How many cards are in March of the Machine: The Aftermath?

March of the Machine: The Aftermath contains 50 unique cards — 15 uncommons, 25 rares, and 10 mythic rares. There are no commons. The full collector number reaches 230 when you include the 180 alternate versions (showcase, etched foil, extended art, halo foil, and promo treatments) of those same 50 cards.

Is March of the Machine: The Aftermath draftable?

Not in the traditional sense. MAT is a non-draftable micro set designed for collection and story purposes. On MTG Arena, a limited-time hybrid draft format was offered, but it combined one Aftermath card and one Multiverse Legends card with a full pack of March of the Machine cards — not a pure Aftermath draft experience.

What are Epilogue Boosters?

Epilogue Boosters are the pack format created for March of the Machine: The Aftermath. Each pack contains 5 cards, with 1–3 rares or higher, 2–4 uncommons, a guaranteed Traditional Foil, and a guaranteed Showcase card. Epilogue Collector Boosters are the premium version, containing 6 cards plus a foil token, with 4 rares or higher and 5–6 foils total.

What is the story of March of the Machine: The Aftermath about?

Aftermath serves as an epilogue to the four-part Phyrexian story arc. It explores the Multiverse after the Phyrexian invasion — specifically two major changes: many planeswalkers lost their sparks during the conflict, and omenpaths have replaced planeswalker travel as the main way to move between planes. The set's story is told through two short articles: one set on Zhalfir featuring Nissa, Chandra, Teferi, Karn, and Koth; and one on Zendikar featuring Nahiri and Ajani.

What are the promo cards in March of the Machine: The Aftermath?

The Buy-a-Box promo is an alternate art Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir. The Bundle promo is an alternate art Spark Rupture.

Is Training Grounds in March of the Machine: The Aftermath?

Yes. Training Grounds — originally printed in Rise of the Eldrazi in 2010 and last seen as a Judge Gift card in 2022 — is reprinted in March of the Machine: The Aftermath. It's one of the more notable reprints in the set for Commander players who wanted a more accessible copy.

March of the Machine: The Aftermath (MAT) Set Guide

The war is over. The Phyrexians have been stopped. But what happens after an event that fundamentally reshapes the Multiverse? March of the Machine: The Aftermath (MAT) is Magic's attempt to answer that question - not with a full expansion, but with something smaller and stranger: a 50-card micro set released on May 12, 2023, that serves as an epilogue to the four-part Phyrexian story arc.

It's a genuinely unusual product, and worth understanding on its own terms before you dig in.

What is March of the Machine: The Aftermath?

March of the Machine: The Aftermath is a non-draftable micro set - a category that didn't really exist in Magic before this. Wizards described it as a "rare fifth premier set in the Standard environment" but also "a new kind of thing" and "not a normal expansion." From a product standpoint, it's treated as an extension of March of the Machine (MOM) rather than a standalone set.

The set contains 50 unique cards: 15 uncommons, 25 rares, and 10 mythic rares. No commons. Alongside those 50 cards, there are 180 alternate versions of the same cards - showcase styles, extended art, etched foil, and halo foil treatments - bringing the full collector number up to 230.

Here's how the numbering breaks down:

| Card Numbers | Treatment | |---|---| | #1-50 | Regular cards | | #51-100 | Showcase-style cards | | #101-150 | Etched foil | | #151-185 | Extended art (rares and mythics only) | | #186-228 | Halo foil | | #229 | Bundle promo | | #230 | Buy-a-Box promo |

The set released digitally on May 11, 2023, and hit tabletop shelves on May 12, 2023. It's available in English and Japanese.

Format check: Because Aftermath is treated as an extension of March of the Machine rather than an independent set, its Standard legality and rotation followed MOM's timeline, not a separate one.

Themes and mechanics

Aftershock is a fitting word for what MAT is doing thematically. The set's tagline - "Rebuild the Multiverse while building up your collection" - points at its two big jobs: wrapping up story threads and setting up what comes next.

The mechanical identity of the set flows directly from the events of March of the Machine. Two seismic changes to the Multiverse define the flavor and function of many cards:

Planeswalkers losing their sparks - the Phyrexian conflict left many of Magic's iconic planeswalkers depowered, stranded, or fundamentally changed.
Omenpaths - with the Planar Bridge destroyed and planeswalker travel disrupted, omenpaths have become the primary way to move between planes, opening up new connections across the Multiverse.

Because the set has no commons and is non-draftable, its design space is focused entirely on rare and mythic-level storytelling. Individual cards follow specific characters through their post-war situations rather than building a cohesive mechanical theme in the way a full set would.

Notable reprint: Training Grounds, first printed in Rise of the Eldrazi (ROE, 2010) and last seen as a Judge Gift card in 2022, returns here - a meaningful reprint for Commander players who've been chasing copies.

Limited and Draft

March of the Machine: The Aftermath is not a draftable set in the traditional sense. You can't open a booster box and sit down for an Aftermath draft.

On MTG Arena, Wizards did offer a limited-time draft format, but it was a hybrid experience: draft boosters contained one Aftermath card and one Multiverse Legends card, with the rest of the pack filled with March of the Machine cards. Aftermath replaced the usual Alchemy set release for MOM on Arena.

If you're looking for a traditional draft experience, this isn't the set for it. It's built for collection and story, not for the draft table.

How the set is sold - Epilogue Boosters

Afterthought sells through a new booster format introduced specifically for this product: Epilogue Boosters. These are described as "lore-packed boosters that continue the story in between sets."

Every Epilogue Booster contains:

5 cards total
1-3 cards of Rare or higher rarity
2-4 Uncommon cards
A guaranteed Traditional Foil card
A guaranteed Showcase card

Epilogue Collector Boosters are the premium version, containing:

6 Magic cards plus 1 Traditional Foil double-sided token
4 cards of Rare or higher rarity
2 Uncommon cards
5-6 foil cards total

A Bundle is also available. The Buy-a-Box promo is an alternate art Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir, and the Bundle promo is an alternate art Spark Rupture.

Lore and setting

The Phyrexian arc - spanning Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Streets of New Capenna, Dominaria United, The Brothers' War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and March of the Machine - was the largest interconnected story Magic had told. Aftermath is its epilogue.

Two story articles accompanied the set's release:

"She Who Breaks the World" (Grace Fong, May 1, 2023): Set on Zhalfir, featuring Nissa Revane, Chandra Nalaar, Teferi Akosa, Karn, and Koth of the Hammer.
"Beyond Repair" (Emily Teng, May 2, 2023): Set on Zendikar, featuring Nahiri and Ajani Goldmane.

These two articles are the entirety of Aftermath's prose story content. Given the scope of the story threads left dangling - compleated planeswalkers, shattered alliances, the new omenpath network - two articles is a notably slim offering.

Worth noting: Despite being marketed as a story-focused set, Aftermath contains no Story Spotlight cards, and many cards in the set lack flavor text entirely. This left a significant number of narrative threads unresolved or only gestured at through card names and art. It's fair to say the set's story ambitions outran its execution - though the cards themselves still carry emotional weight for players who followed the arc.

Set legacy

March of the Machine: The Aftermath is remembered as a genuinely experimental product that didn't quite land the way Wizards hoped. The concept - a micro set as a story epilogue - is an interesting idea, and the execution as a collector-focused, non-draftable product made sense on paper. In practice, though, the sparse story support, the absence of flavor text on many cards, and the premium price point of Epilogue Boosters left many players feeling like the conclusion to a four-year story was underdelivered.

The reprint of Training Grounds was welcomed by the Commander community, and individual cards from the set do meaningful work in various formats. But as a set - as a storytelling vehicle - the consensus tends to be that Aftermath tried something new and interesting, stumbled on the follow-through, and taught Wizards a few lessons about how (or whether) to use this product structure again.

The larger story beats it established - planeswalkers grounded without their sparks, the Multiverse newly connected through omenpaths - did become load-bearing pillars of where Magic's story went next. In that sense, even an imperfect epilogue left its mark. ✨