Fight For Your Guild
Tensions build on the city-world of Ravnica, where each guild plies its own agenda to outsmart and outmaneuver the others. Uncover the remaining five guilds with the Gatecrash set so that your guild can be the first to unravel Ravnica’s deep-rooted secrets.
Gatecrash FAQ:
- What guilds are in Gatecrash?
The Orzhov Syndicate, House Dimir, The Gruul Clans, The Boros Legion, and the Simic Combine - What keywords are new to Gatecrash?
Each guild has its own unique keyworded ability.
Orzhov Syndicate, Extort – Creature Ability (Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay B/W. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain that much life.)
House Dimir, Cipher - Sorcery Ability (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)
Gruul Clans, Bloodrush – Creature Ability ([Cost] Discard this card: Target attacking creature gets [ability and/or power/toughness boost])
Boros Legion, Battalion – Creature Ability (Whenever [this creature] and at least two other creatures attack, [ability triggers])
Simic Combine, Evolve - Creature Ability (Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power or toughness than this creature, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.) - How do you draft Gatecrash?
Gatecrash is a large size set, and is meant to be drafted alone (three packs of Gatecrash). It is expected that when the third set in the Return to Ravnica block releases, the draft format will change to the standard “one pack of each set” format. - When are the Gatecrash Prerelease Events?
January 26-27, 2013. - How does the Gatecrash Prerelease work?
For the Gatecrash Prerelease, you’ll choose from five Guild Prerelease Packs. The options (while supplies last) are Orzhov, Dimir, Gruul, Boros, and Simic. Each Guild Prerelease Pack contains five Gatecrash booster packs, a guild-specific booster pack, a special alternate-art prerelease card unique to each guild, an achievement card, a Spindown life counter, a guild symbol sticker, and a letter from the guild’s leader. For this event, players may use the promo card included with the Guild Prerelease Pack in their tournament deck. - What is the Gatecrash Release Date?
February 1, 2013 - When is the Gatecrash Launch Weekend?
February 1-4, 2013 - What is the Gatecrash release date for Magic Online?
February 11, 2013 - When is Pro Tour Gatecrash?
February 15-17, 2013 - When is the Gatecrash Game Day:
February 23-24, 2013
DraftMagic.com is the place to be.
I like how the Crablimb Shark, creature type crab fish, still has beefy human arms. Possible explanations:
-It’s Simic, you’re lucky there’s not an arm coming out of its head.
-Artist Wesley Burt really wanted to make a Halfsharkalligatorhalfman but couldn’t get them to change the name.
-Wesley Burt is Strong Bad.
-All WotC artist notes include “Moar muscelz!!”
It’s disappointing to be “that guy” on this set, but… I’m just so disappointed!
The gruul mechanic is so, so stupid. “All your creatures are inneficient giant growths now!”. But the truly depressing part? Aurelia suuuuuucks. I thought they learned their lesson that 6+ CMC legends would never be played. But the Red White legend, who should be both awesome and probably, y’know, AGGRESSIVE? let’s make her mediocre-sized, expensive to cast, and give her a mechanic which has never, never been worth a darn. I’m just so disappointed… I hoped, after Rakdos, that they might make Boros awesome, but it’s just such a let down…
And swearing in the flavour text of Ground Assault? I’ve never agreed with Marlon over who the audience for the text is more in my entire life…
That’s an English mockup of Ground Assault CJ, it hasn’t been spoiled here yet. I just made up some crappy flavor lol.
But yeah, you can kind of tell this was a different design team. It’s very sloppy overall.
- Vito
I was hoping that was the case with Ground Assault. The scary thing is it’s almost plausible.
And I agree bloodrush is kinda dumb, but it will just require some adjustments in play, like leaving up an answer for “double bloodrush, hit you for 15″ if you’re vulnerable. That and evolve seem like they’ll be the best mechanics in draft. Cipher is the swingiest. Sometimes it’ll be an absolute blowout, sometimes an overcosted sorcery. Extort is the one I want to be good but is probably just a little short on value, suffering from BMS (better in multiplayer syndrome). It’s still a nice bonus though if you’re playing the 2/2 just cause you need a bear and you get to drain for a few over the course of the game. Battalion is the least exciting and seems to have always been around in one form or another on white creatures-”If Condition X is met, this guy’s awesome.” Decent though, as they all are. Should make for an interesting limited environment.
Cipher fits the flavour of Blue/Black. Thanks Shadowmage. And Battalion isn’t…terrible… really does remind me of Mirrodin, though, I wonder if that’s an accident or not. I still don’t think Bloodrush is very interesting as a mechanic. It’ll probably work in the draft format, and if they make one super-good rare/mythic maybe it’ll see constructed play, but as far as design goes, it’s so boring, no flavour, no nothing…
Extort reminds me a lot of how I expected Black/White to be when I first learned about it in the original Ravnica, except a lot more feasible. Orzhov Guildmage required 8 mana to do the same thing.
Much relieved on the flavour text. I don’t have problem with it as a mock-up, but it just seemed so cras compared to how WotC usually tries to maintain itself.
I still cry for what Boros should have been…
What draft results from Ravinica Prerelease did any of you have that EXPRESSELY CHOOSE to sign with a particular guild (possibly for using the promo, to increase odds of guild uncommons, etc) but with EVERY INTENTION of focusing your deck (again, for the prerelease) on another guild &/or color?
If you planned your prerelease deck build this way, what were your experiences???
To clarify the above question, the point of the guild promo &/or build booster pack was to help focus your sealed deck build draft, but then focus your MAIN deck strategy on the NON-GUILD you selected.
You’ve duplicated #228 (Dimir Keyrune).
Thanks for the tip.