Over the past year, we’ve seen some major adjustments to the structure of booster packs. Introduced with the release of Murders at Karlov Manor, the new play boosters would serve as a massive change, both from a financial perspective and a Limited perspective. Draft and set boosters were no more and play boosters would take over for drafters and collectors alike.
Then, with the release of Bloomburrow, Wizards made the big decision to cancel The List. From Bloomburrow onward, Special Guests would serve as the only cards from The List that players could open.
Now, with the arrival of Aetherdrift in February 2024, it appears there’s going to be a change with how play booster boxes are managed. While each individual play booster will presumably remain in a similar structure as before, this shift should impact anyone looking to purchase booster boxes in any capacity. Let’s take a closer look.
The Change and Speculation
Just recently, one player took to Reddit and revealed an interesting correlation amongst multiple distributors of MTG products. These entities such as Bliss Distribution and Blackfire clearly state that each Aetherdrift booster box will come with 30 play boosters total.
From Murders at Karlov Manor to Duskmourn, all premier sets have featured 36 play boosters per box. This may not sound like a big change, but it can have a surprising effect for players and store employees.
First of all, since play boosters have become the go-to Magic pack, prices have gone up. Play boosters have a higher chance of having multiple rares in a pack and can theoretically have 4-5 at once. As such, play boosters and play booster boxes by default cost more money on average to pick up.
For example, according to TCGPlayer market price, both Duskmourn and Bloomburrow booster boxes sit over $130 a piece. For anyone looking to run a draft at home and pick up a booster box as product, this is a noticeable difference from the more typical $100 or so that draft booster boxes used to be.
As such, some players seem fine with the change, assuming that the overall price of each booster box is lowered to help compensate. That being said, for sealed players, there appears to be a resounding complaint.
The Downside
The biggest issue that many players have brought up is the fact that 36 play boosters was a rather convenient amount to run an eight-person draft and offer prize support. With each player receiving three packs, that means that 24 packs go towards the draft.
From there, it’s very common for the remaining 12 to be distributed as prizes. In a typical three-round draft, assuming no one draws or drops, you’ll end with one person with three wins and no losses and three people with two wins and one loss.
So, using a model where the undefeated player gets six packs and the three players with two wins get two packs each is reasonable and conveniently uses the remaining 12 packs. By contrast, with a 30-pack booster box, only six packs are left for prize support, which is an incredibly awkward number.
As nebman227 mentions above, this is awkward for store employees. With 36 packs, it’s easy for store owners to just hand a box to each pod. Now, store employees will likely have to consistently dip into other booster boxes, which can be a pain.
On top of that, for anyone trying to run a draft at home with their friends, things get even more inconvenient. The best-case scenario would be for the host to just pick up a box and use all the packs as draft fuel and prize support.
Now, if you want to have decent prize support, the host would have to buy extra loose packs or purchase two boxes and keep a bunch of packs to themselves. This is far from ideal, since the price of loose packs tends to be higher than what the price of each individual pack in a booster box comes out to.
For right now, we’ll have to wait and see how things play out with the new 30-pack booster box model. If player reaction is any indication, though, this change could prove to be rather detrimental.
