There are multiple parts to Foundations, and the format legality can be a little bit confusing, so I’m going to do my best to make it as clear as possible.
The cards that are Standard legal will be legal until “at least 2029”. It’s possible they’ll be legal past 2029, but WotC has commited to having them be legal for a minimum of 5 years.
Which cards are legal in Standard?
Any card with the Foundations Set Symbol will be legal in Standard. This includes cards found in Play Boosters as well as cards that are found in either the Beginner Box or the Starter Collection.
Foundations
What cards are not Standard legal?
Any card with a Jumpstart 25 set symbol, a Special Guest set symbol, or a Foundations Commander set symbol will not be legal in Standard. These cards will only be legal in Vintage, Legacy, Commander, and any format (like Canadian Highlander) that shares similer set legalities.
Additionally, the Special Guest and Jumpster 25 cards will be legal in both Historic and Timeless on Arena. If any cards are pre-banned for Historic I will update this article to reflect that before the set releases.
Special GuestJumpstart 25Foundations Commander
Are there Commander decks associated with Foundations? No. However some of the cards in the Starter Collection will be Commander staples, like Sol Ring and Command Tower. As this is a starter set, they want to equip people to play not just Standard, but also the most popular casual format and are including cards to help people play Magic whatever way they might enjoy the most.
What cards are draftable?
Any card found in a Play Booster is legal for draft. I’ve included Scryfall searches to make this easier, however at the time of this writing not every card in the set has been previewed. These searches will fill out as more cards are entered into Scryfall.
The Play Booster break down by rarity is as follows:
There are 80 total Commons
There are 100 total Uncommons
There are 60 total Rares
There are 20 total Mythic Rares
There are 20 total Basic Lands (two full art and two non full art of each land type)
There are 10 dual lands in the Basic Land slot
Note: At the time of this writing this dual land cycle has not been previewed, however there is strong reasons to suspect they will be a reprint of the gain lands.
The remaining 71 cards out of the 361 that can be found in Play Boosters are alternate art variations of the above.
Slot Breakdown
Slots 1 – 6: Always a Common
Slot 7: A Common ~98.5% of the time and a Special Guest ~1.5% of the time.
Slots 8 – 10: Always an Uncommon.
Slot 11: A normal Rare ~78% of the time and a normal Mythic Rare ~12.8% of the time.
~7.7% of the time this will be 1 of the 47 borderless Rares.
~1.5% of the time this will be 1 of the 17 borderless Mythic Rares (including one of the 5 borderless Planeswalkers).
Slot 12: Always a non-foil card, but can be of any rarity. These can be borderless versions.
~16.7% of the time this will be a Common.
~58.3% of the time this will be an Uncommon.
In the Play Booster era, this is only the second time WotC has disclosed the rarity breakdown for this slot. The only other time was for Modern Horizons 3, and there the chance for a Common or an Uncommon were both ~41%. So expect a lot more Uncommons in this slot than normal.
~16.3% of the time this will be a Rare.
~2.6% of the time this will be a Mythic Rare.
~1.6% of the time this will be 1 of the 2 borderless Commons.
~2.4% of the time this will be 1 of the 8 borderless Uncommons.
Slot 13: Always a foil card, but can be of any rarity.
The breakdown by rarity is exactly the same as in Slot 12.
Slot 14: Always a land card.
~25% of the time this will be 1 of the 10 full art character basic lands.
~25% of the time this will be 1 of the 10 regular frame basic lands.
~50% of the time this will be 1 of the 10 common dual lands. (These are officially confirmed as the gainlands)
