This weekend, Gen Con is underway in Indiana. With it, just recently a major panel revealed a boatload of new MTG information regarding upcoming sets, products, and features throughout 2024 and beyond! There are tons of new upcoming planes as well as a handful of revisited planes that drive the focus of these MTG sets and products. This may sound like a big announcement, and that’s an understatement. In fact, we have already been gifted with the full 2024 Calendar year worth of sets and a rough time frame for each set’s release!
In this article, we will be focusing on these new main sets. Notably, beyond just the main sets of 2024, there are a handful of Secret Lairs and Universes Beyond crossovers as well, including none other than Jurassic World! While some sets have more details revealed than others, this should help give a rough idea of what you can expect from these main sets and the formats they are most applicable to. Without further ado, here are some massive previews for the upcoming MTG year.
Ravnica Plane
The first release of 2024 is none other than Ravnica Remastered. So far, we have had three separate occasions where we have visited and revisited the Ravnica plane. From Ravnica: City of Guilds to Return to Ravnica and all the way to Ravnica Allegiance released in 2019, this has been an extremely well received plane within the MTG community.
The goal of Ravnica Remastered is to reprint cards from all three of these sets in order to make a fun and unique draft environment. Much like with Dominaria Remastered, this does not change the legality of any cards in the set with regards to various Constructed formats. Instead, the set is designed for Limited and to provide a collective set of some of the best reprints that Ravnica has to offer, including with some cool retro framed cards as throwbacks.
If you love the world of Ravnica, though, there’s more where that came from! The first set of 2024 featuring new cards in a Standard environment is called Murders at Karlov Manor.
Similar to how The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is being handled, Murders at Karlov Manor is designed to be a backdrop set. What this means is that the set is designed with an entirely new mechanical theme in mind yet features a previously established MTG world. This set is specifically designed as a top-down murder mystery set. There are murders featured within the storyline, but supposedly, there will be puzzles to solve within gameplay itself as the player! Given that the overarching theme is based on murder and mysteries, this set is not as focused on guilds creatively as Ravnica Remastered, for example, which should provide a unique take on a known plane.
Read More: MTG Lord of the Rings On-Track to be the Most Successful Set Ever
A New Modern Horizons?
That’s right. Modern Horizons is back in the form of Modern Horizons Three. Modern Horizons is designed to provide a slightly more complex Limited environment, feature new cards, but most importantly, add cards directly into the Modern format. Of course, with regards to Modern Horizons and Modern Horizons Two, there is a good chance that this changes the Modern format quite a bit. While the first two Modern Horizons sets featured some cards that were clearly too good for the format, such as Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis that would end up being banned, both sets introduced extremely powerful cards that would end up warping the metagame for the foreseeable future.
Cards like Wrenn and Six and Fury were obviously too strong to print in a Standard-legal set, so Modern Horizons sets provide a unique way to implement new cards designed for Modern and playable in Eternal formats as well.
Interestingly though, this set will be featured on MTG Arena. This doesn’t mean that Modern is going to be coming to Arena, at least any time soon, but this does mean that you will have the opportunity to draft Modern Horizons Three on Arena.
Another unique aspect of Modern Horizons Three is that, unlike with the first two Modern Horizons sets, there will be double-faced cards featured as well. This means that, for example, cards that transform into Planeswalkers may be making a return.
Of course, any other mechanics that couldn’t be showcased on MTG cards with only one face could shine in a set like this. Hopefully, Modern Horizons Three strikes a decent balance between overall power level of the cards and how they play out in the Modern format, but only time will tell.
Read More: MTG Secret Lair Manager Teases Big Changes in the Future
Additional New Standard Sets
Modern Horizons Three is set to release as the second set in Q2 of 2024. The first set of Q2 is Outlaws of Thunder Junction, featuring a new MTG world. This set focuses directly on villains, and despite being on a new Plane, showcases villains from all over the Multiverse! MTG designers decided that it would be a cool idea to utilize the Western genre for a set centered around lots of villains, a genre that many players have wanted for quite some time, and that time is finally here.
In Q3 of 2024, there are two more unique main sets to look forward to. Both of these sets are focused around the “Dragonstorm Arc,” which is notably different from the Omenpath Arc, which encompasses the MTG storyline beginning with Wilds of Eldraine. The first set of the Dragonstorm Arc is centered around anthropomorphic animals. Not only that, but this set, Bloomburrow, has no humanoids whatsoever! Instead, tons of different animals are show off, from Squirrels, to Frogs, to Rabbits and beyond, this set should be a delight for animal lovers alike.
Following Bloomburrow, we have a set called Duskmourn, House of Horror that features yet another new MTG world. This set is actually set to take place entirely within a giant, creepy mansion. This is a big contrast to Bloomburrow, which features a plethora of small, adorable animals. The idea behind this set is to focus in on the modern horror genre.
With that, all of the main sets have been revealed for 2024, but this is the world of Magic, so any new information could be released in the future. 2024 should be a very exciting year for MTG. Once again, we covered the Secret Lair and Universes Beyond crossovers in a different article.
Read More: Upcoming MTG Ban Announcement is a Massive Opportunity
