Wizards of the Coast is combining the traditional Draft Booster—the way that Magic has been sold for 30 years—and the more recent Set Booster into a new type of booster called the Play Booster.
The Play Booster will have 15 cards with 11 guaranteed slots: six commons from the set, three uncommons from the set, one rare/mythic from the set, and one basic land. There will be three other slots (for a total of 14 playable cards): one that will usually be a common, but could also be a card from The List or Special Guests; as well as two “wildcard” slots (one foil, one non-foil) that will usually be Booster Fun variants of any rarity. There will also be an art card/token slot as the 15th card.
Play Boosters will be available in all languages Magic is printed in and will be priced the same as Set Boosters—which tend to be more expensive than Draft Boosters. This means that box prices, along with draft and prerelease tournament entries, are expected to rise in cost as a result of this change. Play Booster displays will be 36 packs (like Draft Boosters), while Collector Boosters will remain untouched for the foreseeable future.
The Rise of Set Boosters
Set Boosters were introduced during the Zendikar Rising (2020) expansion and offer the players an opportunity to open multiple rares and more special card variants. They have become the most popular of Magic’s booster pack offerings, to the point that Set Boosters began to significantly eclipse Draft Boosters in sales, according to Magic’s Head Designer Mark Rosewater.
The rise of Set Boosters over the last few years has caused several problems in the Magic ecosystem that Wizards believes needed to be solved. As popular as Set Boosters were, they forced stores to make a choice between Set and Draft boosters when buying inventory from their distributors, which often meant choosing Set Boosters over Draft Boosters—Rosewater went so far as to frame that shift as the “abandonment of Draft Boosters.”
But Wizards couldn’t simply drop Draft Boosters in favor of Set Boosters because Magic as game relies on Limited (both Draft and Sealed) to balance its ecosystem. Draft Boosters were created for Limited with 15 randomized playable cards, while Set Boosters only contain 12 cards that aren’t fully randomized and include and unbalanced number of rare cards.
Therefore, Wizards decided that they would need to make a more fundamental change. Their goal became to make a draftable booster as desirable and fun to open as the Set Booster—and the Play Booster was born.
The New Play Booster
The contents of the new Play Booster.
Play Boosters will arrive with Murders at Karlov Manor in Q2 of 2024, so Magic’s next two sets (The Lost Caverns of Ixalan and Ravnica Remastered) will still use the current Draft and Set Boosters. The contents will shift slightly from set to set but will follow this general outline:
- Slot 1-6: Commons—no longer “connected” (or thematic) as previously found in Set Boosters
- Slot 7: Common or The List (now paired down from 300 cards to 40 cards and Special Guests). The List cards will fall one in every eight booster packs.
- Slot 8-10: Uncommons
- Slot 11: Rare/ Mythic Rare, with the latter falling one in seven packs
- Slot 12: Basic Land, foil 20% of the time
- Slot 13: Non-Foil Wild Card (often Booster Fun, could be rare/mythic)
- Slot 14: Foil Wild Card (often Booster Fun, could be rare/mythic)
- Slot 15: Ad/Token/Helper/Art Cards, with Art Cards appearing 30% of the time and gold facsimile signature art cards appearing 5% of the time.
Differences from Draft Boosters
This is a huge shift in the makeup of a draftable booster in four main ways: there is one less playable card, more rares and fewer commons, the inclusion of newer card styles, and the inclusion of cards that aren’t actually in the same set as the Play Booster that is being opened.
One Less Playable Card
Play Boosters will contain 14 playable cards (including the land/art card slot), which is down from 15 playable cards in Draft Boosters.
More Rares, Fewer Commons
Play Boosters will have the possibility of opening up to four (4!) rare or mythic cards in a single pack, while Draft Boosters typically had a maximum of two. Those four rares/mythics can be found in the seventh common slot, the standard rare/mythic slot, or in either of the two new “wildcard” slots.
To support the new slots, the Play Booster will have three fewer commons—six guaranteed and a seventh that has a 12.5% chance of being a card (common through mythic rarity) from The List or from Special Guests, instead—down from 10 in traditional Draft Boosters.
New Booster Fun Card Styles
Traditional Drafter Boosters have mostly gotten left out of the new Booster Fun variants, which were restricted to Set and Collector Boosters. The new Play Booster will have two “wildcard” slots—one foil and one non-foil—that have a high chance of containing a Booster Fun variant. These slots can contain cards of any rarity
Guaranteed Cards from Outside of the Set
The seventh common in a Play Booster will have a 12.5% chance of being a card from outside of the normal set. That 12.5% of Play Boosters could contain a common/uncommon/rare/mythic from The List (which is now down to 300 cards) or from Special Guests.
- 9.38%: A common or uncommon normal reprint from The List
- 1.56%: A rare or mythic rare normal reprint from The List
- 1.56%: A Special Guests card from The List
Differences with Set Boosters
Set Boosters are a relatively new concept, so the switch to Play Boosters likely won’t be felt as much. However, some changes will still impact your experience when opening packs.
No More Connected Commons and Uncommons
The biggest change will be the elimination of “connected” commons and uncommons. Those slots will now be randomized like a Draft Booster.
More Playable Cards
There will be two more playable cards in Play Boosters than there were in Set Boosters, which comes at the expense of one of the token/art cards. Set Boosters would always contain both an art card and a token—Play Boosters combine those two slots into one.
Fewer Wildcard Slots
Play Boosters will have one fewer non-foil “wildcard” slots compared to Set Boosters.