With the arrival of Core Set 2021 to Magic Arena on Thursday, the State of the Game announcement cleared up duplicate protection, the future of Brawl, and what will happen when rotation happens later this year.
The announcement starts as a reminder that Arena will be coming to macOS Thursday along with the launch of Core Set 2021. Then the article dives into a big issue with the community.
Reprints
With the enemy color Temples and Fabled Passage getting reprinted in Core Set 2021, concerns over opening duplicates quickly became a topic of discussion. Arena will adjust the rate you open rares and mythics that have been reprinted without new art, such as the six rare lands mentioned before. If a player already has a playest of a rare or mythic they will only open the duplicates in packs once they have collected playsets of all other rares and mythics in the set.
The game will check for copies of the card by name, so that if you have three copies of Temple of Malady from Core Set 2020 and one from Core Set 2021, you will no longer open it in packs from the store. You will still see the reprinted cards in Limited events, so extra copies of the rares can be opened in Draft and Sealed. Commons and uncommons will not be adjusted. In the future, if a card is reprinted with new art, the duplicate protection will not be used.
Jumpstart
Jumpstart will be coming to Arena on July 16 in a game update with Limited events and include more than 500 cards. On top of packs, cards will be able to be crafted with wildcards. There will be 37 new cards and all cards will be playable in Historic, meaning more than 300 cards will be new to the format. Twenty cards reprinted in Jumpstart will not be used on Arena due to power level or technical issues and will be replaced with other cards. Reference the table below to see what cards are being swapped from tabletop to Arena.
| Tabletop | Arena |
| Chain Lightning | Lightning Strike |
| Lightning Bolt | Lightning Strike |
| Ball Lightning | Lightning Serpent |
| Ajani’s Chosen | Archon of Sun’s Grace |
| Angelic Arbiter | Serra’s Guardian |
| Draconic Roar | Scorching Dragonfire |
| Goblin Lore | Goblin Oriflamme |
| Flametongue Kavu | Fanatic of Mogis |
| Exhume | Bond of Revival |
| Fa’adiah Seer | Dryad Greenseeker |
| Mausoleum Turnkey | Audacious Thief |
| Path to Exile | Banishing Light |
| Read the Runes | Gadwick, the Wizened |
| Reanimate | Doomed Necromancer |
| Rhystic Study | Teferi’s Ageless Insight |
| Sheoldred, Whispering One | Carnifex Demon |
| Scourge of Nel Toth | Woe Strider |
| Scrounging Bandar | Pollenbright Druid |
| Thought Scour | Weight of Memory |
| Time to Feed | Prey Upon |
Brawl
On July 1 Brawlers’ Guildhall will go away and be replaced with the Brawl queue. No entry fee will be needed and it will always be available. Daily wins and quest progress will work and players will not have to wait for a certain day to play the format any longer. Historic Brawl will continue to be used as a rotating format and will be looked at further after the launch of Zendikar Rising.
Rotation
Speaking of Zendikar Rising, when it launches in a few months the Standard rotation will happen, removing Core Set 2020, Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, and War of the Spark from the format. Starting Thursday, Quick Drafts and Sealed events will only feature formats that will be legal following the rotation. Individual Card Rewards will also only pull from cards released from Throne of Eldraine onward.
New player decks will be updated in August and additional in-game messaging will come up when trying to craft cards that will rotate in the Fall. Amonkhet Remastered is also set to come to Arena in August bringing 300 more cards to Historic.
Renewal will also return like last time Standard rotated, allowing players to play in special events and help renew their collections. Details are still being finalized with more information coming in August.
Deck Builder Updates
Quality-of-life improvements will be coming to the deck builder including more searchable terms through advanced filters. Improvements are also being implemented to the Limited deck builder allowing you to adjust the amount of space to build decks and easier card filtering.
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