Another year of Magic: The Gathering has come to an end, and with seven Standard sets in 12 months, it sure felt like a lot was crammed in. As the final days of 2025 tick by, it's time to take a moment to look back at the MTG release schedule and think about what worked and what didn't.
7. Marvel Spiderman
Last place was an extremely easy pick this time around. Spider-Man was a swing and a miss, and the largest misstep for Universes Beyond yet.
There was so much wrong with it, it's actually hard to know where to start my tirade of criticism. This MTG set had weak cards that no one wanted, was clogged with interchangeable Spider-people, many of whom had mechanics that did nothing to communicate their flavor, pick-2 drafts were awful, and there weren't even any Commander precons which - if done well - might've given a silver lining to an otherwise dull grey product.
Thanks to some intricacies of its deal with Marvel, Wizards of the Coast couldn't even put Spider-Man on MTG Arena in its original form, and while I was extremely interested in spoiler season and finding out how it would tackle the challenge of reskinning a spider-themed superhero set, the result was a jumbled mish-mash that killed any desire to interact with the cards on the digital platform.
Spider-Man was such a disaster in fact, it has me quite worried about 2026, which has a lot of Universe Beyond properties with question marks next to them. Fortunately, many of its problems can be blamed on the fact this was originally intended to be a small set, a la Assassin's Creed.
6. Innistrad Remastered
That this set is second from bottom shows that 2025 was a quality year for Magic, because there was nothing particularly bad about Innistrad Remastered - it was just a bit forgettable. I pulled a Craterhoof Behemoth and an Edgar Markov out of the same Innistrad Remastered pack and it still managed to slip from my mind!
That's not necessarily the fault of the set itself, just the format. As Remastered sets go, Innistrad was pretty good. It had some great alternate art treatments and WotC managed to wrangle several sets into a working draft format. It's just very hard for an all-reprint set to be a highlight of the year.
Innistrad may be the final Remastered release, in fact, at least for a good long while, as Wizards has cut these from its release schedule in favor of a greater number of Standard sets. It makes sense - they were rapidly running out of standout planes to revisit.
5. Aetherdrift
Aetherdrift received a lot of misplaced hate, I think. There's plenty to admire here, from some brilliant mechanics like Exhaust, to a bunch of fun (if not especially memorable) factions, which added a lot of variety and meant we didn't just have to look at 291 identical pictures of race cars. Also that zombie precon was S-tier.
This set was always going to be a hard sell, though, simply because of its racing theme. That is such a niche and narrow genre to center a set around, and it's probably why it seemed like more folks weren't on board this time than usual. It didn't help that - thanks to the Wacky Races inspiration - there was an undercurrent of silliness to the set which conflicted with what many fans want from in-universe Magic.
Aetherdrift spawned some surprisingly fascinating lore articles to justify why the three worlds involved would suddenly be really into racing, but when you looked at the cards, it didn't really feel like you were revisiting these planes, so several of WotC's unique settings felt wasted.
4. Final Fantasy
The best-selling Magic set of all time in the middle of the pack? That can't be right.
Well, look, as a love-letter to its franchise, Final Fantasy was undeniably a fantastic release, and that's half of what a UB set needs to achieve. Wizards has to be applauded for managing to touch on every single Final Fantasy game, and while we could bicker endlessly about which characters should and shouldn't have been included, it's honestly impressive that Magic is able to encapsulate something as mammoth as this series in one batch of cards.
As an MTG release, I thought it was A-grade too, don't get me wrong. There were a lot of really fun and flavorful designs, good mechanics, solid precons, and a great Limited environment to boot. But from this point onwards, there aren't any sets with major problems, and I just think Final Fantasy lacked a little bit of the flair that the next sets demonstrate.
There were no real standout mechanics, the chocobo hunt made the cards irritatingly hard to get hold of, and the set often felt like it over-prioritized designing for Commander. Even so, Final Fantasy should rank one spot higher, above Tarkir Dragonstorm, but I'm dragging it down a spot purely as punishment for Vivi Ornitier.
3. Tarkir Dragonstorm
Tarkir Dragonstorm benefits massively from the year it was released. It was a classic Magic: The Gathering set, at a time when those have become as rare as diamonds.
With strong designs and great art direction, Tarkir was a breath of fresh air amidst the heavy genre sets and UB crossovers, and it flawlessly executed its mission statement of reintroducing the clans while also giving dragon-lovers plenty of new cards to enjoy. The precons were top-tier as well, and while Limited ended up looking a little wonky, it was definitely one of the most unique formats of the year.
2. Edge of Eternities
Edge of Eternities was probably the biggest surprise of 2025 for me, and proved that Magic: The Gathering's worldbuilding team has still got it. Wizards crafted a space fantasy setting full of diverse factions and exciting conflict, one that felt instantly familiar without falling back on overused cliches. (We'll let them off for that one Among Us reference).
In every aspect, from the precons to the faction design, Edge of Eternities felt like WotC eschewed the easy option to produce something more interesting. The artwork was gorgeous, the story was great, and the mechanics were strong. I've got to praise Warp in particular, as well as the lands-matter theme, which gave us a great bonus sheet.
In 2025, I didn't know if WotC was capable of producing a completely new world that was so mature. EOE gave us Magic's most believable setting in years, and felt like it could've easily supported a whole block.
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender
While I'm biased towards this set thanks to a particularly strong love for its source material, I still think Avatar is the best-designed set of the year from a mechanical standpoint. The four bending mechanics are both flavorful interpretations of the elemental powers they represent and extremely fun for gameplay with loads of interesting interplay between them (I've gushed about this enough already.)
The set has the greatest Limited format of the year, with loads of fun micro-decisions to make in both drafting and playing. And finally, a subtle thing, Avatar felt the most like a regular Magic: The Gathering release of any UB release since Tales of Middle-Earth. I think that's partly because of the setting, but also because Wizards didn't go too legendary creature crazy with this one!
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