It’s no secret that Magic: The Gathering is an expensive game to play. Outside of Pauper, it’s not uncommon for a deck to cost a few hundred dollars at least. Depending on the format you’re playing, you might even have to put down $1000+ just to be competitive. Thankfully, as much as its economy has problems, MTG Arena can be a far cheaper alternative at times.
If you’ve got time on your hands, or you’re a Limited savant, MTG Arena can be incredibly lucrative. With quests offering free gems and positive earnings from events, it’s possible to build quite the collection for next to nothing. If you want to hit the ground running, however, then Wizards of the Coast is there to offer a helping hand.
Rather worryingly, it seems this helping hand can be outrageously expensive at times.
$100 Commander Precons
Yesterday, alongside the release of Alchemy: Tarkir, Wizards launched five new preconstructed decks on MTG Arena. Each one of these decks was built around the new Commander cards from Tarkir: Dragonstrom. While these decks aren’t identical to their paper counterparts, they nonetheless offered an easy way to jump into the set.
The problem with these decks, as players soon found out, was their price point. On MTG Arena, the cheapest of these decks is $100, while the most expensive costs around $120. Thankfully, these are just the base prices, and Wizards of the Coast does offer a duplicate discount.
Thanks to this discount, most MTG players shouldn’t have to pay anywhere near this price point. That being said, these decks still aren’t cheap by any means. This was clear when BigFish95 took to social media to bemoan the prices. Even with their discounts, the cheapest deck would still cost $50 at least.
In comparison, the physical Commander decks for Tarkir: Dragonstorm cost $44.99. For this price, you get ten brand-new cards, ten double-sided tokens, a Collector Booster sample pack, and physical cards. Obviously, being physical cards, you can trade and sell these to your heart’s content to fund upgrades if so desired.
On MTG Arena, you have no such luxury. As much as the discount prevents you from needlessly buying duplicate cards, you’re nonetheless stuck paying for cards you may replace and never use. Due to this, you may expect that digital MTG products should be cheaper than their physical counterparts, but that’s evidently not the case.
Too Much for Too Little
While we’ve known for some time that the preconstructed decks on MTG Arena are expensive, these Commander decks take the cake. Unsurprisingly, this led to a lot of criticism across social media, with players pushing back against the pricing.
“The actual commander precons are cheaper…. and resellable…. bro what the heck”
DazZani
“Paper decks are expensive, but at least you own the cards. Not sure how they justify this.”
noodlesalad_
While MTG Arena players were quick to complain, technically, these preconstructed decks are at market value. On MTG Arena, rare and mythic wildcards cost $2.50 and $5, respectively, when bought in packs of four. Technically, this means that the Mardu precon, which contains 26 rares and 7 mythics, is fairly priced, since those widlcards would cost $100.
Admittedly, while you do get commons and uncommons on top, saying these decks are fairly priced is disingenuous. The cost of wildcards on MTG Arena is still outrageously high, which is the real problem here. Sadly, these prices haven’t changed in a long while, and it seems unlikely they’ll change anytime soon.
Ultimately, while these Commander decks are expensive on MTG Arena, no one is forcing you to buy them. Even if you’ve got $100 to burn, you can always buy wildcards to brew around these Commanders yourself. Alternatively, you could buy two of the physical Tarkir: Dragonstorm precons, or basically any video game you like.
Unsurprisingly, unless you absolutely adore every card included within the MTG Arena precons, we don’t recommend you buy them. That being said, the existence of these products might be a necessary evil for MTG Arena. As much as preying upon whales isn’t the right thing to do, it can open up more development opportunities.
Build It Better
If Wizards of the Coast really wants to sell their preconstructed Commander Decks on MTG Arena, there are two main options. Either Wizards can make the decks cheaper, which seems unlikely at best, or Wizards could make them better. This could be done by including more rare and mythic cards, while keeping prices the same, or by adding more new cards.
On MTG Arena, each of the new precons only contains two new cards. These are the face and secondary Commanders from the deck’s physical precon counterparts. If Wizards can spare the development resources, making the digital precons identical to the paper versions would go a long way in earning sales.
At the very least, adding more new cards and reprints to MTG Arena should appease existing players. In theory, this could turn the precons into a necessary evil that seems silly, but ultimately helps to positively fund development. This, however, depends on these decks selling well enough to deserve increased resources going forward.
As much as this hypothetical development could appease everyone, MTG Arena doesn’t exactly have limitless resources. With six major sets coming to Standard each year now, adding even more new cards is quite the commitment. Hopefully, there’s still a chance this happens, depending on the success of Universes Beyond sets, but I wouldn’t hold out hope.
At the end of the day, if you’re outraged and upset by the price of the new MTG Arena precons, they’re not for you. Instead, these decks just become something to point, laugh, and get a little bit angry at.