When I first started collecting Magic: The Gathering cards, I didn't fully know what I was getting into. I had always been a trading card game kind of person, so it wasn't a shock to my (reluctant) parents that I wanted to collect these cards. I was among the very few kids at school who started properly learning and speaking English early on, and the best among them, according to my teachers. It was my second language, as I grew up in Italy. The things are related, as I was particularly motivated to learn the language due to Pokemon cards only being available in English when they started being sold in Italy. And believe me, I was a big Pokemon nerd as a kid.
Eventually, the cards were translated and localized, so all other kids started getting them in their native language. Whenever possible, I would still buy English packs, even if they became a rarity. My passion for TCGs didn't vanish over time, and instead, it intensified when I started learning all the intricacies of building decks, which over time led me to Magic: The Gathering, my dream deckbuilding game.
Magic: The Gathering's Spider-Man Set Has Me Longing For the Heyday of One Card Type
Magic: The Gathering's Spider-Man set doesn't break any ground by skipping one card type, but the crossover still has me thinking about the past.
I was just starting out, though, and I didn't have enough resources or knowledge to build decks yet. But I remember getting myself a few packs from the Mirrodin block at a local game store, and my very first pack included a Darksteel Colossus. I had already gotten MTG cards as presents before then, but it wasn't the same thing as buying my own packs and getting an 11-mana 11/11 indestructible creature with trample.
Flash forward a few months, and I was partaking in drafts whenever I could. I sold my small collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards to afford more MTG products. Despite being a massive introvert, I ended up befriending some LGS kids and older people to play more often, and luckily, my friends at the time also started picking up the game.
I was hooked. Then, in 2005, came the block that made me love the game like never before — MTG's Ravnica, starting with City of Guilds. Now, however, not every set is another Ravnica for me; not even the actual return to Ravnica that was Murders at Karlov Manor, and I didn't really like sets like MTG's Outlaws of Thunder Junction in the block-less era.
MTG's Ravnica Block Was a Dream Come True For Me
I loved Ravnica for a few reasons. Color allegiances, guilds, the story, the intrigue, the characters — these were all incredible concepts to me, and they went far deeper than any other TCG I had experienced before in terms of gameplay. Ever the Blue player because I loved counterspells and control, I ended up building a Dimir deck and had a blast with it, even if it didn't work amazingly.
Ravnica: City of Guilds was cohesive, and it wasn't all about humans or the city itself, but it heavily featured all kinds of creatures that could inhabit the plane. I even have a copy of Ravnica's Birds of Paradise, still, that miraculously survived over the years, and while it's no MTG Black Lotus, it's a prized possession of mine. Guildpact and Dissension were equally great for me, even if they lacked the same charm of an entirely new story and characters that only City of Guilds could offer.
I remember building an MTG Green ramp deck that used Farseek and Chord of Calling, then I splashed Black in because I got a copy of Dark Confidant and a few cool Golgari cards. I even participated in some tournaments, though I rarely did well, but it's probably a byproduct of my fixation on building my own decks and the fact that I was still a 14-year-old at the time.
How Lorwyn Cemented My Love For MTG, and Why I Quit Shortly After
After Ravnica, my second big love came with Lorwyn, which had plenty of woodland critters, goblins, merfolk, fairies, and so on. It built an amazing story without ever needing a single human being, which was a perk for my introverted self, who cared about animals so much. The follow-up set, Morningtide, also became one of my favorites thanks to cards like Bitterblossom, Oona's Blackguard, and Dewdrop Spy. Yes, this means that I thoroughly enjoyed the recent MTG Orzhov Pixie decks in Standard.
However, be it a mix of burning myself out on the game by playing it too much and the fact that I was about to finish school before university, be it that the cost of playing the game and going to tournaments was too high for me to sustain, I ended up quitting shortly after Zendikar came out in 2009.
Why I Came Back to Magic: The Gathering After 15 Years
Flash forward about 15 years - which is a long time-skip, I know, but this ain't a book - and I was in a place of new beginnings mixed with a craving for TCGs. I looked the game up, and lo and behold, the perfect set for me had just been announced: MTG's Bloomburrow. I am still as introverted as when I was a kid, if not more, and to be honest, I kinda prefer animals to humans anyway (no offense). So, a set dedicated entirely to woodland critters, tribes, color allegiances, and so on, hit all the right notes for me.
On top of that, as a mix of Ravnica and Lorwyn, it reignited my spark. No, I hadn't lost it in March of the Machine because I wasn't playing. Jokes aside, Bloomburrow was simply perfect for me. It was exactly the type of content I crave in the game, and it gave me a lot of cards that are still among my favorites, like Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, Flubs, the Fool, Valley Floodcaller, Wick, the Whorled Mind, and all the various tribes. I don't think there's a single card I dislike from the set in terms of flavor or design, even if not all of them are amazing from a gameplay perspective.
MTG's Heartfire Hero and Emberheart Challenger ended up terrorizing Standard for a long time after Bloomburrow's release.
However, after just a few months, Wizards of the Coast announced that Universes Beyond would become Standard-legal. Personally, I don't love the concept of Universes Beyond, and I know I'm not alone. More importantly, I was on the high of Bloomburrow and shortly after MTG's Duskmourn set, which I also liked as a whole, and the idea of just three in-multiverse sets for the foreseeable future lowers the likelihood of more sets like Bloomburrow by quite a lot.
Magic: The Gathering is About to Start 2026 With a Bang For Me
Fortunately, Lorwyn Eclipsed is scheduled for January 2026, and I am sure I will love it just like I loved the original block, but this will be a one-off set. With Bloomburrow dropping in August 2024 and Lorwyn Eclipsed coming in January of 2026, I can't expect another similar set in 2027, let alone next year. Universes Beyond will most likely revolve around popular IPs, and it's highly unlikely that WotC will drop another set like Bloomburrow and Lorwyn Eclipsed in MTG so soon after their release. Even back then, it was about a year between Ravnica's full block and Lorwyn's, so now that blocks are not really a thing anymore, my favorite content in the game is bound to only appear every couple of years or so.
It makes me sad, I won't lie, especially if it means having more Universes Beyond sets in the game in place of what could be those unique planes that scream Magic: The Gathering to me. This doesn't mean that I only like sets like Ravnica, Lorwyn, and Bloomburrow, as for each of them is an Edge of Eternities, Duskmourn, or Mirrodin that I still very much enjoy. However, I can't help but feel that sets tied to tribes, critters, and guilds are not exactly common, and to be honest, I can't believe I'm getting Lorwyn Eclipsed "so soon" after Bloomburrow.
One could argue that Wilds of Eldraine, with cards like MTG's Blossoming Tortoise, Armory Mice, Frolicking Familiar, or a merfolk-inspired version of Rhystic Study, is precisely this type of set, and that's true. Yet, the fact that there was a gap of one year between it and Bloomburrow means that Universes Beyond may dilute it further to once every two years or more, instead, for the foreseeable future.
MTG's release schedule for 2026 is already confirmed to have three in-multiverse sets and three UB sets.
It's not all doom and gloom, though, as it means I can try to save some money for whenever these sets are released and get myself something like Commander decks, special bundles, or whatever cool product Wizards plans to have in store for this kind of set. With six sets per year and the price increase of Universes Beyond, I'm already priced out of Standard anyway, barring purchasing singles for decks, so I'd rather try to collect the sets I care about the most. Unless Lorwyn Eclipsed previews let me down, that's my next step — though it may be a long time before another.
Magic: The Gathering
- Original Release Date
- August 5, 1993
- Publisher
- Wizards of the Coast
- Designer
- Richard Garfield
- Player Count
- 2+
- Age Recommendation
- 13+