War rages across Ravnica once more. Following the assassination of Jace, the Living Guildpact, guild relations broke down as the climate of suspicion took its toll. Old quarrels arose again as populist leaders fanned the flames of mistrust. From their spires and labratories, Niv-Mizzet and the speculated clone of Momir Vig collaborated with wierd science to determine who or what has locked away the magic of the guildpact, while the leaders of the Dimir and Orzhov used darker magics to portent such questions.

Without the power of the Guildpact, however, it was only a matter of time before factionalism took its toll. Powerful internal figures in the guilds splintered away and sought alliances with other splinter guilds along similar ideological lines. Once conflict started, it seemed impossible to contain. Networks of alliances drew otherwise unaffiliated factions into the battle and the situation quickly spiraled out of control.

With the new war came the disruption of the delicate economic situation of the city plane as well. Famine now grips the land, and with it came its brothers, disease and death. The ranks of the Golgari swell with the bloated corpses of those who died from starvation and plague, and the numbers of the Gruul seem endless as they are joined by people who flee from the city into its ruinous outskirts. It is whispered that Rakdos himself no longer sleeps at all, but sits perched on a dread throne amongst the smoke and ash of the ruins of the central square of the former market district of the great city.

Though the situation seems apocalyptic to many, not all hope is lost. Azor himself has returned in the plane's great time of need, and there is word in the taverns and the streets of an alliance between Azor, Niv-Mizzet and Momir Vig. Selesnya controls the largest and one of the strongest and most well supplied fortifications on the entire plane, and welcome all refugees that can find their way there. The various Boros factions stand ready as well, their ranks augmented by what is sometimes voluntary conscription. From their various citadels and fortresses the guilds organize their forces and make ready for what awaits.

Although it is a time of great hardship and challenge for the denizens of the plane, many new leaders and heroes are sure to arise from the ashes of the city that was. As the war rages and alliances are made and broken, the fate of all may depend on one simple question: Who killed Jace Beleren?

~

Ravnica: Shattered Alliance (RSA) is a cube draft format designed to be played with 4-8 players, in which players will draft primarily multicolor decks, with a focus on highlighting synergies between the various three color groupings. While there is in theory space for single color decks, many of the most powerful cards lie in the gold section, as one might expect, and the mana base was chosen in order to make it easier to draft three color decks.

Furthermore, RSA is meant to be played a little differently than a traditional cube. While constructing the initial list for a ravnica themed cube, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to have a 540 cube, each guild would get something like 11 cards for their section, and I thought to myself that felt like too few. I then recalled what WOTC did for RTR, which was split the ten factions into two sets of five because it played much better than trying to cram all ten guilds into one set. Applying that lesson to my cube building, I reasoned that if I only included five guilds then they could get twice the gold cards. But that left me with the problem of having to build two cubes? And also what guilds went with who?

The solution in the end was simple; before counting out the cards for the draft, players will have the option of selecting which five guilds they would like to draft with, then ensure that the only gold cards which remain in the cube are from the chosen guilds. This means that the cube size can stay at 540 while retaining all ten guilds. This also means that the format is not static between cube updates. Normally a cube owner wants to update with each new release, but with this cube you only have to update when a new ravnica set comes out.

Although this cube is designed to be primarily cards from sets set on Ravnica (RAV block, RTR block and GRN block), exceptions will be made. There are several cards such as Conclave Mentor which are set on Ravnica but are from sets that are not primarily set on Ravnica, and some "reprints" may be included to assist guilds that are struggling in power level or lack a purpose. I'm gonna play it fast and loose with the actual number of reprints but I can't imagine it would go over like 10%.

Archetypes (updated as we draft):
Bant: counters
Esper:
Grixis:
Jund:
Naya:
Abzan: token sacrifice
Jeskai:
Sultai: reanimator, yard value
Mardu:
Temur:

todo:

find ravnica cards from non-ravnica sets, ie Soul of Ravnica and conclave mentor

start tracking stats and figure out "reprints" to bring in for struggling guilds.

maybe have this be a build a cube via picking five guilds to play with at the start. that would mean that you would need around 36 cards for each color pair and would also make the total cube size around 720 cards

reprint list: eternal witness, nephalia drownyard (and friends), satyr wayfinder