Throne of Eldraine

Throne of Eldraine

 

Trivia

 

Throne of Eldraine
[[File:{{#setmainimage:ELD logo.png}}|250px]]
Set Information
Set symbol
Symbol description	Crown and ceremonial collar
Art direction	Cynthia Sheppard
Release date	October 4, 2019
Set size	269
Expansion code	ELD
Development codename	Archery
Non-block expansions
[[War of the Spark]] '''Throne of Eldraine''' N/A
Magic: The Gathering Chronology
[[Commander 2019]] Throne of Eldraine N/A

Throne of Eldraine is the 82nd Magic expansion. It will be released on October 4, 2019.

Set details

Booster featuring Rowan Kenrith

File:TOE invitation1.jpg

SDCC press breakfast invitation

The faerie-invested invitation card

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 that come from a variety of 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.

The set contains 269 cards (TBA basic lands, TBA commons, TBA uncommons, TBA rares, TBA mythic rares), and includes randomly inserted premium versions of all these cards. Additional cards are found in the set's planeswalker decks brawl decks. These are numbered #TBA to #TBA. A unique Buy-a-Box promotional card numbered #TBA is also considered to be part of the set. As of this set, the additional cards are numbered sequentially but don't feature the denominator anymore. So collector numbers like "307/300" are a thing of the past.

2018 World Champion Javier Dominguez is depicted on a newly introduced player spotlight card. The set is accompanied by an Ebook written by Kate Elliott, for sale on Amazon and other webshops. This will be the only way to go deeper than the cards and read the full Throne of Eldraine story. Wizards of the Coast announced that the Magic story will now be told through e-books rather than weekly episodic stories and that The Wildered Quest is the first example of this change in how Magic’s story will be told.

Storyline

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.

Marketing

Throne of Eldraine is sold in regular 16-card regular boosters (one card being a marketing card), five single color Theme Boosters, two Planeswalker Decks, four Brawl Decks, and the Throne of Eldraine bundle. The regular boosters, now rebranded as Draft Boosters form a lineup with the Theme Boosters and with new Collector Boosters. The Draft Booster has the possibility of containing borderless planeswalkers or special new showcase cards.

The Showcase frame is a catch-all term to cover a variety of different treatments that embody the spirit of the relevant set. The art and frame will play into the set's theme (in this case it frames the card boxes with green vines). Each set will have its own unique showcase cards. Which cards get the treatment (and usually, it will just be cards from that set), and at what rarity, will vary from set to set. Showcase cards replace cards of the same rarity as the non showcase card in packs. The showcase cards don’t require a mechanic with a new frame. That just happens to be the case for Throne of Eldraine. The Showcase cards replace cards of the same rarity as the non showcase card in packs. There are no non-foil common showcase cards in booster packs. Those appear only in the Collector Booster. Every rare or mythic rare from the set that doesn't already have a variant frame (meaning that it doesn't exist as a borderless planeswalker card or showcase card) will be available as extended-art cards. The extended-art cards are all rares and mythic rares and are only found in the Collector Booster.

The name of the set was revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 18, 2019. An image of promotional flyers appeared on Reddit that same day. These featured art with faeries, leading to speculation that the set would have an emphasis on faeries. Mark Rosewater had to make a statement on Blogatog to do some expectation management. He noted that there are Faeries in the set, but nowhere at the volume or importance that people were assuming. Rosewater provided some more details on Saturday at the Magic panel. The panel wasn't live-streamed, but Wizards of the Coast tweeted it live and an article with the relevant info was posted later that night.

As in Core Set 2020, 1:45 cards is foil, instead of the previous 1:67. Going forwards, this is the standard rate.

Collector Boosters

After a test run for Ravnica Allegiance, Wizards of the Coast introduced "Collector Boosters" as a regular feature for standard sets. The expected price range is between $20 to $25 per booster. They are only printed in English and Japanese, and will have a limited print run. The contents are

• 1 rare/mythic rare with extended-art
• 1 foil rare/mythic rare (may also be a borderless planeswalker, extended-art, or showcase card).
• 9 foil commons/uncommons (including variant versions)
• 3 non-foil special-frame cards (showcase or borderless planeswalker)
• 1 non-foil ancillary card (the Buy-a-Box card, a new card from the Planeswalker Decks, or a new card from the Brawl Decks)
• 1 foil token

The collector boosters are packaged 12 to a box.

Events

• MTG Arena:
  • Three color decks Brawl format on September 4, 2019
  • Full release on September 26, 2019
• Prerelease takes place on September 28-29, 2019.
• Draft Weekend: October 5–6, 2019
• Friday Night Magic begins: October 4, 2019
• Magic Weekend: Brawl: October 26–27, 2019

Promotional cards

• Prerelease: a stamped card that can be any rare or mythic rare of Throne of Eldraine.
• Other events: cards from the Throne of Eldraine universal promo pack
• Buy-a-Box: TBA (foil). As a special celebration of the start of Collector Boosters, the Throne of Eldraine Buy-a-Box promotion also includes a Collector Booster.
• Bundle promo: foil alternate art TBA

Themes and mechanics

Card types

Throne of Eldraine introduces the food artifact subtype, the adventure Instant and Sorcery subtype and the return of the Noble creature type.

The set also introduces the Oko planeswalker type.

Preconstructed decks

Planeswalker decks

Throne of Eldraine features two planeswalker decks:

Planeswalker deck name	Colors Included					Planeswalker
Rowan	W			R		Rowan, Intrepid Sparkmage
Oko		U			G

Brawl decks

Throne of Eldraine introduces decks designed for the Brawl format. 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). They contain 7 new, mechanically unique, cards per deck. A life wheel is included in the packaging

Brawl deck name	Color Identity					Commander
Wild Bounty	W	U			G	Chulane, Teller of Tales
Faerie Schemes	W	U	B			Alela, Artful Provocateur
Savage Hunger			B	R	G	Korvold, Fae-Cursed King
Knights' Charge	W		B	R		Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale