We got our first glimpse of Magic: the Gathering March of the Machine at MagicCon: Philadelphia the other day. The set doesn’t release until April 21, 2023, but this gives us a look inside the new set, possible story points, and cards that could shake up the current meta. If you want to preorder March of the Machine head over to boarshatgaming.com
First up we get a look at a familiar land cycle. Each of them make one of two colors, come into the battlefield tapped and you gain 1 life. These are great for limited play, and notably all ten of them are all in the set.
The world tree that Elesh Norn grew on Mirrodin extends across the multiverse and as such we see that in a story spotlight card Breach the Multiverse. The flavor text here exemplifies Elesh Norn’s ideal: “All Worlds will know perfection.”
Next up, we get to see one of the praetors, Jin-Gitaxias, and how they are approaching the Phyrexian invasion. It already is a five mana 5/5 with ward 2 that lets you draw cards, but also can flip over into a powerful saga. I really like the idea of the saga on Jin-Gitaxias and I hope that they repeat this for the other four praetors so we can see how each unfolds.
We get a hint about Elspeth with the flavor text on Moment of Truth, about her possibly returning to the fight. Last we saw her in Phyrexia: All Will Be One where she grabbed the The Filigree Sylex and planechased away so that it wouldn’t blow up and ripple to all the other planes connected by the corrupted world tree.
We also get to see a really cool concept of team up cards featuring two characters from Magic: the Gathering lore on one card like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben riding The Gitrog Monster.
Yuta Takahashi who was the Magic: the Gathering world champion XXVII got his Player Spotlight card in the form of Faerie Mastermind.
Chanrda is the only planeswalker card that we get to see, this time she is the Hope’s Beacon and is sure to get played in multiple formats.
Even the gods of Theros are not immune to the Phyrexian influence. The Phyrexians corrupting the believers of Theros leading eventually to corrupting the gods themselves is seen in upcoming Heliod, the Radiant Dawn. Also adding blue mana to his identity in the process.
Omnath has finally gotten the fifth color of mana, this time with Phyrexian black mana. Omnath will be the Buy-A-Box promo, which you can pickup with any preorder of a booster box from Boar’s Hat Gaming. Other variants will also exist in booster packs.
There will also be showcase cards that reference the plane that the card takes place on including planes that previously haven’t had showcase borders thus far, here are the ones that they showed:
We are excited to see what comes with the next Standard set for Magic: the Gathering. Stay tuned for more spoilers of March of the Machine when the set gets closer to release on April 21, 2023. In the mean time checkout boarshatgaming.com for the Magic singles you need for your decks or stop by for any of our weekly Magic events.
