Another Wednesday means Wizards of the Coast has released their latest news bulletin, the MTG Arena Announcements. These once-weekly blog posts are where Wizards keeps the playerbase up-to-date on all of the upcoming events and happenings on the Arena client.

This week, Wizards has also published a State of the Game article alongside the announcements because of tomorrow’s impending release of Kamigawa: Alchemy, the newest expansion to Arena’s newest format. Much of the information in the State of the Game is a reiteration of what’s found in the Arena Announcements, so we’ve compiled everything you need to know from both posts here in one article for your convenience.

We’ll give you the quick rundown on everything Wizards wants us to know about Arena below. You can also check out the full text of either of the original posts on Wizards’ website here:

• MTG Arena Announcements, March 16, 2022
• MTG Arena: State of the Game – Alchemy: Kamigawa

---

MTG Arena Economy Stream Happening Tomorrow

During Wizards’ regular Weekly MTG stream, hosted by WotC PR guy Blake Rasmussen over at twitch.tv/magic, players have been repeatedly asking question about MTG Arena’s economy – particularly since Alchemy was added to the game. Although the questions have gone unanswered up to now, Rasmussen has been promising an entire stream dedicated to tackling these issues for months.

Tomorrow, Rasmussen will be following through with that promise: on Weekly MTG, Thursday, March 17 at 2:30 PST, he will be spending the lion’s share of the stream on a discussion of the game’s economy. Wizards says they “wanted to acknowledge some of the feedback we’ve received, give some insight on our design philosophies and intentions, as well as open it up for a live Q&A.”

There will also be a companion article published on Wizards’ website, although they encourage players to tune in. We’ll have coverage of the stream here on MTG Arena Zone as well, so check back with us tomorrow evening to learn more.

Alchemy: Kamigawa Launches Tomorrow, March 17

In addition, tomorrow is when we’ll be getting our hands on the first expansion to Alchemy since the format was launched – Alchemy: Kamigawa, the Alchemy companion to Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. These small, 30-card expansion sets are expected to continue to release alongside each Premier Set going forward.

The set will utilize the previous digital-only mechanics from Jumpstart: Historic Horizons and Alchemy: Innistrad, including Seek, Conjure, and Perpetual. We’re also getting a new mechanic called Intensity, and the card Static Discharge from J:HH is being modified to incorporate the new mechanic. You can find more information about the new mechanic, along with card previews for all 30 of the Alchemy: Kamigawa cards, over on our Set Guide:

Alchemy: Kamigawa – Card Previews, Release Date, and More

Continuing Tweaks to the New Play Blade

In December of 2021, Wizards redesigned the play blade on MTG Arena in an attempt to reduce visual clutter and make it easier to navigate the many different ways to play on the client. Since then, Wizards has been making changes and tweaks to the new system to further increase its user friendliness.

With the update tomorrow, there are two significant changes coming to the blade. Firstly, the Events tab will now have filters to help sort events: All, In Progress, New, Limited, and Constructed.

Secondly, the Last Played tab will now include some of the other events and queues that you have recently played besides just the one that was most recent:

Neon Arcade Ending, The Unbroken Blade Launching, and Out of the Shadows on March 25-April 1

The second of the three events offering the different Neon Dynasty card styles, The Unbroken Blade, will be getting started this Friday as the first event, Neon Arcade, comes to a close. These three events are all based on Singleton Alchemy, each with a unique emblem that both players will start the game with.

We’ve covered the full details of the events and their potential rewards extensively in the last two weeks of announcements; read more about it below:

MTG: Arena Announcements, March 9, 2022

The Unbroken Blade is your way to earn the Samurai showcase card styles on Arena, and the event will be running until the Ninja cardstyle event, Out of the Shadows, launches on March 25.

Arena’s First Alchemy Metagame Challenge Runs March 25-28

The Metagame Challenges have become a staple of the events that are offered on MTG Arena, and while we’ve seen these challenges for both Standard and Historic, we have yet to see one for Alchemy – until now. As a part of Wizards’ ongoing effort to increase the appeal of the Alchemy format to players, the first Alchemy Metagame Challenge will be taking place on the weekend of March 25th.

The competition will take the form of Alchemy best-of-three matches, and as with other Metagame Challenges, participants will play until they reach 7 wins or 1 loss. The entry fee for the event is set at 2000 gold or 400 gems. The reward structure is as follows:

Wins	Rewards
7 wins	5,000 gold + 30 packs
6 wins	4,000 gold + 20 packs
5 wins	3,000 gold + 10 packs
4 wins	2,500 gold + 5 packs
3 wins	2,000 gold + 3 packs
2 wins	1,500 gold + 1 pack
1 win	1,000 gold
0 wins	500 gold

---

And with that, we’ve touched the bases on all of the important information that Wizards has shared with us through both the weekly Announcements and also the most recent State of the Game. We’ve embedded the original text of today’s announcements as it includes a link to the State of the Game as well as a fully-updated schedule of MTG Arena events at the bottom. See you again next week!