Return to Ravnica

[Dreamer]

So. Worldspine... thing. Hooray for Nat Order into 30 power with Trample I guess? These "I Win Lols" permanents are goddamn stupid. But will they stop? Nno sir, so stop playing your favourite deck and ramp into FATTIES. Isn't Magic so FUN? Nevermind I am an idiot and cannot read. In other news, Gatecreeper Vine and the Guildgates are going to be huge in Pauper.

[MMD]

Fatties without immediate (or either matchup and/or next turn game winning) effect are nearly worthless IMO.

But it seems that the new set will have a quite deep quality level as there are already many playables announced within the first 84 cards.:

- Basic lands  
- All three charms (two are great and even the third one is a playable)
- Both planeswalkers (with Vraska being nuts IMO)
- Most of the Golgari spells (especially the Scavage mechanic with Dreg Mauler as spearhead, but also the other cards in combination with the Dredge mechanic)
- All three Hybrid spells are playable
- some single cards like: Dreadbore, Rakdos's Return, Chromatic Lantern, Gatecreeper Vine
- certainly the reprint of Shockduals

It also seems that there will be some playables with the other new mechanics Overload (Mizzium Mortars) and detain (Lyev Skynight). The Unleash mechanic itself is also nice but P/T ratio of the spoiled cards is not good enough to find play. Just Populate seems to be a "meh" mechanic.

I don't know how to abuse the other Izzet cards like Guttersnipe, Goblin Electronmancer, Guildmage and Niv-Mizzet. The effect is strong but they are all very fragile and cost intensive.

IMO price tags for the planeswalker will be very high again and Niv-Mizzet will cause havoc within the Commander community (but I doubt that he will see other Constructed play). Also some other cards like Dreadbore and Rakdos´s Return could start with a 2-digit EUR price. The shock duals will certainly also have its high price.

Even if the rest of the set is non-playable I would be happy with the outcome. Return to Ravnica could be one of the sets where you don't loose money when you open boosters.

[Doks]

Indeed, the new set looks very promising already. However, I fear that some of the good Rakdos cards (Dreadbore comes to mind) will not be that relevant in our Highlander format since BR as a colour combination is not that common. However, Selesyna, Azorius and Golgari come up with some really interesting cards.


On a side note: does anyone know how they split up the guild cards in the whole "Return to Ravnica" block?

If I remember correctly, the first "Ravnica: City of Guilds" block brought 3 or 4 guilds with each set (so that at the end of the block all 10 guilds were covered).

Now in the set "Return to Ravnica" we already see cards of Rakdos, Selesnya, Azorius, Golgari and Izzet. Could it be that they bring now 5 guilds in each of the first two sets and leave the 3rd set to have more options during development?

[Nastaboi]

They'll be five guilds in RTR and the other five in Gatecrash. Both are large sets and will be drafted as 3x RTR and 3x GTC. Third small set will have something for everybody, and draft format will then be (small set) - GTC - RTR.

[Mir]

Supreme Verdict 1WWU

Supreme Verdict can't be countered.

Destroy all Creatures.

[Doks]

Supreme Verdict 1WWU

Supreme Verdict can't be countered.

Destroy all Creatures.

Exactly what I thought. 3rd CC4 Wrath of God in a typical colour combination. I like it very much.

[Mir]

This and Abrupt decay are going to make some trouble to my monoblue HL deck if I want to keep it monoblue.

Few people predicted that there will be cards which exile spells. Quite a lot of "Cant be countered" spells are coming in this set, and I fear that there will be only few possibilites to keep control strong - cards like Venser, Shaper savant, Time stop and/or Mindbreak trap. However most of them were proven suboptimal... :/

Misdirection will be bit more popular after this set - at least against Abrupt decay.

[Nastaboi]

Slow control decks don't even mind countering these spells. These have been printed to bring down aggro-control strategies, namely Delver decks.

[Tiggupiru]

Supreme Verdict and Abrupt Decay are quite sexy and pretty good in HL. That "uncounterable" clause is mostly irrelevant right now, but definitively doesn't hurt. Very good, both of them.

Gatecreeper Vine - I like in Pattern. Irrelevant body, but if it gains you ~3 life and fetches you a basic, it's a fine deal for two mana.

Worldspine Wurm - is fun with Sneak Attack, but there are probably better options as you can't really go all-in on Sneak Attack with this format. If they print two Sneak Attacks (with different names ofc) more, this becomes good.

Azorius Charm - Gives some tempo. Turn two Memory Lapse their two-drop gives them relatively weak top deck and potential bump in the curve. Also cycles and the lifelink probably matter more often than you would think. Pretty good.

Collective Blessing - I think this is good in tokens. Believe it or not, this is not obvious as there are plenty pretty good finishers with CMC 5+. Too bad there is no trample. Overrun-enchantment sounds sweet and a potential flavor nightmare.

Dreadbore - I like very much. Mainly because this sees play in decks I want to play (read: not aggro).

Dreg Mangler - Probably good enough in 5c aggro. I think Scavenge is much more powerful mechanic than it originally seems and Wizards clearly makes it cheap enough to see constructed play.

Goblin Electromancer - If there is a combo, sure. Probably no-show otherwise.

Grisly Salvage - Needs graveyard synergies to be good, so Reanimator should find this attractive. Netting a land or looter and potentially dumping huge things and Unburial Rites in the 'yard. I would play this in that deck.

Izzet Charm - Careful Study, Dead or Spell Pierce. That's very flexible set of cards. Great in decks that want to use Careful Study regularly, decent-ish otherwise, at least it can get you back in the game when flooded.

Lotleth Troll - I don't have any idea where to put this card in. I guess it's good somewhere, but those decks might not for competitive play. It's aggressively costed enough that it is only slightly awkward in aggro. Difficult card to evaluate.

Lyev Skyknight - I'm not in Lyev with this card, but it's not bad.

Rakdos's Return - Dump five mana into this card and you have a decent deal. Shame this doesn't kill creatures, but if there is a color combination that can handle few creatures, it's red-black.

Selesnya Charm - As with all the charms, all of these are good abilities, although the +2/+2 is just there to end the game pretty much. Killing a game-ender at instant speed is exactly what GW is usually lacking, so the restriction of the removal part isn't huge, although it's still pretty significant. 2/2 instant Knight is fine if the board is empty and both of you are in top-deck wars. Weakest of the Charms so far, in my opinion, but I could see this played somewhere.

Vraska the Unseen - Decent walker. Pretty much aims to gain some value before dying. This doesn't win any games by itself, but removal and couple of life is a good deal from time to time. In board stalls this is incredibly hard to kill, but to compensate, the ultimate is really weak. Very Gideonish.

Dryad Militant - Hate-lion? Not much to say, not much to add. Savannah Lions is pretty good in some decks and this is just way better.

Slitherhead - Aww.. how cute. Zero mana abilities that work from graveyard are potentially broken, although it's really hard to see how that would be accomplished with this dude. Might also be playable as a beater dork if you have some zombie (or plant!) synergies.

[Mir]

Slow control decks don't even mind countering these spells. These have been printed to bring down aggro-control strategies, namely Delver decks.

Abrupt decay is being discussed by legacy players as first card which can sucesfully destroy infamous Countertop lock. Not true, there was also Krosan Grip some time ago, but I have to agree that this is way better. Also the reason why I started to think about Psychic battle in my deck, but its less versatile...

At all the set looks to change a lot of things, but still I fear that the Hasbro wants to turn MTG into "Clash of the summons".

[Dreamer]

Jarad's Orders, Jarad's Orders, just following 'em all game long...

[tonytahiti]

question concerning izzet charm. when is that card legal in HL? it has been released in the duel deck golgari vs. izzet and has been legal in legacy since september 7th. it wont be legal in standard until the set release. are there rules/guidelines for this scenario? thank you.

btw - most difficult to eavulate card ever: nivmagus elemental.

[Tiggupiru]

btw - most difficult to eavulate card ever: nivmagus elemental.

I am pretty sure it's just bad. Can't work out a scenario where it's good enough to offset the times it's just plain weak. Even if RDW goes first turn it, turn two two burn spells, it's good. As it hits more than the burn would deal if it connects again, but getting the guy removed is just beyond horrible. Can't imagine wanting to play this in blue decks, as every blue instant or sorcery is better than two Battlegrowths.

[Dreamer]

So, we have an Oblivion Ring-pulse. In rare. Goddamn I love removal in Rare.

[haju]

In other formats yes, in highlander I highly doubt this card will have any impact. With 1WU it's harder to cast than Oblivion Ring and except tokens there shouldn't be more than one permanent with the same name (at least not on the other side of the table).