On Wednesday, Wizards of the Coast published an article detailing a series of rules changes coming to Magic: The Gathering. Those new rules will launch alongside the upcoming Secrets of Strixhaven set on April 24. In addition to adding the Book artifact type, which retroactively classifies 44 cards from throughout the history of Magic as Books, there’s also a “small change” to how Sagas work — one that will prove significant for anybody lucky enough to have the Doubling Season enchantment.
“The mechanism that adds lore counters to Sagas now better matches planeswalkers and battles,” the post reads. “Specifically, we’ve made the ability that causes Sagas to enter with lore counters on them an intrinsic ability. We did the same for the ability that allows the controller of Sagas with read ahead to choose a number of lore counters.”
More broadly, Sagas tell a story of an event or series of events in an enchantment with multiple chapters, typically anywhere between three and five. You pay the initial cost, and the first chapter activates. Then, you add a lore counter at the start of your turn to activate the next chapter. Once every chapter is complete, you sacrifice that card. A select few “read ahead” Sagas allow you to select which chapter it starts with.
The new rules change clarifies a long-contested question about the Doubling Season card, which doubles the number of tokens and counters you create if they’re triggered by an effect. Senior Magic editor Matt Tabak clarified on Bluesky in June 2025 (right after the release of the Saga-heavy Final Fantasy set) that Doubling Season doesn’t impact a Saga entering or the turn-based action of adding lore counters because neither is considered an “effect.” At least, that used to be the case.
According to the new post, “Doubling Season will now double the number of lore counters a Saga enters with.” TMNT’s Doubling Season reprint, which appears to be the cheapest version of the card, still has a market price of $26.58. Other prints eek up above $40 or $50. At least one version of the card costs a whopping $544.16. Given this rules change, I think we can safely expect to see these numbers climb.
What immediately comes to mind for me — the lucky owner of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reprint of Doubling Season — with this rule change are Sagas like Summon: Titan. I play this card a lot, particularly on Magic Arena. It’s a powerful card in mill-focused landfall decks, but it can also work really well in any kind of Saga-focused or more broadly enchantment-focused strategies. My favorite is a red-white-green deck full of powerful enchantment creature Sagas from the Final Fantasy set: Titan, Bahamut, Knights of the Round, Fenrir, etc. Titan’s biggest weakness in this deck is that fairly often, after I play it and mill five cards, my opponent targets it with direct removal, so I never get the payoff of returning all the land cards in my graveyard to the battlefield.
With Doubling Season on the field, Titan triggers both of the first two chapters back-to-back. If you’ve spent the first few rounds milling cards into your graveyard, that can lead to an explosive surge of lands in round five after you drop Titan. Keep in mind that the FInal Fantasy set also has powerful summoners like Yuna, Hope of Spira, which drags an enchantment from your graveyard to the battlefield at the end of every turn.
The one big question I have about this new rules change, however, has to do with Terra, Magical Adept. For four colorless, one red, and one green mana (six total), Terra activates Trance and transforms into the Esper Terra Saga. For three turns in a row, she creates a token copy of a target nonlegendary enchantment. If it’s a Saga, you can add up to three lore counters on it, but you eventually have to sacrifice it at the end of the turn.
Now, say Doubling Season is already on the board alongside something like Summon: Knights of the Round or Summon: Bahamut — two very expensive-to-cast but very powerful Sagas. Not only do you make two copies of Terra’s target thanks to Doubling Season, but, in theory, you can add up to three lore counters (then double it?) to each. Between these two theoretical copies of Summon: Bahamut with the maximum number of lore counters added, they destroy up to four target non-land permanents, cause you to draw four cards, and they each deal damage equal to the total mana value of permanents you control to each opponent. Even if this busted combo doesn’t function, it’s definitely an exciting build I am eager to try out — and one that’s legal in Standard somehow.
It’s officially doubling season, folks.
About the Author
