Land, Sea, Sky, and Controversial Otters: Magic's Future in 2026 and 2027

This year has been one for the Magic history books, with Universes Within home-run hits and surprisingly successful Universes Beyond sets comprising the lineup for 2026, and some exciting new sets and settings coming soon, namely Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit and Reality Fracture. There certainly isn't anything else of note happening this year.

In all seriousness, despite the negativity surrounding Universes Beyond and struggles with product availability, Secret Lairs, and so on, it's been a great year to be a Magic player. At MagicCon Amsterdam, attendees got a peek at the slate for the rest of this year, as well as some trailers for the in-universe sets releasing next year, and man do they look sweet. Today's article will be a quick recap of what the trailers revealed about these upcoming sets, so buckle up! It's time for some rapid rounds of set review.

Otter-ly Ridiculous

Behold, the wellspring of the latest and greatest of Magic: The Gathering controversy:

Yes, you read that correctly. Well, actually, it's possible you didn't. Tolabow, Loch Rascal has stirred up more confusion about game rules than a discussion about layers. I won't get all the way into the nitty-gritty about why this card has the Magic community at each others' throats, but to summarize, Tolabow's wording is unclear as to whether his ability allows you to use one additional color when slotting in instants and sorceries in decks headed by the pumpkin-snatching Otter, or any number of colors so long as each instant and sorcery card is blue and up to one other color. So far, the only clarification has come from social media: Jess Dunks, the Magic Rules Architect for Wizards, clarified that Tolabow's ability has you pick one color of instants and sorceries to include in your deck. So that, for now, should settle the Tolabow rules debate. Probably.

Suffice it to say, I would expect to see quite a bit of discussion about this fugly adorable little dude online until GenCon, starting July 30th, where con attendees will be able to draft Mystery Booster Commander, the third iteration in the Mystery Booster product line. Ah, yeah, I really buried the lede there. This set contains 59 brand-new mechanically unique cards, and some number of presumably-Commander-focused reprints. Wizards also confirmed that there will be eight total legendary creatures with the Rulebreaker ability word, so keep your eyes peeled. Hopefully the rest of these creatures are written with a little more mind for clarity.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

Now that we've gotten the ugly stuff out of the way, we can move on to the fun news.

The first set slated for release early next year is Nauctis: The Sunken Realm, set on the eponymous plane and coming February 5th, 2027, where everything is underwater. While we didn't get lots of concrete details about the set or any peeks at cards, we did get some interesting tidbits about the setting itself, and one small hint about the set mechanics. Since everything is underwater, there will not be any creatures with flying in the set, and Nauctis will instead introduce a new evasive keyword.

Tossing my hat in the ring once again to speculate on set mechanics, here's my guess at what a new evasion mechanic might look like:

Schooling 3 (As this creature attacks, you may have it form a school with up to two other attacking creatures. Creatures in this school cannot be blocked by creatures with power 3 or less).

It's a bit rough, perhaps, but it certainly reads better than banding ever did.

The main story here is the cool art and design of the creatures inhabiting Nauctis. The design team took inspiration from undersea creatures in real life, as well as sea monsters and creatures out of mythology and fiction. I really enjoy the unique appearance of the creatures in the concept art; in my opinion, Magic is at its best when players get to plumb the infinite depths of the Multiverse, expressed in interesting planes with unique premises.

Mechanically, I am praying that we get more support for the Shark creature type; bonus points available to the design team if Captain Howler, Sea Scourge is a viable commander for Sharks. The second item on my list is to get a creature or multiple creatures modeled after killer whales. They might be jerks, but orcas are one of my favorite sea creatures, so it would be really cool to see a legendary creature that looks like them.

We Need a Pilot

If you're a fan of the kaiju film genre, you're probably already counting down the days until June 4th, 2027, for the release of Kamigawa Titanbreach. Spiritually similar to Aetherdrift (and hopefully significantly more successful), this set is a mashup featuring the planes of Kamigawa, last seen on its own during Neon Dynasty during a time of cybernetic ninjas and monstrous mechs, and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, where the walls of Drannith were besieged by the titanic beasts that populate the plane.

There were even fewer mechanical hints during this reveal than Nauctis, so there isn't much to go on besides the incredibly cool concept art for the set. You may not have loved Pacific Rim, but the fantasy of wrestling giant monsters while piloting an armed-to-the-teeth mecha is top-tier.

My wishlist for this set is to see a revisit or retread of the much-maligned mutate keyword ability. Though many players have given up trying to understand the horrifically complex interactions and issues caused by mutate, I have never lost hope. I spent many weeks during the totally normal year of 2020 locked inside, ripping open packs of Lair of Behemoths, trying to collect all the cool comic-book-art mutate creatures for an upgraded Otrimi, the Ever-Playful precon. Fingers crossed, everyone!

Lost and Found

Rounding out the in-universe releases for 2027 is an awesome treat for the old guard fans. First seen in Magic's ninth-ever expansion Mirage in October of 1996, Zhalfir was a military monarchy on the continent of Jamuraa on Dominaria, the principle setting of the game's early sets. The continent survived for over 5,000 years, until someone decided that his homeland couldn't possibly survive the first Phyrexian Invasion and zapped the entire region out of existence. After a brief glimpse at the plane's existence during March of the Machine, we will be returning to Zhalfir on October 1st, 2027.

Zhalfir is inspired by Afrofuturism, and the lead designers of the plane and set discussed the use of consultants who are experts in that genre during the panel. The setting incorporates traditional elements of African culture into a perspective of a highly-advanced, cyberpunk-esque future of body modification, chromed-out bodysuits, and incredible fashion.

While I wasn't around for the Mirage expansion (I wasn't even born yet), I got a taste of Zhalfir during the March of the Machines set. It's a unique setting with a great history that ties in nicely to classic elements of Magic's story. One thing I'm hoping to see in this set is the return of the Mirran rebels, who purportedly jumped ship from New Phyrexia to Zhalfir in the wake of the Second Phyrexian Invasion, when Zhalfir was forcibly swapped with the plane of New Phyrexia. They've had a tough break in-lore for over 20 years now, they deserve to get in on that sweet Zhalfirin technology.

And That's a Wrap

In tandem with the [other] [two] articles in this batch, that covers every major spoiler and teaser shown at MagicCon Amsterdam. I hope you enjoyed reading about what's to come in the near-and-far future of Magic. What are you most excited about in the sets to come?

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