March of the Machine: The Aftermath is coming up in May and we’re here with an early look at what we know about the out-of-the-ordinary set.
The Lore
March of the Machine: The Aftermath continues the story directly after March of the Machine, fittingly enough. Spoilers ahead for that set, so if you’re behind on the Magic storyline, I’d suggest skipping ahead to the next section.
The forces of New Phyrexia have been defeated and the plane itself has been locked away, now occupying the same extra-planar space in which Zhalfir once found itself stranded. As a result, Teferi’s homeland has rejoined the greater multiverse and the Phyrexian threat seems to have been extinguished once and for all.
Now begins the work of picking up the pieces, rebuilding, healing… and mourning the lost. No plane touched by the invading Phyrexians was left unscathed, with many old friends gone, others changed in irrevocable ways. Old enemies have to navigate the fallout of their temporary alliances and major shifts in the remaining balances of power across the multiverse are occuring.
How have Ajani and Nissa been changed by their time being compleated? How did Nahiri get cured? What happened to Jace, and is Vraska still alive? Is Wrenn truly gone, or will a new version of her grow from the seed given to Teferi? How did each of the invaded planes fare in the battles (especially planes like Theros, which are now without a large part of their pantheon)?
All of this and more are what the story of March of the Machine: The Aftermath will touch on, and the reverberations of these are sure to echo throughout the Magic story for a long, long time to come.
The Set
This is a very odd duck of a set. A Standard-legal supplemental set of only 50 total new cards, this is something we’ve never quite seen before.
There are two varieties of boosters for Aftermath: Epilogue Boosters and Collector Boosters. Epilogue Boosters are 5-card boosters with 2-4 Uncommons and 1-3 Rares or Mythics in each one, with at least one foil and one Showcase card. Boxes of Epilogue boosters contain 24 boosters.
Collector Boosters feature six cards and one foil, double-sided token in each pack, with two cards being Uncommon, four cards being Rare or Mythic, 4-5 cards being foil and a mix of various frames and art treatments mixed in. Boxes of Collector boosters come in packs of 12.
There will also be a Bundle available, and it comes with eight Epilogue boosters, one foil alternate art promo card, 40 basic lands (20 foil, 20 non-foil), a spindown life counter and a special storage box.
So far, we only know of one promo card for the set: an alternate-art Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir will be the Buy-a-box promo.
Timeline
Card Kingdom Presale Start: April 21
Story kickoff: May 1
Previews: May 2-3
Release: May 12
End step
A small 50-card Standard-legal set is uncharted waters for Magic, and I’m interested to see what we get with a set like this. Preorders start right soon at cardkingdom.com and we’ll be updating what’s available as previews start in early May.
Chris is the Associate Media Producer at Card Kingdom. He would like to apologize to his son for not holding onto more cards from when he first started playing, as that likely would have paid for college. He enjoys pretty much all formats of Magic, but usually ends up playing decks that make other people dislike playing those formats with him.