The MTG Fallout products that Wizards of the Coast released earlier this year are the best-selling Commander decks of all time. The game’s head designer, Mark Rosewater, revealed this in a recent episode of his Drive To Work podcast. He also said that before they came out, in March 2024, the Warhammer 40k decks were top of the pile.
Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks called out the success of these decks in the last quarterly earnings call, but now Rosewater has confirmed they’re the best performing yet. It’s a testament to the success of Universes Beyond, which Rosewater celebrates in his podcast: “There’s something really exciting about taking the mechanics of Magic and applying them to other properties, that has proven to be a winning recipe,” he says.
The MTG Fallout release did not have the strongest Commander precon decks – even other Universes Beyond products had more powerful offerings, like Warhammer’s Necron Dynasties deck and Lord of the Ring’s Food and Fellowship. But it seems a combination of innovative mechanics, great art, and fitting reprints were enough to get them flying off the shelves – not to mention a well-timed conjunction with a great new TV show.
Fans have expressed some surprise that the MTG Warhammer 40k decks – which seemed to produce a lot of online buzz – have already been surpassed by Fallout, which just goes to show that you can’t always use Twitter or Reddit as a barometer for general sentiment.
There’s a few reasons I think the Fallout decks might have done better than the Warhammer ones. One is mainstream appeal: though both have millions of dedicated fans, Fallout is simply a bigger franchise than Warhammer. The Fallout decks were also better tied to existing MTG mechanics – in particular people were hyped to have an energy precon deck (and now, with MH3, we have two).
There’s also the question of supply, which muddies the waters. I remember the Warhammer 40k precons being impossibly difficult to get hold of, and still see plenty of Fallout decks on the shelves. We don’t have any data about the print runs of each deck. It’s perfectly believable that Wizards played it cautious with their first Universes Beyond EDH release, but by Fallout knew to expect huge sales, and increased the print run accordingly.
With Fallout and Warhammer 40k decks being best-sellers, and Lord of the Rings now the highest selling Magic set of all time, Universes Beyond is looking more and more like Wizard’s license to print money (even if high licensing fees have sometimes contributed to less than stellar financial figures).
But when asked if Universes Beyond would soon be taking precedence over regular MTG sets, Mark Rosewater spoke up in defense of Magic’s own IP. “In-universe sets… also serve an important function. There are a lot of fans who love Magic’s IP, and having sets that we don’t have to interface with outside partners has a lot of advantages,” he explained.
Want to read more? You might enjoy our up-to-date MTG release schedule, or our list of the most expensive MTG cards of all time.
Source: Wargamer
