With Zendikar Rising introducing a new type of booster pack, the “Set Booster,” Gavin Verhey used today’s episode of Good Morning Magic to break down what can be found in them.
While Verhey can’t open up a Zendikar Rising set booster quite yet, he made some mock-ups of what could be included using Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths cards. First off, a set booster is a 12-card pack meant to be cracked, not drafted, and they don’t have to be color or rarity-balanced. The pack is split into sections described below.
The start of each set booster is the welcome section. This section includes an art piece like Modern Horizons had and about 5% of the time the art piece will be signed by the artist. Next in the section is a basic land, which in Zendikar Rising will be a full-art land that about 15% of the time will be foil. Rounding out the welcome section is six connected commons or uncommons. Using Ikoria themes, this section could include cycling cards, mutate cards, or keyword counters cards.
The next section is called the fireworks section. First up in this section is the head turner slot, which includes a visually interesting card. An Ikoria example would be a comic showcase art variant of something like Parcelbeast or Huntmaster Liger. The next two cards are wildcard slots which could be anything from a common to mythic rare.
The next section is the big finish section. This section has a rare or mythic rare followed by a foil that could be anything from common to mythic rare.
The final section of the set booster is the epilogue. This will be a token or ad card 75% of the time. But the twist of the pack happens 25% of the time when you get a random card from “the list.” The list appears to be a sampling of 300 cards and uses the Mystery Booster technology to include one card in every four packs. The list includes exact reprints of old cards with the planeswalker symbol in the bottom left corner of the card. Verhey’s examples of cards from the list included Muscle Sliver and Pact of Negation. Verhey teased much more exciting stuff on the list that we have to wait to see.
Verhey capped the article by using an example version of what he called the “nuts” set booster pack. It resembled a normal set booster in order of contents but included a foil basic land, two rare or mythics from the wildcard section (they can even be showcase frames), a mythic showcase from the rare or mythic slot, a foil mythic rare in the foil slot, and a rare card from the list to cap it off.