The July environment for the 'Raven 2' Ancient Citadel was, to put it mildly, a bit of a mess. With transfer tickets on sale at the start of the month and class change tickets arriving on the 16th, it was the perfect excuse for guilds to shuffle the deck. And shuffle they did—many servers look entirely different compared to the 24th iteration, with varying levels of guild attrition, reshuffling, and migration. Let’s dive into the new matchups.

25th Ancient Citadel: Matchup Analysis

Vita and Mare: A proper rivalry

Back in June, Mare World was absolute dynamite in the Ancient Citadel, effortlessly dominating the top-tier battlefields thanks to a high concentration of powerhouses. That momentum hit a brick wall in early July when they were matched with Vita. Throw in the server transfer chaos that sent Mare’s top rankers scattering, and the wind was well and truly taken out of their sails. Consequently, Vita guilds swept everything outside of the Group 2 Primal Battlefield.

The matchups are a blend of seasoned veterans and fresh faces from the 24th round. Since bidding is as fluid as a summer breeze, gathering as much intel as possible is your best bet. Interestingly, I’ve spotted some suspiciously similar names on the Fides server: 'Royaldanaekkeo' from Terra and 'Danaekkeo' from Mare. It smells like a collaboration—cross-world alliances aren't exactly rare in the Raven 2 Ancient Citadel, so keeping an eye on these two might be wise.

Familiar faces dominate Groups 3 and 4

Groups 3 and 4 bring us face-to-face with Kerum and Sola. Both worlds are dominated by guilds that were once household names. Kerum boasts 'AnimalCrossingVisit - Kings - Addiction1', while Sola fields 'MythRed - VeteranClub'. It seems the post-transfer dust has settled, and these guilds have found their new homes, given that their old sub-guilds have tagged along.

Don't expect the old guard to have the stage to themselves, though. Plenty of upstart guilds and coalitions managed to secure bids in the 24th round. The clash between Raven 2 veterans and these new challengers should be quite the spectacle. For context, these two worlds were incredibly active last time, filling 46 out of 48 available slots. Expect the Ancient Citadel to be deafeningly loud.

Diverging fortunes for Lux and Nox

Lux, Nox, and Terra are split across groups 5, 6, and 7. Lux feels much like the others we’ve examined, featuring a mix of long-standing veterans and rising stars like Fides’ 'NoBack', Morus’ 'Romance', and Metus’ 'Valentine'.

Speaking of NoBack and Romance, there’s a quirk here: guilds with nearly identical names like 'NoBack2', 'NoBack3', and 'RomanceZ' are active on the same servers. Are they alliances? Not necessarily. The emblems differ, and they aren't officially linked. It’s hard to say what the strategy is here, but keep your guard up—they might just forge an alliance before the bidding starts.

Nox, on the other hand, is surprisingly thin on major powerhouses. Many top-contribution spots are occupied by guilds with very few members. Using the previous Ancient Citadel matchup data to gauge the actual roster strength here would be a sensible move.

Terra World: All eyes on the coalitions

Competition in Terra looks to be entirely coalition-driven. Three major groups caught my eye: 'SuspiciousCoalition', 'TerraCoalition', and 'QuietPeople'. TerraCoalition even has what looks like a sub-guild, 'TerraCoalition1'. More tellingly, all three share the same guild emblem, suggesting they belong to a much larger entity invisible to the standard system. If that’s the case, we might be looking at a classic 'Mega-Coalition vs. The World' scenario. Now that is something to look forward to!

Buckle up! The matchups to watch

I’m particularly excited about the 25th Ancient Citadel in groups 3 and 4, as they’ve become a staging ground for participants from the recent Raven 2 Guild Championship. Kings, Addiction1, and AnimalCrossingVisit are in Kerum, while Kings is also present in Sola. 'VeteranCLUB' is a bit ambiguous, but a similarly named 'VeteranClub' was spotted in Sola; it’s safe to assume they are one and the same.

These guilds are your prime candidates for the crown. In the 24th round, AnimalCrossingVisit and VeteranClub claimed victory on the Primal Battlefield, while Kings took the Life Battlefield. With the heavy hitters circling each other, expect some complex maneuvering to avoid early head-to-head clashes.

Ancient Citadel Content Analysis

At its heart, the Raven 2 Ancient Citadel is a guild-centric affair. You need a guild level of 15 or higher just to walk through the door, and that requires a collective effort from every member. The same goes for bidding and the battles themselves. With enough strategy and grit, even a smaller guild can topple the giants and snatch the flag. It reminds me of a comment from a player during the Guild Championship: 'Is the Ancient Citadel really the right stage to crown the best guild?' It touches on the fact that even underdogs can pull off a miracle here.

Of course, you still need the stats to survive the meat grinder. In that vein, the developers shared some news in their 46th dev commentary: on July 30th, they’re overhauling the guild skill acquisition system. After the update, donating 'Glory Coins' will grant you a new currency, 'Proof of Unity', which can be used at the guild shop to buy growth items. My advice? Save your Glory Coins until the end of July.

Raven 2 Guild Contribution Analysis

Finally, a look at the guild contribution rankings. The chart hasn't moved much since last week; the dust from the server transfers has clearly settled. Since class change tickets don't significantly shift guild power dynamics, we expect this structure to hold for a while.

There were some minor shifts, though. Romance and BOSS1 climbed one spot, while Valentine jumped two. On the flip side, Joker and NoBack2 took a tumble. With many guilds remaining static, it looks like these rankings are beginning to set in stone.