Looking Back at Magic: The Gathering in 2025

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

2025 Set Review

Hi everyone, I’m manamagic, a small-time player from Hsinchu, and I mainly play constructed formats like Standard, Pioneer, and Modern. These articles were originally notes to myself on my own page, 未央 P 也想玩 mtg. Thanks to cephille for the invitation to contribute; I tidied them up a bit and combined them into one article, hoping you can read it in your spare time and have a laugh.

As of December 2025, we now know that UUB referred to Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Aetherdrift (DFT)

Aetherdrift is definitely this year’s least valuable set. Apart from the lands, the most useful card in the whole set is probably Stock Up. Although it’s a Vehicle theme, I remember red-white Vehicles being the worst color pair in draft… and racing doesn’t quite fit MTG’s style either though the collaboration sets later went beyond my imagination

The first-ever artifact planeswalker (Karn the planeswalker is not an artifact…). In the story it’s the prize for winning the race, and Chandra wants to get it to give to Nissa, who has lost her spark. At first I was guessing whether it could turn the equipped creature into a planeswalker, but it turns out I was overthinking it.

Though it’s the set’s chase card, I don’t remember it being played anywhere…

The strongest 3-mana sorcery card draw in recent years. At its most expensive this card reached around 13 dollars, and even though it’s an uncommon you can hardly collect it… (when I picked mine up it seemed to be NTD.350)
Lately the environment is probably too fast, so it’s seen less often at tournaments.

Verge Lands

After the Duskmourn set, the enemy-color Verge lands are now all printed, and I have to say these are the best-designed dual lands of recent years. Being able to enter untapped is great! They pair perfectly with lands that have basic land types, like shock lands and surveil lands.

The biggest problem with Verge lands is probably that you often forget it can’t produce the second color; in real life you don’t get color hints like in the digital version.

If we really wanted to, there are actually 10 more combinations that could be printed (swapping the front and back colors it can produce), but after discussing with friends we felt that would be too strong, so they probably won’t be printed… right?

Ketramose, aka the former DFT chase card, whose price surged in Modern because it was used against Grinding Stationdecks. But when the rabbit is dead the hound is cooked: with Underworld Breachbanned, Grinding Stationdecks vanished outright, and Ketramose also left the front line. Now it’s only around 7 dollars (it can’t even compete with Stock Upnow).

Its price skyrocketed thanks to Izzet Lessons decks shining at the World Championship, which makes this set feel not so bad… (actually it’s still not that good).

Tarkir: Dragonstorm (TDM)

I really liked the Standard of the first Tarkir (Khans of Tarkir), because KTK had strong cards plus fetch lands, which led to a huge number of boosters being opened at the time. Even some rares you had to play four of in Standard were only around 100 NTD, and in draft some people didn’t even pick them.

Back to this Tarkir: although card strength isn’t as outrageous as back then, the market response was still enthusiastic, and box-opening volume was much higher than for other sets, which indirectly kept card prices relatively low. Being able to maintain such strong sales momentum under a huge supply and bring relatively approachable card prices, that’s a truly healthy market cycle!

In limited, although this is a three-color set, after the format was figured out everyone started taking red-white aggro like crazy… XD After all, the slower the set, the better aggro is! Still, I personally prefer picking five-color Dragons decks.

Straight to the Cutter first. During previews I didn’t even notice that this card was broken; the Cutter is a harder-to-deal-with Monastery Mentor, which directly made Izzet prowess a T1 deck. And because Standard really has no effective way to deal with the Cutter, it was banned without suspense after the Chiba Spotlight…

But this card is still ridiculously strong in Modern, and with many 0-mana spells it can get going from turn two. Building a Modern Izzet prowess deck is cheap and powerful! Recommended!

Another card that appeared in large numbers at the Chiba Spotlight is Marang River Regent. It’s mainly used as the finisher in white-blue Omniscience: two Dragons plus Roiling Dragonstormlets you draw your whole library… actually no, you can’t draw the last card (drawing two at once would deck you).

At Chiba I faced an opponent whose win condition was stuck as the last card of their library, but their version had One with the Multiverse, which can cast it from the top of the library… so I still lost.

Decks that need to fill the graveyard, or control decks, still love this card.

He’s clearly someone who fights the Eldrazi, yet his abilities fit the Eldrazi so well. Are you sure you’re not a traitor = =?

Back when it was still called the WMCQ, I made top 4 with Abzan reanimator. You typically run one as a faster win condition, but actually the strongest card in that deck was Angel of Serenity, and now it’s basically unemployed.

Cards named Mox are (supposedly) never weak, but sorry, this one just doesn’t make the cut. There’s also another Mox that nobody plays… though probably nobody cares. I remember it was expensive at first, and then people saw through it.

Finally, let’s talk about this one. I actually think it’s one of the reasons Proft's Eidetic Memorygot banned; drawing 3 cards for 3 mana is just too big. Discard, on the other hand, has more room for manipulation, and combined with Warp’s Quantum Riddler, being able to Harmonize it straight from the graveyard is wonderful.

Final Fantasy (FIN)

This set gave Wizards a big taste of sweetness. Before release it was already the best-selling set in MTG history, and probably because of this, collaboration sets will likely only increase from here.

This crossover was also the first to enter Standard (previous collaborations, apart from Secret Lair, such as The Lord of the Rings and Assassin’s Creed, could only be used in Modern or above; Dungeons & Dragons is Wizards’ own IP, so it doesn’t really count as a collaboration set).

Honestly, this IP is so popular that it’s hard to imagine not knowing any FF characters at all (maybe you’ve never played FF, but you’ve still seen Tifa and Aerith). I’ve only fully beaten FF5/6/7/8/9 and only played part of the rest (does that give away my age?).

If you count which FF game each card in this set comes from, you’ll clearly notice the cards concentrate on 6/7/10/14, which happen to be the most popular entries in the FF series. By the way, the Traditional Chinese server for FF14 has just opened, so those interested can give it a try.

Also, I think the English translations in this set differ from the Japanese, so I’ve included the Japanese card names.

《迷える黒魔道士、ビビ》

The true protagonist of FF9! Just look at Zidane, Zidane, Tantalus Thief, being placed at uncommon, while Vivi is a mythic rare, and you’ll see XD!

Being able to produce mana based on power was widely discussed during previews, and at the Pro Tour there was a “Vivi Cauldron” deck pairing Vivi with Agatha's Soul Cauldronto deploy a ton of stuff. Although it wasn’t dazzling at the Pro Tour or even the Chiba Spotlight, after bans and rotation, Vivi Cauldron somehow lost almost nothing and instantly leapt to a T0 deck.

Later red aggro rose, but facing Cauldron wasn’t actually that much easier, and so Standard fell into an indescribable nightmare. It wasn’t until early November, when Wizards finally sent Vivi to the banlist, that all this ended.

《メテオストライク》

Suplex is generally called a back suplex or shoulder throw. Anyone who hasn’t played FF6 probably doesn’t know why you’d suplex a train. Translated from the original Japanese it should be called Meteor Strike.

This is one of Sabin’s “Blitz” moves in FF6. In one part of the story, they mistakenly board the Phantom Train that carries the souls of the dead, and during the final boss fight your party is chased by the Phantom Train, at which point using Suplex lets you pick up the Phantom Train and throw it. Probably because it’s so funny, this gag is surprisingly famous.

《自爆》

This is from FF5, in the Interdimensional Rift, when the protagonists fight Necrophobe and their earlier opponent Gilgamesh suddenly appears to help, leaving the flavor text line: “If I just leave like this, I’ll only go down in history as a disgrace!” After saying his farewell, he self-destructs along with the boss…

「このまま 帰ったんじゃ、かっこわるいまま歴史に残っちまうからな！」
――ギルガメッシュ

Gilgamesh’s signature BGM is also a very famous one in the FF series, “Battle on the Big Bridge”. This one was also printed as a card in FCA.

《新生エオルゼア》

This is the name of FF14’s version 2.0. Someone will surely ask, what was 1.0? The first version of FF14 was made so poorly that it was ultimately scrapped and redone from scratch (really scrapped; they even shut down the servers…). In the end they apparently drew on quite a bit of World of Warcraft’s design to make version 2.0, so people jokingly call the new FF14 the Japanese World of Warcraft.

《召喚：バハムート》

Whenever the “big three Japanese RPGs” come up, the ones that are always there are FF (Final Fantasy) and DQ (Dragon Quest); the third one doesn’t seem to have a consensus…

The biggest hallmark of FF is probably the summons, and the most famous summon is definitely Bahamut. Taiwan’s biggest gaming information site today, Bahamut (巴哈姆特), actually takes its name from this.

Designing the summons as Saga creatures this time truly fits the flavor of summons, but the rules were slightly modified for it: a Saga doesn’t die immediately when it loses its abilities, which lets Urza’s Saga pick up a bargain XD, no longer afraid of Blood Moon.

Editor’s note: Interested readers are welcome to go back and read this article: How Blood Moon Went from Urza’s Saga’s Natural Enemy to Its Teammate

《最後まで・・・/リスティックの研究》

Finally, sneaking in a card from FCA. Many people who haven’t played FF10 have asked me why only Yuna is crying on this card. All I can say is… that’s a huge spoiler, go play FF10 yourself! FF10 is widely considered the entry with the best story in the FF series.

Overall, FF really is a carefully designed set, with many places where people who’ve played the games can truly resonate. This year at the Chiba Spotlight there were also plenty of FF-related introductions and displays. Although the overall card strength isn’t high, the art is really great. As for whether there will be other Japanese IP collaborations in the future, it’s hard to say.

Edge of Eternities (EOE)

Although we’re back to MTG’s own universe, this set has flown out into outer space, with not only spaceships but also planets, which is so sci-fi that it doesn’t feel much like MTG…

Surprisingly some old creature types appear: Kavu, Sliver, Eldrazi… so are these races all from outside? Honestly by this point I no longer know where the story is going XD.

EOE is probably the set I drafted the most this year. As I recall it’s fairly balanced, with nothing especially strong or especially weak. It’s also a set with quite a few strong rares and mythics, but probably because shock lands have been reprinted so many times, Quantum Riddler and Ouroboroid are still expensive QQ.

The ruler of Modern! Why do you draw an extra card when you have one or fewer cards in hand… Every time the opponent plays Psychic Frogon turn two and Warps Quantum Riddleron turn three, I feel I’m about to lose. Combined with flicker effects it’s wonderful. Standard does have Splash Portalto flicker Quantum Riddler, but it’s far less efficient, so it isn’t as strong.

A typical green limited super-bomb; if it survives two turns the game is basically over. Things like this used to live only in limited, but this time it’s a bit outrageous. I’ve seen people play it in Standard blue-green aggro and Gruul Delirium, but a 1/3 body is still too fragile, and if it gets killed before getting any counters going, your tempo gets pulled completely away.

Commonly known as “Cutter Man” (the Cutter guy). Before playing Izzet Cutter I was playing Esper Self-Bounce, and after the Cutter was banned I went and picked this one up to return to my old deck. Strength-wise it’s actually decent, but the three-color mana base is truly awful and I often kill myself with it. At 3 mana it’s also harder to cast a second spell the same turn it resolves, so it never reached the height of the Cutter.

Everything landfall decks love is stuffed in here: playing two lands a turn, playing lands from the graveyard, and it can help self-mill, so you don’t worry about an empty graveyard. The funniest thing about this card is probably that EOE’s Special Guests slot includes Strip Mine, so if you open both you can blow up all of your opponent’s lands in limited.

I don’t know how many people know that, if you follow the card’s original wording, you could use an opponent’s creature to hit their own creature. That was far too un-green, so it was hotfixed before release, and now that +1/+0 and vigilance can only be given to your own creatures.

It forms a friendship combo with the opponent’s Hidetsugu's Second Rite: after the second ability resolves, you get hit for 10 damage and die XD Although both are Standard-legal, I doubt anyone would actually play it… right?

Marvel’s Spider-Man (SPM)

Before previews, everyone was still looking forward to Spider-Man, but what finally came out was a pile of… well…
The Spider-Man set has been criticized constantly, and I think there are a few reasons:

1. Card strength isn’t high enough (if cards aren’t strong enough, nobody wants them).
2. Boosters are expensive (collaboration means price hikes).
3. It’s a collaboration set (some people are always unhappy with MTG collaborating with outside properties).

FF cards actually weren’t strong enough either, so why was there so little criticism? Just look at that Japanese art, gorgeous… Does card strength matter? Wizards should wake up already…

Another point is that Spider-Man limited is unbalanced, which makes many people not want to play it, because the Web-slinging ability lets you quickly cast expensive creatures, making it very hard for the player behind to catch up on tempo. White-green / white-blue win rates are much higher. As for 2 Pick draft, I haven’t played it in real life, and on MTGA it feels easy to run into the same colors as others, but I’m not a draft master, so I won’t comment on that part.

Also, because of grown-up copyright issues, the Spider-Man set has different art in the digital versions (MO/MTGA), and the card names have almost all been changed (usually legendary ones). Coming after FF, this made players even angrier. I can’t even swap in a Spider-Man avatar? I guess next year’s Marvel heroes set will have the same problem, so we may need to be mentally prepared…

Back to the cards. First, I should say I’m not at all familiar with Marvel XD. Before this I think I’d only seen Iron Man 1. Because MTG collaborated with Spider-Man, I even borrowed Avengers 3 & 4 to watch. For the Spider-Man movies I watched the 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man, and for the other multiverse Spider-Men I’ve only seen some information online. Please bear with me if I get anything wrong.

One of the Infinity Stones that Thanos collects all over in Avengers 3. This time only one stone was printed, and naturally the rest will have to wait for other Marvel collaborations (until what year and month?). What I don’t understand is that this one has no connection to Spider-Man, right??? Why print this one???

To obtain the Soul Stone you need to sacrifice someone you love; in MTG you just sacrifice any token creature, which is such a bargain!

A famous line even people who haven’t seen Spider-Man should have heard: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In MTG it can only be used to take damage.

The famous Spider-Man pointing meme, though in fact the subject of that image is just a thief disguised as Spider-Man. But the meme got so popular that Sony later deliberately had the actors of three generations of Spider-Man point at each other to recreate it.

Besides Multiversal Passage, this is probably the most-played Spider-Man card in Standard. After Spider-Man’s famous villain Doctor Octopus swaps minds with Peter Parker, Doctor Octopus resolves to become a better hero than Spider-Man, hence the name Superior Spider-Man… In MTG everyone just uses it to become a Demon. Doctor Octopus, you’d better just keep being a villain.

Because I’d only seen the first movie, I got spoiled by the card name for no reason = =. But in other multiverses it becomes Peter dying and Gwen surviving; in this timeline Gwen becomes Ghost-Spider.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (TLA)

Before this collaboration was released, many people were probably stunned: “Why collaborate with this?” But Avatar is actually hugely popular in Europe and America and highly rated, though not many people in Asia know it. If you want to watch it, you can find it on Netflix, and there was even a live-action version XD (that one probably doesn’t need watching…).

Although Avatar has been out for less than a month, all kinds of strong cards appeared even during previews, and even among the World Championship top 8, the most-played and, I think, strongest deck was Izzet Lessons, which used a large number of new TLA cards. This set is also currently the strongest of the collaboration sets.

For limited, everyone knows that red-white and white-blue are the strong color pairs in this set, though it doesn’t seem to reach the Spider-Man level where you can’t play without taking white; it’s just that slower color pairs need bombs more to support them.

A card found to be broken a few weeks after release, with its price rising continuously. Combined with green’s various mana dorks, it can make for super acceleration. The post with the most replies on my page was actually the one complaining that Badgermole Cubis too expensive XD. After the World Championship, though, it got somewhat figured out. I think Badgermole Cubisn’t weak; it’s just better suited to shining in older formats with all sorts of special lands.

I think this is the card that could really get banned. It’s just a stronger This Town Ain't Big Enough. Now, a blue deck without Stormchaser's Talent+ Boomerang Basicswouldn’t even know how to play. With enough mana you can keep looping the Talent to make Otters and draw cards, and it’s a Lesson too, with all kinds of bonuses.

Want to experience the thrill of using a Power 9 card? This one is Ancestral Recall. You say it costs two more mana? No problem, we have the next card.

Sokka and Katara’s grandmother. Reducing cost with 3 Lessons in the graveyard is far too easy, giving Izzet Lessons even more explosive power, and Gran-Gran deserves much of the credit!

Last, a look at the protagonist Aang. These four cards follow the story, where Aang learns the four bending arts:

Airbend → Waterbend → Earthbend → Firebending

Each one he learns adds another color. Are you Omnath? They really never appeared together at the same time XD

Conclusion

This year in MTG was a year of big ups and downs: from the poorly received Aetherdrift at the start of the year, to the best-selling Final Fantasy in the middle of the year; then the disappointing Spider-Man, and Avatar, which we hadn’t expected much from yet greatly changed the environment.

Universe Beyond (UB) reception is too polarized. With the growing number of Standard sets, continually soaring card prices, and constant bannings, it’s hard to say Standard is a healthy environment, and I can only hope the 2026 sets make the constructed environment better and better.