Core Set 2020

Core Set 2020, also known as Core 2020, is the 19th Magic core set. It was released on July 12, 2019.

Set details
Core Set 2020 features a mix of new and reprinted cards. The set contains 280 cards and includes randomly inserted premium versions of all cards. 1:45 cards are foil, instead of the usual 1:67. A unique Buy-a-Box promotional card numbered #281/280 is also considered to be part of the set. 63 additional cards are found in the set's planeswalker decks (#282/280 to #301/280) and Spellslinger Starter Kit and Welcome decks (#302/280 to #344/280). Core Set 2020 introduced full-art tokens. The Gainlands appear like the taplands in Core 2019 over the basic lands in about 5/12 boosters.

Chandra Nalaar is the face of Core Set 2020 card set, and is represented by three different planeswalker cards in different rarities and depicting several facets in her life. A fourth Chandra planeswalker card is included in the Chandra Planeswalker Deck.

Rules change
Starting with tabletop Core Set 2020 Preleases on July 5, the London mulligan will be used for all play. It became officially reflected in the Comprehensive Rules with the M20 rules updates on July 12. To take this mulligan, a player shuffles the cards in their hand back into their library, draws a new hand of cards equal to their starting hand size, then puts a number of those cards equal to the number of times that player has taken a mulligan on the bottom of their library in any order.

Storyline
Core Set 2020 has a small flavor theme focusing on the life of Chandra Nalaar. There are no Story Spotlights, and there was no story support for the set.

Marketing
Core Set 2020 is sold in 16-card boosters (one card being a marketing card), mono-colored theme boosters, five welcome decks, five planeswalker decks, the Core 2020 bundle, a Deck Builder's Toolkit, a Spellslinger Starter Kit and a Land Station. The bundle for the first time contains a alternate art foil promo card and an oversized spindown life counter. It also contains 20 foil lands. The boosters feature key art of three planeswalkers (Ajani, Mu Yanling and Sorin Markov) that is also featured on the Planeswalker decks and Welcome decks.

Like with its predecessor, the Welcome decks, Planeswalker decks and Deck Builder's Toolkit are strongly integrated, which allows for an easier transition between the products. The Spellslinger Starter Kit is now also part of the line up. Throughout the product line the colors have a central theme: Lifegain,  Flying,  Vampires,  Direct damage and  Big Monsters/Pump.

Events

 * Magic Open House: June 29–30, 2019
 * Prerelease: July 5–7, 2019
 * Magic Arena: July 2, 2019
 * Draft Weekend: July 13–14, 2019
 * Commander Weekend: August 24–25, 2019. This season's Magic Weekend coincides with the release of Commander 2019. Commander Weekend will feature Commander variants recommended by Magic's design studio, with achievement cards.
 * There is no Standard Showdown planned for this set.

Promotional cards

 * Prerelease: a stamped card that can be any rare or mythic rare of Core Set 2020.
 * Buy-a-Box: Rienne, Angel of Rebirth
 * Core Set 2020 introduces the universal promo pack, the contents of which are distributed at the discretion of the stores. This contains:
 * a promo-stamped rare or mythic rare from Core Set 2020.
 * a promo-stamped rare or mythic rare from a short, curated list. Standard-legal.
 * Roughly 1:4 of packs contains a Japanese anime-style alternate art War of the Spark planeswalker, instead.
 * an alternate art basic land.
 * One of five special, season-specific cards with FNM alternate card frame:, , , or.
 * 1:4 promo packs includes all foil contents (clearly identifiable from the packaging).
 * Core Set 2020 Bundle promo: foil alternate art
 * Convention promo: full-art

Tokens and emblems
Core 2020 comes with 10 tokens and 2 emblems. Token and emblems appear in the marketing card slot.
 * 1) 2/2 Cat Soldier creature named Ajani's Pridemate with "Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on Ajani's Pridemate," for Ajani, Strength of the Pride.
 * 2) 1/1 Soldier creature, for Ancestral Blade, Ironroot Warlord, Raise the Alarm, and Skyknight Vanguard.
 * 3) 1/1 Spirit creature with flying, for Bishop of Wings, Hanged Executioner</c>, and Kykar, Wind's Fury</c>.
 * 4) 4/4 Elemental Bird creature with flying, for Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer</c>.
 * 5) 5/5 Demon creature with flying, for Bloodsoaked Altar</c>.
 * 6) 2/2 Zombie creature, for Boneclad Necromancer</c>, Field of the Dead</c>, and Undead Servant</c>.
 * 7) 1/1 Elemental creature, for Chandra, Acolyte of Flame</c>, Mask of Immolation</c> and Scampering Scorcher</c>.
 * 8) 2/2 Wolf creature, for Ferocious Pup</c>, Howling Giant</c>, Nightpack Ambusher</c>, Wolfkin Bond</c>, and Wolfrider's Saddle</c>.
 * 9) 3/3 Golem artifact creature, for Cavalier of Dawn</c>, <c>Master Splicer</c>, and <c>Masterful Replication</c>.
 * 10) Treasure, for <c>Rapacious Dragon</c>.

Themes and mechanics
To improve draft, Core Set 2020 is built around three-color "wedges" (a color and its two enemies).

The set features the following limited archetypes, which focus on the ally-colored pairs within each wedge:
 * Go Wide
 * <c>Ironroot Warlord</c>
 * Flying Creatures
 * <c>Empyrean Eagle</c>
 * Control with "Enters-the-Battlefield" Effects
 * <c>Tomebound Lich</c>
 * Aggro
 * <c>Ogre Siegebreaker</c>
 * Elemental Creatures
 * <c>Creeping Trailblazer</c>

The enemy colored signposts connecting the two archetypes which they are part of:
 * <c>Corpse Knight</c> (Going Wide Aggro)
 * <c>Lightning Stormkin</c> (Flying Elementals)
 * <c>Moldervine Reclamation</c> (Going Wide recursive midrange value)
 * <c>Skyknight Vanguard</c> (Flying Aggro)
 * <c>Risen Reef</c> (Elemental with "Enters-the-Battlefield" Effect)

There are no new, or non-evergreen returning, mechanics in the set. Protection returns back to evergreen on a probationary status.

Cycles
Core Set 2020 has twenty cycles, including one double cycle and one vertical cycle.

Notable cards

 * <c>Bag of Holding</c> is a Dungeons & Dragons crossover.
 * <c>Ripscale Predator</c> is printed as a Dinosaur for the first time after being originally printed as a Lizard in Gatecrash, and the oracle change in the Ixalan update.

Banned and Restricted cards

 * <c>Mystic Forge</c> is a <c>Future Sight</c>-inspired card that worked only with artifacts and colorless spells. Naturally, the artifact-heavy Vintage format found this to be extremely powerful, giving the Stax decks a card advantage engine that competes with the other decks in the format. It was subsequently restricted in August 2019.
 * <c>Field of the Dead</c> was initially one of three cards believed to be a "last hurrah" type card (for <c>Scapeshift</c> in particular), alongside <c>Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord</c> for tribal Vampires and <c>Marauding Raptor</c> for tribal Dinosaurs, before Scapeshift rotated out. After Scapeshift rotated, the deck used <c>Golos, Tireless Pilgrim</c> as additional copies of Field of the Dead and <c>Circuitous Route</c> to locate specifically named lands. However, rotation also caused the cards that kept Field in check to leave Standard, which allowed Field decks to dominate due to their incredible consistency.  Field of the Dead was later banned for being too powerful after the release of Throne of Eldraine.  Its power level as an inevitability engine permeated through both Historic, which banned it August 2020; Pioneer, where it was banned in the first cycle in December 2019; and Modern, where it was banned February 2021.
 * <c>Leyline of Abundance</c> is a combo-centric Leyline that encouraged using mana dorks to get ahead rather than land-based options, ostensibly as it would be weaker to disruption. However, the first Pioneer bannings included this card as mono-Green ramp was dominant. While not outside the realm of power level, R&D intended for aggressive bannings early on in the format, but it has yet to be revisited.
 * <c>Veil of Summer</c> is a boosted version of <c>Autumn's Veil</c>, a previous colour hate card that was not effective as a sideboard card as the counter-reactive one-for-one played poorly against the card-advantage blue and black decks. However, the extra card draw counteracted this, and being in the format with so many three-mana planeswalkers from War of the Spark meant answers to any form of green deck were at an all-time low. It was later banned in both Pioneer and Standard, as the potential to counter-play was almost impossible and made blue and black reactive decks unplayable.
 * <c>Golos, Tireless Pilgrim</c> was the cornerstone of Field of the Dead decks and has continued to be a roleplayer in Modern, but it has been banned in Brawl due to the extremely consistent ability to use a five-color deck with a colorless costing Commander that is also a value engine.
 * <c>Agent of Treachery</c> is the latest in a long string of <c>Confiscate</c>-type designs, stretched up to seven mana to "compensate" the fact that the ability is otherwise permanent. The fact that it was on a creature's triggered ability made it far too easy to trigger the ability outside of casting it, notably in the format with <c>Winota, Joiner of Forces</c>, <c>Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast</c>, <c>Elspeth Conquers Death</c> and <c>Yorion, Sky Nomad</c>. <c>Fires of Invention</c> also made it so that multiple of these options could be done at once, and especially when assisted with <c>Teferi, Time Raveler</c>. The deck borne of this strategy was banned in June 2020 in three ways - Agent, Fires and the companion rules change all took out an axis of the deck. Both were banned out of Historic a month later.
 * <c>Kethis, the Hidden Hand</c> is the namesake engine behind the 4C Legendary Kethis combo deck, utilising <c>Mox Amber</c> as a free, legendary mana source alongside graveyard fuel generated by <c>Emry, Lurker of the Loch</c> or <c>Diligent Excavator</c>. While the deck in Standard rotated when Mox Amber did, and the Historic version was allowed to continue, it was banned in Pioneer rather pre-emptively to show that those sorts of combo decks were not meant to be part of the format.

Misprints

 * Some copies of <c>Corpse Knight</c> are printed as 2/3 instead of 2/2.

Welcome decks
Core Set 2020 features five Welcome Decks.

Spellslinger Starter Kit
The Spellslinger Starter Kit comes with two Standard-legal 60-card decks, designed to create an interactive learning experience for two.

Planeswalker decks
Core 2020 features five planeswalker decks, that come with only one booster and are designed to integrate with the welcome decks.