The contemporary era of Magic: The Gathering has seen some major strides forward in terms of the production value and quality of marketing materials. From War of the Spark forward, every Standard legal MtG set has premiered a cinematic trailer to help promote the new cards shortly before their release. Trailers aren't exactly anything new to Magic promotion, but the quality of the cinematics made a serious leap forward in the War of the Spark era and fans definitely noted the difference.

Legacy trailers (not the Legacy format in Magic, just older MtG promotional trailers) featured a simpler animation and often used card art set into motion to help set the tone for the set and tell a story about the primary setting or the main characters involved in each set. Some of the most popular Magic: The Gathering legacy trailers are featured in the list below, before the era of modern cinematic trailers kicked off in 2019.

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Although some of the new trailers have been more popular than others and comparisons to the War of the Spark trailer that started it all seem to be inevitable, it's definitely been a successful campaign overall. Each trailer is incredibly memorable and really helps establish the tone that each set is trying to convey. Whether it's the metal attitude of Kaldheim or the Fairy Tale silliness of Throne of Eldraine, these trailers do a pretty fantastic job setting the mood for each era of Standard play...

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Kaldheim just launched, so players will need to wait between about two and three months before spoiler and marketing season start for the follow up set - Strixhaven: School of Mages. The School of Mages set is yet another visit to a brand new plane, so hopefully there will be another cinematic trailer introduced to help set the tone for that new setting and introduce some of the key characters that players will find on the cards and in the companion stories. Later in the year two more familiar popular settings will be coming with the Forgotten Realms from Dungeons and Dragons and a return to Innistrad. Those are both sure to be fan-favorite locations, so it will be very exciting to see them brought to life with their own cinematic trailers in late 2021.

Magic: The Gathering - Kaldheim releases February 5, 2021. Other Magic: The Gathering sets are available now at game shops or digitally in Magic Arena.

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