October 2012 - Return to Ravnica

This is actually very very nostalgic for me. As I can remember, I was in my first year of college when Ravnica was released, I think it was October of 2004. Now, 8 years later, we revisit the Ravnica Plane, the set with multicolor cards. We revisit the 10 Guilds each with 2-mana color combination, and each having the 2nd best Dual Lands in magic history, yep, I'm talking about the shocklands, which can be fetched by the fetchlands in Onlaught and Zendikar. For me, Ravnica was my transition from building casual decks comprising of cards which I have only opened from booster packs, to competitive play in which I opted to get better if not the best cards for the standard format. Back then, my favorite guild was Dimir (Black Blue) and I also made an aggro deck for Boros (White Red).

In the picture posted at the beginning of this article, Jace was standing near a red-blue dragon. For those who wasn't playing Magic during the Ravnica Block, that Dragon is Niv Mizzet, the firemind. He is one of the oldest entities in Ravnica and the guild master of Izzet (Red-Blue).

Back then, Niv Mizzet can finish the game quickly, most especially now that Curiosity has been printed again in Innistrad. Once Curiosity is enchanted to Niv Mizzet, you can just draw 20 cards and deal 20 damage to your opponent!

And now, the idea of a new Jace lingers in our minds until October 2012. I can discuss a lot of things for Ravnica because this is simply the block that was very significant in my Magic competitive play. But I think I would discuss them in other articles. For now, I got my fingers crossed that the dual lands will be reprinted, because for me, without those guilds and shock lands, Ravnica will not be Ravnica. But then again, Avacyn Restored will be coming out to our local stores this May and not Return to Ravnica, so let us just, for the time being, shift back to the Angels in Avacyn Restored and patiently wait for the AVR spoilers so that we can evaluate and prepare to use these cards for our decks and competitive tournaments.