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Rivals of Ixalan

Facts
Placement
Plane
Ixalan
Other
Symbol description
Orazca / Upper half of a steering wheel
Design
Ben Hayes (lead) ; Melissa DeTora ; Mark Gottlieb ; Alexis Janson ; Glenn Jones ; Shawn Main ; Cynthia Sheppard ; Eli Shiffrin ; Yoni Skolnik
Development
Same as design
Themes and mechanics
Tribal , Double-faced cards , Treasure tokens, City's Blessing
Keywords/​ability words
Transform , Ascend , Enrage , Explore , Raid
Ixalan
Ixalan Rivals of Ixalan N/A
Ixalan
Ixalan Rivals of Ixalan Dominaria
Unstable
Unstable Rivals of Ixalan Masters 25

Rivals of Ixalan is the seventy-seventh Magic expansion, and the second in the Ixalan block. It was released on January 19, 2018, and is a small expansion.

Set details

Rivals of Ixalan is the last regular small expansion to be released. The set contains 196 cards (5 basic lands, 70 common, 60 uncommon, 48 rare, and 13 mythic rare) and includes randomly inserted premium versions of all cards. Some of the rares are Double-faced cards which were printed on a separate print sheet. Nine additional cards are found in the set's planeswalker decks (2 mythic planeswalkers, 2 rares, 2 uncommons, 2 commons, and 1 common dual land). These are numbered #197/196 to #205/196. With the exception of the Elder Dinosaur cycle, all the tribes are staying in their same colors from Ixalan.

As the design of this set fell between the abandonment of the Two-Block Paradigm, but before the introduction Three-and-One Model, Rivals of Ixalan had a combined Vision/Set Design team instead of separate Design and Development teams. Notably, head designer Mark Rosewater wasn't part of the team.

Storyline

The legendary city of Orazca has been found, but it is not claimed without a fight. The winner will wield the greatest power of the plane. An unexpected rival takes the prize for his master.

The cards that represent the Story Spotlights in Ixalan are: Flood of Recollection, Induced Amnesia, and Mastermind's Acquisition. This is the first set to only have three spotlight cards. These feature a Planeswalker symbol icon as a watermark in their text boxes. The icon has no effect on game play.

Magic Story

An additional article was published presenting alternate endings (now non-canon) that depicted each faction gaining control of Orazca.

Marketing

Rivals of Ixalan is sold in 16-card boosters (one card being a marketing card), two planeswalker decks and the Rivals of Ixalan bundle. The boosters feature artwork from Sun Sentinel, Angrath, the Flame-Chained, Riverwise Augur, Frilled Deathspitter, and Moment of Craving. The set doesn't feature a Masterpiece Series.

As part of the preview season, Wizards of the Coast again distributed trackable game pieces to stores, fans, volunteers, and some well-known community folk. As game pieces travelled from from geochache to geocache, the distances they travelled influenced the release of preview cards. By tracking Dinosaurs, Merfolk, Vampires, and Pirates individually, accompanied by votes on social media, it was decided who controlled the golden city at the end of the Rivals of Ixalan story.

Events

  • Prerelease Events took place on January 13, 2018.
  • Magic Online Launch: January 15, 2018.

Promotional cards

Tokens, emblems and markers

Ixalan features six tokens and markers.

  1. {R} 0/1 Elemental creature with "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this creature and return target card named Rekindling Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste until end of turn." for Rekindling Phoenix
  2. {R} 1/1 Elemental creature, for Tilonalli's Summoner
  3. {G} 1/1 Saproling creature, for Overgrown Armasaur and Tendershoot Dryad
  4. {C} 4/4 Golem artifact creature, for Gold-Forge Garrison
  5. Emblem for Huatli, Radiant Champion
  6. City's Blessing marker

The following tokens printed in Ixalan are also used for cards in Rivals of Ixalan:

Themes and mechanics

Transform and double-faced cards are carried over from Ixalan. The front side of some of them is multicolored. The backside is still a legendary land.

Enrage, explore and raid also return and the tribal component was expanded upon.

There is only one new named mechanic:

  • Ascend — If you control ten or more permanents, you get the city's blessing for the rest of the game.
    • If you have the city's blessing, you gain a significant advantage depending on the spell you played.
    • A special marker may be used to indicate the city's blessing on the battlefield. This is not a token or emblem, merely a representation of a game state.
    • Both permanents and spells can have ascend. If a spell has ascend, you get the city's blessing as part of the spell's resolution if you control ten or more permanents. If a permanent has ascend, you get the city's blessing immediately once you control ten or more permanents: this is a special action that doesn't use the stack and cannot be responded to.

Card types

  • Return of the Elder subtype with the Elder Dinosaurs, the first Elders that aren't Dragons.

Cycles

Rivals of Ixalan has nine cycles, including two double cycles. Two of these cycles are partial due to uneven color distribution among tribes.

Pairs

Rivals of Ixalan has seven mirrored pairs.

Reprinted cards

As a first, this small set features four common reprints that were also printed in the large set. This was done because R&D had realized that they didn't want to make "second best" versions of those cards. They all have the same art as in the first set.

Other reprints

Functional reprints

Card comparisons

Preconstructed decks

Rivals of Ixalan features two planeswalker decks:

Notable cards

Trivia

A product survey preceding the announcement of the name "Rivals of Ixalan" referred to the set as Conquest of Power.