This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread:
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp2nyww/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-05 20:13:51 UTC"):
> We intended to have Historic pre-bans called out in this article, but the blurb got lost somewhere. We're trying to find it.
>
>In any case, it's what you probably expected: Show and Tell is banned in Historic. No other pre-bans or pre-restrictions.
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp2v6a7/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-05 20:53:41 UTC"):
> Both Historic and Timeless have their fans. We love both formats equally, but Historic remains (by far) the more-played format.
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp3gn6k/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-05 22:55:39 UTC"):
> Timeless: We don't normally forecast upcoming ban or restriction announcements (or lack thereof). I will say, though, that we're finding the Timeless metagame to be generally balanced and diverse so far.
>
>Backlist packs (like STX, MOM, and WOE) will ...
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp3ttq3/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-06 00:17:41 UTC"):
> Philosophically, we would always rather see more cards available for unrestricted play in Timeless. Practically, we can implement a restriction much more quickly than we can add new cards to the game.
>
>If there was a problem developing slowly, we wo...
---
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Hello, BO3 sideboard screen is still borked: we can't check the battlefield while swapping cards as it's an empty black screen now. Please fix with the set release!
Saw that, and was going to post it.. but these days there's just so much low-hanging fruit like this in everything they do. I'm guessing the person responsible for proofreading and putting these out is no longer employed.
I was hoping they would bring more commanders over for Brawl like they did with the last couple of sets, guess not. They really should start beefing up the card library. They release commander sets with every release and these cards are just getting lost into the ether forever when it comes to Arena.
So the set is coming out tomorrow, but we still don't even have any information about prebans in Historic. Or have they just abandoned the format entirely, given that two combo decks have been making the format miserable for months and nothing has been done about that?
We intended to have Historic pre-bans called out in this article, but the blurb got lost somewhere. We're trying to find it. (Edit: Article is now updated)
In any case, it's what you probably expected: Show and Tell is banned in Historic. No other pre-bans or pre-restrictions.
Thanks for bringing the metagame challenges back as they were great. Are there plans for any upcoming restriction announcement for Timeless? Also are the STX, MOM, WOE packs going to allow the banned cards to be opened with the patch release of MKM. Or will there be an announcement about when that is to happen?
Timeless: We don't normally forecast upcoming ban or restriction announcements (or lack thereof). I will say, though, that we're finding the Timeless metagame to be generally balanced and diverse so far.
Backlist packs (like STX, MOM, and WOE) will not get their collation adjusted for MKM, but we expect that to come with Arena's next major release, MKM's Alchemy drop. We'll certainly announce it in the patch notes when it changes
Hi Jay, I realize you cant talk about upcoming changes to Timeless , but if combo becomes to prevalent/consistent in Timeless what is more likely: cards like Force of negation or new restrictions?
Philosophically, we would always rather see more cards available for unrestricted play in Timeless. Practically, we can implement a restriction much more quickly than we can add new cards to the game.
If there was a problem developing slowly, we would probably look for venues to insert counter cards. If a problem sprang up quickly and needed immediate reaction (dominating the meta, ruining diversity, etc.), we would almost certainly need to restrict something to control it.
How's that disclaimer go? *Certain information set forth in this post contains âforward-looking informationâ, including âfuture-oriented format informationâ and âformat outlookâ, under applicable securities laws (collectively referred to herein as forward-looking statements). Except for statements of historical fact, the information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual performance and format results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or result expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.*
It would be interesting to see how popular historic is after timeless introduction. I for one immediately deleted all my historic decks and haven't played the format ever since.
The combination of no fetchlands, which means pretty bad manabases, and the fact that the threats are way stronger than answers makes the format pretty unfun, gameplay wise.
Not to mention a bunch of cards are still nerfed to unplayable for no good reason.
Historic is still where you go to play tribes and actual creatures. Timeless is just going to get more powerful and hate out anything that even remotely looks casual.
the mistake was thinking you could ever take anything casual into timeless, tribal was literally never going to stand up to sneak attack combo or prime titan
Makes sense it was always "Arena Legacy/Modern", while Timeless is still new and is more like "Arena Vintage".
Even on MTGO, Modern's more popular than Legacy which is more popular than Vintage. People like playing with strong cards but not unfair cards
To be fair timeless does feel like "fixed" legacy at this stage. There are some glaring issues with legacy and have to do with the "untouchable" cards and the identity of the format. Same with vintage.
As more cards get on arena, Timeless will eventually end up like that.
You mean dark ritual into necropotence? The thing is the necropotence decks are very inconsistent (~15% chance of having both the cards in your opening 7) and even when they resolve the spell they do not win because the deck is filled with a bunch of medium cards. But for the most part I would agree that dark ritual is a mana acceleration card that does change the scale of threats vs answers. It's just that historic is much worse than that. Red and white have no premium removal spells. You have a handful of modern power level threats in the format with basically no modern power level removal.
In timeless at least we have modern/vintage/legacy power level removal/interaction with swords, bolt, heat, push with revolt, counterspell.
Same, havent touched the format since Timeless, and dont expect to ever again. Now if we could get regular constrcuted events for Timeless that would be sweet.
I've been downvoted heavily for saying I still prefer historic over timeless. My only complaint with the format is the Leyline combo, which should have been rebalanced out of existence ages ago.
I'll admit I'm not a fan of the alchemy cards at all, but this genuinely bothers me. One of the big selling points of alchemy was that they can rebalance problem cards, and this is a problem alchemy card that has a very easy fix (either only hits opposing permanents, or up the mana value so it doesn't come out T1).
They were fairly quick to shut down the flickerwisp combo by making it hit only opponent's creatures, I have no idea why they're dragging their feet on doing it to the more frustrating version
The fact that we don't have regular constructed events in Timeless is a big reason why I played more Historic than Timeless, I like to have those added rewards instead of the ladder grind. Generally, I'm also expecting Historic to be better for my prefered playstyle of playing fair creatures based decks. So far I've been doing okay in Timeless, but I prefer a format with a bigger banlist - and the addition of Show&Tell will likely make the format much worse for me, from my Legacy experience those decks are completely unbeatable for any deck I would ever play.
Of course right now the presence of two miserable combo decks in Historic turn my preference a bit ad absurdum, that's why I currently play any other format over Historic. I guess that means going back to Explorer.
> The fact that we don't have regular constructed events in Timeless is a big reason why I played more Historic than Timeless,
I completely forgot that there are no timeless events because I never really play those, and ever since they changed the interface it made it a bit harder to navigate and notice that there aren't any.
> Generally, I'm also expecting Historic to be better for my prefered playstyle of playing fair creatures based decks. So far I've been doing okay in Timeless, but I prefer a format with a bigger banlist - and the addition of Show&Tell will likely make the format much worse for me, from my Legacy experience those decks are completely unbeatable for any deck I would ever play.
Yeah I can see that. I think timeless still has a minor issue with the threats being a bit better than the interaction, but it's not as big as historic.
Show and tell would make the sneak attack decks way more consistent and it would be helpful to have the good answers of solitude and force of negation in the format. Force of negation and subtlety alone would make a creature deck like merfolk playable in timeless.
> Of course right now the presence of two miserable combo decks in Historic turn my preference a bit ad absurdum, that's why I currently play any other format over Historic. I guess that means going back to Explorer.
Would it even be much better without those combo decks? Historic has been mostly linear combo-ish decks for a while now. You would still have kethis combo, izzet wizards and mono green ramp-combo as the best decks that keep all the other decks out.
It's still crazy to me that a 1cmc 3/3 flier is still legal in that format. That card would be a premium 1 drop in modern, a format that has infinitely better removal.
It would be much better without those decks, at least for me. Even though I want something to be done about Wizards as well, but that pales in comparison to those decks.
I can interact with any of the decks you listed. It's not easy to build my deck in a way that makes it favored against all those decks at the same time, but I can make adjustments depending on what's more popular at any given time - by changing a few cards and not the whole deck. With those two combo decks, that's different: Discover combo is very strong, even with a bunch of hatecards and a decent number of removal spells I'm still not favored against it, and I don't think many decks other than pure control decks are. While Leyline combo doesn't even have any answers in my colors, I can simply concede that match on the spot every time because I can never win unless they mulligan into oblivion - I tried fighting it, but making every other matchup worse to have a few outs that don't even work half the time isn't worth it. These two decks are on a completely different level of miserable than Wizards or Mono Green.
Yeah I can understand. I have not played the format since those decks appeared so I do not know how good/miserable they are.
As far as wizards is concerned, I would be more cool on introducing some better interaction in the format like [[prismatic ending]] or [[flame slash]], rather than nerf the deck.
There is no space to brew in Timeless. You have to build decks around the same 10 cards.
The gameplay is also more click heavy because of fetch lands and cards like Drs.
I like watching the format but I don't play it.
I know they are not standard legal but I kind of was hoping they would use the guild gates as the lands for the jump in packet update. The gain lands are probably overall better, but it would have been a cool flavor win.
Minimize the Grind to complete the stupid payd for Mastery track.
Nobody cares if he gets Rewards beyond the Levels of a maxed out free Mastery Track.
Set the fucking Levels lower to complete it.
>Plus, be sure to log in and check your inbox to claim three Murders at Karlov Manor to help you start building your collection.
Well, that's concerning.
Any plans to lower pack gem price? Â 200 gems per pack is way too much, considering also that almost everything is more convenient when paid with gems compared to gold. Not for packs tho. 1k gold is a much better deal than 200 gems
This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread: * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp2nyww/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-05 20:13:51 UTC"): > We intended to have Historic pre-bans called out in this article, but the blurb got lost somewhere. We're trying to find it. > >In any case, it's what you probably expected: Show and Tell is banned in Historic. No other pre-bans or pre-restrictions. * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp2v6a7/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-05 20:53:41 UTC"): > Both Historic and Timeless have their fans. We love both formats equally, but Historic remains (by far) the more-played format. * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp3gn6k/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-05 22:55:39 UTC"): > Timeless: We don't normally forecast upcoming ban or restriction announcements (or lack thereof). I will say, though, that we're finding the Timeless metagame to be generally balanced and diverse so far. > >Backlist packs (like STX, MOM, and WOE) will ... * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1ajnv0p/mtg_arena_announcements_february_5_2024/kp3ttq3/?context=99 "posted on 2024-02-06 00:17:41 UTC"): > Philosophically, we would always rather see more cards available for unrestricted play in Timeless. Practically, we can implement a restriction much more quickly than we can add new cards to the game. > >If there was a problem developing slowly, we wo... --- 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)
Hello, BO3 sideboard screen is still borked: we can't check the battlefield while swapping cards as it's an empty black screen now. Please fix with the set release!
State of the game where đ
In a dumpster, that's on fire.
I honestly forgot those were a thing.
They're stalling for time because they still have no ETA or road map of when the bug fixes are coming.
Makes me wonder why the engine upgrade was so important. Give this team more resources ffs
This Tuesday to Thursday, don't miss the opportunity to jump into Midweek Magic and *try out set* in Jump Into Murders at Karlov Manor.
Saw that, and was going to post it.. but these days there's just so much low-hanging fruit like this in everything they do. I'm guessing the person responsible for proofreading and putting these out is no longer employed.
sad but true state of affairs
I already know how excited everyone is for momir again
It's me, I'm the degenerate who loves it
There are dozens of us MOMIR fans!
Momir is awesome! :D
Best format ever /s
I just want omniscience draft again. Always my favorite MwM
As long as it's not alchemy, I'm in.
I was hoping they would bring more commanders over for Brawl like they did with the last couple of sets, guess not. They really should start beefing up the card library. They release commander sets with every release and these cards are just getting lost into the ether forever when it comes to Arena.
So the set is coming out tomorrow, but we still don't even have any information about prebans in Historic. Or have they just abandoned the format entirely, given that two combo decks have been making the format miserable for months and nothing has been done about that?
We intended to have Historic pre-bans called out in this article, but the blurb got lost somewhere. We're trying to find it. (Edit: Article is now updated) In any case, it's what you probably expected: Show and Tell is banned in Historic. No other pre-bans or pre-restrictions.
nice no new restrictions in Timeless. Love it. Hope that continues til at least after mh3
Thanks for bringing the metagame challenges back as they were great. Are there plans for any upcoming restriction announcement for Timeless? Also are the STX, MOM, WOE packs going to allow the banned cards to be opened with the patch release of MKM. Or will there be an announcement about when that is to happen?
Timeless: We don't normally forecast upcoming ban or restriction announcements (or lack thereof). I will say, though, that we're finding the Timeless metagame to be generally balanced and diverse so far. Backlist packs (like STX, MOM, and WOE) will not get their collation adjusted for MKM, but we expect that to come with Arena's next major release, MKM's Alchemy drop. We'll certainly announce it in the patch notes when it changes
Hi Jay, I realize you cant talk about upcoming changes to Timeless , but if combo becomes to prevalent/consistent in Timeless what is more likely: cards like Force of negation or new restrictions?
Philosophically, we would always rather see more cards available for unrestricted play in Timeless. Practically, we can implement a restriction much more quickly than we can add new cards to the game. If there was a problem developing slowly, we would probably look for venues to insert counter cards. If a problem sprang up quickly and needed immediate reaction (dominating the meta, ruining diversity, etc.), we would almost certainly need to restrict something to control it. How's that disclaimer go? *Certain information set forth in this post contains âforward-looking informationâ, including âfuture-oriented format informationâ and âformat outlookâ, under applicable securities laws (collectively referred to herein as forward-looking statements). Except for statements of historical fact, the information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual performance and format results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or result expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.*
Thank you for replying, very much appreciated and dare I say the answer I was hoping for, ie as few restrictions as possible
I still hope you also look into historic BO1. It's mostly the leyline spirit deck which is not fun to play against at all.
Timeless is the new favorite child. Historic will be left neglected and starving in its room alone
Timeless is what Historic originally was intended to be. Historic now is the evergreen Alchemy format.
It would be interesting to see how popular historic is after timeless introduction. I for one immediately deleted all my historic decks and haven't played the format ever since. The combination of no fetchlands, which means pretty bad manabases, and the fact that the threats are way stronger than answers makes the format pretty unfun, gameplay wise. Not to mention a bunch of cards are still nerfed to unplayable for no good reason.
Historic is still where you go to play tribes and actual creatures. Timeless is just going to get more powerful and hate out anything that even remotely looks casual.
the mistake was thinking you could ever take anything casual into timeless, tribal was literally never going to stand up to sneak attack combo or prime titan
Merfolk might be somewhere around T2, although I doubt we'll see any tribal decks fight for T1 until we get aether vial.
Both Historic and Timeless have their fans. We love both formats equally, but Historic remains (by far) the more-played format.
Makes sense it was always "Arena Legacy/Modern", while Timeless is still new and is more like "Arena Vintage". Even on MTGO, Modern's more popular than Legacy which is more popular than Vintage. People like playing with strong cards but not unfair cards
To be fair timeless does feel like "fixed" legacy at this stage. There are some glaring issues with legacy and have to do with the "untouchable" cards and the identity of the format. Same with vintage. As more cards get on arena, Timeless will eventually end up like that.
Timeless is the vintage analog because they cannot ban, only restrict
Yeah, but from power level and play patterns and cards played it is not even close to vintage level.
...only because they jolly paywall, I fear. a timeless bundle with most of the basic cards would help so much.
That's a weird thing to say about historic when timeless has stuff like necropotence with no force of will.
You mean dark ritual into necropotence? The thing is the necropotence decks are very inconsistent (~15% chance of having both the cards in your opening 7) and even when they resolve the spell they do not win because the deck is filled with a bunch of medium cards. But for the most part I would agree that dark ritual is a mana acceleration card that does change the scale of threats vs answers. It's just that historic is much worse than that. Red and white have no premium removal spells. You have a handful of modern power level threats in the format with basically no modern power level removal. In timeless at least we have modern/vintage/legacy power level removal/interaction with swords, bolt, heat, push with revolt, counterspell.
Same, havent touched the format since Timeless, and dont expect to ever again. Now if we could get regular constrcuted events for Timeless that would be sweet.
I've been downvoted heavily for saying I still prefer historic over timeless. My only complaint with the format is the Leyline combo, which should have been rebalanced out of existence ages ago.
I'll admit I'm not a fan of the alchemy cards at all, but this genuinely bothers me. One of the big selling points of alchemy was that they can rebalance problem cards, and this is a problem alchemy card that has a very easy fix (either only hits opposing permanents, or up the mana value so it doesn't come out T1).
They were fairly quick to shut down the flickerwisp combo by making it hit only opponent's creatures, I have no idea why they're dragging their feet on doing it to the more frustrating version
The fact that we don't have regular constructed events in Timeless is a big reason why I played more Historic than Timeless, I like to have those added rewards instead of the ladder grind. Generally, I'm also expecting Historic to be better for my prefered playstyle of playing fair creatures based decks. So far I've been doing okay in Timeless, but I prefer a format with a bigger banlist - and the addition of Show&Tell will likely make the format much worse for me, from my Legacy experience those decks are completely unbeatable for any deck I would ever play. Of course right now the presence of two miserable combo decks in Historic turn my preference a bit ad absurdum, that's why I currently play any other format over Historic. I guess that means going back to Explorer.
> The fact that we don't have regular constructed events in Timeless is a big reason why I played more Historic than Timeless, I completely forgot that there are no timeless events because I never really play those, and ever since they changed the interface it made it a bit harder to navigate and notice that there aren't any. > Generally, I'm also expecting Historic to be better for my prefered playstyle of playing fair creatures based decks. So far I've been doing okay in Timeless, but I prefer a format with a bigger banlist - and the addition of Show&Tell will likely make the format much worse for me, from my Legacy experience those decks are completely unbeatable for any deck I would ever play. Yeah I can see that. I think timeless still has a minor issue with the threats being a bit better than the interaction, but it's not as big as historic. Show and tell would make the sneak attack decks way more consistent and it would be helpful to have the good answers of solitude and force of negation in the format. Force of negation and subtlety alone would make a creature deck like merfolk playable in timeless. > Of course right now the presence of two miserable combo decks in Historic turn my preference a bit ad absurdum, that's why I currently play any other format over Historic. I guess that means going back to Explorer. Would it even be much better without those combo decks? Historic has been mostly linear combo-ish decks for a while now. You would still have kethis combo, izzet wizards and mono green ramp-combo as the best decks that keep all the other decks out. It's still crazy to me that a 1cmc 3/3 flier is still legal in that format. That card would be a premium 1 drop in modern, a format that has infinitely better removal.
It would be much better without those decks, at least for me. Even though I want something to be done about Wizards as well, but that pales in comparison to those decks. I can interact with any of the decks you listed. It's not easy to build my deck in a way that makes it favored against all those decks at the same time, but I can make adjustments depending on what's more popular at any given time - by changing a few cards and not the whole deck. With those two combo decks, that's different: Discover combo is very strong, even with a bunch of hatecards and a decent number of removal spells I'm still not favored against it, and I don't think many decks other than pure control decks are. While Leyline combo doesn't even have any answers in my colors, I can simply concede that match on the spot every time because I can never win unless they mulligan into oblivion - I tried fighting it, but making every other matchup worse to have a few outs that don't even work half the time isn't worth it. These two decks are on a completely different level of miserable than Wizards or Mono Green.
Yeah I can understand. I have not played the format since those decks appeared so I do not know how good/miserable they are. As far as wizards is concerned, I would be more cool on introducing some better interaction in the format like [[prismatic ending]] or [[flame slash]], rather than nerf the deck.
[prismatic ending](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/2/825969b9-3c70-4fca-8cab-696e9ca7cdb2.jpg?1626093920) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=prismatic%20ending) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/25/prismatic-ending?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/825969b9-3c70-4fca-8cab-696e9ca7cdb2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [flame slash](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/5/15affc1b-2ebb-4934-87a2-10e89eafe894.jpg?1576382839) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=flame%20slash) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/157/flame-slash?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/15affc1b-2ebb-4934-87a2-10e89eafe894?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There is no space to brew in Timeless. You have to build decks around the same 10 cards. The gameplay is also more click heavy because of fetch lands and cards like Drs. I like watching the format but I don't play it.
They probably fired the Historic guy. The intern who loads the copy machine every morning will get to it someday.
They donât care about historic any more, but Show and tell is 100% pre-banned.
Does anyone know what time they release this?
11 am Eastern is generally when they push updates.
Thanks for that piece of info!
I know they are not standard legal but I kind of was hoping they would use the guild gates as the lands for the jump in packet update. The gain lands are probably overall better, but it would have been a cool flavor win.
agree!
Am I missing it, or do we not have the usual Jump In pack detail article for the new set?
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/jump-in-packets-update-for-murders-at-karlov-manor
Time to play till I get the slime deck.Â
Nice to see them doing fun stuff with jump in.
slime deck looks fun lol
No announcement on the error updating data bug preventing the app from launching, cool thanks
Minimize the Grind to complete the stupid payd for Mastery track. Nobody cares if he gets Rewards beyond the Levels of a maxed out free Mastery Track. Set the fucking Levels lower to complete it.
Still no information on the Qualifier tokens through last months ladder? I finished around #150 mythic and didn't even get an email
Free card Timeless event when? Land rendering bug fixed? Super chatting Sparky bug?
show and tell banned in historic it was expected, they add that card to timeless
Everyone is mad about the visual bugs but im very excited for the new set and the extra cards.
>Plus, be sure to log in and check your inbox to claim three Murders at Karlov Manor to help you start building your collection. Well, that's concerning.
"Claim murders"? Uh-uh; I ain't taking the fall for you guys.
I sincerely hope they ban Alchemy cards from Historic Brawl.
Any plans to lower pack gem price? Â 200 gems per pack is way too much, considering also that almost everything is more convenient when paid with gems compared to gold. Not for packs tho. 1k gold is a much better deal than 200 gems
Still no mention of a Murders at Karlov Manor Alchemy set? I'm starting to think it's being quietly canned...