Over the years, Magic: The Gathering has released countless different products, within the Commander sphere in particular. While some of these products, like set-specific precons, have become full-on staples, many more have fallen by the wayside, forgotten.
One such product is Commander Anthology, a unique MTG reprint product that ran from 2017-2018, and hasn’t been seen since. After some throwbacks from prolific content creators this week, players are rediscovering this product and missing it more than ever.
Commander Anthology MTG
Just in case you aren’t familiar, the Commander Anthology was a product line that collected four popular MTG Commander decks and reprinted them. The main draw was access to foil reprints of Face Commanders like
Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice
Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice
Flying, vigilance, deathtouch, lifelink
At the beginning of your end step, proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)
, which otherwise didn’t exist at the time.
Commander Anthologies also let players access older precons that were otherwise extremely expensive, like 2011’s Heavenly Inferno. Commander was only starting to gain popularity back then, so as more players wanted to join in, precons started becoming extremely difficult to find.
What was particularly nice about these Commander Anthologies is that they didn’t just reprint the decks in question, but updated them to modern standards. For example, on top of the shiny foil Commanders, the pre-2015 decks were reprinted in the modern card frame.
Add in what has since become the popular Click Wheel Life Counters, and there was a lot to be excited about for Commander Anthologies. They were also surprisingly affordable at $164.99 MSRP, which basically meant you were paying the original shelf price for each of the decks.
As fun and valuable as they were, Wizards stopped producing Anthology products entirely after 2017’s Commander Anthology Volume II. There’s also been no real talk of returning to the product line, which doesn’t bode well for its future prospects.
A Long-Desired Comeback?
While most MTG players have forgotten about Commander Anthology, or are simply too new to have encountered it, the product has been experiencing a resurgence this week. The Command Zone, and Tolarian Community College, highlighted it this week, bringing the Commander Anthology back to the spotlight.
For many, Commander Anthology is a brutal reminder of just how high Magic pricing has gotten over the last few years. While $165 was a little pricey at the time, a modern-day Anthology would run over $300, which is obscene.
For others, Commander Anthology could be a solution to Magic’s current reprint problems. Universes Beyond precons, in particular, get extremely expensive once they stop appearing on shelves, which Commander Anthologies could help.
The big problem with this possibility, as The Professor mentioned, is that way more Commander precons are being released these days. The original Anthologies drew from around 20 decks total, but we’re seeing at least 24 new precons in 2027, alone.
Any new Anthology product would inevitably leave out a ton of decks, which could make it a tricky purchase for players whose favorites aren’t included. Global supply lines are currently in a spin as well, which could make it tough for this product to even get to shelves.
The potential of Anthology sets could be huge nowadays, though, with one idea being shared across the player base: use Anthologies to bundle Commander Precons with Secret Lair drops. We know that Secret Lair is capable of running print-to-demand drops now, too, making it a great way to distribute these Anthologies.
In any case, for now there isn’t much indication that Wizards has any interest in pursuing another Anthology product. Other than a Blogatog poll back in 2023, which suggested a lot of interest in a reboot, we’ve heard nothing about the product line for a while.
For this reason, despite the surge in interest this week, I don’t expect we’ll see another Commander Anthology product in the near future. That so many players are currently interested in the product does speak volumes, however, so watch this space.
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