Covenant Updates

Sorcery TCG Buyer's Guide

Welcome to all new Sorcery players! Many of you got here because you recently saw our Essential Sorcery TCG Tutorial or were wanting to buy an Alchemy Kit from us. If you have no idea what that is, I recommend skipping to the section labeled “The Essentials” below.

If you were hoping to buy an Alchemy Kit, I’ve got some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is that we’re sold out of the Alchemy Kit and don’t expect it to return. The Alchemy Kits were an awesome deal and were being purchased at a velocity that would have us out of Beta and Arthurian Legends pretty quickly. That's a great problem to have, but we'd also like to sell our remaining stock of those boxes at MSRP so we can keep the lights on.

The good news is that there are a TON of new players diving into Sorcery right now, and we currently have every set in stock.

The Essentials

The simplest (and best) place to start is about $150 and includes the following:

You can find all of these items on the Sorcery section of our website.

If you buy both sets of precons, you will have four mono-element decks (Beta) and four multi-element decks (Gothic). These decks are ready to hit the table when you open them, and all play well together. They also happen to give you a lot of staple cards to start building your own Constructed decks.

For a lot of games, mats are a nice addition, but unnecessary. In Sorcery, this is not the case. The numbered grid on the mat is incredibly helpful for playing the game, especially when you’re learning all the cards and rules. Having played the game for a couple of years, I can't imagine playing without a mat.

For most players, buying The Essentials is the best way to start playing the Sorcery TCG.

The Toe Dip

If you’re really not sure how much you’re going to like Sorcery (my bet is you’re going to love it) or you’re just looking to try the game as cost-effectively as possible, I recommend the following:

This option is about $100 and still gives you a very robust Sorcery experience. You could opt for the Beta precons and playmat for a slightly lower price, but I find that the Gothic precons are easier to learn and more interesting to play—and they are much more balanced with each other.

The Expansions

Once you've started with either The Essentials or The Toe Dip (or if you know you're a TCG fiend from the start), you'll likely want to get more cards. As of the time I'm writing this (February 3rd, 2026), there are three expansions for the Sorcery TCG.

The first set has two versions: Alpha and Beta. Alpha and Beta are essentially the same set of 402 cards. The Alpha version of the set was only available through the original crowdfunding campaign and is targeted to collectors.

A few months after the Alpha set was delivered to backers, Beta was released more widely through traditional distributors and retailers. Alpha cards are denoted with an @ symbol at the bottom of the card, while Beta cards have a Beta symbol (see Bryce's Alpha and Beta Grim Reaper above).

There are a few pieces of art that changed between the printing of Alpha and Beta, as well as the inclusion of a new batch of Curios. A Curio card is a super-rare card that can be found in booster packs. Sometimes this is a card featuring alternative art (see above, photo credit to Larry "hot hands" Carter). Other examples include early prototype cards and sketches instead of the normal art. Most of these are not tournament legal, and they are not acknowledged, discussed, or confirmed by Erik's Curiosa (the publisher).

Common speculation amongst the community is that Curio cards appear roughly once in every fifty booster boxes. You can learn a lot more about the various Curios through the efforts of community members like the Collector Arthouse website and Cardboard Guide Discord server.

The second set is called Arthurian Legends and, as you probably guessed, it is steeped in the various tales and legends surrounding King Arthur. This was a smaller set, featuring only 220 cards compared to the 402 cards in Alpha/Beta. Another important change for this set was a shift from 36 packs per booster box down to 24 packs. 



The third set is called Gothic and it features a stunning take on the theme of good vs evil (angels, demons, undead, monsters, etc). This set saw the return to 36-pack booster boxes and a larger card count of 440 cards.

Expanding Your Collection

Once you’ve tried the precons, there are really two approaches. There is the step-by-step, budget-friendly approach, and then there is the I NEED THIS GAME IN MY VEINS approach.

If you want to go step-by-step, I recommend the purchasing order below for maximum value and enjoyment over a long period of time. If you're going the VEINS approach, just buy it all at once.

The first box of Arthurian Legends gives you access to an entirely new set of cards and has some of the most exciting single-card additions to any deck via the Unique knights. It's also the lowest cost box, and the cards are particularly beautiful.

Speaking of Unique cards, it's worth breaking down how rarity works in Sorcery. On the type line (just below the art) of the card, you’ll notice one of the words from the list below capitalized. This indicates how many copies of that card you can have in your deck:

In general, this aligns with the rarity of a card, with Ordinary being the most common and Unique being the least common. There’s a slight derivation from this system in Arthurian Legends, where some uniques are more like Elites in terms of rarity, but that’s a level of nuance that isn’t particularly important at this stage.

After your first box of Arthurian Legends, the highest value purchase will be your first booster box of both Beta and Gothic. Even if you own the precons from Beta and Gothic, the first box of each set you open will have a ton of cards you don't have in each pack.

At this point, you have a booster box of each set. You could stop here and start trading or buying singles (below). Personally, I love opening booster boxes, so I try to find the sweet spot between cracking more packs and the tedious pursuit of singles. To that end, my recommendation is 3 more boxes of Beta and Gothic, and 1 more box of Arthurian Legends.

Once you've opened 2 boxes of Arthurian Legends and 4 boxes of both Beta and Gothic, the vast majority of packs you open will contain cards you already own. Cracking additional boxes can be fun if you're chasing down particular foils or uniques and selling the rest, but that's certainly not for everyone.

For most players, the next best step is to buy individual cards either for the decks you want to play or to finish your set, from sites like TCGplayer or local stores. Alternatively, you can trade locally or through various online community groups and Discord channels. Start in our Discord and we can get you where you need to be.

Moving Forward

One of the many wonderful things about Sorcery is that the release schedule only includes one new set per year. While we're approaching three years since the release of Alpha, there really isn't that much needed for new players to catch up - at least compared to any other TCG I've ever played.

If you'd like to automatically receive new sets as they release, we do have a subscription service that is worth mentioning, but honestly, if you're new to the game, that is the last place I'd start.

If you have any questions (about buying, rules, etc.), I recommend checking out our Discord server. The Sorcery channel there is full of amazing people who love this game, and we'd all be happy to help you with any questions you have.

Cheers and welcome to a once-in-a-lifetime kind of game!

Zach