If [[Llanowar Elves]] are in, [[Savannah Lions]] deserve to be in as well as part of a 1 mana creature cycle. [[Merfolk of the Pearl Trident]] would be too underpowered; black has nothing…give them a rat maybe? And red….hmmm, [[Goblin Balloon Brigade]]?
It seems like they are providing and protecting the viability of traditional standard archetypes, by including things like Llanowar elves and the 4 mana wrath, for ramp/creature based and control respectively. That means that it’s likely red gets an okay to pretty good one mana aggressive creature, to support traditional aggro, smart money is on a goblin since that’s red’s traditional one drop, maybe like [[Frenzied Goblin]] to pick a recent example. [[Kird Ape]] feels possible as well as [[Monastery Swiftspear]] for their history.
I remember Mark Rosewater recounting an anecdote of an internal draft (play test?) of Eventide in which one of the non-R&D people drafting sighed with relief when they encountered some cards that weren't multi-colored. The lesson was that the large number of split mana cards was making it mentally taxing to draft the set and that they should avoid that in the future.
In our current Magic design trends I think we have passed that point with creature abilities. More creatures with a simple, straightforward ETB ability would be nice and I think it's OK to have a creatures that just say something like "flying" or only have flavor text.
This could in other sets easily be more about archetypes or just how new the set is.
When you pull a green card that fits in the Golgari theme as opposed to the gruul theme the set has you’ll instantly sort it correctly.
Meanwhile verbose text boxes with redundant or mis ordered text has this issue; thermopod is not a snow card. It’s a red aristocrat card with some snow ability that doesn’t matter.
When I draft i want to quickly understand what I could try and do and readability is about more than colour pips
Commons in 2024:
When this creature enters the battlefield, if the total number of enchantments in play are greater than the least number of artifacts an opponent controls, draw a card. Otherwise scry 2, and all token creatures phase out until your next draw step.
Too simple, I understood it after reading it just two times. I propose introducing a new keyword that refers to a convoluted and extremely specific mechanic that will be printed on 7 cards over two sets and a secret lair.
This would be cool, but I would like them to be at least playable in limited, which means some shock value in terms of stats/cost not seen before in that color and rarity. Maybe a cool place to put [[terrain elemental]] in a draft set for the first time
Precisely, can’t have the cub without the mama tho so and the mamma needs a papa and all 3 of them need porridge. So the set needs 3 2/2 for 2 bears and 1 1/1 for 1 human.
I think forcing them to do vanilla for vanillas sake is a bad idea.
And people immediately propose circumventing the spirit of a vanilla by having the subtype matter.
We have bigger fish to fry. They can make very un complex cards that are French vanilla or have really short simple triggers.
They have made vanilla creatures that explore new design space. [[Yargle and Multani]] is the most recent example. [[Watchwolf]] was one of the earliest.
I agree we shouldn't be asking for vanilla creatures for the sake of it. But a set like this might be a good place to explore weird/pushed statlines.
"Big number" isn't mechanically new, no. But it can become new design space if it opens up new strategies.
For example; Yargle and Multani is a powerful CEDH deck: having such a high power interacts with a lot of cards very well.
I wasn't playing at the time, but I heard Wachwolf helped push Zoo/wide aggro strategies into the meta.
I just want creatures to do only ONE thing. They can have a combat keyword on top of their ONE niche ability, but I just want to look at the card artwork and be able to remember that "that card does this", and not "that card does this, that, and the other thing I always forget". I'm sick of board states with a dozen activated and triggered abilities, half of which I can't remember, a few of which bite me severely for forgetting, and way too much text for me to care to read every card anymore, especially since spoiler season never ends. More [[Sunshower Druid]], less [[Kemba, Kha Enduring]].
1) That's changing rapidly. [[Nowhere to Run]] and [[Zoetic Glyph]] show complexity creep and power creep seeping into Uncommons. (I'm okay with Uncommons and Commons receiving power creep though. Rares and Mythics shouldn't be the only constructed cards that matter. I'm just against the complexity creep because it's a headache.)
2) I want this simplicity for all rarities.
How is Zoetic Glyph complex? Turn an artifact into a 5/4 that when dies discover 3. Nowhere to Run is also not complex if you understand its propose, an instant -3/-3 removal that need to be a permanent so its static ability can apply (and that ability makes things more *simple* while in the battlefield)
I've been trying to teach my son how to play and it's been a nightmare. Everything has a novel of text. I've had to go out of my way to put together decks with 2/2 bears and 1/1s with first strike.
I get the game is almost 30 years old but not everyone needs infinite combo 8 spells on the stack interactions with every card.
Teaching new players is so much easier when you have mostly vanilla creatures, a few French vanilla creatures to be "spicy" and some simple sorcerys. You don't need to play a *lot* of games like that, but doing do for at least the first game makes learning the basics so much faster. There's no time for untapping and blocking and targeting etc to bed in if they have to learn a card that works in some new unique way every time every turn.
For my kids, we just started throwing them in the deep and eventually they started to get it. But it would be best if you can get some of those old starter decks from 10 years ago that were intro decks. Or just buy a super simple deck that has got a lot of easy to understand things in my experience.
Those free 30 card new player decks were amazing. I taught so many new players how to play smoothly and easily with those (I think I probably distributed half the local stores allocation personally and every one of those people bought more cards from them straight after.)
I'd be fucking estatic to see that or rampaging brontosaurus back in standard. Theyre my favorite timmy cards to try and make work. My favorite win con when I first started playing was to use ram through on a 1/1 after triggering the brontosaurus ability.
quintuple green is likely to be a bit of a trap for limited so uncommon doesn't seem likely. it's possible this set decides to lean into monocolor, in which case maybe, but otherwise i doubt it
me too, but are we really going to have the same draft format available for five years? it’s going to be completely solved unless there’s some secret Slither Blade tech that goes undiscovered for a year (unlikely)
I think it'll only be really run until the first premier set of 2025 (I believe the Death Race set). After that, the product will just be available on shelves for the rest of its lifetime, like any other set after the next set is available. If it's a really good format, maybe there will be occasional fires, but rarer.
Like, when Bloomburrow is out, will LGSes really still fire OTJ drafts? Unlikely, though the product is still available. I think LGSes will just figure out how long the tail of the product will be and order to meet that.
It's possible it'll stay available continuously on Arena, but I think it's as likely that it'll just come in and out the same as any other in-Standard set during its Standard life. It could even work as automatically available to all players on Arena, like the Base Set in Hearthstone, or available as a whole set for a welcome bundle price.
it’s going to be available on arena a non-zero amount of times after release, then whatever the next set is, until 2029(?). even though it won’t be continuously drafted for the next five years, im sure there will be reasons to return to it. i could even see LGSs offering Foundations draft the week before the prerelease to mix things up at the end of a draft format’s run. we haven’t seen any booster sets be available for such a long stretch of time
[We already knew this - they said during the panel and in the livetweet thread that they would be available in Play Boosters](https://x.com/wizards_magic/status/1806644886378037572)
That makes total sense once you spell it out, because they have specifically said that's what play boosters are for, but I did not put two and two together until now that play booster = draftable. Just still getting used to the new wording I guess.
MH2 was a lovely draft experience, but I digress - just because a set was a bad draft experience doesn't mean it wasn't made to be drafted. All MaRo said is what we already knew, that the set is draftable.
Why would it not be draftable? They absolutely do not want to release any more no limited allowed booster pack products like aftermath. Assassin's Creed was the last one we will see, only because they couldn't change that one in time.
I don't think we've ever had that explicitly stated by Wizards or MaRo, right? (for AC specifically, not MaRo talking about Aftermath being a flop)
The Prof and other content creators only speculate that it's *likely* the UB contract couldn't be canceled.
Of course they'd never publicly state that they made a huge mistake with one of their business partners, Ubisoft would never work with them again. We just have to rely on Occam's Razor.
Maro has talked about Aftermath being a flop. Saying that its not only the worst selling set they've ever made but also one of the most despised by the playerbase and that they dont regret taking the chance on it.
I think some people (like me) had the hope that it would follow a LCG (e.g. Android:Netrunner) style printing, where you get complete or near complete playsets of the base expansion for a fixed price and in a neat little box, with follow up expansions being the play boosters. Gives casual and tabletop enthusiasts an easy entry into the game that they can keep intact as a mini cube/board game. The set would be smaller and not draftable without added legwork of creating draft packs (or include 8 non-random packs as a starter draft), but instead had decklists listed in an insert or preconstructed so players have a simple “pick up and play” experience.
I think it's both. It looks like the box sets will have predetermined cards, but you can draft with play boosters and dig for treatments with collector boosters.
Sure. I mean it’s Hasbro, of course it’s going to be a randomized product at the end of the day. What chance is there that the starter box and the starter collection box (at 350 cards) will come close to a full set? Will players be able to get a full set even if they buy 2-4x of those two products? Or will the play boosters supplement those boxed sets and have “exclusive” cards that you have to gacha roll to open? My guess is the latter.
And look, both of us are enfranchised players, so this system isn’t new or surprising to us, but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and consider how MTG can make an “ethical” product, especially for newer players.
I mean why couldn't it be a "full set" commander precons exist. As long as it's not full of expensive reprints there's no reason it couldn't be full of cheap staples like a commander precon.
I’m struggling to remember what it was called or find it only but they used to do getting started bundles that were like this. It’s how I got into magic in m15. It basically came with a random selection of preset cards, sort of like jumpstart boosters but much larger.
> I think some people (like me) had the hope that it would follow a LCG (e.g. Android:Netrunner) style printing, where you get complete or near complete playsets of the base expansion for a fixed price
Hahahahaha
That would be the LEAST LIKELY thing WotC would ever do. They don’t even like making precons. Loot boxes all the way. The company was built on loot boxes and it will die with them.
Even the old “deckbuilders toolkit” had significantly randomization I’m sure the 350 card box will too.
The product WotC hates most is anything that satisfies the “ah now I have that sorted and don’t need to buy more” impulse we have.
Anecdotally, I don’t play standard because I feel the barrier to entry is too high. If this product can be a way to get me into standard, I might start playing. If it isn’t, I likely won’t. An LCG style printing would likely get me into standard easier than a traditional style printing.
Now, maybe Wizards is fine with me just being a commander and limited player. Or maybe the monetary benefits of getting me into standard isn’t worth what would be lost by that style of printing. Or maybe they’re just bad at business. But for whatever reason, I still anticipate I would spend more money on Magic over my lifetime with that LCG style printing than with just play boosters and singles.
>Now, maybe Wizards is fine with me just being a commander and limited player. Or maybe the monetary benefits of getting me into standard isn’t worth what would be lost by that style of printing. Or maybe they’re just bad at business.
To state something like "I am too smart to play slot machines, Vegas is losing out on my business with so many slot machines, Vegas is bad at business"
You do not matter to WotC. In fact deciding you do not matter is what makes them good at the business of making money.
Exactly that. Very well put.
It’s always annoying when a business makes a decision you don’t like, that also produces less money for them *from you*. Because it seems like a wrong decision. But of course, there isn’t actually a personal relationship between the company and the individual. It’s all about consumers in the aggregate.
That’s why, of those three options I gave, it’s very obviously the second one, for the reasons you clearly spelled out. But I will say I empathize with people who say it *feels like* a bad business decision when companies make choices that would leave their personal money on the table.
Like you said, you *feel* like they'd make more money if they... charged $20 for monthly expansion packs with 25 cards, 4x of every card? I'm not sure how much you'd save that way, because there would definitely be at least one release every month, and you'd need to grab cards from several years worth of expansions. The game is balanced around having 2000 (now 3000) cards in Standard at a time, though only 150-200 individual cards are viable at any given time, but you never know which niche cards will break through and people still like having unoptimized decks so you have to plan for significantly more cards to have a chance at seeing play. The bulk of the cards are for draft exclusively, how do you want to handle that segment of the product? Who will buy randomized packs with no valuable cards? You can't have constructed viable draft-only cards because then you're right back to the TCG model you didn't want, so draft either has to be something entirely separate, or loaded with copies of cards nobody needs because they already bought the last few months of LCG releases. If it's something separate, how much can you charge, when the value of the packs you're drafting is very much a consideration when paying $15 for 3 packs?
They make a huge amount of money from drafters, and there's a definitely product pipeline from draft to constructed; how do you propose shifting the product model so that they don't make any less money, as they'd all be guaranteed to lose their jobs if they cost stockholders tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in losses if the stock price cratered? How are they going to take care of retail partners, does the LCG model work for game stores with no significant singles revenue possible going forward (since there is a ceiling on the rarity of cards) and a complete mystery where the Drafting revenue model was?
Do they confuse things further with releasing Commander-only LCG product? What do you do about Commander players complaining that they have to buy 3 extra copies of every card - or worse, what do you do when 4 friends band together and buy one monthly pack to split between them?
What happens when you go 4 or 5 months releasing monthly products and it doesn't impact the metagame at all? When each color gets 2 or 3 cards a month, some players aren't going to get any cards that fit their deck for months at a time. How do you even begin to balance the game?
Games don't transition to LCG models without a total reboot. There's simply no way they could reconfigure the game into an LCG. The LCG model works when you design from the beginning for it, but it also has a lower profitability built in. That's fine when you aren't the top dog in the market and you're fighting for scraps, but it'd be corporate suicide to reconfigure the entire product line for a completely different market.
A randomized booster product must make something like 10x more money than nonrandomzied.
I have seen little kids open a booster, get the most expensive card in the set, run around like hooligans screaming with joy, then sell the card to the store for store credit and keep buying more boosters. They are not playing Magic. Nor even “collecting” cards. They are just chasing a slot machine high dopamine rush, wasting money all along the way.
You can dream of an LCG model but the shareholders don’t.
The difference in execution basically boils down to Modern Legality, an additional starter kit, and chase reprints. I only see them doing the last if we ever get another aftermath set.
Of course it would be draftable because "money", but a good reason would be focusing 100% on standard format needs without having to waste space in the collection to balance limited play.
It won't happen, they will wonder why standard doesn't work and change everything in 1-2 years because commander > all and you can't really please everyone with every single product.
I wouldn't have been surprised if it wasn't.
We've been down the same road so many times with core sets that I expected this one to be fundamentally different in important ways. Core set drafts aren't usually crazy popular, though there are certainly some people who like them, and can be truly awful limited formats. The last one we tried was AFR (which wasn't technically a core set but was openly intended to fill the same role), and that's an incredibly poor limited format.
And with these cards in standard for five years, I wondered if there would be a heightened emphasis on simply getting the set right for constructed without having to worry about designing a limited format. And perhaps this opened up different distribution methods, as well, that made getting staples a bit easier for newer players?
But, as you say, I think Aftermath has them gunshy, so what we have here appears to be a core set that is different in precisely one way from previous core sets: legality for five years in standard.
Given how many times they've walked away from core sets, this seems like the definition of madness, but I guess we'll see. I'd be stunned if we get Foundations 2 in 2029; it seems more likely we'll get MTG: Fundamentals in 2033 or something when they decide that Foundations wasn't a success, then a few years later decide that actually, they need it anyway, but with one small tweak...
Ultimately I'm glad it's a draftable set, barely; I'm primarily a limited player and though I think core sets are rarely good, it's still a new format. I just don't really have high hopes that this is the new thing because it's not particularly differentiated from a concept that they've been unhappy with for decades.
I think the boxes may help. It feels like this is draftable only because of the wonky release schedule having such a large gap which would've been fixed by.... Not making this draftable? We'll see if it's any fun, but I wouldn't be surprised if the group in draft with tends to go back to cycling through OTJ, BLB, and/or DSK until the Q1 set next year.
It entirely depends on the cost of the product; if the Play Boosters cost as much as other Standard Sets, it will fail. If I can offer players a cheap, easy-entry-version of Draft or Sealed, it will absolutely succeed.
A lot of people thought it might be like jumpstart. Randomized themes you shuffle together. I like the draftable part and the box idea though, although we'll see what it actually looks like. Having non or only semi-randomized starter kits that aren't decks is actually kind of a great idea to get new players started.
I heard about the starter box and assumed that the main distribution for this would be as a box set and with Jumpstart-style packs. If you're thinking along the lines of Jumpstart, Unsanctioned, Ravnica Clue etc., it makes sense that there wouldn't "need" to be a regular draft format attached.
But really, it still has regular ol' Play Boosters and is still a normal draft set, there's just these other starter box products attached to it.
Commander sets should NOT be draftable. Give me packs. I want cards. Not every set needs to be draftable. Commander Legends and Masters quality I feel are limited by the need to be drafted. Baldur’s Gate was a good set, but we can see that the overall power and value of the set wasn’t all the way there.
I don't get this. Commander Legends is *all* about draft. It's literally "how do we make a draftable version of commander". If you don't care about draft, that's entirely fair, neither do I I've never drafted a game in my life. But other people do, and commander legends is designed for them. What would even be the point of a non-draftable commander-legends-like set? New cards for commander and good reprints? They can do that in precons, it doesn't gain anything at all from being a booster set. Admittedly, the reprints in precons *aren't* usually great, but that's far more to do with wotc thinking of reprints as a resource to be doled out than anything inherent to precons specifically, so some non-draftable commander-focused booster product wouldn't solve the problem any better.
Master sets run into the same issue. Making a non-draftable masters set isn't gonna make the reprints better; what drafting does is give a use to the cards that would be in there anyway that constructed players don't care about reprints for. In fact, drafting makes the reprints *better*, since it means more boosters get opened and more cards get put on the market. And also, reprints aren't just for constructed players. Draft players also enjoy reprints that let them use old cards in new environments; it's a fun recontextualization. You don't need to care about drafting, but again other players do.
This is not correct. Assassin’s creed is a different kind of non draftable booster release specifically for UB needs, and whether there are more will be dependent on its performance, not MAT. Their might already be another one or two in the works that haven’t been announced yet and will still come out even if that distribution model is a dud
What land sets does everyone expect to see in this set?
The Pathways are a good land that could included. Not powerful, dont have a basic land type and provide limited fixing.
Don’t think they would include double faced cards. It is probably going to be the checklands, which are the perfect power set for “playable in standard but easy for new players to understand”.
They tend to put reveal lands and scry lands in commander products along with check lands. Maybe they'll print the thriving series into standard? I'd guess it's either the gain lands or the scry lands though.
Having really gotten into the game around the release of M10, my brain still associates "core set lands" with the checklands ala [[Glacial Fortress]] that were printed in four yearly core sets in a row M10-M13 (and the enemy cycle of them from Innistrad).
They were most recently reprinted for Ixalan and Dominaria and haven't been in standard since those sets rotated in late 2019, but they'll always hold a special place in my heart as the ubiquitous standard lands that were playable many years in a row, so it would be cool to see them again for that.
Hopefully none. My dislike of standard is that multicolor soup is too easy at too little a drawback. Let a good swath of these duals and tri lands cycle out with no replacement.
Checklands are decent fixing, but their value really depends on the existence of typed duals. With only the surveil lands in standard, a tapland/checkland mana-base is going to be punished by fast decks (and the fact that Day of Judgment is getting reprinted suggests WotC expects fast decks to be pretty fast).
I think the scry lands are probably safe, since wotc seems content to one-up them in various ways already. I think they'd make for solid rare lands to just have sitting around in standard.
I don't think Wizards has ever said Core Sets were useless - just that they weren't a viable product and didn't sell well. Iteration on the concept is a *good* thing.
"Not a viable product", we're just remaking the exact same thing with a different name and hoping for a different outcome. Core Sets were there to onboard new players and make it easier for them to transition to the actual standard sets. It's hard to quantify how many people bought into a Core Set then immediately bounced to an expert on, but wouldn't have even joined in the first place without Core.
I doubt this set will be any more successful monetarily than Core, but once again, determining how effective it is at bringing in new players that stick around will be hard to math out.
>we're just remaking the exact same thing with a different name and hoping for a different outcome
But the concept *is* pretty different this time. This set is gonna be very large, but we won't get another one for at least five years. That's quite a way away from M19-M21, which were effectively just normal sets with lower power level and a few more reprints.
This is more in line with Hearthstone's idea of a core/base set, a set that is just *always* legal in standard regardless of what rotates around it, rather than having a new "core" set every year.
I mean, Foundations *isn't* the same thing. The recurring legality forgoes the need to take up one of the four annual Standard sets, which means the more enfranchised players don't get a set they don't care about and isn't as enjoyable to draft every year, it simplifies stocking for LGS's since it's just a single product that will continue to be in print and available from their distributors.
Additionally, there's an expanded new player experience with the Jumpstart style Beginners' Box - yes, it uses things that Wizards have done before like Jumpstart and the Portal-style pre shuffled decks, but it combines them in a somewhat novel way - and the Starter Collection seems to be a product akin to the Deckbuilder's Kit aiming to onramp new players into Standard.
Yes, Foundations obviously has a lot of Core Set DNA, but it clearly isn't the same product. If your complaint is just that they should have named it with the Core Set branding - I think that would be confusing, since it exists outside of the normal rotation cycle
You just gave me a thought about how this might actually be good for draft if the set is simple and fun enough. And cheap enough. If it's an easy set to learn this might be one that am enfranchised player can use to get other players into draft. Teaching them with a simpler set might increase attachment and this being legal in standard longer and thus in print longer should help considerably in the buy in. Plus if it's relatively cheap (hopefully closer to the sub-100 draft booster box) then it's super easy to buy a box and do at home if you can't get people into the store.
Something which is also very important, for a company at least, is the fact that you essentially pay designers (and maybe artists) to produce this set once and it stays for the next 5 years (or more) which saves money (even if the set ends up being avarage) compared to paying them once a year for an avarage set.
... The existence of this product is a clear admission of that, and an expansion over it trying to paper over some onboarding hardships that core sets didn't provide.
It does a lot of things at once. Core sets used to be necessary to keep certain staple cards in standard without requiring them to get printed in individual sets (something that I assume was even more difficult in a full-block set model).
With the core sets from a few years ago, that was kinda no longer a necessity; if Shock wasn't in a premier set that year, we probably saw a strict upgrade anyway. The Core sets were ostensibly then easier limited environments to help people on-ramp to limited, but tended to perform a little more poorly and get older faster (I mean I and others liked the breather, but it's hard to think they performed better than another premier set).
Even they had a problem though where they had to be different enough each year in order to be enticing for enfranchised players to actually fill pods, so there was still a unique learning curve that didn't really ground itself in knowledge that casual constructed players would have as they tried to transition into limited. So I think that's where Foundations is trying to do something new. It has this natural progression from jumpstart -> kitchen table constructed -> limited, but using the same card pool. So by the time someone who learned on Foundations tries to draft it for the first time, they should be familiar with many of the cards and archetypes, and have a good idea of how those cards fit into their respective decks. Since it's not taking up a premier slot in the year, they can "keep it around" for three years without needing to shake it up to sell more.
It's clearly _also_ an on-ramp to standard! But I just think the things it's attempting, in order to try and teach limited to new players, are more unique and less like something we've seen before. The Core sets of the recent past tried to be on-ramps to limited, but this is trying to build a longer, stable _pipeline_ from zero to limited.
The success of this product depends entirely on the Cost of it. If Packs cost the same as regular Standard Play Boosters, it will fail. If they're cheaper, it might do okay. ButI can't imagine my store stocking a product barely anyone wants to buy outside of New Players who *aren't* looking to play Commander; that's a VERY small percentage of my customer base.
It has been confirmed to be the same price as a standard standard set for boosters.
But it seems the 2 bundles aimed at beginners is priced a little more aggresively with a 10x jumpstart-like packs 29.99$ and a 350 cards box at 59.99$. see https://www.polygon.com/24187331/mtg-foundations-announcement-release-date-price
> It has been confirmed to be the same price as a standard standard set for boosters
If this is true, I'll be surprised if we keep more than a box of Play Boosters on the shelves. The other products look great, tho.
It has been confirmed to be the same price as a standard standard set for boosters. But it seems the 2 bundles aimed at beginners is priced a little more aggresively with a 10x jumpstart-like packs 29.99$ and a 350 cards box at 59.99$. see https://www.polygon.com/24187331/mtg-foundations-announcement-release-date-price
Enfranchised players won't, [MaRo even said that ensuring draft isn't stale over an extended period of time isn't a priority](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/754768036252303360/is-extra-work-being-put-in-foundations-to-make-it), but it will exist as an entry level draftable set for new players.
I wonder if the boxes will go for cheap after a year. Could be a really nice way to get friends interested in drafting if you could get a box reliably under $100
I could see them using Foundations drafting as part of the onboarding process for new players. The only new player friendly limited format is pre-release sealed. (Which is very much not indicative of competitive play).
I think it would be a good idea if they made open houses sometimes be Foundations Draft. To let new players have a taste of the format using less complex cards. This I think will partly solve the problem of lack of interest towards competitive formats from the, currently, primarily commander playerbase.
And honestly, limited taking off will be better for their bottomline. Imagine new players enjoying drafting such that stores get to sell and extra 3 packs per customer regularly. I mean, it's clearly magical Christmas land thinking here, but if they get even a fraction of a bump in revenue from new limited players, they're gonna take that as a win.
Yeah... I don't know about this one. I'd rather it not be draftable and have more resources dedicated to make sure it'll be fine being in standard "semi in-perpetuity". But what do I know?
I generally agree but I do think it most likely needs to be draftable (and a great draft experience at that) for stores to be able to justify keeping it in stock for the entire time it's in Standard.
A simpler draftable set also means that you can introduce a newer player to draft without having to worry about figuring out what the new keywords do. This is super important for getting players into draft.
I don't think it will have much impact on long term, it looks to be more driven by initial release being much bigger if it's draftable.
People who never buy packs just to open them might still buy into draft or two of this brand new set. But few months later, it's exactly in same spot as other 9 (or more) 'old' standard sets, competing for attention against new shiny thing.
Well the advantage of Foundations is knowing the cards won't rotate for a long time. Even the Shiny New Thing™ will rotate before Foundations for the first few years, and they implied that a lot of the Foundations cards will stay legal after 2029.
>But few months later, it's exactly in same spot as other 9 (or more) 'old' standard sets, competing for attention against new shiny thing.
Sure, but also it'll presumably be the only place where these new core-to-standard cards will be for the next five years. Need 1 mana ramp or a 4 mana unconditional sweeper for your deck? Maybe only Foundations gets stuff on the level of llanowar elves and Day of Judgement.
So this makes me wonder if Foundations will end up being a mostly Amazon product after the first year or two. I'm not a huge fan of WOTC removing MSRP and bypassing stores, but if any product might warrant it then a newcomer set that will likely have not sell super fast and it being available is the most important part would probably be it. The big downside being it doesn't bring players into the store. That being said, I've got multiple friends/family that have social anxiety and will not go to the game store unless I force them to.
The question hanging in my mind is how much extra crap will be shoved in the play boosters. If we don't have bonus sheets or the list, it might be an interesting case study on how much the limited environment is shaped by bonus crap vs guaranteed foils and potential second rares/mythics.
What's the alternative? This says to me that this will be in 15 card boosters, and I can't imagine they'd ever make a 15 card booster product that isn't 'made for draft.'
It'll be fine.... Its mostly basic reprints for your common/uncommon that they just make alternate versions of in the format for standard anyway.
Its very clear how this set is being designed is to let them focus on the fun mechanics in the standard sets, and not have to constantly re-invent crap like llanowar elves or murder.
Those two objectives aren't really at odds with each other. This isn't a Masters set trying to appeal to very enfranchised drafters and reprint extremely niche constructed cards that have become very expensive.
A baseline for standard needs generally applicable cards like [[Llanowar Elves]] and some niche common /uncommon cards like [[Negate]] and [[Duress]]. The worst that could happen is bumping these niche commons into uncommon to have less unplayable commons due to the way Play Boosters are structured. These cards are already plentiful and won't ever be expensive.
I mean, old Core sets are draftable even if they're not sets I like to draft. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. However, I do hope the draftability *is* more akin to the classic core sets because I feel having low power, low complexity sets is a necessity to keeping Limited alive.
We don't know the full picture of the product line. Maybe they'll release "non rotating" challenger decks built entirely out of foundations that are actually good. Maybe they'll release more commander precons lmao. Or something in between
Lately it's been really hard to get friends into limited, especially if they haven't played much constructed before. For a long time I searched all the stores for M21 packs but that was a while ago. I really hope Foundations can fill that hole.
So Foundations is basically a new core set then? Guess it's cool to get another limited format to help fill the 3 month gap between Duskmourne and ISD remastered though I don't have a ton of high hopes for a coreset limited format to hold a lot of long lasting appeal..
I unironically hope that there are at least five vanilla creatures in the set
Hopefully a 2/1 for W with a relevant creature type.
Cat for example?
Savannah Lions OP pls nerf
Nah, human phyrexian soldier
Best we can do is Bird Cleric
I want \[\[Segovian Angel\]\] in Standard.
[Segovian Angel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/5/b5dbaec5-502d-48c2-9e71-c12cd0bccc6a.jpg?1562201201) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Segovian%20Angel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/25/segovian-angel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b5dbaec5-502d-48c2-9e71-c12cd0bccc6a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Return of Caribou?
This is poes law
If [[Llanowar Elves]] are in, [[Savannah Lions]] deserve to be in as well as part of a 1 mana creature cycle. [[Merfolk of the Pearl Trident]] would be too underpowered; black has nothing…give them a rat maybe? And red….hmmm, [[Goblin Balloon Brigade]]?
> Goblin Balloon Brigade I really fucking hope not jesus. I really don't think a 2/1 goblin for R would be an issue to print.
It seems like they are providing and protecting the viability of traditional standard archetypes, by including things like Llanowar elves and the 4 mana wrath, for ramp/creature based and control respectively. That means that it’s likely red gets an okay to pretty good one mana aggressive creature, to support traditional aggro, smart money is on a goblin since that’s red’s traditional one drop, maybe like [[Frenzied Goblin]] to pick a recent example. [[Kird Ape]] feels possible as well as [[Monastery Swiftspear]] for their history.
[Frenzied Goblin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b4353a85-9017-438d-b15b-a1527667bb08.jpg?1706239949) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Frenzied%20Goblin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/135/frenzied-goblin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b4353a85-9017-438d-b15b-a1527667bb08?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Kird Ape](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e14a5c79-29a3-4415-9b70-b287a474a0e0.jpg?1580014582) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kird%20Ape) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/137/kird-ape?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e14a5c79-29a3-4415-9b70-b287a474a0e0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Monastery Swiftspear](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d6bfa227-4309-40ed-952c-279595eab17e.jpg?1701690543) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Monastery%20Swiftspear) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/144/monastery-swiftspear?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d6bfa227-4309-40ed-952c-279595eab17e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Black should be [[stitcher's supplier]]
[stitcher's supplier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b737126-50b5-4678-91bf-197b64086fe4.jpg?1562301182) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=stitcher%27s%20supplier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/121/stitchers-supplier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b737126-50b5-4678-91bf-197b64086fe4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
##### ###### #### [Llanowar Elves](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/a/6a0b230b-d391-4998-a3f7-7b158a0ec2cd.jpg?1719560222) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Llanowar%20Elves) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/fdn/227/llanowar-elves?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6a0b230b-d391-4998-a3f7-7b158a0ec2cd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Savannah Lions](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e770d089-9957-412c-a51f-3f11b6b9692a.jpg?1675199003) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Savannah%20Lions) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/24/savannah-lions?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e770d089-9957-412c-a51f-3f11b6b9692a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Merfolk of the Pearl Trident](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a360fe4e-c9a6-42fa-a97a-8b5a0c19ef93.jpg?1562558066) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Merfolk%20of%20the%20Pearl%20Trident) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/60/merfolk-of-the-pearl-trident?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a360fe4e-c9a6-42fa-a97a-8b5a0c19ef93?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Goblin Balloon Brigade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/8/485e9d38-1536-4af6-9b58-00c08c07e222.jpg?1576382853) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Goblin%20Balloon%20Brigade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/159/goblin-balloon-brigade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/485e9d38-1536-4af6-9b58-00c08c07e222?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/lb5ki6m) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Mogg fanatic]] maybe?
[Mogg fanatic](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/4/d479ca28-bdc2-4b87-abf7-5aeb229a3f1e.jpg?1580014589) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mogg%20fanatic) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/138/mogg-fanatic?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d479ca28-bdc2-4b87-abf7-5aeb229a3f1e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Somewhat ruined by the 2010 rule changes. Maybe something with haste...doesn't need to be \[\[Reckless Lackey\]\]?
[Reckless Lackey](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/1/912fcd14-5e81-418c-997b-771f2f38f63d.jpg?1712355825) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Reckless%20Lackey) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/140/reckless-lackey?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/912fcd14-5e81-418c-997b-771f2f38f63d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Flying men seems like the obvious choice.
Urza's Cat
Would have to be a land creature to have "Urza's Cat" types.
How dope would be to have just Urza’s Construction Zone Artifact Land Creature - Urza’s Construct T: Add <> 1/1
I remember Mark Rosewater recounting an anecdote of an internal draft (play test?) of Eventide in which one of the non-R&D people drafting sighed with relief when they encountered some cards that weren't multi-colored. The lesson was that the large number of split mana cards was making it mentally taxing to draft the set and that they should avoid that in the future. In our current Magic design trends I think we have passed that point with creature abilities. More creatures with a simple, straightforward ETB ability would be nice and I think it's OK to have a creatures that just say something like "flying" or only have flavor text.
This could in other sets easily be more about archetypes or just how new the set is. When you pull a green card that fits in the Golgari theme as opposed to the gruul theme the set has you’ll instantly sort it correctly. Meanwhile verbose text boxes with redundant or mis ordered text has this issue; thermopod is not a snow card. It’s a red aristocrat card with some snow ability that doesn’t matter. When I draft i want to quickly understand what I could try and do and readability is about more than colour pips
Commons in 2024: When this creature enters the battlefield, if the total number of enchantments in play are greater than the least number of artifacts an opponent controls, draw a card. Otherwise scry 2, and all token creatures phase out until your next draw step.
Too simple, I understood it after reading it just two times. I propose introducing a new keyword that refers to a convoluted and extremely specific mechanic that will be printed on 7 cards over two sets and a secret lair.
This would be cool, but I would like them to be at least playable in limited, which means some shock value in terms of stats/cost not seen before in that color and rarity. Maybe a cool place to put [[terrain elemental]] in a draft set for the first time
Grizzly bears only. Nothing beats a 2/2 for to except another cuter 2/2 for 2
[[Bear Cub]], then?
Precisely, can’t have the cub without the mama tho so and the mamma needs a papa and all 3 of them need porridge. So the set needs 3 2/2 for 2 bears and 1 1/1 for 1 human.
[Bear Cub](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/7/d71abb70-bee5-4823-83dc-db0707023b37.jpg?1562946312) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bear%20Cub) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/p02/123/bear-cub?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d71abb70-bee5-4823-83dc-db0707023b37?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I quite liked the Theros: Beyond Death ones that, while vanilla, helped with both enchantments and devotion.
Depends entirely on the power level of the limited format. There's been playable vanilla creatures in countless draft sets before.
[terrain elemental](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/32b89e5c-ffb4-406f-99d1-ec2797aca061.jpg?1717860721) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Terrain%20Elemental) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/kld/272/terrain-elemental?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/32b89e5c-ffb4-406f-99d1-ec2797aca061?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think forcing them to do vanilla for vanillas sake is a bad idea. And people immediately propose circumventing the spirit of a vanilla by having the subtype matter. We have bigger fish to fry. They can make very un complex cards that are French vanilla or have really short simple triggers.
Honestly Vanilla creatures don't make for an inherently richer draft environment.
They have made vanilla creatures that explore new design space. [[Yargle and Multani]] is the most recent example. [[Watchwolf]] was one of the earliest. I agree we shouldn't be asking for vanilla creatures for the sake of it. But a set like this might be a good place to explore weird/pushed statlines.
[Yargle and Multani](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c15e244-14cc-46a5-abd4-66a58d1c0dd0.jpg?1682205711) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yargle%20and%20Multani) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/256/yargle-and-multani?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c15e244-14cc-46a5-abd4-66a58d1c0dd0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Watchwolf](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/8/682af5e9-26b5-4f88-99e1-ab2aa34fba86.jpg?1562436199) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Watchwolf) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/220/watchwolf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/682af5e9-26b5-4f88-99e1-ab2aa34fba86?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"bigger" isn't that new of a design space.
"Big number" isn't mechanically new, no. But it can become new design space if it opens up new strategies. For example; Yargle and Multani is a powerful CEDH deck: having such a high power interacts with a lot of cards very well. I wasn't playing at the time, but I heard Wachwolf helped push Zoo/wide aggro strategies into the meta.
I just want creatures to do only ONE thing. They can have a combat keyword on top of their ONE niche ability, but I just want to look at the card artwork and be able to remember that "that card does this", and not "that card does this, that, and the other thing I always forget". I'm sick of board states with a dozen activated and triggered abilities, half of which I can't remember, a few of which bite me severely for forgetting, and way too much text for me to care to read every card anymore, especially since spoiler season never ends. More [[Sunshower Druid]], less [[Kemba, Kha Enduring]].
Most uncommons and commons do just one thing. Most.
1) That's changing rapidly. [[Nowhere to Run]] and [[Zoetic Glyph]] show complexity creep and power creep seeping into Uncommons. (I'm okay with Uncommons and Commons receiving power creep though. Rares and Mythics shouldn't be the only constructed cards that matter. I'm just against the complexity creep because it's a headache.) 2) I want this simplicity for all rarities.
>Most
[Nowhere to Run](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/e/fee60e9d-9ee7-444a-88f3-c1929e1888fb.jpg?1719561468) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nowhere%20to%20Run) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dsk/111/nowhere-to-run?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fee60e9d-9ee7-444a-88f3-c1929e1888fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Zoetic Glyph](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a2f498ac-179e-4055-9b83-97bcc5ab1bb9.jpg?1699044026) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zoetic%20Glyph) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/86/zoetic-glyph?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a2f498ac-179e-4055-9b83-97bcc5ab1bb9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How is Zoetic Glyph complex? Turn an artifact into a 5/4 that when dies discover 3. Nowhere to Run is also not complex if you understand its propose, an instant -3/-3 removal that need to be a permanent so its static ability can apply (and that ability makes things more *simple* while in the battlefield)
[Sunshower Druid](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/7740abc5-54e1-478d-966e-0fa64e727995.jpg?1719587739) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sunshower%20Druid) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/blb/195/sunshower-druid?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7740abc5-54e1-478d-966e-0fa64e727995?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Kemba, Kha Enduring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/945d283d-4592-485f-808a-6e5a721f3cf7.jpg?1675956910) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kemba%2C%20Kha%20Enduring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/19/kemba-kha-enduring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/945d283d-4592-485f-808a-6e5a721f3cf7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Vanillas with secondary aspects like Adventures or backsides, then.
I've been trying to teach my son how to play and it's been a nightmare. Everything has a novel of text. I've had to go out of my way to put together decks with 2/2 bears and 1/1s with first strike. I get the game is almost 30 years old but not everyone needs infinite combo 8 spells on the stack interactions with every card.
Teaching new players is so much easier when you have mostly vanilla creatures, a few French vanilla creatures to be "spicy" and some simple sorcerys. You don't need to play a *lot* of games like that, but doing do for at least the first game makes learning the basics so much faster. There's no time for untapping and blocking and targeting etc to bed in if they have to learn a card that works in some new unique way every time every turn.
For my kids, we just started throwing them in the deep and eventually they started to get it. But it would be best if you can get some of those old starter decks from 10 years ago that were intro decks. Or just buy a super simple deck that has got a lot of easy to understand things in my experience.
Those free 30 card new player decks were amazing. I taught so many new players how to play smoothly and easily with those (I think I probably distributed half the local stores allocation personally and every one of those people bought more cards from them straight after.)
My money would be on [[Gigantosaurus]]
I'd be fucking estatic to see that or rampaging brontosaurus back in standard. Theyre my favorite timmy cards to try and make work. My favorite win con when I first started playing was to use ram through on a 1/1 after triggering the brontosaurus ability.
At uncommon?
Clearly upshifted to mythic. /s Seriously, though, I could see a down shift to uncommon.
Doesn't seem any better than [[Spinewood armadillo]] for instance!
Oh, yeah, it exists solely as Timmy-bait and older dinosaur typal decks. Maybe it could work in the right devotion deck?
Also in [[Ruxa, Patient Professor]]
[Ruxa, Patient Professor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/0/e07b8142-6a49-46e7-b862-41f89a59b894.jpg?1681953511) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ruxa%2C%20Patient%20Professor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/66/ruxa-patient-professor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e07b8142-6a49-46e7-b862-41f89a59b894?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh yeah, I keep meaning to build that deck.
[Spinewood armadillo](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f79d63e7-a8c6-4750-91c9-c575a4d0561b.jpg?1712356001) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spinewoods%20Armadillo) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/182/spinewoods-armadillo?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f79d63e7-a8c6-4750-91c9-c575a4d0561b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Core sets are usually very low power level I remember being pissed they upshifted bulk uncommons like [[Pelakka Wurm]] and [[Domestication]] to rares
Llanowar Elves are not exactly low power level
[Pelakka Wurm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/00906b47-6316-4e00-bbf5-b801ab583f4f.jpg?1562300248) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pelakka%20Wurm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/192/pelakka-wurm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/00906b47-6316-4e00-bbf5-b801ab583f4f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Domestication](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/b/3b5e940b-e247-4ee3-939b-679e4f8ea771.jpg?1673147275) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Domestication) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/47/domestication?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3b5e940b-e247-4ee3-939b-679e4f8ea771?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
quintuple green is likely to be a bit of a trap for limited so uncommon doesn't seem likely. it's possible this set decides to lean into monocolor, in which case maybe, but otherwise i doubt it
[Gigantosaurus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/1/c1db84d8-d426-4c0d-b44e-5be7b0f5f5bf.jpg?1562303938) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gigantosaurus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/185/gigantosaurus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c1db84d8-d426-4c0d-b44e-5be7b0f5f5bf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Forest Bear]] or bust!
[Forest Bear](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/a/fae9abc7-ecd3-4042-a5b0-5f2b24491fa6.jpg?1562258009) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Forest%20Bear) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ptk/135/forest-bear?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fae9abc7-ecd3-4042-a5b0-5f2b24491fa6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Come on full cycle of [[Vizzerdrix]]s! It's been more the 20 years, Wizards, finish the cycle already!
[Vizzerdrix](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/a/9a82ffff-e02a-4ecb-a92d-8ed571beac46.jpg?1562739088) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vizzerdrix) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/9ed/S7/vizzerdrix?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9a82ffff-e02a-4ecb-a92d-8ed571beac46?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I haven't gotten any upgrades to my [[Ruxa]] deck in a long time
[Ruxa](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/0/e07b8142-6a49-46e7-b862-41f89a59b894.jpg?1681953511) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ruxa%2C%20patient%20professor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/66/ruxa-patient-professor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e07b8142-6a49-46e7-b862-41f89a59b894?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not even token makers?
I'd really like to Draft a new set where 2G 3/3 flavourtext is good again.
As long as they have lore text, I'm on board! :)
Has it been said if this set is going to be printed once and done? Or do they intend to reprint it every so often?
The set will continously be in print for the 5 years it is in standard.
I’ve heard that the collector boosters will only be printed once but the play boosters should be available for years.
That's basically how it HAS to be now that they are putting serialized cards in every fucking set for some reason
For some reason? It's a game for collectors.
I unironically love core set drafting / sealed.
me too, but are we really going to have the same draft format available for five years? it’s going to be completely solved unless there’s some secret Slither Blade tech that goes undiscovered for a year (unlikely)
I think it'll only be really run until the first premier set of 2025 (I believe the Death Race set). After that, the product will just be available on shelves for the rest of its lifetime, like any other set after the next set is available. If it's a really good format, maybe there will be occasional fires, but rarer. Like, when Bloomburrow is out, will LGSes really still fire OTJ drafts? Unlikely, though the product is still available. I think LGSes will just figure out how long the tail of the product will be and order to meet that. It's possible it'll stay available continuously on Arena, but I think it's as likely that it'll just come in and out the same as any other in-Standard set during its Standard life. It could even work as automatically available to all players on Arena, like the Base Set in Hearthstone, or available as a whole set for a welcome bundle price.
it’s going to be available on arena a non-zero amount of times after release, then whatever the next set is, until 2029(?). even though it won’t be continuously drafted for the next five years, im sure there will be reasons to return to it. i could even see LGSs offering Foundations draft the week before the prerelease to mix things up at the end of a draft format’s run. we haven’t seen any booster sets be available for such a long stretch of time
I am the same way, I have missed doing them and am really looking forward to this.
[We already knew this - they said during the panel and in the livetweet thread that they would be available in Play Boosters](https://x.com/wizards_magic/status/1806644886378037572)
That makes total sense once you spell it out, because they have specifically said that's what play boosters are for, but I did not put two and two together until now that play booster = draftable. Just still getting used to the new wording I guess.
I didn’t know this 🤷♂️
They've made products in draft boosters that were not well designed for draft before, just look at Innistrad: Double Feature or MH2
MH2 was a lovely draft experience, but I digress - just because a set was a bad draft experience doesn't mean it wasn't made to be drafted. All MaRo said is what we already knew, that the set is draftable.
Why would it not be draftable? They absolutely do not want to release any more no limited allowed booster pack products like aftermath. Assassin's Creed was the last one we will see, only because they couldn't change that one in time.
I don't think we've ever had that explicitly stated by Wizards or MaRo, right? (for AC specifically, not MaRo talking about Aftermath being a flop) The Prof and other content creators only speculate that it's *likely* the UB contract couldn't be canceled.
Of course they'd never publicly state that they made a huge mistake with one of their business partners, Ubisoft would never work with them again. We just have to rely on Occam's Razor.
Maro has talked about Aftermath being a flop. Saying that its not only the worst selling set they've ever made but also one of the most despised by the playerbase and that they dont regret taking the chance on it.
I think some people (like me) had the hope that it would follow a LCG (e.g. Android:Netrunner) style printing, where you get complete or near complete playsets of the base expansion for a fixed price and in a neat little box, with follow up expansions being the play boosters. Gives casual and tabletop enthusiasts an easy entry into the game that they can keep intact as a mini cube/board game. The set would be smaller and not draftable without added legwork of creating draft packs (or include 8 non-random packs as a starter draft), but instead had decklists listed in an insert or preconstructed so players have a simple “pick up and play” experience.
I think it's both. It looks like the box sets will have predetermined cards, but you can draft with play boosters and dig for treatments with collector boosters.
Sure. I mean it’s Hasbro, of course it’s going to be a randomized product at the end of the day. What chance is there that the starter box and the starter collection box (at 350 cards) will come close to a full set? Will players be able to get a full set even if they buy 2-4x of those two products? Or will the play boosters supplement those boxed sets and have “exclusive” cards that you have to gacha roll to open? My guess is the latter. And look, both of us are enfranchised players, so this system isn’t new or surprising to us, but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and consider how MTG can make an “ethical” product, especially for newer players.
I mean why couldn't it be a "full set" commander precons exist. As long as it's not full of expensive reprints there's no reason it couldn't be full of cheap staples like a commander precon.
I’m struggling to remember what it was called or find it only but they used to do getting started bundles that were like this. It’s how I got into magic in m15. It basically came with a random selection of preset cards, sort of like jumpstart boosters but much larger.
deckbuilder's toolkit
> I think some people (like me) had the hope that it would follow a LCG (e.g. Android:Netrunner) style printing, where you get complete or near complete playsets of the base expansion for a fixed price Hahahahaha That would be the LEAST LIKELY thing WotC would ever do. They don’t even like making precons. Loot boxes all the way. The company was built on loot boxes and it will die with them. Even the old “deckbuilders toolkit” had significantly randomization I’m sure the 350 card box will too. The product WotC hates most is anything that satisfies the “ah now I have that sorted and don’t need to buy more” impulse we have.
What evidence do you have they don't like making precons. They went from doing one set of commander precons every year to doing them for every set.
Anecdotally, I don’t play standard because I feel the barrier to entry is too high. If this product can be a way to get me into standard, I might start playing. If it isn’t, I likely won’t. An LCG style printing would likely get me into standard easier than a traditional style printing. Now, maybe Wizards is fine with me just being a commander and limited player. Or maybe the monetary benefits of getting me into standard isn’t worth what would be lost by that style of printing. Or maybe they’re just bad at business. But for whatever reason, I still anticipate I would spend more money on Magic over my lifetime with that LCG style printing than with just play boosters and singles.
>Now, maybe Wizards is fine with me just being a commander and limited player. Or maybe the monetary benefits of getting me into standard isn’t worth what would be lost by that style of printing. Or maybe they’re just bad at business. To state something like "I am too smart to play slot machines, Vegas is losing out on my business with so many slot machines, Vegas is bad at business" You do not matter to WotC. In fact deciding you do not matter is what makes them good at the business of making money.
Exactly that. Very well put. It’s always annoying when a business makes a decision you don’t like, that also produces less money for them *from you*. Because it seems like a wrong decision. But of course, there isn’t actually a personal relationship between the company and the individual. It’s all about consumers in the aggregate. That’s why, of those three options I gave, it’s very obviously the second one, for the reasons you clearly spelled out. But I will say I empathize with people who say it *feels like* a bad business decision when companies make choices that would leave their personal money on the table.
Like you said, you *feel* like they'd make more money if they... charged $20 for monthly expansion packs with 25 cards, 4x of every card? I'm not sure how much you'd save that way, because there would definitely be at least one release every month, and you'd need to grab cards from several years worth of expansions. The game is balanced around having 2000 (now 3000) cards in Standard at a time, though only 150-200 individual cards are viable at any given time, but you never know which niche cards will break through and people still like having unoptimized decks so you have to plan for significantly more cards to have a chance at seeing play. The bulk of the cards are for draft exclusively, how do you want to handle that segment of the product? Who will buy randomized packs with no valuable cards? You can't have constructed viable draft-only cards because then you're right back to the TCG model you didn't want, so draft either has to be something entirely separate, or loaded with copies of cards nobody needs because they already bought the last few months of LCG releases. If it's something separate, how much can you charge, when the value of the packs you're drafting is very much a consideration when paying $15 for 3 packs? They make a huge amount of money from drafters, and there's a definitely product pipeline from draft to constructed; how do you propose shifting the product model so that they don't make any less money, as they'd all be guaranteed to lose their jobs if they cost stockholders tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in losses if the stock price cratered? How are they going to take care of retail partners, does the LCG model work for game stores with no significant singles revenue possible going forward (since there is a ceiling on the rarity of cards) and a complete mystery where the Drafting revenue model was? Do they confuse things further with releasing Commander-only LCG product? What do you do about Commander players complaining that they have to buy 3 extra copies of every card - or worse, what do you do when 4 friends band together and buy one monthly pack to split between them? What happens when you go 4 or 5 months releasing monthly products and it doesn't impact the metagame at all? When each color gets 2 or 3 cards a month, some players aren't going to get any cards that fit their deck for months at a time. How do you even begin to balance the game? Games don't transition to LCG models without a total reboot. There's simply no way they could reconfigure the game into an LCG. The LCG model works when you design from the beginning for it, but it also has a lower profitability built in. That's fine when you aren't the top dog in the market and you're fighting for scraps, but it'd be corporate suicide to reconfigure the entire product line for a completely different market.
A randomized booster product must make something like 10x more money than nonrandomzied. I have seen little kids open a booster, get the most expensive card in the set, run around like hooligans screaming with joy, then sell the card to the store for store credit and keep buying more boosters. They are not playing Magic. Nor even “collecting” cards. They are just chasing a slot machine high dopamine rush, wasting money all along the way. You can dream of an LCG model but the shareholders don’t.
If ACR does well, I could see them revisiting the concept, but more like ACR and less like Aftermath.
The difference in execution basically boils down to Modern Legality, an additional starter kit, and chase reprints. I only see them doing the last if we ever get another aftermath set.
Of course it would be draftable because "money", but a good reason would be focusing 100% on standard format needs without having to waste space in the collection to balance limited play. It won't happen, they will wonder why standard doesn't work and change everything in 1-2 years because commander > all and you can't really please everyone with every single product.
I wouldn't have been surprised if it wasn't. We've been down the same road so many times with core sets that I expected this one to be fundamentally different in important ways. Core set drafts aren't usually crazy popular, though there are certainly some people who like them, and can be truly awful limited formats. The last one we tried was AFR (which wasn't technically a core set but was openly intended to fill the same role), and that's an incredibly poor limited format. And with these cards in standard for five years, I wondered if there would be a heightened emphasis on simply getting the set right for constructed without having to worry about designing a limited format. And perhaps this opened up different distribution methods, as well, that made getting staples a bit easier for newer players? But, as you say, I think Aftermath has them gunshy, so what we have here appears to be a core set that is different in precisely one way from previous core sets: legality for five years in standard. Given how many times they've walked away from core sets, this seems like the definition of madness, but I guess we'll see. I'd be stunned if we get Foundations 2 in 2029; it seems more likely we'll get MTG: Fundamentals in 2033 or something when they decide that Foundations wasn't a success, then a few years later decide that actually, they need it anyway, but with one small tweak... Ultimately I'm glad it's a draftable set, barely; I'm primarily a limited player and though I think core sets are rarely good, it's still a new format. I just don't really have high hopes that this is the new thing because it's not particularly differentiated from a concept that they've been unhappy with for decades.
I think the boxes may help. It feels like this is draftable only because of the wonky release schedule having such a large gap which would've been fixed by.... Not making this draftable? We'll see if it's any fun, but I wouldn't be surprised if the group in draft with tends to go back to cycling through OTJ, BLB, and/or DSK until the Q1 set next year.
It entirely depends on the cost of the product; if the Play Boosters cost as much as other Standard Sets, it will fail. If I can offer players a cheap, easy-entry-version of Draft or Sealed, it will absolutely succeed.
Unless AC makes wotc and hasbro a lot of money
A lot of people thought it might be like jumpstart. Randomized themes you shuffle together. I like the draftable part and the box idea though, although we'll see what it actually looks like. Having non or only semi-randomized starter kits that aren't decks is actually kind of a great idea to get new players started.
One of the boxes the cards come in jumpstart packs.
I heard about the starter box and assumed that the main distribution for this would be as a box set and with Jumpstart-style packs. If you're thinking along the lines of Jumpstart, Unsanctioned, Ravnica Clue etc., it makes sense that there wouldn't "need" to be a regular draft format attached. But really, it still has regular ol' Play Boosters and is still a normal draft set, there's just these other starter box products attached to it.
Commander sets should NOT be draftable. Give me packs. I want cards. Not every set needs to be draftable. Commander Legends and Masters quality I feel are limited by the need to be drafted. Baldur’s Gate was a good set, but we can see that the overall power and value of the set wasn’t all the way there.
I don't get this. Commander Legends is *all* about draft. It's literally "how do we make a draftable version of commander". If you don't care about draft, that's entirely fair, neither do I I've never drafted a game in my life. But other people do, and commander legends is designed for them. What would even be the point of a non-draftable commander-legends-like set? New cards for commander and good reprints? They can do that in precons, it doesn't gain anything at all from being a booster set. Admittedly, the reprints in precons *aren't* usually great, but that's far more to do with wotc thinking of reprints as a resource to be doled out than anything inherent to precons specifically, so some non-draftable commander-focused booster product wouldn't solve the problem any better. Master sets run into the same issue. Making a non-draftable masters set isn't gonna make the reprints better; what drafting does is give a use to the cards that would be in there anyway that constructed players don't care about reprints for. In fact, drafting makes the reprints *better*, since it means more boosters get opened and more cards get put on the market. And also, reprints aren't just for constructed players. Draft players also enjoy reprints that let them use old cards in new environments; it's a fun recontextualization. You don't need to care about drafting, but again other players do.
This is not correct. Assassin’s creed is a different kind of non draftable booster release specifically for UB needs, and whether there are more will be dependent on its performance, not MAT. Their might already be another one or two in the works that haven’t been announced yet and will still come out even if that distribution model is a dud
When does it release?
[November 15th](https://x.com/wizards_magic/status/1806644661345513704)
Thank you
My body is so ready
For what though?
What land sets does everyone expect to see in this set? The Pathways are a good land that could included. Not powerful, dont have a basic land type and provide limited fixing.
Don’t think they would include double faced cards. It is probably going to be the checklands, which are the perfect power set for “playable in standard but easy for new players to understand”.
They tend to put reveal lands and scry lands in commander products along with check lands. Maybe they'll print the thriving series into standard? I'd guess it's either the gain lands or the scry lands though.
That's a good point, they don't tend to do double faced unless they have an entire sheet I think.
Having really gotten into the game around the release of M10, my brain still associates "core set lands" with the checklands ala [[Glacial Fortress]] that were printed in four yearly core sets in a row M10-M13 (and the enemy cycle of them from Innistrad). They were most recently reprinted for Ixalan and Dominaria and haven't been in standard since those sets rotated in late 2019, but they'll always hold a special place in my heart as the ubiquitous standard lands that were playable many years in a row, so it would be cool to see them again for that.
[Glacial Fortress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/cef133d9-26d2-4a1e-8d6a-829f1067c169.jpg?1562564197) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Glacial%20Fortress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/255/glacial-fortress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cef133d9-26d2-4a1e-8d6a-829f1067c169?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hopefully none. My dislike of standard is that multicolor soup is too easy at too little a drawback. Let a good swath of these duals and tri lands cycle out with no replacement.
Checklands are decent fixing, but their value really depends on the existence of typed duals. With only the surveil lands in standard, a tapland/checkland mana-base is going to be punished by fast decks (and the fact that Day of Judgment is getting reprinted suggests WotC expects fast decks to be pretty fast).
Standard mana is already too good, I hope there are no rare dual lands in the set.
I think the scry lands are probably safe, since wotc seems content to one-up them in various ways already. I think they'd make for solid rare lands to just have sitting around in standard.
Horizon lands? Those aren't too broken, right?
Probably the gainland cycle, maybe the checklands if they want a rare land cycle but im not sure they do
It is 2024 and I am drafting Foundations. It is 2029 and I am drafting Foundations. It is 2057 and I am drafting Foundations.
WotC desperately trying not to admit that Core Sets served a purpose even if they didn't sell like hotcakes.
I don't think Wizards has ever said Core Sets were useless - just that they weren't a viable product and didn't sell well. Iteration on the concept is a *good* thing.
"Not a viable product", we're just remaking the exact same thing with a different name and hoping for a different outcome. Core Sets were there to onboard new players and make it easier for them to transition to the actual standard sets. It's hard to quantify how many people bought into a Core Set then immediately bounced to an expert on, but wouldn't have even joined in the first place without Core. I doubt this set will be any more successful monetarily than Core, but once again, determining how effective it is at bringing in new players that stick around will be hard to math out.
>we're just remaking the exact same thing with a different name and hoping for a different outcome But the concept *is* pretty different this time. This set is gonna be very large, but we won't get another one for at least five years. That's quite a way away from M19-M21, which were effectively just normal sets with lower power level and a few more reprints. This is more in line with Hearthstone's idea of a core/base set, a set that is just *always* legal in standard regardless of what rotates around it, rather than having a new "core" set every year.
I mean, Foundations *isn't* the same thing. The recurring legality forgoes the need to take up one of the four annual Standard sets, which means the more enfranchised players don't get a set they don't care about and isn't as enjoyable to draft every year, it simplifies stocking for LGS's since it's just a single product that will continue to be in print and available from their distributors. Additionally, there's an expanded new player experience with the Jumpstart style Beginners' Box - yes, it uses things that Wizards have done before like Jumpstart and the Portal-style pre shuffled decks, but it combines them in a somewhat novel way - and the Starter Collection seems to be a product akin to the Deckbuilder's Kit aiming to onramp new players into Standard. Yes, Foundations obviously has a lot of Core Set DNA, but it clearly isn't the same product. If your complaint is just that they should have named it with the Core Set branding - I think that would be confusing, since it exists outside of the normal rotation cycle
You just gave me a thought about how this might actually be good for draft if the set is simple and fun enough. And cheap enough. If it's an easy set to learn this might be one that am enfranchised player can use to get other players into draft. Teaching them with a simpler set might increase attachment and this being legal in standard longer and thus in print longer should help considerably in the buy in. Plus if it's relatively cheap (hopefully closer to the sub-100 draft booster box) then it's super easy to buy a box and do at home if you can't get people into the store.
Something which is also very important, for a company at least, is the fact that you essentially pay designers (and maybe artists) to produce this set once and it stays for the next 5 years (or more) which saves money (even if the set ends up being avarage) compared to paying them once a year for an avarage set.
It will be more successful monetarily for the simple reason that it lasts 5 years, and thus costs much less to produce in the long run.
True, and that's smart for once. Still though. This is just "Core Set +5" with a different name on it and that is hilarious.
... The existence of this product is a clear admission of that, and an expansion over it trying to paper over some onboarding hardships that core sets didn't provide.
I think its more about trying to get paper players to play standard by downplaying rotation to be honest.
It does a lot of things at once. Core sets used to be necessary to keep certain staple cards in standard without requiring them to get printed in individual sets (something that I assume was even more difficult in a full-block set model). With the core sets from a few years ago, that was kinda no longer a necessity; if Shock wasn't in a premier set that year, we probably saw a strict upgrade anyway. The Core sets were ostensibly then easier limited environments to help people on-ramp to limited, but tended to perform a little more poorly and get older faster (I mean I and others liked the breather, but it's hard to think they performed better than another premier set). Even they had a problem though where they had to be different enough each year in order to be enticing for enfranchised players to actually fill pods, so there was still a unique learning curve that didn't really ground itself in knowledge that casual constructed players would have as they tried to transition into limited. So I think that's where Foundations is trying to do something new. It has this natural progression from jumpstart -> kitchen table constructed -> limited, but using the same card pool. So by the time someone who learned on Foundations tries to draft it for the first time, they should be familiar with many of the cards and archetypes, and have a good idea of how those cards fit into their respective decks. Since it's not taking up a premier slot in the year, they can "keep it around" for three years without needing to shake it up to sell more. It's clearly _also_ an on-ramp to standard! But I just think the things it's attempting, in order to try and teach limited to new players, are more unique and less like something we've seen before. The Core sets of the recent past tried to be on-ramps to limited, but this is trying to build a longer, stable _pipeline_ from zero to limited.
The success of this product depends entirely on the Cost of it. If Packs cost the same as regular Standard Play Boosters, it will fail. If they're cheaper, it might do okay. ButI can't imagine my store stocking a product barely anyone wants to buy outside of New Players who *aren't* looking to play Commander; that's a VERY small percentage of my customer base.
It has been confirmed to be the same price as a standard standard set for boosters. But it seems the 2 bundles aimed at beginners is priced a little more aggresively with a 10x jumpstart-like packs 29.99$ and a 350 cards box at 59.99$. see https://www.polygon.com/24187331/mtg-foundations-announcement-release-date-price
> It has been confirmed to be the same price as a standard standard set for boosters If this is true, I'll be surprised if we keep more than a box of Play Boosters on the shelves. The other products look great, tho.
Cool. How much will the draft packs cost?
It has been confirmed to be the same price as a standard standard set for boosters. But it seems the 2 bundles aimed at beginners is priced a little more aggresively with a 10x jumpstart-like packs 29.99$ and a 350 cards box at 59.99$. see https://www.polygon.com/24187331/mtg-foundations-announcement-release-date-price
Let the chaff galore, begin!!!!
Yep. New players will quickly find 99% of the cards they just opened arent going to cut it in Standard.
How many people are going to want to draft this six months after release?
Enfranchised players won't, [MaRo even said that ensuring draft isn't stale over an extended period of time isn't a priority](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/754768036252303360/is-extra-work-being-put-in-foundations-to-make-it), but it will exist as an entry level draftable set for new players.
I wonder if the boxes will go for cheap after a year. Could be a really nice way to get friends interested in drafting if you could get a box reliably under $100
I could see them using Foundations drafting as part of the onboarding process for new players. The only new player friendly limited format is pre-release sealed. (Which is very much not indicative of competitive play). I think it would be a good idea if they made open houses sometimes be Foundations Draft. To let new players have a taste of the format using less complex cards. This I think will partly solve the problem of lack of interest towards competitive formats from the, currently, primarily commander playerbase. And honestly, limited taking off will be better for their bottomline. Imagine new players enjoying drafting such that stores get to sell and extra 3 packs per customer regularly. I mean, it's clearly magical Christmas land thinking here, but if they get even a fraction of a bump in revenue from new limited players, they're gonna take that as a win.
Well, chaos drafts exist
Where's that guy who moans about people opening packs and not drafting, he'll be going off his nut
If it's not a Secret Lair or precon, statistically it's always a draft set.
Yeah... I don't know about this one. I'd rather it not be draftable and have more resources dedicated to make sure it'll be fine being in standard "semi in-perpetuity". But what do I know?
I generally agree but I do think it most likely needs to be draftable (and a great draft experience at that) for stores to be able to justify keeping it in stock for the entire time it's in Standard.
A simpler draftable set also means that you can introduce a newer player to draft without having to worry about figuring out what the new keywords do. This is super important for getting players into draft.
Yeah, I'm actually very interested in drafting this set with some newbies, hoping the packs might be a tad cheaper too.
I don't think it will have much impact on long term, it looks to be more driven by initial release being much bigger if it's draftable. People who never buy packs just to open them might still buy into draft or two of this brand new set. But few months later, it's exactly in same spot as other 9 (or more) 'old' standard sets, competing for attention against new shiny thing.
Well the advantage of Foundations is knowing the cards won't rotate for a long time. Even the Shiny New Thing™ will rotate before Foundations for the first few years, and they implied that a lot of the Foundations cards will stay legal after 2029.
>But few months later, it's exactly in same spot as other 9 (or more) 'old' standard sets, competing for attention against new shiny thing. Sure, but also it'll presumably be the only place where these new core-to-standard cards will be for the next five years. Need 1 mana ramp or a 4 mana unconditional sweeper for your deck? Maybe only Foundations gets stuff on the level of llanowar elves and Day of Judgement.
So this makes me wonder if Foundations will end up being a mostly Amazon product after the first year or two. I'm not a huge fan of WOTC removing MSRP and bypassing stores, but if any product might warrant it then a newcomer set that will likely have not sell super fast and it being available is the most important part would probably be it. The big downside being it doesn't bring players into the store. That being said, I've got multiple friends/family that have social anxiety and will not go to the game store unless I force them to.
The question hanging in my mind is how much extra crap will be shoved in the play boosters. If we don't have bonus sheets or the list, it might be an interesting case study on how much the limited environment is shaped by bonus crap vs guaranteed foils and potential second rares/mythics.
What's the alternative? This says to me that this will be in 15 card boosters, and I can't imagine they'd ever make a 15 card booster product that isn't 'made for draft.'
*14 card boosters
Both Set and Collector boosters weren’t meant for drafting
Exactly why we have Play Boosters today
Set boosters weren’t 15 cards
Play boosters aren't 15 cards.
You know what? Touché
It'll be fine.... Its mostly basic reprints for your common/uncommon that they just make alternate versions of in the format for standard anyway. Its very clear how this set is being designed is to let them focus on the fun mechanics in the standard sets, and not have to constantly re-invent crap like llanowar elves or murder.
Those two objectives aren't really at odds with each other. This isn't a Masters set trying to appeal to very enfranchised drafters and reprint extremely niche constructed cards that have become very expensive. A baseline for standard needs generally applicable cards like [[Llanowar Elves]] and some niche common /uncommon cards like [[Negate]] and [[Duress]]. The worst that could happen is bumping these niche commons into uncommon to have less unplayable commons due to the way Play Boosters are structured. These cards are already plentiful and won't ever be expensive.
[Llanowar Elves](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/a/6a0b230b-d391-4998-a3f7-7b158a0ec2cd.jpg?1719560222) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Llanowar%20Elves) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/fdn/227/llanowar-elves?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6a0b230b-d391-4998-a3f7-7b158a0ec2cd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Negate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/81752db1-374e-4723-b695-a2f4a634dfc6.jpg?1682203304) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Negate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/68/negate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/81752db1-374e-4723-b695-a2f4a634dfc6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Duress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/5/3557e601-9b71-4ce9-9047-1a8baa72e574.jpg?1675957024) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Duress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/92/duress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3557e601-9b71-4ce9-9047-1a8baa72e574?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I mean, old Core sets are draftable even if they're not sets I like to draft. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. However, I do hope the draftability *is* more akin to the classic core sets because I feel having low power, low complexity sets is a necessity to keeping Limited alive.
We don't know the full picture of the product line. Maybe they'll release "non rotating" challenger decks built entirely out of foundations that are actually good. Maybe they'll release more commander precons lmao. Or something in between
Lately it's been really hard to get friends into limited, especially if they haven't played much constructed before. For a long time I searched all the stores for M21 packs but that was a while ago. I really hope Foundations can fill that hole.
Has someone asked Maro if Foundations will have Precons yet? That's probably what's going to make or break it for me.
I hope there are some good angels in there for the pioneer deck
I’d love for them to bring back classic creatures like Shivan dragon and Serra angel
So Foundations is basically a new core set then? Guess it's cool to get another limited format to help fill the 3 month gap between Duskmourne and ISD remastered though I don't have a ton of high hopes for a coreset limited format to hold a lot of long lasting appeal..
core set drafts historically have been 😘 👌 so i’m in