Third set isn’t focused on guilds. While set on Ravnica it’s gonna be focused on the event of the final battle against Bolas and not the plane itself (though of course this will lead to major changes on Ravnica)

My personal bold guess: the third set will care about choices, specifically split cards and "choose one" effects

Hm... if we'd be choosing between guilds or various allies or whatnot in certain senses (as it turns out that various guilds are allied with Bolas, and others with Ravnica/Anti-Bolas heroes), it might make it a good place to put a lot of hybrid mana costs, as people choose to do things with one side or another.

For instance, you could have a spell involving a choice between siding with Rakdos or Izzet, which has a mana cost that includes red symbol, and a hybrid mana symbol of black or blue, and might have a different secondary effect depending on if black or blue is used, representing a choice between siding with a Bolas allied Izzet and a Rakdos allied Rakdos. That might be fun, and a way to make it drafting a multi-color heavy set both interesting and easier.

So now that we have RNA, when will we be getting DNA?

Back in ymtc everyone said I was crazy for trying to make a planeswalker themed set. Who’s crazy now?

I mean still you, just WotC as well.

Bold prediction: War of the Spark will have an Ugin

That was confirmed on Friday here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2019-03-08

This is why I love you all.

So...

Uncommon Planeswalkers, anyone?

They can't entirely fill their rare/mythic slot with 36 PW's, can they?
And they promised a Planeswalker every pack, soooo...?

It’s a large set, so it would normally have much more than 36 rares. Even if their rarity was a special one that only appeared in that one per pack slot, they are mathematically each as rare as a specific uncommon in any other set

Some ways they could do that:

1. Planeswalker replaces BL slot (as Gates replaced BLs for last two sets)
2. Planeswalker replaces rare slot and one of the uncommon slots becomes an uncommon or (non-PW) rare slot.
3. Planeswalker replaces common slot (much as double-faced card did in Innistrad and Dark Ascension)
4. No non-planeswalker rares
5. Planeswalker replaces uncommon slot

Drawbacks of each
1. Need for mana fixing and getting incoming players BLs
2. Uncharted and complicated
3. Makes packs considerably more valuable
4. Has there ever been a set with 0 rare creatures?
5. This would mean that there are either significantly fewer uncommons or you don't get a particular uncommon as frequently as expected

It's not like we haven't done special rarities before people. Time Spiral had purple "future shifted" rarities.

Yeah but usually the special rarity is a cross-section of common-uncommon-rare or common-uncommon-rare-mythic, rather than straight-up mythic.

Is it too early to start thinking about color allocation of the PWs?

There are 32 possible color combinations for a card (Colorless, each of the five colors, the ten guilds, five wedges, five shards, five "Nephilims" and WUBRG). That means at least 4 combos will be doubled up, more if a color combo is omitted?

I'd presume it's unlikely that we will get 4-color or 5-color 'walkers, but we'll probably get all 10 3-color combos.

We will certainly get two colorless planeswalkers since both Karn and Ugin are returning.

We could get a five-color. It seems like something they would do in a set like this.

With improvements in printing and sorting tech WOTC may have some way of assuring that a walker appears in every pack without having to replace a specific card. So you could have a walker in your rare slot or one in your uncommon slot, or if neither of those occur your basic land slot is taken up by a walker instead.

That's how Legendaries worked in Dominaria, IIRC, so it would stand to reason, if we get uncommon PWs, that it's the method they might use. I'm not totally convinced of uncommon PWs, though.

Bold prediction: the reason Tezzeret isn't in War of the Spark is because he's carrying around a piece of Bolas' essence in him.

Bold prediction: Stained Glass #4 (currently listed as 'Unknown') is Elspeth and Stained Glass #28 (currently listed as Davriel Cane) is Garruk. and I did not know about the Children of the Nameless banner which confirms #28 as Daniel Crane (thanks CommanderJim)

No idea who the person on #12 should be though, the closest design I can think of is that one Arena tutorial lady (Viper Nang is her name I believe).

Also I find it kind of surprising that Tezzeret is not seen on any of the stained glasses; this makes him the only Walker from recent sets to be missing. The next PW missing is either Garruk (M15) or, if my bold prediction is correct,, then Xenagos (Theros). Xenagos is certainly missing though, the one devil is DEFINITELY Tibalt and not him.

Tarkir: Sarkhan, Narset, Sorin, Ugin
ORI: Gideon, Jace, Lili, Chandra, Nissa
Zendikar: Kiora, Ob Nixilis
Innistrad: Nahiri, Tamiyo, Arlinn
Kaladesh: Dovin, Ajani, Saheeli
Amonkhet: Bolas, Samut
Ixalan: Vraska, Huatli, Angrath
M19: Vivien
Ravnica: Ral, Kaya, Domri

Also, colour alignment won't be even. We have 2 colourless Walkers (Karn and Ugin), which leaves 34, and considering I'd put none of the walkers past 3 colours that makes for an uneven distribution.
That said; my speculation is that there will be a circle of 'Shard' PWs:

Naya: Huatli
Bant: Tamiyo
Jund: Sarkhan
Grixis: Bolas
Esper: Teyo Verada (?)