While Magic: The Gathering’s big crossovers with things like Final Fantasy and Spider-Man might be stealing the spotlight lately, the next set in the line-up is already storming toward us. Tarkir: Dragonstorm returns to Magic’s own plane of Tarkir, and we’ve got an exclusive first look at a five cards that I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of at the draft table next month. (The expansion is available to preorder now on Amazon).
Flip through the gallery below to see all five cards, and read on for a word from Wizards of the Coast about their design and the set as a whole.
These five cards are what’s referred to as a “cycle,” with all of them sharing some common design ground spread across each of Magic’s colors. In this case, all five are cheap, common-rarity creatures with an ability tied to one of Tarkir’s three-color clans, and another that allows you to turn mana into a color from that clan.
“Three-color limited environments need quite a bit of mana fixing, at all rarities” explains Wizards of the Coast Senior Game Designer Adam Prosak. “We wanted lots of decks to be able to access mana fixing, so we created quite a few designs dedicated to helping solve mana issues. In particular, these creatures allow you to play to the board while developing your mana at the same time – many other designs (such as tapped lands) only make mana and you tend to fall behind in order to fix your mana.”
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Senior Worldbuilding Designer Lauren Bond says that while that mechanical side came first with this particular cycle, the team often relies on common cards as a place to showcase the world of a set – in this case, how these clans are different from the last time players saw them. “The passionate action-oriented monks of the Jeskai, the Whispers using Temur magic, Nagas in the Sultai as protectors (and avengers) of the jungle, Mardu military prowess including supporting roles (and that dragons can come in many shapes and sizes!), and Abzan clerics regrowing the lost kin trees.”
One criticism of some recent Magic sets has been an overreliance on tropes or thematic gimmicks, even while revisiting previous planes, which makes Dragonstorm standout in its comparatively straightforward return to Tarkir. Senior Worldbuilding Art Director Forrest Schehl says that feedback like that is important to WOTC, but that “top-level pitch for Tarkir was established well before the release of Murders at Karlov Manor” and the sets that followed, and didn’t change after them.
“We wanted to combine Dragons and Clans in a way that hadn’t been seen on Tarkir in the same set and the Dragonstorms that were a defining feature of the plane were going to play a big role in shaping how we approached this ‘return-to’. The pressure to get it right was something Lauren and I felt from day one, we always wanted to build the next chapter of this beloved plane with authenticity and substance.”
Tarkir: Dragonstorm is up for preorder now, with the set scheduled for release in both paper and digitally on April 11 and in-store prerelease events kicking off on April 4. Read on for the full interview with Wizards of the Coast’s Adam Prosak, Lauren Bond, and Forrest Schehl:
IGN: This card cycle seems laser targeted at being much-needed glue for Limited – what were the goals these cards needed to achieve?
Adam Prosak, Senior Game Designer: Three-color limited environments need quite a bit of mana fixing, at all rarities. We wanted lots of decks to be able to access mana fixing, so we created quite a few designs dedicated to helping solve mana issues. In particular, these creatures allow you to play to the board while developing your mana at the same time – many other designs (such as tapped lands) only make mana and you tend to fall behind in order to fix your mana.
They also strike me as “lore glue,” if you will, with each providing some insight into their clans. Was that an explicit part of their role in the set?
Lauren Bond, Senior Worldbuilding Designer: While the mechanics of these cards came first, as worldbuilders we often look to common cards (especially cycles) as a place to showcase key elements of setting as players will see them frequently in drafts. This cycle being anchored in the “returning color” of each clan was an opportunity to show how that color manifests in the new version of the clan. The passionate action-oriented monks of the Jeskai, the Whispers using Temur magic, Nagas in the Sultai as protectors (and avengers) of the jungle, Mardu military prowess including supporting roles (and that dragons can come in many shapes and sizes!), and Abzan clerics regrowing the lost kin trees.
Three-color sets aren’t made very often, can you talk about some of the challenges of doing them and how you tried to address those in Dragonstorm?
AP: By their nature, three-color cards go into fewer decks than their monocolor (or two color) counterparts. They are often exciting, as long as they aren’t overdone.
Building a sealed/draft environment is the biggest challenge – most constructed formats easily allow for three colors, so it’s not too challenging for three color cards to find a home. On the other hand, we have to provide enough mana fixing to allow players to play their three color cards, without making it so plentiful that there every deck can play all five colors easily.
This will be the first time since 2023’s Lost Caverns of Ixalan that a Standard set has returned to an existing plane without some sort of thematic twist like Aetherdrift or Murders at Karlov Manor, and the rest of 2025’s line-up means it will be the last time a set does so for roughly another year after that at least. With that in mind, is there an added pressure here to do justice to what fans are expecting of both Tarkir and a “classic” Magic setting in general?
Forrest Schehl, Senior Worldbuilding Art Director: Fan feedback is super important to us and is something we take into consideration during early development of every new set we make. That being said, the top-level pitch for Tarkir was established well before the release of Murders at Karlov Manor and remained the same throughout development. We wanted to combine Dragons and Clans in a way that hadn’t been seen on Tarkir in the same set and the Dragonstorms that were a defining feature of the plane were going to play a big role in shaping how we approached this “return-to”. The pressure to get it right was something Lauren and I felt from day one, we always wanted to build the next chapter of this beloved plane with authenticity and substance.
Lastly, while it’s one that was previously revealed, I have to ask about Stormscale Scion – a card that is mocking the Storm Scale itself! People have had a lot of fun talking about this card and the unexpected return of Storm to Standard, was that a hard decision to make? Is there a bit of an enticing challenge to returning to “risky” mechanics like that, Affinity, or Phyrexian Mana in recent years?
AP: I find that making new cards for existing mechanics is often easier than making new mechanics. With existing mechanics, we are able to learn some lessons about what worked well and what pitfalls to avoid. With the Stormscale Scion, we found that the card is fun and powerful even with a few copies, so we leaned into that rather than some of the other storm cards that win you the game, but only if you’ve cast lots of spells.
Tom Marks is IGN’s Executive Reviews Editor. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.
