There’s a lot about to happen in Magic, with Avatar and a couple of big Secret Lairs along the way, but there’s also a whole lot on the agenda for 2026 in Magic: the Gathering. There will be seven releases next calendar year, and while they are of varying sizes, we can make some preliminary guesses about what’ll be in those sets and hopefully, figure out some cards to buy ahead of time.
I don’t have any secret bonus information, just lots of experience with Magic as a game and with the players. No shadowy cabal action here, just pure speculation.
Here’s the calendar, released before they announced that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the big deal for March.
So let’s talk about these in order, with what we know, what we think, and what we should consider buying.
To be clear, we don’t know for sure that there’s bonus sheets or Commander decks, and those are ripe sources of reprints. It could absolutely be that many of these picks
Lorwyn Eclipsed
We’ve gotten a few cards from this set, and there’s a few trends we can get from these previews. Transforming back and forth is on at least three mythics, we are getting evoke and hybrid elementals. We know there’s Kithkin, Elves, Merfolk. We also know the themes for the two Commander decks: five-color Elementals and Jund -1/-1 counters.
There’s been a lot of good stuff in the minus counters decks over the years, and you can look at the list for any Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons deck and find some great cards. Two of the biggies are Flourishing Defenses and Blowfly Infestation, those feel like a lock to be reprinted. Crumbling Ashes is a pet card of mine for this theme, but the big card I’ll be watching for here is Contagion Engine. If that’s not in the Commander deck, then the very-hard-to-pull raised foils from OTP could easily jump from the $20-$25 range to $50+.
Five-color Elementals has been good enough to be a Modern deck at times, and I have a hard time picking what could go in the deck or left out. Earlier this year on MTG Fast Finance I picked Horde of Notions in pack foil, bassed on comments they made in Tarkir:Dragonstorm. In that set, there was a Temur Dragons Commander deck that left out Mirrym, because they didn’t want the older card to outshine the new Commanders. I think that philosophy will hold, and we will see two or three new five-color Elementals. This makes Omnath, Locus of All a card I should want to pick up now as well, hoping that they leave it out, but unfortunately, there’s a super sweet buy-a-box version of the card with an enormous amount available online, so no, don’t buy that.
There’s a lot of accessories for Elementals, and lesser-known ones. This is just a short list, and if it’s in the deck might not be a good pick, but that’s the bet you’re making if you buy early: Titania, Nature’s Force, Kaheera, the Orphanguard, Master of Waves, Chandra’s Embercat, Wilderness Elemental, Eyes of the Wisent, and Wand of the Elements. Some of those will get reprinted, some won’t.
One of the cards I mentioned in the ProTrader Discord, having bought a brick, remains an excellent candidate for Commander deck/bonus sheet, but it was cheap to buy a brick: Corruption of Towashi. It’s five mana, yes, but being able to draw cards when you’re transforming things, even just once a turn, would be the sort of thing people really want to add to decks. There’s no special version, so I got a bunch of pack foils and I feel good about it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
We’ve gotten some previews here too, and we’re getting some +1/+1 counter synergies as well as a lot of support for creatures who are Mutants, Ninjas, and Turtles. There’s already been a few spikes here, and we know the bonus sheet has Doubling Season to start with.
Over the next few months, I fully expect to see all sorts of random Mutant/Ninja/Turtles get spikes, even though we don’t know the formulation for the set yet, how many Commander decks, etc. Some of my favorites here, again with the risk of reprints, would be Ambling Stormshell in Showcase foil, Spider-Ham, Peter Porker, and Jenova, Ancient Calamity.
Secrets of Strixhaven
No cards yet, but would expect Learn/Lesson to be big here. My guess is that we’ll get most of the biggies reprinted in some way, but until we know for sure, I’m hesitant to buy in.
Marvel Super Heroes
Next of the six Stones, interested in creature type hero? James has already mentioned on the cast that you want your Soul Stones now, and he’s exactly right. We’re going to see a lot of folks who want to assemble the stones, and that means you want to have the first one in stock. Diamond Hands, people!
Also if Heroes are a big thing, we might see a big spike in Cid, Timeless Artificer, a card that would be difficult for them to reprint inside a Marvel IP. We’ll have to see.
The Hobbit
Everything from LOTR should be a risk to be reprinted, either in set, reskinned, bonus sheet. A real Smaug card! More Dwarves! My big plan here is to buy all the copies of The One Ring that I can when it gets cheap again.
Reality Fracture
We know Bolas was set loose again, back in Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Stuff is complicated, stories loop back on themselves. Don’t have any idea if this is a Bolas set or what.
Star Trek
Edge of Eternities gave us the model for Stations, Warp, and Spacecraft, and we’ll get all sorts of iconic stuff here. We’re very early but the single best card I’d want to have in such a deck is Inspirit, Flagship Vessel, for its ability to slowly charge up other Spacecraft. Could be reskinned into the Enterprise, so wait and see is the order of the day.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.