Last weekend's MagicCon in Amsterdam brought us a slew of new announcements for the trading card game, including next year's full lineup of Magic: The Gathering universe sets.
2027 will bring us Nauctis: The Sunken Realm (February), Kamigawa: Titanbreach (June) and Zhalfir (October). In a recent post on Mark Rosewater's Blogatog, Magic's lead designer asked readers to vote on which of the three sets they were most excited about.
The poll has now closed and the results are surprisingly balanced.
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Nauctis: The Sunken Realm – 27.3%
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Kamigawa: Titan Breach – 35.1%
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Zhalfir – 28.3%
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Don't Make Me Choose – 9.3%
The Magic's 2027 lineup has been going well
The relatively even split between the three sets shows that fans are genuinely enthusiastic about all three sets, which is a good sign that Magic has three very strong concepts on its hands.
Nauctis: The Sunken Realm is an underwater realm with two kingdoms in conflict and an apocalyptic danger lurking in the depths of the ocean. The set – the first in next year's trilogy – will not use the Flying keyword, but will instead introduce a new evasion mechanic.
Kamigawa: Titanbreach is a Gundam-inspired set featuring a war between the beasts of Ikoria and the giant mechs of Kamigawa: “Kamigawa's largest metropolis is sent into chaos by ravaging storms from the planet of Ikoria. Mechs that embody the world's combined bravery, ingenuity, and choose your side as firepower, and choose your side as firepower.” reads the set's synopsis.
Finally, Zhalfir is a return to the eponymous Afrofantasy-inspired sphere that first appeared in the 1996 Mirage set. After Zhalfir replaced New Phyrexia in the multiverse, the realm is now orbited by five suns, ensuring that darkness never comes. The final set of the trilogy will be released next October.
It almost physically pains me to see Universes Beyond consume a lot of Magic: The Gathering's creative energy when the game's writers can clearly create extremely compelling worlds when they are allowed to.
The fact that Zhalfir and Nauctis are within 8 percent of Kamigawa is a testament to how compelling the two previous worlds are, because under normal circumstances a battle between giant mechs and giant monsters would be a winner in an investigation of exciting concepts.
There is, of course, one final in-universe set to be released this year. Arriving in October, Reality Fracture tells the story of an alternate reality created by Jace Belaran that begins to invade the multiverse. The theme of the set includes iconic characters with opposite colors i.e. Blue Chandra and White Liliana.
- Franchise
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Magic: The Gathering
- Original release date
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August 5, 1993
- Designer(s)
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Richard Garfield
