Put on your thinking caps and get ready to unravel a mystery, with Murders at Karlov Manor, the first premier MTG set of 2024. This Magic: The Gathering release returns to one of the game’s most popular planes, the cityscape world of Ravnica. But unlike our other visits, this time Wizards is going full genre, with a set based on intrigue, detectives, and murder mystery tropes.
In Murders at Karlov Manor, MTG Ravnica’s famous guilds will take a back seat for once, in favor of deerstalker hats and magnifying glasses. Here we’ll cover everything that’s been revealed about this MTG set, from the Murders at Karlov Manor release date and where it lies in the 2024 MTG release schedule, to all the artwork, card spoilers, and other news shared so far.
With Lost Caverns of Ixalan not yet out, there are few concrete details available, but there’s still plenty to glean and infer, and we’re the right sleuths for the job.
MTG Murders at Karlov Manor release date
The Murders at Karlov Manor release date is currently confirmed for some time in Q1 2024. Beyond that, we don’t know exactly when it’ll be coming out. However, if Wizards of the Coast sticks closely to its release cadence from the past couple of years, we would expect this set to drop in mid-February 2024. Long before that, there’ll be plenty of previews and tidbits shared, and a week or so of card spoilers will reveal the set to us.
Based on the now-established pattern of MTG set releases, the first time you’ll be able to get your hands on Murders at Karlov Manor cards will be the prerelease events held at local game stores. Then the set will drop in digital form on MTG Arena, before its official global tabletop release.
MTG Murders at Karlov Manor mechanics
While no Murders at Karlov Manor mechanics have been officially revealed, there’s one Magic mechanic that is such a non-brainer that we would bet our entire collection it’ll be in there: Investigate, and the Clue tokens that come with it. It’s a popular mechanic, and it’s such an obvious fit for the set that it could have been made specifically for it – need we go on?
Past Ravnica sets have featured lots of multicolored cards, but because Wizards of the Coast has explicitly said “guilds are not a feature of this set”, we don’t count on this being the case for Murders at Karlov Manor.
Lastly, in the Magic 30 stream, Mark Rosewater said Murders at Karlov Manor features “mysteries woven into the game itself where you, the players, will get to solve puzzles and solve your own mysteries.” How on earth that could possibly work within the constraints of the Magic: The Gathering match is anybody’s guess.
MTG Murders at Karlov Manor story
Ravnica, with such wholesome guilds as the killer clowns, vampire bankers, zombie farmers, and sneaky assassins is pretty murdery already. So for a Ravnica murder to be a big deal, we have to assume either that the plane’s become real peaceful since Nicol Bolas made a mess of things, or that the victims are so influential that everyone’s sitting up and taking notice. We wouldn’t be surprised, therefore, if multiple established, named characters show up dead.
While no story details or Murders at Karlov Manor cards have been revealed, a number of characters show up in artwork, and can probably be assumed to feature on cards. Artwork above shows Krenko, Judith, Massacre Girl, Aurelia, and an Izzet Lizard striking a pose, as well as what seems to be the set’s main character, a blue trench coat-doffing detective with elaborate facial hair, and an eye/city symbol on his badge that seems to link him to some sort of new faction, perhaps investigators or peace keepers?
Up top, an image inside Karlov Manor itself shows this guy out and about uncovering clues, and the character in the background could well be Kaya, who might therefore be this set’s one and only MTG planeswalker. This would make sense, since her fate is intrinsically linked to the Orzhov guild (of which the Karlovs are a key part), though given that she previously killed everyone important in the black-white guild, you’d expect her to be the primary suspect.
It also looks like the vampire assassin, Etrata, the Silencer is sneaking around. She’s such an obvious red herring that the culprit can’t be her, though we should point out that Dimir seems like the obvious guild to look to if surprise deaths are happening. If Dimir’s shapeshifter guildmaster Lazav doesn’t turn up in an unexpected guise to add a wrinkle to things, we’ll be very surprised.
It’s no mystery where you should turn for more Magic: The Gathering content. Check out our MTG Arena decks guide, our list of the best MTG commanders, or – if you think you might’ve missed one – our page of all the many MTG Arena codes.
Source: Wargamer
