Magic Going Back to Ravnica After Dominaria

Man, so if we want to talk about nostalgia...

I don't play Magic: The Gathering anymore, partially because of what my friends are into and partially because Hearthstone is so convenient given its mobile format and the fact that you can (somewhat gradually) earn cards for free.

But there were two major periods in which I played - from Third Grade through Sixth (aka 1994 to 1998) and then for a couple years in college (mainly 2005-2007 or 2008.)

I recently posted about how Wizards went back to Dominaria, its original "home plane" setting for the game that they hadn't been back to since 2002 or so (with the Onslaught block, the second half of a kind of two-part literally post-"Apocalypse" series of card blocks.) That really took me back to those old days of childhood.

Now they're going back to Ravnica, which was the block during my Sophomore year of college, and when I was playing the most on MTG Online (which I needed a PC emulator to play on my Mac.)

It's not the first time they've come back to Ravnica - there was a "Return to Ravnica" block a few years back - but I can't say I'm all too shocked at their decision to do so. Ravnica had a ton going for it. The concept of the plane was really cool - a plane that was just one enormous city - but on top of that, they basically came up with ten new really distinct flavors in the ten guilds that run the city by finding the logical combination of each pair of Magic's five primary colors.

The idea worked out brilliantly, and it also really encouraged different deckbuilding styles by giving each of these guilds distinct mechanical strengths.

There was a confluence of good mechanical design and good flavor that made the original block very successful. I don't actually know how well received the second block was, but as an outsider mainly looking in on the game for its art and concepts and perhaps the little D&D supplements for running a game set in one of the Magic planes, I'm really excited to see more of my favorite plane they've come up with.

And in case you're wondering, House Dimir all the way. Not that House Dimir exists, of course. What was that? Never heard of it. Sorry, who are you? I've got to go.