We are getting closer and closer to the end of the year, and as we look ahead towards 2024 and what the MTG world has in store for us, there’s a ton to look forward to. Kicking off 2024, we have a multitude of sets and products that all have one thing in common: they heavily revolve around the Ravnica plane. The first premier set of 2024, Murders at Karlov Manor, is a murder-mystery set encouraging utilizing evidence and gathering specific information about a wide array of suspects.
To go along with this premier set release, we will also be getting a unique MTG-themed game known as Ravnica: Clue Edition. Considering the murder-mystery theme of Murders at Karlov Manor, this seems like the perfect time to release this product. To make the product even more intriguing, all ten Shock Lands are seeing reprints! Shock Lands are multi-format staples that are always in high demand, making them excellent inclusions.
If you’re excited about the reprinting of Shock Lands, then you should also be hyped for the release of Ravnica Remastered. Ravnica Remastered features a ton of enticing reprints for players to get their hands on.
Today, Blake Rasmussen and Carmen Klomparens, two employees at Wizards of the Coast, went over a massive spoiler drop in the WeeklyMTG stream. In addition to simply releasing spoilers associated with each guild, they also went over some things players can look forward to when drafting this set or opening packs.
We are going to be taking a closer look at what makes Ravnica Remastered booster packs unique, including interesting booster fun treatments, as well as exciting aspects of the draft environment. Notably, play boosters don’t appear until Murders at Karlov Manor. Ravnica Remastered features only draft boosters and collector boosters. Kicking things off, there’s a specific card slot in draft boosters for this set that may have some special appeal.
An Extra Opportunity to Open Shock Lands
Typically, when players open draft packs of a traditional set, there is one slot that can contain a basic Land. As you might expect, cards from this slot are generally unimportant to the draft itself, and as such, are often the last picked cards out of the pack. Ravnica Remastered is making this slot more important, providing players with additional chances to open pricey cards.
This pack slot is going to be known as the “mana slot.” For Limited purposes, these cards all provide ways to fix your colors. The cheapest type of card that can be opened in this slot is a Guildgate, which appear roughly 58% of the time. While Guildgates aren’t individually super powerful, they do help add consistency in a draft environment. While this set is guild-focused, these Guildgates provide players with the opportunity to play more than two colors. They even help enable Gate Colossus, which is a nice bonus in Limited.
Appearing roughly 33% of the time in draft boosters, players will see a Signet in this slot. Signets help provide mana fixing while also ramping you to your top end cards ahead of schedule. Getting to open Guildgates or Signets is cool, but where the real opportunity lies is the fact that in roughly 9% of draft boosters, this slot will contain a Shock Land or a copy of Chromatic Lantern.
“Giving people extra opportunities to open them was at the forefront of our mind”
Carmen Klomparens
Providing players with additional odds of opening Shock Lands is certainly a nice treat. What’s unclear, however, is how frequently Shock Lands will be opened in comparison to Chromatic Lantern. Chromatic Lantern is worth roughly $3.50 in its cheapest traditional form according to TCGplayer market price, which makes it a nice pull, regardless. By comparison, though, the cheapest Shock Land, Hallowed Fountain, is worth roughly $7.00 in its cheapest traditional form. As such, it’ll be interesting to see how frequently Shock Lands end up being pulled in this slot.
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A Guild Focus
It’s clear based on the structure of the set and draft boosters that this set was designed heavily with Limited in mind. The goal of the draft is to be quite focused around each guild. Considering this set features reprints that span over a multitude of different Ravnica sets, there are a lot of different mechanics utilized that should making drafting a fun experience.
One thing that was made clear in the WeeklyMTG stream by Blake and Carmen, though, was that the set was designed to incentivize players to draft primarily within a guild of their choice. Given how much mana fixing will be available, players might normally be incentivized to simply draft a multi-color amalgamation of the best cards that they could get access to.
To help prevent everyone from gravitating towards these multi-color midrange piles, each guild features powerful “CCDD” uncommons. Each of these cards, such as Sphinx of New Prahv, cost four mana, requiring two mana of each guild color to cast. These cards are very strong, but hard to cast outside of a two-color deck.
There is still a path to drafting lots of colors for those interested, if that’s your cup of tea. Open the Gates and Gate Colossus, for instance, give you a chance to draft lots of Gates and play more than two colors. Notably, without cards like Guild Summit and Gates Ablaze available in this set, it’s tougher to go all-in on the Gates strategy.
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Booster Fun Treatments
For players more interested in collecting cards than drafting with them, there is some important information to cover regarding different booster fun treatments.
First up, we have retro frame cards. There are 135 retro frame cards total, available in both draft boosters and collector boosters in traditional foil and non-foil. Retro frame mythic rares appear in about 2.7% of draft boosters, while foil retro frame mythic rares appear in about 1% of draft boosters.
There are also 40 borderless cards available, all rares or mythic rares. 30 of them are borderless anime cards that can be found in both draft and collector boosters. The other 10 are the 10 Shock Lands. These borderless Shock Lands are exclusive to collector boosters. These Shock Lands may appear to feature new artwork, but these full-art Shock Lands are actually ones that were exclusive to online play until now.
Notably, one slot in each collector booster will contain either a foil retro frame rare or mythic rare, foil borderless rare or mythic rare, or a serialized card. Foil borderless Shock Lands appear in about 7% of collector boosters, while borderless anime mythic rares are even less common.
If you’re lucky enough to hit the jackpot, you will open a serialized card in this slot. Available in roughly 1% of collector boosters, there are 64 different cards, each serialized out of 500. These cards have the potential to go for a ton of money, so keep your eyes peeled for them.
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Collector Booster Exclusives
Because of how much of an emphasis was placed on Limited while designing this set, there were many cool reprints that ultimately didn’t make the cut to appear in draft boosters. Cards like Niv-Mizzet Reborn make for cool reprints, but don’t really have a place in the draft environment. That being said, there is still a place that cards like this can be found.
There are actually going to be a wide range of cards just like Niv-Mizzet Reborn that are exclusive to collector boosters. These cards specifically show up with retro frames. This provides players with the chance to get their hands on beautiful retro frame versions of popular reprints while simultaneously not diluting the range of solid playable cards available for draft. There is one slot in collector boosters that is guaranteed to showcase a non-foil retro frame rare or mythic, which could include one of these cards.
This set looks like a blast both for drafters and collectors alike. As the first set to release in 2024, it looks like we will be starting off the year strong.
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