Wizards of the Coast is reprinting the extremely popular Warhammer 40,000 Magic the Gathering Commander decks, IGN reports. The decks went on sale in 2022 and were a massive hit with fans of both games, and prices on the secondary market now reflect that, with foil Collector’s Edition decks trading for around $700.
The four 100 card decks, designed for Magic’s popular four-player Commander format, are generally regarded as an early high water mark in WotC’s ‘Universes Beyond’ program to bring outside IP into the collectible card game. Each deck is themed around one of four Warhammer 40k factions – the Tyranids, Chaos, Necrons, and Imperium – and contains a mixture of classic Magic cards with brand new Warhammer 40k art, and some totally original cards.
Writing on Thursday, IGN reports that Wizards of the Coast has confirmed a small reprint of the decks will soon be available to distributors and stores. It’s not yet clear whether the Collector’s Editions of the decks, in which every card has a shiny foil treatment, will be reprinted, nor what the retail price will be. The decks originally sold for $59.99.
I’ve got the Tyranid deck, and it’s a pretty solid little starter deck for Commander, and wouldn’t take much tuning up to turn it into something pretty powerful – I’ve not bothered to upgrade mine because the idea of mixing in non-Warhammer 40k characters makes my eye twitch. I’m in the minority I’m sure. A lot of the demand for the decks comes from the cards’ mechanics, not their flavor.
The cards in the decks are all legal in Magic’s “eternal” formats, play modes that allow players to use almost any card ever printed. A few 40k cards have seen play at a competitive level. Marneus Calgar became the basis for a CEDH (competitive Commander) deck; The Triumph of St Katherine, Chaos Defiler, Canoptek Scarab Swarm, and Poxwalkers have all seen play in Legacy. Plenty of the unique cards are also useful in the non-competitive, but extremely popular, Commander format.
This kind of demand drives secondary market prices up. Wizards of the Coast periodically reprints old cards in new products, but sprinkling cards with Warhammer 40k licensed characters on them into unrelated MTG sets isn’t really an option. The idea that WotC would just reprint the original decks wholesale is surprising because, well… it just doesn’t do that, normally.
Did you grab the 40k commander decks when you had the chance? Are you planning to pick them up? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
