Wizards of the Coast has announced Mystery Booster Commander, a new Magic: The Gathering set that adapts the popular Mystery Booster format for the game's Commander multiplayer variant. The set was revealed at MagicCon Amsterdam and is set to debut at GenCon later this month.
Mystery Booster Commander builds upon the foundation of the original Mystery Booster sets, which featured a curated collection of older cards alongside unique "playtest cards" designed to push the boundaries of Magic's rules. This new iteration focuses specifically on Commander, offering a distinct deck-building experience for players of the format.
Each pack of Mystery Booster Commander will contain 20 cards, including legendary creature reprints and 59 new cards developed specifically for Commander gameplay. Wizards showcased two of these new cards at MagicCon Amsterdam. One, titled Joven and Chandler, is a legendary red creature inspired by the 1995 set Homelands. This card focuses on stealing and sacrificing artifacts and serves as a direct reference to two creatures from the original Homelands set.
The second card revealed introduces a new mechanic called "Rulebreaker." Tolabow, Loch Rascal is a legendary blue otter that generates additional otter tokens when players cast instant or sorcery spells. Crucially, if Tolabow is used as a player's commander, it grants the ability to choose one non-blue color and include instants and sorceries of that color in the deck. This feature allows for varied deck-building strategies, such as combining blue with red for spell-slinging, green for ramp, or white for control.
Mystery Booster Commander will feature a total of eight cards with Rulebreaker abilities, which were designed in collaboration with the Commander Format Panel. These cards are intended to offer novel deck-building possibilities not previously seen in Magic. The set is scheduled to launch at GenCon, beginning July 30.