It’s the Return to the Return to the Return to Ravnica! Ravnica Remastered is about to drop and it’s honestly my favorite plane in the multiverse. I was at the tender age of 20 at the start of my efforts to actually “git gud” at Magic. In the Summer of ’05, I saved up enough to be able to afford a booster case of Ravnica: City of Guilds so I could practice drafting the set as much as possible.

I played more than I ever had during that year’s release cycle. Dark Confidant became my new favorite magic card. I brewed decks left and right with all my shiny and new gold cards. When Guildpact came out, I was 100% in on the Orzhov Syndicate. I dedicated myself to being a lifelong black-white guildmage. Whatever excuse I could find, to put Godless Shrines or Orzhov Basilicas into my piles, I took. After Dissension came out, I was playing old school PTQs and Star City events and managed to Top 8 a few. This was a very exciting and formative time in my cardboard life. All this to say: I love Ravnica.

And it’s back, back again. Shocks are back, tell a friend.

Ravnica Remastered, like the Remastered sets before it, is going to have limited allocations to stores. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to get your hands on some, do yourself a favor and PLAY. LIMITED. The premium price that WoTC has on this product behooves you to get as much value out of these cards as you can and let believe me, gold cards at the common rarity with plenty of mana fixing is a blast to play. You get to just play ALL the cards in your pool that you think are cool. It might not be the most optimal way to build your deck, but it’s the most fun way I like to do it. Who doesn’t want to splash 4 colors?

Forgive my rambling here, I’m just so excited, and I just can’t hide it, I know…I know…I want Ravnica. Now, my newest Magic love has been the Pauper format and Ravnica Remastered offers a great way to marry my favorite format with my favorite plane. Since this set is allocated for stores, there’s going to be a lot less places cracking packs for singles, and that means there’s less supply of commons readily available.

There will be a number of fresh downshifts to common in this set and you’re likely to come across them if you’re fortunate enough to crack some packs. Because these cards are newly legal in the format, players of Pauper aren’t likely to have had them in their collections for future brewing.

That means, when you draft, keep these cards set aside for future trades with those common loving Pauper players. It’s also always a great time to hop into this format! If you are new to taking commons for a spin, I invite you to come play at the Owl Central Games Pauper FNMs!

Boros Elite

Go wide mono white aggro decks are already a thing in the format thanks to Guardians’ Pledge. This one drop would love to be surrounded by Squadron Hawks and Battle Screech tokens. The lack of evasion is a real drawback but being a 3/3 on offense at such a low mana value really feels like a decent enough payoff.

Tin Street Dodger

With the recent banning of Monastery Swiftspear we’ve seen a lot of Kuldotha Red decks leaning more into the Goblin sub theme that was incidentally present by adding Goblin Grenades. Tin Street has all the text you want to see in your aggro Goblin deck: haste, evasion, 1 mana, and um…Goblin. It’s the total package!

Slitherhead

Slitherhead is an intriguing card. There’s nothing that’s too interesting in casting it, but the Scavenge ability being free is where to look. Self mill cards like Satyr Wayfinder or Baulstrade Spy are already floating around to try and dump a free +1/+1 counter into your graveyard. There’s also the forever T2 engine card Tortured Existence that would love to discard a value creature for later. I did say it wasn’t too interesting to cast the card but I would like to point out a very unique aspect of the card, it’s a one mana multicolored card. That means for one mana you can trigger cards like Verdant Eidolon and Entropic Eidolon, maybe after you discarded them to the aforementioned Tortured Existence. It’s a puzzle piece looking for the right puzzle and this game’s history has taught us that if it’s free, it’s probably too good.

Judge’s Familiar

This is hands down the most impactful downshift for the format. Keep your playsets aside for traders or for yourself. Being hybrid will increase the potential of where this card can go. Look out for this card getting splashed into mono white aggro decks to pair with other birds like Squadron Hawk and flashing back Battle Screeches. Unlike Boros Elite, this card has evasion, and will likely see play first unless the Human Soldier typing has any influence (Someone build my Gempalm Avenger deck for me pleeease).

I hope to see y’all at the upcoming Ravnica Remastered Launch Party on January 13th. Make sure to hold on to your commons and swing back around for Pauper FNM and join the best Pauper community in PA!