Challenger Decks are your on-ramp to Standard. These four individual 75-card decks are geared toward Standard play for the Friday Night Magic player, and forged out of some of the most powerful strategies in Standard.
Each Challenger Deck comes with a complete 60-card main deck and a 15-card sideboard, and is intended to be playable and competitive at a local level right out of the box. All cards will have been previously printed in Standard and are Standard-legal. Additionally, each Challenger Deck will contain the following:
A box capable of holding 75 sleeved cards.
A Spindown life counter
A quick reference guide
Challenger Decks will be available April 6, 2018, and will have an MSRP of $29.99 (only applies to the United States). These decks will be available worldwide in English, with Japanese available in Japan.
Didn't they try this before with the Event decks, which were terribly received because they were so far from even FNM viability that it was laughable? And the only one of real note was the deck that including two Stoneforge Mystic, which then got banned and forced them to write a loophole for people playing exactly that deck?
I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.
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Duel decks were kinda cool I guess but they had kinda run their course. Hopefully they actually make challenger decks at least somewhat playable because most decks designed at getting people into standard have been awful
Didn't they try this before with the Event decks, which were terribly received because they were so far from even FNM viability that it was laughable? And the only one of real note was the deck that including two Stoneforge Mystic, which then got banned and forced them to write a loophole for people playing exactly that deck?
I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.
Duel Decks used to be great. Then Wizards became increasingly conservative about maintaining value on older cards (likely because of their desire to print Masters sets into oblivion), and then we were lucky to get one good card out of a Duel Decks installment.
It's pretty obvious that Wizards is trying to bring in new players with this conversion, but the best way to do this isn't with some new product offering, but to fix Standard so it isn't such a linear Aggro-(energy)Midrange-Control dynamic. You know, make interesting decks viable again.
Didn't they try this before with the Event decks, which were terribly received because they were so far from even FNM viability that it was laughable? And the only one of real note was the deck that including two Stoneforge Mystic, which then got banned and forced them to write a loophole for people playing exactly that deck?
I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.
Gavin has a bit of a tag at the bottom of the article, where he acknowledges that the Event Decks failed because they were built during Future Future League, with decks that were embarrassingly off the mark for FNM. Combine that with MSRP issues (decks either didn't include enough value and were worth nothing, or had way too much value and were impossible to find for their intended audience) and they were canned. They've apparently changed their process to be developing these later on, and to be able to crank something out that is closer to the real world and won't just auto-lose in standard, but still respects the secondary market and has room to grow.
With 4 decks, anyone want to place their bets? I am betting we'll see...
- A Temur Energy deck (unoptimal given its mana base will only have like 3-4 dual lands, but a full playset of Aetherhubs, Servants, and Attunes will do work. .
- A W/b Vampire/Tokens deck. (The monowhite version is close to a real deck already, and it markets Rivals)
- An aggressive B/U tempo Pirates deck (The "Favorable Winds" deck is T2 currently, and this gives some Rivals marketing as well)
- Naya Dinosaurs midrange (The one "miss" of the pool, but one with room to grow and that will sell itself since everyone wants themselves a Carnage Tyrant).
I can see us getting Sultai energy instead as it offers more obvious mythics. If we do, I'd wager we get a R/u aggro deck instead of U/B Pirates, with cheap fliers and Aethersphere Harvester and enough artifacts in it to justify running a Desert package.
For Duel Decks it makes sense; they frequently languish at the market, and the new "Experience Gaming" products (Archenemy, Explorers) occupy a similar space of boardgameified MtG in a self-contained box.
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Didn't they try this before with the Event decks, which were terribly received because they were so far from even FNM viability that it was laughable? And the only one of real note was the deck that including two Stoneforge Mystic, which then got banned and forced them to write a loophole for people playing exactly that deck?
Thats my thought as well.
I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.
Only people I know who bought duel decks use them as a base for others decks, so maybe this way it at least gets them into Standard?
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
calling it now, it'll come out that duel decks were phased out because of poor sales. actually, i've been calling that for awhile, ever since quality declined and there was zero incentive to either buy them, or buy more than one of them. in true wotc fashion its better to ditch a product that once sold well rather than actually look at why those sales may have declined and take steps to improve the product.
i'm sure these things will be a disjointed barely playable mess out of the box too.
This may be a dumb question but....why was this not announced in announcement day? I had thought everything for the year gets announced there.
Announcement Day was half a year ago (and there are supposed to be two Announcement Days a year). This is obviously a new development they hadn't forseen half a year ago.
Didn't they try this before with the Event decks, which were terribly received because they were so far from even FNM viability that it was laughable? And the only one of real note was the deck that including two Stoneforge Mystic, which then got banned and forced them to write a loophole for people playing exactly that deck?
I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.
Duel Decks used to be great. Then Wizards became increasingly conservative about maintaining value on older cards (likely because of their desire to print Masters sets into oblivion), and then we were lucky to get one good card out of a Duel Decks installment.
It's pretty obvious that Wizards is trying to bring in new players with this conversion, but the best way to do this isn't with some new product offering, but to fix Standard so it isn't such a linear Aggro-(energy)Midrange-Control dynamic. You know, make interesting decks viable again.
Hit the nail on the head. If wizards wasn’t so worried about secondary market of the cards we might actually get competent preconstructed decks
They're designing a tiny game without any flexibility because of overpowered mechanics and story cards. The last time I could brew and play was Tarkir period. After that rotated the variety of decks nosedived and we get 2 that can't be reckoned with. They need to make viable cards in all the colors not pre-plan strategies based on their mechanics!!!! This is more doing it for us instead of letting us be creative! If they'd reprint strong cards from the past instead of cramming them in extra product releases... then design the set with balance across the color combos more people would play standard.
They keep forgetting there are people already invested who'd play if their game didn't suck. No one wants to play or play against energy and ramred anymore. Just like we got sick of Rally solitaire, CoCo, infinite combo, spaghetti dice roll, and bloody energy!! Help the people who already like magic play again and we will bring new players in. Trying to recreate the wheel and start over with all new players is STUPID.
Are they incapable of going back and doing sets like RTR and Dragons of Tarkir? Were there a few busted cards? Sure. Give me back Siege Rhino and even Thragtusk days over this current garbage. Completely delete the 'new way' (that someone we all know started to combine making more money with changing the way sets are designed) to make sets and go back to the basics ffs.
Knowing their track record with most of the event decks I don't have high hopes of this. I can hope though that they learned from their mistakes and these decks will be decent enough for someone to pick up and play at an FNM, rather than pick up and attempt to play at an FNM.
2008: Meet the intro pack
2016: Meet the Planeswalker Deck
You could probably put a bunch of steps between the two as well. Not having the initial Shards of Alara run of intro packs even have full decks was a particularly lame-brained decision.
So they seem pretty confident that they've figured out how to construct precons that are decently playable in Standard. I for one am willing to be cautiously optimistic about this. After all, the first event decks back in Mirrodin Besieged actually weren't half bad iirc, were they? Here's hoping that this works for people like me who want to play Standard every once in a while without extensive investment of time and money...
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2008: Meet the intro pack
2016: Meet the Planeswalker Deck
You could probably put a bunch of steps between the two as well. Not having the initial Shards of Alara run of intro packs even have full decks was a particularly lame-brained decision.
Ok, fine then.
1997: Meet 60 card theme decks with packaging that could hold unsleeved decks, provided they are no more than the width of the box.
1999: Meet 40 card core set theme decks with packaging that could hold unsleeved decks, provided they are no more than the width of the box.
2008: Meet 41 card intro packs with new packaging and a booster pack.
2009: Meet 41 card intro packs with new packaging that cannot be closed, and a booster pack.
2010: Meet 60 card intro packs with packaging that cannot be closed, and a booster pack.
2012: Meet 60 card intro packs with packaging that cannot be closed, and cannot hold a deck, and 2 booster packs.
2016: Meet 60 card planeswalker decks that includes a deck box, and 2 booster packs.
2018: Meet 40 card planeswalker deck for core 2019 that contains the exact same 30 card sample deck + 10 planeswalker deck exclusive cards, + 2 boosters. Just a hunch.
How I would have done this is discontinue the planeswalker deck, and bring back the theme deck. Release 4 per expert expansion, and 5 per core set. The challenger decks would then, instead of releasing 4 per set, depending on the frequency of release per year, release 2 decks 2 times a year, or one deck 4 times a year, so there are always 4 decks per year. Because there are no more planeswalker decks, the planeswalkers would be contained in the challenger decks, and would be legitimate ones with alternate art, instead of the lame planeswalker deck ones. Duel decks used to have planeswalkers in them, so why not have some if not all challenger decks have legitimate planeswalkers in them, and not have the set associated precons be tied to 2 per set just because they had to have planeswalkers in them? The challenger decks is to be somewhat competitive in FNM, while the theme decks/intro packs/planeswalker decks are supposed to allow people to get a feel for the set. In Ixalan, there are probably a few themes or mechanics that couldn't be covered because the block must have 4 decks, rather than 8 or 10 like they used to have, and with the one set per plane, covering all themes and mechanics in only 2 precon decks instead of 4 makes it even more impossible.
My real question for challenger decks, 4 decks how many times per year? Once, so we get 4 decks per year? Twice, so we get 8 decks per year? Do you think they should release less challenger decks per release, but release them more often per year?
Remember when they used to release 2 event decks, and then they decided to release 1 per set because there was always one that sat on shelves, and the other one was always bought out, so stores would order more, which meant ordering more of the one that sat on shelves? With 4 challenger decks, what makes you think that something like that wouldn't happen again?
So they're going to continue to tell us what to play by making the decks for us and selling them to us that way.
This is better?
This is another marketing fail. 'We need people to play standard! Let's make their decks for them and a new product to sell at the same time!'
Utter fail.
The inescapable problem is that a huge number of people want someone to tell them what to build. The days of random Starter packs and a kind player explaining why you can't build a 5 color deck with just two islands are long gone.
So you need some kind of basic deck that, at a bare minimum, shows players the game. I think the Portal series and early core series were points in the right direction, but (espcially Portal) misguided.
So WotC is trying different things to entice more players to join and make their stockholders happy. If you make just one card too strong, ******* "investors" snatch them up and drive prices too high excluding the very people the decks are intended for. Make the cards too weak, no one wants them, even at discount.
So what is the solution? Do you want to do what Magic did years ago (and Pokémon now) and bring back the Collector's Edition decks? I believe those decks were designed by tournament winners. Make a sort of "Championship" deck? At least those are designed by players. Those backs make them illegal for official play though. What other solutions might there be?
WotC is trying to do something to bring new players into the game, even if those reasons don't necessarily jive with the players desires.
So they're going to continue to tell us what to play by making the decks for us and selling them to us that way.
This is better?
This is another marketing fail. 'We need people to play standard! Let's make their decks for them and a new product to sell at the same time!'
Utter fail.
The inescapable problem is that a huge number of people want someone to tell them what to build. The days of random Starter packs and a kind player explaining why you can't build a 5 color deck with just two islands are long gone.
So you need some kind of basic deck that, at a bare minimum, shows players the game. I think the Portal series and early core series were points in the right direction, but (espcially Portal) misguided.
So WotC is trying different things to entice more players to join and make their stockholders happy. If you make just one card too strong, ******* "investors" snatch them up and drive prices too high excluding the very people the decks are intended for. Make the cards too weak, no one wants them, even at discount.
So what is the solution? Do you want to do what Magic did years ago (and Pokémon now) and bring back the Collector's Edition decks? I believe those decks were designed by tournament winners. Make a sort of "Championship" deck? At least those are designed by players. Those backs make them illegal for official play though. What other solutions might there be?
WotC is trying to do something to bring new players into the game, even if those reasons don't necessarily jive with the players desires.
A problem is that some of these expert players are telling new players to stay away from "new player" products because they couldn't be sold for a profit, or that they couldn't win tournaments. You can give a new player a product that could be sold for a profit, or be good in tournaments, but it doesn't mean squat if the new player says "I don't get it", when they play with the deck. If I were a new player, spending $30 for a first deck isn't what I would do.
Theme decks were great, but WOTC had to change it.
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The announce no more duel decks the very last one is called elves vs inventors release date April 6th 2018
Challenger decks are for those in standard
75 sleeved cards (you heard me sleeved)
A spindown counter
And a reference guide
Modern: UB Zombie hunt UB - WR Boros tokens WR - BGW Treefolk tribal BGW
Commander: UR Mizzix, a Storm of spells UR (Decklist)
Feel free to tell me yours!
I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.
Currently Playing:
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EDH Cube
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Duel Decks used to be great. Then Wizards became increasingly conservative about maintaining value on older cards (likely because of their desire to print Masters sets into oblivion), and then we were lucky to get one good card out of a Duel Decks installment.
It's pretty obvious that Wizards is trying to bring in new players with this conversion, but the best way to do this isn't with some new product offering, but to fix Standard so it isn't such a linear Aggro-(energy)Midrange-Control dynamic. You know, make interesting decks viable again.
2017: A mistakes were made... Meet core sets and no2set-paradigm...
2016: Meet masterpiece theme...
2017: A mistakes were made... Meet not-every-set masterpiece theme...
2015: Meet Gatewatch storyline...
2017: A mistakes were made... Meet less-Gatewatch storyline...
2007: Meet duel decks...
2017: A mistakes were made...
Gavin has a bit of a tag at the bottom of the article, where he acknowledges that the Event Decks failed because they were built during Future Future League, with decks that were embarrassingly off the mark for FNM. Combine that with MSRP issues (decks either didn't include enough value and were worth nothing, or had way too much value and were impossible to find for their intended audience) and they were canned. They've apparently changed their process to be developing these later on, and to be able to crank something out that is closer to the real world and won't just auto-lose in standard, but still respects the secondary market and has room to grow.
With 4 decks, anyone want to place their bets? I am betting we'll see...
- A Temur Energy deck (unoptimal given its mana base will only have like 3-4 dual lands, but a full playset of Aetherhubs, Servants, and Attunes will do work. .
- A W/b Vampire/Tokens deck. (The monowhite version is close to a real deck already, and it markets Rivals)
- An aggressive B/U tempo Pirates deck (The "Favorable Winds" deck is T2 currently, and this gives some Rivals marketing as well)
- Naya Dinosaurs midrange (The one "miss" of the pool, but one with room to grow and that will sell itself since everyone wants themselves a Carnage Tyrant).
I can see us getting Sultai energy instead as it offers more obvious mythics. If we do, I'd wager we get a R/u aggro deck instead of U/B Pirates, with cheap fliers and Aethersphere Harvester and enough artifacts in it to justify running a Desert package.
For Duel Decks it makes sense; they frequently languish at the market, and the new "Experience Gaming" products (Archenemy, Explorers) occupy a similar space of boardgameified MtG in a self-contained box.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Thats my thought as well.
Only people I know who bought duel decks use them as a base for others decks, so maybe this way it at least gets them into Standard?
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
That said the Challenger decks seem cool though I’m afraid to ask what wizards defenition of competitive is with these.
i'm sure these things will be a disjointed barely playable mess out of the box too.
Announcement Day was half a year ago (and there are supposed to be two Announcement Days a year). This is obviously a new development they hadn't forseen half a year ago.
The announcement only says the deckbox will be big enough to hold the deck once it's sleeved, not that the product comes with them.
This is better?
This is another marketing fail. 'We need people to play standard! Let's make their decks for them and a new product to sell at the same time!'
Utter fail.
Hit the nail on the head. If wizards wasn’t so worried about secondary market of the cards we might actually get competent preconstructed decks
They're designing a tiny game without any flexibility because of overpowered mechanics and story cards. The last time I could brew and play was Tarkir period. After that rotated the variety of decks nosedived and we get 2 that can't be reckoned with. They need to make viable cards in all the colors not pre-plan strategies based on their mechanics!!!! This is more doing it for us instead of letting us be creative! If they'd reprint strong cards from the past instead of cramming them in extra product releases... then design the set with balance across the color combos more people would play standard.
They keep forgetting there are people already invested who'd play if their game didn't suck. No one wants to play or play against energy and ramred anymore. Just like we got sick of Rally solitaire, CoCo, infinite combo, spaghetti dice roll, and bloody energy!! Help the people who already like magic play again and we will bring new players in. Trying to recreate the wheel and start over with all new players is STUPID.
Are they incapable of going back and doing sets like RTR and Dragons of Tarkir? Were there a few busted cards? Sure. Give me back Siege Rhino and even Thragtusk days over this current garbage. Completely delete the 'new way' (that someone we all know started to combine making more money with changing the way sets are designed) to make sets and go back to the basics ffs.
Edgar Markov - Bloodied Fangs
Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca - Jade Daggers
Narset, Enlightened Master - Monk Mastery
Meren of Clan Nel Toth - Necromancy love
At least they listened to me from a while back when I said that they should release event decks not tied to a specific set.
We know that there will be 4 challenger decks per release, but the real question is, how many challenger deck release dates will there be per year?
2008: Meet the intro pack
2016: Meet the Planeswalker Deck
20??: A mistakes were made... Meet the preconstructed theme deck...
I can only dream, right?
You could probably put a bunch of steps between the two as well. Not having the initial Shards of Alara run of intro packs even have full decks was a particularly lame-brained decision.
-Plateau, troll philosopher
Ok, fine then.
1997: Meet 60 card theme decks with packaging that could hold unsleeved decks, provided they are no more than the width of the box.
1999: Meet 40 card core set theme decks with packaging that could hold unsleeved decks, provided they are no more than the width of the box.
2008: Meet 41 card intro packs with new packaging and a booster pack.
2009: Meet 41 card intro packs with new packaging that cannot be closed, and a booster pack.
2010: Meet 60 card intro packs with packaging that cannot be closed, and a booster pack.
2012: Meet 60 card intro packs with packaging that cannot be closed, and cannot hold a deck, and 2 booster packs.
2016: Meet 60 card planeswalker decks that includes a deck box, and 2 booster packs.
2018: Meet 40 card planeswalker deck for core 2019 that contains the exact same 30 card sample deck + 10 planeswalker deck exclusive cards, + 2 boosters. Just a hunch.
How I would have done this is discontinue the planeswalker deck, and bring back the theme deck. Release 4 per expert expansion, and 5 per core set. The challenger decks would then, instead of releasing 4 per set, depending on the frequency of release per year, release 2 decks 2 times a year, or one deck 4 times a year, so there are always 4 decks per year. Because there are no more planeswalker decks, the planeswalkers would be contained in the challenger decks, and would be legitimate ones with alternate art, instead of the lame planeswalker deck ones. Duel decks used to have planeswalkers in them, so why not have some if not all challenger decks have legitimate planeswalkers in them, and not have the set associated precons be tied to 2 per set just because they had to have planeswalkers in them? The challenger decks is to be somewhat competitive in FNM, while the theme decks/intro packs/planeswalker decks are supposed to allow people to get a feel for the set. In Ixalan, there are probably a few themes or mechanics that couldn't be covered because the block must have 4 decks, rather than 8 or 10 like they used to have, and with the one set per plane, covering all themes and mechanics in only 2 precon decks instead of 4 makes it even more impossible.
My real question for challenger decks, 4 decks how many times per year? Once, so we get 4 decks per year? Twice, so we get 8 decks per year? Do you think they should release less challenger decks per release, but release them more often per year?
Remember when they used to release 2 event decks, and then they decided to release 1 per set because there was always one that sat on shelves, and the other one was always bought out, so stores would order more, which meant ordering more of the one that sat on shelves? With 4 challenger decks, what makes you think that something like that wouldn't happen again?
The inescapable problem is that a huge number of people want someone to tell them what to build. The days of random Starter packs and a kind player explaining why you can't build a 5 color deck with just two islands are long gone.
So you need some kind of basic deck that, at a bare minimum, shows players the game. I think the Portal series and early core series were points in the right direction, but (espcially Portal) misguided.
So WotC is trying different things to entice more players to join and make their stockholders happy. If you make just one card too strong, ******* "investors" snatch them up and drive prices too high excluding the very people the decks are intended for. Make the cards too weak, no one wants them, even at discount.
So what is the solution? Do you want to do what Magic did years ago (and Pokémon now) and bring back the Collector's Edition decks? I believe those decks were designed by tournament winners. Make a sort of "Championship" deck? At least those are designed by players. Those backs make them illegal for official play though. What other solutions might there be?
WotC is trying to do something to bring new players into the game, even if those reasons don't necessarily jive with the players desires.
A problem is that some of these expert players are telling new players to stay away from "new player" products because they couldn't be sold for a profit, or that they couldn't win tournaments. You can give a new player a product that could be sold for a profit, or be good in tournaments, but it doesn't mean squat if the new player says "I don't get it", when they play with the deck. If I were a new player, spending $30 for a first deck isn't what I would do.
Theme decks were great, but WOTC had to change it.