Wizards of the Coast announced Magic: The Gathering - Foundations, which is a new set that was specially designed for beginners to make the card game much easier to jump into.
Over the last three decades, Magic: The Gathering has continued to become much more complicated as a card game. These include the introduction of new mechanics and formats as well as the contemporary rotation of what cards are actually considered playable in those forms.
Magic: The Gathering - Foundations
(Photo : Wizards of the Coast / Screenshot taken from official website)
Over the years, there has been a lot that Wizards of the Coast has done to transform the game, even the way that it is sold. What makes things more confusing is that all of these are on top of trying to keep up with regular set releases or wild special collaborations with other franchises.
But now, Wizards of the Coast has apparently come to the realization that the game itself has become in need of a breather to set its stage for the future. This will be showcased in part this coming November with the release of Magic: The Gathering - Foundations, according to Gizmodo.
The set was announced at MagicCon: Amsterdam this week and will act as a sort of stepping stone for the game's near future. It will offer a new series of cards and reprints that will become the new legal lineup for Standard format play through at least the next five years, into 2029.
Those who are just looking into getting into Magic: The Gathering, will not have to worry about cards falling out of accepted use in most competitive formats anytime soon. The new set was also designed to help the onboarding process beyond just the act of play.
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It features long-running characters from across Magic lore as well as essential cards from the many planes and sets that have made up the game over the last several decades. It will introduce concepts, settings, and themes in a format that will be easy to dive into as a starting point.
The exact release date of Foundations is Nov. 15, 2024, and it will be coming with Play boosters, Collector boosters, Jumpstart boosters, and Bundles. It will also have the same pre-release pomp and circumstance similar to other new sets of cards, said Polygon.
A New Set for Beginners
To top it all off, Magic: The Gathering - Foundations will also feature two new-to-the-game products; a Beginner Box and a Starter Collection. Game design director Bryan Hawley said that the former will have 10 packets with 20 cards inside each one and two packets.
Players will be able to combine and recombine those 10 packets into many different kinds of decks using a mix-and-max system. This system was originally designed for the Jumpstart product line.
It was also revealed that some of those packets will be pre-shuffled as the plan is that players will first open and explore them alongside a detailed, step-by-step written tutorial. On top of the Foundations set, Magic: The Gathering is also releasing other sets this year.
The list of upcoming sets includes Magic: The Gathering - Duskmourn: House of Horror, and Magic: The Gathering - Bloomburrow, according to ComicBook.
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