First Look at 5 New Cards From Tarkir: Dragonstorm, Magic: The Gathering's Next Set

While Magic: The Gathering’s recent crossovers with franchises like Final Fantasy and Spider-Man have garnered significant attention, the next set, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, is rapidly approaching. This set returns to the plane of Tarkir, and we have an exclusive preview of five cards expected to be highly impactful in upcoming drafts. (Tarkir: Dragonstorm is available for preorder on Amazon now.)

View the five cards in the gallery below. Following the gallery, you'll find insights from Wizards of the Coast regarding the cards' design and the set's overall vision.

Magic: The Gathering - Five New Cards from Tarkir: Dragonstorm

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These five cards form a "cycle," sharing common design elements across Magic's color pie. Each is an inexpensive, common-rarity creature with an ability tied to one of Tarkir's three-color clans, and another that converts mana into a color from that clan.

"Three-color limited environments require substantial mana fixing across all rarities," explains Adam Prosak, Wizards of the Coast Senior Game Designer. "We aimed for diverse deck access to mana fixing, resulting in numerous designs addressing mana issues. These creatures, in particular, enable simultaneous board presence and mana development—unlike tapped lands, which only produce mana, potentially hindering early-game development."

Preorder MTG Tarkir: Dragonstorm Cards

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Lauren Bond, Senior Worldbuilding Designer, notes that while the mechanics of this cycle were prioritized, common cards often showcase the set's world. Here, the clans' differences from previous iterations are highlighted: "the action-oriented Jeskai monks, the Temur's Whisper magic, the Sultai Nagas as jungle protectors, Mardu military prowess, and the Abzan clerics' kin-tree regrowth."

Recent criticisms of Magic sets have cited an overreliance on tropes. Dragonstorm's straightforward return to Tarkir stands in contrast. Forrest Schehl, Senior Worldbuilding Art Director, emphasizes the importance of player feedback, stating that the core concept for Tarkir: Dragonstorm predates and remained unaffected by subsequent sets.

"We aimed to uniquely combine Dragons and Clans within a single Tarkir set, with Dragonstorms playing a pivotal role. Lauren and I felt the pressure to deliver an authentic and substantial next chapter for this beloved plane from the outset."

Tarkir: Dragonstorm is available for preorder now, with a physical and digital release scheduled for April 11th, and in-store prerelease events beginning April 4th. A full interview with Adam Prosak, Lauren Bond, and Forrest Schehl follows.