"Return to Ravnica Keyrunes...A Comparison"

"Here Kitty , Kitty, Kitty..."

"Return to Ravnica Keyrunes...A Comparison"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

As I was playing in the Dragon's Maze pre release I realized that I have not written about the original batch of Keyrunes from this set(Return to Ravnica).

This was brought about by their absence in my Golgari guild pack and Simic Secret ally pack. Not a single keyrune thank you very much. This was made even worse when I utterly got destroyed by a single flying Azorius keyrune in one game!!!

"Wings of Justice! Kakah!"

So for those reading about Keyrunes for the first time they are artifacts that cost 3 colorless mana to cast and in addition to being mana fixers to the guilds they represent have the added feature of turning into creatures that also represent their respective guilds.

Like my previous blog about the Gatecrash Keyrunes I will be looking and comparing the Return to Ravnica Keyrunes based on 3 different categories which are: Aggressiveness , Defense and X-factor:Ability.

Aggressiveness:

Hands down the most aggresive of this batch is the Rakdos keyrune and in very close second is the Selesnya Keyrune. So in choosing between a Wolf and a Devil it is the former which has more staying power. The Rakdos takes the aggressiveness factor to another level because of First strike , in a match between the wolf and the devil ,the devil will win. Still with both dealing 3 damage at a time these 2 are the best when it comes to damage dealing.

At a close third is the Azorius keyrune that turns into a flying 2/2 Bird that can sometimes decide a the outcome of a game because of its evasion.

Defense:

"A Single bite is proven deadly"

On the Defensive side the Golgari keyrune offers the best defense with a 2/2 Insect creature that destroys an attacking creature with its death touch. If you would consider the Scavenege Mechanic of the present Golgari and pile on several +1/+1 counters on this thing then you are looking at a big beast that has death touch.Even at its original 2/2 state it can take on creatures 4 or 5 times it size and take it to the grave!

At close 2nd and 3rd is the Rakdos and Selesnya Keyrunes , the First strike for the Rakdos assures its survival against most attackers (at least the smaller ones anyway) and the Selesnya keyrune with its stable 3/3 build can match point damage per point damage with most creatures.

Ability:

The Izzet probably has the weakest looking Keyrune of all in this batch but if you consider the Izzet style of Sligh then you would appreciate how this creature was built. Blue has access to most bounce spells and Red has the best burn spells , so add those together and your opponent would probably have no creature left to block especially after an Overloaded Street Spasm or Mizzium Mortars. 

When this 2/1 creature damages it also allows you to filter your hand by drawing and then discarding a card from your hand. Pretty neat when it does deal damage.

So with all the 10 keyrunes now available at your disposal... Abuse them wisely.