Summary
Magic: The Gathering’sStandard format is getting another change to how sets rotate, only a few years after it was increased from two years to three.
Starting in 2027, Standard will rotate with the first release of the year, rather in the Autumn as it traditionally has. While that sounds a long way off, it means bad news for some of the game’s most recent releases.
Announced at MagicCon Vegas’ preview panel, this is intended to make set rotation more intuitive for beginners and less invested players. As the first set of the year launches in either January or February, rotation will effectively be based on calendar year, rather than the ‘Magic Year’ that runs from Autumn to Autumn.
Rotation will still be three years, meaning cards that are released in 2027 will be legal until 2030.
Rotation is how Magic: The Gathering decides which cards are legal in its premiere format, Standard. Intended to be a way to keep things fresh and preserve balance, sets will eventually rotate out of Standard. However, cards that leave Standard will still be legal in formats like Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Legacy, and Commander.
Unfortunately, this means Bloomburrow and Duskmourn: House Of Horror, the game’s two most recent sets that have proved massively popular with fans, will have a shorter time in Standard than expected.
Autumn 2025 (With the launch of Edge of Eternities)
Q1 2029 at the earliest
Spider-Man
Unannounced Universes Beyond Set
They were previously scheduled to rotate out in Autumn 2027, but will now leave Standard up to nine months earlier, depending on when the first set of that year launches.
Standard Is Changing In A Big Way
The oldest Standard-legal sets (Dominaria United, The Brothers’ War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, March Of The Machine) will still be rotating out in Autumn 2025, with the launch of Edge Of Eternities.
To avoid the awkward situation where there’s two rotations only a few months apart, it will not be happening at all in 2026, leaving Wilds of Eldraine, The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan, Murders At Karlov Manor, Outlaws Of Thunder Junction, and The Big Score all legal for a bit longer, before rotating out with Bloomburrow and the other sets.
Rotation isn’t the only big change hitting Standard legality. The panel also revealed that set legality is being simplified from next year, with sets either being legal only in the Eternal formats (Commander, Vintage, and Legacy), or legal in everything.Universes Beyond sets will be considered the latter, meaning Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, and an unannounced third Universes Beyond release, will all be legal in Standard.
In a press briefing ahead of the announcement, Wizards claimed that upcoming Standard sets have already been designed with this change to rotation in mind.
Together, these changes signify a huge change in Standard. Wizards has been trying to coax people back into playing it since numbers dropped off during the pandemic, and simplifying which cards are legal and for how long could be the changes needed to convince people to play.
Magic: The Gathering
Created by Richard Garfield in 1993, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) has become one of the biggest tabletop collectible card games in the world. Taking on the role of a Planeswalker, players build decks of cards and do battle with other players. In excess of 100 additional sets have added new cards to the library, while the brand has expanded into video games, comics, and more.
