Throne of Eldraine is the 82nd Magic expansion. It was released on October 4, 2019.
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 from various 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.[13] Most of the top-down designs are fairy tales, but more of the nuts and bolts cards are Arthurian.
The Wildered Quest
Throne of Eldraine was the beginning of a new Planeswalker story arc.[19][20] 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.[21] Wizards of the Coast announced that the Magic story would now be told through e-books rather
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:
Unexplained Vision
Kenrith's Transformation
Return of the Wildspeaker
Happily Ever After
Marketing
Adventurer card (showcase)
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.[34] 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 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.
Throne of Eldraine features the following limited archetypes:
{W}{U}: Artifacts and enchantments matters (Shinechaser)
{U}{B}: Cards in both graveyards matter (Drown in the Loch)
{B}{R}: Knights and Equipment (Steelclaw Lance)
{R}{G}: Non-Human creatures (Grumgully, the Generous)
{G}{W}: Adventures (Wandermare)
{W}{B}: Knight-tribal attrition (Wintermoor Commander)
{U}{R}: Two card draws per turn (Improbable Alliance)
{B}{G}: Food (Savvy Hunter)
{R}{W}: Knights go wide (Inspiring Veteran)
{G}{U}: Ramp (Maraleaf Pixie)
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. The creature may be cast from exile when exiled as part of the resolution.
The set also further introduces the artifact subtype Food. Food tokens have 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.
Token cards
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.
Preconstructed decks
Brawl decks
Throne of Eldraine introduces decks designed for the Brawl format.[40] 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
The Player Spotlight card is Fervent Champion, which portrays Javier Dominguez, the World Champion of 2018.
Command Tower became Standard legal for the first time through its inclusion in the Brawl Decks. However, it can't generate any mana outside of Brawl/Commander.
The Royal Scions is the first planeswalker card that has two planeswalker types. Consequently, it is also the first planeswalker where the types don't appear in its name.
Reprinted cards
The following cards have been reprinted from previous sets:
Fling, first printed in Stronghold, last seen in Amonkhet.
Opt, first printed in Invasion, last seen in Dominaria.
Reave Soul, first printed in Magic Origins, last seen in Iconic Masters.
Return to Nature, first printed in War of the Spark.
Righteousness, first printed in Alpha, last seen in Duel Decks: Heroes vs. Monsters.
Sorcerous Spyglass, first printed in Ixalan.
Sporecap Spider, first printed in Rise of the Eldrazi, last seen in Conspiracy.
Youthful Knight, first printed in Stronghold, last seen in Archenemy: Nicol Bolas.
Functional reprints
Charmed Sleep is a functional reprint of Claustrophobia and Waterknot.
Didn't Say Please is a functional reprint of Thought Collapse.
Knight of the Keep is a functional reprint of Bastion Enforcer and Loxodon Line Breaker.
Prized Griffin is a functional reprint of Enforcer Griffin.
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. 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 optimizing Fires required extremely clunky cards that could not compete if Fires was not drawn or 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. 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. The other ramp top-end, such as Hydroid Krasis, still overpowered it. 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.
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