Jumpstart 2022 (J22): Set Guide & Card List
Some sets ask you to build a deck before you can play. Jumpstart 2022 asks you to grab two packs, smash them together, and shuffle up. That's the whole pitch - and honestly, it's one of the most accessible ways to sit down with Magic that Wizards has ever designed.
Released on December 2, 2022, Jumpstart 2022 (set code: J22) is the physical follow-up to the original Jumpstart from 2020. It's a supplemental booster set built almost entirely from reprints - 768 of them - with 51 new cards slotted in specifically to fill out the set's themes. Every single pack is guaranteed to include one of those new designs, which gives even veteran players a reason to crack a few boosters.
What is Jumpstart 2022?
Jumpstart 2022 is a supplemental Magic: The Gathering set released on December 2, 2022, with a launch party running December 2-4. It carries the set code J22 and contains 835 cards in total: 768 reprints and 51 newly designed cards.
It's not a Standard-legal expansion. Think of it more as a self-contained play experience - a product designed to let you start playing within minutes of opening your first pack. The format itself works by combining two 20-card themed half-decks into a single 40-card deck, which you play against someone else's combination. The tension - and the fun - comes from how unpredictably well (or poorly) two themes click together.
Format check: Jumpstart 2022 is not legal in Standard or Pioneer. Individual reprints within the set retain legality in whatever formats they were already legal in before reprinting. The 51 new cards are legal in Legacy, Vintage, and Commander.
Themes, packs, and how the set is structured
This is where J22 gets interesting from a design standpoint. Rather than building a single draft format, the set is organised around 46 distinct themes - each one a named concept that shapes the cards in that half-deck. Themes range across all five colors and multicolor territory, and they carry a rarity of their own: common, rare, or mythic rare. Rarer themes are harder to open and tend to feature more powerful card selections.
Because common and rare themes come in multiple variations of their pack contents, there are actually 121 possible pack configurations across the whole set. Opening two packs of the same theme doesn't guarantee you've seen everything that theme has to offer.
Each 20-card pack breaks down like this:
- 7-8 cards are lands
- The remainder are spells (creatures, instants, enchantments, and so on)
- 1 card is a newly designed card exclusive to J22
- 1 card is a Booster Fun treatment card in anime style
- At least 1 rare appears in every pack, with roughly one in three packs containing an extra rare
The face of each pack is a "Pack Summary card" - a card that identifies the theme and color of the half-deck inside, so you can see at a glance what you're working with before you combine it with a second pack.
Compatibility with Set Jumpstart releases
One of the quietly clever things about Jumpstart 2022 is that it's designed to be compatible with Set Jumpstart Boosters - the themed half-decks that Wizards started attaching to premier sets beginning with Dominaria United and The Brothers' War. That means you can legitimately combine a J22 half-deck with a half-deck from a set-specific Jumpstart release and have a coherent play experience. The half-deck format is becoming a connective tissue across multiple products, and J22 sits at the center of that.
New cards in Jumpstart 2022
For a set that's mostly reprints, 51 new cards is a meaningful number. These aren't pushed, format-warping designs - they're purpose-built to help themes feel complete and cohesive. The philosophy seems to be: find the card that a theme wants to exist, and print it.
Every pack includes exactly one of these new cards, so they're woven into the play experience rather than sitting as rare pull lottery tickets. That's a healthy design choice for a product built around accessibility.
The launch promo for the set was an alternate art version of Kibo, Uktabi Prince - a nod to the set's flavor and a nice collectible for players who attended launch events.
Lore aside: Uktabi is a jungle region of Jamuraa on the plane of Dominaria, best known from older cards like Uktabi Orangutan (Mirage, 1996). Kibo as a named prince of that region is a fun piece of world-building that connects J22 to a corner of Magic's history that doesn't get much attention these days.
Booster format and availability
Jumpstart 2022 is sold in two configurations:
- Single Jumpstart Boosters - 20 cards, one theme
- 2-Pack Boosters - two packs together, ready to combine and play immediately
- Booster boxes - 24 Jumpstart Boosters per box
The 2-Pack format is probably the friendliest entry point. You hand one pack to a friend, keep the other, you both shuffle your halves together, and you're playing Magic. No deckbuilding knowledge required.
The Jumpstart format in practice
If you haven't played Jumpstart before, here's the core idea: the format's fun comes from combinatorial surprise. Some theme pairings are synergistic and feel intentional. Others are awkward and produce games that are chaotic in the best way. You're rarely playing the same deck twice, even with the same card pool.
Because each half-deck is built around a focused theme, the games tend to be faster and more directed than a typical Limited draft format. You know what your deck wants to do. The question is whether your opponent's combination can answer it - or whether your two themes argue with each other all game.
For newer players, this is a genuinely low-pressure way to experience a range of Magic strategies without needing to understand the full draft format. For experienced players, it's a fun change of pace, and the 51 new cards give you cards worth hunting for.
How Jumpstart 2022 fits into the broader Jumpstart story
The original Jumpstart (2020) was a pandemic-era product that landed at a moment when people wanted easy, low-setup ways to play at home. It was a hit, and the 2021 follow-up - Jumpstart: Historic Horizons - was a digital-only MTG Arena release with mechanics that could only exist in a digital game.
Jumpstart 2022 brought the physical format back with a cleaner structure: more themes, a dedicated new-card slot in every pack, and the Booster Fun anime treatment as a visual identity. It also laid the groundwork for the format's integration with set-specific releases going forward.
The next physical iteration in the line is Foundations Jumpstart (sometimes called Jumpstart 2025), released in 2024 as part of the Magic Foundations product family.
In my opinion, J22 represents the format finding its footing. The original Jumpstart was exploratory. J22 feels like a product that knows what it is and who it's for - and that clarity makes it easier to recommend to exactly the right person at the table.
