Magic: The Gathering fans are preparing for a big week of reveals, as a panel scheduled for this weekend’s New York Comic Con has promised announcements based on “a universe beyond our own and some people who know things they’re currently not allowed to talk about.” However, Wizards of the Coast has decided to start the week of announcements early, as the company is making big changes to booster packs in 2027, starting with Nauctis: The Sunken Realm in February.
The biggest changes involve one addition and one subtraction. The “addition” is God Packs, a type of pack that features only rare and mythic cards, as well as rare alternate art variants of those rares and mythics. God packs will be available in one out of every 1000 regular Booster Packs (which will also no longer be called “Play Boosters,” just “Booster Packs) and one out of every 300 Collector Boosters.
Those Collector Boosters, meanwhile, are the source of the major subtraction. Collector Boosters will now only contain 12 cards instead of 15, with each pack removing “two commons and one uncommon” according to WOTC’s official blog post.
“The common and uncommon cards were the least-exciting parts of these opening experiences and were often passed over,” the blog post reads. “As booster printing becomes more complex, we need to make trade-offs in both complexity and capacity. We wanted to add God Packs and include Japan Showcase cards in Booster Packs, but to do so we needed to find room in our printing capacity to enable that.”
Normal Booster Packs will also see a change regarding foils, as a foil card will no longer be guaranteed in every pack. Any foils that are found in a Booster Pack, however, will either be a rare or mythic card, which means no more common or uncommon cards in foil in regular Booster Packs.
So, if you’re following this, there will no longer be a chance to receive a foil common or uncommon in a standard Booster Pack. There will also be less chances to find them in Collector packs, as they’re going down from 15 to 12 cards, and all three removed cards are commons and uncommons.
“Shrinkflation” concerns for Collector Boosters to one side, it will be interesting to see how the market for those foil commons and uncommons will be impacted. Every foil card in the Nauctis set will now see a new level of scarcity, since the only place you can get them will be Collector Boosters. That kind of defeats the purpose of “common” and “uncommon,” but since they’re foil, does that mean it’s a different playing field?
No matter what the greater Magic community’s opinions are on these changes, I think there’s one thing we can all agree on: Getting rid of the name “Play Boosters” is the right call. It was always awkward.
The new pack format will debut when Nauctis: The Sunken Realm launches February 5 in local game stores and big-box retailers.
