What Is Magic: The Gathering Foundations? - A New Era of Standard
Recently at MagicCon Vegas and the Magic: The Gathering World Championships, we were treated to a litany of spoilers and updates for Magic’s future. We have many amazing new sets on the horizon and there’s much to discuss. One set we learned a lot about especially was Foundations. But what exactly is Magic Foundations?
Alex Kivitz
What does Foundations mean?
Foundations is exactly as the name suggests. This set is a callback to the Core sets that would be released each year for Standard. Additionally, this set aims to be the perfect onboarding experience for new Magic: The Gathering players. Bringing everything back to basics, Foundations aims to be a “foundation” of Standard and be legal for the years to come.
Not only does it set the basis for Standard, but it also sets the basis for new Magic players everywhere. The Wizards of the Coast development team has designed what they describe as “Magic: The Gathering the set.” Let’s see what we can expect in the quintessential MTG experience.
From The Ground Up
Magic Foundations will of course receive the usual Bundle and Booster Boxes that come with each set, but many new products are coming out with the set that are very much tailored to the new player experience.
Starting from the very beginning, we have the Foundations Beginner Box. From the Keynote speech at Vegas, we learned that Wizards has revamped the way we teach Magic and improved the onboarding experience. Probably the best example they give is that Magic Starter products in the past avoided having tokens, auras, counters, and things that would make the initial learning of the game convoluted. The problem with this was the moment players went to play with their friends, all those aspects of Magic would bombard them at once and would lead to being a roadblock for them learning more about the game.
Now we have all these “teaching tools” in the Beginner Box. The cards in the Beginner Box are curated to present the best possible onboarding experience for what Magic: The Gathering is for new players.
The Beginner Box contains 10 Jump-Start-like packets, each containing 20 cards that match a certain theme. These packs are not random and always contain the same cards. The themes vary, from wizards to vampires, to goblins, and all five colours in Magic are represented. Two players can take the two pre-shuffled 20-card decks, one vampire and one cat, and play the step-by-step tutorial provided in each box. Once finished, players can mix and match any two of the 20 card packs to create their 40-card deck and play against each other. With over 200 combinations of decks and matchups, this is a stark departure from the starter kits of old that had players play the same two decks against each other endlessly.
Growing The Collection
Next on the list is the all-new “Starter Collection”. This product is tailor-made for all new Magic players who’ve learnt the basics of the game and want to jump-start their collection and deck building. Inside the collection, you’ll find over 350 cards from the Foundations set to experiment and build with.
The Starter Collection embodies exactly what the name suggests. Growing up, we all had that friend or family member who brought us into Magic: The Gathering that had this “shoe box” of cards that we could build our first deck from. The design space for the Starter Collection was to embody the ultimate “shoebox” of cards that had cool mechanics and combinations to design around and inspire creative deckbuilding.
The Starter Collection contains 38 Magic: The Gathering cards along with 3 Foundations Play Boosters and 90 Basic Lands. Additionally, there are 14 tokens that are created and used by cards in this set. There is also an informational “How to Build Your Deck” booklet and a Magic Click Counter wheel. As a very nice bonus, the collection will also contain a Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Command Tower to help begin the journey to building your first Commander deck.
Magic’s Past, Present, and Future
We’ve heard so much about the design process, and how Foundations is intended to be the embodiment of what Magic: The Gathering should be. Being a set that will be Standard legal until we see many fan-favourite mechanics returning to the set. As stated in the keynote speech, the base concept of Foundations is to answer the question “What if we made a set named Magic: The Gathering,”.
Foundations draw from cards from all of Magic’s history. Cards all the way back from Alpha such as Savanna Lions, Shivan Dragon, and Serra Angel cards that can still hold their own in the current Magic environment, are making a return. Iconic cards such as Time Stop and Progenitus make a comeback. The entire set is designed to evoke feelings of awe, amazement, and maybe even confusion.
Not only are cards being reprinted, but sometimes older cards are getting “revamped” and re-flavored. Popular mechanics are making a comeback in new forms. Probably one of the most hyped cards is Blood Thirsty Conqueror. A call back to Exquisite Blood, even the flavour text is a fun little easter egg. Not only are we getting old mechanics back, but we also have shoutouts to some of Magic: The Gathering’s most iconic characters. Niv Mizzet, Visionary, ever the egoist, has a fun interaction and combo with… himself! Probably one of the greatest flavour wins of the set, Niv Mizzet, only hires his most trusted advisor, Niv Mizzet.
If you want to see all this discussed and more, you can watch the MagicCon: Las Vegas panel here: The Preview Panel—Magic: The Gathering Foundations
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