With ‘Nauctis: The Sunken Realm’; Also, Booster Changes and Possible Ramifications
Wizards of the Coast revealed that Booster God Packs will be returning to Magic: The Gathering sets with the release of Nauctis: The Sunken Realm in 2027.
WotC will be overhauling both their Play and Collector Boosters in 2027, starting with the first set of the year (see “Sets for 2027“). Nauctis: The Sunken Realm booster boxes will feature God Packs, a rare pack of Magic cards that contains a God celebration card, 10 non-foil rares and/or mythics, 2 non-foil Booster Fun rares and/or mythics, and 2 traditional foil Booster Fun rares and/or mythics. These packs occur in one out of every 1,000 booster packs; WotC has officially done away with the Play Booster SKU, and they are just booster packs again.
Collector Boosters displays will have their own God Packs that occur in one of every 300 packs. The Collector Booster God Packs contain the following: a God Pack celebration card, a foil land, 3 foil default frame rare and/or mythic rare cards, 3 non-foil Booster Fun rare and/or mythic rare cards, and 5 foil Booster Fun rare and/or mythic rare cards.
WotC first dabbled with inserting God Packs into booster displays in Journey into Nyx as part of the set’s theme; the Nyx God Packs contained the actual God mythic rares from Theros block sets (see “The PR of the Gods“). WotC also announced that they are removing foils from packs. Boosters will no longer come with a guaranteed foil in every pack, and Collector Boosters will have two fewer common foils and one fewer uncommon foil in each pack.
As an observation, it is now clear that the SKU journey that started in 2020 with the creation of Set Boosters and Draft Boosters to replace regular booster packs (see “Yet Another Pack Format from WotC“), which continued with the consolidation of those two SKUs into Play Boosters in 2024 (see “Consolidate SKUs Further“), has come full circle with the return of the standard booster pack. The lesson learned out of that whole six-year experience was essentially “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The booster changes also potentially have greater appeal to collectors who enjoy pack opening content on live streams. An influencer opening a God Pack is far more exciting than an influencer opening a chase mythic or headliner on a live stream, which will likely lead to more views. Additionally, Whatnot and eBay streamers that do live box breaks must be absolutely overjoyed with the announcement of God Packs and the elimination of junk foils; they make pack slots easier to sell with the potential of one of the packs having a ton of great value in it.
Source: ICv2
