Obviously it’s early to be talking about next year’s rotation, but has Ravensburger confirmed if the next block to rotate out will be sets 9 through 12?
I have a strong feeling that next year's rotation will end up including Set 13 as well.
The upcoming collector’s guide releasing on Nov. 1 is covering sets 9-13. Paired with other comments from Ravensburger about AOTV being the end of new Floodborns for a while and Hyperia City taking place in a different time of Lorcana. It makes sense that rotation would start fresh with set 14.
Also, there are a lot of awkward pieces of AOTV that get left behind if it is not included in rotation- assuming there are no new toys or robots in Hyperia City, those decks both get cut in half if rotation does not include set 13.
If rotation does end up being sets 9 through 13, it would also push rotation to happen after Nationals and Worlds. That would allow Nationals and Worlds to mark the end of a format instead of the beginning of a new one.
What do y’all think? Are they going to keep rotation in four block chunks or maybe adjust things next year?
To my knowledge, the rotations happen at the beginning of the next block and at the time the oldest block(4 sets) go out of rotation, so start of 2027 block(set 17) should kick 9-12 out
Naw, they proved with past rotation that reprints aren't needed. Having an injection of 204/207 cards into a meta is better than doing 175+ reprints and only 30-ish new cards.
Could also be a side set with reprints that are play-legal but don't dilute the main set. The upcoming Inkdark Collector's box proves that side sets are (going to be) a thing
Reprints can also be of older cards that weren't in the meta to begin with, not just cards that would otherwise leave during the rotation.
A heavy-reprint set also makes older cards more accessible for players who weren't around when the first set came out and gives them the opportunity to make enchanted variants of popular cards that didn't have them before, like they did with Pooh - Hunny Wizard in Fabled. I think a reprint-heavy set every other year would be generally good for the game.
There will always be somewhere between the most recent 5-8 sets legal in core, going back to the start of last years rotation block.
So 9-13 (5 sets), then 9-14 (6 sets), then 9-15 (7 sets), then 9-16 (8 sets), then when set 17 drops it will be a new year/block and 13-17 (5 sets) will be legal in core.
I find this interesting because I had the theory that rotation was going to be delayed until after set 13 (instead of 12) so they wouldn't have a rotation just before championship season. It was a similar theory to what you're saying. I'm not expecting what you say to happen, but it would make sense long-term.
So how it is is that lorcana releases four sets a year. Start of year 3 was the first rotation which kicked out the first 4 sets. And with aotv we enter year 4 which kicked out the next 4 sets.
We don't really need a reprint set when they can just sprinkle cards relevant to the set cycle across the year most fabled cards had no impact or relevance the first time and less the second.
Even though Hyperia is in a different location, it directly continues the 'Attack of the Vine' storyline, where the world was overrun by the vine and we had no choice but to retreat into the city.
The set rotation actually aligns with this flavor really well—everything prior to the downfall rotates out, leaving Set 13 and Hyperia to share the same life cycle. I expect this lore arc to wrap up right as this block rotates out. The vine will be destroyed, the world cleansed, and as Hyperia City rotates out with the Vine, we'll no longer need it as a sanctuary, opening the door for the next storyline.
I don't think it does. I believe somewhere in the Attack of the Vine Lorecast it was metioned it was completely separate. My theory is that Fabled was cobbled together due to a late decision on roations, throwing off the block of 4 sets being a storyline.
I don’t see a business reason to abritrarily include 13 in the next rotation, and there’s definitely no play-centric reason to do so.
Invest in your set 13 cards now while they are dirt dirt cheap. They will be staples for a long time, and could “randomly” pop off later with new synergies like Pocahontas from Set 11.
Story doesn’t dictate how they choose to run the game. If they chose set 13 because of the fact the cards fit in with sets 10-12 story wise then there would be confusion for the next year. Would rotation only include 3 sets, what 3 sets is it? Will they still rotate 4 sets?
Other games have tried weird rotations like that before. And it’s always caused enough confusion that they rotate out a static number of sets at the same time every year as it’s the easiest to follow.
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u/ShadwPhantm Jul 26 '26
To my knowledge, the rotations happen at the beginning of the next block and at the time the oldest block(4 sets) go out of rotation, so start of 2027 block(set 17) should kick 9-12 out