Wizards of the Coast is launching an entirely new type of card set for Magic: The Gathering on March 19 called Spiral Team Remastered. It is a reprint of selected cards from three related sets that were launched 15 years ago. The reasons why Wizards is publishing this set are as complex as the game itself, but it is a sign of what is to come for the original collectible card game – and a good indication of the continued health of its community.
Magic is constantly evolving. Get out of the flow of new releases for just a month or two and it’s easy for the latest trends and strategies to pass you by. The momentum of the game comes from several sets of cards released each year. They help to shape the overall metanarrative of the game universe, but more importantly, they help to plant new mechanical seeds within the gameplay itself.
Each new set of cards that comes out is, in its own way, a subtly different game than the previous one. Place a booster box from the last set, the Viking theme Kaldheim, and you’ll have a narrative and mechanical experience that’s very different than if you were writing steampunk-style cards Kaladesh. But certain strategies and cards tend to fall and fall out of favor with the community. At the same time, certain sets and even individual cards are banned from Magic’s various game formats.
What you end up with is a fluid and active market – both for the cards themselves and for the strategies around how to play them – that occasionally needs to be updated. To return to the seed-planting analogy, from time to time, Wizards need to fertilize that soil with specific types of cards.
Spiral Team Remastered is a set of curated cards that aims to do just that. It is extracted from a single “block” of letters – three sets dating from 2006 with the title Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, and Future vision. As Mark Rosewater of Wizards explains, a total of 626 cards have been reduced to just 289 cards. But the set also contains 121 additional “time-shifted” cards taken from the story of Magic: The Gathering. You will find one in each package, marked with a special purple icon.
Together, these 410 cards have been put together to create a unique and satisfying experience when chosen (played with new cards taken at random from new packs) – and to put some nitrogen back into the soil of the Magic community. Spiral Team Remastered has the potential to help fill gaps in popular or emerging strategies in a variety of formats.
What is obstinate Magic so excited fans is that this will not be the last set of remastered letters reprinted. According to Rosewater, there are at least five other candidates on the drawing board. It is a sign that Wizards of the Coast is willing to slow down and listen to its biggest fans, adjusting the game’s metamaking by reprinting old cards and putting them back into circulation. But Wizards is also interested in having fun, allowing both new and old players the chance to play with a simplified set of cards. Magicit’s heyday.
The first opportunity to play with Spiral Team Remastered the cards will arrive next week, where they will be available at retail. Unfortunately, in-store gambling is still off the table due to the global pandemic. Instead, fans will need to pick up backup packs (preferably at their local friendly game store) and bring them home. Wizards will host a launch party using SpellTable, a new platform for playing physical cards remotely.
After the launch weekend, collectors and serious players will want to keep an eye on Wizards’ guidance on which Spiral Team Remastered will be “cool” in Magicmany game formats. After that, the next set of cards from the main line, entitled Strixhaven, will come out at the end of April.