Ravnica: Clue Edition (CLU): Set Guide
Some crossovers feel inevitable in hindsight. Magic: The Gathering - a game built on hidden information, strategic deduction, and multiplayer table politics - meeting Cluedo, the original murder mystery board game, on the streets of Ravnica, a plane defined by crime, intrigue, and ten warring guilds. When Wizards of the Coast announced Ravnica: Clue Edition in early 2024, it made a kind of perfect sense.
Released on February 23, 2024, Ravnica: Clue Edition (set code CLU) is a standalone product and the annex set to Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM). It sits in the Universes Beyond line - meaning it's a licensed crossover with another IP - but this isn't a simple reskin. Magic R&D built an entirely new way to play the game around it.
What is Ravnica: Clue Edition?
Ravnica: Clue Edition (released worldwide as Ravnica: Cluedo Edition, in honour of the board game's international name) is a self-contained multiplayer Magic variant published by Hasbro. It was designed to celebrate Cluedo's 75th anniversary, weaving the board game's core whodunnit concept into Magic's strategic framework.
The set contains 284 cards total, of which 252 are the regular card set: 129 commons, 68 uncommons, 29 rares, 11 mythic rares, and 20 basic lands. On top of those, there are 20 new rare cards and 10 new uncommon cards exclusive to the half decks, plus 10 shock land box toppers (CLU #274-283) featuring new art.
Everything you need to play is in the box. No additional purchases required.
Themes and mechanics
The Cluedo framework
The central mechanical conceit borrows directly from Cluedo: there's a murder, a set of suspects, a set of weapons, and a set of rooms - and the players are trying to work out who did it, with what, and where.
The box includes 21 Evidence cards representing characters, weapons, and rooms inspired by the classic Cluedo lineup. These are handled using the Case File Envelope (where the solution is hidden) and an Evidence Notepad for tracking your deductions - mechanics that will feel immediately familiar to anyone who has played the board game, and intuitive to anyone who hasn't.
Magic with a twist
The Magic gameplay itself is delivered through a Jumpstart-style booster format. Each of the 8 boosters in the box is a ready-to-play half deck. You grab 2 boosters, shuffle them together, and you have a 40-card deck ready to go. The whodunnit layer runs alongside your games, giving every match a secondary puzzle to solve.
The 8 boosters included in any given box are a selection drawn from 20 possible half decks - two for each of Ravnica's ten guilds. This means a single box won't give you the full card pool; a complete collection requires opening multiple copies of the product.
Format check: CLU cards that are reprints of previously legal cards retain their legality in whatever formats those cards were already legal in. The new-to-Magic cards in the half decks (CLU #22-51) have their own legality to check per format - worth confirming on Scryfall before sleeving anything up for a constructed event.
Guild identity
Ravnica's ten guilds - Azorius, Dimir, Rakdos, Gruul, Selesnya, Orzhov, Izzet, Golgari, Boros, and Simic - each get two half decks, giving the set a strong mechanical variety. Each guild's pair of half decks reflects that guild's identity in colour and strategy, which is very much in the spirit of both the Ravnica setting and the Jumpstart format it borrows its structure from.
What's in the box
The full contents of a Ravnica: Clue Edition box:
- 8 Ravnica: Cluedo Edition Boosters, each a Jumpstart-style half deck containing 1 new rare card
- 21 Evidence cards - characters, weapons, and rooms from the Cluedo universe
- 4 Hidden Info Screens - one per player, to conceal your notes and hand
- 1 Evidence Notepad - for tracking your deductions
- 1 Case File Envelope - holds the solution to the mystery
- 1 Card Storage Box
- 1 Box Topper shock land - one of ten possible Ravnica shock lands, each with new art
The product is designed for 3-4 players but works with 2. The suggested play pattern is straightforward: take two boosters, shuffle them together, and play Magic while simultaneously working the deduction puzzle.
Notable cards and contents
New cards
There are 20 new rare cards and 10 new uncommon cards in the half decks (CLU #22-51). These are new-to-Magic designs built to fit both the Ravnica setting and the Cluedo flavour - suspects, weapons, and rooms translated into Magic card mechanics. The remaining cards (CLU #52-273) are reprints from older Ravnica sets, which makes sense: this is a game about Ravnica, and the reprint suite is drawn from Magic's long history on that plane.
Shock lands
Each box comes with one of ten shock land box toppers (CLU #274-283), each featuring new art. These are the iconic Ravnica dual lands - the ten two-colour lands that tap for either of their colours at the cost of 2 life - and they remain among the most played lands in non-rotating formats. Getting one with a fresh piece of art as a bonus inclusion is a nice touch.
Notable promo: The launch party promo for Ravnica: Clue Edition was Lavinia, Foil to Conspiracy.
Lore and setting
Ravnica is one of Magic's most beloved planes: an entire world covered by a single vast city, governed (or fought over) by ten two-colour guilds. The city-spanning politics, crime syndicates, and labyrinthine bureaucracy make it a natural home for a murder mystery story.
As the annex set to Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM, 2024), Ravnica: Clue Edition is set against that same backdrop - a whodunnit story involving the Karlov family and the factions of Ravnica. The Cluedo suspects, rooms, and weapons are reimagined through a Ravnican lens, so instead of Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick, you're navigating guild halls, investigators, and the flavourful tools of Ravnican intrigue.
Lore aside: Cluedo itself has a long history - designed by Anthony E. Pratt in 1943, first manufactured in 1949 by Waddingtons in the UK, and now owned by Hasbro. This product marked the game's 75th anniversary as a commercial product. Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro being under the same corporate umbrella made the collaboration a natural fit.
Set legacy
Ravnica: Clue Edition is genuinely unusual in Magic's product history. It isn't a Draft set, a Commander precon, or a collector's product in the traditional sense - it's a game-within-a-game, closer in spirit to a board game expansion than a Magic booster box, but built with real Magic cards and real Magic gameplay at its core.
I think the most interesting thing about it is what it represents as a design experiment: Magic R&D took a non-Magic game's core loop (gather evidence, eliminate possibilities, deduce the answer) and found a way to run it in parallel with a Magic game without either system swallowing the other. Whether that experiment landed well at your table probably depends on how much your group enjoys the deduction layer alongside the gameplay.
As a reprint vehicle for Ravnica staples and shock lands with new art, it also has clear appeal for collectors and brewers who want accessible copies of iconic Ravnica cards. The Jumpstart-style structure makes it approachable for newer players, and the self-contained nature means there's no barrier to entry beyond the box itself.
For players who love Ravnica, love Cluedo, or just want an unusual Magic night with friends, Ravnica: Clue Edition carved out a small but distinct corner of Magic's product landscape in 2024. ✨















