Wizards of the Coast is thinking about increasing the number of planeswalker cards it prints per Magic: The Gathering set, the game’s head designer Mark Rosewater has revealed. When asked by a fan if Wizards could increase the amount of planeswalkers, Rosewater replied, on his Blogatog blog: “We’re talking about it”.
The company switched to its new policy of only releasing one MTG planeswalker card in each major release in 2023. Ashiok was the only walker in Wilds of Eldraine, Quintorius in Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
According to the game’s designers, this change would allow them to make and test much wilder planeswalker designs, and preserve the limited design space for this card type.
At the same time, Wizards made major changes to the Magic multiverse. ‘Desparking’ most planeswalkers into regular creatures meant your favorite walker could now be your MTG commander. And non-planeswalker characters could be more central to the storyline, with Omenpath portals allowing anyone to hop between worlds.
Mark Rosewater ran a poll a few weeks ago which revealed most fans think sets need more than one planeswalker. In that poll to find the perfect planeswalker count, two was the most popular option, followed by three.
On October 13, the same day he revealed he was “talking about” adding more planeswalkers to the game, Rosewater also asked to hear fans’ views on the mass desparking.
Though we shouldn’t read too heavily into what MaRo asks on his blog, it certainly sounds like Wizards is weighing its options.
If Wizards does decide to up the planeswalker count on account of fan feedback it could still take a while before we see a noticeable difference. The design of a Magic set starts two years before it is released, and they’re finished six months in advance.
Rosewater recently reminded fans of this, saying that he did not think feedback given in 2024 had had much impact on the MTG sets coming out in 2025.
Check out our MTG release schedule guide to see what’s coming up in Magic’s future.
Source: Wargamer
