The LEGO Castle community is already performing elaborate mental gymnastics over the latest BrickLink Designer Program selections, and you know what, fair enough.
BrickLink revealed the five finalists that will go up for pre-order in Series 9 of the crowdfunded program yesterday, and while some sort of castle is usually a lock for each round, the closest thing we have this time is MarinBD’s Sleepy Dragon Inn. It’s closer in format and presentation to something you’d expect from a LEGO Dungeons & Dragons theme rather than a traditional LEGO Castle set, however.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the LEGO Group and BrickLink skip a traditional castle, as Series 7 – which is next to go up for pre-order in February 2026 – instead includes Sharm’s Alchemist's Shop in its customary medieval slot. But what’s really surprising where Series 9 is concerned is that this was the first time the new Castle factions from 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine were available for designers to use.
That inevitably led to a swathe of builds hooked to the Griffin Knights and Kraken Warriors, and given the excitement among the LEGO Castle community around those builds it felt equally inevitable that one of them would make the cut. It wasn’t to be – and now those same fans are convincing themselves that there must be a good reason for it.
“I’m guessing (hoping) the pre-order or release window for this series could potentially coincide with something Castle-themed coming out from LEGO, which could be cannibalistic to sets LEGO truly wants to sell more,” Typomancer said over on reddit. “Maybe LEGO plans to release something more official that includes the new knight factions.”
A post from guidelrey questioning why BrickHammer’s Driftwood Keep didn’t get picked currently has more than 800 upvotes on the legocastles subreddit, and they too are convinced that the ‘only explanation’ is that the LEGO Group is cooking up its own castle for one of the new factions in 2026. “This [means] we are getting more castle sets from LEGO themselves next year? Right???”
This isn’t necessarily just LEGO Castle fans trying to find a silver lining in the Series 9 picks, though. At this year’s Fan Media Days event, BrickLink Designer Program Lead Alex Kastelic stated very clearly that future crowdfunded sets can’t get in the way of official LEGO products.
“The loose rule is, is it in active development?” he said. “So, for example, if there’s a yearly release for [a LEGO internal IP] we’re going to stay out of that space. You’ll see that modulars isn’t on [the approved list] because there is a new modular every year. Winter Village is probably one of those things too, where we should probably stay away from that.
“Where the line gets a little blurry is you have Castle. There are obviously releases for Castle, but they’re a little bit farther in between. We’re seeing them maybe every couple of years. Same with Pirates. So those just depend on, if there’s something coming down the pipeline then we’ll steer clear of that and try to avoid that.”
That means it’s entirely possible that the BrickLink Designer Program team has avoided the vast range of Griffin Knights and Kraken Warriors castles in Series 9 because the LEGO Group has its own plans for those factions in 2026. And with
But at this point, it remains just a possibility. And as redditor pancakestripshow pointed out, the BrickLink series does seem to alternate between retro castles and medieval fantasy sets: Series 5 had Adventure in Transylvania, while Series 6 included the Outlaw Forest Den; Series 7 has the Alchemist’s Shop while Series 8 has Dustmark Keep. So there’s every chance that the selection for Series 9 was always going to be something further away from a traditional castle.
Both new factions are also still part of the Series 10 palette for the BrickLink Designer Program, so any or all of the sets that didn’t make it in Series 9 could theoretically return next time round and make the cut then. If they’re all overlooked again, well, that could just be further fuel on the fire for an official LEGO Castle set in 2026… if you’re prepared to do the mental gymnastics.
Head here to see all five of the BrickLink Designer Program Series 9 finalists. Crowdfunding for this series will open in October 2026, so expect to have the sets in hand around spring 2027. The next crowdfunding round for Series 7’s sets will take place in February 2026.
The retiring
Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO using our affiliate links – thank you.
Comments
Be the first to comment!