Magic: The Gathering Is Adding God Packs And Removing What My Editor Calls ‘Junk’ Foils From Boosters

Magic: The Gathering is making a number of major, major changes to its various booster packs in 2027.

In a blog post today, comms director Blake Rasmussen outlined what sounds like a pretty significant booster overhaul that will begin with Nauctis: The Sunken Realm next year. The biggest change is the addition of “God Packs” to every MTG multiverse set, with one in every 1,000 booster packs and one in every 300 collector boosters being a God Pack.

Okay first, let’s define some terms for those unfamiliar. A Booster Pack (formerly known as a Play Booster) in MTG is your generic pack that you might buy at the store. It contains a total of 14 actual, playable cards, and (as things currently stand) is guaranteed to have at least one foil card, and one rare or mythic rare. These packs are intended for people who want to just play MTG, and are used in events such as drafts.

Collector Boosters are more expensive packs of 14 cards, but are guaranteed to have five or more rares or mythic rares, and a bunch of foil cards. These are intended for, well, collectors. Folks who care more about building collections and getting rare cards and want to raise their chances of finding the cards they’re looking for.

Now, a God Pack is something that originated in the Pokémon TCG, and refers to a pack where literally everything in it is rare or better. The Pokémon TCG introduced these in 2019, and while they’re still mega rare to find, you tend to see them a lot nowadays because people who do open one love to make a big deal about it on social media. That, combined with the Pokémon TCG boom among collectors and influencers, means there’s a lot of chatter about getting God Packs. And the chance of finding one is just one of many enticements that have led to the Pokémon TCG devolving into absolute financial insanity that prices out and pushes out literal children.

So of course MTG is now on this train too, and initial reactions (this news only hit a couple of hours ago) are concerned about the impact it might have on the game. Right now, it’s actually pretty easy to just…start playing Magic, if you want to. Packs are readily available at a normal price without having to join a lottery or sell your soul. While I suspect a lot would have to change to bring Magic to the space Pokémon is currently in, this move does feel a little uncomfy in light of the state of its rival game.

Other folks have also argued that this move has the vibes of a money grab, and makes a strategic card game feel even more like gambling than it already did at a time when it feels like everything is turning into gambling:

As for what this looks like in draft, Wizards of the Coast has thought of this. I neither wish to play against someone with a God Pack in a draft, nor do I want to pull one myself, as I need to build a deck here and most decks need a good spread of commons and uncommons to work. Fortunately, at least at official tournament events, no one will have to. As Polygon reports, this is being solved with special rules that ultimately result in the person who pulled the God Pack getting another pack on the house (local shops will use their own discretion, it seems).

God Packs aren’t the only change. Starting next year, no more foil commons and uncommons in Booster Packs. Also, Collector Boosters will see two commons and one uncommon removed from the foil slots, and they won’t be replaced. So you’ll now be getting three fewer cards in each Collector Booster.

Why? Uh…seemingly because of content creators:

How does removing cards make opening Collector Boosters more exciting? We’ll be honest here—it doesn’t. But we do know that most people who open Collector Boosters mostly skip past these cards. Not everyone, but enough of a majority. You can see it in virtually any Collector Booster opening video, where the video practically skips over that section of the booster. Removing them isn’t about shrinking the experience; it’s about making room—in terms of both printing capacity and player psychology—for cards people actually get excited about.

As a pretty casual player, not a collector, of MTG, most of this doesn’t feel great to me! There are some other changes that are actually nice: special Japan Showcase cards are no longer exclusive to Collector Boosters, and rates of finding foil rares and mythics in booster packs will increase. And I do like opening a pack and finding something shiny inside. But losing the foil commons and uncommons is disappointing! Even though my editor referred to these as “junk” foils when we were discussing a headline for this piece, I get excited when I see one, and always try to put foil versions in my decks when I can.

And I’m just wary of anything at all going the way of the absolute mess that is the Pokémon TCG right now, especially if the purpose is seemingly to make content creators opening packs on stream look and feel good and not because the change actually makes the game better in some way. I’m open to the idea that these changes are a non-issue or even a good thing, but we won’t really know the impacts until several months into next year as they all shake out. Better this than packs getting more expensive, I guess.

Wizards of the Coast is soliciting feedback in its official Discord, for those who feel strongly about any of this.