[Hook] Return to Ravnica!

An source who wishes to remain anonymous has contacted the Rumor Mill staff with information claiming that the block following Innistrad (code named "Hook," "Line," and "Sinker") will take place on the plane of Ravnica.

This is NOT confirmed, and may prove to be false, though the staff of this Rumor Mill feel that this rumored information is still worth sharing publicly.

all i have to say is: they better not fuck this one up.

MidniteEffort wrote:they better not fuck this one up.

Did they fuck it up before?

I was hoping Innistrad was a return to Ravnica ... Guess I have to keep waiting :<

~Zuty

Zuty wrote:

MidniteEffort wrote:they better not fuck this one up.

Did they fuck it up before?

there were a lot of problems with the original Ravnica block in my mind.

• the guilds were unequally represented in rares, thanks to the Nephilim.
  
• limited was a god-awful nightmare. seriously, try it sometime. it's overly difficult, slow, and kinda boring.
  
• each set was horribly incohesive in my mind. lots of great single cards, but the sum of the sets' parts were less than the whole.
  
• swing and a miss on at least three of the guilds' mechanics. (haunt, radiance, and a lot of people would say, dredge)
  
• furthermore, a lot of those mechanics were poorly executed (bloodthirst [fixed in M12], forecast)

while a lot of my all-time favorite cards were from this block, the block as a whole was lackluster. i know i'm in a minority here.

let's speculate about the block format and color combination distribution though.

Invasion block was

allied/arc
arc
enemy/wedge

Ravnica was

4 pairs
3 pairs
3 pairs

Shards was

arc
arc/5-color
arc/shard mixing

Ravnica 2 will be ?

Is it wrong that I was hoping for a return to Kamigawa?

But yeah, I started playing Magic with Ravnica, so it would be nice to go back. I can totally agree with Steve though and say that limited was a freaking mess, you end up with a 3-color wedge deck (like RGB) and find yourself getting nothing out of one of the packs because those guilds weren't in your colors. I think though with better color-support and color-fixing it might not be so bad this time around (think more SCR Shards draft). I always did love playing 5-color in limited...

@ Steve - Ah, that makes sense. Ravnica did seem to try and do too much and in the end was just a cluster-F of ideas. I agree with Forecast, Haunt, and Radiance, but I think Bloodthirst fit RG flavor wise (although it works in Black too) as does Dredge for GB.

@ Redxxii - I totally don't think it is wrong; if anything Wizard has learned from their mistakes (I hope) and a return to Kamigawa is something I look forward to down the line. Bushido is one of my favorite abilities after all.

~Zuty

you guys are all wrong. Rav was the best selling set ever, with one of the best draft formats ever, with some of the best singles and flavor ever. The drafting was very skill intensive but also extremely interesting.

dark burn wrote:you guys are all wrong. Rav was the best selling set ever, with one of the best draft formats ever, with some of the best singles and flavor ever. The drafting was very skill intensive but also extremely interesting.

You're just saying that due to your unrequited love-affair with Golgari Grave Troll.

dark burn wrote:Rav was the best selling set ever

i challenge that assertion!

Maro wrote:We'll take "Lights" and "Shake" out of the mix as I can't talk about them. ("The pain! The pain!") Of the six sets that remain, which set do I feel was the most important set to me as a designer? There are a number of answers to this. Tempest was my first design and got my foot in the door as a Magic designer. Mirrodin is the best selling set of all time. Ravnica ushered in what I've called the Fourth Age of Magic design. Zendikar is ... well, let's wait a few months and see. When I dig deep though, my answer is Odyssey.

Leading a Horse to Water
Mark Rosewater
Monday, October 05, 2009
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/59

Maro wrote:#1 It Has to Feel Like Mirrodin. This problem is, as they say, a curse and a blessing. Mirrodin is the best-selling Magic set of all time. The block, though, is also what Erik Lauer has called "development's biggest mistake." (I'd personally argue Urza's Saga block, but suffice to say things went awry.) Magic has had some ups and downs, but Mirrodin block is one of our biggest downs development-wise. The environment broke and caused some number of players to leave the game.

Something Wicked This Way Comes, Part 2
Mark Rosewater
Monday, September 13, 2010
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/108