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Hello all, here's the gameplan for next year. We have three Ravnica sets, so that means three guildwars. I want to shake things up, so only the last oen will be a traditional, multi-ability, voting game. The first two are going to be a little different and hopefully will end within the 3 months before the next game begins.

Here's a skeleton of what the first Guildwars (New Ravnica) will look like:

* GW:NR will use a city block tally that's 15 by 15 blocks. This gives 255 tota, 22.5 per guild.

* Each guild will begin with a 3 by 3 square of blocks under thier control. The location of each is choosen at random. The center block will be each guild's "guildhall" I don't know if this will have any impact on the game.

* The guildhall will begin with more strength than the surrounding blocks.

* Each guild will have special abilities that will give each a unique play style.

* Guilds can only attack and conqure blocks next to them (this includes diagonally).

* When a guild loses all it's blocks (or possibly just it's guildhall) that guild loses. The players from that gulid can join a new guild (or possibly remain guildless).

* I'm thinking of including a "GAME CHANGER" which i'm going to call a Backlash. Which would happen whenever a guild is defeated. This would do terrible things to the surviving guilds. (either this would escalate over time, or each guild would have it's own Backlash).

* Backlashes would replace the end game.

Now onto the guilds:

Azorius Senate (Az): The Azorius senate keep the law. THey are masters to keeping anything from getting done.
The Azorius's greatest strength is thier ability to make the laws.


House Dimir (Dm): The Dimir lurk in the shadows. They gain power through manipualtion and infiltration.
The Dimir's strength is thier ability to strike anywhere.

* The Dimir can attack any block.

The Cult of Rakdos (Rk): The Cult of Rakdos are dangerous, hedonistic people.
The Rakdos are aided by thier disregard for life. They are more than willing to kill anyone for any reason.


The Gruul Clans (Gr): The Gruul clans are a disorganized coalition of many different clans.
The Gruul's main advantage is thier aggressive independence.

* The gruul are proficient in fighting when surrounded by enemies.

The Conclave (Sc): The Conclave is a collection of beings tied together through the life song.
The Conclave's main advantage is thier ability to grow and spread. If left unpruned the Conclave would easily outgrow the other guilds.

* The conclave is strongest when surrounded by other conclave members. The Conclave spreads easily into other blocks.

The Orzhov (Oz): The Orzhov are a collection of powerful families that made thier power through wealth. The Orzhov are bankers, lawyers, and merchants.
The Orzhov's main advantage is thier ability to extort and manipulate others.

The Magewrghts (Iz): The izzet are the inventors of Ravnica. Charged with maintaining the infastructure of Ravnica. having literally built the city from the ground up.
In this game the izzet's main advantage is the fact that they can literally build and destroy city blocks.

The Golgari swarm (Gl): The Golgari dwell mostly in the dark places of Ravnica, the undercity. They build thier armies by reanimating the dead.
The Goglari's main advantage is that death is not a stopping point for thier army. Any dead soliders can be reanimated to fight again.

* The Golgari should spread eaisly into new territories.

The Boros Legion (Bl): Tasked with defending the law on Ravnica the Boros Legion is the closed fist of the guildpact.
The Boros's strength comes from thier military training and the backing of the guldpact.

The Simic Combine (Sc): The mad scentists of Ravnica, the Simic have cornered the market on everything biological.
The Simic's main advantage is thier ability to adapt nature to suit thier needs.

Azorius:

Guildhall cannot be damaged by other guild abilties.

Skip Attack and Reinforcement: 3 Blocks surrounding Guildhall get +1.

Guildhall cannot be attacked if Az still control 4 or more blocks surrounding it. 

When the Azorious attack, bold the attacked block.  It doesn't count as belonging to its guild for the purposes determining what blocks may be attacked by its owning guild.

Backlash: All players gain an extra attack (but not an extra reinforcement) each day

* I like the idea that the Azorius are focused on their guildhall. The backlash looks good as well.

Dimir:

Dimir can attack any block.

Skip Attack and Reinforcement: Switch a Dimir Block with a Block next to it. (Strengths remain the same in each block)

Sacrifice all Dimir Blocks surrounding Guildhall: Move Guildhall to any unoccupied Block. It gains Dimir Blocks surrounding it with X strength (X undecided).

Ability: House Dimir has no Guildhall and can only be eliminated by taking all its blocks.  Additionally, House Dimir can attack and claim blocks anywhere on the board.

Backlash: All controlled blocks immediatley lose 1 strength as contingencies and sleeper agents are put into effect.

* I really like the Guildhall moving ability, it would make the Dimir more dynamic than other guilds. I think the guildhall-less ability is sweet as well, but may be more fitting for the Gruul who don't have a centralized power base.

Rakdos:

Rakdos deals 2 damage to blocks and 1 to itself. (Optional)

Guildhall deals X damage to itself and X damage to each block around it.

Blocks destroyed by Rakdos become unclaimable.

Ability: Instead of claiming a block, the Rakdos may destroy it.  mark it as dead [--].  Any block or group of blocks completley surrounded by dead blocks also dies. (no moats)

Backlash: Starting with [1,1] and continuing clockwise, the first live block (controlled or not) dies at the start of the day.  Naturally, if the entire playing field becomes surrounded by dead blocks in this manner, the game has gone on far too long and all guilds lose as the entire district dies.

* I enjoy the idea of the Rakdos destroying blocks, and the blacklash is interesting. It gives the Rakdos a dynaimc playstyle.

Gruul:

Gruul deal 2 damage to blocks if its surrounded by 4 or more opposition blocks.

Skip reinforcement: Gruul deals 1 damage additional (Stacks with other abilties)

Skip attack and reinforcement: Gruul claims a block next to a opposition block.

Ability: When a Gruul player attacks, they choose a block to be attacking from.  They may attack every block adjacent to that one, but may only attack one guild in this way (So if a block has three Azorious, two Rakdos, and a Gruul block adjacent to it, the Gruul player may either attack all three Azorious blocks, both Rakdos blocks, or the Gruul block)

Backlash: Every block that has more than three uncontrolled blocks adjacent to it becomes uncontrolled in the savage retrubution of the clans.

* THe Gruul are always tricky to give a distinct play style. Ideally they'd be scrappy, resourceful, and unattached from land.

Conclave:

Ability: At the start of each day, each Selesnya block surrounded completley by Selesnya blocks gains 2 life

Backlash: Gone to Seed.  All uncontrolled blocks immediatley gain 3 strength that must be removed before they can be claimed.

* I like the ability, but i fear that the Conclave will have a wall of life even with a cap on block strength. I do like that backlash though.

Orzhov:

When Orzhov destroys a block, it claims it immediately with X strength.

Skip attack and choose a Guild who owns a block next to Orzhov. That guild cannot attack Orzhov this turn.
You may offer +X Strength to another guild's guild block and choose another block they own. If they accept the offer, take over the chosen block.

Ability: To attack an Orzhov block, choose a block that may legally attack it (So adjacent to the target block normally, or anywhere for the Dimir).  Unless the chosen block has more allied blocks adjacent to it than Orzhov blocks, it has been bribed and cannot attack. (Equal is not enough)

Backlash: All the blocks on the edge of the board and all blocks that were touching orzhov blocks become uncontrolled as the loss of faith causes people to abandon guild causes

* I think for this game when a guild lowers another guild's block to 0 strength, they'll automatically claim it. But i do like the idea of the Orzhov claiming blocks with more life than normal.

Izzet:

Ability: When an Izzet player attacks, they choose a block to be attacking from.  They may attack every block adjacent to that one, but may only attack each Guild once (So if a block has three Azorius, Two Rakdos, and an Izzet block adjacent to it, the izzet player may attack any or all of the following: one of the Azorious blocks, one of the Rakdos blocks, and/or the Izzet block)

Backlash: for the rest of the game, Each block that is not a guildhall loses 1 strength for each block orthagonally adjacent to it that is controlled by the same guild as the block in question as infrastructure crumbles.

Golgari:

Ability: When the golgari reduce an enemy-controlled block to 0 strength, they claim it automatically.

Backlash: Famine.  For the rest of the game, each time a guild claims a block, it is claimed at 1 less strength than normal as the people starve.

* I'm thinking of having that ability be automatic in this game, but maybe if they reduce the block to 0 they can make an extra attack or something. I like famine though.

Boros:

Ability: The damage of a Boros attack is equal to the number of Boros blocks adjacent (including diagonally) to the targeted block

Backlash: Chaos. For the rest of the game, each controlled block loses 1 strength for each uncontrolled block orthagonally adjacent to it as the mob assaults guild holdings

* I fear that Boros ability will make them the highest damage dealing guild in the game. Of course it is situational.

Simic:

Ability: At the start of each day, each simic block gains 1 strength for each non-simic guild among the guilds adjacent to it

Backlash: Replace the simic guildhall with Experiment Kraj, strength 10 [K10].  At the start of each day, kraj moves into (and replaces) an adjacent guild-controlled square, and its former block becomes uncontrolled.  If there is more than one such block, Kraj always moves to the square closest to its starting location (mark that square when Kraj leaves it), counting only orthagonal steps.  If there is a tie, Kraj prefers to move due north, or clockwise from the same with decending priority (and will thus never move northwest on a tiebreaker).  Kraj may be attacked and reinforced like a guild controlled block.  If Kraj is reduced to 0 strength, or if there is no guild-controlled block adjacent to Kraj at the start of the day, Kraj dies and becomes a normal uncontrolled block.

* KRAJ! Man, what would a guildwars be without a gaint Ooze roaming around?

Remembering the second and third guildwars from way back, I remember some cool abilities that were 'charged' by the players moves.  The one that comes to mind most readily was a Dimir ability.  If the person skipped thier attack, they could add a counter to a tally.  When the tally had seven or more, the Dimir player could 'assassinate' with the counters that were built up.  A cool ability to be sure.  It basically saved up attacks, and delivered a weeks worth of attacks in one day.  I am wondering, could we implement that on a little bit wider scale.  Some guilds, it would be easy to duplicate, and others might be a little harder.  Let's brainstorm.

Azorius:   Stasis
The Azorius cards are usually related to blue/white control, so we will roll with that.
Instead of attacking, a Lawmage could add a token to the tally .  When the tally had 5 or more, the lawmage could cast a large-scale lockdown spell, that would make it so some city blocks were in stasis for three days.  This means that no one could attack or reinforce those blocks, and they would not contribute to other abilities that depended on adjacent blocks, they would be neutral.  The number of tokens used is the number of blocks locked down in stasis.  This ability may not be used on guildhalls, and the stasis blocks must be othagonally adjacent to each other (up, down, left, right).

Dimir: Grand Theft Ravnica
The Dimir-watermarked cards are all about drawing cards and making others discard cards. 
We could turn this into a theft-like ability.  Instead of attacking or reinforcing, they would add one intel token to the tally( ).  Whenver a Dimir player wants to skip an attack, they can use any number of intel tokens to 'steal' up to three points from any one city block, and move the stolen goods to any Dimir controlled block.  The distance doesn't matter, and only three tokens can be used on any block.  If the Dimir have 9 tokens, they may target up to nine blocks, but only up to 3 can be used on any one block.  No block can go up or down more than three points.  This ability may be used on guildhalls, and can be stolen from anywhere, but must be moved to Dimir controlled blocks.

Rakdos: Block Party
Rackdos players may skip an attack and reinforcement to add a powder keg token ( ) to the tally.  When there are five tokens on the tally, a Rakdos player may throw a block party on any city block.  That block, and each block adjacent (both diagonally and orthagonally) lose X points, where X is the number of rackdos controlled blocks divided by 2, rounded down.  Any block reduced to zero this way is destroyed, and is now a [--].  All Rakdos owned blocks lose 1, as cultists abandon their posts to go to the block party.  If there are ever more than five tokens on the tally, the block party happens on the Rakdos guildhall, except all blocks adjacent lose x, where x is the number of Rakdos controlled blocks.  The cultists can't restrain themselves any longer and detonate the stored powder kegs, likely destroying their guildhall in the process.

Gruul: Raid
Gruul players may skip an attack and reinforcement to add a raid token to the tally .
At any time, a Gruul player may spend tokens from the tally to raid a territory adjacent to a block controlled by the guild.  That enemy block takes X, where X is the number of raid tokens spent plus the number of adjacent Grull blocks.  The Gruul player may then distribute X points among any of the adjacent Gruul territories in any way.

Selesnya: The Chorus
Selesnya players may skip an attack and reinforcement to add a chorus counter ( ) to the tally.  Any Selesnya player may spend 3 tokens to add 1 to all Selesnya blocks.  They may spend 6 to add 2, 9 to add 3, etc.

Orzhov: The Deal
Orzhov members may skip both attack and reinforcement to make a gold counter  
Any Orzhov player may use 3 gold to bribe another guild for two days.  The bribed guild gets 3 points to distribute as it sees fit, but may not attack the orzhov for two days.  The recieving guilds first active player may add 3 to any controlled blocks in any combination.  (1 in 3 different blocks, 3 in 1 block, 2 in a block and 1 in another, etc)

Izzet: Time Warp
Izzet players may skip their attack and reinforcement to add a time counter to the tally.   Any player may turn in 3 time tallys to grant all Izzet players bonus moves that day.  3 tokens gives an extra attack and reinforcement, 6 tokens give 2 of both, 9 tokens gives 3 of both, etc.  The Izzet players may not use the extra turns to make more time tokens.  Once a player has activated time warp, no other player may add time counters to the tally that day.

Golgari: Zombie Swarms 
Whenever a Golgari takes a damage, they may add one Zombie token to the tally.   A Golgari player may skip attack and reinforcement to use any number of tokens to attack or reinforce a territory like normal.  If there are 9 zombie tokens, the Golgari may reinforce 9 of thier own territories, deal 9 attacks distributed to any neighboring terriotries, or any mix of the two.

Boros: Angel's Descent
The Boros may skip an attack and reinforcement to place a Angel counter on the tally.  
When there are 5 or more Angel counters on the tally, the Boros may launch a Celestial Assault.  The activationg Boros player choses a territory.  For the next two days, any boros player may attack that territory as though it was adjacent to 3 Boros territories.  If they conquer it, they may reinforce it as normal, and attack from there as normal.  This ability may not be used on enemy guildhalls.

Simic: Genetic Research
Any Simic player may skip attack and reinforcement to place a genetic research token on the tally.    These tokens remain there until the Kraj is released.  When Kraj awakens, he starts with 10 health plus one health for each token on the tally.  He also gains health per day depending on the number of tokens the simic had when he woke up.  for every 10 tokens, he has Regeneration 1.  20 tokens means 2 health a day, 30 tokens means 3 a day, etc.



Okay, so there is a pretty cool set of ideas.  Some guilds are really defensive (Orzhov and Selesnya) and some are very offensive (Boros, Gruul, Dimir).  The Simic have a huge beast gonna eat everyone's face, but the Boros, Golgari, and Dimir can counter it.  Two Orzhov players means they can keep one guild constantly bribed.  There's a lot going on here, but a lot more ways to interact, and even a guild with one player can still store up points and have an impact.  What do you think?

I'm also thinking of either reviving Minnow, or creating a new district for this game to take place. As such i'lll need unique guildhalls for the district. I'm thinking of having a writing contest (or some other contest) to determine the nine guildhalls.