Yet another Magic: The Gathering product falls victim to supply chain issues, as Wizards of the Coast announced on Monday, August 1 its upcoming Pioneer Challenger Decks were delayed. “Due to ongoing supply chain disruptions and delays, we are moving the release date of Pioneer Challenger Decks 2022 to November 4, 2022, to allow for a concurrent global release”, Wizards said in a statement on Monday.
The new decks were originally set to release on October 14, so this delay only sets Pioneer players back by three weeks. “Thank you for your continued patience and understanding”, Wizards said. “We will continue to keep you informed with any additional updates.”
The new Pioneer Challenger Decks are four pre-constructed 75-card decks for the Pioneer format. They’re part of the series of Challenger Decks that have been released since 2018, and they aim to cater to both local and competitive-standard MTG players. We don’t know exact deck lists yet, but we do know the names of the four upcoming Pioneer decks – Pioneer Dimir Control (blue/black), Orzhov Humans (white/black), Izzet Phoenix (blue/red), and Pioneer Gruul Stompy (green/red).
The Pioneer Challenger Decks aren’t the first 2022 MTG release to have suffered from delays. The Double Masters 2022 Collector Boosters experienced some delays back in June, and delays were announced for Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate back in May. Both were reportedly caused by “ongoing global supply issues” and “production delays” respectively.
Other upcoming sets are still suffering from supply chain issues, too. Both the MTG Warhammer 40k Commander decks and the new Unfinity set are aiming for October releases after supply chain issues pushed their release dates back by several months.
Wizards’ statement on the Challenger Deck delays can be found here.
To keep on top of these ever-evolving release dates, be sure to check our MTG set release dates guide. We also have a guide to all MTG sets in order, in case you want to look back fondly instead of forwards in anticipation.