Magic: The Gathering is removing flying from an entire expansion for only the second time in the game’s history. At MagicCon: Atlanta today, Wizards of the Coast revealed how Nauctis: The Sunken Realm will replace traditional flying combat with a new mechanic called Dive, alongside a collection of 20 special box-topper cards.
The underwater expansion, releasing February 5, 2027, will also introduce new foil treatments, five previously unseen Magic card designs among its Sunken Treasures, and the first booster boxes under Wizards’ revised 2027 product structure.
Nauctis Removes Flying and Introduces Dive
During the preview panel, Magic head designer Mark Rosewater explained that Wizards had spent roughly 20 years considering an underwater setting. One of the biggest obstacles was figuring out how flying would work in a world where everything happens beneath the ocean.
Rosewater joked about the absurdity of battling enormous underwater creatures with a seagull. Rather than find an underwater equivalent for flying, designers decided to remove the mechanic altogether.
“There is no flying in the set,” Rosewater confirmed.
According to Rosewater, the only previous Magic set without flying was Portal Three Kingdoms, which featured horsemanship instead. Nauctis will not simply replace flying with an underwater version of horsemanship.
Instead, the set introduces Dive, a new keyword action rather than a traditional keyword ability.
Dive is an action performed by a creature, creating opportunities for cards to interact with whether that creature is currently diving.
Rosewater stopped short of revealing the complete rules during the panel, saying players would learn more when the full preview season begins.
The MTG Dive Mechanic Spoiled & Explained
Players on Reddit have already shared what appears to be Dive’s reminder text from Wizards’ publicly available Commander Party marketing materials.
The text indicates that a creature that dives cannot be blocked until it deals combat damage while attacking.
One example from those materials references a creature diving after devouring another creature. Additional event text reportedly grants a creature hexproof while it is diving.
If these materials reflect the final mechanic, Dive creates temporary evasion that lasts until the creature successfully connects with an opponent or another target in combat, rather than allowing it to evade blockers indefinitely.
That could make triggering Dive at the right moment particularly important. A creature might remain difficult to block across multiple turns if it has not yet dealt combat damage, while other cards could potentially reward or protect creatures in the diving state.
The material comes from an official retailer resource, but Wizards has not yet provided the mechanic’s complete rules explanation or revealed how widely it appears across the main set.
Sunken Treasures Introduces 20 Box Toppers, Including Five New Cards
Nauctis also brings back special box toppers with a new collection called Sunken Treasures.
During the preview panel, Rosewater announced that the collection contains 20 cards:
- 15 reprints from Magic’s history.
- 5 brand-new Magic card designs.
The first confirmed reprint is Crucible of Worlds, the popular artifact that allows players to play lands from their graveyards.
Each sealed Nauctis Booster Pack display box and Collector Booster display box will include one separate Sunken Treasures box topper containing a single card from the collection.
Wizards is introducing two distinct treatments for these cards.
Pearlescent Sunken Treasures are exclusive to box toppers and use a new finish developed specifically for the collection.
Undersea Foil Sunken Treasures feature alternate artwork and a shimmering foil treatment. These versions are available exclusively inside Collector Boosters rather than through the box-topper packs.
That creates two ways to collect the same 20-card selection, although neither treatment is guaranteed to contain any particular card when opening a box or pack.
The five new designs also brings potential controversy. Unlike ordinary reprints, these introduce cards that have never appeared in Magic before. Wizards has not yet clarified their full format legality or whether those designs will also be available through other products.
The announcement has sparked discussion among players about putting mechanically new cards into a collectible box-topper program.
Nauctis Brings Back Familiar Mechanics and Reworks Color Identities
Building a completely underwater world also meant rethinking how Magic’s five colors operate when blue no longer has a natural monopoly on aquatic creatures.
Rosewater and worldbuilding lead Laurel Pratt explained that the team drew inspiration from real marine ecosystems to distinguish the colors. Kelp forests, underwater volcanic systems, brine pools, and deep-sea habitats each provided environments that could support different kinds of Magic.
The preview panel confirmed several mechanical and color themes:
- White-red seals: The Pinneans, an aggressive creature group modeled on traditional fantasy craftsmen and miners.
- Blue-red sharkfolk: Intelligent shark people distinct from the ocean’s natural predators.
- Red-green sharks: Large beast sharks associated with aggressive combat and Blood tokens.
- White-blue-green Merfolk: A major focus of the set, finally delivering the Bant Merfolk support that Rosewater said players have requested for years.
Treasure and Blood tokens will both appear throughout the expansion, representing the treasures and predatory creatures found beneath the waves.
The set also brings back Descent, the graveyard-focused mechanic introduced in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Its return fits the theme of exploring the ocean’s deepest, most dangerous regions.
Exhaust, introduced in Aetherdrift, also returns on a cycle of allied-color dual lands. These lands enter tapped and have a one-time activated ability that can be used only once per game.
Meanwhile, devotion returns as a one-card cameo on a whale god rather than as a recurring set-wide mechanic.
Combined with Dive, these choices suggest a Limited environment built around temporary evasion, graveyard interactions, artifact tokens, and abilities that reward careful timing.
Nauctis Launches Magic’s New Booster Structure in 2027
Beyond its card mechanics, Nauctis will be the first expansion to use Wizards’ previously announced changes to booster packs.
Play Boosters are being renamed Booster Packs, and the contents of both regular and Collector Boosters are changing.
A standard Nauctis Booster Pack will contain 14 Magic cards, plus a non-foil double-sided token. Regular Booster Packs will no longer contain foil commons or uncommons, and a foil card is no longer guaranteed in every pack. Any traditional foil card that appears in this product will instead be rare or mythic rare.
Collector Boosters will contain 12 Magic cards, plus an art card or foil token, after Wizards removed three lower-rarity foil cards from the previous structure.
Both products will also introduce God Packs, exceptionally rare boosters consisting almost entirely of rare and mythic rare cards.
Wizards has confirmed the following frequencies:
- Regular Booster God Packs: Approximately 1 in 1,000 packs, containing 14 rares or mythics and a special celebration card.
- Collector Booster God Packs: Approximately 1 in 300 packs, containing 11 rares or mythics, a foil land, and a celebration card.
The addition of Sunken Treasures means sealed boxes will have a separate collectible incentive on top of these new pack configurations.
For players primarily buying packs to Draft, the mechanical changes to Nauctis may be the most significant development. For collectors, new card treatments, box toppers, and the possibility of opening a God Pack will be a major part of the product’s appeal.
Nauctis: The Sunken Realm begins Prerelease events on January 29, launches on MTG Arena February 2, and releases for tabletop Magic on February 5, 2027.
More details about Dive, the five new Sunken Treasures designs, and the remaining reprints are expected as the set’s official preview season approaches.
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