MTG Guilds of Ravnica: First Story Details Revealed

Wizards of the Coast

Nicol Bolas has evil plans to rule Ravnica, and now we know a few details about how the plot of the upcoming Magic: The Gathering sets will unfold.

Today, Magic Head Designer Mark Rosewater has released a new article on Wizards of the Coast website about the development of Guilds of Ravnica,Ravnica Allegiance, and an untitled Ravnica set that will "end with a big dramatic event." Rosewater also discussed the sets' story elements. We know that they're building up to something big.

"Once we'd given the players their fill of guild-infused Ravnica, we could do our big event expansion set on Ravnica, but not specifically about Ravnica," Rosewater wrote. "This was a pretty radical idea, (having a set where the importance of an event supersedes the importance of the world) so it took a while to get everyone on board with the plan, but we eventually did."

The third new Ravnica set will be more event-focused rather than world-focused. My theory is that the Gatewatch will return in the third Ravnica set and that's the time they will have an epic war against Nicol Bolas. Rosewater said that they're aiming to have a "cold war feel" for the Ravnica sets' story. How? By splitting the guilds in half.

"Five would fall under Bolas's influence, and five would not. (Although, I should point out that each guild has elements pulling in both directions.)," Rosewater revealed. "The five guilds that fell to Bolas would each have a planeswalker, beholden to Bolas, who would lead the guild. The creative team spent a great deal of time picking which five would fall to Bolas. Their choices were swayed a lot by the story that they wanted to tell."

That's pretty exciting. I would love to see a film adaptation based on the new trilogy of Ravnica sets. We still don't know which guilds are on Bolas' side and which are against him but Rosewater revealed that Guilds of Ravnica will have two Bolas-leaning guilds and Ravnica Allegiance will have three, so "the progression felt as if Bolas is gaining in power."

Guilds of Ravnica will feature five guilds: Selesnya (green-white), Boros (red-white), Golgari (black-green), Izzet (blue-red), and Dimir (blue-black)

The following set, Ravnica Allegiance will feature the other five guilds: Azorius (blue-white), Rakdos (black-red), Gruul (red-green), Simic (green-blue), and Orzhov (black-white).

Guilds of Ravnica will be released on October 5. Prerelease events will take place on September 29-30.

Related: MTG Guilds of Ravnica's Niv-Mizzet, Parun Revealed