GuildImage_Orzhov_01

Illus. Mark Zug

Wizards has been holding Q&A sessions about Magic: The Gathering as the 3rd Ravnica block, Dragon’s Maze, will soon be released. We were invited to ask some questions about Guild Orzhov, as they were recently a featured faction.

Having just gotten back into Magic, I didn’t have many in depth questions, but I sent along the few I had.

 

I’m actually most interested in the mechanics, themselves, of the Orzhov guild. Orzhov uses Extort and Haunt, correct?

Orzhov used haunt in the original Ravnica block and uses extort in the current Return to Ravnica block. Fans of extort will get some more goodies in Dragon’s Maze. Haunt’s flavor is that Orzhov’s creature and spells hung around after their “death” haunting other creatures. Extort allows the Orzhov player to slowly and incrementally drain the opponent’s life away.

I’ve always been a fan of black/white combinations. How specifically will we see the 2 combine specifically for Orzhov?

White likes to make rules. Black likes to exploit others. Mix them together and you get a guild that lives to arrange things always in their favor. Orzhov is king of what we in R&D call a “bleeder” deck where the player is very defensive slowing the game to a halt while plinking away at the opponent. Bleeder decks are sometimes referred to as the death of a thousand paper cuts.

I’ve think I’ve heard that Orzhov is the business of Ravnica, but is also kind of a crime syndicate. What’s the current scoop with their storyline?

The Orzhov run both the church of Ravnica as well as the crime syndicate. They also work extensively with ghosts because death shouldn’t be the end of a contract. The Orzhov are interested in the same thing that the other guilds are interested in – learning more about the Implicit Maze. Niv-Mizzet has thrown down the gauntlet and everyone knows that winning the race is the key to their guild gaining power. Who will win the Dragon’s Maze?

I’m pretty excited about the entire Ravnica block in general, and the more I learn about it the more interested I become.