MTG Prerelease: the complete player checklist

The Prerelease is unlike any other Magic event of the year

Every two or three months, Wizards of the Coast releases a new Magic set. And every two or three months, your local game store runs a Prerelease weekend. You walk in empty-handed, you walk out with a 40-card Sealed deck built on the spot, your full card pool in tow, and a dated foil promo in your pocket.

It's a format apart. You don't prepare a deck in advance, so all your prep effort lands on what you bring with you. And that's exactly where most players under-invest.

What's inside your Prerelease pack

A Magic Prerelease pack contains six play boosters from the set, one dated promo card for the event, and a quick reference guide. Once you crack everything open at the table, you have roughly 90 cards to build a 40-card Sealed deck. The rest — your theoretical sideboard — is part of the same pool: a sharp Limited player sideboards actively between rounds based on the matchup.

Three to five rounds later, you head home with your entire pool, your dated promo, and usually one or two prize packs depending on your finish.

The checklist to drop in your bag

Here's what a prepared player brings to every Prerelease.

A hundred fresh sleeves: your cards come straight out of the booster with no protection at all. At minimum, sleeve the 40 cards in your main deck. Seasoned players sleeve their entire side as well.

A life counter: no set ships with life dice in your kit. Bring your own, or a fully charged life-tracking app on your phone.

A small notebook or notes app: counting your mana curve, tracking sideboard plans between rounds, jotting down a combo line you spotted late in the day — a Sealed pool has a lot to say across five hours of play.

A deckbox big enough for the entire pool. This is the most overlooked piece: your deckbox needs to hold your 40 played cards plus the 50 cards sitting outside your deck. Otherwise, your pool ends up scattered across the table, and a spilled drink or a stray elbow is enough to ruin the day's foil promo.

Sleeves and deckbox: managing a 90-card pool

Prerelease exposes a blind spot in most deckboxes on the market: they're sized for a built deck (60-card Standard, 100-card Commander), not for a moving Sealed pool. You need volume, easy access to your main deck, and a separate zone for the unplayed cards you might board in next round.

That's exactly where a generous deckbox changes the experience. Our Classique and Proteus models hold up to 125 cards in double sleeve, which comfortably covers your full Sealed: your main deck up front, your side and unplayed cards in the back. No more naked card piles between bags of chips.

Protecting your cards once the event is done

A Prerelease often leaves you with cards you'll want to keep for the long run: your favorite rare from the pool, the dated foil promo, sometimes a numbered mythic you wouldn't have cracked open anywhere else. The trip home in a backpack, in a car, or on the train is the moment those cards take the most damage, because everyone packs up fast at the end of the last round.

A rigid deckbox with a precise interlocking closure that won't pop open in a full bag makes a real difference here. Add the hand painting, and your Prerelease deckbox becomes a dated keepsake you'll recognize five years from now, when the set has gone from new release to a recognized name in the community.

Build your Prerelease deckbox

The Prerelease is the most accessible event in Magic: no need for a 500-dollar deck, just the urge to see a new set early. But the gear around it deserves real thought. Build yours on the DeckSmith forge, sized for double sleeve and painted by hand.