I might be reading it wrong but I think the first one enters with one +1/+1 counter b/c Gev's ability targets an opponent (not each opponent). The second one would be 2 counters assuming you hit a different opponent, etc.

Never thought I’d see artwork like this in a Standard set again, this is really nice and reminds me old school artwork.

Wow Donato is a huge name/artist and long time MTG artist. This one is definitely not as egregious as others but I agree that the back arm and stairs (at least) are pretty damning, and the obvious other similarities aren’t helping.

Even if this was accidental, why she used reference art from such a well known artist in the same space is kinda strange, as is why she changed so little from it.

This seems like such a strange idea for multiple reasons.

• Didn't they just axe Set Boosters because there was too much confusion or cannibalism between Draft and Set boosters?

• Like TFA says, March of the Machines did a 5 card booster and that flopped hard. Granted that had only 50 cards in the set and duplicates were more of an issue but they just had a failure with this.

Wow looks like they deleted that tweet. The post here from yesterday has some screenshots (thanks @MysticKetchup): https://mtgzone.com/post/376725

Yeah I agree, it’s a least possible WotC is relying on the artist’s claim.

This is 100% AI generated/assisted in some way and anyone who’s ever used Midjourney or any of them can see this. I’m surprised WotC made such an immediate denial, they could’ve at least looked into this more fully given the potential fallout.

My crazy long shot that’s never coming back as is, sadly: Dredge. I think it’s such a fun and unique mechanic, and cards like Life from the Loam are excellent examples of how it can be done well.

More realistically: I’d love to see Buyback again, an old one I loved from Exodus. Capsize every turn!

Couple thoughts after thinking about it a bit more:

• This smells a bit like a quieter way to just raise the price of boosters. Drafts will cost more now, which sucks. They say "Because that is six more boosters than Set Booster displays have right now, be aware the price of a Play Booster display box will be higher than that of a Set Booster display box." Most likely this coincides with a per-booster price increase too which probably (partly) drove this.

• Impact on draft seems way higher than they're leading on, even though they address this. An average of 3 cards from the List per draft has to increase variance. Granted it's now 50 cards instead of 300 in the List, and there is thought to tie it into the set, but that's still more variance. Relatedly, possibly opening 4 (!) rares but 3 fewer commons also has to change the game quite a bit too. 2-rare packs seem not crazy at least, and 3 fewer commons is substantial.

• I'm glad we're going back to just 1 type of booster pack though, I didn't like 2 different packs.

• I hope all cards from the List now make it to Arena! Could be a cool way to get more reprints there.

Unbelievably sad 😞 He contributed so so much to EDH and Magic in general, perhaps more than anyone else aside from MaRo/Garfield considering how impactful the format is. Dealt with a constant stream of criticism too despite all that.

Stupid cancer. I'll be thinking of him and his family, hope they find peace.

I like the unbans, but this is about as close to "no changes" as they could get without explicitly making no changes. Really was hoping for more unbans at least!

The explanations are very thorough and it does feel like they have a pretty good handle on the current state of the formats, which is nice. I still think they're wrong about [[Orcish Bowmasters]] and to a slightly lesser extent [[The One Ring]] though.

I think Bowmasters is not fine in Modern/Legacy and I still think The One Ring is just going to increasingly become oppressive. Yes it's at their "4 mana threshold" and it's not one archetype dominating with it, but I think its ubiquity is probably a downside and that we're going to see it clogging up games everywhere. Really curious and interested to see how the formats evolve!

Wow I legitimately thought this was fake at first. Bloomburrow looks like it could be fun but really not loving more UBs and what seems like 0 connection between sets anymore. Another Modern Horizons as well, yikes. Hate that just none of this really appeals to me.

+1 for here! would love to be able to contain spoilers to one community for discussion and to enable better subscriptions for folks.