Ravnica: City of Guilds - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article is about the Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...

set known as Ravnica: City of Guilds. For an article about the plane and the guilds mentioned below, see Ravnica (plane).

Ravnica: City of Guilds is a Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...

set and is the first set in the Ravnica Block. Ravnica was released on October 7, 2005 (prerelease events were held worldwide on September 24 and 25 , 2005). Its expansion symbol is a silhouette of a city with a prominent clock tower
Clock tower
A clock tower is a tower specifically built with one or more clock faces. Clock towers can be either freestanding or part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall. Some clock towers are not true clock towers having had their clock faces added to an already existing building...

.

Following in the tradition of recent Magic blocks, Ravnica takes place in a plane

Plane (Magic: The Gathering)

In Magic: The Gathering, planes are parallel universes in the Multiverse Planes are often confused with planets by Magic players, because most planes are named after their primary planets...

of the multiverse

Parallel universe (fiction)

A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...

that was previously unexplored in the game's backstory. The world of Ravnica is an ecumenopolis

Ecumenopolis

Ecumenopolis is a word invented in 1967 by the Greek city planner Constantinos Doxiadis to represent the idea that in the future urban areas and megalopolises would eventually fuse and there would be a single continuous worldwide city as a...

, a vast city that covers the entire surface of its planet, and is home to a diverse assortment of sentient races. Much power in Ravnica is held by the ten "guilds", political factions that each represent a combination of two of Magics five colors.

Design

Ravnica was conceived following the success of Invasion
Invasion (Magic: The Gathering)
Invasion is the 21st expert level set, and the first set in the Invasion block of cards of Magic: The Gathering. The rest of the block is Planeshift and Apocalypse. It contains 350 cards.-Set History:...

. Invasion, released in 2000, emphasized interactions between the colors, and it was one of Magic's most popular releases ever. Magic's lead designer, Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater is a Magic: The Gathering card designer. He is currently Magics head designer.-Biography:Rosewater grew up in Pepper Pike, Ohio, where he attended the Orange High School. Rosewater has a Jewish background. Rosewater has described himself in his youth as a "social outcast", who did...

, wanted to expand on the multicolor theme in a new way. Therefore, the design of Ravnica is based around ten two-color pairs, including cards in which those pairs of colors work in concert.

The Ravnica block is functionally different from Invasion block due to the interaction of the multi-colored theme. In the Invasion block, for example, the first two sets (Invasion
Invasion
An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a...

and Planeshift
Planeshift (Magic: The Gathering)
Planeshift is the name of the second set in the Invasion block of cards of Magic: The Gathering, along with the expansions Invasion and Apocalypse. It contained 143 cards.-Set history:Planeshift continued Invasion's theme of multi-colored "gold" cards...

) centered around friendly colors and the harmony they create when put together. The last set, Apocalypse
Apocalypse (Magic: The Gathering)
Apocalypse is the name of a Magic: The Gathering expansion set, released in June 2001. It is the third set of the Invasion Block.-Storyline:...

, emphasized enemy colors and areas where the colors contrast and possibly create powerful effects. However, the Ravnica block features a limited number of color combinations (some friendly, some enemy) in every set based on what guilds are present. All the multicolor cards in Ravnica block (and many other cards) are associated with one of the ten guilds.

Each guild has the following cards:

A legendary leader, whose mana cost includes two mana of each of the guild's colors.
A legendary champion, whose abilities encourage players to play with cards of both of the guild's colors. The champion includes one mana of each of the guild's colors in its cost.
- Note: The aforementioned definition of guild leader and guild champion is solely based on game mechanics, not the story. Some guilds have the properties of their champions and leaders swapped around.
A signet, a common artifact which produces one mana of each of the guild's colors.
A common "karoo" or "bounce" land, which returns a land to hand when it comes into play (tapped), but produces 2 mana of the guild's colors.
An uncommon "guildhome" land, which produces colorless mana but has a special ability.
A rare "shock" land that has two basic land types (even though it is non-basic), which can be tapped for one of two possible colors of mana.
A rare guild-affiliated artifact.
Three hybrid mana cards, one per rarity level; the uncommon one is always a "guildmage" which costs two hybrid mana to play, has a power/toughness of 2/2, and has two activated abilities (one associated with each of its colors).

The appearance of a guild symbol in the background of a card's text box identifies that card's guild affiliation. For example, the symbol of the green-white Selesnya guild appears on green-white cards, cards with the convoke mechanic, lands that produce green and white mana, and so on. The guild symbols have no effect on game play.

Guilds

Of the ten guilds that rule Ravnica, four are the focus of this first set in the block. The next expansion, Guildpact
Guildpact
Guildpact is a Magic: The Gathering set, second in the Ravnica Block. Guildpact was released on February 3, 2006.-Design:Ravnica was conceived following the success of Invasion. Invasion, released in 2000, emphasized interactions between the colors, and it was one of Magics most popular releases...

, focused only on three other guilds, and the last set in the block, Dissension, introduced the last three guilds. Each guild corresponds to a different two-color combination. The four guilds featured in Ravnica are:

The Boros Legion (red/white): The militaristic guild, they act as enforcers of order on Ravnica, and are not against using force to keep the peace. The Boros Legion is epitomized by the actions of the Wojek League, the police force of Ravnica. They are inspired by the archangel Razia. The champion, Agrus Kos, is a Wojek police officer and was the main character in the Ravnica novels.
The Golgari Swarm (green/black): A sect which emphasizes that death is an essential aspect of the life cycle, and which to that end encourages death and plague in order to foster regrowth. They are ruled by a trio of sibling gorgons called The Sisters of Stone Death (Lydya, Lexya and Ludmilla), but their rule is being contested by the elvish shaman Savra.
The Selesnya Conclave (green/white): A quasi-monastic order whose members are zealously dedicated to keeping life in balance. The Conclave disapproves strongly of individuality, holding that the good of the whole is always more important than that of a single being. It is directed by The Chorus of the Conclave, a group of mostly ancient dryads. A preacher named Tolsimir Wolfblood is their champion.
House Dimir (blue/black): A shadowy guild that few of the common people of Ravnica are sure still exists. The other nine guilds know it does, and that it traffics in secrets, employing a network of spies and assassins to discover them and enforce their use in blackmail. It is led by the eldritch psionic vampire Szadek and the mysterious champion of the guild Circu, Dimir Lobotomist.

Mechanics

Hybrid cards ("Guild mana"): For the first time in Magics history, entirely new mana symbols appear. Each symbol is a circle halved diagonally, in which the top left half is one color and the bottom right half another. A smaller version of the color's icon (sun for white, skull for black, etc.) appears in the corresponding half. These mana symbols mean that mana of either color may be used to pay it; for example, a spell whose mana cost is two green/white hybrid mana may be played using two green mana, two white mana, or one green and one white. The cards with these mana symbols have a colored border that fades from left to right, out of one color and into the other.

Each of the ten guilds has a new keyword or ability word associated with it.

Radiance (red/white, Boros): Radiance is an ability word that appears on spells and abilities that affect every creature that shares a color with the target creature. When played on multi-colored cards, the effect spreads to all that card's colors.
Convoke (green/white, Selesnya): A player playing a spell with Convoke may tap some of his or her creatures to pay part or all of the mana cost. Each creature tapped reduces the cost by one mana of that creature's color, or by one colorless mana. Selesnya takes advantage of Convoke by playing cards that create Saproling creature tokens.
Dredge (black/green, Golgari): Cards with dredge may be returned from the graveyard to their owner's hand, provided that player opts to skip drawing a card and instead puts a number of cards from the top of his or her library into the graveyard.
Transmute (blue/black, Dimir): A player may pay a certain amount of mana and discard a card with Transmute from his or her hand. Doing this allows the player to find a card with the same converted mana cost from that player's library and put it into his or her hand.

In addition, several spells of the set have an enhanced effect if a particular color of mana is spent to play it. This theme continues with creatures in Guildpact.

Storyline

Ten millennia ago, the Guildpact was signed by the leaders of the ten guilds, ending ten thousand years of active warfare between them and ushering in an era of peace. But now, on the eve of the celebrations of the accord's ten thousandth anniversary, a sinister force threatens the survival of that peace.

The first novel in the Ravnica trilogy follows major players: Agrus Kos, Jarad, Fonn, Feather, Pivlic, and Savra. Each one of these characters has a part to play in the big storyline, but the main story is split between Kos and Feather, followed by Jarad and Fonn. As Pivlic is introduced to the story, all four characters come together in one place and everything breaks loose. From that point, Savra’s plan to take over her guild and resurrect the guildmaster Svogthir, a necromancer, begins and the five characters are thrown into a war that only ends when a titan crumbles, an angel fights, a guild is nearly destroyed, and Kos makes the greatest arrest in 10,000 years.

Thanks to policing from the Boros Legion, a guild run by angels from above, the upper tiers of the city have been peaceful for much of the time, but the underworld is dark and desolate, devoid of sun. That’s where the Devkarins, members of the Golgari guild, come in: dark elves that run the darker parts of Ravnica with necromancy and pure hunting skill. Jarad is one such Devkarin. However, they stay close to old Ravnica’s underworld, leaving the roads free, and so the Selesnya Conclave use Ledev, a group of paramilitary soldiers that protect the rights of free passage on the road. Within these elite Ledev is Fonn, eager to guard her friend, a priest, into Ravnica for his part in the Decimillenial celebrations. However, they meet with some heartache as an explosion tears through the city and kills the priest, flinging Fonn into Jarad’s arms and causing far too much trouble for Kos to handle.

With a partner dead and a contract he never signed keeping the ghost bound to his presence, Kos embarks on the investigation that takes him under Ravnica, through the skies and into the streets plunged deep with innocent blood. Unfortunately for him, that means crossing the doorsteps of some of the most powerful guilds of the plane. But only the corrupt ones and only the ones whose intentions do not honor the guildpact. Armed with his pendrek and his angel friend, he sets out to discover that the conspiracies of the present are invariably tied directly to the past; his past and Ravnica’s past.

Notable cards

Shock lands - Overgrown Tomb, Sacred Foundry, Temple Garden, Watery Grave. The first 4 of the 10 "shock" lands printed in the Ravnica block, these dual lands each count as two basic land types, providing for potential interactions with numerous cards that seek out basic land subtypes. Upon announcement of the Modern format, prices for these lands doubled on the secondary market.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.