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Sep 9, 2012 -- 11:31PM, Fenix. wrote:

Oh my God, even Dimir? I know you're pushing creatures and combat hard, but come on, Dimir? This makes me so sad.

I hope the Dimir keyword was one of those that got changed...

 

Dimir is the guild of spies and thieves. It's possible they get a saboteur-enabler mechanic, like Ninjitsu or Morph. 

Transfigure

The mechanics in this set are all really nice, but i think my ranking for them would be:

1. Detain - It could have been Populate, but for me personally, my play style leads me to a natural comfort zone with Detain.

2. Populate - As not broken as they tried to make it, it will still end up being broken....

3. Overlaod - Nice idea, great EDH cards.... I just havent seen many overlaod cards that really appeal to me... or any blue ones for that matter....

4. Scavange - I didnt like dredge that much either....

5. Unleash - It just doesent seem as powerful as any of the other mechanics in this set....

So now we see how Rakdos ended up with a pathetically boring mechanic ("+1/+1 sometimes" is about the minumum effect that a mechanic can have on them game) that doesn't represent what the guild is all about.  Combat is only one of the many ways in which the cult's members like to have fun; hellbent was a good (not great) mechanic for them because it could do many different things, and B/R is all about having options, as long as they're "in the moment" things that you can do all at once if you feel like it.  Also, if they were going to do this mechanic, "must attack" was clearly the correct execution, probably along with the creature gaining haste.  Detain is also somewhat disappointing but nowhere near as much so.

I'm also saddened that the designers sabotaged the feel of the Izzet guild by making it impossible for them to screw up their overload spells - this is a guild of mad sorcerers blowing themselves up through reckless experimentation, yet somehow they've reliably put a " you +/- control" clause onto every spell so it can't go wrong.  Mizzium Mortars is an example of a spell that should have had that clause, but after reading the preview of it, I had to go back and read Street Spasm to realize that it also had the clause, because there it wasn't necessary and didn't feel natural.  If you rip up the entire street, shouldn't some of your own guys be in there?  The flying/nonflying distinction is the only dividing line you need to make this spell work; if you want your own guys to escape unscathed, just give them flying?  Even more disappointing is the inability to innovate with the mechanic by creating spells like this:

Brain Expansion Wave
Sorcery, 7U
Target player draws five cards.
Overload 1UU (Instead, each player draws five cards).

Or this:

Big Explosion
Sorcery, 1RRR
Big Explosion deals 5 damage to target player.
Overload 1RRR (Instead, it deals the damage to every player including you.)

Or even this:

Extract Brains
Sorcery, UR
Extract Brains deals 1 damage to target creature.  Its controller draws a card.
Overload XUURR, where X is the number of creatures in play.  (Instead, this deals 1 damage to every creature in play, and each player draws a card for each creature they control.)

The Izzet totally wanted to have spells like this, spells that play with the implications of their mechanic.  We may see some such innovation in the third set of the block, but more likely someone will just decide that they don't want to challenge the player's brains that much, or risk any possibility that anyone might ever regret playing one of the new cards (all while they intentionally cultivate the "griefer" fanbase).

If the design goal for RTR was to avoid innovating, I with they'd just gone the whole hog and said "this is exactly the same Ravnica as before, redone from square 1 to use new design technology but with the same story as before" instead of "this is Ravnica having undone all the changes that happened over the course of the past eight years".  The latter is deeply depressing; apparently nothing that anyone did had any real effect, which is just sad.

And I'm really getting sick of MaRo and the rest of design inventing new jargon.  First "as-fan", now "Reese's cup mechanic".  It doesn't actually say anything that needed to be said.  (On the other hand, "square" stats is a reasonable term for something that could actually use a term to describe it.) 

So, supposedly the RTR cards are meant to play well with the RAV ones. In looking at the keywords for each guild (so far), I find this largely true, but there is a glaring exception:

Golgari - Dredge & Scavenge
Both keywords work while in the graveyard, but rather than milling for the "right" card to come along, it makes the card in there immediately extractable useful to the board state, rather than requiring an extra draw. It only comes on creatures, and only cares about creatures, which focuses the mechanic less to Johnnyness and instead to just raw aggro. While both keywords operate from the graveyard, and thus Dredge can benefit Scavenge by increasing availability, the reverse is not true.

Selesnya - Convoke & Populate
Both keywords care about numbers, and more importantly both keywords care about tokens. This is a very token-centric guild. There is amazing overlap between these two, as the increased number of tokens Populate provides helps benefit Convoke, while Convoke saves you mana to then Populate with.

Izzet - Replicate & Overload
These keywords are practically the same, giving you an amazing effect (or number of copies) by dumping mana into them. Problematically, Overload is a LOT more powerful than Replicate, for despite allowing Replicate to sculpt what it would hit, Overload is indiscriminate and the cost may be completely negligible as a result. This disparity gets more obvious when you are playing a very long game, in which both players have managed to amass a large field, or when you are playing multiplayer, in which case Overload is almost always going to be the better choice.

Rakdos - Unleash & Hellbent
Arguably, these cards have little to no overlap, but they work well in some cases because Rakdos doesn't need to care about opportune moments for play: Play it out now, as soon as you can, and the "drawback" shouldn't be a problem if your opponent is going to be dead in a turn or two. This was much the same feeling as Hellbent, without the impression that you had to try to dump your hand to make it useful.

Azorius - Forecast & Detain
These two keywords have virtually NO overlap, nor do they have any synergy. You forecast a card to set up a situation, but you keep the card: it's an effect in your hand that can stay there. Or, you play a card with Detain, and get a body out of the deal, which reads more like Court Hussar than it does like Pride of the Clouds , a token machine. In the off-chance that, to make it useful, you are using the cards that can trigger Detain frequently, then you are paying no mana, revealing no information, and are simply behaving as a normal creature-player. I suspect most Detain cards will be one-shot effects, but this was never the case with Forecast, even if you wanted to consider the "set up" abilities of Dream Leash or Writ of Passage . Cards like Proclamation of Rebirth deny there is any semblance between the two.