Magic Booster Battle Packs Through the Years

Last night I played some Friday Night Magic - not the kind where you go to a game store and draft with a bunch of strangers, but rather just three old friends gathering around the coffee table for some casual formats. In honor of the impending return of Nicol Bolas to the Standard environment in Hour of Devastation next month (and because we're all sick of each other's Commander decks - our own included), I decided to break out some vintage Two Player Booster Battle Packs from way back in Magic 2013. Not only was this the last tournament legal set to feature a Nicol Bolas planeswalker card, but it was also accompanied by a markedly superior Booster Battle Pack experience than its more recent counterparts - at least in my opinion.

The idea behind a Booster Battle Pack is simple: each player receives a pre-constructed deck and a 15-card booster pack, from which they can pick a up to five (5) cards to add to their deck. In the days of Magic 2013, the base decks were two colors and consisted of 20 cards each, all from the M13 Core Set. This basic format continued through Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and Magic 2014 (with decks from the former two sets being Guild-specific) before the product was replaced with the Duel Decks-esque Clash Packs for Magic 2015. I was a little disappointed with this change, not least because these customizable mini-decks were the only way I could get my wife somewhat interested in playing Magic with me.

Then, a little over three years after the last Booster Battle Packs were released, I was surprised to find that they had returned for Shadows over Innistrad last year! I picked up a couple of these for nostalgia's sake, and was equally surprised to see some pretty big changes. First of all, the two-color 20-card decks were replaced by mono-color 30-card decks, which means that you get a larger base selection in exchange of roughly half the available options of cards to add to the deck from the booster pack... which kind of cheapens the appeal of a BOOSTER battle pack, don't you think?

The other biggest change from previous BBP's was that the cards in the deck were not just from the set featured on the box. In addition to some cards from Shadows over Innistrad, the deck also included cards from both sets in the previous block (Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch), but also some new reprints from the "Welcome Deck 2016" mini-set. These consist of one rare, one uncommon, and one common per color (with an extra common for Black), which immediately put the thought in my head that I had to collect them all, which I'm sure was the Wizards of the Coast product designers' intentions.

I never achieved that goal: I never got a red deck, despite purchasing no fewer than five of the new BBP's before they changed over to the Kaladesh branding. I even picked up a couple of the Kaladesh packs, only to find that the decks inside disappointingly stayed the same - only the booster pack was updated. What's more, I didn't even get any cool accessories for my troubles: in the old format, each player's materials came packed in a classy cardboard mini-deck box. These included both the pre-constructed deck and a booster pack, leaving no doubt as to which booster pack belonged to which player. Conversely, the new battle packs just throw the decks and two boosters in with some flimsy packaging, leaving you with no way to store your new cards after you're done playing with them. It might not seem like much, but going the extra mile in terms of presentation can have a big impact on how much players enjoy the overall experience.

As for the actual games we played last night, since there were three of us, we had to open up two battle packs and leave one of the decks on the sidelines. Fortunately, the unplayed deck happened to be a repeat of one of the decks we had in the three-for-all game: a red/black deck with some lesser dragons and enhanced with a Mark of Mutiny from the booster pack, which made Bloodthrone Vampire that much better. My other opponent had the same blue/white deck that my wife had all those years ago (fliers with a milling subtheme), although she was lucky enough to pull an Odric, Master Tactician, whereas my opponent last night had to make due with a Odric's lowly Crusader. The W/U deck won the first game, thanks to a well-timed counterspell, while I took the second game with a green/black deck that had a somewhat conflicting strategy of green critical mass of creatures and black exalted.

Even though nobody pulled a Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (or any planeswalker for that matter), it was still a quick and unique gaming experience that I would wholeheartedly recommend over the likes of the booster battle packs that are out now. But who knows: considering that Wizards is going back to printing Core Sets just two years after removing them from the lineup, maybe they'll go back to the superior battle pack format as well.