Kaalia of the VastKaalia of the Vast | Illustrated by Michael Komarck

For the past decade and a half, Wizards of the Coast has taken a lot of time and effort to provide Magic players with preconstructed Commander deck products. Since 2011, with one year of lapse in 2012 to take in necessary market research, Wizards consistently provided top-quality decks for us. However, according to Magic's Head Designer, Mark Rosewater, that era is largely over.

According to Mark Rosewater, wide-release standalone Commander precon products are a thing of the past. He made this statement on his Tumblr blog, the respected and renowned "Blogatog", on Wednesday, October 8th:

In a nutshell, this pithy statement answers a succinct question with the same level of brevity. This answer also implies the end of decks in the same vein as the Commander products from 2011 through 2019.

Regarding Mark Rosewater's Statement on Blogatog, and Past Signs

Wizards of the Coast has had issues with coming up with certain deck types in the past for this product. In 2017, they announced a shift away from the "color cycle" model as well as the five-deck model when creating these precons. Commander 2017 was the first product to use a four-deck model and no specific color pairings, instead moving towards four thematic creature types.

Since then, Wizards of the Coast has given us the five-deck model back in sparing increments. However, beyond the Starter Commander precons, Wizards hasn't returned to a color cycle model in a standalone product. Furthermore, since Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, Wizards has mostly pushed for set-driven Commander products.

However, regarding the general state of Commander, it seems not all hope is lost. Mark Rosewater made this statement, but it still misses a few crucial things, and potentially for the better. Set-driven precons, such as those for Edge of Eternities or Lorwyn Eclipsed, are still on the docket. Additionally, we don't know if Secret Lair or its Chaos Vault will or won't release the one-off Commander deck in the future. So, you can rest fairly easily knowing that the new paradigm of decks we've gotten since 2020 seems to be here to stay.

And now, let's hear from you, dear readers. How do you feel hearing that Wizards of the Coast isn't focusing on standalone preconstructed Commander deck products? Do you believe that this is something that could change in the near future? Is this a sign of the end times for Commander? (For obvious reasons, that last question was posed in jest.) Whatever you may believe, feel free to sound off in the comments below!