Magic: The Gathering takes a step back to move forward

Magic: The Gathering, the hit card game released in 1993, is celebrating their 25th anniversery this year, and Wizards of the Coast are surely celebrating. Though the game has fluctuated in popularity over the last quarter century, many of the most die hard fans have been around since the beginning.

Oddly enough, it seems that the newest set, Dominaria releasing April 27, 2018 has a lot more people excited than WotC‘s attempt to cash in on the nostalgia with Iconic Masters  and Masters 25. For context, every year, WotC has been releasing a “Masters” set. These sets are designed to reintroduce and reprint older cards to make them available to those who may have missed out on the original print run. Many fans believe that this celebration was botched by the quick release of two masters sets. Iconic Masters, released in November of 2017 was not received well by some members of the fan base for relatively weak card choice for a set deemed to be “Iconic.” Many of those complaints seemed to stem from the fact that different things may be “Iconic” to different people. Masters 25, released February of 2018 suffered due to how closely it was released after Iconic. People’s wallets hadn’t even fully recovered. Though, the set seemed to be adored by those it was targeting. These two sets were released as supplemental to the normal card set release schedule, and did not impact or change any of the competitive formats, other than making some cards more readily available, while skyrocketing the price of others. That, my friends, is a different article entirely.

Dominaria is the first real look back at Magic’s origins in a standard release. And that is including the fact that in 2015, they released a set called Magic: Origins. Dominaria is the name of the world that the entire first decade of the game’s fantasy setting took place on. There were novels covering this setting, and yet after 2003 it was rarely ever mentioned. Fifteen years after the setting was left to explore the rest of Magic’s multiverse, we return to follow the most current story line within the game. Needless to say, long-time fans as well as newer players are hyped as they have been asking for this for a decade and a half.

Wizards of the Coast has made their stance clear, give the players what they want, while also moving the game in a new direction. By revisiting old themes, reprinting old cards that many players grew up playing with their friends, as well as revamping those cards into something new and just as fun. Check out some of these things people have said about it. You can also check out the full card gallery here.

Did you play during the Dominaria period? Are you inspired to dig up your old cards? Let us know in the comments!

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