Wisdom of Old4GU
Enchantment
As you cast each spell you may discard a card. If you do that spell's mana cost is reduced by the mana cost of the discarded card. (Mana cost includes color.)
A chaotically aligned guild would simply be more willing than a guild aligned with order to take actions to change the system.
Unless that orderly guild believes, or has been lead to believe, that they can achieve an even more orderly system by toppling the current one. Which was, IIRC Augustin's rational in the OG Ravnica block.
I've skimmed through the 9 pages in this thread... and I'm usually just casually into lore... but I didn't see this discussed:
Elspeth's return?
Since Elspeth is included in the masterpiece planeswalker series for Guilds of Ravnica, that means her escape from the Underworld on Theros will be a side story? (She's still stuck in the Underworld, right?)
I mean, that was the natural launching point for Return to Theros block.
I guess they're skipping that altogether?
We simply have no idea why Elspeth was chosen for the product, and no indication that she's at all story relevant (in fact I would argue that having her return without it being a major story event -- say a central plotline in a return to Theros block -- really doesn't make sense).
It is odd, though, that all of the planeswalkers in the series are known actors in the Gatewatch vs Bolas conflict,.. except Elspeth and Daretti.
Oh good, more Bolas horns marking obvious allegiance. I hate that design so much. Also, thopters- Dovin Baan or Tezzerett puppetry confirmed?
I'm voting/hoping Tezzeret for a few reasons:
1) I really like Dovin Baan's character as portrayed in Kaladesh, and feel like it's be character assassination for him to be a Bolas minion.
2) Baan isn't an artificer (his abilities are a sort of psychometry or clairsentience, while he can and does use this in relation to artifacts, he's never been shown to create artifacts hiself), but Tezzeret IS an artificer and could make the thopters himself
3) This is exactly what Tezzeret did on Kaladesh -- infiltrating the (specifically white-aligned) government body of the city/plane -- it would make sense for him to do so again.
EDIT: To be fair, points against Tezzeret being the Bolas'walker involved with the Azorius:
1) Tezzerert's cards are always heavily artifact based, and the Azorius has never been an artifact based guild (in fact none have)
2) We know that the Bolas'walkers will share their guild's colors, and a WU Tezzeret is a departure from his previous color identities (UB and monoU)
3)Dovin flat out "feels" more in-line with, and fits better within the Azorius guild
Yeah, could be an interesting and risky way of making your creatures indestructible indefinitely, if you can find a way around the EOT trigger. For commander I’d probably try to get out grand abolisher on the field before trying it just to make sure they can’t remove the sundial of the infinite or platinum angel I would need to survive.
Angel's Grace is another option for formats where it's legal.
Card name is Chance at Glory. It's actually already on the spoiler page, though I don't remember having seen it before this. EDIT: Right, cause it was only added like 20 minutes ago...
Given that, again, the intent is not to cause harm and every action he takes is to avoid it, he is not malicious. That is the crux of the argument. Arguing about how good or bad his actions are, or any number of side tangents, are certainly interesting subjects (although also a bit off topic given we have no evidence Dovin will even show up in Ravnica) but not related to a willful desire to cause harm. That harm happens as part of his actions does not mean harm was the intent, and for him to be malicious you can’t judge him by anything but that. Which, again, all of his internal dialogue shows an intent to minimize harm to the best of his ability. That it doesn’t go as he hopes is irrelevant.
Basically this. My argument isn't that Dovin can't be the bad guy, or that he can't be considered evil (though I don't believe that he is, but that's not particularly relevant to this specific quibble). My argument is that labeling him as "Malicious" is flat out ascribing a quality to him that is not supported by, and in fact actively contrary to, the narrative of his character.
Malicious has a very specific meaning that simply doesn't fit with WotC's portrayal of Dovin Baan. He may be many things, but this is not one of them.
Primordial Amalgamation5
Legendary Creature - Shapeshifter Avatar
Primordial Amalgamation is every color among creatures you control.
Primordial Amalgamation has every creature type among creatures you control.
Primordial Amalgamation has all abilities among creatures you control.
Primordial Amalgamation’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control.
*/*
Okay, so I'm not sure if this works the way I intend within the rules, but the intention is that as your commander this counts as any color combination you want (monocolor, 2color, 3color, 4color, 5color, whatever you want to build it as, because it inherits its colors from your other creatures), and as one of the 99 it can go in any deck (because again, what colors it is depends on what colors other creatures in your deck are.
It shouldn't be the same as cards like Transguild Courier because that has text that specifically sets its color identity to 5 colors, where Primordial Amalgamation's color identity is variable.
I'm not sure if that works within the commander color identity rules, or if they would force it to be 5 colors or colorless or whatever, but there it is.
Next: A commander that punishes land ramp in some way.
I already said what behaviour makes me think Dovin is malicious, a villain, evil.
Malice is by definition the desire or intention to cause harm. Everything we know about Dovin Baan highlights his efforts to prevent or minimize harm (to others, to systems, to infrastructure, etc.).
He by definition cannot be considered malicious based on any action we know of him having taken.
There's also the unknown new walker who appears on the novel cover. We have no idea if she's a Bolas agent or opponent (or even involved in the set story itself, she could only appear in the book (or not even be a walker) for all we know), so it's possible that not all the planeswalkers will be recurring characters.
I should note that I was wrong about Tezzeret being told to bring Ral to Bolas. He was actually told to go tell Ral to come to Bolas, which is, if anything, even more indicative that Ral knows he's working for Bolas.
I certainly think Vivien comes off as more interesting and believable than Huatli did, despite the flaws in this story. That's a fairly low bar, though. Khaw's work, whatever its qualities, is far better than the casualty-of-committee embarrassment that was the non-Jace-Vraska parts of the Ixalan story.
Here I'll vehemently disagree. I read all of the Ixalan stories end to end, even the bad ones. I read the first Vivien story, skimmed over many parts of the second, and couldn't even force myself to finish the third.
It's a matter of taste, certainly, and thus subjective as to a better or worse comparison, but at least for some of us Khaw's work is simply unpalatable.
That's perfectly fair. But she can maintain a consistent verb tense, and not copy/paste the same sentence into two different places, so in my book she beats the Ixalan spread.
Perhaps it's simply a measure of my involvement with certain fanfiction communities that grammatical errors and poor formatting, while annoying, simply aren't deal breakers for me (unless they're egregious).
Enchantment
As you cast each spell you may discard a card. If you do that spell's mana cost is reduced by the mana cost of the discarded card. (Mana cost includes color.)
Next: Queen Marchesa
Unless that orderly guild believes, or has been lead to believe, that they can achieve an even more orderly system by toppling the current one. Which was, IIRC Augustin's rational in the OG Ravnica block.
We simply have no idea why Elspeth was chosen for the product, and no indication that she's at all story relevant (in fact I would argue that having her return without it being a major story event -- say a central plotline in a return to Theros block -- really doesn't make sense).
It is odd, though, that all of the planeswalkers in the series are known actors in the Gatewatch vs Bolas conflict,.. except Elspeth and Daretti.
I'm voting/hoping Tezzeret for a few reasons:
1) I really like Dovin Baan's character as portrayed in Kaladesh, and feel like it's be character assassination for him to be a Bolas minion.
2) Baan isn't an artificer (his abilities are a sort of psychometry or clairsentience, while he can and does use this in relation to artifacts, he's never been shown to create artifacts hiself), but Tezzeret IS an artificer and could make the thopters himself
3) This is exactly what Tezzeret did on Kaladesh -- infiltrating the (specifically white-aligned) government body of the city/plane -- it would make sense for him to do so again.
EDIT: To be fair, points against Tezzeret being the Bolas'walker involved with the Azorius:
1) Tezzerert's cards are always heavily artifact based, and the Azorius has never been an artifact based guild (in fact none have)
2) We know that the Bolas'walkers will share their guild's colors, and a WU Tezzeret is a departure from his previous color identities (UB and monoU)
3)Dovin flat out "feels" more in-line with, and fits better within the Azorius guild
Angel's Grace is another option for formats where it's legal.
Basically this. My argument isn't that Dovin can't be the bad guy, or that he can't be considered evil (though I don't believe that he is, but that's not particularly relevant to this specific quibble). My argument is that labeling him as "Malicious" is flat out ascribing a quality to him that is not supported by, and in fact actively contrary to, the narrative of his character.
Malicious has a very specific meaning that simply doesn't fit with WotC's portrayal of Dovin Baan. He may be many things, but this is not one of them.
Legendary Creature - Shapeshifter Avatar
Primordial Amalgamation is every color among creatures you control.
Primordial Amalgamation has every creature type among creatures you control.
Primordial Amalgamation has all abilities among creatures you control.
Primordial Amalgamation’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control.
*/*
Okay, so I'm not sure if this works the way I intend within the rules, but the intention is that as your commander this counts as any color combination you want (monocolor, 2color, 3color, 4color, 5color, whatever you want to build it as, because it inherits its colors from your other creatures), and as one of the 99 it can go in any deck (because again, what colors it is depends on what colors other creatures in your deck are.
It shouldn't be the same as cards like Transguild Courier because that has text that specifically sets its color identity to 5 colors, where Primordial Amalgamation's color identity is variable.
I'm not sure if that works within the commander color identity rules, or if they would force it to be 5 colors or colorless or whatever, but there it is.
Next: A commander that punishes land ramp in some way.
That's a statue. Getting destroyed by plants. It's showing the "destroy target artifact or enchantment" mode of the spell.
Malice is by definition the desire or intention to cause harm. Everything we know about Dovin Baan highlights his efforts to prevent or minimize harm (to others, to systems, to infrastructure, etc.).
He by definition cannot be considered malicious based on any action we know of him having taken.