There's been a lot of discussion going on lately about how Dragon's Maze is going to be different from Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash. Since it's a small set that features all ten guilds, instead of one of two mirrored large sets that got five each, it's definitely going to have a different prerelease structure than the previous two sets, and only going to feature one prerelease card rather than one for each guild. The presence of all ten guilds also complicates one other aspect of the Return to Ravnica/Gatecrash model: The intro packs.
Obviously, no Magic set, especially not a small one, would have ten different intro packs made for it. Indeed, it's hard to fathom any reason to deviate from the now-usual number of five. On the other hand, producing only five, bicolor decks would be unfair to half the guilds in Dragon's Maze.
Hence, there seem to be only two real possibilities: Five monocolored decks; or five tricolored ones.
The former would, at least flavorfully, have to revolve around the Gateless rebellion. These non-guild renegades would - what a twist! - have succeeded in subverting the guilds' dominance and reshaped the plane under less oppressive, monocolor lines. The latter would have to be about the much-rumored guild alliances. This seems more likely since it would finally give R&D a chance to put two guild mechanics per intro pack together in a cohesive way, and show us the culmination of the vaunted inter-block synergy. Here are five possibilites for how it may go:
- Boros + Rakdos: This one's almost a no-brainer - Rakdos unleash wants you to turn your creatures into pure aggressors, and Boros battalion incentivizes all-out attacking. This would be an interesting take on "suicide" aggro with a bit of insurance in the form of white protective and lifegain spells.
- Simic + Selesnya: The two guilds that manipulate and shape nature synergize fairly well. The Simic's evolve abilities can get triggered multiple times in a row thanks to the Selesnya's tokens and populate. This looks to be a midrange/ramp deck.
- Orzhov + Azorius: A bit of lore from the original Ravnica block that I can only assume still holds true puts lawmages in each of these guilds. The Azorius get prosecuting advokists and the Orzhov defense advokists. With that in mind, detain and extort might not directly interact, but they do both contribute to a slow, death-by-pinpricks control deck.
- Izzet + Dimir: Spells on spells on spells. Both the Izzet's overload and the Dimir's cipher are instant and/or sorcery keywords, so it's a no-brainer to put them in a deck together along with plenty of evasive creatures to finish the job. This is about as sneaky as a chained-spells counterburn plus disruption deck can possibly be.
- Golgari + Gruul: Gruul bloodrush gets creature cards into graveyards to pump, and Golgari scavenge exiles them from there to do the same. It is, to repeat a cliche, the great cycle of life and death. Indeed, if cards were printed with two guild keywords at once, those two make the most sense to put on the same card.
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