General New Booster

Velrun

Velrun

Set Boosters are discontinued.
Draft Boosters are discontinued.

Instead is a new booster pack introduced. It is called

Play Booster

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/what-are-play-boosters

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Here is the breakdown

Slots #1–6: Commons
These are all common cards from the main set.

Slot #7: Common/The List Card
Most of the time (7 out of 8, or 87.5%), this slot will be a seventh common, but an eighth of the time (12.5%), you will get a card from The List.

Slot #8–10: Uncommon Cards
These dedicated uncommon slots are exactly as they were in the Set Booster. They will always be uncommons from the main set.

Slot #11: Rare/Mythic Rare
This slot appeared in both Set and Draft Boosters. This is your guaranteed rare or mythic rare from the main set.

Slot #12: Land
This slot will always hold a basic or common land from the main set.

Slot #13: Non-Foil Wildcard Slot
This card can be almost anything from the main set.

Slot #14: Traditional Foil Wildcard
This is just like the last slot except that the card is guaranteed to be traditional foil.

Slot #15: Non-Playable Slot
This slot can have a variety of possibilities. It can be a token, a play aide, an ad card, or an art card.




We are actually down to 12 playable cards for drafting I believe. Sometimes 13 if the land is a Guildgate or something like that. I could be wrong if The List card is playable in the draft. Is it? I think this is going to give some very March of the Machine styles of drafting to each set with all that variety.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Velrun said:
We are actually down to 12 playable cards for drafting I believe. Sometimes 13 if the land is a Guildgate or something like that. I could be wrong if The List card is playable in the draft. Is it? I think this is going to give some very March of the Machine styles of drafting to each set with all that variety.
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The list card is, in fact, playable in draft, as are the wildcards. That makes for 13 draftable cards, or 14 if a set puts a nonbasic land in the land slot. This is down 1 slot from the current 14-15 cards in draft boosters, but we're going from 10 commons to 6-9 commons (slot #7 contains a common 7/8 of the time, slots #13 and #14 can contain a common as well, though the ratio hasn't been disclosed).
 
Seeker

Seeker

Little more info: The new The List is 40 cards, down from the previously 300 or so. 10 of them are rare/mythic and the rest are common/uncommon. Arena draft boosters will be identical, including the new The List, and yes, they will be Limited playable. Think of it as a very small bonus sheet.
 
ravnic

ravnic

That could be cool actually, randomly coming across some old reprint in it's original look in a draft from time to time sounds fun.

Otherwise, eh. I dont like increased chances to run into mythics and bombs.
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

Totally get why (article coming soon) but I'm sad that we're forced to get foils and random bonus rares in our drafts. They say they're designing with it in mind, and I did love MOM draft a lot, so maybe I'm being alarmist, but I do think this negatively impacts the integrity of retail drafts as a more "pure" environment going forward.

Here's the key thing for us from Mark's Tumblr:
We have spent a lot of time figuring out how to change how we make sets to adapt to play boosters. For example, here’s a big change. Draft boosters had 101 commons and 80 uncommons. Play boosters will have 81 commons and 100 uncommons. We’re shifting twenty cards from common to uncommon to better adapt to how play boosters are put together.
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Neat. I'd rather have more uncommons designed from a "finding interesting Cube cards" POV.
 
Humpty_Dumpty

Humpty_Dumpty

Anyone else planning on incorporating this design into their cube draft? Slots 1-6 from the “Core” cube; slots 7-8 from a secondary cube which will rotate each draft to promote varied archetypal support; slot 9 from an “occasionals” set of build around cards; slot 10-11 are lands; slot 12 is a pet card which has been massively outclassed but is altered by the original artist,so you don’t want to get rid of it; slot 13 is a card brought by the drafter from their own collection; slot π is a circular card taken from the game Dobble; slot 14 is covered in jam; and slot 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Cards in any slot may contain booster fun, but have an equal likelihood of containing booster misery.
 
Zoss

Zoss

Didn't know that today's B&R was going to include draft boosters, SMH my head. Collectors' boosters are far more meta-defining and are the real culprit in declining game health if you ask me.

/uj I'm a big fan of occasionals and this is actually a fairly quick adoption of those by WotC's standards. The branding/optics are ass, as usually, but I'm overall cautiously optimistic about what this means for drafting a retail set going forwards. I'm also not hating losing a card in boosters as the last ~5 years or so have really seen a reduction in 15th pick feelsbads, and we could do with a little more scarcity in our drafts.
 
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Velrun

Velrun

I also like March of the Machine for all the things they implement here. And also the only set with battles so far.

I think it is going to switch things up. I also think it is sadly because they want to sell packs more expensive that they are doing this. And finally I believe they will change booster packs again in less than five years.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Phone said:
I was pretty on the fence about this, until I read that they will be more expensive AND the cheaper version of packs are no longer available. Feels like another thing that's getting more expensive for no reason.
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Yep. Justification is up to four rare cards and guarenteed foil.
 
P

Phone

Velrun said:
Yep. Justification is up to four rare cards and guarenteed foil.
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But is there a way to calculate/estimate the chance of getting 4 rares? I've pulled packs before that were double Rare/Foil Rare before and went -ev on it because they were bulk rares.... It feels like this is hugely ev negative (which feels obvious given the addition of rares would need to add $2 on average to each pack?).
 
Velrun

Velrun

Phone said:
But is there a way to calculate/estimate the chance of getting 4 rares? I've pulled packs before that were double Rare/Foil Rare before and went -ev on it because they were bulk rares.... It feels like this is hugely ev negative (which feels obvious given the addition of rares would need to add $2 on average to each pack?).
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Probably but I don’t know the math.

My best bet is that it varies from set to set like most other things.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Phone said:
But is there a way to calculate/estimate the chance of getting 4 rares? I've pulled packs before that were double Rare/Foil Rare before and went -ev on it because they were bulk rares.... It feels like this is hugely ev negative (which feels obvious given the addition of rares would need to add $2 on average to each pack?).
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No there isn't, because they didn't disclose the probability of opening a rare/mythic in either of the wildcard slots. The EV per spent dollar should roughly remain similar though.
 
ravnic

ravnic

See, I wouldn't mind the changes that much if more rares were interesting buildarounds, fair but beatable stuff or even unplayables, but many sets these days are already difficult to enjoy because so many rares and mythics are just stupid.
 
P

Phone

Onderzeeboot said:
No there isn't, because they didn't disclose the probability of opening a rare/mythic in either of the wildcard slots. The EV per spent dollar should roughly remain similar though.
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I feel like that's the optimistic assumption but the lack of transparency gives me pause for sure.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Phone said:
I feel like that's the optimistic assumption but the lack of transparency gives me pause for sure.
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I mean, they are very transparent about the differences between the three types of boosters (draft, set, and play). We know that the EV per dollar spent of draft and set boosters are roughly similar, and we also know the play and draft boosters will be roughly similar, and that the difference between both boosters isn't in the money cards.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/set-boosters-2020-07-25
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/what-are-play-boosters

Ignoring the art and token/ad cards, a set booster contains 1 land card (15% foil), (on average) 3.9 commons and 2.1 uncommons, 1 headturner (most often a common/uncommon using the set's showcase frame, let's assume 0.8/0.2 split), 2 wildcard rarity slots (on average 1.4 commons, 0.35 uncommons, and 0.25 rares), 1 R/M slot (on average 0.865 rares and 0.135 mythic rares), 1 guaranteed foil (rarity distribution not disclosed, but let's assume the same average as the wildcard slot).

So, on average you get 6.8 commons, 2.825 uncs, 1.24 rares, and 0.135 mythic rares, for a total of 11 cards.

A play booster contains on average 1 land card (20% foil), 6.875 commons, 0.125 The List cards (divided in 0.0938 commons/uncommon the list cards (let's assume an 80/20 split again), and 0.0312 rares/mythic rares/Special Guest cards (let's count these as rares), 3 uncommons, 0.857 rares, 0.143 mythic rares, 2 wildcard slots, one of which is a guaranteed foil (assuming the same rarity distribution as in set boosters this will add on average 1.4 commons, 0.35 uncommons, and 0.25 rares).

So, on average you get 8.35 commons, 3.37 uncommons, 1.138 rares, and 0.143 mythic rares, for a total of 13 cards.

So you get slightly less rares, but slightly more mythics, which more or less evens out. The main thing is a play boosters contains more commons and uncommons than a set booster, which shouldn't do too much for the EV (though very good uncommons do sometimes impact EV and you've got an extra half uncommon).
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

I think this is a pretty cool change. Basically since set boosters were released, I always preferred prereleases at my LGS to any other type of event because the prizes were set boosters instead of draft boosters. Set boosters are better than draft boosters in basically every way except for the fact that they aren't draft able since their common and uncommon slot consist of all related cards.

I think the main effect that this is going to have is making more "normal" formats feel like Masters Sets or sets with bonus sheet/guaranteed slots. This is a genuinely good change, since most of the great limited sets of the past 15 years have fallen into this category. Fewer commons and more uncommons will allow for more variety in decks while still allowing for a consistent core of cards. This is also a good change for Cube designers, since uncommons have had a tendency to compose the majority of glue cards that archetypes rely on. Additionally, the chance for bonus rares increases the amount of high-rarity cards players will be able to enjoy throughout a draft format, especially if they aren't arena grinding.

In general, I would expect this change to be positive for the game. I am guessing the first couple limited sets under this paradigm might feel a little weird (I am 100% expecting WOTC to need some sort of adjustment period), but I am optimistic that this will have a positive impact on limited in the long term.
 
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