Back in 2023, Wizards of the Coast made a massive change to Standard’s rotation schedule in an attempt to help revitalize Standard. Rather than having sets rotate after two years, sets would rotate after 3 years. The goal was to give Standard cards more longevity and give archetypes more room to be built on over time.
Now, to help make things run even smoother, a big shift in the timing of rotation has been announced. This alteration won’t go into effect for a while, but it will impact Bloomburrow and Duskmourn’s rotation schedule.
A Big Change
As things currently stand, old sets are designed to rotate out of Standard near the release of the new premier set near the fall. Timing differs slightly from year to year, depending on the schedule of set releases.
In an attempt to make things easier for players to remember, starting in 2027, rotation will now occur with the arrival of the first premier set in a given calendar year. This means that once the first Standard-legal set comes out in 2027, all sets from 2024 will rotate out. Meanwhile, all releases from 2025, 2026, and 2027 will stay legal until the first set debuts in 2028, and so on.
This change does make a decent amount of sense. The objective is clearly to make things as straight-forward as possible for new players looking to learn Standard, and get into Magic overall. This way, players may be less likely to forget about rotation or misunderstand which sets remain legal and which don’t.
Bloomburrow and Duskmourn
As mentioned, a big part of why the new rotation period was announced now is that Bloomburrow and Duskmourn will be affected. Bloomburrow and Duskmourn will leave Standard after the first Standard legal release in 2027. There will also be no rotation in 2026.
This isn’t a massive difference, though it does mean that Duskmourn won’t get a full three years in the spotlight. Rather than leaving Standard in the fall of 2027, Duskmourn cards will be pushed out with the first 2027 premier set.
This small sacrifice to make things easier to follow for years to come is likely worth it. Magic is an incredibly complex game, and the larger attempt to return Magic closer to its roots should, hopefully, allow the new focus on Universes Beyond sets to attract a lot of new players.
