2025 is going to be a monumental year for Magic: The Gathering. Whether you're looking to grind the Spotlight Series circuit, or just play Commander with your friends at FNM, every engaged Magic player is going to be exposed to some major changes happening to the game next year.

2025 marks the first year in Magic's history where six (yes, six!) Standard expansions will be released, in addition to a Remastered set. Granted, that's still pretty similar to the release cycle we had this past year, with 2024 having five Standard expansions (including Foundations), a Modern Horizons set, a Remastered set, and two smaller Universes Beyond releases. In 2025 this release calendar gets condensed a bit, merging the Standard expansion releases with Universes Beyond products, with three of the six Standard releases being Universes Beyond sets: Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, and an unannounced title.

Six Standard sets means a lot for the future of Magic, and how engrossed players engage with the game. As a casual player, you might start to feel the weight on your wallet when there's a new Commander product and Collector Booster product every six weeks! As a competitive player, even if you're just playing Standard at the local-level, six expansions a year means the Standard metagame will be constantly changing and adapting, with decks requiring new cards every six weeks. This can be extremely difficult to keep up with if you're building multiple decks for Standard, or even if you're playing any other eternal formats like Pioneer or Modern.

Whether you play Limited, Commander, Standard, or just like to collect Magic, 2025 is definitely going to put strain on you as a player in some form or another. As a player who's been a diehard Magic fan for almost 15 years, here are my tips on how you can avoid burnout with your favorite hobby next year, in the wake of so many changes to the game we love.

For the Casual Players...

As a casual player there's less pressure on you to purchase a ton of singles from every set if you aren't playing in competitive tournaments, or if you're just playing Singleton, like Commander. However, I'd be cautious about a few things regarding next year's release calendar. Six sets means six Commander deck releases, as well as six Collector Booster releases - not to mention Secret Lairs.

With Universes Beyond sets taking up half the year's Standard expansions, some are definitely going to hit harder than others for players, depending on their interests. I can tell you right now I have no interest in touching the Spider-Man set, aside from purchasing cards for my Standard decks for competitive events. It's not that I have a huge dislike of Spider-Man, I'd just rather it not take up a Standard set in Magic, I'd rather return to another plane than have a superhero set from another IP.

However, I'm incredibly stoked for Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy has had such a larger impact on me than Marvel, and I think it at least fits the bill for the...well, "fantasy" aspect that Magic has. Working in the video games industry and having friends who have voiced in the series has me hyped for all the drafts and events I'll be playing during the summer for that set. This means for me, that the money I'd probably spend on Spider-Man I'll be allocating to Final Fantasy.

You absolutely don't have to buy a set if you have no interest in the concept, but here are some tips I'd recommend for players who are on the more casual side...

My Advice...

Have an idea of which products you want to engage in and what your budget is. Even if your friends are all buying the Spider-Man Commander decks, if you don't like the product or have a budget allocated, skip it! Or at least buy the singles you need for your decks.

One thing that I notice as a non-Commander player looking in is that I see a lot of Commander players have pretty sizable collections. If you're buying expensive singles every year, you're going to end up with an excess at some point, especially if you're also playing Limited like prerelease or the occasional Draft.

Take advantage of selling cards to stores and getting a trade-in credit. I cannot stress how useful this is as a competitive player, as selling cards from Drafts or winnings has allowed me to make the next event that much more affordable. Taking advantage of this will let you better manage your collection and put less strain on your wallet in 2025, especially if you want cards from each of the seven sets releasing next year.

For the Competitive Players...

The advice of "only engage with what you want" doesn't really work for competitive MTG, now does it? With Standard taking center stage over the next year or so, with it being the focus of the Spotlight Series and the most popular format of the Regional Championship and RCQ tournaments, it feels impossible to ignore any Standard sets releasing in 2025. While I do think Standard is a fantastic format and should be the center of competitive play, as it is the most approachable for new players, having the metagame shift every six weeks is just a headache.

In previous years we've had periods of time where no Standard set has released for a three to four month time period, giving players time to acquire cards and adapt to the metagame. While I do think a faster timeline is better for the health of Standard, especially if one busted deck comes out on top, having to acquire new cards at such a rate is going to be difficult not only for established players, but new players with little to no collections just trying to keep up.

With Standard sets releasing new and more powerful cards per expansion, we actually get a "rotation within a rotation." What I mean by this is that since Standard rotates every three years now instead of two, newer sets will make cards in older sets obsolete. How many cards in Dominaria United see major play compared to cards from Bloomburrow, or Duskmourn?

My Advice...

While you can't ignore every set release I think my goal as a competitive player would be to be cognizant of my time and resources. Unless you have a ton of free time, I don't think it's realistic to have multiple decks for Standard, Modern, and Pioneer. If you work a full-time job and have a partner, you have to seriously consider how much time you can allocate to traveling to events, using full weekend days for RCQs or MTGO qualifiers, etc. Be strategic with the time you have, master the decks and archetypes that you can, and be mindful of how to manage your online and physical collections.

One thing that's helped me tremendously this year is to keep my Standard collection organized in a separate box, by color. I've done my best to sell off any unused parts of my collection, like any obsolete rares or uncommons from past Standards and excess Modern cards I barely touch. Keep a schedule of what events you're going to travel to or play locally in and coordinate with your friends on what cards you're borrowing from each other.

I think players are going to be in for a rude awakening next year regarding card availability. With sets releasing so quickly, we're going to have overlap between set releases and major events. The first Regional Championship of 2025 falls on prerelease weekend of Aetherdrift! Meaning that if you want cards from Magic's newest expansion for your Pro-Tour qualifying event, your only hope is that you'll be able to preorder from a vendor, or pick up the cards on site. Granted, that event is Modern, but if some new shiny Mythic rare is the next face of some deck (cough, cough, The One Ring), we're going to run into these issues as time goes on.

I'd be wary of vendors even having all the uncommons you'd need for your Standard deck, as I'm sure it'll be hard for them to have enough Standard inventory in addition to the massive amount of cards they'll have for sale for Pioneer, Modern, and Commander players.

Overall, I'd say that if you're going to play competitive Magic in 2025, manage your time and resources effectively. Be prepared for your events and don't try and buy cards at the last minute (if you can help it).

I believe 2025 is going to be a hugely impactful year for Magic: The Gathering. In a way, I'm hopeful about the future of the game, as I believe 2025 will be a year to test players' engagement. While I do believe it's going to become increasingly harder for engaged players to have a stake in every set release, I'm at least looking forward to traveling to more events, playing new sets, and seeing what decks I can brew.

Here's to 2025, fellow planeswalkers.

-Roman Fusco