'll see!
By the logic that Emmara is suggestive because she makes tokens when she gets tapped, we can say the same thing about Godsire. Or any other creature that taps to create a token.
September 26, 2018 3:33 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
landofMordor, yes, I know that, but I was attempting to be humorous and make a joke.
September 26, 2018 10:38 p.m.
landofMordor says... #6
MWorl91 yikes, friend. You might be just bantering back, but it’s hard to tell with just the text itself, which seems pretty salty. Remember to keep T/O the most respectful site on the Internet(:
September 27, 2018 4:38 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #7
It's a shame that the Social Justice Warriors at WotC, in their infinite wisdom, banned all of the cool suggestive art that we used to have. Sure- Emmara, Soul of the Accord does look tappable but not when compared to Elvish Ranger from back in the day.
September 27, 2018 7:13 p.m.
landofMordor says... #8
Rabid_Wombat lol I was frowning deeply until I checked out that art.
Personally, when it comes to hunks like that, The Rock is more my type...
September 27, 2018 7:34 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #9
landofMordor lol, I was hoping the link pic would be the Terese Nielsen Elf Babe but whatever floats your boat...
Still, nothing will ever beat Uktabi Orangutan - this guy seriously needs some token producing errata!
September 27, 2018 8:20 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat - it got more than errata - it got an Un-Card.
September 27, 2018 8:56 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
cdkime, there is no question that Uktabi Kong involves tapping.
September 27, 2018 10:05 p.m.
@landofMordor
Oh that’s just the phrase I use anytime someone says they were joking. I’d definitely tap Emmara to help populate. I’d probably try to tap her as much as I can.
September 27, 2018 10:40 p.m.
And slowly, while female Bowser fanfics and lewd art of Sonic infest the internet, tapped out, the true dark edge of the universe, comments on Emmara's tapability. Though we understand this, we're still unsure of the meaning of "Look like dredge's got a new toy."
-MTG Historian
September 27, 2018 10:50 p.m.
It's very fun to make lewd jokes about women, but for some women it can also feel uncomfortable.
I don't mind it to some extent but when the joke goes on and on and ooooon it just starts to feel like a bad frat party that I'm stuck at.
I also then have to put up with the delightful, "What's wrong with you? We're just making a joke!" That puts me in the awkward position where I can't say that the chat has gotten annoying, or I'm frigid or (the other phrases used to shut people up) PC or SJW.
So yes, you can tap her so hard that she won't untap.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
Can we get back to talking about Magic now?
September 28, 2018 8:31 a.m.
Argy sorry if we took that a bit too far, and completely understandable.
September 28, 2018 9:52 a.m.
landofMordor says... #17
Argy, thanks as always for your patience and honesty on this topic.
Jokes aside, I really am glad Magic is moving towards its most inclusive self. I want to be able to teach this amazing game to any (future) daughters with no reservations that they might be discriminated against, and I want them to have just as many pro player/planeswalker card/MtG designer role models as my sons would. I know we’re a long ways away, but that’s my hope, so thanks for reminding us to be as considerate as possible.
Back to Magic, then...can T/O assume you’ll be opening a R Sealed pool?(;
September 28, 2018 10:10 a.m.
Well I'm planning to run a monored Standard Dragons deck this season.
Will that do?
Prerelease report
I had an excellent pool of cards, full of early fliers that could be pumped, and were Mentors.
I ended up coming second, and went 6-0-0. I lost on OGW.
The top four decks were all playing Boros, so if you are happy to own those cards I would HIGHLY recommend that Guild choice.
I only chose that one because I am building a deck for StuBi this Standard season.
The spin downs all looked amazing, except for Izzet. The blue is very dark, making the red pips difficult to see.
Each spin down has its Guild symbol as the mark for 20, which looks cool.
I found the cards a lot more fun to play with than M19. Synergies were everywhere. Being able to choose your colours made a big difference.
The new mechanics are also fairly easy to understand. Jump-start won me some games.
If you're on the fence about attending this prerelease I would urge you to go.
Have fun!
September 28, 2018 4 p.m.
I should also have added that the final four of us playing Boros were the ONLY people playing Boros at the prerelease.
September 28, 2018 4:54 p.m.
Argy - Hooray! Guild-based spindown dice! How do they look? I've been pretty disappointed by the "generic speckled" dice we've been getting recently. I loved Ixalan's lapis coloured Blue die and all but the Green swirled dice from one of the Tarkir sets.
My SO and I will certainty be trying to collect the full set at prerelease.
September 28, 2018 5:21 p.m.
I thought all the dice looked cool, except for Izzet. That one was overly dark.
September 29, 2018 12:35 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #22
Such a great set but attendences were down in my city- one store had Zero peeps but they were asking for money to "secure your Guild of choice" so yeah.....
September 29, 2018 9:54 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #23
I skipped the prerelease for this set, because I scarcely ever win at them, but perhaps I shall participate in the prerelease for the next set.
September 30, 2018 12:10 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #24
Did a pre-release today and yeah, Boros is pretty powerful. I had a couple T5 wins. I only dropped 2 games to eventual winner of the whole event who was running a completely busted Selesnya deck. In both of those games I had mana issues, so I am curious how things might have played out had my deck fired on all cylinders. Mentor is also an insanely fun mechanic, especially when you can cascade it across multiple creatures.
I am a big fan of the seeded packs. Having a guaranteed nucleus of synergistic cards really helps to keep decks running smoothly.
September 30, 2018 12:37 a.m.
Prerelease was an absolute blast--perhaps the most fun I've had at a prerelease ever. There were lots of different decks being run, so I never had the same exact matchup twice.
I was playing Dimir, and was incredibly lucky with my packs. I only had eleven worthwhile creatures, but three of those were Muse Drake, two Watcher in the Mist, and a number of other assorted flying creatures. With three copies of Artful Takedown to help protect me and three copies of Notion Rain to dig for my very few creatures, I could easily locate and play my myriad fliers, going over top of my opponents. Ended up going 3-1-0, with the draw against Golgari Control--I was low on creatures and had almost milled myself, so I think I would have lost that match had there been another 4 or so turns.
Fun as surveil shenanigans were to play, I think most of my success was based on luck--I was the only Dimir player that seemed to be having any success.
The few people playing Izzet seemed to all be disappointed in their decks. I've found spellslinging decks to be pretty mediocre in prerelease, and that seemed to be the case here as well.
Selesnya did not seem as good as I expected it to be--there's a lot of removal floating about in this set, and large creatures did not work well with it. My girlfriend played this guild, and had a pretty decent selection of cards, but nothing overly exciting. I think it is a very "safe" guild to pick--there's lots of decent cards, so you're pretty much guaranteed to have something playable. I played against one person who splashed into Abzan for removal, and that worked pretty well for them.
Golgari had some really fun cards, but not enough of them. Ochran Assassin was a powerhouse at many tables, removing a creature and helping punch through damage. The one time an opponent used it against me, I had Passwall Adept in play--they were pretty upset that I kept making their creature unblockable so I could freely stop their other creatures.
At least two people were running Underrealm Lich to great effect. I had one game where someone pulled it, allowed them to mill their library while controlling with blocks/removal, and then hit their Lich with -2/-4 so they lost to mill on their draw. That was pretty fun, and checked "win via mill at prerelease" off my bucket list.
Boros with mentor was scary to play against. Besides being fast, there were enough inexpensive combat tricks that even blocking smaller creatures was dangerous if mana was open.
I think the lockets were way overvalued. Lots of people were using them just for card draw, and seven mana for two cards, even if spread over two turns, did not seem to work out well for anyone.
Overall, it was extremely fun--exactly what I was hoping for when they first announced another return to Ravnica. Can't wait for the next set. Orzhov and Azorius, here I come!
September 30, 2018 2:04 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #27
MWorl91 - Ah yes, but "if the only tool you have is a hammer, it's hard to eat spaghetti". I know that you are generally trying to be tongue-in-cheek with some of your comments on here, but for future reference, that is often difficult to pull off online. Instead, things can come across as mean spirited.
cdkime - Your evaluation seems pretty spot on! Dimir, Golgari, and Izzet appear to be kind of hit and miss. Many of the decks I saw either got all of the set up pieces and no payoffs or vice-versa. However, I expect some wicked builds to show up in draft when folks can ensure that they acquire both set up and payoffs. Drafting this set will be super fun!
September 30, 2018 3:23 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor I know exactly what you mean about cascading Mentor. I did that quite a few times.
cdkime with certain people at my LGS you can be fairly relaxed. Four of us were discussing lockets as we were building and all decided that we would rather play something else on Turn 3, even with the potential late game draw. It's not a decision I regretted.
September 30, 2018 5:50 a.m.
If you’re the one who made that hammer when you knew you’d be eating spaghetti then you still shouldn’t blame the hammer.
Yes, if your deck got to go off you probably would have won but making a deck that can do that consistently is part of deck building. If I put 21 lands in my draft deck and then flood out in all my matches then that is poor design. Is that what happened with you? Probably not, but rather than thinking “If I just wasn’t so unlucky” maybe you should think “what could I do differently in the future?”
It’s a very simple change in perspective and next time you could be sitting there with a fork in hand.
September 30, 2018 12:08 p.m.
MWorl91, I’ve found at prerelease there’s usually a pretty good chance of getting mana flooded/screwed, even with a well-tuned deck. I’ve seen lots of really strong deckbuilders lose matches simply because they keep topdecking lands/the wrong lands/nonlands, depending on the circumstance.
Slightly amusing note, I have a friend who loves going to prereleases, but is pretty mediocre at it. He was running not your joke 21 lands, but 22, for inexplicable reasons.
He’s also the luckiest person I’ve ever seen at prerelease - he pulled an Assassin's Trophy this time, and has pulled a number of other valuable cards, such as a masterpiece Omniscience which he tried to use, without success, in his prerelease deck. He also got a copy of The Scarab God, and failed to read its full text box, so thought it was mediocre. But he has fun, and that’s what counts.
September 30, 2018 12:47 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor,
Looks like maybe "condescending and mean-spirited" would have been more accurate ...
September 30, 2018 12:48 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #32
I had originally written out a nice long response to you MWorl91, but then I realized, I just don't care enough. The fact of the matter is, you weren't there. You have no knowledge of the decks or players involved (outside of myself, whom you also have little knowledge about), so how could you possibly be in any position to criticize or condescend to others? Naa, you just want to get a rise out of folks and I am not interested in that.
So...while we all can learn from our mistakes made during both wins and losses (and I make my own fair share), there are some situations where our decks fail us and we just can't do anything about it. Recognizing that is also an important skill to learn. That match was one of those situations.
climbs down off his soap-box
Now, back to the important stuff, any other cool pre-release stories?
I went to a smaller pre-release today and tried out golgari. I ended up 2-2. I did get to kill someone at 20 life with a Vraska, Golgari Queen ult and Pilfering Imp which was pretty fun. And in another match I got beat down by my opponent chaining together a late game Izoni, Thousand-Eyed and March of the Multitudes after I wiped the board which was pretty cool.
Argy - Yeah, a "mentor-fall" (which is what we started calling it at the pre-release) is a scary thing to behold.
cdkime - I find those kinds of players quite refreshing. Those are the kind of people who are there just for the fun of it and they help keep you from forgetting that's why we play this game. Which is coincidentally, one of the reasons why I love commander so much. So much jank and fun shenanigans abound.
September 30, 2018 8:49 p.m.
MWorl91 you are both ignorant and inexperienced.
I played three games at prerelease on Friday where my partner was mana flooded or mana screwed. Then we played friendlies where they had no mana problems, and their decks were exceptionally difficult to beat.
If you think mana problems can be completely avoided through good deck building you either have not played much, you cheat, or you have never worked out the statistical probability of how many times a deck can have mana issues.
Above and beyond all of that you have made a thoughtless comment to one of the nicest people on TappedOut. Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor is well-respected in these parts, is a great deck builder, and never makes excuses for poor deck performance.
September 30, 2018 9:02 p.m.
I have gone to, I don't know, maybe a dozen or so pre releases in my MTG career. Now I have to say something that I used to rail on people for saying to justify their poor play.
I got the absolute worst card pool I have ever experienced playing the game of magic. The deck I actual managed to build is odds on one of the 5 weakest decks I have ever witnessed at a pre-release. Of my 5 non-seeded packs(I was Dimir), one of my rares was Thousand-Year Storm as well as Sacred Foundry and one being a Temple Garden. I only opened 2 removal spells and my best bombs were two copies of Watcher in the Mist. I managed to luck out and win my first game but overall went 2-1, 0-2. 1-2, 0-2, 0-2.
Just a painful, painful experience. When I got home I plugged in my free sealed event into MTG Arena, got a really good Boros pull, and reeled off 6 wins. But man that pool was legendarily bad.
September 30, 2018 10:34 p.m. Edited.
Getting a bad pool sucks.
Last prerelease I played my best card was Colossal Dreadmaw so, once my Opponent got rid of that (and they always did) the game was over for me.
October 1, 2018 12:44 a.m.
You know I was feeling very fatigued in regard to Magic, but this new set has changed that.
The mechanics make sense and there are so many interesting cards to play with.
I'm sure the Pros will break the format, but until such time I look forward to FNM.
October 1, 2018 8:41 a.m.
AgentGreen says... #38
So here's my pre-release report, and to basically sum it up
Boros was a sleeper hit and was awesome
Izzet was garbage
Saturday I went with Izzet (they sold out of Dimir), and had really a garbage pool; so I went Grixis to try to make it work.....it didn't. A Draw and 2 loses later I dropped.
Saturday night I went back and played Boros. Mentor is a very scary mechanic and my promo was the Legion Warboss. Making dudes and throwing them at your opponent is alot of fun.
Boros was very quick compared to the other guilds
October 1, 2018 8:59 a.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #39
This was one of the worst pre-releases I have attended.
Not because of the set, or my decks performance (2-1-1) but because of the way the shop did seeded packs.
I love my shop and the owner but I feel they should have distributed the packs differently. If you called in and pre-registered you could pick what guild you wanted. Thats great, but he didn't limit the number of registrations for a guild by the day. So while Friday night and Saturday saw tons of Dimir and Golgari decks i was told... by the time I played on Sunday the only guilds left were a couple izzet or tons of selesnya and boros (unless you pre-gistered for dimir or golgari for sunday).
In a four round night I played against 3 Naya decks and an Abzan. I was playing straight Selesnya. Basically there was no variety. The games were fine, the peeps at the shop are good peeps but I was really bummed that I didn't get to see any cool interactions in other guilds.
I might talk to the owner about the next release and see if it makes sense to limit preorders for each guild to a certain number each day to maintain a more fun balance. Its just hard because I also don't like telling people they can't play what they want... Seeded makes sense for sets like this but it also has the potential to make things tough.
October 1, 2018 9:43 a.m.
I played Sunday in my prerelease and went 5-0 with Grixis. I opened a Dimir box with promo Lazav and had a very strong collection of commons - 2 Watcher in the Mist, 2 Deadly Visit and the best cards in the deck 3 Artful Takedown. I had 10 surveil enablers, yet only 2 payoffs in 1 Dimir Spybug and 1 Disinformation Campaign, which I think is the single best card in the set.
Unfortunately, I got no bombs so I splashed red for a Crackling Drake, Hypothesizzle and of course, 1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun.
Played against Golgari 2 times, 1 selesnya and 2 Dimir and cast Niv-Mizzet only once, but the plentyful removal was nice.
Overall, the set was challenging and there were representatives of all guilds that did 4-1 at least, so everything felt competitive.
October 1, 2018 10:26 a.m.
At no point was I trying to be mean to anyone nor did I ever try to outright insult anyone. If I came off condescending then I apologize to Hididdlyho but Argy, calling me names in return does not help the situation. I thought we were having a genuinely light hearted banter with the jokes about spaghetti. If it doesn’t translate well in text then I apologize for that too.
October 2, 2018 1:19 a.m.
Calling someone a fat pig is a name.
Pointing out to someone that they are ignorant and inexperienced is describing their behaviour.
It was already pointed out that what you said was not being received well, yet you continued.
I was not the only person here to pull you up on what you were saying. I will take it that my comment was the one that hit home to you the most, for which I pat myself on the back.
I will not discuss this any more, as it doesn't fit the topic.
October 2, 2018 8:44 a.m. Edited.
DemonDragonJ says... #43
The Boros guild is my second favorite guild after the Orzhov, so it is with great sorrow that I must say that I feel that they (the Boros) are underwhelming in this set, which is even more unfortunate considering how great they were in the Return to Ravnica block.
Also, does anyone here think that Assassin's Trophy is overpowered? Compared to Putrefy, which I feel is the closest card to it, it does allow an opponent to search their library for a land, but I do not feel that that is not a sufficient drawback to balance the fact that it has a lower mana cost and can destroy any permanent. What does everyone else say about that?
October 7, 2018 1:01 a.m.
DemonDragonJ, if boros are underpowered, how come a Boros just won the first major Standard tournament and placing two more decks in the top 8? Boros so far is the best represented guild in terms of standard.
October 8, 2018 2:28 a.m.
DemonDragonJ I also don't think that Assassin's Trophy is that overpowered. Yes, it destroys pretty much anything, but in return they get to color fix if they need to and set up for their next turn. It's great removal, especially in the late game, but it can also be dangerous to you if you use it on the wrong thing.
October 8, 2018 5:11 a.m.
Also think about Abrupt Decay, which is a lot closer to it than Putrefy.
October 8, 2018 5:12 a.m.
MindAblaze says... #47
Boza He didn’t say underpowered he said underwhelming. As in boring, I assume.
Maybe that’s just me, but red white turn ‘em sideways can be tweaked in so many ways, but it’s always going to be boring.
Also, aggro always wins at the start of a new format. Give it a while until some answers are laced up.
October 8, 2018 7:48 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #48
Boza, MindAblaze, yes, I feel that they are not sufficiently exciting, as they are focused to strongly on combat and attacking, but there is room to develop their identity beyond that.
My three favorite Boros cards in the Return to Ravnica block were Aurelia, the Warleader, Aurelia's Fury, and Firemane Avenger, but this set did not have anything that I felt was nearly as exciting as any of those cards, so I do hope that Orzhov has impressive cards in the next set.
October 8, 2018 8:23 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #49
Assassin's Trophy would have been awesome if you could have used it on a 0/1 token or a dying blocker to ramp yourself ;)
October 8, 2018 8:46 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #50
Rabid_Wombat, I shall presume that WotC deliberately did not allow the caster of Assassin's Trophy to use it on their own permanents specifically for that reason, which I agree is very unfortunate.
I just learned that Privileged Position shall be reprinted in the Selesnya guild kit that shall be released in November, and I am very pleased about that, because that card was long overdue for a reprint. Any deck that contains the colors green and white should have that card, and I am very glad that I waited until it was reprinted to purchase a copy for the Atraxa deck that I currently am building.
landofMordor says... #1
LittleBlueHero, DemonDragonJ, there is no way on Urza’s green earth that Emmara was designed suggestively. Her epithet and flavor text both suggest that she is finding allies by offering peace to others.
As much as that is a funny thought, as a joke it would quickly get pretty old and pretty crass, so I’d avoid it(: you and I both have a responsibility to save the MtG community at large from bad jokes(; let’s stick with classics like Storm Crow about to break Vintage wide open...
September 26, 2018 1:13 p.m.