Wizards of the Coast offered up more details on the usage of Lorwyn Eclipsed: Draft Night boxes, which are slated to come out in January 2026.
WotC is making an attempt to boost limited formats and get players back into drafting in FLGS. The main driver of this effort to breathe life into the Draft format is the Lorwyn Eclipsed Draft Night box (see “‘Lorwyn Eclipsed’ Hits Preorder“), which comes with 12 Play Boosters, a Collector Booster, 90 basic land cards, and 10 double-sided tokens. This product is specifically designed for the Pick-Two Draft format, which is a four-person draft format that WotC has been pushing as their new limited format of choice because the tournaments for this format play fast and players can conceivably do multiple drafts in a night (it also has crossover appeal for Commander players).
“We wanted a product that would fill a great product space,” said Magic Executive Producer Mike Turian, “(It is) bigger than a Bundle but smaller than a full Play Booster display; something you can just grab, take home, and play right away. We envisioned scenarios like four players chipping in together, and they get to have a great night with a Collector Booster for the winner at the end, if that’s how they want to use it. Like a mini-Magic event in a box.”
Running Draft events has been a real struggle recently for retailers. The Draft format is a major part of the Pro Tour and should be on players’ priority list of Magic formats to practice IRL. But for several years now, Draft has taken a backseat to Commander, Standard, and other constructed formats at FLGS. Draft was a popular format at FLGS roughly a decade ago, but it began to decline in popularity in the post-pandemic era.
The reasons for the decline in popularity at FLGS essentially boil down to changes in product configuration (which made running a draft more difficult), product price increases over the last few years (making it more expensive to draft), and the advent of MTG Arena (allowing players to draft at home on demand). Even more recently, Magic’s overwhelming popularity has caused a shortage of Play Booster boxes to draft with as certain sets tend to sell out quickly and not be available for reorder immediately. At very least, the Lorwyn Eclipsed Draft Night product should help solve the “lack of Play Boosters to draft with” issue by offering players a self-contained draft-in-a-box.
For more information on 2026 Magic: The Gathering releases, click here to check out ICv2’s release calendar.
Source: ICv2
