The Gathering Wants to Make Itself Easy to Pick Up Again

Over the last three decades, Magic: The Gathering has become increasingly complex as a card game—from new mechanics and formats, to the contemporary rotation of what cards are considered playable in those forms, a lot has been done to transform the game, even in the way it’s sold. And that’s even before you try and keep up with regular set releases, or wild special collaborations with other franchises. But now, Wizards has come to a realization that the game itself might need a bit of a breather to set the stage for its future.

That future will be glimpsed in part this November with the release of Magic: The Gathering – Foundations. Announced at MagicCon: Amsterdam this week, Foundations will act as a sort of stepping stone for the game’s near future, offering a new swath of cards and reprints that will become the new legal lineup for Standard format play through at least the next five years, into 2029. If it’s your first attempt at trying to get into the game, you don’t have to worry about cards falling out of accepted use in most competitive formats any time soon. But Foundations is also meant to help onboard people into the game entirely beyond just the act of play, featuring long-running characters from across Magic lore, and essential cards from the many planes and sets that have made up the game over the last few decades, introducing concepts, settings, and themes in a format that’s easy to dive into as a starting point.

It’s a move that makes sense, as more and more people find themselves intrigued by the game through its fancy crossovers with the likes of Fallout, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, and more—and with even more of those on the way, there’s always going to be new audiences being potentially exposed to Magic for the first time. A set that gives anyone an easy point to begin with over the next few years, while also offering a new standard for competitive players to strategize and build decks around—while also not entirely sweeping away everything the game has become at this point in the process—is a good way to set up Magic’s future over the next few years… or at least until a successor set to Foundations becomes necessary, that is.

Magic: The Gathering – Foundations is set to release November 15, 2024.

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