Innistrad is a top-down-designed Magic set, meaning that it was designed and developed with flavor in mind first, "molding mechanics to fit the concept". The expansion symbol of the set is a depiction of two outward-facing, overlapping, stylized herons.
Innistrad has a gothic horror theme and makes use of horror tropes. It is the first set to thematically take place on the plane of Innistrad. The set features graveyard and tribal mechanics, with the five main tribes each being split over an allied color pair. Spirits primarily in white and blue, Zombies in blue and black, Vampires in black and red, Werewolves in red and green, and Humans primarily in green and white. In each of these pairs, the second color is considered the primary. There are also slight thematic differences between the tribes depending on the color, such as blue zombies being abominations of science in the vein of Frankenstein's Monster, while black Zombies are shambling corpses reanimated by magical spells.
Innistrad contains 264 cards (15 basic lands, 107 commons, 67 uncommons, 59 rares, 16 mythic rares), including randomly inserted premium versions of all cards in the set. This is 15 more cards than any large expansion in recent history had. Innistrad also features a number of double-faced cards which have a card frame printed on each side, and a checklist card used to prevent decks from becoming marked by containing them. The checklist card replaces the basic land in three of every four boosters. Due to basic lands becoming more rare, Innistrad only contains three basic land artworks rather than the usual four, further enlarging the number of functionally different cards.
Additionally, double-faced cards are on a different print run than regular cards, and every booster pack has a double-faced card. This means that boosters can have two (mythic) rares without either being foil.
Each Innistrad Booster Pack contains 15 cards each. Premium foil cards are randomly inserted.
