Discover the Magic of MTG Wilds of Eldraine

This autumn we’re heading into the Wilds of Eldraine, the next Magic: The Gathering release which returns us to the fairy tale inspired plane of Eldraine, featuring brave knights, mischievous faeries, and big bad wolves. MTG Wilds of Eldraine is only our second set-visit to the Grimm world, this time with less of a focus on the Arthurian knights and their courts, and instead venturing further into the magical Wilds. Even if you weren’t around for the first time, it’s more than likely you heard about Eldraine’s impact – it was one of the most powerful Standard sets of all-time leading to a flurry of cards being banned.

While we’re still in the early days of previews, there’s plenty to get very excited about, let’s go on an adventure to find out what we already know.

Lore and Setting of Eldraine

Eldraine is a top-down world inspired by Arthurian legends and the classic fairy tales. There are two key parts to this world – The Realm, which consists of five courts of knights, each aligned to a specific colour, and The Wilds, the enchanting lands beyond the borders of the realm filled with magical creatures and monsters.

The MTG Wilds of Eldraine story serves as a narrative reset post-Phyrexian invasion, but that doesn’t mean we’re finished with the aftermath yet. Eldraine’s King and Queen are dead, and the Fae Lord of the Wilds, Talion, together with three witch sisters, are behind a curse – The Wicked Slumber – that has put the kingdom to sleep, initially to protect against the invading forces. The Prince and Princess, Will Kenrith and sister Rowan, are now-sparkless, and looking for a way to fix things, while Ashiok, the nightmare weaver, is here to take advantage of the great slumber.

Wilds of Eldraine is the first set in the three-year Omenpath Arc.

Key Features and Mechanics

Magic: The Gathering Wilds of Eldraine features both the beloved mechanics from the plane, and new ones too:

• Enchantment matters – Wizards have confirmed enchantments are set to play a key role in the set, including beloved sagas. Expect lots of enchantment synergies, as well as some surprises too: bonus ‘Enchanting tales’ cards have been added to packs. There are 63 enchantment reprints in total, in a special frame and featuring classics like Doubling Season and Necropotence  
• Adventure – it wouldn’t be Eldraine without the adventure mechanic, with the twist this time being that they’ll feature on multi-colour cards. Adventure is inherently powerful – it’s almost always a two-for-one, often also providing powerful versatility too  
• Food – the tasty mechanic is back, and this time looks a little more aggressive than before, with players able to sacrifice food for other effects and even turn those cakes into monsters!
• Bargain – Bargain is a new mechanic that lets you sacrifice an enchantment, artifacts, or token as you cast a spell to get an extra bonus, much like a variant of the classic kicker ability. With lots of food tokens laying about, it’s not going to be hard to pull off
• Celebration – Celebration is a new aggressive mechanic that triggers on combat to give you a bonus if two or more nonland permanents entered the battlefield this turn. Play cheap creatures and get a bonus when you attack looks to be the idea!
• Roles – Roles are new enchantment aura tokens that give creatures abilities and interact with other roles. Auras have always been considered card-disadvantage, but Roles seem to be away around that by having cards create Aura tokens as additional effects

In terms of mechanics, it’s worth mentioning something interesting that the set is doing with limited archetypes. Each colour pairing is the story of a classic fairy tale, with RG being Little Red Riding Hood and GU being Jack and the Beanstalk, as two examples. There are two commander decks too – Green-White ‘Virue and Valor’ which is about buffing creatures, and Black-Blue ‘Fae Dominion’ which focuses on casting faeries and playing tricks

New card highlights

Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator – Wizards have confirmed that they’ll be reigning-in Planeswalkers and one-per set will be the new cadence. Ashiok is our Plaewalker for Wilds of Eldraine, and is a tricky card to evaluate. Key here is allowing you to swap cards for paying life when paying life for spells, allowing you to exile cards from your library instead. We’ll see what the set offers for synergy as more cards are previewed, but I’m already excited about this for Commander alongside Necropotence and K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth 

Cruel Somnophage – confirming a return to the powerful adventure mechanic, Cruel Somnophage will offer mill and possibly reanimator decks help, while its two mana cost and ‘graveyard pump’ stats are reminiscent of the once powerful Tarmogoyf. This one surely has constructed potential

Moonshaker Cavalry – Love it or hate it, Craterhoof Behemoth has long been one of the most popular game-enders in Commander. Now white has their own in the form of Moonshaker Cavalry which, while maybe not quite as powerful as the ‘Hoof by not granting haste, is a super strong finisher that will see Commander play in a rage of decks

Tough Cookie – food is back, as are our gingerbread breatharian! Tough cookie brings a fun, maybe even powerful, dimension to food decks, turning your food tokens into 4/4 monsters! We need to see what other food synergies are lurking in the wilds, but one to keep an eye on

Restless Fortress – creature lands are back! Always powerful, these creature lands will provide both fixing and a threat that can be tricky to get off the board. There will no doubt be a cycle of these and expect them to be everywhere in Standard

Strategies and deck building

Eldraine went down in history as one of the most powerful Standard sets of all time – maybe even the most powerful if you exclude Alpha and Beta. The new Magic: The Gathering Wilds of Eldraine cards will add even more juice to decks featuring the plane’s key mechanics, namely food tokens and adventure. In terms of Commander, Gorion, Wise Mentor will get some great new toys to play with, providing even more value for those adventure spells. As for food, there are dedicated Commanders like Gyome, Master Chef, a slew of options from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth, or even sacrifice decks like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King can benefit.

I’m also interested to see the power that roles can bring to enchantment focused decks, helping negate the typical card disadvantage usually seen with Auras. Players with decks like Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Tuvasa The Sunlit and Uril, The Miststalker are bound to have lots more options coming.

We’re going to see more tribal synergies too, or at least new creatures for popular creature types. Faeries, in particular, look to be getting a boost, with one of the Commander decks dedicated to the Fae. Nymris, Oona's Trickster and Oona, Queen of the Fae are too of the classics that will be getting upgrades, plus we’ll have new faerie legends to consider too.

Release date and pre-order information

Previews begin August 15 with the global Magic: The Gathering release September 8 2023. Pre-orders are already open, just following the trail of breadcrumbs.