How Has Ravnica Affected Portrayals of Two-Colored Cards in the Game?

General forum

Posted on Oct. 10, 2025, 9:57 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the original Ravnica block, one of the most successful and influential blocks in M:tG's history, so I would like to discuss the impact that that block had upon this game, and ask how everyone else here feels about it.

Two-colored cards had been part of M:tG since the game's early years, but they often lacked a cohesive identity or theme, nor had many products focused strongly on them, so the original Ravncia block was the first product to have a major focus on two-colored cards, as well as having well-defined factions for each two-color combinations, choices that were so successful that many players now use the names of the guilds of Ravnica as synonyms for the two-color combinations, despite the fact that other factions of the same colors exist on other planes of the multiverse.

I had only recently begun playing M:tG when the original Ravnica block was released (I started with Eighth Edition in 2003), so I did not realize at that time how significant that block was, but I certainly do, now, with more than twenty years of experience and hindsight, so I definitely appreciate how the Ravncia block was able to provide a cohesive identity for the two-colored combinations, but I also feel that that block was so influential that it has also affected two-colored cards and factions on other planes, and I personally believe that that is not a good thing, partially because too many players use the names of the guilds as synonyms for the combinations and also because too many players seem to regard the guilds as the default templates for how two-colored cards should functions. I personally make an effort to avoid using the names of the guilds as synonyms for two-colored combinations, since I believe that it is not fair to other factions that share those colors. Beyond the names of the factions, too many dual-colored cards from planes have been imitating the guilds, most notably red/white and blue/green, which seem to be terribly homogenous at times, which is why the schools of Strixhaven were so wonderful, as they intentionally were very different from the guilds of Ravnica in terms of both flavor and mechanics (the five dragon clans of Tarkir and the realms of Kaldheim also were different from the guilds of Ravnica, but were not quite as distinct, in my mind, so I hope that WotC shall continue to have two-colored factions that are not on Ravnica).

Therefore, I wish to ask everyone else here for their opinions on this matter; how has Ravnica affected portrayals of two-colored cards, and do you believe that that effect has overall been positive or negative? I certainly am interested to hear your thoughts, on this matter!

Crow_Umbra says... #2

I think that the influences of Ravnica are generally a net positive. I agree with you that Ravnica as a whole was so successful in better establishing some early cohesive identities for the two-color combos, enough to the point that many players use the Guild names as a shorthand for those color combos. I occasionally will switch back and forth between using the Ravnican names and the general two color descriptive names. A big parallel to this would be how the Alaran Shard names are shorthanded for their respective three color combos, or how the Tarkir clans became that for the Wedges.

To my last point about the Shard and Wedge names, I think it's a bit unavoidable that the names become shorthand for their respective color combos. It's easier to just say "Boros" vs "Red/White". I know Magic had names for Three color factions from earlier sets, like Ana, Dega, etc. Those seemed to have some general use before Tarkir and Alara came along.

I can't really think of anything overtly negative about creating more cohesive identities for the two color combos. I think that each new entry to Ravnica fleshed out those factions and identities more and more, maybe with the exception of Murders at Karlov Manor. The Guilds felt like they weren't as overtly prominent as they have been, especially with the Detective-ification of the character aesthetics. I think it's cool that Ravnica gave the Guilds a solid identity, and I also agree that it's great that settings like Strixhaven continue to build on what different versions of those color combos can look like.

October 10, 2025 10:11 p.m.