Five Best Magic Sets for New Commander Players in 2025

So, you want to play Magic: the Gathering? You want to play Commander? Well, you have good taste — it’s an enduringly popular way to play. Commander is the format that lets you unleash your creativity, play with your favorites, and enjoy a relaxed and casual group experience, whether with friends or across the table at your Local Games Store. 

With Final Fantasy and Marvel: Spiderman both on the horizon, and plethora of other cool tie-ins – from Warhammer 40,000 to Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, there’s never been a better time to get stuck in. And that’s not to mention Magic’s rich universe, with warring factions, deep lore, and mysteries aplenty. 

So, what’s a beginner’s best choice? How do you go about getting into Commander? Well, here are five booster products we think are the best options for beginners. They’re a great place to start for learning to play and expanding a collection.

HONORABLE MENTION: FOUNDATIONS STARTER PACK

First up, an honorable mention. If you’re just getting started with Magic, or you’re about to get a friend into it, then the Foundations Starter Collection is an ideal place to start. It’s specifically designed for new players. 

Foundations Starter Collection contains:

• 350+ Magic: The Gathering cards total (which you can view a list of here)
• 3 Magic: The Gathering Foundations Play Boosters
• 2 Reference Cards
• Includes 22 Foil Cards
• 13 Tokens
• 95 Basic Lands, including 10 full art lands
• 1 How to Build Your Deck Booklet
• 1 Click Wheel

Those Click Wheels are great for tracking your life total, by the way. Way easier than using dice… trust me.

Just because it’s a new-player product doesn’t mean it doesn’t pack a punch, though. It includes powerful Angels like Aurelia, the Warleader, pivotal equipment like Basilisk Collar, and foils of cards like Massacre Wurm and Lyra Dawnbringer.

It even has an Arcane Signet, Sol Ring, and Command Tower, which are perfect for building your first Commander deck.

But where to begin? How do you choose a Legendary Creature to lead your deck? How can you practice your gameplay before jumping into a multiplayer game?

Well, with one of the best current products in Magic. 

LEARN TO PLAY WITH JUMPSTART

Jumpstart boosters are the best way to learn to play Magic, refine your skills, and get to experience the full variety of playstyles and deck archetypes. Jumpstart is unique in that you and a friend simply take two boosters each, shuffle them together, and then you’re ready to go! You both have a deck for a game of Jumpstart. 

So with these four packs, you could have a red and black Bloody Graverobbers deck, or a red and white Bloody Legion deck, for example. These decks would both play differently, and showcase different themes.

Because there are so many varieties of different seeded boosters (each with different rares or mythics), you’ll get to play with everything from Goblins to Zombies, Soldiers to Dragons, Elves to Merfolk. The decks could be more aggro based, focused on the graveyard, or control oriented.

The other cool part about Jumpstart is that it can give your collection a great foundation when it comes to building Commander decks. Whether it’s Jumpstart: Foundations or Jumpstart 2022, the set is filled with really interesting new Legendary Creatures to brew around and put in your decks.

It also has a bunch of great cards for the 99, so while you’re learning to play and picking up a bunch of tried-and-tested classic Magic cards, you’re also getting cards you can’t get anywhere else. 

STOCK UP ON PLAYABLES WITH OUTLAWS OF THUNDER JUNCTION

So, you’ve learned the ropes with Jumpstart, and you’ve managed to find some cool Legends to build around. What’s next? Well, it’s time to get yourself a bunch of sweet playables. One of the best sets to do that with is Outlaws of Thunder Junction

There are a number of things that makes Outlaws so great for new players:

• It has 51 Legendary Creatures across a range of colors and themes, from straightforward builds like The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride (which asks you to saddle with big creatures), to more complex builds like Taii Wakeen, a red and white “trickshot” deck that draws cards for dealing precise amounts of damage.
  

• It has modal “Spree” cards, that are super-flexible in deckbuilding. Spree cards let you choose how much mana to spend and for what effects, making them always useful.

• Each booster has a “Breaking News” card. These cards are reprints of popular effects from Magic’s history played in all kinds of decks, like Path to Exile and Mana Drain.

• You might even open some Big Score or Special Guest cards, which include some really cool new Commander playables and sweet reprints like Stoneforge Mystic.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction is an ideal set for starting a collection, especially as it contains so many options and chances at reprints while retailing as a Standard Booster Box product. You’re getting a lot of value here, and if you also like the Western vibes? Well, you’re gonna be right at home. 

TEST YOUR DECKBUILDING WITH COMMANDER LEGENDS: BATTLE FOR BALDUR’S GATE

So, you’re looking for a new challenge? Look no further than Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. This set has it all, and continues to age like a fine wine.

CLB is a fantastic product for new players who want to experience a little bit more of a challenge. Once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to experiment. Battle for Baldur’s Gate is ideal for this, as it has an open-ended deckbuilding mechanic in the “Choose a Background” mechanic. With this, you choose a Legendary Creature as a Commander, and then, like in a game of D&D, you’ll choose their background.

Say you pick Erinis, Gloom Stalker as your Commander. When you attack witrh Erinis, you get to bring lands from your graveyard to play. Out of the 30 backgrounds you can choose from, which do you pick?

Do you pick Scion of Halaster to help stock up the yard? Or do you pick Street Urchin to take advantage of your Commander’s Deathtouch ability? The choice is yours. You can play any color pairings and any style you like.

Battle for Baldur’s Gate can be played as a sealed deck experience, too. Remember Jumpstart, where you shuffle two packs together? Well, why not get some friends together and either crack six packs of CLB each to build a deck with, or even draft the packs between each other and then pod up for Commander gameplay? It’s a super fun format, and a great way to build on your skills.

Oh, and not to mention that if you loved Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll be right at home here. I covered the cards you’ll be familiar with from the first five hours of playing BG3, but you’ll find cards from the whole campaign featured here. 

The gang’s all here. Who will you build?

TOY WITH THREE COLORS IN TARKIR DRAGONSTORM

So, you’ve played with two color builds a-plenty, and you’re ready to dip your toes into more colors. Well, there’s no better place to look than with the fast-favorite Standard set Tarkir: Dragonstorm. 

Tarkir: Dragonstorm, or TDM, features the East-Asian and Southeast-Asian inspired plane of Tarkir, replete with warring factions, powerful abilities, and Dragons. 

Yes, this set is full to the rafters with Dragons. Everyone loves Dragons, and so this is naturally a great place to start as a beginner to Commander. It’s also the best place to put what you’ve learned so far about the different colors to use. You’ll notice that the strengths of each three-color clan are the best parts of each individual color – and if you’ve been playing a lot with two color builds, you can see how those contribute to three color strategies too. 

TDM has a lot of support for playing with Dragons in different colors, and it emphasizes three-color decks built with the Clan colors.

• Green-White-Black is the Abzan clan, who favor outlasting the enemy and returning from the graveyard until the task is done.

• Red-White-Blue is the Jeskai clan, masters of martial arts and a balanced approach to offensive and defensive gameplay.

• White-Black-Red is the Mardu, a ruthless army that pushes through damage with sheer numbers and unparalleled effectiveness.

• Black-Blue-Green are the Sultai, who revere their dead and trawl through the graveyard, all the while persisting and controlling the board

• Green Blue Red are the Temur, all about casting big powerful creatures, generating the mana to do so, and annihilating the opposition in a rain of dragonfire.

Whether you’re playing with two-color decks or three-color decks, Tarkir: Dragonstorm offers a raft of powerful and synergistic cards to brew with. It’s a homerun set, both for flavor and form, and I’d be hard pressed not to recommend it. It’ll have you brewing and designing decks for months.

UPGRADE AND REFINE YOUR DECKS WITH A MASTERS SET

There comes a point when you’re new to Commander that you have a few decks built, and you’re wanting to level the playing field. Grabbing cards from Standard-legal sets is all well and good, but even if you’ve checked out Jumpstart and Battle for Baldur’s Gate, you might be wanting to upgrade with some powerful staples. 

Staples are cards that have been printed and reprinted often, and they’re always in demand. Think cards like Skullclamp, Three Visits, or splashy Game Changers like Smothering Tithe and Cyclonic Rift.

If you’re wanting to take things up to higher Brackets and stronger tables, then you’re going to want to grab a few staples. Outside of ordering singles (which we have a wide selection of here at Card Kingdom), the next best way to inject your collection with these older cards is to grab a Masters set.

Masters sets come in many forms. They might be reprint focused sets like Commander Masters or Double Masters 2022, which have Commander, Modern and Legacy focused reprints. They might also be the Remastered line of products that wrap up the highlights of multiple sets, like Ravnica Remastered or Innistrad Remastered. If you missed out on the many visits to Ravnica or Innistrad and like the vibe of those places, then these sets might well be worth a look. 

We’d even consider Modern Horizons 3 a Masters set of sorts. It’s a similar price point, it has reprints, like in-demand lands, but unlike reprint focused Masters sets, it also comes with a bunch of new cards legal in Commander.

If you’re at the point in your beginner’s journey that you’re ready to play higher-power Commander, then singles or a Booster Box of a Masters-style set might well be the option you’re looking for.

END STEP

Whether you’re a beginner Commander player or you’re wanting to on-board a friend, we hope this article has been helpful for you. With multiple new Magic products released every year, it can be hard to figure out what’s the best route for a new player. Starting out with Jumpstart and Foundations, before checking out Battle for Baldur’s Gate and dipping into Standard products like Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Tarkir: Dragonstorm can give any collection a really strong start. 
These sets are also ideal for learning to play, offering an increasingly complex player experience in a natural progression. And, when you’re ready to take things to the next level? Checking out a Modern Horizons or Masters set can be a great way to augment those more powerful decks.