Return to Ravnica: Mechanics

It's that time again and welcome back to another edition of the emporium where this time we go over the mechanics of Return to Ravnica, there are a few for this set, so let's break it down for the people who don't know what i'm talking about, Each guild in this upcoming set of return to ravnica is going to have a seperate mechanic, each tailoring to their own guild, showing off their unique perspective on things, so without further ado here's the reminder of the mechanics for those who haven't seen it yet.

On the rakdos side of things we have the mechanic called Unleash which grants a +1/+1 to the creature with this but makes them unable to block, as seen here on the card called Grim Roustabout.

The mechanic of Scavenge was one of the first to be spoiled, via Duel Deck: Golgari vs Izzet, but is the Golgari Mechanic, basically what this does is grant +1/+1 counters to a target creature, equal to the scavenged creature's power so if you exile Sluiceway Scorpion here, a target creature would get +2/+2 in counters, not bad, but the only downside is it's at sorcery speed.

The Selesyna mechanic is called Populate, which adds 1 token that already exists onto the battlefield, in case of the spell here, if you choose you can place a 1/1 white bird with the card Eyes in the Skies, then add another 1/1 white bird as the populate mechanic triggers meaning you get more then what you originally paid for here, not bad as well.

We've seen the mechanic called Overload which is a unique way to clear a field, plus this is also the Izzet mechanic for the set, so in hindsight it's excellent if you ask me, because overload replaces all instances of the word target to each so it will affect all the creatures you don't control without flying in the case of Street Spasm here, but there is 1 missing mechanic, the Azorious mechanic.

In the case of the Azorious since they abide by the law, their mechanic suits them and is called "Detain" where when this particular card enters the battlefield with this mechanic, a target permanent cannot attack or block, as well as preventing it's activated abilites from triggering, in the case of the 3/1 flying Lyev Skynight here it is a unique perspective, but we aren't done.

Each guild is going to have something called a "Gate" land card which triggers specific abilites in the set, in the case of Golgari Guildgate here which adds either Black or Green but has a enter the battlefield tapped clause affects the next card i'm gonna talk about.

Like the 4/4 Ogre Jailbreaker which has defender, but when you control a gate like the one above, it can attack as though it didn't have defender, so instead of a simple blocker, you'd have quite a  4/4 for 4 to deal with as long you control one of these gates, but there's one more thing to show off.

For the first time Hybrid color mana costs are making a return into magic's history, much like the previewed bird from the previous day, this particular card is color coded to show off another side of things, Rakdos Shred-Freak is a 2/1 that costs either Black/Red and Black/Red as well as having haste for a common, which is pretty impressive if you ask me.

Well that pretty much concludes this day's shenigans and such, wizards has spoiled a ton over the past 3 or 4 days and i think it's time to get to catching up of course, so until next time this is vergil signing off.