It's time for yet another preview season, and this one has proved to be a genuine sleeper hit! Foundations hits local game stores for prerelease next week and leading up to it we're getting one heck of a condensed preview season. No Commander decks to speak of, over 700 cards coming to Standard, and a whole new Jumpstart set. Talk about a whopper of a release!

Up until now, Wizards only showed us a small smattering of cards. We got new looks at the likes of Arena of Champions and Nine-Lives Familiar, but the real excitement came from the return of powerful cards like Omniscience, Llanowar Elves, and Day of Judgment to Standard once more. Surely that was the most of what we were getting, most people thought. Most expected it to just be another core set, and thus there was little fanfare. Until we saw the cards, that is.

Foundations is shaping up to be one of the coolest sets in years, and I'm here to highlight some of the awesomeness that you can find in the set. I'm only showcasing a small number of cards, but I promise it's worth your time to check it all out. Let's have a look at what this set has to offer!

What's Old Is New Again

Perhaps the biggest talk of the town with this set were the reprints, and good lord are they incredible. Typically, when it comes to core sets of the past, we often only saw a small number of reprints, and only a handful were truly meaningful. Most people expected that again here, but we got just the opposite. Llanowar Elves and Day of Judgment were mere precursors to the kinds of awesome reprints we'd get, and it quickly made Foundations like a brisk walk down memory lane.

How cool is it to see the return of Think Twice to Standard once again? Burst Lightning? Savannah Lions? All of these are sweet additions that don't feel too overwhelmingly powerful. We even got to see some serious heavy hitters return. Did you ever think Doubling Season would be coming back to Standard once more, and entering Pioneer as a result also? Well, here it is! Many players - myself included - also expressed serious hype over the return of Elves as a classic archetype that received tons of support, showing that some longtime favorite strategies are coming back once again.

Things got even more exciting when the Starter Collection was revealed and showed off a whole smattering of powerful cards. While not in the actual main set, the Starter Collection is bringing several hundred old reprints back into Standard once again through its own supplemental product. This release contains classic powerhouses like Mystical Teachings, Desecration Demon, Ball Lightning, Ghitu Lavarunner, Maelstrom Pulse, Boros Charm, and more back to the fold once again.

All of this is prime for making the hype absolutely through the roof in its own right, but that shouldn't exclude all the new cards either!

The Newest Hotness

Thankfully, the reprints are the only sweet looking cards. Some new ones are also looking extra sweet as well! Cards like Herald of Eternal Dawn and Anthem of Champions clearly riff on older designs (Platinum Angel and Glorious Anthem variants in this case) which drew a lot of early praise. Even simpler and fun designs such as Preposterous Proportions and the new vanilla Quakestrider Ceratops drew tons of love for their quirky nature.

Some cards caught the attention of the more competitive crowd fairly quickly. Boltwave stood out loudly among the crowd, offering a new iteration on Lava Spike - a card famously playable in Burn decks all the way back to Legacy. Raise the Past also drew comparisons to powerful cards from years gone by such as Rally the Ancestors and Return to the Ranks for being able to bring back a ton of creatures with ease for a big killing blow with something like Vengeful Bloodwitch. Searslicer Goblin also turned a lot of heads for its ability to easily spit out tokens turn after turn and is expected to become a staple of Red aggro decks.

Then we've got a bunch of cool new treatments with this set! The big fancy reveal is the inclusion of the all-new Mana Foils, providing unique foil patterns to select borderless art variants from the set. Additionally, the Japan Showcase art treatments from Duskmourn: House of Horror return once more! You'll be able to find both normal foil versions as well as fancy fracture foil treatments in collector boosters when the set releases. I know I for one am super stoked for the fracture foil Llanowar Elves that's coming soon here!

Jumpstart Returns Again

Jumpstart is back once more with the release of Foundations Jumpstart, coming out alongside the main Foundations set. These cards will not be Standard legal, however they will provide a fun new player friendly experience that's sure to be a good time for anyone. Many cards see crossover printings with the actual Foundations release, though this features a lot of the elements that have become typical of Jumpstart releases.

The set brings with it 56 all new cards, with a couple of cool new designs showing up at your typical rarities and iterations. The most interesting inclusions are the return of anime artwork from Jumpstart 2022, however this time they aren't just on reprints. Instead, there are 27 brand new legendary creatures that see their first printings exclusively with this anime artwork on them. These include unique new designs such as the Horse legend Thurid, Mare of Destiny or the weird Jellyfish themed Cynette, Jelly Drover. All of these are no doubt going to provide fun new Commander decks for years to come!

Last but not least are some of the reprints. As noted above, many cards are back with new anime artwork treatments - all of them legendary creatures. Additionally, several non-legendary cards also received new artwork, with perhaps the most notable among them being the incredible new version of Dark Confidant. Even without the new artwork, there's still some sweet reprints like Godsend, Lord of the Unreal, and Ancient Greenwarden among the bunch, proving that the set is sure to be just as exciting as the main attraction.

For more information on Foundations and Foundations Jumpstart, check out these official resources by Wizards of the Coast:

• Foundations Card Image Gallery (includes Foundations Jumpstart)
• Foundations Starter Collection Contents
• Foundations Jumpstart Booster Themes
• Foundations Mechanics
• Collecting Foundations Article

Additionally, you can check out the Foundations page right here on CoolStuffInc.com to pick up all the cool cards you're on the hunt for! Prerelease is right around the corner next week, so make sure you head to your local game store and get your games on! Foundations looks to be one of the greatest core sets of all time and is bound to make an exciting impact on Standard going forward. I, for one, cannot wait to see it in action!

Paige Smith

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