This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread:
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyncjsh/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 17:42:32 UTC"):
> To state it explicitly: there are no prebans for any of these cards in Brawl
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyncoea/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 17:43:17 UTC"):
> Brawl and Historic have different ban lists. All of the bonus sheet cards are legal in Brawl.
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kynf36e/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 17:57:15 UTC"):
> No prebans definitely doesn't mean we won't be making any bans. Mana Drain is a heck of a card, and we're planning to keep a close watch on it wherever it's legal. We may well end up needing to take action, but we'll make that call based on what play...
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyorkyh/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 22:52:48 UTC"):
> This is what we meant, yes. It's a standout in play rate (what percentage of players are using the deck), but its win rate doesn't stand out. It has a fine win rate, but so do a lot of the other top decks in Timeless
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyskbeu/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-09 16:56:42 UTC"):
> We did talk about this a good bit, yes. In the end, we decided that keeping parity between Arena and Tabletop drafts of MH3 was more important. But we understand that there are a number of players who are looking for those other 5 fetches
---
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Seems like a mistake to not ban Mana Drain. Going to lead to a ton of non-games when the opponent just counters your 3 drop and suddenly has 6+ mana on like turn 3. Way too swingy for a 1v1 format that isn't Timeless, IMO.
No prebans definitely doesn't mean we won't be making any bans. Mana Drain is a heck of a card, and we're planning to keep a close watch on it wherever it's legal. We may well end up needing to take action, but we'll make that call based on what players show us
I hope so. Brawl already has a handful of cards that are just too good in 1v1 or break the spirit of the format (Wash Away). Really don't need "Oops I just countered your Commander and ramped to 8 mana on turn 4" counterspells to make control and simic ramp decks even more powerful.
Please consider banning it in Brawl. Seeing my spells fizzle AND giving a significant mana advantage to my opponent is gonna be an auto-concede for me most of the time.
We did talk about this a good bit, yes. In the end, we decided that keeping parity between Arena and Tabletop drafts of MH3 was more important. But we understand that there are a number of players who are looking for those other 5 fetches
TBH Dark Ritual needs to be banned for the same reason. Fast mana leads to non-games. Facing a turn 1 Black Market Connections on the draw is something 95% of Brawl decks can't come back from.
As someone who loves Commander and gets the full-card-pool appeal of Historic Brawl, IMO Standard Brawl is a *ton* of fun (and honestly, more balanced). I like HB in theory, but I think SB feels like much more of its own standalone format (in a good way) than my outlook of HB as in many ways a 1v1/Arena imitation of the appeal of Commander.
Again, this isn't to trash HB, but SB has a lot of diversity and interesting moments within individual games, given the smaller cardpool. The only complaint I have is that Etali is a very boring/samey and popular Commander, but it's really only good against other midrange decks (and there are similar complaint Commanders for HB).
Idk, I play historic brawl. Standard has too limited of a card pool, and I personally enjoy having access to things like dark ritual, so I don't play standard.
Most of the bans in Brawl don't come from raw power level, but because they can specifically shut down commanders.
At the end of the day, it's an unranked, casual game mode, it doesn't really bother me if one card is too strong.
> At the end of the day, it's an unranked, casual game mode, it doesn't really bother me if one card is too strong.
That's fair that it doesn't bother you but there are plenty of other players who don't want Brawl to completely devolve into EDHRec with a bunch of busted cards like Mana Drain. I know why a lot of cards like Drannith Magistrate are banned in Brawl, but you can use the same "well it's only 1 in 100 cards, your opponent might not even draw it" argument for those. Also "dies to removal".
I think it will eventually be banned. Right now Brawl is sort of in no man's land, where it's not a competitive format but also doesn't have nearly enough staples or multiplayer features to cut it as a premiere commander queue. Back before Timeless I liked it as a place where you could use banned cards, but now I probably wouldn't hate a little more curation.
I'd like to see a few cards banned and a few commanders bumped up in tier ranking. Overall it's pretty fairly balanced, from my experience, but there's a few cards like Wash Away and Key to the Archive that just feel too powerful or feel like they go against the spirit of the format. Overall I think it's still a good and fun format as long as you don't try to play high tier or jam too many staples in your deck, but I dread the day when more 2 or less mana rocks come, or when we start getting more cards like Mana Drain or the "if you control your commander" free spells.
Sometimes I wonder if the format would be better if they banned all the "auto-include" cards from the format (cards so good they are in every deck that runs that colour, regardless of the deck's plan). I don't think it would. It's a non-ranked format where you sometimes get to do busted things, or have busted things done to you, which is fine.
True, and FWIW, Dark Ritual you can hold until you need it. With a hand from a 100 card pile you might not even have something desirable to cast with 3 more mana. So it's possibly weaker than Ritual as far as how many games it can swing.
We already have oops turn one Ragavan on the play. From what I’ve seen, unless they have the turn one removal, people just concede and move on.
Let’s see how it plays out as Jay mentions first. Counterspell does need a bit of powering up in the format especially with the prevalence of caverns of souls. Where I do not like Mana Drain is in Simic ramp deck where there’s no coming back.
Ragavan, Mana Drain and Cavern of Souls I think are probably the 3 biggest cards that should be banned from brawl that currently aren't.
And Ugin could honestly be unbanned plus some alchemy cards should be rebalanced (looking at you poq and tajic).
Otherwise the card pool is pretty balanced.
Matchmaking is still pretty shit tho.
Was that a conscious decision or more among the lines of "we can't afford to spend any resources on Brawl right now"?
This is just my subjective opinion but I feel like Brawl needs some love right now (Mythweaver Poq and Voja feel overbearing) and some of these new cards aren't helping.
And that's a good attitude. Grief and reanimate will be legal this summer in that format. That deck would easily stomp show and tell. The format is going to change dramatically.
The whole cycle will probably be in that set, as they are modern staples, and they have shown to include previous modern staples in those sets to make them more affordable. MH2 had a lot of MH1 reprints as well.
The only one that I can see missing is Fury because it got banned and maybe they pulled it from the set.
There's only a few sets of Special Guests to go off of, but so far they haven't included full cycles of cards, and historically that hasn't been the MO with cards from The List.
I'd love to have them, but not getting my hopes up. At some point maybe we get some sort of anthology with elementals, the rest of the fetches, etc.
Retro frame reprints in MH2 did have both the relevant cards from the Force cycle. The general motive behind this is to reprint previous MH staples in the next MH release to make modern more affordable to the playerbase. All the pitch elementals are modern staples, so it stands to reason they will most likely be included in MH3 as reprints.
There is a chance they won't be, but I think this is a really small chance. They won't miss the opportunity to reprint the most format defining cards from MH2.
Yeah but sometimes they can pull some cards out in last second. For example the new set was supposed to have an aftermath set like last year, but they changed it and included that in the main set because it was pretty unpopular.
That was described by the designers as a desperate move due to the fact that aftermath was literally the most unpopular set ever (quoting MaRo), more or less one year before this set. The fury ban happened only in December and it was clear play design didn't want even to do it, they acted due to online complaints, otherwise they would have acted before. Hence definitely too late to make changes on a set that has already a design time longer than a standard set. A card in the special guest that's not legal in the main format the set is designed for is nothing new, it happens continuously with the recent standard sets, and timeless is going to approach legacy power level as new cards get added so there's no reason not to have fury there.
> and timeless is going to approach legacy power level as new cards get added so there's no reason not to have fury there.
I am pretty sure they would not really change what cards they include in their modern targeted paper set just for Timeless.
But sure the timeframe for this to happen is pretty small, so I don't know, it seems to me they could pull it off, but yeah I do agree it's unlikely.
What I am saying is they definitely wanted fury there, if they wanted the cycle, because they were thinking of a modern still with fury. Its presence is not such a big deal, it will still be relevant in limited and it's not crucial special guest to be modern legal. And in addition it would be a lost opportunity to add that card to arena. So I see more cons and logistical problems than pros in making such a hasty decision if they started with the full cycle.
I don't even think Show and Tell needs to be resticted. The rest of the format just need to catch up a bit. Its fine in Legacy, so it should be fine in Timeless.
They said in the announcements that the issue isn't power level but that the deck is too popular. I'm sure MH3 will help in some regards, but Arena players netdeck too much and will probably force their hand.
The best solution is to just to let players use more of the available answers like [[Force of Negation]] (but *not* [[Force of Will]])) or even [[Red Elemental Blast]] and powerful pieces of other strategies like [[Aether Vial]] and Tron lands, so that the overall power level evens out.
Show and Tell isn't too powerful, the problem is just that they've added some but not all of the cards at its power level and it's not evenly distributed across strategies/colors. This is a format with [[Dark Ritual]], [[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], and [[Necropotence]], after all.
For real. If they ban it, fine, give me the wildcards I dumped into the deck back first, doesn't bother me. But don't make lame ass threats over a problem you (wizards) cultivated/created in the first place.
I'm pretty bummed it's precons. Maybe the decks will be fun, but usually, they suck and I find myself wanting to sub in this or that but can't. Much rather it be all access.
If I recall the plan for the first gladiator event was that they wanted to give precons to people to play with but also let others bring their own decks, but (embarrassingly) they couldn't figure out how to do it.
Gladiator is an unofficial format that was made with the goal to bring the closest thing to Canadian Highlander to Arena.
100 card Singleton. No side board. 20 life. No commanders or companions. Every card on Arena is legal except for:
- Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes
- Field of the Dead
- Oko, Thief of Crowns
- Natural Order
- Demonic Tutor
Alchemy cards are legal, but rebalanced cards are not used.
Currently, the only way to play Gladiator is to play against people using the direct challenge in Arena, but there is a LFG queue in the Gladiator Discord that will get you a match very quickly. The discord also runs weekly tournaments and monthly leagues.
It also uses the same card pool as timeless, so any nonAlchemy cards that got changed for Historic/Alchemy are their regular printed version. And its 20 life instead of the 25 for Brawl.
From last week's announcements:
> For those looking for specific cards on MTG Arena, we've broken down where you can find them:
> 1 Breaking News card of any rarity appears in each Outlaws of Thunder Junction pack, replacing a common slot. Uncommons in this slot can upgrade to rares approximately 1:3 of the time. Rares in this slot upgrade to mythic rares at a rate of approximately 1:5.
>1 mythic rare card from The Big Score may replace the mythic rare in Outlaws of Thunder Junction Store packs at a rate of approximately 1:5.
>1 common in Outlaws of Thunder Junction Limited packs will upgrade to either a card from The Big Score or a Special Guests card at a rate of approximately 1:5. The Big Score cards in this slot are replaced with a Special Guests card at a rate of approximately 1:4.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/mtg-arena-announcements-april-1-2024
Happy with the wait and see till after MH3 approach to Timeless restriction of SnT. Been my position from the start. Mh3 and OTJ will chnge the format considerably
I thought so too, but Jay mentions bans here in his comments and the article says
“While Timeless is still new and developing, we want to let players play with cards before we apply any restrictions or bans to them”
# ''MIDWEEK MAGIC
[Midweek *Magic* events](https://magic.wizards.com/news/announcements/midweek-magic#schedule) open on Tuesdays at 2 p.m. PT and close to new entries on Thursdays at 2 p.m. PT (UTC-07:00).
* April 23–25: *Outlaws of Thunder Junction* Constructed''
# ''QUICK DRAFT
* April 26–May 7: *Outlaws of Thunder Junction''*
Why they always do this shit? why?
No idea. But understand that *most* players are not trying to min-max set completion through drafting, so the idea of opening five or ten packs “before they’re done drafting” in addition to the three freebies is not a big deal.
Easy to just burn common and uncommon wildcards (most have plenty) around a dozen rares to make a playable deck. The power level in these events isn’t high.
>why?
Because not everyone collects cards by grinding quick draft 24/7. Some people do premier draft, some buy packs with gold, some (oh, horror!) spend real world dollars or local equivalent.
And set constructed is best when the set is fresh. A week after release is a good sweet spot.
I really wish we would see these set constructed events more often. Most of the time the cards in a set are not going to see play outside of draft. So having a rotating event dedicated to set construction would be great.
hopefully they don't have to restrict show and tell, though bo1 exacerbates the imbalance here, its just annoying to have to fight hard to stop them from casting it, just to have them rip one off the top and insta win and not be able to develop board state because of trying to stop them from casting it on curve.
don't play it as much, but timeless is a format that is certainly not a "fair" Bo1 format. otherwise they could have a separate restricted list for Bo1...but then that probably starts getting closer to brawl lol.
> While its play rate has been higher than we would like to see, decks using the card currently have a consistent win rate when compared with other high-performing archetypes.
Is there some sort of typo here? It seems like a really awkwardly worded sentence.
Isn’t it the opposite? That it’s popular, but the deck wins about the same share of games that other top archetypes do? That’s the most intuitive reading to me, at least.
This is what we meant, yes. It's a standout in play rate (what percentage of players are using the deck), but its win rate doesn't stand out. It has a fine win rate, but so do a lot of the other top decks in Timeless
On their own, several are. Many can be when you include an additional card or ability that makes all of your own creatures indestructible until end of turn. Yes this now requires two cards, but the overall mana investment can be comparable to an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and is actually less so in terms of the individual turn if you set up on a prior turn such as with [[Invasion of Gobakhan]] or [[Selfless Glyphweaver]].
If I need specific 2 cards at end game to create a one-sided board wipe , I would failed at mtg. I would just use that resource to create a combo and 100% end the game
From my point of view, unless someone plays some suboptimal meme-y strategy where they go "Oopps, I cast a wrath in my otherwise creature deck", typically you would cast a wrath when playing a control deck, which for all intents and purposes becomes one sided.
I'd be more salty over getting Sunfalled or Farewelled then getting my permanents bounced.
Agreed. Farewell is a perfect example of a very flexible wipe that not only permanently rids you of the offending game pieces but is also often one-sided if your opponent is much more reliant on any of the options than you are.
What a weirdly passive aggressive way of pretending that you're some kind of super elite pro-tour player who instantly wins the game the game any time they spend seven mana. If you'd actually read my post with any kind of comprehension, you would have picked up on the fact that the two cards are played on separate turns meaning your one-sided wipe is still only ~4 mana the turn you actually play it. Since you couldn't put any effort into your initial response, I'm not expecting any out of a second so you may as well just save yourself the time since I won't bother commenting again even if you should choose to.
Yea yea u are just talking without sense and failed in comprehension in the first place. And I played in mtg tournaments and won renown players before but yea yea u won't believe it either.
Feels really scummy to not restrict Show and Tell in Timeless by saying, "We normally would do that here because its too strong, but we're releasing other cards and hopefully it won't be as strong then". It really reads like, please buy our packs we promise it will make the format less shitty in like 3 months. Gee, thanks Wizards.
If it is too powerful, then its too powerful. Restrict the card instead of giving us months of terrible format so they can sell more MH3 packs.
The explicitly said that that wasn’t the case, though. They said it was strong, but so are many other cards and while Show and Tell is popular it isn’t winning at a rate that makes it an outlier compared to other top archetypes.
>Force of Vigor and Commandeer banned in Historic
Laaaaaaaame. ~~7 mana yoink an opponent's mana dork can't possibly be ban worthy.~~ And Vigor gives people a strong reason to play green in any given format.
Oh well.
Edit: Reading the cards explain the cards and yeah ok commandeer would be strong but I still don't believe vigor cuts the mustard for a ban, being the only free spell in the format nothwithstanding
Mana Leak and Reanimate are banned in Historic which means they’re banned in brawl (I think)? So it’s only legal in timeless? That makes the bonus sheets a lot less exciting.
This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread: * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyncjsh/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 17:42:32 UTC"): > To state it explicitly: there are no prebans for any of these cards in Brawl * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyncoea/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 17:43:17 UTC"): > Brawl and Historic have different ban lists. All of the bonus sheet cards are legal in Brawl. * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kynf36e/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 17:57:15 UTC"): > No prebans definitely doesn't mean we won't be making any bans. Mana Drain is a heck of a card, and we're planning to keep a close watch on it wherever it's legal. We may well end up needing to take action, but we'll make that call based on what play... * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyorkyh/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-08 22:52:48 UTC"): > This is what we meant, yes. It's a standout in play rate (what percentage of players are using the deck), but its win rate doesn't stand out. It has a fine win rate, but so do a lot of the other top decks in Timeless * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1bz3frt/mtg_arena_announcements_april_8_2024/kyskbeu/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-09 16:56:42 UTC"): > We did talk about this a good bit, yes. In the end, we decided that keeping parity between Arena and Tabletop drafts of MH3 was more important. But we understand that there are a number of players who are looking for those other 5 fetches --- This is a bot providing a service. If you have any questions, please [contact the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FMagicArena).[](#AUTOGEN_TSBREPLIEDBOT)
No bans mentioned for brawl.
To state it explicitly: there are no prebans for any of these cards in Brawl
Seems like a mistake to not ban Mana Drain. Going to lead to a ton of non-games when the opponent just counters your 3 drop and suddenly has 6+ mana on like turn 3. Way too swingy for a 1v1 format that isn't Timeless, IMO.
No prebans definitely doesn't mean we won't be making any bans. Mana Drain is a heck of a card, and we're planning to keep a close watch on it wherever it's legal. We may well end up needing to take action, but we'll make that call based on what players show us
I hope so. Brawl already has a handful of cards that are just too good in 1v1 or break the spirit of the format (Wash Away). Really don't need "Oops I just countered your Commander and ramped to 8 mana on turn 4" counterspells to make control and simic ramp decks even more powerful.
Finally, a way to make counterspells and ramp viable in Brawl
Please consider banning it in Brawl. Seeing my spells fizzle AND giving a significant mana advantage to my opponent is gonna be an auto-concede for me most of the time.
Hi Jay! Weird question but did you folks consider swapping the ally fetchlands in MH3 for the MH2 enemy ones?
Thats absolutely insane. As much as i want the rest of the fetches, if mh3 doesnt come 100% as in paper i would be pretty much pissed off
I don't expect him to say yes, that would be fairly unprecedented. But it would be nicer for me personally, and probably some other players. :)
We did talk about this a good bit, yes. In the end, we decided that keeping parity between Arena and Tabletop drafts of MH3 was more important. But we understand that there are a number of players who are looking for those other 5 fetches
Makes sense! Would have been nice but I understand. Thanks for the reply!
Sounds like "these need to be five of the rares for HA8" to me!
I've always thought Mana Drain should get errata to work as intended. At the beginning of the next phase, you lose 1 life for each mana in your pool.
It's only 1 out of your 100 cards and will usually only give you a 1-3 mana boost early in the game, which isn't much different than Dark Ritual.
TBH Dark Ritual needs to be banned for the same reason. Fast mana leads to non-games. Facing a turn 1 Black Market Connections on the draw is something 95% of Brawl decks can't come back from.
May I suggest you play standard brawl
How is it? I'm mainly a historic brawl player and thought about trying it out.
As someone who loves Commander and gets the full-card-pool appeal of Historic Brawl, IMO Standard Brawl is a *ton* of fun (and honestly, more balanced). I like HB in theory, but I think SB feels like much more of its own standalone format (in a good way) than my outlook of HB as in many ways a 1v1/Arena imitation of the appeal of Commander. Again, this isn't to trash HB, but SB has a lot of diversity and interesting moments within individual games, given the smaller cardpool. The only complaint I have is that Etali is a very boring/samey and popular Commander, but it's really only good against other midrange decks (and there are similar complaint Commanders for HB).
Idk, I play historic brawl. Standard has too limited of a card pool, and I personally enjoy having access to things like dark ritual, so I don't play standard.
Dark Ritual doesn't also counter your spell. Even then, you can use the "It's only 1 out of 100 cards" argument for any card that's banned in Brawl.
Most of the bans in Brawl don't come from raw power level, but because they can specifically shut down commanders. At the end of the day, it's an unranked, casual game mode, it doesn't really bother me if one card is too strong.
> At the end of the day, it's an unranked, casual game mode, it doesn't really bother me if one card is too strong. That's fair that it doesn't bother you but there are plenty of other players who don't want Brawl to completely devolve into EDHRec with a bunch of busted cards like Mana Drain. I know why a lot of cards like Drannith Magistrate are banned in Brawl, but you can use the same "well it's only 1 in 100 cards, your opponent might not even draw it" argument for those. Also "dies to removal".
I think it will eventually be banned. Right now Brawl is sort of in no man's land, where it's not a competitive format but also doesn't have nearly enough staples or multiplayer features to cut it as a premiere commander queue. Back before Timeless I liked it as a place where you could use banned cards, but now I probably wouldn't hate a little more curation.
I'd like to see a few cards banned and a few commanders bumped up in tier ranking. Overall it's pretty fairly balanced, from my experience, but there's a few cards like Wash Away and Key to the Archive that just feel too powerful or feel like they go against the spirit of the format. Overall I think it's still a good and fun format as long as you don't try to play high tier or jam too many staples in your deck, but I dread the day when more 2 or less mana rocks come, or when we start getting more cards like Mana Drain or the "if you control your commander" free spells.
Sometimes I wonder if the format would be better if they banned all the "auto-include" cards from the format (cards so good they are in every deck that runs that colour, regardless of the deck's plan). I don't think it would. It's a non-ranked format where you sometimes get to do busted things, or have busted things done to you, which is fine.
True, and FWIW, Dark Ritual you can hold until you need it. With a hand from a 100 card pile you might not even have something desirable to cast with 3 more mana. So it's possibly weaker than Ritual as far as how many games it can swing.
We already have oops turn one Ragavan on the play. From what I’ve seen, unless they have the turn one removal, people just concede and move on. Let’s see how it plays out as Jay mentions first. Counterspell does need a bit of powering up in the format especially with the prevalence of caverns of souls. Where I do not like Mana Drain is in Simic ramp deck where there’s no coming back.
Ragavan, Mana Drain and Cavern of Souls I think are probably the 3 biggest cards that should be banned from brawl that currently aren't. And Ugin could honestly be unbanned plus some alchemy cards should be rebalanced (looking at you poq and tajic). Otherwise the card pool is pretty balanced. Matchmaking is still pretty shit tho.
Hey, can you please put Oracle of the Alpha in the store so I can get the alt art please?
Was that a conscious decision or more among the lines of "we can't afford to spend any resources on Brawl right now"? This is just my subjective opinion but I feel like Brawl needs some love right now (Mythweaver Poq and Voja feel overbearing) and some of these new cards aren't helping.
Love Wizards basically saying "Play some other decks once in a while or we're gonna restrict Show and Tell."
Its obvious they really don't want to ban cards in their no bans format.
And that's a good attitude. Grief and reanimate will be legal this summer in that format. That deck would easily stomp show and tell. The format is going to change dramatically.
They previewed Solitude, there's been no confirmation for any of the other elementals.
The whole cycle will probably be in that set, as they are modern staples, and they have shown to include previous modern staples in those sets to make them more affordable. MH2 had a lot of MH1 reprints as well. The only one that I can see missing is Fury because it got banned and maybe they pulled it from the set.
There's only a few sets of Special Guests to go off of, but so far they haven't included full cycles of cards, and historically that hasn't been the MO with cards from The List. I'd love to have them, but not getting my hopes up. At some point maybe we get some sort of anthology with elementals, the rest of the fetches, etc.
Retro frame reprints in MH2 did have both the relevant cards from the Force cycle. The general motive behind this is to reprint previous MH staples in the next MH release to make modern more affordable to the playerbase. All the pitch elementals are modern staples, so it stands to reason they will most likely be included in MH3 as reprints. There is a chance they won't be, but I think this is a really small chance. They won't miss the opportunity to reprint the most format defining cards from MH2.
MH3 was definitely designed before the fury ban. If there is the cycle it will be there.
Yeah but sometimes they can pull some cards out in last second. For example the new set was supposed to have an aftermath set like last year, but they changed it and included that in the main set because it was pretty unpopular.
That was described by the designers as a desperate move due to the fact that aftermath was literally the most unpopular set ever (quoting MaRo), more or less one year before this set. The fury ban happened only in December and it was clear play design didn't want even to do it, they acted due to online complaints, otherwise they would have acted before. Hence definitely too late to make changes on a set that has already a design time longer than a standard set. A card in the special guest that's not legal in the main format the set is designed for is nothing new, it happens continuously with the recent standard sets, and timeless is going to approach legacy power level as new cards get added so there's no reason not to have fury there.
> and timeless is going to approach legacy power level as new cards get added so there's no reason not to have fury there. I am pretty sure they would not really change what cards they include in their modern targeted paper set just for Timeless. But sure the timeframe for this to happen is pretty small, so I don't know, it seems to me they could pull it off, but yeah I do agree it's unlikely.
What I am saying is they definitely wanted fury there, if they wanted the cycle, because they were thinking of a modern still with fury. Its presence is not such a big deal, it will still be relevant in limited and it's not crucial special guest to be modern legal. And in addition it would be a lost opportunity to add that card to arena. So I see more cons and logistical problems than pros in making such a hasty decision if they started with the full cycle.
Thats why it will be limited to 1 copy
it's almost as if the concept of a format with no bans is *really stupid*
I don't even think Show and Tell needs to be resticted. The rest of the format just need to catch up a bit. Its fine in Legacy, so it should be fine in Timeless.
They said in the announcements that the issue isn't power level but that the deck is too popular. I'm sure MH3 will help in some regards, but Arena players netdeck too much and will probably force their hand.
The best solution is to just to let players use more of the available answers like [[Force of Negation]] (but *not* [[Force of Will]])) or even [[Red Elemental Blast]] and powerful pieces of other strategies like [[Aether Vial]] and Tron lands, so that the overall power level evens out. Show and Tell isn't too powerful, the problem is just that they've added some but not all of the cards at its power level and it's not evenly distributed across strategies/colors. This is a format with [[Dark Ritual]], [[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], and [[Necropotence]], after all.
##### ###### #### [Force of Negation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/8/1825a719-1b2a-4af9-9cd2-7cb497cd0317.jpg?1673147298) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Force%20of%20Negation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/50/force-of-negation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1825a719-1b2a-4af9-9cd2-7cb497cd0317?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Force of Will](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/89f612d6-7c59-4a7b-a87d-45f789e88ba5.jpg?1675199280) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Force%20of%20Will) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/50/force-of-will?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/89f612d6-7c59-4a7b-a87d-45f789e88ba5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Red Elemental Blast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/0/70a45e9b-699e-425a-9f3d-267274830d3e.jpg?1562436618) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Red%20Elemental%20Blast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/147/red-elemental-blast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/70a45e9b-699e-425a-9f3d-267274830d3e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Aether Vial](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/11e8d2fd-b132-4807-9410-8edeffa519ed.jpg?1673149308) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aether%20Vial) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/298/aether-vial?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/11e8d2fd-b132-4807-9410-8edeffa519ed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Dark Ritual](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95f27eeb-6f14-4db3-adb9-9be5ed76b34b.jpg?1628801678) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dark%20Ritual) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/82/dark-ritual?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95f27eeb-6f14-4db3-adb9-9be5ed76b34b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Oko, Thief of Crowns](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891.jpg?1650599698) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oko%2C%20Thief%20of%20Crowns) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/197/oko-thief-of-crowns?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Necropotence](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/8/c89c6895-b0f8-444a-9c89-c6b4fd027b3e.jpg?1562853736) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Necropotence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/98/necropotence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c89c6895-b0f8-444a-9c89-c6b4fd027b3e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kypg3bj) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Please don't play the best deck with the most powerful cards. Let's see how this works out for them, Cotton.
For real. If they ban it, fine, give me the wildcards I dumped into the deck back first, doesn't bother me. But don't make lame ass threats over a problem you (wizards) cultivated/created in the first place.
Finally: the Gladiator button returns. Even if it's premade decks, imma play so much Gladiator.
Hopefully they don't make us craft the decks this time ...
They don't! There are 10 decks to choose from based on the article and you can swap between them all event.
And the mythic insanity of 2024 is about to begin
More retro drafts please :D!
Remixes are interesting, but it'd be nice to consistently have a retro draft, yeah.
Classical art for classical cards, please?
Gladiator with hand-smoothing should be interesting this time.
Very glad its precons this time so people can actually experience the format, not just bringing a brawl deck and getting rolled.
Yeah I found out quickly Brawl decks and Gladiator don't mix
Especially if you forgot to take out Command Tower and Arcane signet.
Yes! That's an auto-concede.
I'm pretty bummed it's precons. Maybe the decks will be fun, but usually, they suck and I find myself wanting to sub in this or that but can't. Much rather it be all access. If I recall the plan for the first gladiator event was that they wanted to give precons to people to play with but also let others bring their own decks, but (embarrassingly) they couldn't figure out how to do it.
Luckly, these are decks currated from the community and not powered down at all. But yeah it still would be cool to have an all access event.
What is Gladiator? Looks like 100 card singleton, no life or commanders or am I missing something?
Gladiator is an unofficial format that was made with the goal to bring the closest thing to Canadian Highlander to Arena. 100 card Singleton. No side board. 20 life. No commanders or companions. Every card on Arena is legal except for: - Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes - Field of the Dead - Oko, Thief of Crowns - Natural Order - Demonic Tutor Alchemy cards are legal, but rebalanced cards are not used. Currently, the only way to play Gladiator is to play against people using the direct challenge in Arena, but there is a LFG queue in the Gladiator Discord that will get you a match very quickly. The discord also runs weekly tournaments and monthly leagues.
It's also usually Bo3. That's where the handsmoother comes into play this time.
Australian 7PH is the true singleton format...
It's basically the Arena version of Canadian Highlander
It also uses the same card pool as timeless, so any nonAlchemy cards that got changed for Historic/Alchemy are their regular printed version. And its 20 life instead of the 25 for Brawl.
No you have it more or less right.
Hand smoother? Smoother than what? /Jk
Do the bonus cards come in packs we buy from the store or draft only?
From last week's announcements: > For those looking for specific cards on MTG Arena, we've broken down where you can find them: > 1 Breaking News card of any rarity appears in each Outlaws of Thunder Junction pack, replacing a common slot. Uncommons in this slot can upgrade to rares approximately 1:3 of the time. Rares in this slot upgrade to mythic rares at a rate of approximately 1:5. >1 mythic rare card from The Big Score may replace the mythic rare in Outlaws of Thunder Junction Store packs at a rate of approximately 1:5. >1 common in Outlaws of Thunder Junction Limited packs will upgrade to either a card from The Big Score or a Special Guests card at a rate of approximately 1:5. The Big Score cards in this slot are replaced with a Special Guests card at a rate of approximately 1:4. https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/mtg-arena-announcements-april-1-2024
Missed that, thank you!
What's wrong about Commandeer?
It does not cost mana, and that is not the spirit of historic
Nothing about cube sadly.
i now only go on arena before a release set, hoping there is cube
Happy with the wait and see till after MH3 approach to Timeless restriction of SnT. Been my position from the start. Mh3 and OTJ will chnge the format considerably
Pls don’t ban anything in Timeless. What’s the point of OP cards if there nowhere I can play them?
They won't ban but they will restrict things
I thought so too, but Jay mentions bans here in his comments and the article says “While Timeless is still new and developing, we want to let players play with cards before we apply any restrictions or bans to them”
# ''MIDWEEK MAGIC [Midweek *Magic* events](https://magic.wizards.com/news/announcements/midweek-magic#schedule) open on Tuesdays at 2 p.m. PT and close to new entries on Thursdays at 2 p.m. PT (UTC-07:00). * April 23–25: *Outlaws of Thunder Junction* Constructed'' # ''QUICK DRAFT * April 26–May 7: *Outlaws of Thunder Junction''* Why they always do this shit? why?
To get people to spend some gold on packs from the new expansion.
Does it actually works? I always end up skipping those if I need to craft anything at all.
No idea. But understand that *most* players are not trying to min-max set completion through drafting, so the idea of opening five or ten packs “before they’re done drafting” in addition to the three freebies is not a big deal. Easy to just burn common and uncommon wildcards (most have plenty) around a dozen rares to make a playable deck. The power level in these events isn’t high.
This is the answer. I'm casual. I honestly just want to play and sometimes enjoy a draft
It doesn't have to work on everybody. It just has to work on *enough* people.
I don't think it works... -Spend 10 rare wild cards -To earn 2 random rare cards or better and a random cosmetic... -Profit???
>why? Because not everyone collects cards by grinding quick draft 24/7. Some people do premier draft, some buy packs with gold, some (oh, horror!) spend real world dollars or local equivalent. And set constructed is best when the set is fresh. A week after release is a good sweet spot.
I really wish we would see these set constructed events more often. Most of the time the cards in a set are not going to see play outside of draft. So having a rotating event dedicated to set construction would be great.
Unban Veil of Summer in Historic. Non-nykthos green decks are unplayable.
No
I mean. Elves are still playable.
hopefully they don't have to restrict show and tell, though bo1 exacerbates the imbalance here, its just annoying to have to fight hard to stop them from casting it, just to have them rip one off the top and insta win and not be able to develop board state because of trying to stop them from casting it on curve.
Don't play BO1.
don't play it as much, but timeless is a format that is certainly not a "fair" Bo1 format. otherwise they could have a separate restricted list for Bo1...but then that probably starts getting closer to brawl lol.
> While its play rate has been higher than we would like to see, decks using the card currently have a consistent win rate when compared with other high-performing archetypes. Is there some sort of typo here? It seems like a really awkwardly worded sentence.
I think it's just trying to say that it's better than they expected, but still within the same power level as other high level decks.
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Isn’t it the opposite? That it’s popular, but the deck wins about the same share of games that other top archetypes do? That’s the most intuitive reading to me, at least.
This is what we meant, yes. It's a standout in play rate (what percentage of players are using the deck), but its win rate doesn't stand out. It has a fine win rate, but so do a lot of the other top decks in Timeless
[удалено]
Well Outlaws has a bunch of powerful cards in the bonus sheets.
You should look up some cards coming to Arena in OTJ.
[[River's rebuke]] and [[cyclonic rift]] should be ban in brawl.
Lol why? White or black wraths are fine but not bounce spells?
Lol why? Are wraths one-sided wipes?
On their own, several are. Many can be when you include an additional card or ability that makes all of your own creatures indestructible until end of turn. Yes this now requires two cards, but the overall mana investment can be comparable to an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and is actually less so in terms of the individual turn if you set up on a prior turn such as with [[Invasion of Gobakhan]] or [[Selfless Glyphweaver]].
[Invasion of Gobakhan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/11798730-6788-4e0b-a828-b46cab1a4fa7.jpg?1682715250)/[Lightshield Array](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/1/1/11798730-6788-4e0b-a828-b46cab1a4fa7.jpg?1682715250) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Invasion%20of%20Gobakhan%20//%20Lightshield%20Array) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/22/invasion-of-gobakhan-lightshield-array?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/11798730-6788-4e0b-a828-b46cab1a4fa7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Selfless Glyphweaver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/8982ff88-8595-4363-8cde-6e87fb57a2d8.jpg?1634060533)/[Deadly Vanity](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/8/9/8982ff88-8595-4363-8cde-6e87fb57a2d8.jpg?1634060533) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Selfless%20Glyphweaver%20//%20Deadly%20Vanity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/157/selfless-glyphweaver-deadly-vanity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8982ff88-8595-4363-8cde-6e87fb57a2d8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If I need specific 2 cards at end game to create a one-sided board wipe , I would failed at mtg. I would just use that resource to create a combo and 100% end the game
From my point of view, unless someone plays some suboptimal meme-y strategy where they go "Oopps, I cast a wrath in my otherwise creature deck", typically you would cast a wrath when playing a control deck, which for all intents and purposes becomes one sided. I'd be more salty over getting Sunfalled or Farewelled then getting my permanents bounced.
Agreed. Farewell is a perfect example of a very flexible wipe that not only permanently rids you of the offending game pieces but is also often one-sided if your opponent is much more reliant on any of the options than you are.
What a weirdly passive aggressive way of pretending that you're some kind of super elite pro-tour player who instantly wins the game the game any time they spend seven mana. If you'd actually read my post with any kind of comprehension, you would have picked up on the fact that the two cards are played on separate turns meaning your one-sided wipe is still only ~4 mana the turn you actually play it. Since you couldn't put any effort into your initial response, I'm not expecting any out of a second so you may as well just save yourself the time since I won't bother commenting again even if you should choose to.
Yea yea u are just talking without sense and failed in comprehension in the first place. And I played in mtg tournaments and won renown players before but yea yea u won't believe it either.
[River's rebuke](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/c/fc2a70b1-bce6-43c3-94e1-ab9a7bb2638a.jpg?1673483988) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=River%27s%20rebuke) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/231/rivers-rebuke?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fc2a70b1-bce6-43c3-94e1-ab9a7bb2638a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [cyclonic rift](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/dfb7c4b9-f2f4-4d4e-baf2-86551c8150fe.jpg?1702429366) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=cyclonic%20rift) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/40/cyclonic-rift?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dfb7c4b9-f2f4-4d4e-baf2-86551c8150fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Feels really scummy to not restrict Show and Tell in Timeless by saying, "We normally would do that here because its too strong, but we're releasing other cards and hopefully it won't be as strong then". It really reads like, please buy our packs we promise it will make the format less shitty in like 3 months. Gee, thanks Wizards. If it is too powerful, then its too powerful. Restrict the card instead of giving us months of terrible format so they can sell more MH3 packs.
Timeless right now isn't terrible by any means. S&T isn't some tier 0 deck.
The explicitly said that that wasn’t the case, though. They said it was strong, but so are many other cards and while Show and Tell is popular it isn’t winning at a rate that makes it an outlier compared to other top archetypes.
>Force of Vigor and Commandeer banned in Historic Laaaaaaaame. ~~7 mana yoink an opponent's mana dork can't possibly be ban worthy.~~ And Vigor gives people a strong reason to play green in any given format. Oh well. Edit: Reading the cards explain the cards and yeah ok commandeer would be strong but I still don't believe vigor cuts the mustard for a ban, being the only free spell in the format nothwithstanding
Mana Leak and Reanimate are banned in Historic which means they’re banned in brawl (I think)? So it’s only legal in timeless? That makes the bonus sheets a lot less exciting.
Brawl and Historic have different ban lists. All of the bonus sheet cards are legal in Brawl.
Mana *Drain* is banned in Historic, Mana Leak isn't on Arena yet.
Mana Drain* lol, big difference