2023.26.40 Patch Notes – Lord of the Rings Preorder, Standard Bans, and More

MTG Arena’s latest patch has a few important updates! Lord of the Rings preorders start for its release on June 20, 2023, Standard card bans and Wildcard refunds, Alchemy rebalancing, new Renewal rewards for 2023, and more! Check out the full patch notes below:

Game Update Highlights

• Pre-Orders for Lord of the Rings have arrived!

Aragorn Pass Bundle

$49.99/€53.99

Available at purchase:

• Aragorn, the Uniter sleeve

Available at release (June 20):

• 50x LTR packs
• 5x Golden Packs
• Aragorn, the Uniter depth art card style
• Aragorn, the Uniter card card

Gandalf Pass Bundle

$14.99/€16.49

Available at purchase:

• Gandalf the White sleeve

Available at release (June 20):

• LTR Mastery Pass
• Gandalf the White depth art card style
• Gandalf the White card

The One Ring Bundle

3,000 Gems/15,000 Gold

Available at purchase:

• The One Ringpet
• Sauron, the Lidless Eye sleeve

Play Bundle

$24.99/€26.99

Available at purchase:

• Burst Lightning sleeve

Available at release (June 20):

• 2x Player Draft tokens
• 1x Sealed token
• 5x Play-In Points

• The following cards have been Banned in Standard. You will receive wildcards based on cards already in your collection:
  • Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Invoke Despair, Reckoner Bankbuster
    • See May 29, 2023 Banned and Restricted Announcement for more information.

• Alchemy rebalances for Mono-Red: Mono-red aggressive decks are among the top performing decks on the Alchemy ladder, especially in Best-of-One matches. Most cards in mono-red are replaceable with others, but Kumano Faces Kakkazan, Traumatic Prank, and burn spells such as Lightning Strike are unique effects that are played in almost every version of mono-red. We are only rebalancing Kumano Faces Kakkazan and Traumatic Prankto directly target mono-red aggro and avoid weakening red’s removal in other decks.
  • Kumano Faces Kakkazan is the most efficient one-drop in mono-red that plays well with both creature-centric and spell-centric builds with its second chapter and by triggering prowess. Etching of Kumano loses haste.
    
  • Traumatic Prankefficiently answers large creatures that are otherwise supposed to be strong against red decks. The cost increases to 3R (from 2R).
    

Collected Updates

• Even though Standard isn’t rotating, we’re still going to be celebrating Renewal! Go to the Codex of the Multiverse to learn more.

• Fixed a bug that could cause some users to be unable to issue/receive Direct Challenges properly.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a delay at the end of Direct/Friend Challenge matches.
• Fixed a bug that could cause draft modes to sometimes not use the player’s preferred lands.

Upcoming MTG Arena Events

• Additional events added to MTG Arena. Read the MTG Arena Weekly Announcements to learn more!