Table of Contents
Jumpstart introduces a new way to play Magic: The Gathering: You take two themed boosters, shuffle them together, and play against your opponent to bring you a mixture of constructed and limited experience. The set consists of more than 500 cards with a handful of unique cards but a majority of them are reprints from Magic’s past. It also shares 120 cards from Core Set 2021 as they are built to be closely tied together. Key features of the set include:
- Cards in Jumpstart will not be Standard legal (unless they are already part of a Standard legal set) but are Historic legal.
- There are cards unique to Jumpstart you won’t be able to obtain unless you use Wildcards to craft them, as it also contains many reprints that are not in MTG Arena yet. There are also 41 Basic Lands with art exclusive to Jumpstart that you will only find in their corresponding themed packs.
- 20 cards from the paper Jumpstart (Exhume, Lightning Bolt) will be replaced by a different card in MTG Arena, and you can find the list below.
Jumpstart Event Details
Welcome to Jumpstart, where dinosaurs roam above the clouds and spellcasting dogs run free!
When you join this event, you will get to select two different half-decks from variety of themes. Combine them, and you’ll have a deck that’s ready to go! You’ll keep all the cards from your deck, including the special basic land styles for each theme.
Resign at any time if you wish to rejoin and pick new packets. You will have to pay the entry again, but you can also earn all rewards again.
- Duration: June 4, 2021 at 8:00 AM PST – July 8, 2021 at 8:00 AM PST
- Format: Jumpstart
- Entry Fee: 2,000 Gold or 400 Gems
- Ends After: You can keep playing, but rewards do not go past two wins.
- Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)
Rewards
- 1 Win: 1 Jumpstart Rare Individual Card Reward
- 2 Wins: 1 Jumpstart Rare Individual Card Reward
How Jumpstart Works
When you join the event, you pick from one of three possible themes.
Once you’ve selected your first theme, you then pick your second theme from three new-ish ones. “New-ish” because, though you might see the same theme both times, most themes have multiple possible card lists (and for more info on that, check out the decklists below).
Once you’ve picked your second theme—boom, you’re done! You have a 40-card deck complete with lands. You can play each of your Jumpstart decks during the event as much as you like—and you’ll earn two rare Jumpstart individual card rewards for your first two wins.
If you want a change, you can always resign from the event, rejoin, and make different choices.
Let’s talk about how you get those beautifully themed basic lands. When making your theme selections, hovering over each option will showcase the included basic land.
We keep track of which lands have been added to your collection—if you see a checkmark by the land, it means you’ve picked this theme before and that land is already in your collection.
It’s important to note that MTG Arena will support Jumpstart in English, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Korean . . . and, yes, Phyrexian.
Spoilers and Card List
There are a total of 496 cards in the set:
- 78 new cards unique to the Jumpstart and not available elsewhere (other than crafting with Wildcards).
- There are 417 reprints from Magic’s past sets. Many are new to MTG Arena.
- Among the packs you will also find 169 Core Set 2021 cards that fit into the theme of the packs.
Cards Replaced in MTG Arena
The below twenty cards shows the cards being replaced for MTG Arena, compared to the original tabletop release. When the set was first release to MTG Arena, they were removed for either power level (e.g. Reanimate) and programming reasons (e.g. Time to Feed). Since then, we’ve had cards like Sheoldred, Whispering One introduced via Historic Anthology 5.
| Pack | Tabletop | MTG Arena |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Chain Lightning | Lightning Strike |
| Lightning | Lightning Bolt | Lightning Strike |
| Lightning | Ball Lightning | Lightning Serpent |
| Enchanted | Ajani’s Chosen | Archon of Sun’s Grace |
| Angels | Angelic Arbiter | Serra’s Guardian |
| Dragons | Draconic Roar | Scorching Dragonfire |
| Goblins | Goblin Lore | Goblin Oriflamme |
| Smashing | Flametongue Kavu | Fanatic of Mogis |
| Reanimated | Exhume | Bond of Revival |
| Lands | Fa’adiyah Seer | Dryad Greenseeker |
| Rogues | Mausoleum Turnkey | Audacious Thief |
| Legion | Path to Exile | Banishing Light |
| Well-Read | Read the Runes | Gadwick, the Wizened |
| Reanimated | Reanimate | Doomed Necromancer |
| Well-Read | Rhystic Study | Teferi’s Ageless Insight |
| Phyrexian | Sheoldred, Whispering One | Carnifex Demon |
| Reanimated | Scourge of Nel Toth | Woe Strider |
| Plus One | Scrounging Bandar | Pollenbright Druid |
| Milling | Thought Scour | Weight of Memory |
| Predatory | Time to Feed | Prey Upon |
Pack Themes and Contents
There are 46 themed packets in Jumpstart from Pirates to Unicorns, with a total of 121 variations of 20 card decklists:
- Common themes are each represented four times in different variations, rare themes twice, and mythic themes are represented only once. Each color features two mythic themes, three rare themes, and four common themes.
- The rarity of a given pack should not be taken as an indication of power level; but rather how replayable the theme is.
- One in three booster pack includes an extra rare.
Below is a reference tool that lists all the the key rares, mythic rares and the themed Basic Land you can find in each pack.
Decklists
Each Jumpstart booster pack includes a predetermined decklist of 20 cards, including Basic Lands. If you need the complete list, you can find the all of them below, categorized by each theme:
Frequently Asked Questions
For the most part. We included all the themes and the same amount of possible decklists. We did swap out 20 specific cards for power, gameplay, or technical concerns. You can view the list of swapped cards above.
Yep!
Yes—except for the basic lands. Those can only be earned through playing in the event. All non-basic land cards can be crafted using Wildcards of the appropriate rarity once Jumpstart is available in MTG Arena.
Players will still be able to craft Jumpstart cards for use in Constructed play after the event ends.
Each theme (with the exception of rainbow) has a specific basic land and art associated with it. Check out the land section of the Jumpstart card image gallary to see which land is tied to which theme.
The Core Set 2021 showcase lands are included in their corresponding Planeswalker theme packet.
Jumpstart Theme Boosters will only be available through the event.
The same as it does for all other Limited events. As a reminder, we won’t be making any adjustments to packet collation if you already own a playset of any of the cards; however, once you have finished your picks, you’ll receive gems for any rares or mythic rares and vault progress for any commons or uncommons that you received beyond a playset.
Just like in Draft and Sealed, you’ll be able to export your Jumpstart deck to your collection and then challenge a friend using this decklist in a Direct Challenge match using the 40-card challenge option.
