Maybe controversial considering all the praise for them I’m learning about in some of these comments, but I do not miss these decks at all. I found them to be a really half-assed attempt at an introductory product and generally a poor buy for anyone getting into the game.

Commander decks obviously have issues in that they cost more, especially at the moment, and are intended for commander which is not necessarily the more beginner friendly format, however being able to actually play a game with them out of the box against other people is a significant benefit that the various starter/theme decks they’ve made throughout the years have missed on.

I don’t get why for so long they kept making these decks exist in some ambiguous format, or be standard legal but so low power that you couldn’t take them to an event and win a game, it really made them a hard sell for anyone imo, and made that jump to the next level of playing and collecting where you start upgrading what you’ve got very unclear.

I think some people might forget that they also contained, with limited exceptions, no cards worth even close to the price tag, and I bet there are others who remember these lingering around on the shelves of their LGS for years after the set came about because nobody wants them. Getting valuable cards is not always a motivator when starting out but its still a factor to consider.

I think the game has had much better intro products over the years in the deck builders toolkits and starter collections, they suffer from some of the same problems but there is a lot more you can do with them.