I understand why the rules for Extort (in regards to color identity) went in favor of allowing Crypt Ghast in mono black because its second ability is very mono black. However, I think it sets a bad precedent for color identity within keywords. The logic was that reminder text doesn't affect color identity, but it's not the reminder text but rather the rules text that keyword replaces that should apply to color identity. How do you feel about color identity within keywords and is it now avoided?

I just wish color identity treated hybrid symbols differently. It would also solve this problem.

What are your favourite guild mechanics for each guild of Ravnica? Do you think they're also the ones most likely to be brought back?

Azorius - DetainDimir - SurveilRakdos - SpectacleGruul - BloodthirstSelesnya - ConvokeOrzhov - ExtortIzzet - ReplicateGolgari - ScavengeBoros - BattalionSimic - Evolve

I'm so happy with the White card draw effects in New Capenna Commander - especially that it gives us a variety of options, not one specific card that would become sought after and hard to find. I particularly like Master of Ceremonies, where it still gives equal card advantage to you and your opponents, but you get the edge because its split amongst all your opponents. And Aerial Extortionist is so great. High fives for all involved, please!

High fives to be applied.

Since people are talking treasure and commander, the issue isn't treasures as a mechanic rather the power level of individual cards. Dockside Extortionist and Smothering Tithe just make a lot of treasure and give huge advantages for little work. Brass' Bounty meanwhile has been legal for ages and I don't think people have any real negative feelings for it. The ability to continuously make multiple a turn or a lot for little work is where treasures start to become an issue.

Do others agree with this contention?

Is the enchantment part of Dockside Extortionist a bend or a break in red, or is this kind of effect in pie? (“When Dockside Extortionist enters the battlefield, create X Treasure tokens, where X is the number of artifacts and enchantments your opponents control.)

Red can reference enchantments existing. It just can’t destroy them.

Are “taxing” effects un-fun? I think it would be neat to see white lean hard into taxing in a set (something different from extort which was where the W/B player ended up taxing themselves for a benefit).

Some taxing can be fun. Too much (to the point where the opponent can’t play) isn’t.

I respect that you consider hybrid to be a monocolor card but the only time it could be considered monocolor is being able to cast it without paying both colors. It's a multicolor card on the stack, in your deck, and on the battlefield. Commander is restricting it based on those. Hybrid cards are typically much bigger bends then we see on mono-color cards too because of the lack of design space. Often they are bigger bends than we see in monocolor and reduce deck diversity which is a net loss.

I understand that the cards are multicolor. My point is that the format stresses their multicolorness over their actual functionality. Hybrid has become a big tool of Magic design and ignoring hybrid’s functionality is longterm going to cause problems. For example, the creation of the extort mechanic required a new rule to get created where color identity now doesn’t count reminder text. Hybrid is going to always lean into what hybrid is (the ability for either color to cast it) and that is going to fly in the face of a format that doesn’t recognize that key trait of hybrid mana.Also, the color pie argument is weak. Yes, there are a handful of cards that probably want to be multicolor rather than hybrid, but the number is small and none of them are breaks. Meanwhile monocolor cards are filled with breaks over the years and no one us talking about banning cards like Chaos Warp. I think Commander is a great thing for Magic. A lot of people are playing it and having a wonderful time. My few issues are about flaws in the format that make it hard for us to design for it. If I could snap my fingers, I would also make death triggers work because we now avoid putting death triggers on legendary creatures and that’s just tying a hand behind our back for what I think of as not a great reason.

We've now seen all 5 mechanics and none of them are entirely new. A Bloodthirst, Monstrous, and Unleash variant. Keywording the text on cards like doomed traveller and careful consideration (and many other cards for each of them). Ravnica had always been the plane where crazy mechanics were tried out: Cipher, Extort, Detain, Haunt, and Transmute just to name a few. What caused such a safe and familiar approach this time? It makes the set feel more like a core set than a new and exciting one.

Ravnica is more about the innovations of the guilds than of the guild mechanics. A set with five mechanics forces us to keep the mechanics simple.

Re: Transguild Courier, For a better example of color identity rules being dumb, you can't use Noble Hierarch in an monogreen deck, but Birds of Paradise, which taps for two more colors, is a-ok. Or how creatures with extort are fine in monoblack or monowhite, but if you printed a card that functionally had extort, but spelled it out instead of being a keyword, it suddenly becomes WB.

Thanks for the examples.

What's the storm-scale for each of the Return to Ravnica mechanics? -- Detain, Cipher, Unleash, Bloodrush, Populate, Extort, Overload, Scavenge, Battalion, and Evolve?

Read this: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/storm-scale-ravnica-and-return-ravnica-2016-05-02