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[Toxi]

I'd imagine Ravnica is at least semi post-scarcity, in order for the guild system to be sustainable. Selesnya and Golgari likely fulfill the agricultural needs of the planet by making vertical farms.

You're born into a guild and the guild becomes your livelihood. Someone needs to clean up all those tanks for the Simic, sweep the stations for the Boros, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if Selesnya/Golgari are the largest guilds of Ravnica proper, since they both have a philosophy of numbers and are tied closely to population growth. Being Orzhov is like being a 1%er.

The servants and slaves of the Orzhov guild make it quite a bit larger. The smallest guild is probably the Dimir, since the nature of the organization requires it to be very small.

Selesnya and Golgari are definitely the largest. Selesnya are all about recruitment and the Golgari are

lore question! Do the Golgari belong to the *evil* guilds? I don't really know what their agenda is supposed to be. Is it like this whole Pharika deal where they are simultaneously malevolent and benevolent?

Well, technically, I guess only 3 of the 4 white guilds can be counted as *good* though I'm not really sure what Selesnya is all about either aside from being some sort of hippie cult conclave that grows tree people which sounds rather sinister if you ask me, and Azorius seems to altogether rather indifferent about the whole morality question issue

Pharika isn't really affiliated with the Golgari post-Planeswalker spark ignition.

All the guilds harm the guildless in some way. The Golgari are very cavalier with death, to the point they leave zombies lying around and occasionally release virulent plagues. Still, they're probably among the better guilds because they provide an extremely crucial role to the city and tend to keep to themselves. Most of their conflict is within the faction, and most of the faction dwells in the undercity away from everyone else. You don't mess with the Golgari, they generally don't mess with you. They'll probably use your grandma's skull as a flower pot though.

 

[JulianImp]

lore question! Do the Golgari belong to the *evil* guilds? I don't really know what their agenda is supposed to be. Is it like this whole Pharika deal where they are simultaneously malevolent and benevolent?

Well, technically, I guess only 3 of the 4 white guilds can be counted as *good* though I'm not really sure what Selesnya is all about either aside from being some sort of hippie cult conclave that grows tree people which sounds rather sinister if you ask me, and Azorius seems to altogether rather indifferent about the whole morality question issue

The Boros are zealots mindlessly bent on upholding the law, the Selesnya are also mindless fanatics due to their hive mentality (individual needs mean nothing to them), the Azorius are too busy with their laws and regulations to do anything and finally the Orzhov are a corrupt church-slash-pyramid scheme.

Basically, all guilds have a less savory side to them if you look hard enough, and there's some extra side lore that details stuff that might be missed at a first glance. For example, I remember reading somewhere that the Simic's bioengineering experiments and focus on evolution were kind of a way for them to attone for not being able to protect oh so many species which went extinct over time due to excessive urbanization.

 

[Haly]

If Ravnica was Manhattan...

Selesnya: Whole Foods, Central Park
Golgari: MTA rats, Waste Management, farmers markets
Boros: NYPD but less racist
Azorius: City Hall, UN
Simic: NYU Langone, Weill-Cornell Presbyterian, Duane Reade, CVS
Gruul: Homeless
Rakdos: Columbia University, NYU, Madison Square, East Village
Orzhov: Wall Street, Financial District
Dimir: FBI, the Illuminati
Izzet: Cooper Union, tech startups
Unaligned: Starbucks, B&N, The Halal Guys, Uber

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

For two blocks, sure. Not sure why you think that indicates an anti-sci-fi decision.


The Swamps show the undercity, which isn't really heavily populated and is where the Golgari farm. Several of the Mountains are foundaries, aka places where people work and not places where they live. The Forests all show gardens.

And again, the Golgari farm with Green magic. Magic like Life from the Loam or Rampant Growth. Why is that not a good enough explanation?

I posted this awhile ago yet people continued trying to argue with me

Yeah like I'm saying unless the buildings are largely empty I just don't buy that that would suffice. It's not something that can be argued much about, Wizards says it does, I say it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

I just don't believe magic is an everything checks out fix in this case. Plants and bodies need space to grow (idk what corpses need to become edible but definitely space). The space they need would have to be proportionate to the space occupied by citizens. I don't see the vast amount of space needed.

Vertical farms would be the solution with the skyscrapers being occupied by those instead of citizens but I don't think that was ever mentioned in any ravnica stories.

And once again it's all about suspension of disbelief, Ravnica breaks it in my case.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I believe the way it goes is:
* Azorius - Sticklers for the law, make things overly complicated for the average citizen, but probably won't randomly kill you.
* Boros - Probably unlikely to randomly kill you, unless you visit a Rakdos brothel and they launch a raid there.
* Dimir - The average citizen does know they exist now, but believe they just offer simple investigative services. If you happen to be around during a covert mission, they'll likely just erase your memory of the event, but they could kill you. Neither option is that good.
* Izzet - Experiments have a chance of randomly killing people nearby.
* Golgari - Give you food, will leave you alone unless you wander into their territory.
* Gruul - One day, they could just randomly stroll into the same town square you're in and start wrecking stuff.
* Orzhov - Will leave you alone unless you try to get a loan from them or something, which is a bad idea but they're the only ones who offer it.
* Rakdos - Will go on random killing sprees, but they also have circuses and brothels for the public. Apparently a fair amount of Rakdos is made up of random artists and performers who don't murder, but of course, we don't see them on cards.
* Selesnya - They largely ignore the random citizen outside of their guild, only offering their produce to the rich.
* Simic - I think they mainly leave the average person alone, though I'm guessing they're fine taking random homeless people for experiments. Apparently the new version of Simic actually runs amusement parks and zoos, from what I remember of the RtR Planeswalker's Guide.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

Simic ragworms can take care of cleaning up stuff, including but not limited to vermin, dust, filth and the occasional random passerby. But that's not all! Call now and you'll get a shielding plax with your order at no extra charge!

Simic isn't about plax, lame mutants, and selling stuff so much now tho. That clown Momir is gone, and the Merfolk are about guided natural perfection.

 

[Toxi]

I posted this awhile ago yet people continued trying to argue with me

I just don't believe magic is an everything checks out fix in this case. Plants and bodies need space to grow (idk what corpses need to become edible but definitely space). The space they need would have to be proportionate to the space occupied by citizens. I don't see the vast amount of space needed.

Vertical farms would be the solution with the skyscrapers being occupied by those instead of citizens but I don't think that was ever mentioned in any ravnica stories.

And once again it's all about suspension of disbelief, Ravnica breaks it in my case.

All of Ravnica is build up on previous levels of the city. The Golgari inhabit the undercity made up of previous levels, aka the underground mostly abandoned spaces beneath all of Ravnica. And as you can see from the Swamp art, the undercity tends to be a lot more open. So the Golgari have quite a lot of unoccupied space to farm in, it's just not space on the surface of Ravnica with all the buildings.

 

[JulianImp]

Simic isn't about plax, lame mutants, and selling stuff so much now tho. That clown Momir is gone, and the Merfolk are about guided natural perfection.

But graft was definitely more fun than evolve. Doctor Moreau was where it was at instead of the crappy merfolk we got later on, which were too similar to yet another Selesnya-esque cult only with a focus on evolution rather than hippyism.

 

[Toxi]

* Azorius - Sticklers for the law, make things overly complicated for the average citizen, but probably won't randomly kill you.
* Orzhov - Will leave you alone unless you try to get a loan from them or something, which is a bad idea but they're the only ones who offer it.

Best hope they don't decide to evict you.

 

[Danielsan]

Just had an amazingly fun draft. First picked a Lantern Scout in pack one and decided to draft a white/black ally lifegain deck. Winning the game with over 30 life is just disgusting.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

But graft was definitely more fun than evolve. Doctor Moreau was where it was at instead of the crappy merfolk we got later on, which were too similar to yet another Selesnya-esque cult only with a focus on evolution rather than hippyism.

They're almost Kiora: The Guild, but they're more blue than her because they study and apply the scientific method.

The art for X-Treme Mutant Simic was all-time terrible for Magic, as well.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I probably should have specified why I was asking, but here's an answer

sigmasonicx asked: Are many of the buildings in Ravnica largely empty?

I don’t believe so. There are a lot of creatures on Ravnica.

 

[Toxi]

They're almost Kiora: The Guild, but they're more blue than her because they study and apply the scientific method.

The art for X-Treme Mutant Simic was all-time terrible for Magic, as well.

Are you talking about the original Simic or the new Simic? I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the old Simic aesthetic with blobby cytoplasts everywhere.

Simic Manipulator's probably my favorite Simic art.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

All of Ravnica is build up on previous levels of the city. The Golgari inhabit the undercity made up of previous levels, aka the underground mostly abandoned spaces beneath all of Ravnica. And as you can see from the Swamp art, the undercity tends to be a lot more open. So the Golgari have quite a lot of unoccupied space to farm in, it's just not space on the surface of Ravnica with all the buildings.

It's fine if you think it makes sense and is sound, I don't.

I probably should have specified why I was asking, but here's an answer

Thanks for asking, os the administrative stuff in the hands of Boros or Azorious is the question

 

[Haly]

Think of Azorius as Legislative + Judicial and Boros as Executive.

 

[Violet_0]

Are you talking about the original Simic or the new Simic? I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the old Simic aesthetic with blobby cytoplasts everywhere.

that's what you get when you put an elf in charge of your enterprise

 

[SigmasonicX]

Are you talking about the original Simic or the new Simic? I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the old Simic aesthetic with blobby cytoplasts everywhere.

Yeah, I prefer the sea monster fusion look of the new Simic. Apparently animal fusions in general was the original intention for Simic, but Kamigawa already had a bunch of animal fusions, so they went in another direction to differentiate their looks.

Thanks for asking, os the administrative stuff in the hands of Boros or Azorious is the question

Azorius is administrative and has their own law enforcement. Boros acts on morals and not law; they're more like the Justice League than the police.

 

[Jhriad]

I can't blame someone for trading up in value though. You could theoretically turn an expedition Misty Rainforest into multiple playsets of fetchlands, or into revised duals. Just make sure you trade it for something that has proven eternal playability and that you're trading up in value.

I don't know that I really like Revised Duals as an investment. They've either barely held their value or lost some over the past year plus. Then you add in uncertain authenticity & essentially a constant, if slow, growth of supply because of a continuous injection of counterfeits into the market and I wouldn't touch those things unless I really felt like getting into Vintage/Legacy, I had a way to verify the authenticity for myself, and I was dealing with a trusted party.

 

[Joe Molotov]

You know it was a bad Pro Tour when you check the OT the next day, and it's just MTG lore discussion. Hard times, daddy.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

You know it was a bad Pro Tour when you check the OT the next day, and it's just MTG lore discussion. Hard times, daddy.

I'm thanking this PT for snuffing out those gimmicky Jeskai Black and Abzan Blue clowns.

Are you talking about the original Simic or the new Simic? I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the old Simic aesthetic with blobby cytoplasts everywhere.

Yeah, I prefer the sea monster fusion look of the new Simic. Apparently animal fusions in general was the original intention for Simic, but Kamigawa already had a bunch of animal fusions, so they went in another direction to differentiate their looks.

Yeah! These guys get it.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I'm thanking this PT for snuffing out those gimmicky Jeskai Black

wat

 

[Angry Grimace]

There were 19 Jeskai Black decks with six or more wins in constructed. Out of 32 that even made Day 2.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

Yeah but most of the sheeple look at the finals or the most prominent names for the flavor of the month. U/B control was rampant after Shota got a good amount of wins with it, then Dang's Atarka Red was huge, etc.

Iono, for some reason those 4c decks just annoy me, and not in a gameplay sense. XD

 

[kirblar]

There were 19 Jeskai Black decks with six or more wins in constructed. Out of 32 that even made Day 2.

Yeah, there are some pretty severe differences in how they're built - much like with Esper Control, running the Ojutai's Command/Jace package is a huge boon to your winrate. http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/pro-tour-battle-for-zendikar-by-the-numbers

 

[Angry Grimace]

I don't run any OC in Jeskai because I just don't like the card. *shrug*

 

[kirblar]

I don't run any OC in Jeskai because I just don't like the card. *shrug*

When you have Dragonmaster Outcast, Soulfire Grand Master and Jace as your two drops AND have Jace filling the yard, its damn good, especially due to what it does for you postboard in the Atarka Red matchup.

 

[pelicansurf]

I don't run any OC in Jeskai because I just don't like the card. *shrug*

B-b-b-but it's sooooo good.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

omg watching Cheon draft BFZ was unbearable he made so many mistakes and he didn't pick a 2nd kalastria healer when he already had ~10 allies and march from the tomb... He had Drana's Emissaryx2

 

[traveler]

I think it's just because u/b has draw and removal, not to mention the suite of exploit from Silumgar.

Green is pretty clutch with Evolutionary Leap and From Beyond, though. Blue doesn't have an equivalent generator for sacrifice like green does.

But Hero already pointed out just how ridiculously unbalanced their tempo is. They shouldn't be allowed to just sit on mana and play their entire turn and strategy on your turn. It's overpowered as shit. Don't let them draw and be able to play counters, hence put the good card draw at sorcery. You can't have your cake and eat it.

I think your mistaking what I'm saying. I'm saying that you can keep the counters at instant, but draw has to be sorcery speed.
You've gotta nerf one or the other.

The line he drew up is the draw go equivalent of magical christmas land, only slightly more likely. It's equally likely aggro sticks an early threat and gets some beats in before they remove it, or drops two threats in a turn when they can only counter one, or spends it's mana on non-spells when they don't have a draw/ (even dtt needs either a ton of mana or spent cards already) holds up its mana for an action on their turn/doesn't even need to use its mana. Or that midrange gains an incremental advantage over the course of the game from the spells it does push through because counters trade 1 for 1 at best, while midrange's value oriented spells will incrementally push it ahead while the draw go deck does little to impact the board. Or that draw go doesn't always have a relevant counter spell and draw along with it to use.

I get what you were saying, but I think that scenario is also poor. Like I said before, if the only decent play control has at instant speed is countering, other decks will have a clear read every time a counter is available and can out tempo the heck out of the draw go deck.

I'm kinda curious where all this is coming from- if draw go is so fundamentally broken, why isn't it wrecking standard? Aren't we playing the same standard where atarka red, gw megamorph, jeskai black, and even abzan-y midrange decks are consistently outperforming uw and esper control/dragons lists? And this is with a draw spell like DTT backed up by the fetches to power it in standard.

 

[Angry Grimace]

When you have Dragonmaster Outcast, Soulfire Grand Master and Jace as your two drops AND have Jace filling the yard, its damn good, especially due to what it does for you postboard in the Atarka Red matchup.

The Atarka Red match is hard to lose to begin with and the Dragonmaster Outcast combo has mostly just been cute in my experience.

 

[traveler]

Recurring Outcasts is one of the rougher aspects of that matchup when playing megamorph fwiw. I think it's generally a fairly even matchup, with the nod going towards the player who tuned for that specific fight and plays better obviously, but Outcast is pretty rough. Definitely the scariest card in that deck short of Mantis Rider, which is becoming more manageable with new tech.

Also, 10 matches or so of testing later, Aristocrats is a legitimate problem for megamorph. I'm still not sure the deck will show up at top tables that often, as I think Jeskai has a pretty good matchup against them, but the deck will definitely be around and I'm not sure how to tune gw to beat it. I guess this could actually be enough to make Jeskai the best deck in the format, a title I would have given to megamorph at any point prior.

 

[charlequin]

I make this point every once in a while: killing Tribal takes away a tool that should be used for situations exactly like this one. They should have just made the Eldrazi spells "Tribal Sorcery - Eldrazi" and they're done. Then your other cards just say "When you cast an Eldrazi spell" or "power equal to the number of Eldrazi you control," etc.

Yes. And in fact, because Eldrazi have only ever appeared once before, and are so weird and special anyway, they would have been literally the one case that was justifiable as an exception. With Goblins there'll always be inconsistency about what qualifies for Tribal status and what makes Goblin Grenade different from Fodder Launch, but Eldrazi are (or, rather, were) a candidate to have 100% consistency on this.

All that said, I think Devoid is fine and has basically nothing to do with the problems this block has. "Colorless matters" plays better than actual Eldrazi tribal and I think it makes conceptual sense, plus it enables the land/eldrazi synergy that was always going to be necessary for a block like this.

I liked Crovax's descent into madness though. Much better executed than Ob 'cartoon villain' Nixilis.

God, every character in the Weatherlight saga is so badly written. Like, Jace might be boring but at least the plot beats they assign to him make sense.

I just don't believe magic is an everything checks out fix in this case. Plants and bodies need space to grow (idk what corpses need to become edible but definitely space). The space they need would have to be proportionate to the space occupied by citizens. I don't see the vast amount of space needed.

Above and beyond the fact that there's no information to suggest how much space is dedicated to the urban farming and whatnot, both Golgari and Selesnya explicitly use magic to make their land far more productive than it would be naturally, e.g. Life from the Loam, Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Urban Burgeoning.

I mean, people like what they like, but this is definitely the weirdest reason I've ever seen to dislike Ravnica.

 

[Vangu Vegro]

I mean, people like what they like, but this is definitely the weirdest reason I've ever seen to dislike Ravnica.

"I got 99* reasons to hate Ravnica but the space ain't one."

* Actual number of reasons I hate Ravnica closer to 999.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Above and beyond the fact that there's no information to suggest how much space is dedicated to the urban farming and whatnot, both Golgari and Selesnya explicitly use magic to make their land far more productive than it would be naturally, e.g. Life from the Loam, Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Urban Burgeoning.

I mean, people like what they like, but this is definitely the weirdest reason I've ever seen to dislike Ravnica.

Food is the thing we got stuck on I started the argument by comparing it to Coruscant and saying I buy the concept in Sci-Fi but not in High Fantasy.

 

[charlequin]

Food is the thing we got stuck on I started the argument by comparing it to Coruscant and saying I buy the concept in Sci-Fi but not in High Fantasy.

It's just a bizarre justification for something when you could just cite taste and be done with it. "I just can't get over the idea that this thing that would require powerful magic to achieve is supposed to be achieved in this setting filled with powerful magic!"

 

[pigeon]

If Ravnica was Manhattan...

Selesnya: Whole Foods, Central Park
Golgari: MTA rats, Waste Management, farmers markets
Boros: NYPD but less racist
Azorius: City Hall, UN
Simic: NYU Langone, Weill-Cornell Presbyterian, Duane Reade, CVS
Gruul: Homeless
Rakdos: Columbia University, NYU, Madison Square, East Village
Orzhov: Wall Street, Financial District
Dimir: FBI, the Illuminati
Izzet: Cooper Union, tech startups
Unaligned: Starbucks, B&N, The Halal Guys, Uber

This post is great, for the record, although a little harsh on NYU.

Here's my comparison.

Selesnya: The Newsies
Golgari: The sewer mutants from Futurama
Boros: The Avengers
Azorius: The NYPD from Do The Right Thing
Simic: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Gruul: Godzilla
Rakdos: The Warriors
Orzhov: The Corleones
Dimir: The Adjustment Bureau
Izzet: The Ghostbusters

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

It's just a bizarre justification for something when you could just cite taste and be done with it. "I just can't get over the idea that this thing that would require powerful magic to achieve is supposed to be achieved in this setting filled with powerful magic!"

Okay now it's getting a little annoying, I just don't buy magic as a solution for everything. I am huge fan of systematic magic in all things fantasy, I hate when it's used as an end all be all solution to everything.

 

[Ashodin]

Okay now it's getting a little annoying, I just don't buy magic as a solution for everything. I am huge fan of systematic magic in all things fantasy, I hate when it's used as an end all be all solution to everything.

The setting serves the cards. You don't have to know all the logistics.

 

[Hero]

Okay now it's getting a little annoying, I just don't buy magic as a solution for everything. I am huge fan of systematic magic in all things fantasy, I hate when it's used as an end all be all solution to everything.

No offense but this is literally the worst complaint I've ever seen of Magic the Gathering.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

No offense but this is literally the worst complaint I've ever seen of Magic the Gathering.

With what I've seen this is a complement

 

[Haines]

omg watching Cheon draft BFZ was unbearable he made so many mistakes and he didn't pick a 2nd kalastria healer when he already had ~10 allies and march from the tomb... He had Drana's Emissaryx2

Thank god. I havent drafted yet, so ive been watching these vids to teach myself. Hoping to go this friday.

I just sent my buddy that video and said the same thing. That i couldnt believe some of his picks. I understand trying to pick the better cards, staying open etc, but when you are basically handed and archetype and you skip key cards...i felt like that video did more harm than good to my understanding of drafting.

 

[Socat]

Thank god. I havent drafted yet, so ive been watching these vids to teach myself. Hoping to go this friday.

I just sent my buddy that video and said the same thing. That i couldnt believe some of his picks. I understand trying to pick the better cards, staying open etc, but when you are basically handed and archetype and you skip key cards...i felt like that video did more harm than good to my understanding of drafting.

Honestly, listening to Limited Resources and reading Sutcliffe's articles was the best thing I had to learn how to play sealed/draft. Watching random pros might not be the best way to start.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Paul is also very bad at draft.

 

[Socat]

Paul is also very bad at draft.

Entertaining but bad at draft

 

[red13th]

Noah Bradley's Expedition artist proofs.

 

[WanderingWind]

No biggie. Just a casual pile of enough money to literally pay cash for an entire house.

 

[kirblar]

No biggie. Just a casual pile of enough money to literally pay cash for an entire house.

Kinda, they don't have backs. Still very cool though, especially for a cube.

 

[aidan]

Noah Bradley's Expedition artist proofs.

I'm amused by the fact that Bradley will likely make more money selling those than he was paid by WotC for the art.

 

[Haines]

Honestly, listening to Limited Resources and reading Sutcliffe's articles was the best thing I had to learn how to play sealed/draft. Watching random pros might not be the best way to start.

Limited resources is amazing.

In the end, when i finally do get to draft, i will trust my instints over everything else bc i want to draft w.o regret. I want to pick what i want to pick.

I really lioed that deck teck at the pro tour of the guy drafting the black white healing deck bc that was his strategy going in. It really proved to me drafting is far more complex than picking the best card in the pile.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

The drafts I did so far have mostly been very aggressive with lots of red.