First Look: An Initial Analysis of Return To Ravnica

Good morning everyone. Apologies for missing Tuesday's post - there were some life interventions that caused me to temporarily have very little time and even less awareness of that time. I should be back on schedule now - and none too soon, because Return to Ravnica's spoiler season has started with a bang!

And by a bang, I mean that it's absolutely insane. Literally off the wall bonkers. We don't have a majority of the mythics spoiled yet, and I'm already thrilled for the amount of product that I'll be getting. Without further ado, let's jump right into things:

The Mechanics

Izzet - Overload

The Izzet get their traditional mad-scientist on and get an interesting mechanic in Overload. While I'm a little disappointed by design's choice to make the overloads all-upside and always more expensive, there's still a solid amount of value in the cards we have seen. I think it fits the theme very well, even without the potential to have your spell blow up in your own face. This mechanic has a ton of room to grow, and I could see it evolving nicely for 'Sinker' into a real powerhouse in standard.

It's interesting to see how the whole ideal of one-sided board wipes has started to come into it's fullest in the last few years. They've been getting pushed a lot harder since Lavalanche and Contagion Engine were the best options for us. Now, we've got a pretty-well locked down cost-to-effect ratio for the radiate effect. It'll be interesting to see how the existence of spells like bonfire and this effect the way people play - and build their decks.

Selesnya - Populate

Go ahead, cast bonfire. I dare you.

Obviously, as a tokens player, I'm thrilled that this card exists. With the opportunity to advance my board state while casting non-token spells, Tokens is going to seriously be a major force to be reckoned with in the upcoming metagame. I'm currently favoring Junk (BWG) colors due to Selesnyan influence, but I'm also crossing my fingers for an awesome enabler in Teysa, come Gatecrash.

As for Populate itself, it doesn't appear to have a whole lot of depth to it. This is a case of 'exactly what you get on the tin', which isn't bad - it means they don't need to work especially hard to mine the mechanic for all it's worth, while simultaneously keeping the complexity down. This is a good thing, especially in a block like Return to Ravnica, where we'll be getting a minimum of 10 new mechanics in just the first two sets. Locking down the complexity of the common cards is a great thing.

Azorius - Detain

Now here's a mechanic that I love. First off, it hearkens back to an older card that I love - Arrest, so they've already got awesome nostalgia points from me. Second off, the word itself fits perfectly with the flavor of the guild. Azorious permits everything - eventually. Detain captures that flavor perfectly and encourages blue-white to extend creatures to cause the detaining. This should lead to a more interactive style of gameplay that Blue/White is at it's most balanced in.

Also, props to Wizards for not going full-hog on this one and making the effect indefinite. Here's hoping that it doesn't accidentally spawn a major tempo deck again. I think that the majority of players in Standard are quite sick of a one-drop threat, and then nothing but removal and denial for the rest of the game. This mechanic is worrying in what it could do, but design-wise, it does exactly what you'd want to.

Rakdos - Unleash

On first glimpse, Unleash would seem to be a pretty lackluster mechanic. Your creatures can be extra-powerful if they give up their ability to block. Seems fairly straightforward, except that we've had word from Mark Rosewater that this was the mechanic that was the most problematic from a balance-standpoint. This certainly has a reasonable amount that you can do with it - "This gains XX if it has a counter on it" comes to mind immediately, and I'm sure there's plenty else you could do. (Counters as a cost for a powerful, one shot ability perhaps?)

While this seems simple on the surface, and not exactly the most Rakdos thing in the world, I'm willing to hold my breath on it and see where it goes. This set has been awesome enough thusfar that I'm willing to see where Wizards goes with this and trust them until I see the full spoiler. I encourage you guys to do the same.


Golgari - Scavenge

Hasty 3/3 for three with upside? I'll take it!

Back on the topic of abilities that tie into the guild flavorfully, we've got another one out of the park here. Scavenge does everything that the Golgari have been about since the dawn of time - using the graveyard to eke out every advantage in the book. As opposed to Dredge, this seems to be less likely to spawn a Legacy archetype, but that doesn't mean that we can't see hyper-efficient creatures from it. Overall, it seems like a solid ability that should see a fair amount of play in Standard - if only because Dreg Mangler is an extraordinarily efficient creature with a relevant creature type.

I can't see a whole lot of extra design room with this, unfortunately. Unless Wizards is willing to go the "if this card is exiled from a graveyard..." route, it looks pretty one dimensional - either a way to give an aggro deck a little bit of extra staying power, or else a way for midrange decks to keep up the powerful card advantage machine that they run off of.

Some Other Notables
It wouldn't do to write this article without mentioning some of the other all-stars that have been spoiled in the last few weeks. Notably, we have both planeswalkers, and a slew of removal spells that could shake up even legacy.

Glad to see you're over the Emo phase.

On the Blue front, we have a new Jace - complete with Fact or Fiction (ish). Personally, I think that he's a lot better than people are giving him credit for, and I'm actually pretty excited to see him in decks. He's a huge stopgap measure, capable of holding off an awful lot of attackers and still survive the process. For a four mana walker, he starts big and only gets bigger if you need him to, and with a minus ability that is just as good as drawing a card, it's hard to go wrong. His ultimate leaves something to be desired, but in the control mirror, it might just be the answer that you need to win the game.

Oh look, she makes Phage Triplets!

The Golgari have a walker as well in Vraska the Unseen. With only a day since she was spoiled, she's already pre-selling at $40. Some of my friends have bought sets already, speculating that Jund and BUG are going to be the new-era of control. Personally, I'm not so sure that she's THAT good, but she's certainly going to see quite a bit of play.

Her -3 is awesome, being a pseudo-vindicate. Already, we're doing alright on our rate. For one more mana, we get a walker attached to it that has a defensive ability and an easy win condition if we can get her to ultimate. Now, admittedly, the bar for a five mana walker is pretty steep. Elspeth Triel doesn't quite make the bar, but Gideon clearly does. Taimyo is good, but Jace 3.0 is pretty niche. Vraska is certainly on the positive side of that line, but she does have one glaring weakness:

She has the potential to sit there and do nothing for a while.

IF you're behind on the board (say you didn't manage to cast that T4 mutilate against an aggressive deck.) and you cast Vraska. You either -3, destroy their biggest guy, and then lose Vraska in a 5-mana 1 for 1, or you plus her, they attack you, and you're one step closer to death. Your five mana walker has done nothing that you couldn't do better with Hysterical Blindness. I've drafted basic lands over Hysterical Blindness, for comparison. Her plus ability has the potential to do less than a fourteenth pick. That makes me a little leery.

As far as support spells go, there's a couple of very awesome removal spells that deserve a mention. One is easily worth play in Legacy, while the other gets an award for being the first removal spell that specifically targets planeswalkers. Say hello to some new toys, everyone!

Take that counterbalance!

Sorcery Speed, but unconditional. Fair deal.

 So, these spells appear to be fairly notable for their effects, but their position as set-rares is an interesting departure from recent trends. When was the last time we had a staple removal spell at rare? I could be wrong with this, but my initial research wants to say Maelstrom Pulse. That seems like an exceptionally good precedent. I'd expect these cards to be heavily played throughout their time in Standard, with Abrupt Decay making a nice splash in the legacy scene due to being un-Force of Will-able.

At the moment, we're less than a third spoiled with the set, and Return to Ravnica already seems like one of the highest-power (and highest-value) sets to hit shelves in ages. Wizards has pulled out all the stops on this one because they know that fans have been clamoring to get back to Ravnica for years. They know how important it is that they deliver on this set - and they're coming through.

Here's hoping that the next two thirds of the set are just as impressive.

Until Next Time,

-Andrew