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Throne of Eldraine

Facts
Placement
Plane
Eldraine
Other
Symbol description
Crown, sword, and knight's tabard
Design
Mark Rosewater (lead) ; Peter Lee ; Andrew Brown ; Dan Burdick ; Ethan Fleischer ; Mark Gottlieb ; Mickey Cushing ; Pete Ingram ; Sam Stoddard ; Kelly Digges ; Cynthia Sheppard
Development
Mark Gottlieb (lead) ; Erik Lauer (lead) ; Ethan Fleischer ; Ian Duke ; Aaron Forsythe ; Andrew Brown ; Melissa DeTora ; James Rose ; Michael Majors
Themes and mechanics
Adventure , Food , Knights and Non- Humans .
Keywords/​ability words
Adamant
Throne of Eldraine
Throne of Eldraine Theros Beyond Death Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths
Commander 2019
Commander 2019 Throne of Eldraine Ponies: The Galloping

Throne of Eldraine is the 82nd Magic expansion. It was released on October 4, 2019.

Set details

Throne of Eldraine is a top-down designed set, inspired by the romantic Arthurian legend of Camelot on one hand and Grimms' Fairy Tales on the other. Besides Grimm, the set covers a range of European fairy tales that come from a variety of sources. Mark Rosewater stated that he had been waiting 10 years to do a Grimm's world, comparing it to the Lorwyn–Shadowmoor block that had erred in being too true to the source material rather than hitting the tropes that players knew. Most of the top-down designs are fairy tale, but more of the nuts and bolts cards are Arthurian.

The main set contains 269 cards (20 basic lands, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares), and includes randomly inserted premium versions of all these cards. Additional cards are found in the set's collector boosters, planeswalker decks, and brawl decks. A unique Buy-a-Box promotional card is also considered to be part of the set. As of this set, the additional cards are numbered sequentially but don't feature the denominator anymore. So collector numbers like "307/300" are a thing of the past. Cards with alternate card frames have another card number than the original version. Borderless planeswalkers are numbered #270-272, Showcase cards are numbered #273-302, the Buy-a-Box is #303, planeswalker deck cards are numbered #304-313 and brawl deck cards are numbered #314-333. extended artwork cards are numbered #334-391. The Bundle promo is numbered #392. Finally there are FNM-treatment cards from the Universal promo pack list numbered #393-397. Both regular and foil versions of these cards may be found in the collector boosters except for the Foil Buy-a-Box promo; the two foil Planeswalker Deck Planeswalkers, the Bundle promo and the common nonfoil showcase cards.

2018 World Champion Javier Dominguez is depicted on a newly introduced player spotlight card.

Storyline

Throne of Eldraine was the beginning of a new Planeswalker story arc. The set was accompanied by an Ebook written by Kate Elliott, for sale on Amazon and other webshops. This was the only way to go deeper than the cards and read the full Throne of Eldraine story. Wizards of the Coast announced that the Magic story would now be told through e-books rather than weekly episodic stories and that The Wildered Quest is the first example of this change in how Magic’s story will be told.

The plane of Eldraine is a high-fantasy medieval world filled with knights and castles along with Magic's take on the genre of fairy tales. The key conflict of Eldraine is the five knightly courts vs. the magical creatures of the Wilds. The status quo is disrupted when the planeswalkers Oko and Garruk Wildspeaker kidnap High King Algenus Kenrith. His children, the twins Rowan and Will Kenrith, embark on a quest to save their father. In the end, the king is saved, Garruk is freed from his curse, and the twins' Planeswalker's spark ignites.

The cards that represent the Story Spotlights in Throne of Eldraine are:

Storyline sources

Marketing

Throne of Eldraine is sold in regular 16-card regular boosters (one card being a marketing card), five single color Theme Boosters, two Planeswalker Decks, four Brawl Decks, and the Throne of Eldraine bundle. The regular boosters, now rebranded as Draft Boosters, form a lineup with the Theme Boosters and with new Collector Boosters. The Draft Boosters feature artwork from Rowan Kenrith (key art), Loch Dragon and Embereth Paladin. The Theme Boosters feature art from Shining Armor ({W}), Tome Raider ({U}), Wicked Guardian ({B}), Redcap Raiders ({R}), and Beanstalk Giant ({G}). The Collector Boosters feature art depicting Garruk Wildspeaker.

The Draft Booster has the possibility of containing borderless planeswalkers or special new showcase cards. The Showcase frame is a catch-all term to cover a variety of different treatments that embody the spirit of the relevant set. The art and frame will play into the set's theme (in this case it frames the card boxes with green vines). Each set will have its own unique showcase cards. Which cards get the treatment (and usually, it will just be cards from that set), and at what rarity, will vary from set to set. Showcase cards replace cards of the same rarity as the non-showcase card in packs. The showcase cards don't require a mechanic with a new frame, it just happens to be the case for Throne of Eldraine. The Showcase cards replace cards of the same rarity as the non-showcase card in packs. By a technical mishap, there are no non-foil common showcase cards in booster packs. Those appear only in the Collector Boosters. Every rare or mythic rare from the set that doesn't already have a variant frame (meaning that it doesn't exist as a borderless planeswalker card or showcase card) will be available as extended-art cards. The extended-art cards are all rares and mythic rares and are only found in the Collector Booster.

The name of the set was revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 18, 2019. An image of promotional flyers appeared on Reddit that same day. These featured art with faeries, leading to speculation that the set would have an emphasis on faeries. Mark Rosewater had to make a statement on Blogatog to do some expectation management. He noted that there are Faeries in the set, but nowhere at the volume or importance that people were assuming. Rosewater provided some more details on Saturday at the Magic panel. The panel wasn't live-streamed, but Wizards of the Coast tweeted it live and an article with the relevant info was posted later that night.

As in Core Set 2020, 1:45 cards is foil, instead of the previous 1:67. Going forward, this is the standard rate.

To celebrate the addition of food to the game, Wizards of the Coast organized the First Great Eldraine Bake-Off, an Eldraine inspired online recipe competition.

Collector Boosters

After a test run for Ravnica Allegiance, Wizards of the Coast introduced "Collector Boosters" as a regular feature for standard sets. The expected price range is between $20 to $25 per booster. They are only printed in English and Japanese, and will have a limited print run. The contents are

  • 1 rare/mythic rare with extended-art
  • 1 foil rare/mythic rare (may also be a borderless planeswalker, extended-art, or showcase card).
  • 9 foil commons/uncommons (including variant versions)
  • 3 non-foil special-frame cards (showcase or borderless planeswalker)
  • 1 non-foil ancillary card (the Buy-a-Box card, a new card from the Planeswalker Decks, or a new card from the Brawl Decks)
  • 1 foil token

The collector boosters are packaged 12 to a box.

Deluxe Collection

The "Throne of Eldraine Deluxe Collection" is a special packaging of collectible products, sold for $449.99 in the Magicstore at Wizards.com. The difference with the earlier Mythic Editions of the Guilds of Ravnica block is that this product doesn't contain Masterpieces.

The Deluxe Collection contains the following, all packaged in a premium box:​

This product went on sale on 2nd Oct 2019. The approximately 10,000-11,000 units were all sold in just under 2 hours.

Gift Edition

A special Throne of Eldraine Gift Edition, essentially an embellished version of the bundle, became available for the holiday season on November 15, 2019.

Events

Promotional cards

Tokens/emblems/markers

The sixteenth card in the boosters is a token, emblem or marker, with advertisements on the back side. There are a total of twenty different cards.

  1. {W} 0/1 Goat creature, created by Clackbridge Troll.
  2. {W} 1/1 Human creature, created by Castle Ardenvale, Harmonious Archon, Inquisitive Puppet, Lovestruck Beast, Oakhame Ranger, Rally for the Throne and Worthy Knight.
  3. {W} 2/2 Knight creature with vigilance, created by Banish into Fable, Doom Foretold, Lonesome Unicorn, Silverwing Squadron and The Circle of Loyalty.
  4. {W} 1/1 Mouse creature, created by Enchanted Carriage.
  5. {U} 1/1 Faerie creature with flying, created by Alela, Artful Provocateur, Faerie Formation, Improbable Alliance, and Stolen by the Fae.
  6. {B} 1/1 Rat creature, created by Chittering Witch, Mad Ratter, and Piper of the Swarm.
  7. {R} 1/1 Dwarf creature, created by Dwarven Mine.
  8. {G} 2/2 Bear creature, created by Flaxen Intruder.
  9. {G} 1/1 Boar creature with "When this creature dies, create a Food token," created by Wolf's Quarry
  10. {G} 7/7 Giant creature, for Giant Opportunity.
  11. {R/W} 2/1 Human Cleric creature with lifelink and haste, created by Outlaws' Merriment.
  12. {R/W} 1/2 Human Rogue creature with haste and "When this creature enters the battlefield, it deals 1 damage to any target," created by Outlaws' Merriment.
  13. {R/W} 3/1 Human Warrior creature with trample and haste, created by Outlaws' Merriment.
  14. {B/G} 2/2 Wolf creature with “When this creature dies, put a loyalty counter on each Garruk you control,” created by Garruk, Cursed Huntsman.
  15. {C} Food artifact (1/4), created by Bake into a Pie, Bartered Cow, Curious Pair, Feasting Troll King, Fell the Pheasant, Fierce Witchstalker, Foreboding Fruit, Fortifying Provisions, Giant Opportunity, Giant's Skewer, Gilded Goose, Gingerbread Cabin, Gluttonous Troll, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Savvy Hunter, Taste of Death, Tempting Witch, Trail of Crumbs, Turn into a Pumpkin, Witch's Oven and Wolf's Quarry.
  16. {C} Food artifact (2/4)
  17. {C} Food artifact (3/4)
  18. {C} Food artifact (4/4)
  19. Emblem for Garruk, Cursed Huntsman.
  20. On an Adventure marker for Adventure cards.

Themes and mechanics

Throne of Eldraine introduces the ability word Adamant; spells with Adamant have additional or alternative effects if you cast the spell with three or more mana of one color. Together with the hybrid mana in the set, Adamant encourages monocolor drafting - in order of aggressive to controlling, it typically goes red-white-green-black-blue.

Additionally, there are heavy tribal themes around Knights and Non-Humans. Knights appear in all five colors, but they have the most tribal synergy in white, black and red. Non-Humans are mainly green, blue, and red. There are also artifact- and enchantment-matters themes.

Card types

Adventure is a new subtype, seen exclusively on instants and sorceries attached to creature cards. Casting the Adventure half of a card represents sending the creature on an adventure before putting it onto the battlefield. When the adventure resolves, the card is exiled. When exiled as part of the resolution, the creature may be cast from exile.

The set introduces a new predefined artifact token and subtype — Food. Food tokens have “{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.”

Throne of Eldraine introduces the Mouse, Peasant and Warlock creature types. Noble is reintroduced. The set also introduces the Oko planeswalker type.

While War of the Spark and Core 2020 had only one cycle of colored artifacts, they are much more prevalent in this set.

Limited archetypes

Along with orthodox color pair drafting, Throne of Eldraine also supports monocolor drafting with Adamant, the exclusively hybrid mana uncommon signposts, and the higher number of colorless artifacts. Each monocolored archetype's mechanical theme is based on the respective court's virtue. Throne of Eldraine features the following limited archetypes:

Cycles

Throne of Eldraine has fourteen cycles.

Dual cycles

Vertical Cycles

Pairs

Reprinted cards

The following cards have been reprinted from previous sets:

Functional reprints

Preconstructed decks

Planeswalker decks

Throne of Eldraine features two planeswalker decks:

Brawl decks

Throne of Eldraine introduces decks designed for the Brawl format. These 60-card decks use cards from throughout Standard, from Guilds of Ravnica all the way through Throne of Eldraine. There are 20 unique cards in these decks that aren't found in Draft Boosters (but they can still be found in Collector Boosters.) Each deck has seven of them — four cards unique to that deck, one card shared with one other Brawl Deck, and two cards shared with each other Brawl Deck. These cards are all legal in Standard, Brawl, and all other formats that allow the latest sets (or at least ones where cards in new sets are legal). A life wheel is included in the packaging.

Notable cards

Banned and restricted cards

  • Oko, Thief of Crowns proved to be absurdly powerful, especially after Field of the Dead was banned in Standard and players started looking for new powerful decks. According to Bryan Hawley, "over the course of a slew of late redesigns, we lost sight of the sheer, raw power of the card, and overshot it by no small margin." Due to his ability to generate artifacts, and permanently invalidate opposing creatures and artifacts while increasing his loyalty, he unusually had an immediate impact on all competitive formats. October 2019 saw domination of Oko-decks ("Oko-tober"), the coining of the catchphrase "Oko is Broko" to emphasize how broken the card was, and many jokes about all cards actually being 3/3 Elks. Oko was banned in Brawl, Standard, and Pioneer almost immediately; bans in Modern and Historic followed within the next few months. In February 2021, even Legacy was deemed not a suitable environment, which left him legal only in Vintage for normal constructed formats.
  • Once Upon A Time, much like most other forms of free spells, overshot its power level significantly. With a nearly-zero fail rate by hitting lands, it had an extremely low opportunity cost in any creature deck, and its application in midrange-combo decks made it too powerful to keep around. This led to a ban in Standard, Historic, Pioneer and Modern, like Oko before it.
  • Fires of Invention was a card that immediately drew notice as a broken engine card. It was held back from being the best deck because optimization of Fires required extremely clunky cards that could not compete if Fires was not drawn or was answered, which as a four-mana enchantment was at least a reasonable strategy. As the format developed, the Fires deck became more powerful with additions of Yorion, Sky Nomad and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast that gave the deck faster angles of attack, and so it was banned alongside Agent of Treachery and the Companion rules change in July 2020. While the deck would have to structurally change (likely a reversion) with an Agent ban, it was clear that the card should never have existed, given how easily it invalidates mana cost balancing.
  • Mystic Sanctuary is by far the most powerful card of the common land cycle, being able to recur any instant or sorcery spell for free. Thanks to its basic land type it can be easily searched for in formats with fetchlands, where it sees the most play. Ironically, it received its first banning in Pauper, a format without fetchlands, due to the presence of flicker decks that generate actual loops, as opposed to other formats where such a thing is too inefficient. In February 2021, it received its first ban in a sanctioned format in Modern.
  • Cauldron Familiar formed a small loop with Witch's Oven that drains once a turn and either attacks for one or blocks a single ground creature. It happens to also trigger Mayhem Devil (twice), Trail of Crumbs, and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. Mayhem Devil was the main reason the Sacrifice decks suppressed the aggressive decks so well, and with its rotation the deck was much weaker; however, ultimately what was most frustrating was that the loop takes much longer to execute on MTG Arena (the main locale to play Standard in this time period) as opposed to in paper, and so it was banned August 2020, the only banning that day that endured post-rotation.
  • Lucky Clover was an uncommon draft payoff for Adventures, doubling up on the usually worth-less-than-a-card effects on the uncommon and common Adventurers. However, when ported into Constructed with the rare cards that easily trade for a card, the Adventures deck made to be a frontrunner of the post-rotation format. The Adventures shell made up the second most powerful Omnath, Locus of Creation deck, one with better odds against the field than the ramp version. With no clear predator in sight to fight the long game of Granted and Escape to the Wilds, and the short game of Lovestruck Beast and Bonecrusher Giant, it was banned alongside Omnath in October 2020.
  • Escape to the Wilds combined the design of Explore with the impulsive draw mechanic for Red, giving the color pair a card advantage sorcery with a reasonable fail rate. Before Zendikar Rising, the card was used mostly in Adventure decks, where the cheap Adventure spells let the deck extract full value from its spells. It was still overpowered by the other ramp top-end, such as Hydroid Krasis. Post-rotation, however, it graduated to one of the mid-level ramp payoffs for the Omnath decks, bridging the gap between Cultivate and Genesis Ultimatum, or Fertile Footsteps and Granted. While Omnath was banned, it was clear that Escape could still serve as one of the ramp linchpins and was banned in October 2020 to move the format away from ramp.

Misprint

  • The Brawl deck version of Corpse Knight was misprinted as 2/3 creature instead of as a 2/2. The Knights' Charge deck later enclosed a reminder card and a correct copy of Corpse Knight.

References

External links