Interview: Magic: The Gathering's Foundations Set Looks To Carry The Standard Format For Years To Come

mmorpg.com:

The end of 2024 may be fast approaching, but Magic: The Gathering has one more set coming to store shelves, and it may be the most notable of all. Foundations, which will serve as the core of the Standard format for at least the next five years, drops November 15, and with it comes a batch of cards new and old that hope to shake up the competitive Magic scene. 

AtMagicCon Vegas last month, we sat down with three members of the Foundations team at Wizards Of The Cast: creative/narrative lead Ari Zirulnik, product lead Max McCall, and Play Design team member Carmen Klomparens, to talk about the upcoming set. Topics include curation strategy for the set, the Starter Collection and its place as a new jump-off point, new treatments, and more. 

Read on to hear the team's thoughts, and look for MTG Foundations in local game stores during prerelease events this weekend, and everywhere else on November 15.

[This interview was recorded, transcribed, and edited for clarity.]

MMORPG.com: When choosing or designing cards for this set, how did you decide which cards would be flat out reprinted, as opposed to new designs that incorporate older ones – Bloodthirsty Conqueror's use of Exquisite Blood, for example. What were the parameters in figuring that out?

Max McCall: This may sound obvious, but typically we want all of our cards to do something, right? Some of those cards already exist; say we want a 1/1 green creature that tells people that green is about mana and growth and so forth. We want this creature to tap for a green mana specifically, because we don't want the mana acceleration to let people play colors that aren't green. It would also be good to have some kind of creature-type association to sort of help people build a linear type of deck. 

So, with those parameters, Llanowar Elves already exists. But also, it turns out, Fyndhorn Elves also already exists. And Elvish Mystic already exists. We don't need another one of these. For that scenario, we decided we wanted