As of yesterday, the Prerelease for MTG Foundations is officially in the books. Players have had a chance to try out Wizards’ new take on a core set, and the many, many cards it contains. Overall reception seems incredibly positive so far based on online discussion, but the set’s biggest challenge is yet to come.
There’s no question that the main Foundations set is an easy win that’s a great experience to play. The rest of the set’s product line, however, is plagued with issues that make it confusing, especially for new players. This threatens to undermine the entire point of MTG Foundations as an introductory product. Once newcomers start to branch out within it, they’re going to run into a range of issues.
Starter For Ten
Despite its name, the MTG Foundations Starter Collection is a big part of the problem. This is a bumper collection of 387 cards, intended to give players immediate access to a wide deckbuilding pool. Many of these cards are drawn directly from Foundations. The problems arise because some of the cards in the Starter Collection are not in the main set.
There are a couple of issues with this. Firstly, an issue of supply. Most of the cards in the Starter Collection are singleton, so amassing playsets requires four Starter Collection purchases. If you don’t want to spend $252 on four Starter Collections, the secondary market is your only option. There’s no chance you can pull the exclusive cards from Play or Collector Boosters, after all.
Second, there’s no clear distinction between main set and Starter Collection cards. The set symbol is the same across all of them, and there’s no indication that they’re not part of the main set. The only way you can reasonably tell which card comes from where is by checking Wizards’ official card gallery.
I can see this leading to a number of confusing scenarios for newcomers. Someone is going to see their opponent’s flashy mythic, a Darksteel Colossus or an Aurelia, the Warleader, see the Foundations set symbol, and assume they have a chance to open one up. This will ultimately lead them to buy packs on false pretenses.
Amazingly these issues are true for the Beginner Box, too. If you want to try out Leonin Vanguard or Jazal Goldmane in your Standard Cats deck, you’ll need to buy multiple Beginner Boxes or grab copies online. The last place products like this should be pushing players is into the arms of online retailers.
Jump Right In
These problems aren’t great, but they’re arguably less confusing than those caused by the last of the four MTG Foundations products. Foundations Jumpstart is a bit of a bizarre set from top to bottom. It has the Foundations label, in the style of other set-specific Jumpstart sets from the past. When you dig into its card pool, however, you’ll find that very few of the cards within are actually from Foundations.
Instead, the set is mostly a mix of reprints and new cards, with a smattering of Foundations cards thrown in. This already creates a bit of a confusing scenario. Why is this set called ‘Foundations Jumpstart,’ and not ‘Jumpstart 2025?’. Given its contents, linking it to Magic’s latest core set seems unnecessary. Doubly so when you consider the fact that the cards within are not Standard-legal.
“All it does is make the process confusing to new players […] What I’m trying to say is that the Jumpstart packs ought to be legal in Standard if they are tied to a Standard set, as we see with Jumpstart 25 and Foundations.”
BalzonDawalz, r/MagicTCG subreddit
Say what you will about the Starter Collection and Beginner Box, but at least those products were full of cards you can play in Standard. Foundations Jumpstart is, instead, eternal-legal. Any new players who pick up some of the set, drawn in by the ‘Foundations’ in its name, are in for a disappointment when they find out their new cards can’t be played in their favorite format.
This problem is made even worse by how the rest of Foundations is framed. The Beginner Box is intended as the first step in the new player journey, and it teaches through a series of “Themed Jumpstart decks.” New players, therefore, are quite likely to move onto Foundations Jumpstart next.
It’s worth noting that, unlike the Starter Collection and Beginner Box, Foundations Jumpstart does have its own set symbol. This should theoretically dispel any confusion regarding legality, but for new players who don’t know to check it won’t make much difference.
Keep It Simple, Stupid
It’s easy to point out issues, but what should Wizards have actually done differently here? Well for starters, building the Starter Collection and Beginners Box purely out of main set Foundations cards would’ve been great. Having ‘product exclusives’ is bad for players trying to understand the set. It’s also less than ideal from a financial perspective.
If that wasn’t possible, introducing a couple of variant set symbols would’ve helped mitigate the issue. This would make it clear which card came from which product. As a result, MTG Foundations as a whole would be a lot less confusing.
On to the Starter Collection. Rather than being mostly singleton, I think this product should’ve been packed with three or four-ofs. The product fantasy of simulating “the box of cards an experienced player gave you” is certainly cute. In practice, however, a collection of one-off cards is not good for building Standard decks. New players should be pushed towards efficient deck construction, and given cards that help them do so.
Foundations Jumpstart is a more open-ended problem to solve. I reckon this one could go one of two ways. Either it could retain its current name and feature only Standard-legal cards, or go by ‘Jumpstart 2025’ and keep its contents as-is. As it stands, it feels like a set plucked from elsewhere on the release calendar and randomly added to the Foundations lineup.
Whether MTG Foundations succeeds or fails as a new player product will be seen in the weeks to come. I certainly don’t think the issues I’ve outlined here will help its chances. Conversely, I do have to applaud Wizards for trying a lot with these products. However it works out, Foundations is a lot more interesting than most past Magic core sets.
