The Holiday season is fast approaching, bringing with it the usual tides of peace, joy, and goodwill to all. It’s a time for giving, where generosity, more than anything, is the order of the day. That said, it appears Wizards of the Coast missed the memo this year. The recently-announced Holiday Play Days events for MTG Foundations Jumpstart illustrate this point perfectly. While fun in concept, these events are incredibly bare bones given their festive trappings. It’s a crying shame, given the quality of the set they’re based on.
The Foundations Jumpstart Holiday Events
At the MTG Foundations Jumpstart Holiday Play Day events, each player will be given two packs to work with. As is the way of Jumpstart, they’ll shuffle these packs together to form a 40-card deck. They’ll then use this deck to take on all comers in games of Magic. In practice, this works like a highly simplified version of Sealed. You play with a 40-card deck, but you have no agency at all in its construction.
Everything at these events is geared toward the most casual of casual players. The announcement itself makes this clear, continually referring to the events as “relaxed” and “cozy.” To this end, games aren’t played in rounds but rather on a “rolling pairing” system. This means that as soon as you’re done with a game you’ll be matched with someone else who’s free. A system like this clearly differentiates the events from more serious competition. It even makes them more casual than a Prerelease, if you can believe that.
These events were announced in an official Wizards article a few days ago. They’ll be running at Local Game Stores between November 29th, 2024 and January 5th, 2025. Based on the above description alone, these events sound fine. The problem is what’s not mentioned above. Specifically, any kind of real incentive to attend these events. Jumpstart is a great way to play Magic, but it’s also easy to play games of it wherever packs are sold. These events were an opportunity for Wizards to do something interesting and thematically resonant with the format, and they fumbled the bag.
A Festive Missed Opportunity
The most obvious addition to the Foundations Jumpstart Holiday events would definitely be some kind of promo card. These are an easy way to give any event appeal, by granting players a fun, and sometimes valuable, cardboard keepsake. The recent Magic Academy events, which were similarly targeted at new and casual players, got one of these in Darksteel Colossus. That these events have nothing of the sort is disappointing.
This is doubly true given the Holiday theming of the events. They ostensibly celebrate the season of giving, but don’t actually give players anything special at all. I’m not suggesting that Wizards hand out their new Holiday Promo card so casually, but something would’ve been better than nothing. Maybe a random foil anime card from the set, or an exclusive borderless version of one of the popular new cards. Framing promos like this as “Special Holiday Gifts” would’ve been a fun device, and would’ve made the events much more appealing to enfranchised players.
As it stands, non-casuals really need not apply here. The fact that the format is just straightforward Jumpstart without any interesting spins only cements this further. Casual players can enjoy regular Jumpstart games any time, so applying some kind of additional ruleset for these events could’ve helped differentiate them. For example, players could have earned additional Jumpstart packs as they play games, and used them to customize their deck. This would give the event more personality, and allow for the kind of high-level decision-making that draws long-time players in.
Playing Devil’s Advocate
Of course, the decisions Wizards made with regard to these Foundations Jumpstart Holiday events do make sense in their own way. As much as I would’ve liked to see the above changes implemented, there are clear reasons why they weren’t. For one thing, the overall goal of these events is clearly a relaxed, laid-back Magic experience. Introducing a promo card, even just for participation, attracts more competitively-minded players that could compromise that.
This same logic applies to my proposal to tweak the rules of the Jumpstart format. Jumpstart is designed to be as approachable as possible. You just grab two packs, shuffle them together, and get playing. By locking players into one deck for the whole event, a lot of the cognitive overhead of competitive Magic is removed. This makes the format incredibly accessible, which is ideal for casual players. I appreciate the intent behind this decision, but I still think an extra festive rule or two would’ve gone a long way. Maybe even some kind of passive starting Emblem, like we saw with the Trick or Treat events at Halloween.
These are strong arguments for the events as-is, but I still would’ve liked a bit more from them. Foundations Jumpstart is a fantastic set, packed with powerful, and expensive, new cards. It didn’t get an official Prerelease, however, so these Holiday events are likely all the celebration the set will get. For that reason, it would’ve been good to see a bit more oomph applied to these events. Supplemental sets have never really fared particularly well in the events department, but it’s still sad to see. Especially when the event comes wrapped in the deceptive trappings of festive merriment.