I think the Dimir go the route of planting moles where they want them rather than recruiting from disaffected members of another faction willing to turn. Of course, said mokes should be, above all else, inconspicuous.

Could they just not be the main antagonists for a change?

Since they haven't spoiled any of the guilds yet I'm taking this as a good omen about who the villain will be this time.

The villian will be nicol bolas, ob nixilis, eldrazi or marit lage.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No, Mata Hari, you are not fooling anyone this time !

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_Hari

That video was cringe as hell, but the way some people are reacting - you'd think WOTC was killing puppies.

Agreed, Ravnica is getting the three large sets that Dominaria would have both needed and deserved. Then again, they probably developed Dominaria with the question "What if people hate it?" constantly at the back of their minds. Pumping out three large sets about a return to Dominaria without knowing how enfranchised old fans would react to their overall approach must have seemed like a big risk. Ravnica would have felt a lot safer in that regard. Still, now that they've nailed down what a modern day Dominaria should be like and it seems to be a great success, they have no freaking excuse to not give us a proper three-set return to Dominaria (with a proper story next time) sooner or later. If Ravnica can support three large sets (we'll see about that), you bet Dominaria can do it blindfolded and with its hands tied. The good thing is that going all in with Dominaria some time in the future leaves them more time for concepting and worldbuilding and such. Would have been quite a challenge to flesh out even more corners of the plane all at once.

Now that they have as much space for Ravnica as never before, the obvious question to ask is: Will there be a planeswalker for every two-colour pair in this block? Personally, I don't care, but it would be the ultimate gimmick. With three large sets and 3-4 'walkers per set, this should be feasible, and they basically have an inbuilt story justification for a big planeswalker pileup this time. It could be something like:

I dunno, Narset? Jace? Dovin Baan? Azor resparked?
Tezzeret?
Ral Zarek
Nissa?
Ajani
Domri
Vraska
Kaya
Gideon? Nahiri? Samut?
Tibalt

Plus one or two slots for other 'walkers, like Jace or Bolas.

Dominaria was originally two sets, so I feel like it was logistical why they had to cut the second set rather than move it to the fall. I am guessing Ravnica was originally actually two blocks, with one big/small to reestablish the current setting (after the Guildpact has been gone awhile) and the second big/small as the big showdown. And they were like, "This is not enough for four sets," and that is part of why they shifted out of the block structure.

Just speculation though.

Yeah, reading material more closely we are not actually getting three Ravnica sets. We're getting two Ravnica sets (in the mold of RtR/Gatecrash) and a third set that will be on Ravnica but not about Ravnica. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out 5-6 years down the line no plane ever actually gets three sets. Almost all get one set per visit, planes whose mechanical structure can't possibly fit into a single large set get two (right now this is true only of Ravnica). Occasionally we stick around on a plane but the second set is not about the plane, it's about some big plot thing (like whatever the third set here turns out to be).

Dominaria can flavorfully support several large sets in a row, but Dominaria has proved that it can be made to mechanically fit into one set quite comfortably. I'm quite happy that its now in the rotation of highly popular returning worlds. Maro's upgraded it to a 1 on the Rabiah scale, equal only to Ravnica and Innistrad. So if we see it as often as those two, that's probably appropriate.

This is one of the most ridiculous semantic arguments I have ever seen. If the setting is Ravnica, it's a Ravnica set.


Yeah, it's amazing how if you make up your own definitions, you can make anything mean anything. "No plane ever gets three sets, we just get three sets on the plane." The only way that argument comes anywhere close to making sense is if you arbitrarily decide that settings don't matter to Magic sets, and because Wizards uses settings as the primary selling point of their sets, we know that setting matters a great deal.


Ironic, then, that these are the two planes I would be happy to basically never see again. I really liked Ravnica 1.0, and Return basically spat all over it, as far as I'm concerned. Innistrad 1.0 is possibly my favorite thing Magic has ever done, and the Shadows block is at least as much of an abomination as what they populated it with. So Maro's scale, to me, is essentially Creative's hit list of settings they can ruin.

It's tantamount to saying Hour of Devastation wasn't an Amonkhet set because it was about Bolas.
Praytell, how are we going to populate a set with cards without using the features of the setting?
I 100% guarantee that the guilds will be smeared all over that third set regardless of what the central narrative viewpoint is.

I'll bet the creative team joked about it.
A savvy marketer might see the value in it.
I have a hard time imagining the next level of management signing off on it.

Seriously, are you even surprised?

I'm not sure where the confusion lies. The first two sets are going to be Ravnica sets like people expect them to be. They will feature the guilds and the various stories one would expect from a Ravnica set. The third set, while taking place on Ravnica, will not be able to feature those things at all since it will be the culmination of Bolas' plan to subjugate the plane with his army of rock-zombies, planeswalker trap artifact, and whatever else he has cobbled together over the last decade or so. It will also be chock full of 'Walkers doing things. There will be no room for the Guilds, other than maybe the occasional multicolor draft uncommon and they may not even bother watermarking those and instead try to give the set an Invasion-era feel with everyone coming together to fight an unstoppable invading force.

Will we be in Ravnica? Technically; but the set will be less of a Ravnica set and more of "Invasion II - This time we fight in the streets!"

None of which changes the fact that it's a Ravnica set. It's literally set on Ravnica. This isn't about people being "confused," this is about Wizards and their various supporters setting up a semantic smoke screen. Wizards received criticism for having three Ravnica sets and only one Dominaria one despite fans seeming to want more Dominaria. Their response was basically, "oh, no, don't think of the third Ravnica set as a Ravnica set. It just takes place there, but it's about something else." But that argument is pointless. If taken as true, then we haven't had a setting block at all since before Battle for Zendikar, because since then all we've had are Gatewatch sets. And if THAT'S the case, then I would want to see Ravnica 3.3 even less than I already do, because it's damn sure going to be another Gatewatch set.

I don't know if this helps:

It's possible that set 3 may not be entirely set on Ravnica, but rather across multiple planes -- At least Ravnica and Amonkhet, with the possibility of (depending on what storyline conspiracy theory you subscribe to) Kaladesh and/or New Phyrexia throwing some sets into the mix. If that's the case, sure, it's "not a Ravnica set"

If it's just "Invasion: Ravnica", maybe with a couple cameo cards seeing the "other side of the bridge" on Amonkhet, it's a Ravnica set. Period.

I mean, is the problem that they are using semantics to set expectations? The third set is not a "Ravnica Set" in that a players expectations for multi-color, guilds, and lots of mechanics, will not be met as the set will focus on other things and they are just being clear about that to not have the set compared to Dragon's Maze, a set that wasn't as well liked because they had to cram all ten guilds into a small set with lots of multi-color cards and none of it turned out well. The third set will be "Set on Ravnica" because it is a culmination of a storyline and that is the hill the Gatewatch and Bolas are going to fight and/or die on. It is a semantics issue that tries to clearly set the audiences expectations. The wording matters, but not in a "Wizards is trying to fool everyone" kind of way. Instead they are being very clear that the wording matters and to set your expectations accordingly.

I mean, it doesn't "help," but for the record, I personally couldn't care less that it's three sets. I, personally, don't want to go back there at all. My problem is Wizards and others calling a fish a horse. If it's set on Ravnica, it's a Ravnica set. I hate when people try to put spin on this kind of thing.

If the cards are primarily set up to feature the population of Ravnica, regardless of mechanics or expectations, it is Ravnican. Unless the guilds totally collapse in Jace's absence and the membership is utterly purged, they will take part in the conflict.

Eh, what does that even mean? I'd argue that's impossible to quantify objectively, especially in the case of Dominaria. Like, sure, the mechanics that are actually in the set... fit in the set. Just like every other set. You can't really compare the mechanical demands of visiting Ravnica with Dominaria. Let's have a look at what the mechanical demands of returning to Ravnica actually are. I think we can all agree that you basically have to include all ten guilds, each with their own keyword or ability word, with enough cards for each guild to support it. Ideally, you'd also have room for the mono-coloured bread and butter cards that keep it all together, fill certain roles for Standard etc., plus a few oddball cards that give players alternatives to build around, e.g. Ratcatcher or the Nephilim cycle. And yeah, it's easy to see that you would need either one large set followed by two small sets (the traditional block structure) or at least two large sets.

Now, what about Dominaria? Sure, this time they decided to go with a history theme (and they'll probably keep that in some form going forward), and sure, Sagas and historic matters were cool ways to represent that. But honestly, what we actually saw in Dominaria as far as representing the plane as a whole is concerned was basically the equivalent of going to Ravnica and only showing two or three guilds. And that's true for both worldbuilding and flavour as well as possible mechanical identities. A plane that is so vast and that can be almost anything - even with an obligatory history theme layered on top of it going forward - can't be adequately captured in one set. The things we did see in Dominaria are dwarfed by all the things that we didn't see. The fact that Dominaria has so many different things to choose from means that, yes, it can be handled with less space than Ravnica could if it needs to be, but it also means that it could effortlessly support an almost arbitrary number of large sets in a row without getting stale and boring. I distinctly remember playing Magic at a time when we spent six consecutive sets in Otaria alone and it was just another day at the office. And that was after almost a decade of "all Dominaria all the time forever". Maybe Ravnica can support the upcoming block, but I can guarantee you that after that, people will be like, "please, no more Ravnica" for a very long time. What's more, time is an important factor here. It's been five years since Dragon's Maze came out, but eleven years since we last saw Dominaria (before Dominaria). And yet Ravnica is getting three times the exposure that Dominaria does now. That's insanely frustrating.

But as I said, I won't be around for the new Ravnica block. When the dust in the wake of Dominaria has settled and all is said and done, I'll go on an indefinite hiatus from buying sets, and I'll stop following this so-called storyline, just as I said I would. I've been sick and tired of plane hopping for years, I've hated the Gatewatch from the very beginning, I refuse to be cool with the fact that my new cards are curled the day after I opened them (ironically, the most expensive ones from the Masters sets also curl the most), I consider the short story format a failed experiment, I want the continuity to sort itself out and this mess of a story arc with all its ruined characters and retconned plotlines to just go away. I love Dominaria, and I'm turning my back on Magic in spite of it, not because of it. They've proven they can get it right if they really try, and I'll gladly reward that with my money, but it does nothing to extend my customer loayalty beyond this one set. However, it has given me a glimmer of hope that maybe I have more Dominaria to look forward to, and that it'll turn out fine. And that's something I didn't have before. We'll see how it goes without Kelly and Mark Winters, though...

That said, I still stand by my suggestion of a three pillar model in which Dominaria is treated as its own category in addition to new planes and returning planes. Magic needs something like a homebase again.

Edit: Oh, and I almost forgot: Dominaria only getting one set has also proven to be disastrous for the story it's trying to tell. Mechanics and worldbuilding are important, but they aren't the only important things.