Last updated on May 22, 2026
Arclight Phoenix | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak
WotC occasionally releases new MTG products designed for players who donโt have a big enough collection to build their own decks. They usually come in the form of Intro and Challenger decks, and 2024 saw the release of the Foundations Starter Collection.
Challenger decks seems to be on hold for the time being, but there are still plenty on the market from earlier years that hold up for their respective formats.
What Is a Challenger Deck?
Florian, Voldaren Scion | Illustration by Justine Cruz
A Challenger Deck is a preconstructed 60-card deck with a 15-card sideboard filled with heavily-played cards in a specific format. The objective of these precons is to be competitive right out of the box in a given format, to at least challenge your friends and hold their own at the FNM level.
Adjusting to the meta and competing at the highest level is an entirely different task. Another good resource from these decks is that certain competitive staples get reprinted, so these decks have more valuable cards including high rarity ones alongside pricey uncommons. These cards can be played in multiple formats, mostly Pioneer, and almost always in Modern and EDH. These are not your Standard intro decks!
But which of these Challenger decks stand as the best among them? Are they even worth your consideration? Let's go in.
Best Overall
The best pick overall goes to the Izzet Phoenix Pioneer deck. It features a phoenix doing the phoenix rebirth thing, provides the most value, a deck thatโs competitive out of the box, and continues to be a top-tier pick in present-day Pioneer.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Izzet Phoenix (Blue-Red)โcast a whole lotta spells and fly in with spell-loving creatures
Best for New Players
Iโd say that stompy decks are usually the best builds for newbies. Pioneer has evolved a lot over the last couple of years, but if you're trying to learn a basic strategy and improve from there, I suggest you go for Pioneer's Gruul Stompy deck for this category.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Pioneer Gruul Stompy (Red-Green)โaccelerate your mana early and crush with giant threats
Best Budget Deck
Mono Red Aggro challenger deck features one of my favorite aggro effects in which your creatures can die, but produce new creature tokens. Anax, Hardened in the Forge makes removal and board wipes much less effective against you and puts a ton of pressure on blockers. Then with a few burn spells and falter effects, your race to 20 damage is quick with what some claim is the best equipment ever: Embercleave.
- 60-card battle-ready MTG deck + 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens, 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Burn everything that moves. Overwhelm with an army.
- Competitive and playable right out of the box
Best Competitive Deck
The Izzet Phoenix Pioneer deck is very interesting because itโs very hard to see Arclight Phoenix builds going anywhere. The card has taken the competitive scene by storm in almost all formats, and this style of deck is usually very linear with the best cantrips/cheap spells in Izzet () colors.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Izzet Phoenix (Blue-Red)โcast a whole lotta spells and fly in with spell-loving creatures
Best Choice if Cost Is No Issue
The 2022 Dimir Control Challenger deck may have fully rotated out of Standard and there isn't crazy great value to be had in the singles, but this deck does a great job controlling the board and dominating the late game. Hullbreaker Horror may need just a Crippling Fear and flexible spot removal to become the biggest threat on the table. Of course a stalled board is also good for Hall of Storm Giants to take over and give you the win.
- 60-card battle-ready MTG Challenger Deck (Blue-Black)
- 15-card sideboard
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Powerful, competitive, and playable right out of the box
- Dimir Controlโcontrol the field with removal, then finish the job with a single card
Best Value
Once again I reward the Izzet Phoenix Pioneer deck this title based on the card value alone. It has the best card value in a Pioneer Challenge deck.
Getting into Pioneer is much more viable long-term because you can keep a competitive deck around for a long time. Meanwhile if you buy a deck to play Standard, six months later it probably can't compete anymore, either because itโs not good anymore or most of the cards have rotated out of Standard.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Izzet Phoenix (Blue-Red)โcast a whole lotta spells and fly in with spell-loving creatures
Best Bundle
Though the Challenger Decks from 2022 are great, the best bundle award goes to the Pioneer Challenger 2021 deck bundle. It has four solid archetypes that are strong for Pioneer with a few upgrades.
These four decks play to controlling and aggressive players alike. Non-rotating formats still have high regard for cards like Shatter the Sky, Scavenging Ooze, and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell.
Even if you just needed pull one of these cards for your Commander deck, this bundle is great since you get two copies of each deck and can keep one as an untouched precon.
- Package Dimensions: 9.449" (L) x 6.811" (W) x 4.764" (H)
- Product Type: Collectible Card
- Package Quantity: 1
- Country Of Origin: United States
Wrap Up
Final Payment | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez
Pioneer and Standard have an advantage over other competitive formats, and thatโs card availability (with lower prices).
The fact that you can sell a competitive product in a deck box is amazing, and although these aren't perfect builds they can put a player at FNM level out of the box. The Pioneer Izzet Phoenix deck is almost tournament ready with a few upgrades here and there (you'll need at least two more copies of the namesake card).
What do you think about these precons? Do you want Wizards to make new Challenger decks? Let me know in the comments or find us on Twitter and letโs take the discussion there.
Thank you for reading folks, and get ready for the next one!
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