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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 9:58 am 
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https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/2018-spring-announcement-day-2018-05-18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_qvw0JrswA

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Everything has been building up to this.

Nicol Bolas's plans are taking shape, and heroes are converging on Ravnica to stop him—which means we're going back to the world of guilds as well!

We'll be spending three sets on Ravnica as we gear up for the final showdown with Bolas himself. We've got a little way to go till we get there, but now you can start preparing yourself—dig out that Izzet shirt, tune up that Golgari Commander deck, stack up your Orzhov tokens (or gold), and get ready to go back to Ravnica!

Guilds of Ravnica releases October 5, 2018, and will prominently feature the harmonious Selesnya (green-white), the militant Boros (red-white), the life-and-death-focused Golgari (black-green), the frazzled geniuses of the Izzet (blue-red), and the mystery of the Dimir (blue-black).

Ravnica Allegiance ratchets up the drama and releases January 2019, and will complete our travels through the guilds. Join the orderly Azorius (white-blue), the chaotic Rakdos (black-red), the wild Gruul (red-green), the experimental Simic (green-blue), and the devious Orzhov (white-black) as we reach the penultimate moment of the Gatewatch's story.

It wouldn't be a return to Ravnica without letting players play as their favorite guilds. Guild Kits will feature a 60-card deck flavored after your favorite guild, plus guild schwag like pins, stickers, and Spindown life counters. Play as any one of the Guilds of Ravnica guilds with the Guilds of Ravnica Guild Kits releasing on November 2, 2018. Ravnica Allegiance Guild Kits release February 2019.

And, as you might have noticed in the video, we're spending a third set on Ravnica as well—but we're not quite ready to talk about it yet. Just know that while the setting will be Ravnica, the focus will be on the culmination of the story and not the guilds.

It's going to be a wild ride as we return to one of Magic's favorite planes, and the long-boiling war with Nicol Bolas reaches its crescendo.

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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 10:07 am 
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Interesting new wording change for a Battlebond Ability in that video: Partner with X (When this creature enters the battlefield, target player may put X into their hand from their library and shuffle it.)

So, is this a replacement or shortening of search? The words search and reveal are never used.

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magicpablo666 wrote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!"


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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 11:30 am 
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Are we finishing off Bolas already?

also, can we ban wotc from making videos

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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 11:33 am 
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I doubt we are "finishing him off" so much as we are "decisively defeating him for now." Bolas is too much of an Iconic villain for them to off permanently.

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magicpablo666 wrote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!"


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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 11:39 am 
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Even that feels a bit premature.

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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 11:42 am 
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I think it only feels that way because the story is moving twice to almost three times faster these days than we were used to. If all the sets since Origins were three-set blocks, we'd be at about seven years worth of "build-up" in this story arc by now instead of like three.

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magicpablo666 wrote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!"


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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 11:57 am 
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For Perspective, even Yawgmoth got only 3 blocks of dedicated build-up (Tempest, Urza's, and Masques) before the arc finale (Invasion). And yeah he had the advantage of roots back to at least Antiquities (and Novels) but Bolas has roots back to at least his resurrection in Time Spiral, and really to Legends.

That said, not a fan, and I feel like it will be "defeated for all time" since Rav set 2 is billed as the penultimate gatewatch tale and we know this one is unwinnable for Bolas since they won't trash Ravnica or even topple the guilds.

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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 12:25 pm 
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The thing I'm most excited about actually turned out is the Chinese planewalker decks. I want a Mowu token.

Ravnica gets less and less exciting each time it shows up. Mechanically it feeds off providing a stable structure for more chaotic blocks (Kamigawa, Time Spiral and to a lesser extent Innistrad) so that a plethora of deck ideas can grow out of it. If those outside sets don't provide enough viable variable ideas, it gets boring (RTR-Theros). While Dominaria is definitely chaotic, Ixalan isn't and I'm not sure if Dominaria alone would provide enough for a year of Ravnica.


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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2018 5:23 pm 
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I am guessing that New Phyrexia is next after they finish off the Bolas/Gatewatch story. Maybe with an eventual return to Theros to fish up Elspeth? I can't see them finishing off Phyrexia without Elspeth since it is part of her backstory.

Anyway, bet is on Liliana redeeming herself by dying, Bolas being incapacitated but not killed so he can be used in the future -- there is something underwhelming about an ultra-powerful dragon who hails from the early 90s being killed by a bunch of newbies. And if they are actually finishing Gatewatch while Gatewatch here, does it mean that there is not going to be anything regarding how killing Ulamog and Kozilek was a bad idea?

Also, guess that one of the advantages of stopping doing blocks is that they don't have to find contrived ways of doing Ravnica anymore. "Ravnica Allegiance" is a really silly name.


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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 2:24 am 
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reason to reprint shocks yeah!

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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 8:48 am 
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Mown wrote:
Even that feels a bit premature.
Nothing with Bolas can be premature. He's been hanging around in the background of Magic plots, getting only occasional spurts of progression, for almost 10 years now.

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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 9:18 am 
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I'll stick my neck out and say that I think the first two Ravnica sets will underperform. I get the sense that Dominaria has been a success in part because they spent loads of time thinking "this might not be a success, so we'll need to think very hard about how to make it one," and that for Ravnica they went "we don't need to do that for this, as it will certainly be a success." I'm not confident they've thought that certainty through, although hopefully I'm wrong and they have.


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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 10:20 am 
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Mown wrote:
Are we finishing off Bolas already?

also, can we ban wotc from making videos


"Already"

Honestly Bolas has been around for so long that if they don't kill/depower him soon the entire thing will just be a dragging mess. Storylines need ends eventually.


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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 2:16 pm 
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I'm not talking relative to how long Bolas has existed, I'm talking relative to how recently the gatewatch got absolutely demolished by him. It's a pretty substantial whiplash.

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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 4:52 pm 
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Mown wrote:
also, can we ban wotc from making videos

No. Unfortunately. What a shame.

I would bet $100 that that video was scripted and runned-through before recording.

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PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 7:50 pm 
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I refuse to watch the video. I can feel cringe without having to even hit it


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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 2:00 pm 
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Wait, I thought starting with Dominaria we were starting on single-set block structure, at least for a while. Now we're going back to 3 set blocks straight away? What gives?


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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 2:04 pm 
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I think they said from the beginning that sets can run into each other, it's just no longer the default. But they should've gone more than literally one set in the new structure before basically reverting back two structure types.


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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 4:14 pm 
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I would have the Gatewatch planeswalkers individually find a sense of closure in the streets of Ravnica, deciding to throw away their grudge against Bolas, and planeswalking away to do their thing or whatever. Then turn it into a John Wick style thing with Jace vs Ral Zarek and Bolas with Tezzeret doing his own thing aiding both sides.

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PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 4:27 pm 
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They'll still be three separate large sets, each only drafted by itself. MaRo has said that the third set will not be like Dragon's Maze and that it'll take things in its own different direction. I expect that the three sets will end up feeling pretty different mechanically, despite the shared setting.

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