News - Magic: The Gathering 2018 Spring Announcement Day

By Dozer

edit: thanks to Wolf - we also added some other new about Magic the Gathering but not from Wizards - Dozer

Wow a huge dump of news just dropped and it's all very interesting.

I've put down some bullet points or you can watch the video at the end of the post.

We're back to Ravnica.

There will be a 3 set block: Guilds of Ravnica dropping 5 Oct 2018, Ravnica Allegiance due in Jan 2019, and an unknown titled set. Each set will also focus on five guilds and those will be featured by the follow on Guild Kits products to be released 2 Nov 2018 and Feb 2019 respectivly. Note that the guild kits will include cards from each of the previous Ravnica blocks. The first was Ravnica released in 2005-2006, which included Ravnica: City of Guilds, Guildpack, and Dissension. The last was Return to Ravnica released in 2012-2013, which was made up of  Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and the small expansion Dragon's Maze.

Guilds of Ravnica will focus on "the harmonious Selesnya (green-white), the militant Boros (red-white), the life-and-death-focused Golgari (black-green), the frazzled geniuses of the Izzet (blue-red), and the mystery of the Dimir (blue-black)". While Ravnica Allegiance will showcase "the orderly Azorius (white-blue), the chaotic Rakdos (black-red), the wild Gruul (red-green), the experimental Simic (green-blue), and the devious Orzhov (white-black)". The last unnamed set will focus on the end of the story arc that the gatewatch is currently caught up in rather than focus on the guilds.

For me this is big news. It's not surprising news as Ravnica is one of best known and more popular planes in Magic the Gathering. It was at the end of Dragon's Maze and the Magic 2014 when I returned to magic after last playing in Tenth Edition. It's also been expected that we'd be coming back to the plane of Guilds. As a loyal Dimir player this is great news for me.

One of the large changes to the set the updates to the guild styles and look. Dimir is getting an awesome looking update. Plenty of solid blacks and blue trimed colours reminding me of the video game series Dishonored - one of my all time favorite video game IPs.

New Dimir Guild style update
Images used without permission

Simic also gets a new fresh style. With lab coat with organic material look that makes them feel like magical scientists who's favorite movie would be Jurassic Park.

New SimicGuild style update
Images used without permission

Two-Headed Giant is Thing

Two-Headed Giant is one of my favorite formats. I prefer to play my pre-release events in the two-headed giant format. Well Wizards has announced a new set - Battlebond. A set where get get to first look at when the preview season kicks off on 22 May. It also looks to be released this time next month so suddenly there is a lot of new cards coming down range. This looks like it would fit well next to the Commander products and other alternate format styles.

Buy a Box Promos are here to stay

With the success of the last couple of buy a box promotions, Wizards has decided to keep it going. So if you see something you like, you may want to pre-order your box. Also you can now pick up your pre-ordered box at the pre-release instead of waiting that extra week. Sounds awesome!

Spellslinger is Back!

Day 9 and the folks from Geek and Sundry have brought back my favorite series about Magic the Gathering. If you're looking for a great youtube series to show off the game or get someone interested check out Spellslingers. It's back and I can't be more happy about it. Shows start up again for this 30 May.

So take a look at the video below and start hitting the net.

This is a good year for Magic the Gathering

- Cheers