While watching a recent broadcast of GP London on Twitch TV (zoom to minute 53:15), I saw a "time filler" event the announcers had during the breaks during a sealed/draft deck, that stuck with me.
The idea is that you simulate a limited environment by putting restrictions on your deck based on rarity. Now, some formats like Pauper try to do this on a grand scale by saying "only commons", but Pauper does not feel at all like limited, because commonality through the history of MTG does not exactly lead to "balanced power level".
What this format does is place limitations on your deck, as follows:
Max 2 of each Common
Max 1 of each Uncommon.
1 total Rare.
0 Mythic Rares.
40 card decks.
There's no real reason to limit the user to only two colors, though that was the "theme" of the recorded exercise. With potential access to Guildgates, Prophetic Prisms, Verdant Havens, and Greenside Watchers, you could try for a omni-color deck and be okay on mana. The problem with such a deck would likely be power level of individual cards. In a draft or sealed environment, you would play all the colors so you could snap up all the rares/mythics that get passed to you by people not in those colors, but in this format, you are limited to one total rare. You could use the multi-color strategy to basically splash all the uncommons you want.... How good that will be depends on how slow you have to be to take advantage of it, and how fast the aggro decks are, with basically ideal curves. In any event, I see no reason to disallow it.
Additionally, the decks were built off just Gatecrash cards. That's a strong limitation, but to complete the "cycle" of guilds, you could bring in Return to Ravnica, and do the same thing with either the sets treated independently, or mixing the sets together to allow more of a full block feel. For the moment, I'd advise keeping the blocks separate, because it places more limitations on your choices, and leaves each guild with the cards specifically designed for their "feel". (It also somewhat limits the "all removal" deck). There are arguments both ways here, so I wouldn't draw a hard and fast line as to whether I'd mix the sets or not.
Why is this better than block?
Low entry cost. No need to get a bunch of cards, can probably done with (at most) one proxy per deck, and 1-2 boxes worth of cards opened (the leftovers from a sealed or draft).
Switching decks is easy. You don't need to get 30 rares, dual lands, etc, and then have to restart the process when you decide you'd rather play something else.
Good decks, but not "perfect" ones.
Deck building isn't overemphasized. You don't have an infinite number of decisions to "get started", but you can still go a lot of different directions with your deck. Does emphasize some non-traditional skills (more based on limited) in that your deck needs to be built around solid uncommons and commons.
Can you give me some gatherer links to start thinking?
Rares - The "Ace" of your deck.
The only card I saw while glancing through this list that set off alarm bells is Pack Rat, but the common defenses against Pack Rat (have an aggressive deck, have early removal) should be considered during deck construction. There are a few sweepers in Mizzium Mortars, Merciless Eviction, Supreme Verdict, Cyclonic Rift, and so on.
Uncommons - The "power cards" of your deck.
What would concern me if you could choose RTR and GC would be having too much of this in your deck.
Commons - The backbone of your deck.
Removal, fixing, and filler creatures are staples to be found here, along with some good examples of your guild mechanic.
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