MTG Arena’s March game update is now live! Players need to restart the client to continue playing. For any ongoing known issues please check out the MTG Arena Statuspage. The main attraction for this patch is of course, the introduction of Historic Anthology 2 and both BO1 and BO3 Historic ranked queues. Check out the full patch notes below for all the details on the other new features and upcoming events!
Players can now send direct messages to their Friends in MTG Arena!
To celebrate, until the April game updates players will be able to earn quest progress when playing against their Friends in Direct Challenge matches.
This does not include daily/weekly win rewards.
. New hot keys are available for Direct Messaging:
TAB to cycle between messages
ESC to close the chat window.
ONLINE PRESENCE
Players can now set their online status to “Busy” and “Offline”.
Busy: Disables notifications; you will still appear online and will receive any in-coming messages or friend requests, but you will not receive any pop-up notifications.
Offline: Signs you out of MTG Arena’s social features (you do not appear online, cannot receive messages, and will be unable to see any online friends).
HISTORIC
HISTORIC BANNED AND SUSPENDED CARDS
Oko, Thief of Crowns; Once Upon a Time; and Veil of Summer have moved from being suspended to banned in Historic.
Players will receive a wildcard of the appropriate rarity for each card in their collection if they have not already received wildcards for these cards from the earlier Standard ban.
These cards may still be used in Bot Match and non-tournament Direct Challenge matches.
Field of the Dead is no longer suspended, and is now legal to play in Historic.
Developer Notes:
As we discussed back in December, before Historic Ranked returns in March we wanted to act on all the cards previously suspended, either unsuspending them or banning them fully in Historic. Going forward, the specific decisions there will be announced as part of the normal Banned & Restricted announcements.
With bans now hitting across multiple formats, we need to slightly update our approach to Wildcard refunds for banned cards. The basic rule is that players will get Wildcard refunds whenever a card is banned in either Standard or Historic, but you won’t receive multiple refunds for the same individual card.
For example, let’s say you owned 3 copies of Oko, Thief of Crowns when it was banned in Standard. As normal, you received 3 wildcards of the appropriate rarity as reimbursement. You’re still playing actively with Oko, Thief of Crowns in Historic, though, so you craft another copy to finish out your playset. Now, Oko, Thief of Crown is banned in Historic as well. With this game update, you’ll receive 1 additional Wildcard as reimbursement. (You’ve already gotten reimbursed for 3 of your copies for the Standard ban, but the copy you crafted after that is reimbursed normally.)
HISTORIC RANKED SEASON
Historic Ranked will be available beginning with this release until the April game update.
Both best-of-one and best-of-three (Traditional) queues will be available.
INTRODUCING: COLOR CHALLENGES
The new player experience has been updated, and now features Color Challenges
Each Color Challenge will cover the basics of the five colors of Magic through a series of matches
New players will unlock additional rewards (dual colored decks, wildcards, etc.) by completing the color challenges.
BRAWL
BRAWL BANNED AND RESTRICTED CARDS
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is now banned in Brawl
Players will not be receiving wildcard grants as a part of this ban.
As a general reminder, Brawl maintains a separate banned list from Standard
BRAWLER’S GUILDHALL
Brawler’s Guildhall returns from March 19 through April 16.
The reward is the new-to-MTG ArenaBladewing the Risen, which will be legal in Historic and Brawl.
GENERAL
UPDATED CARD SLEEVE UX
Card sleeves in your collection now appear as a full page with vertical scrolling.
Players can now select a “default” card sleeve which will automatically apply to any new decks
Note: Selecting a new default card sleeve will also retroactively apply it to any current deck in your collection that was using the previous default sleeve.
DECK SORTING
Favorite and last-played decks are now stored server-side; they’ll be consistent no matter what machine you play on.
Deck displays are now split between valid and invalid decks so that users can more easily see which decks are valid for the selected event.
This should help players find the correct decks for special events faster!
GAMEPLAY
We have added the option to enable/disable gameplay warnings.
You can consume food, deal damage to your own creatures, and play duplicate Legendaries with nothing to slow you down!
Select deck screen is broken up into two groups – formats that match the event and formats that do not match the event.
CARDS
Cards that deal damage based on their Toughness now use the term “Backbone” in ability hangers.
Cards that can assign damage as if they had not been blocked now use the term “Unstoppable” in their ability hangers.
Even more cards now use a “soft confirm” (click on the card, “Activate Ability” button appears)
Developer’s Note: While this does make some of these activation quicker, this method does not provide an opportunity to cancel if you accidentally click “Activate Ability”. We’ll be keeping an eye out for any feedback, as well as situations where this updated UX causes more harm than good.
More cards (Underworld Breach, Skizzik, Curious Obsession, etc.) now identify if they will be destroyed/exiled at the end of turn.
EVENTS
FESTIVAL OF THE GODS
Festival of the Gods concludes with:
Erebos’s Memoir of Death (March 13-17): Historic Brawl
Fresh from the Rakdos toybox, the Cult Guildmages have decided to let others play with their favorite… toy. The Puppet Jace pet is now available for 20,000 Gold or 3,000 Gems
Other Bundles
Historic Anthology 1 – Gold Option
Gold Historic Anthology 1 can now be purchased for 20,000 Gold in addition to the existing 3,400 Gem price.
Dragging a card to your deck from the sideboard no longer results in deck details becoming inaccessible. Adding a card via clicking also now functions normally.
Ashiok's Erasure no longer prevents players from casting cards, even if those card were not actually exiled.
The discounted cost correctly displays when choosing to cast a Planeswalker with an alternate cost (e.g. Fires of Invention).
Styles purchased through the deckbuilder now properly show the sale price for any items that are on sale in Daily Deals
Stacked tokens now correctly show their power/toughness indicator.
Creatures that die immediately upon switching ownership now show as changing ownership, then dying.
Pass Turn no longer remains toggled on through sideboarding in Traditional (best-of-three) matches. z
The removed ability hanger was inaccurate when an added ability was later removed has been fixed.
Spark Double copies of some cards (e.g. The Royal Scions) now have the correct card name.
Targeting the 4th or greater attachment on a creature now shows the correct intention lines.
Casting a second Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea while one is in play no longer causes spells played on the stack to cost more than 1 extra before the Legendary rule resolves.
Simultaneously returning Kunoros and another creature from the graveyard resulting in Kunoros coming back first, and blocking the other creature from returning has been fixed.
Cards with a dash in their name are no longer missing from pre-populated lists.
Dawn Evangel now triggers once for any number of auras.
Kaya’s Ghostform is once again returning exiled permanents correctly.
