you could make a pretty decent reanimator deck with cards like vengeance, breach, vigormrtis and HELL'S CARETAKER! i mean reaanimation decks dont have to be the same boring decks over and over. you could find a new engine with the caretaker. just because R&D doesnt make another exhume doesnt mean you cant try to be creative. remember there's a little Nassif Gabriel in all of us,
All those things aren't really reanimation and require very different decks. It's like saying Tooth and Nail is reanimation because it tries to get big creatures in play too.
I'm playing a proteus staff combo deck on T2 on MTGO, and it uses tokens to get large creatures out. While the goal is the same, it's not reanimator.
Hell's Caretaker requires one of the things most reanimation decks are light on; other creatures. If you just sac hell's caretaker, then you are using the most inefficient, vulnerable way to reanimate in one of the slowest ways ever created.
True reanimation should be fast and costly. Which means small CC and large drawbacks and hope to finish the other off before things stabilize. As such, it's one of the most challenging decks to play because all the choices happen early and fast. When should you duress/addle? Which creature to search for? If reanimation is going to take long, you might as well go the Hell's caretaker way, which is longterm and hoping to reanimate multiple things, because you can't get the speed advantage when using Hell's caretaker.
What I was looking for was maybe something like this;
Vigor Mortis 2B
sorcery
Return target creature card from your graveyard to play. It comes into play with 4 essence counters on it. If you paid G to play this spell, it comes into play with 5 counters instead.
During your upkeep, remove an essence token from the creature. If you can't, sacrifice the creature and instead of putting it in your graveyard, remove it from the game.
Or
B
enchantment
~ comes into play with 2 dig tokens. During your upkeep, you may remove a dig counter if you pay 3 life. If there are no more dig counters on ~, sacrifice ~ and return a permanent from your graveyard into play.
And there are a lot of other possibilities which can easily be made to be balanced.
Also, a card like these are also well deserved in Ravnica, it even works with dredge;
BB
sorcery
Search your library for a card and put it into your graveyard. Shuffle your library
or
2B
instant
Search your library for two creature cards and put them into your graveyard. Shuffle your library
or
2B
sorcery
Choose a card type. Target opponent searches your library for a card of that type and puts it into your graveyard.
Your opponent then reveals his or her hand, choose one of the cards of the type you named and put that into that players graveyard. You can't inflict pain until you know what it can feel like.
It's pretty easy to come up with cards that might be nice, it's just that you need to be wanting to come up with them. And seeing the cards lately, I'm thinking they aren't trying hard enough.
Soulflame, head on over to Guild Golgari and you'll see where all the reanimation tech has gone to. Dimir is all about secret whispers and daggers in the dark. When Szadek kills something, he wants it to stay dead. The Golgari are the big recyclers of Ravnica.
Well, the tech *should* be in Golgari, but it isn't really. Dredge isn't really reanimation.. it's more.. dredging. I'd hoped for at least 1 or 2 cards in black that helped reanimation a bit, with Golgari tags (I mean, if black has multiple mono black cards, why doesn't Golgari? It only has Golgari Thug, big whoop :-/). Vigor Mortis is just Zombify number 5-8, and Zombify is one of the worst reanimation spells made. It pales compared to Reanimate, Exhume, Living Death, Stitch Together, (Life/)Death... they should really make a 3 CC reanimate spell with a small drawback to 'revive' Reanimation (pun intended).
Dark Blast isn't all that special. Remember that you use dredge instead of drawing. I'm not sure if you can even use multiple dredges in response to drawing a card, but even so, using Dark Blast twice without any other Dredge will cost you 2-1 card disadvantage, since if you didn't dredge it, you would get another card.
Yeah it's usefull sometimes, but I'd rather not spend 2 cards to give one creature -2/-2. It is okay in limited, but otherwise, I think people are overestimating it. I think Loose Hope (5DN) was better, and even that wasn't widely played.
No good reanimation cards, instead, more graveyard removal that could even balance reanimation if it were included. Very disappointed. I just believe Wizards is scared to return reanimation to the competative scene.
Anyway, about the cards;
Mortipede - solid in limited, being able to kill of a guy you want through a semi-provoke action (providing they don't have first strike obviously) or make a final allout attack is nice. For the price of a giant cockroach, that's decent enough.
Dimir House Guard - Nice creature, and transmute. It's even only common.
Last Gasp - just a cool name Hope the flavor text is nice/funny too.
Darkblast - wish there was a slightly bigger version. (can't remember if there is in the set, didn't check)
Keening Banshee - This one is nice. Comparable to Nekrataal. This one has flying instead of first strike, and it's ability can hit black creatures, but it can't destroy everything. It's a spirit too. Pretty solid I think.
Brainspoil - seems overpriced, especially considering it can't destroy everything and is a sorcery. The transmute is nice though. I'm beginning to think some people are just going to include cards like this for the transmute and acting like copies 5-8 of a single card, instead of ever casting these cards.
Shed Memory - See Brainspoil
Strands of undeath - might be okay in limited.
Netherborn Phalanx - maybe as a finisher, but probably more used for transmute
Woebringer Demon - Every set has crap rares eh? It's pretty silly you need to sacrifice the demon if your opponent has no creatures during his upkeep and can't sacrifice anything. So this thing is nigh useless against decks with almost no creatures.
Bottom line; I'm not impressed with a lot, there are a few shiners, but I think most of the power is actually the transmute mechanic, which will be pretty nice in Extended and maybe Standard.
I love the utility this fellow provides. He can with little help dominate a lot of the game all by itself, preventing spells to be cast and providing a win coniditon (albeit extremely long term :tongue2:).
I'm a bit hesitent though, it seems you need a bit of luck for this to work properly in T2. He'll usually die fast, so you might get 2-4 cards removed. If you are lucky, you'll get one of his top cards removed, if unlucky, a few lands he didn't need anyway.
It IS nice they at least give a decent cardpool to make a milling deck now, with traumatize, this card, the large legend that mills when he hits players, the glimpse etc.
I kinda like the idea that most of the guilds are centered around an archetype, getting 10 archetypes at the end of the block is nice, especially if balanced well enough.
The thing is, Reanimator is always thought to be either too good, or too bad. Most of the time, it's linked to entomb and exhume and reanimate to say how overpowered Reanimation is because of it's speed. I disagree.
Reanimator NEEDS it's speed, because that's all it has. If stuff takes too long, the resources you spent reanimating things.
There are also a lot of easy ways to deal with reanimated creatures; bounce, blacks targeted detruction, white's attack remove from the game things etc.
Wizards so far have been on the outer limits of reanimation. Entomb + Reanimate are just very good, and are rightfully labelled as too good. But Zombify is pretty much the other side of the segment; large cost and sorcery speed as well, you just don't get enough advantage when you reanimate using spells like zombify (in competative T2 environments). Black also didn't have a good direct way to dump a creature in the graveyard in a while on par with buried alive or entomb.
So yes, I also am expecting better reanimation. It's sad that THE way to get fatties fast into play is now Tooth and Nail, which essentially do the same as reanimation (getting large fatties in play), but does it in 1 card and is priced good so it's actually being used. Tooth and Nail is proof that at least some thoughts are made about big creatures and getting them in play. They should use the same balance to reanimation, keeping in mind that those decks are more aggro based then Tooth and Nail.
I hope to see at least 1 reanimation card which costs 2B or less. It should have a drawback, but that's exactly what reanimation players like; taking chances and making tough decisions.
I'd also like a card which costs 1B or BB that does the same as Entomb. or 3 mana (1BU?) and Entomb + Cantrip in one.
Reanimation is also one of my favorite decks and I'm always trying to see if it works in standard (I tried doomed necromancers when onslaught came out), but truth be told, I think Wizards was scared how good reanimation was in OD T2 and the Extended environment at that time, that it went completely overboard and made it nigh useless in a competative environment. We can only hope Wizards sees that there is room for better reanimation and takes that road (or has hopefully already designed it for Ravnica).
The angels reserruction shouldn't be seen as something you'd intentionally go for on a regular basis. Rather this angel is probably meant to be a one time cast, then, even if it dies, it keeps helping you in the game through the life. If in a rare occasion the game lasts extremely long, you can even revive her again.
I think that's how the angel is meant. Still,it should have haste instead of first strike, and maybe 1 less CC. The reserruction could also be cheaper to make it usable more, but I don't think the devs wanted that.
Actually, this *might* a bit okay for reanimation decks. Being able to transmute this guy into any fatty you want is kinda nice. Not to mention the transmute puts this guy into your graveyard, ready for reanimation. Then, when you animate it, you can draw all the fatness in your deck.
It has potential for reanimation. The bad side is that it is strictly 9 mana, it would have been better if it was any card between 7-9 mana.
Secondly, both abilities are kind of the same, which makes it overkill for it's function. It would be nice if thefirst ability read "when ~ comes into play, discard any cards with converted mana cost 7-9". Because then you could transmute it, search for a fatty, animate the Grozoth, dump the new fatty and get ready to reanimate the new fatty next turn (providing you have another reanimate spell that is).
Right now, it works with elvish piper very well. I'm not a fan of elvish piper, but it definately works miracles. You put this fellow into play with the piper and you suddenly can put nice stuff down every turn. There will probably be a few decks trying it out I think.
Telling Time is pretty good, and a good replacement for the loss of Thirst of Knowledge (maybe even better in some decks).
The other two are just meh. To make the red one worthy you need at least 5 or 6 permanents who aren't doing anything that turn, or you are probably better of with lightning blast.
The creature is extremely situational. It isn't good on it's own and very expensive. It's nice in casual with yavimaya elder and such, but I don't think there will be much use for it outside of that. I'd rather have a solid removal card or a good creature for that cost, then a small creature and 'maybe' removal which you can also achieve with other cards.
--
Edit; I could have sworn the creature was 2BBGG, oh well, I saw the correct costing now and then it's okay for it's cost. Still don't think it's contructed material, but it will find it's way in limited and in a few rogue decks and such.
--
Just my 2 copper.
Hmmm this card is pretty nice. Reminds me of Ball Lightning in a way; it's a source of non-direct damage, but a large one. This one has evasion (flying) whereas Ball Lightning had trample, but this definately has more staying power.
Plus the flavor of this and the other hunted creatures is just great!
I do hope the Hunted Llama turns out to be a Hunted Griffin though, I :dance2: griffins
These lands just say so much. The whole view of them really makes me go up in Ravnica. The detail of the art is so immense. They are very different from eachother and yet both breathtaking.
The birds on the plain art the wide midspace make me feel there are lots of memories stored and makes it calm.
The dense art on the island, as well as boats and balloons give sense of activity on the island.
Both also capture the idea well that this is a *huge* city, they both fade off on the horizon.
I really like the lands that they capture different emotions so well, in contrast to lands from other sets, which focus more on setting (plains has a wide free area, island has a lot of water etc) then on emotion.
It's hard to explain, but I feel these lands so far (and a handful in the past) are probably more designed by emotion first, then setting, instead of the other way around (what they usually seem to do).
Your idea would work better if Magic was played in this way. But, obviously it isn't, so I don't think that they're going to change anything now, especially considering that they've never done any such restrictions in the past.
You might be rewarded for playing specific card combinations (take the three Kaldraarmorpieces, for example), but they won't restrict you for playing others.
Just my two cents.
It's just a part of the design space of Magic that hasn't been explored yet. Split cards were probably thought non-magic as well, the judgement wishes... etc.
I believe this particular design space has a lot of potential.
t takes away the challenge of building innovative decks if Wizards forces us to play the colours and guilds in this or that way. I am in no way a Johnny, but I want to have a lot of open possiblitys, so that deckbuilding with Ravnica can be as fun as it was with Invasion block. Back then, Wizards gave us the choices what colour combinations to play, why not this time too?
In response to this, I'd like to refer to the first part of my last post. More often then not, a single card is better then a single other for a particular reason. If you need to choose between sets of cards, then the choices become both more influential in the deck and the single cards can be varieing power and still be balanced.
For example, they could reprint a morphling-like creature, if you can't combine it with the good countermagic, and vica versa. That opens up a lot of design goodness.
Innovative decks revolve around specific cards by the way, in this case it's probably only a small issue. This has more effect on the standard decks.
What makes Magic interesting is that, despite any storylines or in-game hatred they have for each other, any color combination is possible. Any two cards can be in the same deck. It just wouldn't be right for them to say NO WAY JOSE THEY DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER SO NO.
Actually I'd like to think that restrictions can pose more strategy as well. Think about it. If card A is strictly better then B, then why play B? But if you can't play C if you have A in play, then you need to weigh more. B+C might be better then A + non-C.
I for one am a bit disappointed both flavorwise and strengthwise that powergaming within colors (and even over colors with multicolor decks) don't have any penalties. What if the new nice counterspell is linked to Dimir House, but the best creature to go with control is in another guild?
I'd like to see more "set versus set" choices instead of "single card vs single card" choices. Of course it should not be totally "set vs set" (ie all cards guild), because "single card vs single card" choices are nice to have as well. A balance between them would be nice.
Maybe the Dimir Guildmaster and the Boros Guildmaster are having an affair?
You can still sneakily get 2 guilds with the imaginary keyword I outlined in the first post; it says "cannot be played", but "put into play" effects still work. It just shouldn't be so easy to have stuff from both guilds.
If for example you play Warhammer, this is kind of similar to fights between races (set vs set) and Dogs of War most armies have access to and within race armies (single vs single).
Magic is looking too much "I have Bretionnian Knights and Chameleon Skinks and Cannons and Chaos Marauders and Wood Elf Archers in my army", or something along those lines.
It shouldn't go completely guild vs guild in Ravnica, but a bit of it (like 3, or 4 or 5 cards per rarity exclusive per guild) would be nice.
So I was wondering how they could bring that strong guild versus guild thing into the game and make the game more exciting.
One of the most fundamental things in magic is deckbuilding. What if the specific guilds had a few cards in their respective sets that were 'guild only'? Powerfull cards, maybe 3 commons 3 uncommons and 3 rares (one of the rares being a high guildmember and 2 being elite troops of the guild).
Now it's very cumbersome and unrealistic to check if players just have 1 guildtype in their deck. So instead of just making it a deckbuilding rule, a rule which affects deckbuilding indirectly through a keyword is good enough and still adds a lot of choices.
So I hope there will be keyword in Ravnica like; Guild: <guildname> (you cannot play permanents with a guildname other then <guildname>)
This would mean you could specialize in your deck into a guild for those few special cards that have this keyword. If they would be really powerfull and balanced, at the end of the block, you'd have about 10 viable decks at least with some of these keyworded cards, plus of course the majority just normal cards.
For example, cards like maybe "Ravnica Soldier" can be used by any guild, and thus don't have the keyword.
Some extra food for thought:
* Interestingly, there could also be a "counter-keyword" to "guild" like "<name> can't be played if you control a permanent with 'Guild: Boros Legion'". Which would show the 'hate' or other incompatibilities (morals?) why that card (could be a creature or even other spells) wouldn't fit with that guild.
* And proceding on that thought, you could also have "can only be played if you control any card with the Guild keyword on it". Like a guild soldier. Every guild probably has a guild soldier (low rank) that will probably be a lot the same (or could be if flavor says so..). So the idea of a guild soldier who can only appear if you have another guildmember (a card with the guild keyword) sounds pretty nice.
An example could be
Guild Soldier W/B/U/R/G (that would make an odd mana symbol :P)
Creature - Human Soldier
can only be played if you control any card with the Guild keyword on it.
3/4 Even after training, everybody can see that every guild gets it's soldiers from the same place; the boys on the plaza's.
* Another funny thought is the inclusion of "Guild: unguilded". Which is not the same as not having a guild, rather, this permanent can't be played with any other guilds (so in essence it's a type of guild as well). These could be seen as revolutionists who despise the guild system and such and want nothing to do with *any* guilds. This 'guild' is also therefor a 5-color guild, since it has revolutionists and refugees etc from all 5 colors.
Anyway, I really would like the idea of guild special cards that can't be combined with other guilds, and are so strong people would like to go specialize in a guild. It would be very odd in my opinion if I could have one of the leaders of the Boros Legion guild and House Dimir.
Well, keep in mind that you also get 3 specialised keywords each set (1 for each guild). And if they really want a lot of balance, the overall cards for each guild would be roughly the same, meaning there won't be a lot of specific cards in Guildpact and Dissension from the guilds in Ravnica (not a lot of Boros Legion cards in those last 2 sets probably).
So you get some extrapolating through those mages and signets, but you also get brand new keywords.
All those things aren't really reanimation and require very different decks. It's like saying Tooth and Nail is reanimation because it tries to get big creatures in play too.
I'm playing a proteus staff combo deck on T2 on MTGO, and it uses tokens to get large creatures out. While the goal is the same, it's not reanimator.
Hell's Caretaker requires one of the things most reanimation decks are light on; other creatures. If you just sac hell's caretaker, then you are using the most inefficient, vulnerable way to reanimate in one of the slowest ways ever created.
True reanimation should be fast and costly. Which means small CC and large drawbacks and hope to finish the other off before things stabilize. As such, it's one of the most challenging decks to play because all the choices happen early and fast. When should you duress/addle? Which creature to search for? If reanimation is going to take long, you might as well go the Hell's caretaker way, which is longterm and hoping to reanimate multiple things, because you can't get the speed advantage when using Hell's caretaker.
What I was looking for was maybe something like this;
Vigor Mortis 2B
sorcery
Return target creature card from your graveyard to play. It comes into play with 4 essence counters on it. If you paid G to play this spell, it comes into play with 5 counters instead.
During your upkeep, remove an essence token from the creature. If you can't, sacrifice the creature and instead of putting it in your graveyard, remove it from the game.
Or
B
enchantment
~ comes into play with 2 dig tokens. During your upkeep, you may remove a dig counter if you pay 3 life. If there are no more dig counters on ~, sacrifice ~ and return a permanent from your graveyard into play.
And there are a lot of other possibilities which can easily be made to be balanced.
Also, a card like these are also well deserved in Ravnica, it even works with dredge;
BB
sorcery
Search your library for a card and put it into your graveyard. Shuffle your library
or
2B
instant
Search your library for two creature cards and put them into your graveyard. Shuffle your library
or
2B
sorcery
Choose a card type. Target opponent searches your library for a card of that type and puts it into your graveyard.
Your opponent then reveals his or her hand, choose one of the cards of the type you named and put that into that players graveyard.
You can't inflict pain until you know what it can feel like.
It's pretty easy to come up with cards that might be nice, it's just that you need to be wanting to come up with them. And seeing the cards lately, I'm thinking they aren't trying hard enough.
Well, the tech *should* be in Golgari, but it isn't really. Dredge isn't really reanimation.. it's more.. dredging. I'd hoped for at least 1 or 2 cards in black that helped reanimation a bit, with Golgari tags (I mean, if black has multiple mono black cards, why doesn't Golgari? It only has Golgari Thug, big whoop :-/). Vigor Mortis is just Zombify number 5-8, and Zombify is one of the worst reanimation spells made. It pales compared to Reanimate, Exhume, Living Death, Stitch Together, (Life/)Death... they should really make a 3 CC reanimate spell with a small drawback to 'revive' Reanimation (pun intended).
Dark Blast isn't all that special. Remember that you use dredge instead of drawing. I'm not sure if you can even use multiple dredges in response to drawing a card, but even so, using Dark Blast twice without any other Dredge will cost you 2-1 card disadvantage, since if you didn't dredge it, you would get another card.
Yeah it's usefull sometimes, but I'd rather not spend 2 cards to give one creature -2/-2. It is okay in limited, but otherwise, I think people are overestimating it. I think Loose Hope (5DN) was better, and even that wasn't widely played.
Anyway, about the cards;
Mortipede - solid in limited, being able to kill of a guy you want through a semi-provoke action (providing they don't have first strike obviously) or make a final allout attack is nice. For the price of a giant cockroach, that's decent enough.
Dimir House Guard - Nice creature, and transmute. It's even only common.
Last Gasp - just a cool name
Darkblast - wish there was a slightly bigger version. (can't remember if there is in the set, didn't check)
Keening Banshee - This one is nice. Comparable to Nekrataal. This one has flying instead of first strike, and it's ability can hit black creatures, but it can't destroy everything. It's a spirit too. Pretty solid I think.
Brainspoil - seems overpriced, especially considering it can't destroy everything and is a sorcery. The transmute is nice though. I'm beginning to think some people are just going to include cards like this for the transmute and acting like copies 5-8 of a single card, instead of ever casting these cards.
Shed Memory - See Brainspoil
Strands of undeath - might be okay in limited.
Netherborn Phalanx - maybe as a finisher, but probably more used for transmute
Woebringer Demon - Every set has crap rares eh? It's pretty silly you need to sacrifice the demon if your opponent has no creatures during his upkeep and can't sacrifice anything. So this thing is nigh useless against decks with almost no creatures.
Bottom line; I'm not impressed with a lot, there are a few shiners, but I think most of the power is actually the transmute mechanic, which will be pretty nice in Extended and maybe Standard.
I'm a bit hesitent though, it seems you need a bit of luck for this to work properly in T2. He'll usually die fast, so you might get 2-4 cards removed. If you are lucky, you'll get one of his top cards removed, if unlucky, a few lands he didn't need anyway.
It IS nice they at least give a decent cardpool to make a milling deck now, with traumatize, this card, the large legend that mills when he hits players, the glimpse etc.
I kinda like the idea that most of the guilds are centered around an archetype, getting 10 archetypes at the end of the block is nice, especially if balanced well enough.
Reanimator NEEDS it's speed, because that's all it has. If stuff takes too long, the resources you spent reanimating things.
There are also a lot of easy ways to deal with reanimated creatures; bounce, blacks targeted detruction, white's attack remove from the game things etc.
Wizards so far have been on the outer limits of reanimation. Entomb + Reanimate are just very good, and are rightfully labelled as too good. But Zombify is pretty much the other side of the segment; large cost and sorcery speed as well, you just don't get enough advantage when you reanimate using spells like zombify (in competative T2 environments). Black also didn't have a good direct way to dump a creature in the graveyard in a while on par with buried alive or entomb.
So yes, I also am expecting better reanimation. It's sad that THE way to get fatties fast into play is now Tooth and Nail, which essentially do the same as reanimation (getting large fatties in play), but does it in 1 card and is priced good so it's actually being used. Tooth and Nail is proof that at least some thoughts are made about big creatures and getting them in play. They should use the same balance to reanimation, keeping in mind that those decks are more aggro based then Tooth and Nail.
I hope to see at least 1 reanimation card which costs 2B or less. It should have a drawback, but that's exactly what reanimation players like; taking chances and making tough decisions.
I'd also like a card which costs 1B or BB that does the same as Entomb. or 3 mana (1BU?) and Entomb + Cantrip in one.
Reanimation is also one of my favorite decks and I'm always trying to see if it works in standard (I tried doomed necromancers when onslaught came out), but truth be told, I think Wizards was scared how good reanimation was in OD T2 and the Extended environment at that time, that it went completely overboard and made it nigh useless in a competative environment. We can only hope Wizards sees that there is room for better reanimation and takes that road (or has hopefully already designed it for Ravnica).
I think that's how the angel is meant. Still,it should have haste instead of first strike, and maybe 1 less CC. The reserruction could also be cheaper to make it usable more, but I don't think the devs wanted that.
It has potential for reanimation. The bad side is that it is strictly 9 mana, it would have been better if it was any card between 7-9 mana.
Secondly, both abilities are kind of the same, which makes it overkill for it's function. It would be nice if thefirst ability read "when ~ comes into play, discard any cards with converted mana cost 7-9". Because then you could transmute it, search for a fatty, animate the Grozoth, dump the new fatty and get ready to reanimate the new fatty next turn (providing you have another reanimate spell that is).
Right now, it works with elvish piper very well. I'm not a fan of elvish piper, but it definately works miracles. You put this fellow into play with the piper and you suddenly can put nice stuff down every turn. There will probably be a few decks trying it out I think.
The other two are just meh. To make the red one worthy you need at least 5 or 6 permanents who aren't doing anything that turn, or you are probably better of with lightning blast.
The creature is extremely situational. It isn't good on it's own and very expensive. It's nice in casual with yavimaya elder and such, but I don't think there will be much use for it outside of that. I'd rather have a solid removal card or a good creature for that cost, then a small creature and 'maybe' removal which you can also achieve with other cards.
--
Edit; I could have sworn the creature was 2BBGG, oh well, I saw the correct costing now and then it's okay for it's cost. Still don't think it's contructed material, but it will find it's way in limited and in a few rogue decks and such.
--
Just my 2 copper.
Plus the flavor of this and the other hunted creatures is just great!
I do hope the Hunted Llama turns out to be a Hunted Griffin though, I :dance2: griffins
The birds on the plain art the wide midspace make me feel there are lots of memories stored and makes it calm.
The dense art on the island, as well as boats and balloons give sense of activity on the island.
Both also capture the idea well that this is a *huge* city, they both fade off on the horizon.
I really like the lands that they capture different emotions so well, in contrast to lands from other sets, which focus more on setting (plains has a wide free area, island has a lot of water etc) then on emotion.
It's hard to explain, but I feel these lands so far (and a handful in the past) are probably more designed by emotion first, then setting, instead of the other way around (what they usually seem to do).
It's just a part of the design space of Magic that hasn't been explored yet. Split cards were probably thought non-magic as well, the judgement wishes... etc.
I believe this particular design space has a lot of potential.
In response to this, I'd like to refer to the first part of my last post. More often then not, a single card is better then a single other for a particular reason. If you need to choose between sets of cards, then the choices become both more influential in the deck and the single cards can be varieing power and still be balanced.
For example, they could reprint a morphling-like creature, if you can't combine it with the good countermagic, and vica versa. That opens up a lot of design goodness.
Innovative decks revolve around specific cards by the way, in this case it's probably only a small issue. This has more effect on the standard decks.
Actually I'd like to think that restrictions can pose more strategy as well. Think about it. If card A is strictly better then B, then why play B? But if you can't play C if you have A in play, then you need to weigh more. B+C might be better then A + non-C.
I for one am a bit disappointed both flavorwise and strengthwise that powergaming within colors (and even over colors with multicolor decks) don't have any penalties. What if the new nice counterspell is linked to Dimir House, but the best creature to go with control is in another guild?
I'd like to see more "set versus set" choices instead of "single card vs single card" choices. Of course it should not be totally "set vs set" (ie all cards guild), because "single card vs single card" choices are nice to have as well. A balance between them would be nice.
You can still sneakily get 2 guilds with the imaginary keyword I outlined in the first post; it says "cannot be played", but "put into play" effects still work. It just shouldn't be so easy to have stuff from both guilds.
If for example you play Warhammer, this is kind of similar to fights between races (set vs set) and Dogs of War most armies have access to and within race armies (single vs single).
Magic is looking too much "I have Bretionnian Knights and Chameleon Skinks and Cannons and Chaos Marauders and Wood Elf Archers in my army", or something along those lines.
It shouldn't go completely guild vs guild in Ravnica, but a bit of it (like 3, or 4 or 5 cards per rarity exclusive per guild) would be nice.
One of the most fundamental things in magic is deckbuilding. What if the specific guilds had a few cards in their respective sets that were 'guild only'? Powerfull cards, maybe 3 commons 3 uncommons and 3 rares (one of the rares being a high guildmember and 2 being elite troops of the guild).
Now it's very cumbersome and unrealistic to check if players just have 1 guildtype in their deck. So instead of just making it a deckbuilding rule, a rule which affects deckbuilding indirectly through a keyword is good enough and still adds a lot of choices.
So I hope there will be keyword in Ravnica like;
Guild: <guildname> (you cannot play permanents with a guildname other then <guildname>)
This would mean you could specialize in your deck into a guild for those few special cards that have this keyword. If they would be really powerfull and balanced, at the end of the block, you'd have about 10 viable decks at least with some of these keyworded cards, plus of course the majority just normal cards.
For example, cards like maybe "Ravnica Soldier" can be used by any guild, and thus don't have the keyword.
Some extra food for thought:
* Interestingly, there could also be a "counter-keyword" to "guild" like "<name> can't be played if you control a permanent with 'Guild: Boros Legion'". Which would show the 'hate' or other incompatibilities (morals?) why that card (could be a creature or even other spells) wouldn't fit with that guild.
* And proceding on that thought, you could also have "can only be played if you control any card with the Guild keyword on it". Like a guild soldier. Every guild probably has a guild soldier (low rank) that will probably be a lot the same (or could be if flavor says so..). So the idea of a guild soldier who can only appear if you have another guildmember (a card with the guild keyword) sounds pretty nice.
An example could be
Guild Soldier W/B/U/R/G (that would make an odd mana symbol :P)
Creature - Human Soldier
can only be played if you control any card with the Guild keyword on it.
3/4
Even after training, everybody can see that every guild gets it's soldiers from the same place; the boys on the plaza's.
* Another funny thought is the inclusion of "Guild: unguilded". Which is not the same as not having a guild, rather, this permanent can't be played with any other guilds (so in essence it's a type of guild as well). These could be seen as revolutionists who despise the guild system and such and want nothing to do with *any* guilds. This 'guild' is also therefor a 5-color guild, since it has revolutionists and refugees etc from all 5 colors.
Anyway, I really would like the idea of guild special cards that can't be combined with other guilds, and are so strong people would like to go specialize in a guild. It would be very odd in my opinion if I could have one of the leaders of the Boros Legion guild and House Dimir.
Thoughts? Opinions?
So you get some extrapolating through those mages and signets, but you also get brand new keywords.