January 06, 2017 marks the final day of an abbreviated preview season for Magic: The Gathering‘s newest expansion set, Aether Revolt; usually Wizards of the Coast releases preview cards over the course of two weeks, but for this set they’ve chosen to use an accelerated schedule that puts information on all of the cards into the hands of players in the course of a week - see our coverage articles from January 02, January 03, January 04, and January 05 for information on what Magic: The Gathering cards were a part of this preview season.
Wizards of the Coast has published the full Aether Revolt spoiler in their card image gallery, releasing the artwork and card names for the eighty cards not previewed by content creators, news outlets, and Wizards of the Coast employees over the past four days. Additionally, one content creator got a chance to preview a card before the full spoiler was published - the YouTube channel ZiggyD Gaming.
The full spoiler has confirmed a few cards which had been previously leaked or previewed but not verified by Wizards of the Coast as legitimate - specifically, the non-masterpiece version of Paradox Bridge (from our December 28, 2016 article) and four of the five Story Spotlight cards (from our December 06, 2016 article).
Our coverage of card previews and leaks for Aether Revolt from before this week can be found in our articles from November 29, December 4, December 5, December 6, December 12, December 15, December 18, December 24, and December 28, 2016.
Aether Revolt is set to release on January 20, 2017, with pre-release events happening on January 14 and January 15, 2017.
Stay tuned to TechRaptor for further coverage on Aether Revolt and all things Magic: The Gathering.
Quick Take
I don't know about the rest of the Magic: The Gathering community, but I definitely did not like the accelerated preview schedule used by Wizards of the Coast for Aether Revolt. I felt that there wasn't enough time for new cards to sink in for players and that the hype and timing of the previews was much less effective compared to previous preview seasons. I seriously hope that this was a one-off schedule from Wizards of the Coast and that it doesn't become the norm for how new sets are introduced to players.What are your thoughts on the full Aether Revolt spoiler, and the accelerated preview schedule used by Wizards of the Coast? Let us know in the comment section below.