WotC Shrinks Booster Boxes From 36 to 30 Packs Per Box

Last updated on December 2, 2024

Mass Diminish | Illustration by E. M. Gist

Starting with Aetherdrift, Play Booster Boxes will only contain 30 Play Boosters packs, rather than the typical 36 packs per box.

The news first broke when online retailers posted Aetherdrift preorder pages early.

The change has also been confirmed by one of WotC's official accounts on Reddit, and by Magic's Head Designer Mark Rosewater on his blog. Both sources highlighted that the price per pack will remain the same, with the price of 30-pack boxes adjusted accordingly.

“The booster box with 30 boosters will cost less than the booster box with 36 boosters,” Rosewater wrote. “6 packs less.”

Source: Blackfire

Source: webhallen

This Defeats the Purpose of Set Boosters

The change was first discovered by Redditor u/AcrobaticPersonality on their thread: “Aetherdrift boxes back to 30 play boosters per box.”

“Several distributors have it listed at 30 packs per box rather than the current 36,” u/AcrobaticPersonality noted. “The good news is it's [the] same price per pack, so the boxes will be slightly cheaper.”

This good news didn’t offset a large wave of negative responses, many of which came from Draft fans. 36 is the perfect number of packs for an 8-person draft plus prize support (24 packs for the draft plus 8 packs as a prize, awarded one per win). 36 also makes it easier to run other Sealed formats (like 6-person Sealed, which requires exactly 36 packs).

This defeats the purpose of set boosters. Those are the boosters meant to help build a collection, which somebody who would buy a full booster box would want to do. Play boosters, on the other hand, are deliberately made for playing limited. This change is based on player feedback, but those players aren't the intended audience for this product.

As noted, WotC has not yet officially announced this change on their website, but one of WotC's Reddit accounts confirmed that the change will take place.

“This change in the number of Play boosters per “display” (what most people call a “box”) is happening starting with Aetherdrift but will be true of other set releases going forward,” posted the u/WOTC_CommunityTeam account in a reply. “One of the most consistent pieces of feedback from stores was that they preferred 30-count displays to 36-count displays. We heard this pretty much immediately with the release of MKM, and this was the soonest we could implement the change.”

WotC's account also clarified that the individual pack MSRP isn't changing, and that 30-pack boxes will have a proportionally lower price than 36-pack boxes.

Several Redditors asked for more details – above all about the specific feedback that WotC claims to have received from stores and players – but the u/WOTC_CommunityTeam account hasn't posted since then.

Returning to Set Prices

Ghost Council of Orzhova | Illustration by Greg Staples

Mark Rosewater, on the other hand, has provided quite a bit of detail about the change and the reason.

“The feedback was players liked the set booster box price, so as of Aetherdraft, we are moving to that configuration,” Rosewater wrote on his blog. “Again, this is the same price and quantity that set booster boxes were since their introduction.”

The Set Boosters Rosewater was referring to were phased-out alongside  Draft Boosters and merged into the current Play Boosters starting with the release of Murders at Karlov Manor. Since their introduction, Set boosters performed much better than Draft boosters and were putting the latter on the path of extinction. In October 2023, WotC announced they would combine Set and Draft boosters into a single product: a draftable pack (like Draft boosters), but with a similar number of rares, mythics, and collectibles as Set boosters.

Notably, Play boosters were priced the same as a Set booster, but came in 36-pack boxes (like Draft boosters did) rather than 30-pack boxes.

“That made the cost of the booster box go up,” Rosewater explained on his blog last week, “making it higher than either set booster boxes or draft booster boxes had been. Yes, you were getting more for the higher price, but it was still an overall higher price than previous booster boxes.”

According to Rosewater, the majority of the feedback from players is that they preferred the 30-pack prices.

“Data showed that players preferred the price point of the thirty booster pack box,” Rosewater reiterated in a later post. “The same [price] that it was with set boosters.”

More Details Next Week

Generous Pup | Illustration by Julia Metzger

Both Reddit and Rosewater's blog are full of comments decrying this change, above all about how it affects Limited play.

Mark Rosewater has reiterated that this was pretty much the only way to keep draftable boosters alive, although he acknowledges that it has made things more expensive.

On their Reddit account, WotC has said that they'll have more news week after Pioneer Masters releases.

“We'll have some more information and details to share about this on December 10th when we talk about Aetherdrift,” posted u/WOTC_CommunityTeam.