At Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast revealed more information about their upcoming release schedule than they ever have before. They told us about everything we’re going to see from today all the way through 2026! One of the more interesting things they announced were two upcoming Remastered sets. Ravnica Remastered will come out in January of 2024 and Innistrad Remastered will drop in early 2025.
Past: A Brief History of Remastered Sets
From 1995 to 2017, Wizards released sets in blocks. This usually consisted of two or three consecutive sets dealing with a single story. They were also connected thematically and mechanically. Most remastered sets are entirely made up of reprints from one of these blocks.
Remastered sets take these separate block sets and turn them into a single release. A Remastered set usually consists of the most powerful and iconic cards from the entire block. These sets are also designed for Limited and tend to have fairly cohesive archetypes.
While Ravnica Remastered and Innistrad Remastered are physical sets, remastered sets began as digital-only releases. The first of these was Tempest Remastered in 2015, which was released only on Magic Online.
Then, in 2020, Amonkhet Remastered and Kaladesh Remastered were released on Magic Arena. Earlier this year, Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered arrived on Arena, too. When Remastered sets appear on Arena, their main purpose is to make older cards available on the client.
The first tabletop remastered set came in 2021 with Time Spiral Remastered. As you can probably guess, it featured cards that were released in the original Time Spiral block (Time Spiral, Future Sight, Planar Chaos), which was released from 2006 to 2007.
One of the most exciting things about this set was the inclusion of “timeshifted” cards. This was part of the original block, too. It was actually the first time they gave us a bonus sheet — something that has become quite common today!
It consisted of reprints from throughout Magic’s history, and one appeared in every pack. In Time Spiral Remastered, they took this idea and spiced it up. The timeshifted cards were now almost exclusively cards that are heavily played in at least one format, and they also featured old school card frames.
This allowed for a much wider swath of reprints than just those from Time Spiral Block. Overall, Time Spiral Remastered was extremely well received, and it set the stage for future tabletop remastered sets, which have now become a significant part of the Magic calendar.
Dominaria Remastered is the second and most recent tabletop remastered set. It was released earlier this year, and it did an excellent job of emulating what made Time Spiral Remastered so great. Instead of just featuring cards from a single block, Dominaria Remastered had reprints from 27 sets that took place on the plane of Dominaria. It also included reprints in retro frames, just like its predecessor.
Present: What Do We Know About Ravnica and Innistrad Remastered So Far?
It’s no surprise that both Ravnica and Innistrad are getting the remastered treatment. These are arguably Magic’s two most popular planes. The sets also happen to have highly sought after cards that could use some reprints so that more players can get their hands on them.
Ravnica Remastered is going to use the same model as Time Spiral Remastered. In other words, instead of featuring cards from all the different Ravnica sets, the main set will only contain cards from the original Ravnica block (Ravnica: City of Guilds, Guildpact, Dissension).
However it will also feature a bonus sheet of retro-frame cards. In this case, it will include cards that represent Ravnica’s guilds from throughout Magic history. So far, they have revealed both Hallowed Fountain and Arclight Phoenix.
I particularly love the Phoenix in the retro-frame. The tombstone next to the card name indicates that it can do something from the graveyard. This is something I miss a little bit from the older frames.
We know significantly less about Innistrad Remastered. That’s not really surprising, though, given its release is almost a year and a half away. All we know for sure is it will follow the Dominaria Remastered model.
It won’t only feature cards from the original Innistrad block — it will feature cards from all of our visits to the plane. It’s probably safe to assume the set will also contain retro-frame reprints, but we can really only speculate on what the theme might be.
Innistrad generally has a typal theme, so perhaps we’ll see reprints of creatures with those “spooky” creature types (spirits, zombies, vampires, and werewolves).
Future: What Else Needs a Remaster?
Given what the release schedule has looked like from 2021 to 2025, it is probably safe to assume we’ll also see a remaster set in 2026. While there’s no way we can know for sure what block or sets that set might remaster, I think we can make some educated guesses.
So far, every remastered set has featured a very popular setting that has received several different releases in that setting. With that in mind, I think there are three distinct possibilities: Mirrodin Remastered, Zendikar Remastered and Tarkir Remastered.
We’ve had several Mirrodin sets at this point. There’s the original Mirrodin Block and Scars of Mirrodin Block. There’s also Phyrexia: All Will be One, which is largely set on a conquered Mirrodin.
There are many highly desirable artifacts from these sets that we really need to see more of, like Chrome Mox, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Mox Opal. It seems likely we would see artifacts in the retro-frames, although it’s possible they would want to go a different route since we saw the retro-frame artifacts in The Brothers’ War.
Tarkir Remastered would feature sets from the original Khans of Tarkir block (Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir). This has a smaller potential card pool to draw on than the other two possibilities, but these sets were extremely popular and filled with iconic and powerful cards.
This includes the fetch lands, Collected Company and Dragonlord Atarka. The retro-frames in this set might feature cards that have a wedge identity that corresponds to each of the plane’s Khans.
Of these, I think Zendikar Remastered is the most likely. It is the most popular of these three planes, and there is a large pool of iconic cards they could draw from. There’s the original Zendikar block, Battle for Zendikar Block and Zendikar Rising.
Some of the important reprints we could see here are more fetchlands, Valakut and Bloodghast. It also comes with a ready-made theme for the retro-frame cards. In this case, they could go with non-basic lands since lands have been very important every time we’ve visited the plane.
End Step
So, that’s an overview of the past, present and future of Remastered sets. It’s very exciting that they are becoming a regular part of the release schedule. Not only do they provide great Limited formats, they also contain amazing high-demand reprints, so I think they are great for the game overall.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.