GAME UPDATE HIGHLIGHTS

• Historic Anthology 3 is now available! It introduces 27 new cards for Historic play!
• Historic Ranked queue returns – and won’t be going anywhere!
• Introducing: The Arena Open

HISTORIC ANTHOLOGY 3

• 27 new cards for Historic play!
• You may purchase playsets (four copies) of every card in the Historic Anthology 3 bundle for either 25,000 gold or 4,000 gems
• You can also craft individual cards by redeeming Wildcards of the appropriate rarity (1:1).
• Historic Anthology 3 cards are legal in Historic formats, Bot Match, and Direct Challenge.

HISTORIC RANKED

• Historic Ranked has returned, and will be permanently available going forward
• Historic Play now provides daily win/quest progress and will do so permanently going forward.
  • Please Note: There will be a small window of time before Historic Play (unranked) queues reward daily wins. Quest progression and Ranked Play is unimpacted.
  • We will update you once this specific transitionary period has ended.

COLLECTION

• The deck builder now allows searching for Godzilla Series Monsters cards by either name.

DECK BUILDING

• Decks with uncollected cards now show a “Craftable” status using the Wildcard symbol.
• When a deck is flagged as ‘invalid’, the tooltip when hovering the deck with your mouse now provides more information (not enough cards, deck contains banned cards, etc.)
• Deck manager now has a context-sensitive “Craft All” button. This option will only show when you have enough Wildcards of the appropriate rarity to actually “craft all”.
• Decks that are invalid because of banned card are shown with a warning, and by default will sort higher than decks that are completely invalid (e.g. decks that don’t contain 60 cards).

GAMEPLAY

CARDS

• When using Lurrus of the Dream-Den, we now remove the near hand castables once their ability has been used for the turn.
• Mutate abilities that count the number of times that creature has mutated now show a count on the stack.
• Triggers that care about the “… number of times this creature has muted” now show the value on the mutate badge while the trigger is on the stack.
• Updated reminder text on First Strike and Double Strike to clarify that it doesn’t apply during “Fight” effects
  • 701.12d: Damage dealt while a creature fights isn’t combat damage.
  • … Let’s be honest, we’ve all made this mistake at some point.
• All Planeswalkers now show their current loyalty count when turned into Creatures, not just Gideion.
• Demigods now show a * for their devotion based stat when not in play; previously they were showing as 0.
• Adjusted the auto-targeting rules for abilities to make them more consistent.
  • They will no longer auto-target when there is only one valid option, but they will auto-submit once you have select all possible targets (this should reduce the clicks-per-cat metric).
• Creatures that must block or must be blocked now show appropriate reminder text.
• Cards that have a player choose a color now display a badge with the chosen color to their opponent.
• Double tapping the Quick Tap hokey (default: Q) will attempt to tap all non-creatures for mana.
  • Auto-tap will determine what is tapped for what colors.
• You can now “View Battlefield” when deciding whether to Mulligan.
  • Useful if you wish to review your opponent’s Commander or companion creature before deciding!
• Added the option to “View Battlefield” after a game has completed
• We now hold priority for the active player when they put a “Fight” trigger on the stack.
  • You can now be a proper friend to wolves!

OTHER

• Mutate abilities that count the number of times that creature has mutated now show a count on the stack.
• Triggers that care about the “… number of times this creature has muted” now show the value on the mutate badge while the trigger is on the stack.
• Updated reminder text on First Strike and Double Strike to clarify that it doesn’t apply during “Fight” effects
  • 701.12d: Damage dealt while a creature fights isn’t combat damage … Let’s be honest, we’ve all made this mistake at some point.
• All Planeswalkers now show their current loyalty count when turned into Creatures, not just Gideion.
• Demigods now show a * for their devotion based stat when not in play; previously they were showing as 0.
• Adjusted the auto-targeting rules for abilities to make them more consistent.
  • They will no longer auto-target when there is only one valid option, but they will auto-submit once you have select all possible targets (this should reduce the clicks-per-cat metric).
• Creatures that must block or must be blocked now show appropriate reminder text.
• Cards that have a player choose a color now display a badge with the chosen color to their opponent.
• Double tapping the Quick Tap hokey (default: Q) will attempt to tap all non-creatures for mana.
  • Auto-tap will determine what is tapped for what colors.
• You can now “View Battlefield” when deciding whether to Mulligan.
  • Useful if you wish to review your opponent’s Commander or companion creature before deciding!
• Added the option to “View Battlefield” after a game has completed
• We now hold priority for the active player when they put a “Fight” trigger on the stack.
  • You can now be a proper friend to wolves!

GENERAL

• Various improvements to player draft when detecting whether a player has abandoned the draft
• Historic Tournament Challenge is now supported in Direct Challenge matches (enforces best-of-three match structure, timers, match clock, and banned/suspended cards).
• Players who are granted decks through the Tutorial and Color Challenge now receive all copies of cards in those deck regardless of what cards they have collected.
  • Duplicate cards beyond a playset will reward Vault progress or gems.
• Miscellaneous improvements to how cards display on the battlefields

OUTPUT LOGS

• The file name for output_log.txt has changed to Player.log
  • The location of the file has not changed; assuming default installation, the file is located here: \ . . .\AppData\LocalLow\Wizards of The Coast\MTGA\Player.log
• Output logs will also save the log from your previous session (Player-prev.log)
• Additional initial tracking support for player draft.
  • Developer Note: Operative word ‘initial’. We’re already looking at ways to expand what information is being tracked.

Example Output Log

EVENTS

THE ARENA OPEN

• You must be 18 years or older to participate.
• Regional eligibility restrictions apply, void where prohibited.
• Receiving monetary rewards requires having or creating Wizards, DCI, and i-Payout accounts.
• Refer to the official Terms and Conditions for complete details.

DAY 1

Start: May 30, 2020 at 8 a.m. PT
Sign-Ups End: May 31, 2020 at 4 a.m. PT—you’ll still have a few hours to complete your current run, but you won’t be able to join after this deadline.
Event End: May 31, 7 a.m. PT
Format: Best-of-One Standard Constructed
Event Record: 7 wins or 3 Losses (whichever comes first)
Entry Fee: 20,000 Gold or 4,000 Gems – You may participate in Day 1 multiple times.
Entry Reward: The Godzilla Lands

DAY 2

Start: May 31, 2020 at 8 a.m. PT
Sign-Ups End: May 31, 2020 at10a.m. PT – You’ll have until the event ends toc omplete your matches, but you must join during this two-hour window.
Event End: May 31,6 p.m.PT
Format: Best-of-Three Standard Constructed
Event Record: 7 wins or 2 Losses (whichever comes first)
Entry Fee: None—previous qualification from Day 1 required.

QUICK DRAFT SCHEDULE

Entry Fee: 5000 Gold or 750 Gems
Event Record: 7 wins or 3 losses

May 15–May 29: War of the Spark Quick Draft
May 29–June 12: Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Quick Draft
June 12–June 26: Rivals of Ixalan Quick Draft (Historic)

PLAYER DRAFT SCHEDULE

April 16–June 25: Ikoria Premier Draft
April 16–June 25: Ikoria Traditional Draft

SPECIALTY DRAFT SCHEDULE

Arena Cube Draft (Phantom)
Event Dates: June 12–June 25
First Entry: Complimentary – No Entry Fee!
Additional Entries: 4000 Gold or 600 Gems
Event Record: 7 wins or 3 losses

Core Set 2020 Omniscience Draft
Dates: June 6–June 9

FRIDAY NIGHT MAGIC AT HOME

May 22–May 23: Historic Artisan
May 29–May 30: Cascade
June 5–June 6: Historic Constructed
June 12–June 13: Momir
June 19–June 20: Historic Brawl

WORKSHOPS

May 26–May 28: Heirlooms of History
June 2–June 4: Heroes of Ikoria
June 9–June 11: Mastermind
June 16–June 18: Taking the Stairs
June 23–June 25: The Common Good

HISTORIC EVENTS

Historic Ranked/Traditional Historic Ranked

Available: May 21–∞

Historic Shakeup
Event Dates: June 6–June 12

Historic Challenge
Event Dates: June 20–June 22
Event Record: 8 wins or 3 losses
Entry Fee: 10,000 Gold or 2,000 Gems

(Additional Historic events available during FNM Home)

ADDITIONAL EVENTS

Brawlers’ Guildhall
Event Dates: May 21–July 1
Special Note: The Brawlers’ Guildhall will continue to have no entry fee in support of our Stay at Home, Play at Home initiative.

Festival of Monsters: Clever Reflections
Event Dates: May 22–May 25
Format: Historic Artisan

BUG FIXES

CARDS

• Certain tutorial specific cards are no legal for Standard constructed play.
• Mystical Dispute should no longer show a cost reduction in hand if the criteria is no longer met.
• You can target yourself with Loaming Shaman even when you have zero cards in your graveyard.
• Proud Wildbonders put into play by Winoata are now able to assign their own damage as if it was not blocked.
• Multiple Lavabrink Ventureres with different odd/even choices no longer visually stack while on the battlefield.
• Copies of Crackling Drake revealed in your opponent’s hand now accurately update their power/toughness based on the number of Instants/Sorceries in your opponent’s graveyard.
• It should now be functionally impossible to concede an entire best-of-three match by conceding as you take lethal damage in one game.
  • You shouldn’t take this as a challenge, but seriously – if you can do it, we’re impressed.
  • … also submit a bug report with logs.
• Players who disconnect during a best-of-three while using a companion will no longer be prevented from sideboarding when they reconnect.
• Typeless permanents with tap abilities (thanks, Mutate . . .) were not visually tapping when the ability was used. Now they are!
• Inspecting a card and using “View Mutations” no longer shows the battlefield version of some cards.
• Mutating a face down card should no longer cause visual issues.
• Companion names no longer overlap with the timer display when your opponent has both a Commander and a companion.

GENERAL

• Bouncing a muted token creature no longer shows the token as being in your opponent’s hand.
• Planewalker’s loyalty abilities no longer appear greyed out if something allows them to be used a second time (e.g. Oath of Teferi)
• Pauper deck validation now allows for the use of Uncommon versions of a card if a Common version exists within MTG Arena.
• Various localization fixes
• Miscellaneous other bug fixes

Source: MAY 21 -1.08.00.00