Pre-Constructed Decks post-Dominaria
There have been many (valid) complaints about the economy on this subreddit but I'm surprised to see no one talking about the precons. As far as I can tell, they were not updated at all with the new Dominaria set (please correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't notice any changes...). Going through my collection, I basically have no Dominaria cards since I've only opened the 3 packs we were given and I'm saving my gold for draft.
This got me thinking about the fundamental concept of precons and the impact set rotations have on them. While I think the idea of giving all new players preconstructed decks is very good in theory, I'm not sure how it works out in reality when sets are constantly entering and leaving. Does WotC constantly make new precons every set? Does a new player get all of the precons (and by extension the cards in those precons) from previous expansions? I'm very surprised to see that this issue hasn't really been brought up since the precons are a fundamental part of the new player experience. Additionally they were a good way to get a good base of cards for a set.
What is everyone's thoughts? Is there some aspect about this that I'm missing?
tl;dr I'm mad I have no Dominaria cards
Posted Apr 27, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC
It's rare that a new deck comes out during a set release that has cards that are primarily from the new set. Most of the time the cards in popular decks are composed of tried and tested cards in older sets. So I don't see anything wrong with the precons at the moment. Hell, I'm having a blast with a barely updated UW Approach deck on Quick Constructed and am averaging 5 wins. lol
I get that, but for example what happens when they add Kaladesh? Do they replace all of the precons?
Basically what I'm getting at is I don't think they precons are a very good long-term solutions to the "what cards do new players start with" problem.
They're fine for letting new players learn the mechanics. Then new players will start brewing with what they have. They'l probably switch em around depending on rotations.
UW Approach with Giddeon of Trials is still in a really good place post dominaria with very few new cards. I don't play the deck personally, but it's a deck I've been really struggling with if I can't play strong cards turn 1-3 and the UW deck gets proper draws.