One of my key hopes for this set is that they make sure to hit the 'Dungeons & Dragons' aspect of things, which to me, means the trio of 'treasure' found in Dungeons, traps found in Dungeons, and Dragons. Along those lines I hope we get a return of treasure or gold artifact tokens, as well as a return of traps, or something similar to it, from the original Zendikar block. And for dragons, I hope we at least get the iconic 'Red Dragon' in classical D&D style, not red as in the MtG color necessarily though, Red as in of the chromatic dragons of D&D and the Forgotten Realms, more than one dragon card would be appreciated, since the title includes plural of Dragon, in the form of 'Dragons'.
Another thing I somewhat hope for is saga cards based on major events in the forgotten realms, like the Time of Troubles, Spellplague, and Second Sundering.
While not a high priority compared to many other things, it might be nice to see some legendary lands based on key locations in the realms that have been a focus for players for various reasons, such as the video games, or other well detailed locations, perhaps where major popular pre-published adventures took place. For instance, it would be nice to have legendary lands for Baulder's Gate, the City of Neverwinter, Icewind Dale, and Sigil.
I also hope the bulk of instant, sorcery, and enchantment spells in the set represent actual spells/rituals one cast in dungeons and dragons, some of which might be reprints where things have the same name and are similar enough, like
Fireball, but some would be new to Magic: the Gathering. For instance, perhaps there could be an Azorious colored spell called 'Dispel Magic' which is a modal spell with both
disenchant and
counterspell modes. I hope they touch on a lot of classic D&D spells this way, especially any whose names aren't already used in existing MtG spells.
For creatures, I hope they pay some special attention to iconic creatures that Wizards of the Coast owns the rights to, like the Mind Flayer/Illithid, which was left out of the 3.5 SRD on purpose for reasons related to that. I also hope they cover a wide range of bases of major creature types from D&D, including Aberration, Animal, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Giant, Humanoid, Magical Beast, Monstrous Humanoid, Ooze, Outsider, Plant, Undead, and Vermin in the context of 3.5 edition, or Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Swarm of Tiny Beasts, and Undead by 5e terms.
Some key ones to cover in that context might include Illithid, Stirge, Solar, Shield Guardian, Red Dragon, Xorn, Blink Dog, Night Hag, Balor, Cloud Giant, Mimic, Gelatinous Cube, Treant, and Dracolich, along with adventurers of the key PHB races.
Might be nice to have some interesting legendary creatures as well, such as Elminster, Drizzt Do'Urden, Halaster Blackcloak, a Manshoon, or Alustriel Silverhand.
Might also be nice to have some non-legendary creature representatives of various organizations, such as a Harper Agent card, a Cult of the Dragon cultist card, a Lord's Alliance agent card, an Order of the Gauntlet knight card, an undead Red Wizard card, and/or a Zhentarim agent card.
I hope some of the artifacts are common magic items in the realms, or legendary artifacts of the realms, such as Elminster's eversmoking pipe, or Ioun stones.
I hope even some of the basic lands look like various places that can possibly be identified to some degree in the realms, perhaps based on scenes adapted from things from rulebooks or video games, or that have well recognized landmarks in the distant backgrounds.
I also hope some of the gods are represented in some way, if not in cards as god type cards, then perhaps in cleric cards dedicated to them or something (possibly multi-class ones in some cases, like a typeline of 'elf cleric archer' for something, or 'human cleric knight').
I also hope we see some spells that have the names of their creators in them, for creators who originated in the Realms (rather than ones from other settings like Greyhawk), such as Aganazzar's scorcher, or Simbul's synostodweomer.
I suspect regardless of what we want, we'll probably see a return of the party mechanic from the recent Zendikar set, although I'd prefer something like the level up mechanic or allies.
I'm wondering what type halflings will be, a new 'halfling' type, will they give them the kithkin type just because of being similar small races despite the halflings lacking anything like the thoughtweft? Some other name, like perhaps 'hobbit' depending on the legalities of such?
Might be nice for MtG to have more than one non-artifact gnome card as well.
I'd prioritize flavor and relative mechanical simplicity of core sets over actual power levels, given that it sounds like the set is taking the place of a core set, but I really hope the flavor ends up being a home run.
I also hope they don't make too many good things that are flavor locked in ways that make reprints harder, so a lot of the better spells or creatures I hope are ones with more generic names and types and mechanics and such.