Magic: The Gathering Foundations Set Helps Bring New and Old Players Together

Wizards of the Coast has announced a new Magic: The Gathering set. This set isn’t one mentioned in their 2024 roadmap, nor is it another Universes Beyond crossover with the likes of Fallout or Assassins Creed. Magic: The Gathering Foundations is designed for players of all skill levels, and as a starting point for newcomers.

The Magic: The Gathering Foundations announcement

Wizards of the Coast recently held a preview panel at MagicCon: Amsterdam. That panel, now available in its entirety on their YouTube channel, revealed what Magic fans could expect going into the second half of 2024. It opened discussing Magic: The Gathering Foundations alongside sneak peeks at the upcoming Bloomburrow and Duskmorn sets.

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According to the panel, Magic: The Gathering Foundations is a new Standard-legal set. As the name implies, it is meant to establish a foundation for the new era of the popular card game and help new players get into the hobby. If you have never played Magic before, this set is designed to show why fans love it so much.

The set will contain reprints of fan-favorite cards across the game’s history. In addition, the set will contain brand new cards; essentially a 50/50 split of new and old.

The panel briefly showed new card art. It confirmed the return of older cards like Llanowar Elves, Day of Judgment, and Omniscience. They also revealed new cards such as Anthem of Champions, an aptly named Green/White anthem Enchantment, and Nine-Lives Familiar, a literal cat with nine lives.

A promotional screenshot of borderless card art from Magic: The Gathering Foundations showing Omniscience, Nine-Lives Familiar, and Anthem of Champions
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The card artwork in Magic: The Gathering Foundations showcases a focus on accessibility and approachability. Cards in this set will contain succinct text and straightforward effects. Furthermore,  Enchantment cards going forward will feature Nyx borders. This means Enchantment and Artifact cards will have their own frame, making them more readable.

Naturally, Magic: The Gathering Foundations will contain alternate versions of these cards. The panel confirms extended art variants and borderless variants of both the reprints and new cards. The panel even teases the return of certain legendary creatures and Planeswalkers, one even alludes to fan-favorite Chandra Nalaar.

Magic: The Gathering Foundations will be released November 15.