2024 Magic Set Symbols in Review

All year I get messages, emails, letters, threatening skywriting asking me “When is your comprehensive and 100% correct review of this year’s new Magic set symbols coming out?” (it’s a really talented skywriter)

Well here it is! Just like I have done for the past five years, I have painstakingly reviewed each new Magic: the Gathering set symbol for the following factors:

1. Read cleanly at card size, ~1 sq cm.

2. Convey some sort of information or mood about the set it represents.

3. Differentiate itself well from all the other existing set symbols, especially from contemporaneous sets.

In 2024, Magic introduced 22 new set symbols, a number that matches 2023. This is indicative of some sort of trend.

22. Alchemy 2025

They otter change this symbol style.

We start with the 2025 Alchemy expansion set symbol. Like the rest of the Alchemy expansions, it’s the Arena “A” and the old core set box year. These consistently show up near the end of my list each year and this one is no exception. Next!

(Real fans will notice that I copy/pasted my review of the Alchemy 2024 set symbol, but changed the year in the copy. This is called “good journalism”.)

21. Mystery Booster 2

Well? Is it a Legendary Creature — Dinosaur Hippo or not?

It feels like cheating to include the Beleren-fonted “?” as a set symbol for Mystery Booster 2, but it does appear on the new white-bordered and Future Sight-framed cards. My antipathy for using Arabic character as set symbols hits here, as well as how poorly the “?” fits into the Future Sight frame’s designated set symbol circle.

20. Ravnica: Clue Edition

“Oh, ‘C’ For Clue,” says everyone!

Another Arabic character! This time it’s the iconic Clue ‘C’, you know, that ‘C’ you always associate with the classic board game Clue (and its much better movie adaptation)?

19. Magic: The Gathering Foundations Starter Collection Commander

Gesundheit.

F for Effort

These are really just three cards included in the Foundations, uh, Beginn- *checks* Starter Collection that make it easier to make those cards into a Commander deck. My real issue is that this pentagon (I have a big issue with pentagons as set symbols) is EXACTLY an upside-down version of the Game Nights 2018 set symbol! One of the big issues with the pentagon is it’s so hard to come up with new variations on it, I’m afraid they’ve already run out.

“Just turn it right-side-up.”

18. Magic: The Gathering Foundations

Not a gold star.

Foundations is an amazing set, the best iteration of a core set perhaps ever, but the symbol bothers me as an enjoyer of symbols as the star is just a slightly fancier pentagon. We’ve had plenty of 5-pointed stars in the past, so the set symbol give Foundations a generic feeling, which is far less than it deserves.

17. Duskmourn Commander

Eyes Wide Shut

And we’re in the Commander gutter, where “base set symbol over shield” becomes the order of the day. Duskmourn Commander fares pretty poorly in this estimation, as the base Duskmourn symbol is too wide to have a good-looking shield in front of it. It would make a decent masquerade mask, if Duskmourn had anything to do with masquerades…

16. Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander

YEEHAW

YEEHAW LOOKS LIKE WE’VE GOT A ROOTIN TOOTIN COWBOY HAT ON A SHIELD SEEMS LIKE THE SHEILD COULDA BEEN A SALOON DOOR OR SOMETHING UH OH THERES A SNAKE IN MY BOOT

15. Modern Horizons 3 Commander

It is hard to think of captions for each of these.

Modern Horizons 3’s set symbol references Emrakul, so I guess it made sense to put the Eldritch Moon-style Emrakul on a shield for the Commander decks. Except that 3 of the decks aren’t Eldrazi-themed?

14. Murders at Karlov Manor Commander

Okay so there was a place called “Markov Manor” in older sets, and it sounds similar to “Karlov Manor”…

One of the better “set symbol on a shield” Commander set symbols, the Murders at Karlov Manor dagger looks like a group sigil or trophy plaque presented as it is. There’s just one problem that keeps this from achieving true greatness, which we’ll cover with the main set…

13. Foundations Jumpstart

The speed marks are for AGGRESSIVE shuffling.

This is now the fourth iteration of the Jumpstart set symbol, this one being a more angular representation of two decks being shuffled together. I don’t mind it in general, but the lack of black outline on the commons is a bit annoying as it creates too much empty space. This is a well that is rapidly drying up, though…

12. Assassin’s Creed

Look at those ‘lil curves.

Aside from Clue and its iconic “C”, this is the first Universes Beyond set of the year we’re reviewing. Generally I argue that set symbols for Universes Beyond tend to be better because they bring their franchises’ iconography to the type line, but they can have their issues translated to Magic card size. Assassin’s Creed and its logo for the uh, Templars or Assassins or whatever, is neat looking, but the bottom curves is too thin to read at card size.

11. Modern Horizons 3

The perfect marriage of powerful Magic and powerful memes.

Modern Horizons 3, as said before in the Commander entry, really sold itself on the fact that the Eldrazi were in it, so the set symbol has the Emrakul symbol from Eldritch Moon mashed up with the… ‘horizon inspired’ side triangles of the other Modern Horizons sets. It doesn’t really add up to a coherent whole and mainly seems to reinforce the idea that The Eldrazi Are In This One.

10. Ravnica Remastered

Enraged Remastered

The case for asymmetry in design is a strong one. The human brain tends to prefer patterns and symmetrical shapes, but asymmetry, employed well, can throw off our brain’s thinking to allow us to notice other details of the design.

You’ll notice that a good number of the set symbols in this or any other year use mostly symmetrical designs. Ravinca Remastered’s does not. Instead, the side tower, which was introduced as a Ravnican architectural feature all the way back in 2005 but really coming into prominence in 2018’s Guilds of Ravnica and the Interplanar Beacon, really does throw off the weight and feel of the set symbol in an unpleasant way for me. I want to be more charitable to the symbol for its daring, its callback to the original Ravnica symbol, and it’s throwbacky style, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

9. Outlaws of Thunder Junction

HAWYEE

YEEHAW THIS BE THE COWBOY SET WE GOT OURSELVES A COWBOY HAT WHY IS IT SO POINTY I DUNNO SOMEBODY POISONED THE WATERING HOLE

8. Pioneer Masters

“I’m explorin’, guess that makes me a Pioneer”

We gotta finally hold Wizards accountable on their format naming choices. Why is “Pioneer” a name that (unfortunately) invokes Western Expansion, Conestoga Wagons, and the Oregon Trail filled with cards “newer” than “Modern”? And we have the soon to be defunct “Explorer” and the issues with “Historic” causing “Timeless” on Arena… it’s a mess.

Anyways, Pioneer Masters has a hand telescope. It works, though I wish it were longer, so the foreshortening effect was a little less pronounced.

7. Breaking News

“In further news, we have jails.”

YEEHAW WE GOTTA- okay I’m dropping that bit. Breaking News was the newspaper-themed bonus sheet for Thunder Junction, so obviously its symbol is a newspa- I mean a jail cell! Of course! Well aside from the mismatch there, it’s a good looking symbol, but it lands lower because of its mismatch with its sheet.

6. Murders at Karlov Manor

Knives Up

I think it’s time to retire the joke about the confusion over “Markov Manor” and “Karlov Manor”, except when you do it for real by accident (as I did while typing the alt-text for this image).

Anyways, this symbol is great, it’s got the Return to Ravnica symbol in a dagger, symbolizing assassinations. The real issue with the symbol is that the dagger is turned UP (probably a more practical way to stab someone) versus DOWN (a more iconic image of someone being stabbed, a la Psycho). If the dagger were simply flipped this would have been in the top 3 for me.

5. Bloomburrow Commander

This one is just dandy.

A Commander set? This high? It’s because it doesn’t actually look like a shield, and looks more like a dandelion, which ties into the whole Bloomburrow aesthetic. This is what happens when you don’t simply copy and paste the set symbol onto a shield.

4. The Big Score

Trying to get some of that sweet Loot Discourse booting this article.

The Big Score was a planed Aftermath set for Thunder Junction before Wizards realized Aftermath sets were a terrible idea that everyone hated. 30 cards were saved and categorized as mythic only on a special bonus sheet, showcasing what was in the Fomori Vault, which is why the set symbol is a vault door. And it’s a good looking symbol that does, in fact, indicate that this was stuff related to a vault!

3. Fallout

[Everybody liked that.]

Fallout’s Vault Boy is an iconic symbol of the franchise, of the ironic optimism of the faux-50s aesthetic of the pre-nuclear annihilation world. Also it looks good on the type line, with a good use of white space for his face.

2. Duskmourn: House of Horror

The Mothman Prophecies

I went back and forth with the #s 1 and 2 for this year. At the end I went with #2 for Duskmourn. There’s a lot to like about this symbol, I am on record as liking wider set symbols, and the moth symbol works with the worldbuilding in the set- but otherwise it doesn’t vibe with the set’s overall theme of “80s Horror”. The moth symbol still reminds me more of a masquerade mask than a spooky moth, and therein lies the problem.

And that means #1 goes to…

1. Bloomburrow

vibes

If a set, and a set symbol, can be a vibe, then Bloomburrow is. The vibiest set of the year also has the vibiest symbol of the year, just a leaf (a maple leaf) that represents the woods, and the woodsy aethestic that permeates Bloomburrow. It’s simple, evocative, and iconic, which makes it the #1 set symbol for 2024.

And that’s it for this year! Hoping everyone is safe and able to enjoy the holidays with their chosen family. We’re in for a tumultuous year, both Magic and otherwise. A sneak peak at my ratings for next year- I like the Aetherdrift symbol. Start your engines!