I'm pretty impressed with this card. It reminds me alot of old Invasion favorite Spite/Malice with it's versatility. It can't always counter the spell, but you can tutor up an answer in a pinch.
Is it just me, or does it seem unfair that U/B gets 12 tutors in this set?
These are mostly relatively solid limited cards (about what you'd expect from a batch of commons).
The flier will be a top pick in limited. Remember that the baseline for 3/3 fliers is 5 mana (see: Shinen of Flight's Wings), he'll almost always be that and at 4 mana he's very good.
The Wolf seems playable-to-good, but I think it will hinge on the quality and quantity of creature pump in the set. If you come through with a Kodama's Might like effect, that's a quick 10 damage, very Strength of Cedars like.
The Viashino is very filler, but probably playable as a random 2-drop.
The Centaur is very solid: high power, useful ability, easy to cast.
I think RRG will be quite a strange format, with the three guilds in GP being rather under-represented. Signaling will be very confusing, to say the least.
Holy powerful mechanic, Batman! If the cards themselves aren't heinously bad, then a selective tutor will be simply ridiculous in some decks. Probably won't matter for Vintage but, Legacy or Extended, perhaps?
I think we're going a little wild with the speculation, here. The card isn't great but it's reasonable as reported by the source... I think it'd be kinda hard to confuse "card" with "mechanic" and I seriously doubt that every Dimir mechanic card will be a cantrip on steroids...
Nice of them to put in a cycle of common fixers for limited -- I wonder if we'll see a cycle of common lands as well? Ravnica is going to be one hell of a weird limited format... I don't know if it'll be stranger to have just 4 guilds in triple RAV, or to have all 10 spread across three sets when the block is complete.
R/W could be a force in standard -- it's got great efficient white creatures, presumably some good red burn, and Thoughts of Ruin as it's Armageddon effect.
I still am not crazy about the 4/3/3 plan, but I concede now that it's all but confirmed. That said, I really hope that wizards does push each of the guild mechanics significantly in each set. I'd hate to see any of the mechanics "go to waste" by being underdeveloped.
Though I'm still concerned about Limited formats, I'm also a bit worried about Constructed. Since the first four guilds will (apparently) be exclusive to the first set, this means that when GP and Dissension come out, those decks will fail to develop in a significant way. This could either be awesome and introduce a lot of good decks... or it could be terrible and there'll be a dominant deck built from RAV that will be unstoppable and we'll be stuck with for two entire rotations...
The flavor of the U/B guild "mind assassins" is cool. Maybe we'll finally have a competitve mill deck? The B/G mechanic seems insanely good... so good that I think something might be off on it (or all its cards will be too expensive to be playable).
The R/W guy seems great and has a great flavor that's just what we might expect from that guild. He'll be a high pick in limited for sure and may even see constructed play.
I think that Ravnica feels very exciting because it's like we're getting 4 totally new colors. Like, we're used to green winning with fat guys and red winning with little guys and burn spells. Ravnica might open up completely new paths to victory, or at least provide some interesting variations.
Spirit eh? It's odd to be seeing those right after THE spirit block, though I suppose that they are a very common creature type in magic.
The artifact seems interesting right off the bat, but Top will always be infinitely better in any constructed deck, so meh... Possibly in block or something.
1) I hope they continue to print more spirits, at least in RAV, so it'll open up possible synergies with CHK block in T2.
2) The artifact is better than Top in some decks -- namely those without shuffle effects.
As an aside, I hope this G/W guild artifact is a good signal that Green will be getting back some decent library manipulation a la Sylvan Library or something of that vein.
That's not bad a limited filler, however. Well, at least if x/4 guys are as effective in RAV as they are in the current limited environment. And seriously, spirit? That guy would have been a perfect fit in CHK block. That said, he's quite a bit better than the likes of Samite Healer, though he's not as good as Split-Tail Miko. A playable-to-solid common.
The artifact sounds cool, though. What exactly makes it G/W guild specific, though? I mean, it costs 2, so anyone can play it right? It seems somewhere between Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight, and might see some play. The ability seems a bit too pricey to make the card really good, though.
The "mutate" thing does seem interesting. Hopefully, it'll be one of those cool subtle mechanics like scry or cycling that isn't flashy but just gives you more options. Options are just nice.
Perhaps it'll have to do with the color pairs... like:
R/W Guild Mutator -- 2W
Sorcery
<cool effect>
Mutate: W (W, Discard ~this~: Search your library for a red card with a converted mana cost of 3 and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)
Well, that' not terribly exciting, I guess. I dunno, just a random thought.
Also, I like the blue spell in Limited, at least. It also makes a nice foil for enemy removal: say your opponent wants to set up an attack by removing one of your guys, so in response you save your guy and bounce their biggest attacker. Now chances are they can't replay him because they spent mana on the removal spell, and meanwhile you get your guy back. Huge tempo play.
So, this is a bad card. For the record, milling strategies will never be competitive. They just don't do anything until they've already milled away 59 cards. The only card that matters when you are milling someone down is the 60th.
Allow me to play Devil's Advocate here -- everything you said about milling could just as easily be applied to life. The philosophy of a control deck is that only the last point of life matters. The first 19 life are meaningless, as long as you can protect the last one.
Also, damaging your opponent doesn't affect their game plan any more or less than milling them. Damaging an opponent doesn't deplete any resource aside from their life total, just as milling only depletes their library.
Your logic regarding Arc-Slogger is somewhat flawed. What makes the Slogger powerful is, to use Chad Ellis terminology, that the library is not the "scarce resource." No one is attacking your library, so losing cards from it isn't really an issue. If Arc-Slogger read "R, Pay 4 Life: Deal 2..." it'd be a hell of a lot more risky. However, Arc-Slogger's current incarnation would be awful against an opposing Mill deck.
I'd say the fundamental flaw with milling is that it has no sense of tempo in it's current forms. Whereas a creature deck can continue to add creatures to its board, doing more and more damage each turn, a mill deck's strategy is more like a straight-ahead burn deck. It has to rely on singular spells to do its work, and it can't build any momentum. So, this card is relatively useless in a vaccuum, but if the "U/B Guild" has a milling theme, it could be a powerful tool.
Is it just me, or does it seem unfair that U/B gets 12 tutors in this set?
The flier will be a top pick in limited. Remember that the baseline for 3/3 fliers is 5 mana (see: Shinen of Flight's Wings), he'll almost always be that and at 4 mana he's very good.
The Wolf seems playable-to-good, but I think it will hinge on the quality and quantity of creature pump in the set. If you come through with a Kodama's Might like effect, that's a quick 10 damage, very Strength of Cedars like.
The Viashino is very filler, but probably playable as a random 2-drop.
The Centaur is very solid: high power, useful ability, easy to cast.
*zing!*
But seriously people, did Ophidian ever need evasion? I'll admit this guy is Shock-bait, but come on, the ability is ridiculously good.
Though I'm still concerned about Limited formats, I'm also a bit worried about Constructed. Since the first four guilds will (apparently) be exclusive to the first set, this means that when GP and Dissension come out, those decks will fail to develop in a significant way. This could either be awesome and introduce a lot of good decks... or it could be terrible and there'll be a dominant deck built from RAV that will be unstoppable and we'll be stuck with for two entire rotations...
The R/W guy seems great and has a great flavor that's just what we might expect from that guild. He'll be a high pick in limited for sure and may even see constructed play.
I think that Ravnica feels very exciting because it's like we're getting 4 totally new colors. Like, we're used to green winning with fat guys and red winning with little guys and burn spells. Ravnica might open up completely new paths to victory, or at least provide some interesting variations.
1) I hope they continue to print more spirits, at least in RAV, so it'll open up possible synergies with CHK block in T2.
2) The artifact is better than Top in some decks -- namely those without shuffle effects.
As an aside, I hope this G/W guild artifact is a good signal that Green will be getting back some decent library manipulation a la Sylvan Library or something of that vein.
The artifact sounds cool, though. What exactly makes it G/W guild specific, though? I mean, it costs 2, so anyone can play it right? It seems somewhere between Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight, and might see some play. The ability seems a bit too pricey to make the card really good, though.
Perhaps it'll have to do with the color pairs... like:
R/W Guild Mutator -- 2W
Sorcery
<cool effect>
Mutate: W (W, Discard ~this~: Search your library for a red card with a converted mana cost of 3 and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)
Well, that' not terribly exciting, I guess. I dunno, just a random thought.
Also, I like the blue spell in Limited, at least. It also makes a nice foil for enemy removal: say your opponent wants to set up an attack by removing one of your guys, so in response you save your guy and bounce their biggest attacker. Now chances are they can't replay him because they spent mana on the removal spell, and meanwhile you get your guy back. Huge tempo play.
Allow me to play Devil's Advocate here -- everything you said about milling could just as easily be applied to life. The philosophy of a control deck is that only the last point of life matters. The first 19 life are meaningless, as long as you can protect the last one.
Also, damaging your opponent doesn't affect their game plan any more or less than milling them. Damaging an opponent doesn't deplete any resource aside from their life total, just as milling only depletes their library.
Your logic regarding Arc-Slogger is somewhat flawed. What makes the Slogger powerful is, to use Chad Ellis terminology, that the library is not the "scarce resource." No one is attacking your library, so losing cards from it isn't really an issue. If Arc-Slogger read "R, Pay 4 Life: Deal 2..." it'd be a hell of a lot more risky. However, Arc-Slogger's current incarnation would be awful against an opposing Mill deck.
I'd say the fundamental flaw with milling is that it has no sense of tempo in it's current forms. Whereas a creature deck can continue to add creatures to its board, doing more and more damage each turn, a mill deck's strategy is more like a straight-ahead burn deck. It has to rely on singular spells to do its work, and it can't build any momentum. So, this card is relatively useless in a vaccuum, but if the "U/B Guild" has a milling theme, it could be a powerful tool.