Introducing Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate and Alchemy Horizons: Baldur's Gate • MTG Arena Zone

Table of Contents

Alchemy Horizons: Baldur’s Gate
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Set Info and Release Date
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Packaging and Set Symbols
Card Previews

This evening, Wizards of the Coast hosted their Monthly Announcement Stream over at twitch.tv/magic, where they gave us our first look at Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. Show host Blake Rasmussen guided us through some of the basic information about the set, which is a follow-up to 2020’s original Commander Legends.

Most of what we learned today is focused around paper Magic and the Commander format specifically, but Wizards also unveiled that Battle for Baldur's Gate will be bringing with it a companion set for MTG Arena’s Alchemy format. Alchemy Horizons: Baldur’s Gate is the first set of its kind, apparently bringing significantly more cards than previous Alchemy expansions such as Alchemy: Kamigawa.

In this article, we’ve summarized all of the important information from today’s announcement stream concerning both Commander Legends and its accompanying Alchemy: Horizons set, including set release date, early preview cards, and more. For more, you can also watch the full stream, embedded below, or check out Wizards’ accompanying article.

Alchemy Horizons: Baldur’s Gate

There was one big piece of news in today’s stream specifically for Arena players – alongside the new Commander Legends set, MTG Arena will be receiving a companion set for its exclusive formats. According to Rasmussen, Alchemy Horizons: Baldur's Gate will have “some of” the cards from its Commander Legends counterpart – including some that have been modified to balance them for 1v1 play. Alchemy Horizons will also be bringing all-new digital cards, adding up to “hundreds” total.

Unlike the previous Alchemy sets we’ve seen, Alchemy: Horizons will be playable as a draft format on Arena and will include a Set Mastery. The set will be legal in both Alchemy and Historic after its launch on July 7. We don’t have any specific previews or other information on our first Alchemy Horizons set as of now, but we’ll surely be learning more about it as we get closer to Battle for Baldur’s Gate’s release.

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Set Info and Release Date

The second draftable Commander Legends booster set will be launching on June 10, 2022 following a prerelease weekend starting June 3. As with all of Magic’s latest booster sets, Battle for Baldur's Gate will be purchasable in Draft, Set or Collector Boosters. A Booster Bundle and Prerelease Pack will also be available, along with four 100-card preconstructed Commander decks: Party Time (W/B), Mind Flayarrrs (U/B), Draconic Dissent (U/R), and Exit from Exile (R/G).

Wizards of the Coast also provided the following schedule of important dates surrounding Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate:

Debut and Previews Begin: May 16
Card Image Gallery Complete: May 23
Commander Previews: May 24–25
Commander Card Image Gallery Complete: May 26
In-Store Prerelease Events and Sales Begin: June 3
Worldwide Release: June 10
Launch Parties: June 10–12

Here’s some other info of interest from the stream:

Battle for Baldur's Gate will include no new partner Commanders.
Battle for Baldur's Gate will have a buy-a-box promo card, previewed below.
CommandFest will be returning after being put on hiatus, although we don’t know the dates or details yet.
Next week’s stream will include a discussion about the future of Organized Play and the structure of tabletop events.
There are some cards influenced by Baldur's Gate 3, but the set encompasses other parts of DND lore as well.
Each of the four Preconstructed Commander Decks with have 10 new cards.
There will be new planeswalkers that can be played as your commander.

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Packaging and Set Symbols

Card Previews

Finally, we also got to take a sneak peak at some cards from the new set, including a reprint of the famous “Battlebond Lands” that have become coveted in multiplayer formats, a new Minsc card, and the set’s buy-a-box promo.