#plane: ravnica

[tumblhurgoyf]

Battle of the Planes Elite Eight

#battle of the planes #mtg #kaldheim #ravnica #elite eight

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Orzhova by Charles Urbach

#Magic the Gathering #MtG #Planechase 2012 #Ravnica #Orzhova #Plane Card #Fantasy #Art #Charles Urbach

[redwizardofgay]

Really want to make an MTG RPG

#ironically my current projects experiments with space and environment inspired this #specifically how green red and blue can interact with the board #and i do have that color alignment model from ages past #specially i want to try a mage college #cause while Strixhaven is cool #it's also not really to my liking #and i want to borrow on the haunted plane thing OG Ravnica had going on #add some dungeon punk #and i think I'm on to something #MTG #DND #Pathfinder #I'm just listing off systems I'm not going to use now

[parallel-2-anywhere]

May-Ke A Plane

I admittedly never have done anything like this. But I decided to try and make a 30 Day Challenge, built around fan brewing a Magic the Gathering plane! Since all of the worlds of Magic are super fun and I love the worldbuilding. I thought it would be a fun basis for a 30 day challenge!

There is no art required or anything! I just think it could be fun to pull off! Please send me if any of you do anything like this!

#Magic #Magic the Gathering #Multiverse #month challenge #worldbuilding #MTG planes #May-ke Your Own Plane #Kamigawa #New Capenna #Ravnica #MTG #March of the machine #P2a #Trefor Vantross.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Prahv

Artist: Drew Baker TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

#mtg #magic the gathering #tcg #$1.50 #drew baker #prahv #planechase 2012 planes #plane #ravnica

[redhandedsuggestions]

last night

me: trying desperately to sleep, dst got me fucked up, have extra work today so i can't take my usual nap between shifts

my brain: hey. hey. AU where the Phyrexian Invasion of the Multiverse causes funky timeline splitting shit and Mes accidentally planeswalks to a different version of Theros/Ravnica (specifically, the versions from my friend's AU where Bial remained on Theros and grew up there + was older when Xenagos ascended and was killed) where it's also XX years in the past before the invasion begins?? :)

#ooc tag #i say XX years because *technically* it would be roughly 24 years in the past the way we figured out the timeline for the AU #but that means some of the people Mes would have the most interesting/meaningful interactions with wouldn't even be born yet #so i'm thinking of allowing the timeline to be funky per plane lol. like Theros is 24 years behind but Ravnica's like. 2

[owlbear33]

like I know the mtg colour pie isn't as simple as white good, and black Evil, but black is still the colour that gets all the undead and demons etc, my problem is lands, in what way is a swamp evil,

trees good, wetlands good

swamp == forested wetlands

swamps can only be described as an objective good

#owlbear grumbling #magic the gathering #mtg #doughnut ravnica #this is mostly about what the colour planes are like

[mtglore]

The latest MTGLore.com update has added links for over 40 Magic books you can borrow to read for free on Archive.org!

The Thran, Distant Planes, the original Ravnica trilogy, The Brothers' War, Lorwyn, and... The Quest for Karn too, I guess. All 40+ options are listed in the [Patch Notes]!

Video below shows how easy it is to find and borrow the first Magic novel, Arena. (Archive.org account is required, but free.)

You enjoy reading Magic's story, I'll do my best to make it easy for you. Deal?

#mtg #vorthos

[markrosewater]

Maro’s Teaser for Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Before previews for Outlaws of Thunder Junction officially begin, I thought it would be fun to do another of my Duelist-style teasers where I give tiny hints of things to come. Note that I’m only giving you partial information. 

First up, here are some things you can expect: 

• A new batch of five related creature types

• A card capable of returning three different card types from the graveyard to the battlefield

• A mechanic players have been asking us to do for many years gets made as the setting was the perfect place to finally do it

• Dual lands with a land subtype that has never been on dual lands before

• A new modal mechanic that introduces something different to think about

• A card that can swap/exchange control of up to three different card types

• A new creature token that has an ability no creature token has ever had before

• A typal card for Skeletons and Zombies

• Creature tokens in the set: (some might have abilities) 1/1 white Sheep, 1/1 blue Bird, 1/1 black Vampire Rogue, 1/1 red Mercenary, 2/1 green Varmint, 2/2 white Ox, 2/2 white Spirit, 2/2 blue and black Zombie, 3/1 red Dinosaur, 3/3 white Angel, 3/3 green Elk, 4/4 red Scorpion Dragon, X/X green Elemental, */* Blue Ox

• Some of the planes with legendary Villains in this set: Dominaria, Eldraine, Fiora, Innistrad, Ixalan, Kaladesh, Kaldheim, Kamigawa, New Capenna, and Ravnica

Next, here are some rules text that will be showing up on cards: 

• “Then repeat this process X more times.”

• “if it wasn’t cast or no mana was spent to cast it.”

• “Plotting cards from your hand costs {2} less.”

• “You can’t cast this spell during your first, second, or third turns of the game.”

• “That card gains flashback {0}”

• “Target creature becomes a white Rabbit with a base power and toughness 0/1.”

• “When you win that flip, copy that spell.”

• “If a triggered ability of a legendary creature you control triggers, that ability triggers an additional time.”

• “you get that many additional upkeep steps after this phase.”

• “Oxen you control have double strike.”

Here are some creature type lines from the set:

• Creature – Armadillo

• Creature – Shark Rogue

• Creature – Plant Bard

• Creature – Coyote

• Creature – Homarid Mercenary

• Creature – Rhino Brawler

• Creature – Ox Angel

• Creature – Porcupine Mount

• Legendary Creature – Kor Advisor

• Legendary Creature – Giant Scout

Finally, here are some names in the set:

• Claim Jumper

• Form a Posse

• Gold Rush

• Great Train Heist

• High Noon

• Quick Draw

• Reach for the Sky

• Resilient Roadrunner

• Shoot the Sheriff

• This Town Ain’t Big Enough

Tune-in to our official YouTube and Twitch channels on 3/26 to see Oko and the gang in action with new card reveals. In preparation, catch-up on Outlaws of Thunder Junction’s story (https://magic.wizards.com/en/story) to bring yourself into the world.

#Magic The Gathering #MTG #Outlaws of Thunder Junction #WotCStaff

[hypexion]

The thing about Murders at Karlov Manor is that from a story perspective, it couldn't have been set anywhere but Ravnica. And it especially couldn't have been set on New Capenna.

The story of Murders is ultimately about the fallout of March of the Machine on both Ravnica as a city, and on Kaya personally. The motivations for the high-profile deaths that litter the set are tied directly to elements of the Phyrexian invasion. The manner of murder is specifically set up to overcome the barriers Ravnica as a setting provides to a murder mystery. And Kaya only gets involved because of her questionably defined but always present relationship with Teysa Karlov.

Ravnica also comes pre-built with a host of established characters, who conveniently all hate each other. This enabled readers to theorise about whodunnit, as each daily chapter provided more information and more intrigue. People considered all kinds of threads: Could Jace be involved? Might Azor be pulling the strings somehow? How does Judith plan to survive her crazy plan? Lazav?? By the time Proft said "I know who the killer is", you too could get it. (then for some reason they delayed the reveal chapter so they could reveal the killer in a spoiler stream. even when the story is good, the management is bad)

If you move the story out of Ravnica, the whole thing falls apart. You lose everything that makes it work. A new plane would be functional, but a lot less engaging. Fiora is about political scheming, even more so than Ravnica. And New Capenna...

New Capenna is not a particularly well constructed setting. It works as a sparse background for a Magic set, but when you start poking at it, it falls over. Like, one of the nicer ways to describe New Capenna is "discount Ravnica", because you are comparing it to one of the game's most successful settings. And that's what New Capenna is - a city controlled by a number of distinct factions, built out of specific colour combinations. But the New Capenna factions are not as good as the Ravnica ones (and the Obscura are literally just the Dimir). There is crime on New Capenna, but there is no authority against which that crime is committed, which makes things rather hollow. Ravnica, as strange as its laws are, has laws, along with people to enforce them. (note: I am aware of the Doylist reason why New Capenna has no police. Watson is still crying.)

Ravnica being well-developed allows it to function as a backdrop for a different idea. New Capenna's issues do the opposite. In fact, any return to New Capenna would need to reckon with how the setting got completely turned over by the return of the angels. You can't just say "well the crime has punishment now, onto the mystery". You have to actually engage with the big change, or you're just dragging New Capenna into a deeper hole.

conclusion: When the Magic story is good it's because the writer looked at the setting and characters they were given and used them together well. This is only possible if you have a setting and characters that can be used well. Ravnica has that, the crime plane does not.

#magic: the gathering #magic the gathering #mtg

[tumblhurgoyf]

Battle of the Planes Finals!

It all comes down to this! Vote for the best plane ever!

Also check out the Kamigawa vs Ixalan poll to determine the third and fourth place winners.

#battle of the planes #mtg #finals #innistrad #ravnica

[flaetsbnortoriginals]

I've just had a dream that was so steeped in Magic: The Gathering lore that I need to post it to tumblr on the off-chance that people who know enough to understand it will be able to read it, because if I tell it to the people I usually tell my dreams to they won't understand a dang thing. Sorry @one-time-i-dreamt

So. The dream was in Ravnica, and was about this planeswalker lady. She was white, with long straight blonde hair, and a fancy blue dress. I have the feeling that I was dreaming I was her before my dream remembered I'm a boring cis man without any amazing powers so as far as I can recall I'm just following her, like the main character of a story. I'm not sure I should call her my OC since she was created without any prompting of my conscious mind but none of the characters in the dream have names so I'll call her that.

OC was walking down a boulevard in Ravnica with this dude. They were pretending to be a couple, but the dude was actually a Dimir spy she had bested and was kind of her prisoner. Dimir guy wasn't very happy about it but wasn't too angry either, he saw his "custodianship" as a work thing and kind of respected OC, so they were chill.

OC saw a woman who she realized wasn't from this plane, although she was pretending to be a local. She challenged Dimir guy to point out what made them realize this. Now I expected this to go like a Sherlock sequence, with each one pointing out a detail in the woman's outfit or some very precise behaviour. Instead, OC starts by pointing out that this woman is wearing

A FRIGGING BRIGHT BLUE SOCCER JERSEY

and not only are soccer jerseys not usual clothes in Ravnica, (at least not until Hooligans at Rakdos Stadium is released), but it also has a giant number on it (77 if you're curious), except that Ravnica uses a different writing system, so any planeswalker would immediately clock her as an outsider. (I think that it's only sort of implied that each plane uses a different writing system, but in the dream that was settled truth.)

OC is so apalled at how poorly this woman - who needs a name, so I'll call her BadKellan for reasons that will soon become apparent - is at hiding herself, she decides to have a word with her. BadKellan realizes she's being followed and hoofs it - but OC and Dimir guy immediately use their Dimir crap to become invisible. BadKellan thinks he's shaken them off, but she's quite rattled, so she goes to her safehouse, which happens to be just around the corner. OC and Dimir sneak in behind her, then make themselves visible.

Now I should tell you that Dimir Guy does nothing else in this story. I was going to say that he's just Ken, he's just there, but it's actually worse - his presence makes the story make no sense, since OC is about to reveal some secrets to some random lady. But the dream didn't forget him: I vividly recall that he was still around all throughout this part of the dream, even though he does nothing else.

So. OC reveals herself and tells BadKellan that what she's doing is very dangerous. She tells her about the Dimir (the guild, not the random guy) and says that if they see her poorly sneaking around and think she's going to be trouble, or even can't figure out what her deal is, they're just going to kill her. Which means it's incredibly dangerous for her to go around like that.

BadKellan reveals a few things about herself. She's from Earth - yes, our real world. She's not a planeswalker. She was brought to Ravnica against her will and told to blend in and pretend to be a local. She doesn't feel comfortable revealing who told her to do that.

OC decides to give BadKellan a few pointers on how to lay low on Ravnica. She explains that she would dress mostly in gray, since colours are strongly associated with the guilds and she should stay away from them to stop making waves. She asks her to change her outift and she'll say if it draws attention.

BadKellan changes clothes. She's now dressed entirely in gray, which is good, except that her shirt

HAS A LARGE, GLITTERING PRINT ACROSS THE FRONT READING

girl

IT'S THE EXACT SAME THING AS BEFORE. IT'S A LARGE PRINT USING OFF-PLANE SCRIPT. It's not as large as the jersey number, sure, but I'd like to remind you that it's glittering!

OC is apparently as taken aback by this as I am, because she turns her into a squirrel.

In fact, she specifically turns her into the squirrel from Bloomburrow key art.

OC's logic is that BadKellan is so bad at blending in that this is the only way she can be safe. OC intends to release "squirrel girl" in a park while she tries to look into exactly whose plans she just ruined and how bad of an idea it was.

There was more to this dream, but my memories are fuzzy and it's (even more) uninteresting. I think it involves the Boros having a special currency that they gain when they help people but the Dimir also use it in a kind of ironic way? I don't remember.

#magic the gathering #ravnica #dimir #dream #yeah no idea but I need to share

[vorthosjay]

Hi Jay,

The recent story seems to heavily imply that the Ravnican population as a whole are pissed off with *all* planeswalkers for not coming to their aid during the Phyrexian Invasion. Are they all being entitled ass-hats (what with the number of planeswalkers << numberof planes being invaded), or am I missing something here?

Imagine you are an average Ravnican.

Imagine if the most important position in your government was taken by a being from outside of your world, and they disappeared for long stretches off-world. You've never heard of a planeswalker before.

Imagine if within the span of a few months, half your other heads of state were replaced by planeswalkers just like him, most of which because of assassinations... carried out by these same planeswalkers. Most at the behest of ANOTHER planeswalker, a massive evil dragon who launches an invasion with off-world murder zombies and wreaks havoc on your world. You finally know the name planeswalker, and associate it with the worst tragedy to happen on your plane in millennia.

All to get at these planeswalkers. And at the cost of thousands of lives - YOUR lives, YOUR people, the ones that the dragon AREN'T after, they win. Every single one of those planeswalkers owes their lives to the citizens of Ravnica. Every. Single. One. Dozens of planeswalkers, deep in Ravnica's debt.

Two years later, one of those planeswalkers, a supposed local, launches yet another invasion. Worse than the last. And where were these planeswalkers YOU saved in THEIR hour of need, now that YOU need them?

Not a single one of the dozens whose lives were bought with the blood, sweat, and tears of average Ravnicans could be bothered to show up. Even the Orzhov Guildmaster couldn't even be bothered to show up. The only one that did was the Izzet Guildmaster.

Azor's beard. These ungrateful assholes. Planeswalkers suck. We hate them.

[racefortheironthrone]

fantasy sometimes doesn't afford itself the ability to fantasize about a better world with many of the same problems of real life. thankfully ive found fantasy thatfantasize about things like gender roles, orientations, social status, etc. being more accepting, and the world kinder more often than not. question is, as hard as it is to find solid urban fantasy, are there anyworks you know of that use itself to imagine a optimal city for us urban nerds? magic public works, free dragon transit?

So there is a real problem in the fantasy and sci-fi genres that they often have a failure of revolutionary imagination, as I’ve termed it. We’re so used to not just the world as it is but also the public historical imagination of how change happens, that even in art that’s supposed to be about radically reimagining our world or new worlds, we often revert back to the familiar. (I find this tic particularly annoying in alternate history, which is supposed to be about imagining how the world could have evolved differently, but often reverts back to a retelling of (often bad) history with the numbers filed off.)

(A sadly rare counter-example.)

You raise a fascinating question about the potential for urbanist fantasy. This is often quite rare in urban fantasy, because often out of a desire to maintain the verisimilitude of urban life, they default to a masquerade scenario which renders it impossible to explore the impact of magic on transit, housing, and other aspects of urbanism because the central conceit is that people with magic are trying to hide and thus have no impact on the mundane world.

However, it does crop up sometimes in Magitech settings, because their central conceit is all about how magic would function in place of science and lead to new ways of organizing societies, urban and otherwise. For a popular example, look at how Arcane examines the social impacts of Hextech and Shimmer. My personal favorite example of urbanist fantasy is the plane of Ravnica from Magic the Gathering.

Ravnica is a ecumenopolis, a city-state that covers the whole planet. The city is governed by a guild council, each of whom are responsible for an aspect of the city’s physical and social infrastructure:

The Azorius Senate is responsible for running the courts and the legal system, and sometimes they run the police as well (although they have a jurisdictional dispute with the Boros Legion on that front).

House Dimir are couriers, messengers, journalists, private investigators, spies, assassins, thieves, and librarians, as well as the city’s clandestine intelligence service - if it deals with information in any way, the Dimir have a hand in it…or do they?

The Cult of Rakdos run the city’s entertainment, food service, retail, and labor recruitment (lots of shanghaing and press ganging goes on in Ravnica) - and they’re also a crazed juggalo bdsm blood cult who are responsible for keeping an ancient arch-demon entertained so he doesn’t try to destroy the city, again.

The Gruul Clans are an anarchist collective responsible for the planet’s wilderness areas, which they try to maximize by violent raids that tear down developed areas any chance they get - which also makes them Ravnica’s main demolition industry. The Boros Legion spends a lot of time defending built-up areas from Gruul rampages.

The Selesnya Conclave are a hippie nature cult commune who manage the city’s parks and other green spaces, as well as providing basic welfare services (food, “shelter,” clothing, etc.) to the city’s poor. They also use magic to do weird hivemind brainwashing in the name of harmony and unity, and they can raise giant Ent-Kaiju to defend the city in times of need.

The Orzhov Syndicate are a vampire banker mafia, and also one of the city’s biggest religions. They believe in debt on a spiritual level, and their religion fully embraces indulgences to their logical conclusion. The Orzhov preach that you can literally buy your way into heaven, and that debts to the (Catholic by way of Prosperity Gospel Evangelical) Church or its many front organizations and legitimate businesses will carry over into the next life; the Orzhov practice debt slavery on both living people and ghosts. And lest you think it’s all a cover for profit-making, they can summon dark angels to conduct rituals, lead services, and make war on their enemies. Something above is answering their prayers…

My personal favorite is the Izzet League, an institute of mad scientists and engineers and elementalist wizards who combine science and magic to research, build, and maintain the city’s infrastructure (as well as funding all tech R&D and theoretical and experimental research in physics, chemistry, and engineering) - the power grid, water and sewer systems, heating and gas lines, as well as the city’s mass transit and transportation/freight system, are all powered by their steam and fire and lightning and Magitech gadgets and robots and cyborgs made out of a magic metal named mizzium. Yes, a lot of their devices explode, and yes their golems and robots and elementals have a tendency to go rogue, but that’s the price of progress!

The Golgari Swarm are a subterranean necromantic cabal who run the city’s waste disposal, burial services, and do the bulk of the agricultural production for Ravnica’s hungry masses. All of Ravnica’s citizens are entitled to a food dole provided by the Golgari’s fungi farms as a form of basic income. Just don’t think too hard about what went into the compost heaps or what your rations might be made of…

The Boros Legion is Ravnica’s main police and military, led by a literal host of warrior angels. Imagine the combination of a police force entirely made up of noir detectives and loose cannon Dirty Harry-esque cops and an army with flying fortresses led by fiery angels who are all deeply dramatic lesbians. True believers one and all, the Boros are here to mete out justice and divine wroth upon evildoers wherever they hide. If they had their way, the Orzhov would all be in prison along with the Gruul and the Rakdos, but the damn bureaucrats in the Azorius Senate keep trying them up in knots with paperwork.

The Simic Combine are responsible for the city’s environmental quality, ensuring biodiversity and sustainability in a global metropolis; they are also the city’s universal health care providers. All Ravnicans have access to free health care, as long as they consent to the Combine’s biomantic research. See, the Simic are the other group of mad scientists/mages in the city, except they went into genetics, environmental science, and (marine) biology and they believe in individual and societal evolution through the use of augmentation, cloning, and splicing. After all, why stop at curing someone’s respiratory illness when you could also give them gills? Or giant crab claws? Or tentacles?

I love the world-building and the attention to urban systems and infrastructure in Ravnica. More than most, they’ve thought about what urban life needs to function and made it magical.

#fantasy genre #urban fantasy #revolutionary imagination #genre fiction #urbanism #alternate history #city-states #guilds #ravnica #mtg #arcane #magitech

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Agyrem

Artist: Todd Lockwood TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

#mtg #magic the gathering #tcg #$2.69 #todd lockwood #agyrem #planechase planes #plane #ravnica

[redhandedsuggestions]

the upcoming Phyrexian sets are making me want to revamp and better develop Mestas' Phyrexian AU so so badly hnnnnnngh

#you think things between her and Bial are bad right now in the MAIN timeline? #try the Phyrexian AU #i think i'd make her into a villain here. but NOT because Phyrexians are evil #she's not evil and is in fact trying to protect Ravnica from Sona and Taven #but in doing so she does some evil things and definitely hurts the Revelers because she's also trying to protect the plane from *them* #she probably 'allies' with Sona as a means of keeping him under control #she'll let him keep trying to take over the other guilds but she won't tolerate him trying to eradicate Gruul Rakdos and Golgari #she recognizes the need for balance between all ten guilds. destroying three of them (ESPECIALLY GOLGARI JESUS FUCK) would decimate ravnica #so i guess.... antihero might be a better term for her? she's only a villain in the eyes of her friends