The Izzet Guild, a group of masters of theoretical and applied science and spellcraft, is a unique faction in Magic: The Gathering. They are obsessive experimenters who build and maintain all of the public works infrastructure for the city of Ravnica, including sewers, electromana lines, subterranean translocation inline zepplins (STIZ), and airship. The Izzet archmage arcane tradition allows wizards to research and create new spells, overloading and replicating them.
The city of Ravnica is home to ten unique guilds, each with its own charm and personality. Each guild has a “dark side” and is quick to anger and always ready to fight. The Izzet Guild Spells include elemental weapon and two other spells at the 3rd spell level.
When you copy a spell, it goes immediately on the stack and typically resolves before the spell that was copied. There is no “keeping it” option, so there is no “keeping it”. Like most card advantage spells, what you really need is time.
In the newest Magic set, five guilds are featured, each with its own charm and personality. They are quick to anger and always ready to fight, and no one guild is evil. Guild Kits take the pressure away and make it easier to build a battle box with decks always ready, sleeved, and balanced for play. Both Izzet mechanics are based around instants and sorceries, and the Izzet guild has a number of new feats inspired by the Izzet League.
📹 Izzet League in ‘Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica’ | D&D Beyond
Dndbeyond.com An official digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition.
📹 Izzet Worth It To Buy a Guild Kit for Magic: The Gathering?
Be sure to check out my New Player’s Guide To Buying a Bundle here: https://youtu.be/AOdf82gIla8 and my Retro Magic: The …
Many Magic: The Gathering players are asking questions about the Ultimate Guard Stack’n’Safe I used for putting my Guild Kit battle box together in this article. See my original review on the item here: Both. Here is my review: youtube.com/watch?v=uciXA2tQ-Gw and know that it is in stock at my affiliate link via cardkingdom.com/TCC
I just realized that these came out yesterday, and I was hoping to find out if they were worth it. Obviously the first place I looked was Tolarian Community College. I should have known you would have our backs, Professor! What a fun and funny article! I wonder if the product designers at Wizards of the Coast get to have a pizza party or something like that whenever they do a good enough job for you to be happy! It’s nice to see them listening to the people! As always, thank you so very much for your advice and insight!
Seriously one of the best products WotC has released in a long time. I was already contemplating picking up a second Privileged Position before, and then WotC is like “Would you like to buy one and also get a foil, alt-art Trost to go with it? And the first ever printing of a Voja token? And a bunch of awesome looking basic lands? And a nifty Selesnya pin to put on your backpack? All for $5 LESS then the price of the Privileged Position you wanted anyway?” …..bruh.
I dont know to say you are so good at timing things i am making a wishlist for my birthday and first the bundle article perfect timed i was litterally thinking if i should one and now the guild kits i just watch a article with someone playing with them and wanted to know more about them so i maybe could at it to my wishlist search mtg guild kits on yt and see your article 3 min ago wow
My wife and I bought the guild kits and have been pitting them against each other every night. Each matchup has been a fun and interesting (and typically long but engaging) game, with each deck being able to come back from a near-loss or create interesting combinations. Definitely have to agree with the prof here, the guild kits were a fantastic buy, and we’re going to use them as a battle box because they’re so much fun.
Jarad already has an altered foil art and so does Niv Mizzet. I would have liked a Melek Altered art and a Savra (or sisters of stone death because I want to be that unique snowflake) but I agree with you on everything. These are awesome the flavor the reprints the foils the spindown and Im even rocking my Boros button… despite my wife’s comments about it. My Aurelia deck got a good upgrade from it flavorwise and cardwise.
So as a casual, who likes to semi makes decks. Are these good to go but not touch ?or is there a good possibility to tinker them with the new expansions( for example Ravnica Alligiance seems obvious) but also to pull apart and make other fun decks from the pieces? for vs. Friends replayability? ( and still be well ” synergized”)
In my area, the Selesnya guid kit is priced higher. And it appears that the “LGS for everyone” is selling them for more too. Guess they too focus on the S of MSRP too… So. Reprint wanted cards and price gouge when items are wanted. This doesn’t help everyone. Just those that can afford the increase. Imo, it’s not just WotC that are discriminating. It is stores too. And they wonder why we look for these things in big box stores. I am disappointed
i do have one complaint about these decks, the guilds cards have the guilds set symbol but every other card has their respective guild as the set symbol (izoni and etrata have their guild symbol as set symbol too i assume because they have new art so they aren’t just jamming cards from the set into the box)
Thanks for the article Prof! I went right down to my local card store, Griffin’s Rest to get a Selesnya Guild Kit because of you! Serious value and awesome cards! While I was down there some other guy rushed in and asked ARE YOU BUYING THAT ONE?? Looking at the kit in my hand, and I was like YES I AM and he asked DO YOU HAVE ANYMORE!? all shocked. She’s like YEAH I got a whole box man chill lol I said YOU SAW TOLARIAN DIDNT YOU hahahaahha
Funny story….I planned to buy the Izzet kit simply for Shattering Spree…but when I scoured the common/uncommon boxes of my local store for my Zo-Zu-Deck…I found one…and got it together with the rest of all the cards needed for 6 cent (10 cent for a single card 30 cents for 5). 24,000% profit….all hail the jank boxes!
Funny story, I already have a Golgari Edh deck with Savra as its commander.. So yesterday I saw some of these at my lcs & picked up one of these & another Golgari 60 card themed deck with the intent to upgrade my current one.. Long story short, I was able to build a SECOND EDH with Karat as ITS commander!!🤣🤣
Something I’d like to add: Considering these decks are mostly 1-ofs (with only a select few 2-ofs in each deck, and none having three or more besides lands), I’m willing to bet that these are a fantastic starting point for anyone wanting to make Ravnica-themed Commander decks. Look at that, you already have ~32-33 (after stripping out the extra copies of the non-land cards) of the cards you’ll need to get started on making an individual guild deck. That’s just about a third of a Commander deck there, for just $20-25. Not bad at all for a random side product.
I bought Selesnya and Dimir ones yesterday. I paid 65$CA for both which is more expensive than USA (singles here are not worth more in $CA than $US). But, despite of that i’m pretty happy with the product. It has all I was asking WoTC for in a long time. Collectibility is here. I really love the basic lands design. Good reprints. I can’t give an opinion yet on the gameplay of Dimir Vs Selesnya. I intend to play with them tomorrow. But, hey kudos to Wizard to have for one time listen to players feedback and desingned a product that is appealing.
I really like these as well, even if just for the fact that they have so many legendaries that they give a great card pool for commander. I was really into the product from the point they revealed the decklists, even without looking up any monetary value or anything. Only downside for me is the ATROCIOUS artwork they gave to Etrata. Seriously, her regular set artwork is this badass, batman-like pose, and then the blinged-out version just looks like the design description was “sassy black woman”? I want my vampire assassins to look creepy and threatening, not like they’re about to go “cash me outside, how bout dat” Also – I can forgive mispronouncing the weird slavic Dimir names, but “Tolsimir Wolfsbane” and “Jared, Golgari Leech Lord” are really some of the worst slipups for names I’ve heard.
I don’t know where to ask a question about my deck, so I’m posting it here. I am new and bought a Starter Decks Chandra(Bold) and Ral (GofRavnica) and was wondering if I could combine their deck into a water/fire deck. Is this ok/good for playing? (Note this is mostly for casual and some small in shop tournaments)
I played the Dimir deck against the Golgari deck and I was certain the golgari deck was gonna win from unruly attacks and undergrowth. But Dimir came up strong late game and milled out my friend! It was awesome! First time I’ve milled out an opponent! The Dimir deck showed good synergy too. Great review prof and great articles. You’ve helped me be a better MTG player. Thank you!!!
This product has gotten me back into paper magic, it has been a very long time (11yrs) that I last played paper magic. I mostly play MTGO because I had no real faith in any of the preconstructed decks, and the decks I brew in MTGO are loads cheaper. That being said I might actually get back into the whole hobby as a body and perhaps build one of the decks IRL from MTGO.
After Khans block rotated I built a sort of battle box for the clans I liked, similar to this. I’m glad Wizards has released an official product with the same idea. I keep them in Ultra Pro deck boxes with the clan symbols in an Ultimate Guard ArkHive. Do you know if these five would fit in an ArkHive if you put them in the included cardboard box?
I’m about to buy the Simic one for the lands, because the islands alone are $4 each and at $36 total… well I can buy the deck for less than the basic lands included…. Yeah so.. You were absolutely right on the lands. I also want a few of the pieces out of it for pioneer, but you know. Buy Singles, and my local store was out of them, so… (Oh also the Forests are $1 each…. so Yeah you predicted it all.) I found a copy of mine for $30 bucks but they seem to be hovering around $45 so yeah, get them while their cold?!
It truly would have been nice and, I think, entirely appropriate for each kit’s alternate-art face card to have been from Ravnica: City of Guilds, if the intent is to celebrate or highlight the guilds. Szadek leading Dimir in particular would have been my preference. I disagree with the Professor on the price, however. The contents may be worth more than $19.99 on the secondary market, but a guild kit isn’t costing WOTC more to make than any other pre-constructed deck. I don’t think the secondary market value is the best way to judge things because it is out of control and is making the game less accessible. A single card, barring rare and obvious exceptions, really shouldn’t cost more than $5-$10.
I bought the Dimir one because i really liked the Legendary, its the first one ive seen that ive wanted to make a commander deck with; i played it against one of my brothers modern red decks and it actually held its own pretty decently: it still lost, but it was 2-1, and each game was SUPER close, usually going down to “if i dont draw what i need i lose” territory. These guild kits are VERY fun to play with.
Lazav should’ve been a foil, come on! He is the guild leader after all! Also, few little things: I know that the background has to be MTG pentagram and stuff, but…how about if it were in Guild logos / colors instead? Also: I’d like more surveil in Dimir deck, but I guess mill’s ok. Aha and: Dimir pin and box…wouldn’t it be better in Black + Blue as opposed to Blue + Black? Kinda like that sleeve. Can’t wait to pick up the Dimir one. Also Azorious once the second batch comes. Hope Annoymages will have enough of Detain(and shiny Isperia) 😀 One completely unrelated wish would be if they unlocked in the Arena as well. That’d be like beyond awesome!
We need a format like this, where only cards from Ravnica are allowed. A friend of mine and I worked it out and it would function something like Commander, with only 2 color legendaries or planeswalkers allowed to be your commander. By the way, the rules we worked out are that you could have tricolor decks by having a commander and a subcommander, but the subcommander would have to share at least one color with the commander. You also wouldn’t be limited to 1-per-deck except for legendaries and planeswalkers.
So an extra 5 decks will be released in the near future? I’m a retired player who’s looking for some real life MtG fun after rediscovering the game via Arena. I don’t want to invest in a new collection or competitive decks. Just limit myself to drafts and preconstructed fun. Seems these are the way to go, right?
I’ve only managed to play six games with the guild kits so far, all Boros v Golgari against an opponent of relatively similar skill, and I’ve found that Golgari seems to be at an overwhelming disadvantage against Boros. There simply aren’t many ways for Golgari to deal with any of Boros’s angels before they end the game. Hoping that the other matchups are more balanced, but other than that I absolutely love the product!
Infinite combos and net decking ruined mtg for me. I don’t go to my local gamestore to play anymore. It takes all the fun out of the game when you realize your opponents commander decks cost them upwards of 300 dollars, each card belonging on some “best build” list or costing a fortune. If it wasn’t for that, I’d probably buy one of these decks.
Great article as always. I wasn’t even considering buying this product until this review. I probably still won’t just due to finances but those basics look sick so I might try to grab some singles. And it’s coming up on Christmas so I might mention it to some friends. Whoa shots fired at Seth. Lol. I’m on him all the time about pronunciation.
Well, well, well. It seems WoTC might be learning. It’s honestly bad when out of a decent sounding product, I want them mostly for the pins. I feel they should make pins like that a staple with each of their sets. I’d have killed for a Shadows over Innistrad pin where it is in the shape of the set’s logo/symbol. You think they would have done that and made them a staple in something like the fat packs/big bundles.
I honestly am not a fan of standard at all, considering it REALLY limits what you play, and people can play the end-all deck and maybe edit it a little so that way it doesnt look EXACTLY the same, but pretty damn close, like this years world championship for standard, and what’s been made for the past year with red black aggro wining over and over and over, it gets to the point of “is your hand good and are you taking first turn?” Its not strategic nor creative to me is all, and i just think thats what its sort of about so that way it CAN be fun
this was an awesome article and sorry may hit your nerves that i dont punctuate or use gramar or misspell a word but i loved your articles for a while and a battle box for almost 150 200 bucks sleeves the box and stuff yea i am planning to do this and maybe have friends over or just play with family and guilds of ravnica coming out personally was something ive been looking for as a new player because i never really had an interest in actually making a battle box till now cause i couldnt make my own decks but this is worth it and they are very playable and my friends banned me from using second sun control when i brought that over i won like 3 games in a row i have found its better during multi than duel anyway amazing articles and maybe one day i can make it an event on the weekend of magic night since the only place that does magic is like over 15 miles away in another state which kinda sucks well thats what i seen on the wizards of the coast locator anyway hope one day i can play with others and just enjoy the game