Hadou-token!

Tokens were another significant theme of Ravnica. The "Hunted" cycle of rares even gave you undercosted fatties at the expense of giving tokens to your opponent! Two guilds in our Cube, the Selesnya Conclave and the Orzhov Syndicate, are token-themed.




The Selesnya Conclave

A hippy commune masquerading as a guild, the Selesnya Conclave's Ravnica keyword was Convoke. (Each creature you tap while casting this spell reduces its cost by {1} or by one mana of that creature's color.) It basically allows you to use any creature as a Llanowar Elves. Convoke was fueled primarily by Saproling tokens, and it's no different here.

In the first formal attempt at inter-block synergy, Time Spiral, the block following Ravnica, had a lot of Saprolings too. And Cube-Selesnya leans heavily on Time Spiral enablers of the Saproling them.

Most notably, Thallids. Thallids are Fungi that generally have three abilities: one that puts a spore counter on them at the beginning of your upkeep, one that turns three spore counters into a Saproling token, and one that sacrifices Saprolings for an effect. You should expect to see a lot of Thallids.

(Selesnya gets three preview cards because they're my favorite.)

Sprout Swarm was one of the most feared cards in Time Spiral - Planar Chaos - Future Sight drafting. Buyback + convoke is apparently very good. Thelonite Hermit gives the plucky Saprolings a lord of their own.

(Note: each other guild has a two-color legendary creature associated with it. I couldn't find one I liked for Selesnya. I tried to be careful with broken cycles, but this one won't get fixed 'til RtR comes out.)

The Orzhov Syndicate

The Orzhov Syndicate is organized crime posing as organized religion. It's Ravnica keyword, Haunt, is considered in retrospect to have been overly confusing, although I wonder if the "exile" terminology would have helped it out. (The reminder text is different on spells and creatures, but basically haunt cards exile themselves when they hit the graveyard from the battlefield and attach themselves from exile to a creature. When that creatures dies, you either get the creature's enters the battlefield ability or the spell's effect again.)

I made sure that every guild's keyword shows up at least once, but Haunt is definitely not the Orzhov's focus in Cube. To see what is, check out their legend:

Hmmmm... 1/1 white Spirit creature tokens with flying...

Not sure that we've seen enough of those around lately to build a guild around. No sirree.

And a random look at Red

Speaking of tokens with flying...