The Helvault Experience

This past weekend, after weeks of building excitement, thousands of Magic players came together with one goal: Open the Helvault! Packs were cracked, decks were built, and games of Magic were played as Helvaults around the world opened and spilled out their contents.

The Prerelease

The first Avacyn Restored prerelease took place on Thursday right here at Wizards of the Coast where the employees fought to open their very own Helvault:

Check out this Helvault Cake by Kelly N., a player from Reading, United Kingdom! Thanks to William K. for allowing us to share this photo.

There were lots and lots of awesome photos that came out of these events, from a real life Avacyn to antics around the Helvaults and amazing store experiences as players opened the Helvault for the first time.

"Twenty Sided Store," a WPN store in Brooklyn, New York, found a cat in their Helvault!

Well, they found "Arrow" the cat in the Helvault after it had already been opened. All we really know is that the kitten is adorable and clearly very confused. Don't you love how the cat's colors feel perfectly right for the inside of the Helvault? And because we all love cat memes...

What Was Inside the Helvault?

We sent out approximately 6,000 Helvaults globally for this exciting and unique Prerelease event. When players cracked open the Helvault they were greeted with this:

• 54 Oversized cards of Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Griselbrand, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 108 Double-sided Angel/Demon tokens
• 54 20-sided spindown life counters

We wanted to provide a unique Magic play experience for our players, so we made some Helvaults with special contents. Of the roughly 6,000 Helvaults we sent out, we selected 30 Helvaults to get this special treatment. We picked randomly from our Advanced level WPN stores and sent the Premium Helvaults to their new home. These stores received Helvaults which had the following inside:

• 54 Foil Oversized cards of Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Griselbrand, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 108 Foil Double-sided Angel/Demon tokens
• 54 20-sided spindown life counters
• 54 Promo Foils thematically tied to angels or demons

Each of those premium Helvaults included only 1 of 12 possible different promos from the Wizards of the Coast archives, a few of which were older judge promos. We are very sensitive to how judge cards are distributed, and these were released in extremely small quantities for this one-off event.

We Are Listening

Our goal is to continue to create great experiences for players at our events. We've received a lot of great feedback from players about what you liked, and what you think we could improve for next time. We want you all to know that we hear you and will use your feedback to make our future promotions even better.

If you would like to send us feedback, please contact our Game Support Team.