Magic: The Gathering Announces 2022 Challenger Decks

Wizards of the Coast has announced 2022's Magic: The Gathering Challenger Decks. Wizards of the Coast releases new pre-constructed Challenger Decks inspired by archetypes popular in the current Standard metagame annually to offer new and lapsed players an easy way to get into the existing competitive Magic: The Gathering scene. The decks are playable out of the box and upgradeable. Gruul Stompy, Rakdos Vampires, Mono-White Aggro, and Dimir Control are this year's deck archetypes. Each deck includes 75 cards -- 60 in the main deck and a 15-card sideboard  -- and a deck box that holds all 75 cards in sleeves.

The Mono-White Aggro deck art features Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, suggesting the deck includes the standard staple card. The Dimir Control deck art shows Iymrith, Desert Doom. The Gruul Stompy deck will likely feature lots of werewolf cards from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, while the Rakdos Vampires deck will likely draw from the many vampire cards introduced in Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Wizards of the Coast will release the decks on April 1st.

Magic: The Gathering is preparing to release previews for its next set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. The expansion is the first in Magic: The Gathering history that fully embraces sci-fi concepts and tropes, leaning into a cyberpunk aesthetic. As such, Wizards of the Coast announced plans to implement an augmented reality experience around the set's release. Wizards of the Coast is also teaming with Beadle & Grimm's for the first-ever platinum and silver editions of a Magic: The Gathering expansion set.

Magic: The Gathering is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2023. That's evident in some of its upcoming sets after Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. Later this year, Magic: The Gathering will release Dominaria United, a new expansion returning to Magic: The Gathering's original setting. After that, Magic: The Gathering will revisit the conflict that informed the storylines and mythology of Magic: The Gathering's earliest releases in a new set called The Brother's War.

While Magic: The Gathering is honoring its past, it's also pushing into the future. Capitalizing on the popularity of Magic's digital counterpart, Magic: The Gathering Arena, Wizards of the Coast recently introduced the Arena-only Alchemy format. This format allows Wizards of the Coast to tweak card balance on the fly and introduce new card mechanics that only work in a digital play setting.

What do you think of the 2022 Magic: The Gathering challenger decks? Let us know in the comments.