Magic: The Gathering's first-ever Dungeons & Dragons set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, releases next summer
Time Spiral Remastered and Modern Horizons 2 also revealed.
Magic: The Gathering will see its first full crossover with Dungeons & Dragons next year, in the form of a D&D-themed set called Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.
While several of Magic: The Gathering’s planes have come to Dungeons & Dragons 5E as dedicated sourcebooks - most recently in this summer’s Mythic Odysseys of Theros, set in the world of MTG set Theros: Beyond Death - Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is the first MTG set to go the other way and bring the RPG’s Forgotten Realms setting to the card game.
Adventures in the Forgotten Realms will be a full set legal in MTG’s Standard format (and featuring the black borders indicating it as such). It will release in the summer of 2021, replacing that year’s Core Set.
While Wizards of the Coast is yet to reveal any cards from the upcoming set or detail any new gameplay mechanics it may introduce inspired by D&D’s gameplay, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms may draw from the RPG-inspired party mechanic making its debut in this year’s Zendikar Rising.
Based on Dungeons & Dragons’ classes and building on the allies element in previous Zendikar sets, the party mechanic sees cards of four different classes - cleric, rogue, warrior and wizard - gain different abilities and advantages when formed into a party containing one of each class.
The other Magic: The Gathering Standard sets announced for release in 2021 during Wizards of the Coast’s 2020 Announcement Day stream include the Viking-inspired world of Kaldheim in Q1, Strixhaven: School of Mages - a magical university featuring five colleges with differing powers - in the spring and two separate sets set in gothic plane Innistrad, Werewolves and Vampires, due out in the autumn around Halloween.
Regarding the double release of Innistrad, Wizards confirmed that four Standard sets would continue to be released each year as per its current release schedule, but the timing of releases would be slightly changed from 2021 onward.
Outside of the Standard format, Time Spiral Remastered will revisit the 2006 expansion in the first half of next year with new versions of popular cards and cards printed with the set’s original border.
In the summer, Modern Horizons 2 will follow up on the 2019 Draft-focused set - previously described as a love letter to Time Spiral by head designer Mark Rosewater - that featured cards specifically for the Modern format. Wizards of the Coast confirmed that the set would reintroduce five enemy-coloured fetch lands to Draft boosters as rare cards. The publisher also announced that Modern Horizons 2 will be available on a print-to-demand basis in the latter half of 2021.