Ravnica Allegiance spoilers have started and this week I want to talk about what we know so far! We've got 3 planeswalkers in this set and a pile of shocklands everyone has been waiting for. We'll take a look at cards in each guild and how they will affect previous cards and how their price may shape up in the future. I know you're all as excited as I am so let's get started!
The first guild I want to talk about is Gruul. They are looking pretty good right now and that's without us even knowing what their guild leader (Domri Rade) even does*! Let's start by looking at the older cards that could be brought to the forefront. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of Red and Green cards in Standard right now. The two rares are the only ones I think we need to mention and are Grand Warlord Radha and Regisaur Alpha. Radha having haste could be important to the Gruul strategy as many of the best cards are likely to have Riot. Unfortunately, her ability synergizes the best with the Rakdos guild mechanic so unless there are big mana sinks on some Gruul creatures or some Mono-Red Spectacle cards, I'm not sure Radha will make the final cut. Regisaur Alpha is also unlikely to get much help as I do not believe there are any dinosaurs on Ravnica. The rate on Regisaur is quite good so if smaller aggro decks are looking to run amok there may be a place with the dinosaur making 7 power for five mana. As far as old cards are concerned, I don't think there is a ton there for Gruul decks.
As far as new cards are concerned, there's a lot to like right now with Gruul. The standout for my favorite card in the Gruul clan right now is Gruul Spellbreaker. It's currently pre-ordering for $5 and I think that's the sweet spot for this kind of card. It's good and will be deck defining but because it's a gold card it isn't likely to have a huge price tag. If you feel like you may represent the Gruul clan in Standard in the near future I think this is a good time to pre-order your 4 copies of this card. A card I'm not as excited for is Ravager Wurm. It's big but its painfully slow. It's design feels like to me (and many other people) that it was made specifically for MTG Arena best of 1. I'm expecting this to likely be a bulk mythic in the near future. The mythic I am pretty excited for, however, is Skarrgan Hellkite. We've seen 
for a 4/4 flying haste be good many times already and I don't think this is an exception. It's not quite as good as Glorybringer or Stormbreath Dragon but it doesn't have to be to be playable in Standard. This card has a little steeper price tag of $10 but I think grabbing two copies for the first week of Standard won't upset you. We don't know what other cards in this set could make it better and we don't even know what Domri is so it can only get better from here.
Orzhov is a guild with a lot of interesting cards but ultimately not very many I can recommend purchasing. Kaya seems very niche and is a card I would be ecstatic to trade away at the pre-release if I can. I'm not saying its unplayable but it's the kind of planeswalker you don't need many copies of and won't go into a ton of decks. This feels like a future $3-5 card. Seraph of the Scales is reasonably costed for its power and toughness. Its 3 toughness leaves a little to be desired because it won't block a lot of the aggressive creatures very profitably. I'm not sure it will end up being better than Shalai in a lot of places. It's pre-ordering for $9 which is higher than fringe playable mythics will end up. Unless there is a card that really makes good use of the 1/1s from Afterlife I don't think this is a $9 card. A card I think a lot of you will have you eye on is Teysa Karlov. Foil copies of this will be very expensive and it's likely to have a very large foil multiplier because it's basically a legendary Panharmonicon. It may not see a lot of play in Standard but it will be a favorite on EDH tables for years to come. It's very unique and powerful which is a perfect combination for a new general. I feel like because it looks unlikely like it will be a Standard powerhouse so far, it will be a lower end rare but still very desirable. If you want a copy to play with I wouldn't pay more than $4. If there is a grindy deck that plays a bunch of Afterlife cards it will probably also include Elenda, the Dusk Rose. Unfortunately your time to get in has since passed. I would recommend waiting to see what decks come out of the new format before you purchase any speculatively.
Rakdos has a pretty premier card I think a lot of players have identified as being good. Bedevil is going to be a format defining removal spell as long as there are enough Red and Black cards to build a deck around. The double Black means that decks that were playing Vraska's Contempt can likely continue to play this card but will also have to adopt Red. It may mean a fundamental shift from Golgari to Jund or Esper to Grixis so I'm not sure it will have the same price tag that Vraska's Contempt did at its peak. The bottom line is Bedevil is good and probably not something you want to trade away at the pre-release but I'm also not sure purchasing copies for $7.50 is a slam dunk either. I think I would purchase at $5 but $7.50 is fine if you think you'll get the mileage out of them. Spawn of Mayhem is a card I think a lot of people are excited for but I feel like I've been burned by before. I want to preface my statement with the fact that I am not saying this card is bad. I'm not the kind of person you want to read for my opinions on good or bad cards. I think that we've seen aggressive Black cards before and they often don't work out the way that people envision. The most successful Black decks are more durdly midrange decks that pair with Green or controlling decks that play Blue. That means a lot of things have to go right with a 
aggressive deck to make it good and successful. I don't see the tools yet for this card to be good. As a result, I don't want to own any. I may change my mind before the end of spoiler season but right now I don't think this card is playable. I know it seems odd that I would recommend a five mana 4/4 flying over a four or three mana 4/4 flying but historically the Red ones have done much better than the Black ones.
Next let's talk Azorius because if you have somewhere to be after reading this, you may want to skip me gushing about Simic. Dovin, Grand Arbiter is probably better than you think but I'm not sure it's the best card in the set. My early thoughts were it was a slam dunk at $10 and a reasonable buy at $15. It's now $20 and I'm not sure there is enough good Azorius cards to make it worth that. I think this card will over perform in the first week as it slides in very easily to the Mono-Blue deck. It creates evasive creatures and gives you bodies to help pump up his loyalty. The cost to play him is basically changing 8 Islands to 4 Glacial Fortress and 4 Hallowed Fountain. I don't know if he will do well but I'm pretty sure he will be at your local FNM on release weekend. Deputy of Detention is probably the second best card mostly because Fiend Hunter was a reasonable card and this card also hits other non-land permanents. I feel like this is especially potent against the dreaded turn three History of Benalia into turn four History of Benalia because you can clean up all of the tokens very cleanly. I think many people are slightly underestimating how many of this they will end up playing and it will end up being a $5 card similar to Gruul Spellbreaker. Lavinia is a card a lot of people were excited for but have more or less cooled on. It's probably good in some circumstances but it won't be good in Standard and it's unlikely to be measurably better then Meddling Mage, Ethersworn Canonist, or Containment Priest so I don't see it commanding a premium price tag. Look at Assassin's Trophy. It's great in Modern and was a huge upgrade from existing spells and is played in Standard and it's still only $10. Sell your copies and maybe think about getting the game day promos if you want one or two.
Simic is my favorite guild in this set and I hope you'll allow me to have a little bias about how I'm going to look at some of the cards. Prime Speaker Vannifar is an obvious analogous to a banned card in Modern, Birthing Pod. She's not as good as pod but I don't think she has to be as good to still be good. I don't think she's as good as people think and long term I think is a $10 or less card if there isn't a deck revolving around her. I don't think it is possible to reliably build around her in Standard so I think that will likely cap her value going forward. Foils will be expensive because she's like Teysa and is a particularly unique legendary creature. I'm not sure what the right number to pay for her is. If you're on the fence I think this is one you're better off skipping for now. Growth-Chamber Guardian, on the other hand, is a card I am very excited about. It's small and innocuous but it is the kind of card that can show up in a lot of decks. It doesn't need anything other than other copies of itself to be good. I think this will be a $5-8 card because you're incentivized to play 4 if you play any and it's got a card-advantage ability. It's hard to find 2-drops that are good on turn two and reasonable on turn eight but this is definitely one of them. I think the cards that are most analogous to this are Sylvan Advocate and Duskwatch Recruiter. They're bodies you can put into play early that get bigger and/or draw cards in the late game. The fact that it's also not a gold card means it can go into any Green deck looking to shore up its early turns with cards that can prevent flood late.
While this is only a preliminary outlook on an incomplete spoiler list, I think this is a reasonable first look at the set. We will finish up spoiler season this week and once all of the payoff cards get revealed we can truly figure out how to save the most money purchasing early or waiting for later.
*This was written before the reveal of Domri, Chaos Bringer
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