I thought Azor was also responsible for the creation of the Guildpact? Which might also reinforce this theory, in that not only did Azor give up his spark to create the Immortal Sun but also put a good deal of pre-Mending power into the Guildpact. If that's Bolas' plan, that would explain why he needs to be on Ravnica specifically.
Has it ever been explained exactly what the Guildpact does, by the way?
Does anyone else think that Jace trapping Azor on Useless Island was foreshadowing? The Gatewatch could definitely trap Bolas on Ravnica, which I think would be hilarious if Bolas regains his ultraspark and then gets stuck. I do think Bolas's plan is to use Ral's Project Lightning Bug to track planeswalkers on Ravnica so he can merge their sparks into one to make him an oldwalker.
No. Just no. Jace pulling some guildpact crap like he did on Azor and trapping Bolas would be an exceptionally lame ending.
They wouldn't need "guildpact crap", they could trap him on any plane with the Immortal Sun. Just gotta get Tezzeret and the Planar Bridge out of the way.
My guess is Bolas gets trapped on the Meditation Plane with the Immortal Sun. Possibly after betraying Tez and trying to steal his spark to make the All-Sp...OldSpark.
And yeah, the Bridge is for the Eternals to get to Ravnica… but no one has really given a good explanation for why the Eternals are needed on Ravnica. Are they simply added insurance to keep the Ravnicans off of him? (Along with the 5 guilds he's suborned.) Another possibility is that Bolas knows that at a certain point all of his pawns are going to turn on him. Particularly if he's planning on collapsing Ravnica with all of his pawns on it, they're not going to take kindly to that. Another question is whether Tezzeret will allow himself to become trapped on Ravnica. (While we know that the Bridge can move the Immortal Sun, we don't know whether it can 'push' as well as 'pull' the Bridge.
To wear out the other planeswalkers and/or other opposition on Ravnica, I'd imagine. And I think the Planar Bridge has the dual purpose of transporting the Sun/Eternals and allowing for an escape afterwards. I mean, unless Tezzeret has some way to "push" then at very least he'd be trapped wherever the Sun is when he pulled it off Ixalan.
The bigger question is why Ravnica? If his plan is simply to collapse a plane, he could do that to any plane. I think there's some specific reason he needs it to be Ravnica. I really hope it's not some stupid revenge kick against Azor, though.
As it stands, it looks like we're already getting a cycle of Ascendancies (I seriously doubt Simic Ascendancy is the only one)
Simic Ascendancy is an individual card that shares a name with a past cycle, which is anything but the confirmation of being a cycle that you think it is.
It's certainly not confirmed, but it would be pretty weird for it to be an individual card. They could have called it "Experimental Progression" or "Biomancer's Will" or anything in the world. Instead they kept the naming convention [faction] ascendancy. Not to mention how much Undercity Uprising looks like repurposed ascendancy art. My guess is a cycle of five ascendancies, but they may do something plot based, and only ascend a two or three guilds. An individual card seems rather unlikely.
Why?
If they were going to do this as a true cycle this time around, it would've started in Guilds. This is more than likely a one-off.
The only hype I've seen so far are from places trying to sell the set. SCG does their usual song and dance, but the odd thing for me is that one of my LGSs is hyping this set SUPER hard. They are saying this "is the best set since Alpha" and really all I can do is laugh at how insane that sounds. I mean they still have every Masters set still on the shelf.
There's really only two things an LGS can do in regards to this set - hype it like mad or basically ignore it. Keep in mind, this has a lot more issues than just set makeup for an LGS. The biggest issue for them is that they found out about this set at the exact same time we all did, and their order window is that much shorter for it. For perspective, the sanctioning window for RNA opened one week before UMA was announced. Stores have to either go all in now or miss out, especially with a limited print run product.
I suppose for an LGS whose focus is mainly MTG, that's a no-brainer. But stores who only deal with MTG as a smaller part of their overall business have a much tougher decision, because they're currently stocking up for Christmas and might not have room in their budget for a surprise product from WotC of that high a cost.
So instead of breaking up their sponsorship with Star City Games and Channel Fireball in order to avoid more insider trading, Wizards of the Coast decided to release Ultimate Masters in another attempt to devalue Modern legal cards to the point where Magic becomes more of a consumer friendly game when the problem is that it wasn't enough to tank the value of these cards within the Secondary Market. There's simply not enough supply to meet the actual demand for these cards since the more high value reprints they cram into a supplementary product like Ultimate Masters, the more expensive the MSRP and booster pack price point becomes.
The only way for the LGS to be able to turn a profit on these supplementary products is by reducing the amount of high value reprints in order to lower the MSRP and the cost of a booster pack. What we continue to see time and time again with these Masters sets is that Wizards of the Coast is trying to put all their eggs in one basket in the hopes that it will sell when it doesn't. This is why a lot of their customers cater more toward Singles Sellers where they're not paying as much for the cards they need even though the demand for the cards say otherwise. I think the Spellbook series was a step in the right direction for how they should be distributing high value reprints in small quantities.
Worth noting--boxes on TCGP have been falling by $10 each day since the announcement. Stores either know something we don't or are very pessimistic.
Well, I mean, they COULD consider not basing the MSRP on the secondary market value of the reprints, and just not make it a limited print-run product. That'd be another way to not have an insane MSRP.
As for stores, well, they know this:
Product got announced this week.
Product releases in December.
Product has a ridiculous MSRP.
I know my store's management is just absolutely confused/irritated by this product and doesn't know how much or even if they should order any. It likely won't sit, but it's not going to be flying off the shelves, either. Stores have to order this basically now, based on knowing nothing but the Box-Topper cards, and that it has a ridiculously higher MSRP just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
I also think it's quite amusing to see people surprised that the MSRP has gone up.
MM1, $8.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM2, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
EMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM3, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
IMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
M25, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
MED, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
UMA, $14.00/pack MSRP, people will buy it out
Why would WotC/Hasbro have any incentive to start reducing prices?
MED is the Ravnica Mythic Edition? That doesn't count.
They may not need to reduce but there's no real need to increase, either. There's no progressive increases in MSRP. Maybe if they climbed over time, sure. But it went from 8 to 10 and sat there for years. Then suddenly 14.
Not to mention there's a huge difference between what stores order and what people actually buy. I guarantee there are stores still sitting on Iconic and M25. Saying "People bought it out/bought enough" is kind of pointless.
Ok besides the ravnica part 3 set and the next core set
Maybe another battlebond/conspiracy esque set I would love for them to do one actually focused for commander or the next master set
I think new phyrexia might be potential the next visit I can expect them to attempt to help Karn end them for good base on what he said on dominaria (as a matter of fact the good old professor is predicting that’s are next storyline after bolas story is done for now)
I expect people will be disappointed with the Ravnica 3rd set announcement. I don't think it's going to be what anyone expects.
Also, my guess is Theros for the next setting, given all the heavy devotion setup they've done so far in GRN and Dominaria, which is likely to continue in Allegiance. It'd be weird to NOT have a return to Theros with this much buildup.
It could be that Bolas picked Ravnica for revenge. He was depicted as petty and jealous in the Core 2019 story, so maybe it's happening on Ravnica because he wants to destroy something Azor built for his part in trying to trap Bolas.
Also, I expect this to end with Bolas trapped alone on the Meditation Plane with the Immortal Sun, probably after killing a few planeswalkers and trying to kill Tezzeret too. Because everyone would be expendable with that plan.
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?
One line of speculation I've heard is that a return to Theros is next up after we're done with All This Ravnica. Based solely on the idea tbat all the colored mana symbols in Ravnica are pointing towards a return of the devotion mechanic. That would explain Elspeth.
Though another possibility is that Bolas "rescued" her "off-camera" to install as another puppet Guild Leader in Allegiance.
Mana -OR- your second land are always going to be your bottleneck. So "instants" don't change the speed of your deck as far as I can see.
Also there are not a lot of efficient instants and socoeries within 2-CMC, where as there are a lot more creatures in the 2-CMC or less that feature significant advantages and synergies with top deck manipulation.
If you point out what cards you'd think would be good in the instant and sorcery stake then I'm open to suggestion.
However it seems like the better instant and sorcery spells are creeping up to be at the very least 3-CMC and more like 4 or more, which is going to cause bottlenecks in truly efficiently cycling through your cards.
But there is definitely some Goblin Electromancer build that could be used to offset the slightly overcosted nature of trying to run Experimental Frenzy with an Izzet instant and sorcery shell.
But one thing you are trying to do is avoid cards that have "draw" in them as they don't help you much under Frenzy and will be mana costed more because of the draw portion. The draw portion could be relevant if you're looking to get your second land off the top, but I personally don't think this will be the most efficient line for this type of bottleneck.
[EDIT]
I could see Runaway Steam-Kin being a big part of that plan.
I'd go with burn - Shock, Wizard's Lightning, Lightning Strike, maybe even Risk Factor for when you ditch Frenzy.
Creature-wise, Electrostatic Field looked interesting, along with the Steam-kin and Electromancer. And maybe Adeliz.
I also thought Perilous Voyage and Release To The Wind might be good, the first for removal and possible scry and the second for getting rid of your Frenzy at EoT, dumping your hand and then bringing it back for free.
Toss in Nexus of Fate too, and if your deck really hums you might pull off chaining several turns in a row.
Would you really want to go creature-heavy with this, though? Seems like the real value would be in throwing out instants as fast as possible. Each creature you hit off-turn would just stall you as much as a land, flash aside.
It'd be three lands, though - the first land would actually be your draw for the turn.
On top of that, multiple copies of this would effectively also be lands, as there's no real good reason you would ever want two of these in play at the same time. Still, looks like it could be fun in the right build, if you have enough manipulation.
Has it ever been explained exactly what the Guildpact does, by the way?
Don't have much more than that, just wanted to let you know.
edit - MSRP is $239.92. I should've mentioned that originally.
They wouldn't need "guildpact crap", they could trap him on any plane with the Immortal Sun. Just gotta get Tezzeret and the Planar Bridge out of the way.
My guess is Bolas gets trapped on the Meditation Plane with the Immortal Sun. Possibly after betraying Tez and trying to steal his spark to make the All-Sp...OldSpark.
To wear out the other planeswalkers and/or other opposition on Ravnica, I'd imagine. And I think the Planar Bridge has the dual purpose of transporting the Sun/Eternals and allowing for an escape afterwards. I mean, unless Tezzeret has some way to "push" then at very least he'd be trapped wherever the Sun is when he pulled it off Ixalan.
The bigger question is why Ravnica? If his plan is simply to collapse a plane, he could do that to any plane. I think there's some specific reason he needs it to be Ravnica. I really hope it's not some stupid revenge kick against Azor, though.
Why?
If they were going to do this as a true cycle this time around, it would've started in Guilds. This is more than likely a one-off.
I doubt that will make the set any better.
We've already seen there won't be fetchlands in it, for instance.
There's really only two things an LGS can do in regards to this set - hype it like mad or basically ignore it. Keep in mind, this has a lot more issues than just set makeup for an LGS. The biggest issue for them is that they found out about this set at the exact same time we all did, and their order window is that much shorter for it. For perspective, the sanctioning window for RNA opened one week before UMA was announced. Stores have to either go all in now or miss out, especially with a limited print run product.
I suppose for an LGS whose focus is mainly MTG, that's a no-brainer. But stores who only deal with MTG as a smaller part of their overall business have a much tougher decision, because they're currently stocking up for Christmas and might not have room in their budget for a surprise product from WotC of that high a cost.
Well, I mean, they COULD consider not basing the MSRP on the secondary market value of the reprints, and just not make it a limited print-run product. That'd be another way to not have an insane MSRP.
As for stores, well, they know this:
Product got announced this week.
Product releases in December.
Product has a ridiculous MSRP.
I know my store's management is just absolutely confused/irritated by this product and doesn't know how much or even if they should order any. It likely won't sit, but it's not going to be flying off the shelves, either. Stores have to order this basically now, based on knowing nothing but the Box-Topper cards, and that it has a ridiculously higher MSRP just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
MED is the Ravnica Mythic Edition? That doesn't count.
They may not need to reduce but there's no real need to increase, either. There's no progressive increases in MSRP. Maybe if they climbed over time, sure. But it went from 8 to 10 and sat there for years. Then suddenly 14.
Not to mention there's a huge difference between what stores order and what people actually buy. I guarantee there are stores still sitting on Iconic and M25. Saying "People bought it out/bought enough" is kind of pointless.
I expect people will be disappointed with the Ravnica 3rd set announcement. I don't think it's going to be what anyone expects.
Also, my guess is Theros for the next setting, given all the heavy devotion setup they've done so far in GRN and Dominaria, which is likely to continue in Allegiance. It'd be weird to NOT have a return to Theros with this much buildup.
Also, I expect this to end with Bolas trapped alone on the Meditation Plane with the Immortal Sun, probably after killing a few planeswalkers and trying to kill Tezzeret too. Because everyone would be expendable with that plan.
One line of speculation I've heard is that a return to Theros is next up after we're done with All This Ravnica. Based solely on the idea tbat all the colored mana symbols in Ravnica are pointing towards a return of the devotion mechanic. That would explain Elspeth.
Though another possibility is that Bolas "rescued" her "off-camera" to install as another puppet Guild Leader in Allegiance.
I'd go with burn - Shock, Wizard's Lightning, Lightning Strike, maybe even Risk Factor for when you ditch Frenzy.
Creature-wise, Electrostatic Field looked interesting, along with the Steam-kin and Electromancer. And maybe Adeliz.
I also thought Perilous Voyage and Release To The Wind might be good, the first for removal and possible scry and the second for getting rid of your Frenzy at EoT, dumping your hand and then bringing it back for free.
Toss in Nexus of Fate too, and if your deck really hums you might pull off chaining several turns in a row.
It'd be three lands, though - the first land would actually be your draw for the turn.
On top of that, multiple copies of this would effectively also be lands, as there's no real good reason you would ever want two of these in play at the same time. Still, looks like it could be fun in the right build, if you have enough manipulation.