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Mechanics: Adventure, adamant, food
Next set: Theros: Beyond Death
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Previously, we witnessed the defeat of the planeswalker dragon Nicol Bolas on the plane of Ravnica. Now, we move away from all that to visit the knights and fairy tale world of Eldraine. A planeswalker trickster by the name of Oko used his shapeshifting powers to murder High King Kenrith and incite a war between humans and elves. His children, Will and Rowan, must find a way to stop this, but standing between them and Oko is the fierce planeswalker Garruk.
Note that this set brings about a Standard rotation. In the Standard format, the following sets will be legal.
- Guilds of Ravnica
- Ravnica Allegiance
- War of the Spark
- Core Set 2020
- Throne of Eldraine
GETTING STARTED
Official guide to starting Magic
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series, where Day[9] battles various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
For the digital card game, you can play Magic Arena potentially for free. It has its own thread.
For the physical card game, there are many ways to get on board. If you go to a local game store (LGS), the owner will give you a simple Welcome Deck for free, after demonstrating how to play the game. The Spellslinger Starter Kit (Core Set 2020 edition) has two simple decks that you do not shuffle so you and a friend can get a guided tour through how a game of Magic can work. Planeswalker Decks are pre-constructed decks with four brand new cards, including unique planeswalker cards and one additional booster pack. While not particularly strong, they will allow you to actually play casual games. Challenger Decks (2019 edition) will allow you to compete in Standard tournaments using real decks for, before release, much cheaper than buying the cards individually. Note that the latest decks will have cards that have rotated out of Standard by Throne of Eldraine's release.
If you want to build your own deck, a Deck Builder's Toolkit (Core Set 2020 edition) will give you a decent starting collection of cards, including 125 fixed cards, 100 basic lands, four booster packs, and perhaps most importantly, a good box for your cards. Game stores will hold Magic Open House events specifically meant for new players, with people there to give you Welcome Decks and play teaching games. Experienced players are also encouraged to participate and help beginners, and everyone will get a promotional card for attending.
The big thing to look forward to, however, is the Prerelease event held for every set. You play using the Sealed format, where every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on September 27–29, 2019. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register for the Prerelease, or they might just run out of room. Magic Open House events will be on October 12–13, 2019, scheduled after the release this time. Find local game stores here.
BOOSTER CHANGES
First of all, booster packs will now consistently have three types of variant cards.
Borderless planeswalker cards will sometimes replace the normal planeswalker in booster packs. These have different art than the normal planeswalker cards.
Extended art frames will be applied to rare and mythic rare non-planeswalker cards that don't already have variants. The art is the same as the normal versions of these cards, but zoomed and cropped. These versions of cards won't be in normal booster packs.
Showcase frames will be applied to a subset of cards across all rarities in each set, with alternate art in addition to the special frame. In the case of Throne of Eldraine, every card with Adventure will have these variants in addition to the normal versions. More on Adventures later.
Second, there are now three different kinds of booster packs
Draft booster packs are the booster packs you know and I suppose love. Aside from the additional variants above, there are no changes. These are about $4-5.
Theme booster packs have been around since Guilds of Ravnica. You get 35 cards just of the color indicated, or whatever theme the set goes with. 34 of the cards are a mix of commons and uncommons, more of the former but there's no set ratio, and 1 rare or mythic rare, with 1/10 packs having an additional rare or mythic rare. These are about $7.
And the big new addition is collector booster packs. The contents are
- 1 rare/mythic rare with extended art - This is the only place to get extended art cards
- 1 foil rare/mythic rare - This can be a foil variant card too
- 9 foil commons/uncommons - This includes variants
- 3 special frame cards (showcase or borderless planeswalkers) - For Throne of Eldraine only, this is the only place to find non-foil versions of the common showcase cards
- 1 ancillary card - This slot is for cards that don't appear in draft booster packs, from Planeswalker Decks and the Buy-a-Box Promo and such.
- 1 foil token
Number of Cards: 269 (+ cards from beginner products, Brawl decks, and 1 Buy a Box promo)
Arena Release: September 26, 2019
Prerelease Weekend: September 27–29, 2019
Release Date: October 4, 2019
Draft Weekend: October 5–6, 2019
Magic Open House: October 12–13, 2019
Card image gallery
Variant image gallery
Mechanics: Adventure, adamant, food
So much to do, so much to see / So what's wrong with taking the back streets?
On Eldraine, adventure can call at any time. Several creatures have adventure instants or sorceries on their cards, which you can use to cast that card as an instant or sorcery. If this isn't countered, the creature goes off on an adventure in the exile zone. (If it is countered, it goes to the graveyard as usual.) When you decide their adventure is over, you can cast them from exile as a creature at any time you can cast a creature. You can also choose to just get on with it and cast them as creatures from your hand.
These cards are creature cards everywhere, except when you cast them as adventures. Thus, effects that have you cast a target instant or sorcery from your graveyard won't work here. If cast as an adventure, they can be countered by Negate. The adventure spell has to resolve for the creature to be able to be cast from exile.
Booster packs will provide overlay cards to mark creatures as being on an adventure, if needed.
The real adventure is the friends we made along the way
Eldraine has five courts making up the realm, each devoted to a different virtue (loyalty, knowledge, persistence, courage, and strength). You can show your own devotion through... well, not devotion, but by being adamant and casting a spell with at least three of the spell's color. This will make the spell stronger and sometimes add an extra effect. Like devotion before it, this mechanic encourages you to focus on just one color in your deck.
Lembas bread. And look! More lembas bread.
Food is a new artifact type, and several cards create Food tokens. All Food can be sacrificed for (2) to gain 3 life, and several cards will do other things with Food, like the goose above.
SCHEDULE
Premier events schedule
Throne of Eldraine
Arena Release: September 26, 2019
Prerelease Weekend: September 27–29, 2019
Release Date: October 4, 2019
Draft Weekend: October 5–6, 2019
Magic Open House: October 12–13, 2019
Winter set: Theros: Beyond Death
Spring set: Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths
Summer set: Core Set 2021
Next fall set: Zendikar Rising
OTHER THREADS
Core Set 2020
War of the Spark
Ravnica Allegiance
Guilds of Ravnica
Core Set 2019
Dominaria
Arena on Gaming side
Arena Closed Beta on Gaming side
Rivals of Ixalan
Great Designer Search 3
Hangouts OT
Last GAF thread - Ixalan
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo); Magic Story, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Play Design, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building.
Card image gallery - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Reddit - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has autocomplete.
Scryfall - The better search method, with bigger cards, but it doesn't have autocomplete.
Game store locator
All that glitters is gold
Only shooting stars break the mold
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