Wizards of the Coast announced their release schedule for 2025, including three new Magic: The Gathering sets.
The newly announced sets are Aetherdrift, Tarkir Dragonstorm, and Edge of Eternities. Aetherdrift and Edge of Eternities were sets already discussed when MTG announced its future set lineup, with Aetherdrift being the death race set and Edge of Eternities being the space opera-themed set.
MTG 2025 Set Release Schedule
Wizards of the Coast revealed the following release schedule for 2025:
- Aetherdrift – February 14, 2025
- Tarkir Dragonstorm – April 11, 2025
- Final Fantasy – June 13, 2025
- Edge of Eternities – August 01, 2025
- Marvel’s Spider-Man – TBA
- Unnamed Universes Beyond Set – TBA
MTG Brings Back MSRP
Also announced was the return of manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for Magic: The Gathering products, starting with the release of the Foundations set, which will be legal in Standard for 5 years or more.
Over the years, we’ve continued to hear feedback from both retailers and fans that they felt they lacked an anchor point for their pricing decisions.
While stores have always been able to set their own pricing and continue to do so, the proliferation of online marketplaces meant that the market price was anchored arbitrarily in many people’s minds by whoever listed their prices first. Those prices, for a variety of reasons, often didn’t reflect the value of the products and didn’t make sense for most local game stores. By reintroducing MSRPs, we’re aiming to create a consistent point of reference that helps both retailers and customers make informed choices. Of course, MSRPs are just a suggestion—that’s what the S stands for—and retailers can price our products however they like, but retailers and customers alike appreciate a common point of reference so they can make informed decisions.
MTG products have been notorious for vendors marking up prices based on supply and demand on a product-by-product basis. This previously caused outrage in the MTG community when prices ended up being significantly higher than MSRP.
Here’s what MTG announced when they removed MSRP from packaging in 2019:
Starting with War of the Spark and moving forward, Wizards of the Coast will no longer be giving Magic products manufacturer’s suggested retail prices, or MSRPs.
We’re making this change to streamline our communications around new products. MSRPs are not favored in many parts of the world, which led to some confusion among our global player base. As Magic becomes more and more global, it makes less and less sense to suggest a retail price.
Don’t worry—this isn’t some big disruption to our products or the company. We believe the elimination of MSRP will simply help us communicate better to our players and the places where those players shop.
Wizards of the coast
Players have largely adapted to products without MSRP. When shopping for booster boxes, whether collector or play boosters, many have grown accustomed to fluctuating prices on Amazon or at their LGS.
Even with MSRPs returning, stores and vendors can still set their own market prices, offering discounts on less popular products or increasing prices when demand is high or supply is scarce.
Universes Beyond Will Be Legal in All Formats Moving Forward
Perhaps the most surprising announcement from MTG today is that Universes Beyond products will be legal in all formats beginning with new sets in 2025. Here’s what MTG said on the matter:
Why Bring Universes Beyond to All Formats?
We achieve several goals with this change:
Our design team gets to do what they’re best at—we have decades of reps making sets built for this “default” use case.
Newer players that come into Magic through Universes Beyond can be properly pathed into smaller formats where their decks have a chance to be competitive.
Veteran players should appreciate a reduction in “straight-to-Modern” sets that have created more churn in that format than typical sets do.
Wizards of the coast
For starters, this means the Final Fantasy set and the Spider-Man set will both be Standard-legal, tentpole draftable sets.
This could be concerning news for fans of Universes Within products. Typically, MTG releases four Universes Within sets per year, which are legal in Standard and other formats. Based on today’s revelations, only three Universes Within sets are releasing in 2025: Aetherdrift, Tarkir Dragonstorm, and Edge of Eternities.
In other words, MTG has reduced the number of Universes Within Standard sets by one.
Despite having one fewer Universes Within product, MTG is adding an unprecedented number of new sets to Standard. We have the bonus Foundations set releasing at the end of this year, three Universes Within sets in 2025, and three Universes Beyond sets in 2025.
How will Standard players react to Universes Beyond products entering the format? For MTG, this question may be low-stakes, as Standard has become one of the least-played formats, with many LGS struggling to fire off Standard events.
This may have led Wizards of the Coast to conclude that Standard-legal UB sets could reinvigorate the format. Their goal may be to attract new players to Standard, rather than seeing them default to Commander.
How these dramatic changes will affect MTG remains to be seen. Stay tuned to MTG Insider for more breaking news on Magic: The Gathering.
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