Wizards of the Coast is going to be putting more emphasis on its most popular format, Commander, next year, as Magic: The Gathering’s head designer Mark Rosewater revealed that all six sets coming out in 2027 will have at least four Commander precons attached to them. That’s a minimum of 24 new decks next year, not including Secret Lair precons, or other supplemental releases for the format.
This suggests that – after an experimental couple of years, where WotC put out more different types of products like Jumpstart, Welcome Decks, and the Ninja Turtles ‘Turtle Team Up’ box – the business will be returning to the status quo, producing multiple decks alongside each main MTG set release.
Four or more for each set suggests 2027 could easily have the most precons of any year to date. At the very least it’ll be returning to the numbers we saw in 2023/2024, after a couple years of lower output.
In 2026, actually, Wizards is due to release 24 precons too, but of these, only 17 are directly connected to mainline sets. Three have been Secret Lair decks (Odds & Ends, Goblin Storm, Hatsune Miku), and four were tied to the Foundations supplement, the cheaper starter commander decks.
Among main sets, the offering is extremely lopsided. Only Marvel Superheroes, Secrets of Strixhaven, and the upcoming Star Trek set have four or more decks attached, and multiple releases have passed by entirely precon-less.
In 2025, there were only 14 Commander precons, with the lion’s share split between Final Fantasy and Tarkir Dragonstorm.
If Wizards releases five decks for any of its sets in 2027 (which seems possible if Zhalfir is a faction-based set) or if it produces any Secret Lair EDH decks (which it has every year since 2023) this will be an absolute bumper crop.
So far, we’ve only seen information about the Marvel Darkhold Destiny decks, featuring Blade, Doctor Strange, Thor, and Hela.
The reaction to this announcement online has seemed rather mixed, with some fans complaining that the high number of decks seems overwhelming. However, when a set comes out without any Commander decks, this also often sparks complaints. In particular, I’m thinking of sets like Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the absence of precons felt especially strange.
24+ decks might cause problems for anyone determined to buy every precon (remember that guy trying to build every single Commander? I hope he’s doing alright). However, more decks means more customer choice, and for those who prefer to build their own decks: more reprints for Commander-only cards which don’t typically appear in normal sets.
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Source: Wargamer
