What's Happening in Ravnica Allegiance? | Magic Arcanum

welcome to magic Arcanum I'm Ryan Gomes and I'm so glad you're here because it's storytime Ravnica allegiance is upon us and the set is full of interesting story bits so let's get right into it first a quick refresher we are on Ravnica where life is structured around ten different guilds and each one is made up of two colors of manna working together towards common goals in guilds of rabbinic oh we got a closer look at five of those ten guilds and now with Ravnica allegiance we're getting cards to support the other five the azureus senate that's the white-and-blue guild these are the lawyers and politicians and general fund police on Ravnica they create the rules that govern life on the plain and then they work with the Boros legion to have those rules enforced until recently they were led by a sphinx named Asteria until she was turned to stone by a planeswalker named ver Aska into this vacuum of power steps another planeswalker Dovan bond he's a vidal c'n from cal adesh with blue skin and six fingers on each hand and his special talent is identifying the weakness in anything from his new position at the head of these aureus he'll be able to identify and exploit all the weaknesses in the structure of Ravnica itself more on that in a minute opposing him from the shadows is Lavinia she got a card the last time we visited Ravnica and her job back then was assisting Jace as he assumed the powers of the living guild pact she knows about the gatewatch and she oversees their stays when they're on Ravnica she's kind of the Alfred to Jace is Batman if that makes sense this makes her uniquely positioned to understand exactly how much trouble rabbika is now in which will come back to that too if the stuffy bureaucracy of the azureus is not your thing take a look at the gruel clamps this is the red and green guild and they love to raid and harass and disrupt life for the more civilized members of radnik in society now they weren't always that way a long time ago they were charged with preserving and protecting the natural wild spaces on the plain but as the city kept grow their territory kept shrinking as outsiders to general society the gruel lacked any sort of formalized leadership and instead tend to follow whoever among them is the biggest and strongest at the moment that used to be Borger borba rigged most barber just put it up on the screen this this guy used to be him the Planeswalkers Omri raid challenged this big guy and while the cyclops lost he wasn't killed he just fled once he lost the respect of all the gruel clans da Murray was introduced to us on our last visit to Ravnica and he's kind of unique among Planeswalkers thanks to his young age that's because part of the gruel rite of passage is being buried alive the idea is that you will dig your way out better and stronger than you were when they put you in there during his burial da Murray panicked and his spark ignited and he had his very first Plains walk which took him to Naya he didn't spend much time there though instead he came right back to Ravnica and began what would be best described as managerial training for the gruel clans now he's joined by a centaur shaman named Nicky ax believer in the old ways which currently prophesizes the end raise a sort of grand apocalypse that's gonna destroy all the buildings on Ravnica a crucial part of this prophecy is the return of LLL hug the raised boar this is like a God Pig who's gonna show up and wreck all the buildings and they talk about him on some other cards he's just a giant walking pulled pork sandwich if you ask me while we're talking about worship let's hit up the ores off syndicate this is the black and white guild and they kind of act as a bank slash Church slash mafia for all of Ravnica a planeswalker named Chaya has just assumed control of the guild after using her natural talents to assassinate the ghost council that had been calling the shots from beyond the grave Chaya is a blade for hire she can phase herself through objects and she really hates it when the undead stick around longer than they're supposed to this makes her ideally suited for ghosts assassinations and you would be amazed how often that is relevant in the magic story anyway waiting in the wings is a woman named Tasek Karloff we've seen her before on two of our visits to Ravnica acting as a representative of the absurd at that's the ghost council that used to rule the ORS off taissa is now looking to assume her own rightful position as ruler of the orsa but kaya has been busy slaughtering the undead many of whom were enslaved to or indebted to the Orlov syndicate with each eliminated ghost the or zov loses some of its power and influence so eventually chase is gonna have to step in here and try to preserve what remains of her wealth and the status of her family these three guilds these aureus gruel the ores off have something in common they've all recently been taken over by Planeswalkers who were acting under orders from Nicol Bullis he's an elder dragon and currently the big bad guy for the entire magic storyline we're not even sure what he's trying to do on Ravnica we just know that he's been acting through these planeswalker agents to upset the natural balance of things and bring the Guild's to the brink of war with one another even among the guilds that stand against him there are still internal conflicts that are gonna make things difficult for the home team the Simek combine is the green and blue guild in addition to being the doctors and medical practitioners they also love to experiment on life forms of all type often creating weird hybrids and mutants with all sorts of unnatural abilities hopefully your insurance covers crab claw surgery a merfolk named zoo ghana had been the prime speaker for the Simek the last time we visited Ravnica but she has since stepped down from that role and been replaced by vanaf r an elf who's wizard oh the Simek they love to use the same knife for their peanut-butter and their jelly I can tell so anyway vanna far has the Simek focusing on their Guardian project which is designed to help their members adapt to any scenario and help them be ready for every challenge aka be able to win every fight and that is gonna be probably pretty useful in the coming months but Sagada is more of a let nature take its course and maybe give it a gentle nudge every now and then kind of a fish and she's also more open to talking with the other guilds she's been doing so behind vana FAR's slimy back saving the best for last we've got the cult of rock dose and being a storyteller and entertainer myself I cannot help but love this red and black guild and their collection of sharp objects their leader has never really changed and that's because the guild is named after him that's rack dos an ancient and powerful demon we've seen him twice before just like taissa and previous visits to Ravnica and both of his cards let you know exactly what he's all about Nicholas has not been able to infiltrate the guild most likely because the followers are so devoted to rack dos and they just want to provide the demon with some good entertainment there is at least one entertainer though who wishes she got more attention and that's Judith the scourge diva she's started to kind of earn her own following and maybe someday she'll have enough fans to unseat rack DOS himself but not if they all get killed in this giant war with nickel bolus and his army of Eternals so those are the five guilds we get to see in Ravnica allegiance three are under the thumb of Nicola bolus and the other two have their own internal conflicts things are kind of a mess all over huh well we're not done yet let's take a look at some of the story spotlight cards from the set we have to guess at the order that they go and I think first is kaya's wrath it shows kya killing the ABS at at the ghost council that rules the orsa syndicate it's her first step in becoming able to rule that guilt this is a call back to the original wrath of God card which also destroyed all creatures you might hear that referred to as a board wipe or sweeper the idea being that a control deck would sweep away all the little aggressive creatures before they can overwhelm it after that I think we get ethereal absolution which kind of continues kaya's mini arc of ascending to leadership it shows are still working alongside Tisa although I am unsure how long that partnerships actually gonna hold together I'm a little less sure of what comes next but I think it's rampage of the clans this one shows da Marine Nikia and the grool clans smashing their way downtown it's likely Nikolas is counting on this warpath of destruction to kind of act as a smokescreen for his arrival to Ravnica if everyone's distracted by the rampaging rule plans he'll be free to move about the plane and start working on his master plan which means emergency powers is the last of these story spotlight cards I think this one shows Dovan bond using the rampaging rule clans as an excuse to sort of enact maybe like a martial law kind of a thing this might even let him suspend the powers of the guild pact and neutralize Jace before Nikolas arrives on the plane you can see the distinct horns of nickel bolus in the art here which may mean that Dovan bond is communicating with him directly or sending a signal that it's time to open the planer bridge this ties it neatly with the cards addendum ability because the last time we saw a nickel balls planeswalker card he cost seven mana to summon I expect his next one will be the same or maybe less there are some other cards in the set that have a strong story connection even if they aren't given the story spotlight watermark Tobin's acuity confirms the walkers we already know to be working for nickel Bullis but there are two missing from his list we know tessarin is loyal to the dragon and he's currently holding the planer bridge and the immortal son two artifacts that are going to be key in the coming war on Ravnica nickel boss has also enslaved Liliana Vesper the fine print on her contract for immortality it's unclear to me why Dobin would not be those two unless he's only counting the forces on Ravnica but then he shouldn't be counting nickel bolus yet or should he the card font of Agony's does have flavor text attributed to nickel bolus so maybe he is already on the plane and he's just doing a really good job of staying out of sight if that's true it would explain why the sphinx is on the plane are having increasingly concerning visions maybe the presence of nickel bolus disrupts the magic on the plane and the Sphinx's are attuned to it that could explain the dire prophecies coming from the Sphinx of foresight and Sphinx his insight now if he is already on the plane what has he been doing this whole time I'm going to submit my pet theory I think nickel bolus is interested in gods he's already got a few under his employ from Amon ket but he can dig up and enslave a few more on Ravnica he could then take them to fight Erebos the god of death on tharros if nickle bullets can conquer death he would have nothing left to fear and he would become the single most powerful character in all of magic but that is just a wild idea right well we've already got cards that mentioned the raised boar and priests of Forgotten gods would suggest that there's even more we know nothing about the oceans of ravika were thought to be lost until merfolk one day started appearing out of holes that led to an underground sea and the erstwhile were a buried and forgotten group of zombies that showed up again when ver Aska reactivated them so there are mysteries still waiting to be discovered on Ravnica maybe nickel bolus has been digging and letting the surface tear itself apart so he can keep exploring the underground without being interrupted what do you guys think am i way off base here let me know down in the comments and while you're typing that up I will leave you with one last little easter egg here look at shimmer of possibilities down there reflected in that puddle is Jace and Liliana enjoying a lovely stroll through the sunny streets of Ravnica in a different timeline may they would have been close friends or even more but in the story line in front of us now they are on opposite sides of the biggest war that's ever gonna come to Ravnica will they both make it through live will they even get to see each other again all I know is make sure you like this video and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the great stories you'll only find here on magic Arcanum I'll see you

Channel: TCGplayer

Views: 278,732

Keywords: tcgplayer, tcg player, Magic Arcanum, lore, magic the gathering, story, rakdos, gruul, simic, azorius, orzhov, ravnica, Guilds of Ravnica, MTGRNA, Judith, Vannifar, Domri, Dovin, Kaya, Nicol Bolas, War of the Spark, Zegana, Nikya, Linvala, Teysa

Id: n7XU2dCgcW4

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/throwawaythumbsup]

Wow this was so informative thanks for sharing

[u/yorickler]

Ryan Gomez doing the Lord's work

[u/LinguisticallyInept]

gen doukeshi is another great lore channel; with a cast of people voice acting many mtg stories; tends to be a bit slow though (reasonably so, but good if people want to catch up on new but not quite sparkling new lore like ixalan... or just want a good playlist as background sound)

the mana source has some overviews for old old lore too