MTG Designer Reveals Why Reality Fracture Didn’t Get Any Additional Commander Decks

Magic: The Gathering designer Gavin Verhey has explained why Wizards of the Coast didn’t release multiple Commander decks for its new Reality Fracture set. Since launching earlier this month, Reality Fracture has been quite popular amongst MTG fans. However, one of the main criticisms aimed at the set has been that Wizards of the Coast only released one precon deck for Reality Fracture instead of a typical lineup that gives players a handful of decks to choose from. Now, Verhey has explained the reasoning behind this move.

Speaking to IGN, Verhey said that the team working on MTG occasionally runs into multiple issues when it comes to releasing Commander decks. More often than not, Verhey explained that one precon deck ends up being the most popular or powerful of the bunch, which leads to other decks sitting on store shelves for an extended period of time. As a way of avoiding this, the dev team simply decided to make the “Multiverse Reforged” Commander deck more unique than normal to help offset this.

“We tend to run into problems when we release two Commander decks, and one is vastly more exciting than the other,” Verhey said. “For example, stores end up with one on shelves while the other evaporates immediately. So we did talk about this, but it was harder to imagine [a deck] much cooler than the Jace Echoverse deck. So, instead, we decided we’d make one deck and give it some extra resources like new cards and a splashy theme with a four-color identity.”

Speaking more to his own thoughts on the Multiverse Reforged deck, Verhey said that he thinks it’s one of the most powerful precons that Wizards of the Coast has ever made for MTG. As such, he’s quite happy with how it turned out and has been pleased by the reception to it so far. Even if some fans may have desired more Commander Deck options with Reality Fracture, it’s easy to see how Wizards of the Coast ended up making this decision. In the future, there will surely end up being more precon options with upcoming sets, which makes clear that this isn’t something that should become the norm.

As for what’s next with Magic, WotC is gearing up to release its much-anticipated Star Trek set next month as part of the Universes Beyond series. The Star Trek MTG set is expected to become available on November 13th, with pre-release events for the set taking place the week prior to its launch.

Magic: The Gathering Star Trek – Full Pricing and Release Details