Magic the Gathering > Cards > Ravnica
Ravnica Magic The Gathering Cards
This article is about the Magic: The Gathering 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 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.
Of the ten guilds that rule Ravnica, four are the focus of this
first set in the block. The next expansion, Guildpact, 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.
All the multicolor cards in Ravnica (and many other cards) are
associated with one of these four guilds. Each guild has the following
cards:
- A legendary leader, who includes two mana of each of the guild's colors and some colorless mana as a cost.
- A legendary champion, who encourages players to play with cards of both of the guild's colors. The champion includes 1 mana of each of the guild's color in their 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.% 26nbsp;
- A signet, a common artifact which produces one mana of each of the guild's colors.% 26nbsp;
- A common "karoo" land, which returns a land to hand when it comes into play (tapped), but produces 2 mana of the guild's colors.% 26nbsp;
- An uncommon "guildhome" land, which produces colorless mana but has a special ability.% 26nbsp;
- 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.% 26nbsp;
- A rare guild-affiliated artifact.% 26nbsp;
- Three hybrid mana cards, 1 of each rarity level, the uncommon one is always the guildmage which costs 2 hybrid mana to play, has a power/toughness of 2/2, and 2 activated abilities (one associated with each of its colors.)% 26nbsp;
- Miscellaneous spells of each of the guild's colors that are "enhanced" if played with a mana of the guild's other color.% 26nbsp;
- A total of twenty permanents, two from each guild, that is of
one color, and has an activated ability of the second colour of their
guild.
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 books.
- 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 fought over with the elvish shaman Savra.% 26nbsp;
- 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, seen protecting a loxodon and ridng the next leader of the conclave.% 26nbsp;
- 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 (Circu wasn't
in the book, though).
Ravnica was conceived following the success of Invasion. This set, 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, wanted to expand on the multicolor theme in a new way. Therefore, the design of Ravnica is based around the four guilds above, including cards in which those pairs of colors work in concert.
Ravnica is functionally different from Invasion block due to the interaction of the multi-colored theme. In Invasion block, for example, the first two sets (Invasion and Planeshift) centered around friendly colors and the harmony they create when put together. The last set, Apocalypse 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.
Hybrid cards ("Guild mana"): For the first time in Magic's 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 of the green/white symbols 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. A large version of the guild's sigil underlies the text box of the card. These symbols each correspond to one of the guilds.
Each two-color combination is represented in the world of Ravnica by a guild -- an organized association of people with common beliefs. Four of these guilds appear in this set and the remaining six appear later in the Ravnica block.
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.
- Radiance (red/white): 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 both colors.
- Convoke (green/white): 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.% 26nbsp;
- Dredge (black/green): 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.% 26nbsp;
- Transmute (blue/black): For a certain amount of mana, a card
with Transmute that's in a player's hand may be discarded. 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.
* All cards are Mint/NM and in English unless otherwise specified.
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