During a Magic: The Gathering's tabletop product has been experimenting heavily with how it delivers cards to its playerbase, with the end result being a much more varied offering of booster packs, starter decks, and other options. While the decision to offer so many versions of products has been divisive amongst a sub-section of the community - mainly its deeply-invested card collectors - it has generally been received positively.
Magic: The Gathering Zendikar Rising will be the next set released into Standard, and sees the game return to one of its most popular locations ever in Zendikar. The plane, which is known for having explosive, chaotic magic and a world founded upon exploration and adventure, will go back to its roots after the most recent return saw it warped by the monstrous Eldrazi. While fans enjoyed the storyline, they also lamented losing some of the plane's identity of pure adventure without world-ending stakes. Zendikar Rising has been previewed thus far as a more deliberate return to the plane's core principles, which has players largely optimistic about the set.
Today, Magic: The Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater peeled back the curtain on some of Zendikar Rising's design while also debuting a brand-new type of booster pack - the Set Booster - which will feature an exciting new concept known as The List. A Set Booster will contain 14 cards total, including 1 art card that in rare instances will be gold-stamped with the artist's signautre and 1 land. Set Boosters will all contain a foil and provide what Wizards of the Coast describes as a broad view of the set's themes and flavor, and one in four of the Set Boosters will contain cards from The List.
The List is a 300 card-long colelction of some of the most important and fun cards in Magic: The Gathering history, and Mark revealed three of the cards that will be present on The List earlier today: Cloudgoat Ranger, Muscle Sliver, and Pact of Negation. Cards from The List will have the Planeswalker symbol printed in their bottom corner similar to the Mystery Booster cards released earlier this year, but they'll also keep their original set symbols.
The reveal of yet another booster pack product from Magic: The Gathering is sure to get fans talking, but from a pure collection perspective, these Set Boosters seem like a pretty big win. Adding a curated list of 300 extra cards to packs will make them exciting to open while also getting niche reprints into the hands of players at a lower rate, while items like Collector Boosters will remain part of the lineup for fans who want a more experience. Magic: The Gathering Zendikar Rising is a return to the adventurous inspirations of the first set that featured it, which contained treasures in select booster packs - making that feeling more broadly accessible will help the return to Zendikar more accessible to a greater number of players.
Magic: The Gathering Zendikar Rising will release on September 25.