The set, by the numbers
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Set code | SPM |
| Total cards | 300 |
| Release | 26 September 2025 |
| Legality | Standard legal Universes Beyond |
That 300 figure is the one people query, and it is worth understanding what it counts. It includes the main set and the special treatments layered above it, which is why it exceeds the number of distinct new cards revealed during previews.
Stop scrolling galleries, start searching
The default way people browse a set is a visual gallery: a page of card images you scroll through. For 300 cards that is slow and it answers no questions.
The alternative is a search query. Scryfall indexes every card with a syntax that answers the questions you actually have.
| Card | Type | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|
| set:spm | Everything | The entire set including every variant and treatment. The starting point for any browse. |
| set:spm r:mythic | By rarity | Filter to mythics. Also accepts r:rare, r:uncommon, r:common. The quickest way to see what the chase cards are. |
| set:spm c:u | By color | All blue cards. Combine colors with c:ur for both, or use c:m for multicolored and c:c for colorless. |
| set:spm t:creature | By type | All creatures. Works with any type or subtype, so t:equipment or t:legendary both work. |
| set:spm is:borderless | By treatment | Just the borderless printings. Also is:showcase, is:fullart, and is:foil for the other treatments. |
| set:spm o:"web-slinging" | By rules text | Every card carrying a mechanic. The fastest way to see how deep a mechanic actually runs in a set. |
That last query is the most useful one during preview season. Counting how many cards carry a mechanic tells you whether it will shape the format or is a rare-only curiosity, and no gallery answers that.
How collector numbering works
The number in the bottom corner of a card is more informative than it looks, and understanding it saves a lot of confusion about what is a variant.
The convention across modern sets:
The main set numbers first. Cards are numbered in color order: white, blue, black, red, green, then multicolored, then colorless, then artifacts, then lands. Within each color, alphabetical.
Variants continue above the main range. Once the base set is numbered, the borderless, showcase, extended art, and promotional versions carry on from there.
The practical consequence: a collector number higher than the base set size tells you immediately that the card is a variant. You do not need to recognise the treatment or compare against a list.
That also explains the total. When a set advertises 300 cards, a portion of those numbers are alternate printings of cards already counted lower down.
Treatments are not different cards
Worth stating plainly because it causes real confusion for new players.
A borderless, showcase, or extended art version of a card is the same card. Identical name, identical mana cost, identical rules text, identical legality.
That means:
- The four copy limit counts them together. You cannot run four normal and four borderless.
- In Commander singleton, they count as the same card, so you may run only one.
- They are functionally interchangeable in every format.
- Only the appearance and the price differ.
If you want a card to play with, buy the cheapest printing. If you want a specific look, buy that one. The gameplay is unaffected either way.
Finding what is worth money
A practical browse order for anyone looking at a set commercially rather than for deckbuilding.
Start with mythics and rares in the main set. Sort by price on any market and the top of that list is where the set’s value sits.
Check the treatments of those specific cards. A card that is expensive in its normal printing is usually more expensive in a borderless or foil version, sometimes considerably.
Look at the uncommons in Commander-relevant categories. Uncommon ramp, removal, and card draw frequently outperform their rarity in price because Commander demand is enormous and uncommons are printed in quantity but consumed in ninety-nine card decks.
Ignore the price on release week. Set prices are at their least stable in the first fortnight, and preorder pricing frequently bears no relation to where a card settles.
Building a shortlist from a full set
Three hundred cards is too many to evaluate one by one. A method that works for any set, applied here.
Filter to your format first. If you play Commander, most of the limited-focused commons are irrelevant to you. If you play Standard, the reverse. Narrowing by format before reading anything cuts the list by more than half.
Then filter to your colors. In Commander this is your commander’s identity. In constructed it is whatever you are building. Another large reduction for no effort.
Read the rares and mythics in those colors. These are where new deck ideas come from, and there are usually fewer than twenty once filtered.
Then read the uncommons. This is the step people skip and it is where the actual playables are. Uncommon removal, ramp, and card draw are the cards that quietly make decks work, and they are cheap.
Ignore the commons unless you draft. In constructed, commons rarely matter outside Pauper. In limited they are the entire format.
Done in that order, a 300 card set becomes a readable list of about thirty cards in maybe fifteen minutes.
What the card count does not tell you
A caution worth registering, because set size is a frequently quoted and frequently misleading number.
A larger set is not a bigger card pool. Much of the growth in modern set sizes comes from treatments rather than from distinct cards. A 300 card set may contain fewer new cards than an older 250 card set that had no variants.
Set size does not predict limited quality. The commons and uncommons decide whether a set drafts well, and those are a fixed portion of any set regardless of how many borderless mythics sit above them.
Set size does not predict value. A set’s value concentrates in a handful of cards. Whether there are 250 or 300 numbers in the set is close to irrelevant to what a box is worth.
When comparing sets, the useful figures are the number of distinct new cards and the number at each rarity, not the headline total.
Where the official sources are
Three places, each best at a different thing.
The Wizards card image gallery is authoritative for what a card looks like and says. When sources disagree, this is the tiebreaker.
Gatherer carries the official rulings, which matter for the set’s new mechanics. If you have a rules question about web-slinging or harness interacting with something, this is where the official answer lives.
Scryfall mirrors the data with vastly better search. For browsing, filtering, and answering questions about the set, this is the practical tool, and the queries above all run there.
One habit worth forming: bookmark the search rather than the gallery. A saved query such as the rarity filter above stays useful across every future set by changing three characters, whereas a gallery bookmark is only ever good for one release. The same transfers to the collector numbering conventions above: once you understand how one modern set is numbered, you understand how every set is numbered, and identifying a variant becomes instant rather than a lookup.