As Commander Masters hits store shelves, and we prepare for Wilds of Eldraine, and the Doctor Who Commander Decks, Wizards of the Coast took to the stage at GenCon 2023 to reveal the Magic: The Gathering 2024 roadmap, as well as what the future holds this year and beyond.
Opening up the discussion starts with three themes that are at the core of Magic's goals:
- Innovation for the Future and Honoring the Past
- Creating Something for Everyone
- Commitment to Magic Lore and Story
Then the next major story arc for Magic is revealed and it will occur over the next 3 years, starting this fall. The full arc is yet to be named publicly but it has been given the codename Metronome. Each year will also have its own individual story arc, with year one being the Omenpath Arc, starting with Wilds of Eldraine.
The Omenpath Arc will be dealing with the fallout of the Phyrexian invasion, and the opening of the Omenpaths as seen in March of the Machine: Aftermath For those who haven't been paying attention, and want to catch up, the Phyrexian Arc is available in a downloadable e-publication on their website.
Lost Caverns of Ixalon Features Jurassic Park and Special Guests
Special Guests are a new concept that will be beginning with Lost Caverns of Ixalon.
Taking advantage of the Omenpaths as a reason, special guests are a way to reprint highly desired cards in a set that has been reskinned to fit that world. They will appear on The List, and in Collector Boosters providing a new way of getting some highly desired cards.
Also coming with Lost Caverns of Ixalon is Jurassic Park/World universes beyond collaboration as the setting is well known for its dinosaurs. These cards will be in set and collector boosters, and are mechanically unique ones.
Overall, this appears to be in theory similar to the Transformers cards in Brothers War last year.
There will also be two Jurassic Park/World secret lairs releasing later this year.
Tales of Middle-Earth Revisited
Also coming this fall is a revisiting of Middle-Earth with a holiday release of Tales of Middle-Earth. This release is not a full set but will feature new treatments for some cards, new scenes, and a few mechanically unique cards as well.
Magic: The Gathering 2024 Roadmap
The first release for Magic: The Gathering in 2024 is Ravnica Remastered. Featuring cards from all three Ravnica blocks it aims to be a unique draft environment drawing on the different guilds and the ways they were executed across time.
As a throwback product (the original Ravnica released in 2005), it will feature retro frame cards.
The first premiere set of 2024 is Murders at Karlov Manor, which like Lost Caverns of Ixalan is a backdrop set. What that means is that it is set in a world we've seen previously but it is with an entirely different mechanical focus or theme.
For this set, Wizards is making a murder mystery set, playing into all the tropes and angles you would expect, at Karlov Manor in Ravnica. This is not going to be about the guilds like the other Ravnica sets, though they will appear on cards and are part of the world.
Coming with this is Ravnica: Clue Edition, which will be a unique merger of Magic: The Gathering, and Clue set in Ravnica. It is self-contained and combines sleuth gameplay along with Magic's strategic depth.
Magic: The Gathering: Fallout Commander Decks
The next release in the Magic: The Gathering 2024 roadmap is a Universes Beyond product. In this UB release, we will see Fallout Commander decks, with a variety of factions represented by the decks. The release will come out in March 2024, with more information coming in the future.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The first new world that Magic: The Gathering has visited in a while is a take on the Western genre. It is a frontier fantasy setting and will feature a variety of villains from Magic as they use the Omenpaths to travel and meet up here.
According to Mark Rosewater, the Omenpaths are what made this set possible. He also reassures folks that they hired cultural consultants and made sure to "make a set everyone can love."
Modern Horizons 3 Announced
Revisiting one of their best-selling line of products, Modern Horizons 3 is another direct-to-modern set with the increased complexity and mechanics you may know and love (or hate) from the first two Modern Horizons.
Unlike those two sets though, this time there will be double-faced cards as Wizards explores more what can be done with two sides on a card.
Modern Horizons 3 will also be coming to MTGArena, though they caution that Modern isn't coming to MTG Arena. Pioneer is the current focus for Arena and by the end of 2024, they hope to have all tournament-used cards from Pioneer on the platform for what they are calling Tournament Pioneer.
Magic: The Gathering Assassin's Creed Set Coming in July
In July 2024, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed will be coming to Magic. These cards will be distributed in Beyond boosters, a new way of delivering cards, that aren't draftable.
These boosters will have new cards as well as 'exciting reprints', and will feature cards based on all the games in the series. The cards in these packs will be legal in Modern.
Bloomburrow Brings Anthropomorphic Animals To Magic En-Masse
In September next year, the second of the three-year story arc will kick off, along with a new one-year arc. This second-year arc is called Dragonstorm, and its first set will be Bloomburrow.
There are no humans in Bloomburrow natively - instead expect to see rabbits, mice, wolves, and everything else as the main characters, talking, wearing clothes, wielding weapons, and more. Mark Rosewater called it Magic's most charming set during the panel.
Duskmourn House of Horror Closes out Magic: The Gathering 2024 Roadmap
Finishing off the Magic: The Gathering 2024 roadmap is the top-down modern horror set, Duskmourn: House of Horror. While Innistrad delves into gothic horror, Duksmourn focuses on horror more like you saw in the 70s and 80s. The whole world is set in what is functionally a haunted mansion, with creepy corridors, haunted rooms and more.
Magic 2025 and 2026 Plans
Pulling back the curtains more than ever before, Wizards talked about their plans for 2025 and 2026. They cautioned that none of this is set in stone, and things could change, but it is where they are thinking right now. In particular, sets are using codenames here, and the art isn't final for anything as they are still working on them. Almost anything could change if it needs to.
Innistrad Remastered is tentatively set to lead off 2025, and it works like Ravnica Remastered will, taking from all the releases on that world to mix and match to create a fun draft environment.
Following that is codename Tennis, a set that is concepted to be a Death Race through three worlds. Two of these are worlds that we have visited before but never revisited, while the third has been depicted on cards but never been the setting of a premiere set.
After that comes codename Ultimate, a return to Tarkir. For this set, they are focusing on "the best of both worlds" as they aim to take the best of Khans of Tarkir, and the best of Dragons of Tarkir, and blend them together for a new Tarkir.
Also in 2025 is the next tentpole booster universes beyond set release, much like Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth. This one is Final Fantasy and it will draw across all the main Final Fantasy games, from the original to the recent Final Fantasy XIV. It will come to MTG Arena.
Volleyball begins the third year of the metronome story arc, and will kick off its own year-long story. For now, that story name isn't released, as it would reveal too much.
Volleyball takes Magic: The Gathering to outer space, as it is a space opera-inspired set and going to play into what players' expectations for something about space opera would include.
After that is Wrestling, which is a return to Lorwyn. A world defined by its duality, Lorwyn was the set that featured the original five planeswalker cards and was inspired by a sort of dual world aspect as well as built on Celtic lore.
This is going to be a revisit much like Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty was for the original Kamigawa, as it aims to capture what players loved while updating it and making it something more people will enjoy.
For 2026, they only revealed a couple of things, as right now these are sets in vision design - the earliest of the three stages of design that Magic uses, and where Mark Rosewater focuses the most.
The mechanics in these sets haven't been even close to being finalized as they are still exploring what does or does not work.
Yachting is a return to Arcavios - where we originally visited in Strixhaven. The last teased set is Ziplining, which will be a capstone event set as it brings the three-year metronome story to an end, much like War of the Spark, and March of the Machine did for their arcs.
After that, they haven't worked on any other sets, so they have been revealing almost all the major releases planned over the next three years, which starts with the Magic: The Gathering 2024 roadmap. If you want to watch the whole video you can view it on the Magic: The Gathering youtube channel.
