Magic Untapped takes a look back at Ravnica Allegiance as the game builds towards the climax of Nicol Bolas' villain story arc.
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Video Transcript:
The 80th expansion for Magic: The Gathering and the middle set in the unofficial “War of the Spark” block, Ravnica Allegiance came out in January of 2019.
With Mark Rosewater and Sam Stoddard as the design and development leads (respectively), the set brings to Magic 273 cards and continues (in spirit, anyway) the story from the previous set, Guilds of Ravnica, as it sets the stage for the next one, War of the Spark.
The set marks the penultimate moment of the Gatewatch’s efforts against the dragonic planeswalker, Nicol Bolas. Like its predecessor, the story is split up between five short stories and one main narrative-advancing one.
Here are summaries of them all:
“Illusions of Child’s Play”
Who says demons can’t fall in love?
That’s exactly what happened with Kodolaag, a demon from Ravnica’s Rakdos guild. He fancies the affection of Zita, a seller of effigies. He asks her out on a date and she accepts.
The date goes strikingly well. At least, it did until Zita gets arrested by members of the Azorius for graffiti. Okay, she so she was actually correcting a misspelling on some graffiti slandering the Azorius’ Dovin Baan, but graffiti regardless.
Seeking to free Zita, Kodolaag, along with his mate, Olrich, try break her out of prison with the assistance of a seer named Lucinka. The attempt, though, fails, and the whole lot of them find themselves under arrest.
Eventually, though, the group manages to break out together and escape.
“Rage of the Unsung”
Arrus is a viashino tattoo artist within the Gruul’s Ghor clan. After one of his newly-made tattoos caused its bearer to spontaneously combust, he finds himself exiled from the clan.
Now wondering on his own, he befriends Baas, a rather well-known tattoo artist. As the wander around together, they discover that the Selesnyans have been planting trees and leeching magic from Gruul-controlled lands to accelerate their growth. Arrus thinks that this interference from the Selesnyans might be the reason his tattoos had become so violently unstable.
The viashino returns to the Ghor and challenges its chieftains, the two-headed giant Ruric and Thar. It’s a challenge that Arrus loses in glorious fashion. But it wasn’t the fight that was important – it was his words.
Before his pummeling, he spoke about how the Gruul needs to get back at the Selesnyans for their intrusion and that they need to stand together and handle the situation.
After the scuffle with Arrus, Ruric and Thar assemble the clan’s warriors and they go off to handle the Selesnyans.
“The Principles of Unnatural Selection”
Medge is a Simic teacher and holds utopian views. He opposes the bio-engineering of the adaptionists within the guild.
While out with his pupils, they happen upon a sunken Orzhov ship being haunted by a ghost. The ghosts, as it turns out, is tethered to an amulet and guarding to a runekey that had been stolen from the late Mormir Vig, a former head of the Simic. The group get rid of the ghost by hurling the amulet it’s tethered to into the mouth of a nearby krasis and retrieve the keyrune.
Back home, the group is invited to deliver the keyrune to a museum. Once there, one of the students knocks over the last remaining blob of cytoplast form its pedestal. The blob bonds with Medge and immediately begins to mutate him.
Now forever changed, Medge suggests that the utopians and the adaptionists could learn a lot from one another, hinting at them teaming up to educate the next year’s pupils together.
“The Ledger of Hidden Fortune”
Miri is a debt collector within the Orzhov. To help make ends meet, she has taken a second job as a fleshmage. While working her second job, she overhears a Selesnyan woman pleading for her life, offering information about a vulnerability at Vitu-Ghazi, the Sekeslyan’s home base.
Miri had secretly always wished she could be a Selesnyan. Once the woman is slain, she steals her clothes as a disguise. The disguise, however, doesn’t work and she’s caught by her father. Miri persuades him that she’s only wearing the clothing so she could blend in and infiltrate the Conclave to learn more about this vulnerability. He agrees to let her proceed.
Once at Vitu-Ghazi, Miri discovers that the enormous tree had only been superficially repaired after a recent attack from an Izzet magelord and that it’s not quite as mighty and strong as one might suspect.
Once back home, Miri is confronted by her mother. Miri tells her what she found and her mother says that it wouldn’t be enough to convince her father that it wasn’t all just a ruse so she could eventually join the Conclave. She then hands Miri a Crown of Convergence so that the young woman wouldn’t have to face her father empty-handed.
Miri meets with her father and hands over the crown. Satisfied, her father takes the treasure. She also presents him with a tree that she says is a money-making tree. And, every night after her father had gone to sleep, she puts a few coins in it to keep up the ruse.
“The Ascension of Reza”
Reza, a lawmage with the Azorius Senate, flying on his griffin and on his way to the historical archives. Down below, somebody begins shooting arrows up into the air trying to knock Azorius surveillance thopters out of the sky. The arrows startle the griffin, causing Reza to fall from his mount.
He crashes down upon Thinktank, an region of Ravnica that four different guilds – Azorius, Izzet, Golgari, and Simic – all claim ownership of that is inhabited by rogue chemsters. While there, one of the chemsters’ experiments goes haywire and a giant elemental appears.
Due to the conflicted ownership of the land, the Azorius don’t send anyone into the area to handle the issue. Thinking on the fly, Reza exerts his authority as a lawmage and declares Thinktank as an independent enclave within Ravnica, thus allowing those from any guild into the area to assist and the elemental is dealt with.
For his quick thinking, Reza’s mentor promotes him.
Ravnica Allegiance
Hot off of the failed Guild Summit where Ravnica’s ten guild leaders were meeting to discuss how to handle the potential Nicol Bolas threat, Ral Zarek, leader of the Izzet, meets up with Niv-Mizzet, the guild’s former leader, to discuss options.
One such option is the guild’s experimental Interplanar Beacon, which would alert planeswalkers throughout the multiverse and potentially draw them to Ravnica, but there’s no telling who or what may arrive should they activate the beacon.
Niv suggests another option – one which would allow him to increase his own power, sidestepping the Guildpact and the other guilds altogether. To make this plan work, he instructs Ral to construct a number of resonators and place them around the plane-spanning city’s Tenth District, which means that some of those resonators will need to be placed in territories not controlled by the Izzet (namely, within Gruul- and Golgari-controlled areas).
Meanwhile, back with the Orzhov, Kaya settles in as the new guildmaster. It isn’t exactly going well as far as the money-hungry guild is concerned as more and more people come to her complaining about their debts with Kaya feeling sorry for them and forgiving the money they owe.
In fact, all of these debts Kaya continues to forgive causes Teysa, one of the highest-ranking members of the guild, to step in and ask Kaya to stop. Kaya, though, couldn’t help but be tender-hearted and decides to continue the practice.
Back with the Izzet, Ral contacts some allies to assist him against the Golgari and the Gruul so he could place resonators in their areas. Dovin Baan, the new leader of the Azorius Senate, agrees to assist, as does the Boros leader, Aurelia. The group decide to confront the Gruul first.
Once in their territory, they find the giant Cyclops leader of the Gruul, Borborygmos, had been replaced by Domri Rade. Domri and his forces fight back, but the Boros, led by Aurelia, are able to handle business. This allows Ral to set up the resonator in the area.
Next, they head off to do the same against the Golgari and head underground. What they don’t know, though, is that Vraska, the Golgari’s leader, was expecting them and had set up a trap. There’s an explosion and Ral’s forces become disoriented.
Ral then finds himself one-on-one against the gorgon. The two begin to fight. Ral, being far from his resources, can’t fight with full strength and struggles through the confrontation. Luckily for the Izzet guildmaster, Aurelia comes over to assist and Vraska flees. After catching his breath, Ral sets up the resonator for that area while Dovin sets up powerful wards to prevent a counterattack from the Golgari.
Back with the Orzhov, Kaya’s generosity did not go unnoticed. In fact, she found herself on the run as the guild’s aristocracy have dispatched knights to kill her. She’s able to elude capture, only to be confronted by a strange man.
The man, who (as it turns out) is under the influence of Nicol Bolas. Through this man, Bolas tells Kaya that he can break the magic that made her the Orzhov’s guildmaster, freeing her from not just the Orzhov, but from Ravnica itself. Ever cunning, Kaya realizes that this has all been part of an elaborate plan by Bolas and that ever bit of it – from her being on Ravnica to her becoming guildmaster to her being hunted down – has been carefully orchestrated by the dragonic planeswalker. She rejects his offer and, instead, goes to confront the Orzov aristocracy herself.
As it turns out, the old guild leaders had collected debts from each member of the guild’s aristocracy. Now that Kaya’s in charge of the guild, the debts are now owed to her. Using this leverage, she orders the aristocrats to band together and arrest Teysa. They had no choice but to obey.
Back out in the city proper, Ral receives a mysterious message. He’s out trying to figure out who the message came from. And, in an obscure tavern, he finds her: Lavinia – the former Grand Arbiter Pro Tem of the Azorius Senate.
Now gone rogue, she tells Ral that she has been tracking Nicol Bolas’ various agents throughout the city and that she’s found a credible rumor that his invasion is set to occur this very night. Knowing that the resonator network isn’t ready yet, he rushes back to Izzet headquarters and tells Niv the news and that they must activate the network tonight regardless of its readiness. Niv agrees.
They fire up the network. Everything runs fine at first, then one of the resonators fails. It’s not one of the ones they placed in enemy territory, though. Rather, it’s the one placed in the territory of their ally, the Azorius.
Dovin Baan had betrayed them.
The Izzet Viceroy considers storming the Senate’s home base, but then a bright light shines out in the distance, catching his attention.
It’s too late. Nicol Bolas has arrived.
Niv-Mizzet ventures out to confront the dragonic planeswalker as Ral scrambles to ignite the beacon.
At the beacon, Vraska is there waiting for him. Unlike before, though, when they were in the undercity, this fight is taking place up on the rooftops where Ral is most powerful. After a brief scuffle, Ral hits Vraska with a blast of lightning and lights the beacon.
Meanwhile, Tezzeret, one of Bolas’ most powerful and trusted agents, meets up with the dragonic planeswalker. He finds Bolas holding Niv-Mizzet’s skull.
Tezzeret informs Bolas that the Interplanar Beacon had been activated and planeswalkers from all over the multiverse will begin to flood into Ravnica to confront him.
Bolas just smiles. After all, this was his plan all along. The beacon was his idea, planted into Izzet minds by one of his agents.
The invasion of Ravnica has begun.
And that does it for the story of Ravnica Allegiance as Magic: The Gathering is now standing on the doorstep of the War of the Spark (but that’s for a different video). As for Ravnica Allegiance in card form, there’s much more to touch upon.
The set was sold in regular booster packs, a bundle containing 10 boosters, a spindown, die, and more, a Deck Builder’s kit designed for newer players, 35-card two-color theme booster packs, and two planeswalker decks with the deck-exclusive planeswalker cards Dovin, Architect of Law and Domri, City Smasher.
The set also introduced to Magic: The Gathering collector boosters, something well known amongst Magic players today. Collector boosters for Ravnica Allegiance, though, were only available in the U.S.A. and Japan, and even then they were not widely available. This is because it was a test product for Wizards of the Coast.
Ravnica Allegiance collector packs sold for $13.99 and contained 15 cards: Two foils of any rarity, three rares and/or mythic rares, and ten uncommons – a very different composition and price point to the collector boosters that are out there today.
Accompanying the product line was a new volley of Guild Kits – 60-card preconstructed decks for each guild that contained cards from throughout the game’s history on Ravnica. Like with Guilds of Ravnica, each kit came with the preconstructed deck, a guild pin, sticker, life counter, and insert. This time around, the guilds represented are Azorius, Gruul, Orzhov, Simic, and Rakdos.
Also like with Guilds of Ravnica, a Mythic Edition release was sold on the Hasbro website for the “low low” price of $249.99. Like with the previous set’s Mythic Edition, it was largely panned for its high price and low return, containing only 24 booster packs, including eight Mythic Edition specific “Masterpiece Boosters.” Unlike the previous release, though, the Ravnica Allegiance Mythic Edition was available for international shipping just so long as the purchaser had a U.S.-based PayPal account.
The special planeswalker cards included in it this time around are Karn, Scion of Urza, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Sorin Markov, Jaya Ballard, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, Dack Fayden, Domri, Chaos Bringer, and Kaya, Orzhov Usurper.
Now, in getting back to the cards actually found within Ravnica Allegiance itself, let’s continue.
As is customary with sets based on Ravnica, each of the guilds represented in Ravnica Allegiance has its own keyword or ability word:
- Addendum for the Azorius Senate, which says if you cast a spell with addendum during your main phase it would have an additional or alternative effect;
- Spectacle for Cult of Rakdos, which lets you pay a discounted, alternate cost to cast cards with the ability if an opponent had lost life at some point during the current turn;
- Riot for the Gruul Clans. Riot is a creature ability that says when the creature enters play, it either gets haste or comes in with a +1/+1 counter upon it;
- Afterlife is the Orzhov Syndicate’s specific ability. Afterlife is a creature ability with a value attached to it that says when the creature dies its controller gets to put a number of 1/1 black-and-white spirit tokens with flying into play equal to that value, and;
- Adapt for the Simic Combine. Combine, like Afterlife, has a value attached to it that says, when activated, if this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, you may put a number of +1/+1 counters onto it equal to that value.
As with the previous set, there are also a variety of split cards spread out amongst Ravnica Allegiance’s five guilds.
In terms of card cycles, Ravnica Allegiance has 13 (including the half-cycle reprints of guildgates and shocklands). Most notable amongst them are:
- Guild leaders at mythic rare, which are each aligned with their respective guild;
- Guild champions at rare, which represent those guild’s second-in-commands;
- Mythic rare guild spells, one for each of the set’s five guilds;
- Guildmages at uncommon, each of which align with a guild and have two activated, guild-related abilities;
- Four-cost guild creatures at uncommon, each of which cost two each of each guild’s colors, and;
- Lockets, artifacts that come into play for three generic mana, can tap for either of a guild’s colors, and can be sacrificed to draw two cards.
<MARO DTW 23:54-24:34 “Cycles do a lot…saying about the guilds.” 25:15-26 “The cycles do an…alike in others.”>
In terms of individual cards of note, Ravnica Allegiance has a few worth mentioning:
- Absorb, a life-gaining counterspell that was first printed in the set Invasion that became Modern legal with this reprinting;
- Angel of Grace, which is a nod to the card Angel’s Grace from Time Spiral,
- Bring to Trial, not because it’s a fantastic card or anything like that, but rather because it finishes a story told through the art of three different cards along with Collar the Culprit and Citywide Bust. All three cards were illustrated by Victor Adame Minguez;
- Electrodominance, a card sometimes used in Modern in decks trying to take advantage of zero-CMC suspend spells;
- Rhythm of the Wild, an enchantment that gives all of your creatures the riot ability;
- Smothering Tithe, which quickly became a very powerful and beloved card in commander (unless you’re on the receiving end, in which case you kind of hate it);
- Simic Ascendancy, an alternate win card that cares about +1/+1 counters being placed on your creatures;
- Wilderness Reclamation, an enchantment that lets its controller untap all of their lands at the end of their turn. The card wound up becoming banned in Standard after the release of Throne of Eldraine, though only six weeks before it was going to rotate out of the format anyhow, and (of course);
- The set’s five shocklands: Breeding Pool, Blood Crypt, Godless Shrine, Hallowed Fountain, and Stomping Ground.
In terms of promotional cards, prerelease participants were, of course, given a random foil and date-stamped rare or mythic rare from one of the set’s guilds. Other promos include:
- A full-art Rakdos Firewheeler for Magic Open House;
- A foil, alternate art Simic Ascendancy for Draft Weekend;
- Gate Colossus was the Magic League promo;
- The Haunt of Hightower was the Buy-a-Box promo, and;
- A full-art Lavinia, Azorius Renegade for Ravnica Weekend.
Now, for a final thought on Ravnica Allegiance as well as its predecessor, Guilds of Ravnica, here once more is Magic: The Gathering Head Designer, Mark Rosewater.
<MARO DTW 29:48-30:43 “I look back now…do it different.”>
So, where does Ravnica Allegiance rank for you among Magic: The Gathering sets? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
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