Not even a year after Wizards of the Coast revealed that blocks were going away completely, we ended up seeing the start of what was effectively another block. Guilds of Ravnica kicked off the final act of the Bolas Arc, with two sets focused on Ravnica's guilds and then the finale taking place with War of the Spark soon after. This first set focused on one half of the guilds, covering each of Selesnya, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, and Izzet. There's a whole host of new mythics to discuss so let's rank them all!

Number Sixteen

The Buy-A-Box promo may have been a big deal in Core Set 2019, but here it's a big ol' thud. Impervious Greatwurm is actually a pretty cool card, offering a brand new Timmy/Tammy player an opportunity to have this massive creature that's hard to kill. In fact, it was actually the biggest creature in a black-bordered set that you could cast (so excluding Marit Lage tokens). The problem is that it's still too expensive and has no evasion, making it little more than a glorified vanilla creature that isn't really actually good in any realistic scenario.

Number Fifteen

If you got this card in Limited, congratulations, you had one heck of a bomb. For anywhere else, though, this card simply didn't make any kind of relevant impact. It saw some small showings in a handful of Standard decks, but wasn't commonplace compared to others. At the end of the day, it was mostly just an expensive bounce spell on a creature, which while solid, doesn't amount to much in your average game of competitive Magic.

Number Fourteen

Trostani Discordant does some neat things, but the card is not greater than the sum of its parts. An anthem is nice, but not at this cost, and the token generation as a one-time deal feels quite meager in comparison to Trostani's previous outing. The one bit players were actually interested in was the regaining control aspect, which largely appealed to one group: Commander players. Everyone else sort of shrugged their shoulders and wrote the card off, leading it to be the most middling of the guild leaders this time around.

Number Thirteen

During preview season, this card was wildly hyped. Four mana for a 6/6 hexproof creature is a huge deal, after all. The problems with it were two-fold. First, it was really easy for an opponent to turn off the hexproof. In a way, this makes this a sort of example of proto-ward, predating that mechanic by a few years. The other problem was that it prevented you from casting noncreature spells, limiting your access to support cards and making you go all-in on the creature game plan. Some Aggro lists in Standard took advantage of this, but it certainly didn't live up to the high degree of hype it brought during preview season.

Number Twelve

Clones are always cool, and ones that can repeatedly change what they're copying is always that much more fun. Lazav gives you the opportunity to do just that, but at a cost. You can't just pay a flat activation cost, so if you want to clone something big, you need to pay the price for it. The benefit is it doesn't stop at the end of the turn, but it's still costly to try making it go your way. This makes Lazav a little underwhelming in both competitive and casual settings, though it has historically seen some play in both.

Number Eleven

Playing off the design space started by Final Fortune, Chance for Glory allows players one extra shot at going in for the kill. Spells like this are dangerous, as they can backfire and cause you to lose the game outright. When pulled off correctly, however, they can lead to fantastic stories. Chance For Glory had a minor showing in Standard, aimed at providing aggressive decks with the means to survive through a board wipe and then go in for the kill shot the following turn. Its showing was brief, but potent.

Number Ten

Casting this card is pretty much a total non-starter in 60-card Constructed formats since you'll likely never get to take full advantage of it. It's generally too hard to make use of your opponent's cards there and so it acts as little more than an expensive Tormod's Crypt that you might get one card off of. Things get really nutty with this card in Commander, though. There you exile everything from multiple graveyards and get an opportunity to cast more things - something you can likely do more easily due to the casual nature of the format.

Number Nine

This iteration of planeswalker Ral Zarek failed to live up to the levels of hype the original brought with it. It seemed somewhat middling, falling largely into the dull role of plus to draw, minus for removal, and did so in an unusual fashion in both situations. This didn't stop Ral from seeing a solid amount of play in Standard, though usually in low numbers. Most of the time he was relegated to the sideboard as well, but in controlling builds, he provided a great option for card selection that could turn into a game ender if it stuck around long enough to ultimate.

Number Eight

Aurelia was an absolute house in her Standard tenure. If you played a deck like Boros Angels or Boros Aggro, chances are you wanted a copy or two of her in your deck for your top end. While you could boost other creatures, oftentimes you'd simply boost Aurelia herself to make her a big vigilant beater that would also boost your other creatures in the process. That's everything an aggro deck wants to be doing, which made her an outstanding option until she was eventually pushed out as the season wore on.

Number Seven

What makes Underrealm Lich so cool is the fact that it gives you some of the best card selection around. Not only does it allow you to choose the card you're going to draw, but it also puts the others into the graveyard. For a color pair like Golgari, the graveyard is basically a second hand, meaning that it often benefits you to put things in there provided you build your deck around it. This has made Underrealm Lich a mainstay of all Commander decks in these colors looking to mess with the graveyard, and for good reason.

Number Six

Few cards have begged players to build around them quite like Thousand-Year Storm. Storm has a long and storied history as one of the most broken mechanics in the history of Magic, being so strong Mark Rosewater's Storm Scale was named after it. So, what if you made an enchantment that made all of your instants and sorceries have storm? What would you try and cast? How deep would you try to go? The possibilities are endless here and it provides a true source of inspiration for Johnny/Jenny players the world over.

Number Five

Divine Visitation is a great example of a card that doesn't have many - if any - competitive applications but is outstanding for casual play. Getting to cast this in a format like Standard often ends up being a win-more strategy, as you could probably be casting actual token generators like the next card on this list and swarming the board instead. In a format like Commander that loves taking its time as well as generating tokens, though? Casting a card like this is no joke and will often end games on the spot, making it a top contender for casual token decks everywhere.

Number Four

If you want to get more competitively serious with your token cards, though, look no further than March of the Multitudes. Selesnya Tokens was a great way for players to make a lot of small creatures and then use them to convoke for larger effects like Conclave Tribunal and Venerated Loxodon. March of the Multitudes provided the best of both worlds, generating an army of tokens while also providing a great way to utilize your existing tokens to make the spell even bigger. Games would often end shortly after a player would cast the card, solidifying it as a powerful mythic of the era.

Number Three

Doom Whisperer may look like little more than a big idiot beatstick, and it certainly was, but it was far better than it first looked. The ability to pay two life to surveil two was actually a huge deal, as it enabled you to set up your draws to better deal with your opponent's game plan and protect your Doom Whisperer. This would ensure that you could get in for massive damage and take your opponent out in just a few turns' time, making it one of the best creatures of its era in the process.

Number Two

By today's standards, this iteration of Vraska probably seems rather quaint. A fine card, but not quite strong enough to reach these upper echelons. It's easy to forget, though, that at the time this predated the modern jolts of power boosting we'd see the following year in 2019. For a time after Guilds of Ravnica released, though, Golgari Midrange was a truly dominant force and a big reason for this was Vraska, Golgari Queen at the helm. By shutting down your opponent's board, you could slowly build up with her, accruing card advantage along the way, and then blow up creatures as needed. Even hitting the ultimate was fair game most of the time, making her a force to be reckoned with in her Standard tenure.

Number One

Few cards I've talked about in these mythic rankings articles have become multi-format all-stars quite the way Arclight Phoenix has. The card saw a respectable amount of Standard play, defined Modern prior to the banning of Faithless Looting, and is to this day one of the top performing decks in Pioneer. It's even seen some play in Legacy with players using Buried Alive to put three copies into the graveyard and race to get them back. An absolute icon of modern Magic design and well deserving of the top spot on this list.

Paige Smith

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