kaya guildmaster, teysa waiting ?
whats the story behind this ? kaya an agent of bolas and took the guildleader spot and she waits to claim her spot or what ???
i like that card, much better than her 2nd version, and she also synergizes well with her other versions (triggers herself)
the fact that it causes double triggers on ur own creatures as well on the opponents creatures is really nice
Teysa has been trying to usurp the control of the Ghost Council for about the last century? But removing the old dead guys wasn't easy.
Kaya murders ghosts. Kaya, as far as Teysa is concerned, is a useful tool to stay out of the way while rebuilding and taking over the guild now that Kaya has murdered the old dead guys for Teysa.
That's fine and all but I find it hard to buy when Dovin Baan's original card (ie: the one that introduced him as a character) reads more like an Azorius guild card in mechanics than his actual Azorius guild card does.
Edit: Kaya's card is on-theme for Orzhov and she isn't from Ravnica either.
Not... really? Orzhov always have some mechanical use of exiling things (under the flavor that those who rule the dead can make sure some things stay dead) but that's never actually their focus. Kaya flat out is a 'kill the dead to win' card. Which is not what Orzhov is about. Especially next to Teysa who is all about making death matter and doing the Aristocrats deck in full.
The only thing on Kaya that's on theme for the Orzhov is her second ability, as a '1 or less' is a thematic number for the Orzhov.
And if you look at the flavor of the rest of the sets (this and Guilds), Dovin is reshaping the Azorius into this image. So I'm not seeing the flavor disconnect. This feels more like being mad that a storyline card is mechanically on point to the storyline. (Which Dovin Baan wasn't, really. Except for the jokes that Baan prevents having any fun. Which was the through line on Kaladeshi government figures.
As a planeswalker card, I like this. Very cool design. Pretty unusual for UW while still fitting in the color pair.
As an Azorius planeswalker card... Ehhh. It really doesn't fit with the guild at all versus the other Bolas-guild-walkers we've seen so far who fit pretty well with theirs. I'm sure that you could find some story hoops to jump through to have this be in-flavor but if you took off the name and mana cost and asked me which guild walker has these abilities I definitely wouldn't guess Azorius.
Because three out of five of Bolas's stooges are attached to their guilds.
Ral is an Izzet weather mage.
Vraska is a Gorgon who lives in the Golgari tunnels.
Domri is a punk kid born to a Gruul clan.
Kaya's doing the opposite of what the Orzhov do, she's eliminating ghosts instead of putting them to work. But she's also a Ghost Assassin, not a necromancer. And Dovin isn't an Azorius lawmage, he's a Kaladeshian artificer. So he's creating an aggressive spying network. The thing the Kaladeshi government loves. So he wants to be in a WU flyers deck, which I'm sure his Azorius guild will have the tools to make work (in set, as Dovin will make flying things a priority).
Because the big body you get out of the big casting is a part of the balancing. If it came out as a 2/2 for 6 it'd be... not great.
I mean it *could* have its last line written as "Enters the battlefield with twice X +1/+1 counters" (we just saw a "Twice X" card in Sanguine Sacrament) It would be clunky and confusing (note: halving-with-rounding is also clunky), but it would be behaviourally comparable to this implementation at even numbers, and inegible for casting at odd numbers.
And casting with odd numbers will eek out just enough value (putting it at 5/5 in a format with a 4 damage burn) that it's worth the clunky half-with-rounding when the alternative is also going to be clunky to write out.
You can't have Sphinx's Revelation as a CAST TRIGGER, lol. Come on, guy lol. Especially in the ramp color. This is abuseable as is.
Let's just think about this.
Cast SphinxRev for CMC 6 = Draw 3/gain 3 life.
Cast Hydroid for CMC 6 = 4/4 Flying Trample Draw 2/Gain 2 Life.
Cast Hydroid where it isn't half of X = 4/4 Flying Trample Draw 4/Gain 4 that requires you to Stifle (which leaves a 4/4 flying trample) or counterspell (which gives them 4 cards and 4 life).
Standard Playablity really comes down to how effective Ramp is. If you can get to 8 Mana on 5 consistent this thing is doing enough to make your opponent's day bad. Even taking the draw down to 2 and hitting 7 mana on 5 is still enough threat (a 5/5 you can't effectively block).
As much as X being an odd number feels bad, you can still make a very sizable threat out of it.
From how seeded packs were done last time we were on Ravnica (RTR block). There were a possible 8 rares, each had their own print run of cards with them. So each seeded pack that had Niv Mizzet, Dracogenius for example, had the same uncommons and commons. Of course I think they changed this with the later seeded packs for the likes of Theroes and Tarkir, in that the print runs weren't tied to the rare.
So my assumption is that the seeded packs will be similar. One rare/mythic from your guild. (My count is 7 possibilities for each guild, with the guild leader as the only possible mythics.) A guildgate for fixing. Then a mix of uncommons/commons from your guild, possibly with a limited number of set print runs.
Promo cards can be on-guildmark monocolors (from the PPR, Adam Savidan pulled the Undergrowth Tutor as his dated card). Meaning it's probably 4 Multicolor rares and 2 of each mono color on-watermark as the pool (with the Mythic Legendary as the only Mythic option) of 'eight possible packs.'
This allows for parity to be kept (as people keep hounding on how Dimir has four on-watermark mythics) without making the seeded packs overly complex.
Meanwhile my only hope is that your Guildgate in the seeded pack matches your Guild Legend if you get one (I'd feel very put out if I pulled Etrata and got Lazav's Guildgate).
doesn't feel like a balanced expansion... but i guess dimir players are happy
The split cards probably also count toward the rare count, bringing it up to 4 per guild. That's still fewer than we had in RTR block, but yeah.
Split cards are counted by WotC as a part of the Hybrid cycle (the usual Hybrid in Rav sets is 3 per guild, at common, uncommon, and rare).
The rare count is slightly lower (Rav 1 had 8 per guild but no Mythics, Rav 2 had 5 per guild + 2 Mythics). But they upped the Uncommon and common counts to compensate? Each time I think. Which should help with staying in color.
Yeah, Surveil wants a bit more space? It's both an add on mechanic (it doesn't impact too much per instance, but constant instances matter) and enables other strategies. I was expecting the other mechanics to be at the 13-15 mark like Rav 1 was.
Ah okay. I didn't know that. I just read the information about the seeded guild booster.
https://wpn.wizards.com/en/article/you-schedule-guilds-ravnica
Which means they’ll come in case quantities of twenty, rather than the usual eighteen. This way there’s an even number of each guild in the set—Boros, Selesnya, Izzet, Golgari, and Dimir—so that we can give players their best shot at getting the guild they want.
If you ran Prerelease around Return to Ravnica, you’ll know what comes next: Prerelease Packs also include a seeded booster, composed entirely of cards relevant to that player’s guild. So, each Prerelease Pack includes five Guilds of Ravnica boosters, plus the seeded pack.
and
https://magic.wizards.com/en/event-types/prerelease
ONE SEEDED BOOSTER PACK:
COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF CARDS RELEVANT TO THAT PLAYER’S GUILD
SEEDED BOOSTER PACK ALSO INCLUDES
1 SEMI-RANDOMIZED, DATE-STAMPED, RARE OR MYTHIC RARE FOIL PROMO CARD FROM THE FEATURED GUILD
So in RTR/GTC there were 8 variations per guild (each of the 8 rares came with the same uncommon/common sleight each time) + datestamped Promo Rare (which was always the same card). The only mythic that happened was the Guild Leader.
They've changed this so the included rare is the foil stamped promo, but that'll probably still be a pre-selected sleight of cards per guild (which include the two Legendary characters + some number of other Guild rares). It won't include the monocolor mythics, as they can't achieve parity.
Kaya murders ghosts. Kaya, as far as Teysa is concerned, is a useful tool to stay out of the way while rebuilding and taking over the guild now that Kaya has murdered the old dead guys for Teysa.
The only thing on Kaya that's on theme for the Orzhov is her second ability, as a '1 or less' is a thematic number for the Orzhov.
And if you look at the flavor of the rest of the sets (this and Guilds), Dovin is reshaping the Azorius into this image. So I'm not seeing the flavor disconnect. This feels more like being mad that a storyline card is mechanically on point to the storyline. (Which Dovin Baan wasn't, really. Except for the jokes that Baan prevents having any fun. Which was the through line on Kaladeshi government figures.
Ral is an Izzet weather mage.
Vraska is a Gorgon who lives in the Golgari tunnels.
Domri is a punk kid born to a Gruul clan.
Kaya's doing the opposite of what the Orzhov do, she's eliminating ghosts instead of putting them to work. But she's also a Ghost Assassin, not a necromancer. And Dovin isn't an Azorius lawmage, he's a Kaladeshian artificer. So he's creating an aggressive spying network. The thing the Kaladeshi government loves. So he wants to be in a WU flyers deck, which I'm sure his Azorius guild will have the tools to make work (in set, as Dovin will make flying things a priority).
Still, I appreciate the flavortext.
It says a lot about how Dovin's running the Azorius I guess.
But if you land this after you've got enough forward push you can just +1 him and he's at 7 or 8 Loyalty?
Gross.
And that corner case when you can't even.
Cast SphinxRev for CMC 6 = Draw 3/gain 3 life.
Cast Hydroid for CMC 6 = 4/4 Flying Trample Draw 2/Gain 2 Life.
Cast Hydroid where it isn't half of X = 4/4 Flying Trample Draw 4/Gain 4 that requires you to Stifle (which leaves a 4/4 flying trample) or counterspell (which gives them 4 cards and 4 life).
Why do people want to powercreep so hard?
As much as X being an odd number feels bad, you can still make a very sizable threat out of it.
Niv and Rakdos are the last two Guild Leaders from Rav1 left.
(Look, we all knew exactly what was going to happen to the Council when we saw Kaya was around.)
Wonder what sorta silly thing Ruric will do this time around though.
This allows for parity to be kept (as people keep hounding on how Dimir has four on-watermark mythics) without making the seeded packs overly complex.
Meanwhile my only hope is that your Guildgate in the seeded pack matches your Guild Legend if you get one (I'd feel very put out if I pulled Etrata and got Lazav's Guildgate).
The rare count is slightly lower (Rav 1 had 8 per guild but no Mythics, Rav 2 had 5 per guild + 2 Mythics). But they upped the Uncommon and common counts to compensate? Each time I think. Which should help with staying in color.
They've changed this so the included rare is the foil stamped promo, but that'll probably still be a pre-selected sleight of cards per guild (which include the two Legendary characters + some number of other Guild rares). It won't include the monocolor mythics, as they can't achieve parity.