Magic: The Gathering Arena Adding "Historic" Set Rotation Format

It happens to every (successful) CCG, whether physical or digital: Eventually, you have to set your tournament structure up so that you'll only use cards from the previous few sets, so that new players don't have to accumulate thousands of cards from five (or more) years ago to compete. In doing so, you'll probably also create an "anything goes" format that does allow players to use any cards, from any era. Hearthstone did it a few years back (as I predicted), and now Magic: The Gathering Arena has similar plans.

Introducing "Historic," the non-rotating -- i.e., "anything goes" -- format coming to MTG Arena later this month. Wizards of the Coast penned a blog post today to update players on how it will work, following feedback from its earlier announcement in late August. Most significantly, Wildcard redemption rates, previously announced as 2:1, will be set to 1:1, so players can "test and brew new and different Historic decks." Historic events will start in November and occur at least once per month, and players will be able to buy cards from Historic sets in the usual 15-card boosters, instead of the previously announced 45-card bundles.

The complete chart describing how Historic will work, and how today's announcement differs from that of two weeks ago, can be found below. Historic comes to the game on Sept. 26, alongside the launch of the Throne of Eldraine expansion and formal game launch.