With the next big set release still a month away, Magic: The Gathering Arena players are in waiting mode for the next update to the Standard and Historic formats. While there was a significant banning of the blue extra-turn spell Time Warp this week in Historic, the meta is still settling. However, there’s a lot to do leading up to the release of the next Standard set, Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Wizards of the Coast dropped a blog post today about their short-term roadmap for events in Magic Arena in the coming weeks.
Leading off the post is the introduction of a completely new format that is being tested for Arena. This week’s Friday Night Magic theme on June 18 will be a 100-card Historic Brawl event. Yep, that’s a full Commander-sized deck using any card currently available in MTG Arena minus those on the ban list which you can find here. From June 19 until June 25, 100-card Historic Brawl will transition to having it’s own event with an entry fee of 2,500 gold or 500 gems. Any losses will not matter as the event is set for unlimited play and will reward players with gorgeous Japanese Mystical Archives card styles for their first five wins. The card styles available here include: Gods Willing, Brainstorm, Doom Blade, Faithless Looting, and Regrowth.
Paired with the news of this new format, WotC has announced it has taken two popular Commanders off the Historic Brawl ban list: Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and Winota, Joiner of Forces. Releasing these legendary creatures back into these casual formats comes with a change in style of how Wizards is handling banning cards while utilizing a power weighting system. “Our goal has been to better match players with similarly weighted commanders, keeping the challenge for competitive players while ensuring the formats remain hospitable to casual players,” Wizards explains regarding the reason for weighting these cards in the blog post. Regarding WotC’s approach to banning cards in Brawl the blog says, “With this system in place, we are now more likely to use weighting rather than banning as a tool for managing very powerful commanders. Players who still really enjoy the experience of playing with those commanders may continue to do so, and players who don’t want that high-powered experience can be free from it.”
While Historic Brawl was the biggest news, there are a few other events happening to keep Magic players busy. Jumpstart is still active in Arena until July 8 for 2,000 gold or 400 gems. This simplified draft experience has players choose two booster pack themes that are shuffled together and ready to play. All cards from these packs are added to your collection, and up to two wins will give rewards of rare or mythic rare cards from Jumpstart.
Premier Draft will switch to the Dominaria format from June 18-25. This fan-favorite set from 2018 is a celebration of Magic’s first plane, Dominaria, and features card mechanics revolving around history and legends. Finally, a “Chromatic Cube” event will be running from June 25-July 8, but nothing is known about which cards will be included in this draft-able format.
Considering the dates given in this update, Wizards will be moving into Adventures in the Forgotten Realms preview season and set release soon after. For other Magic news, check out the recently announced Secret Lair featuring a new Universes Beyond destination.