Earlier this afternoon, July 23, an official Magic: The Gathering Discord bot apparently leaked an article dated July 26 describing the upcoming release of a product that will be exclusive to MTG Arena- Jumpstart: Historic Horizons. Robert Taylor (@fireshoes on Twitter) posted screenshots of the article which was published by the bot, presumably by accident, on his Discord:
Btw, the article is dated July 26. The links in the article aren't working. I guess it was published early on accident, but the wizards discord bot posted it in my discord, so it's not like snooping around for the B&R announcements. pic.twitter.com/6zBIwP3Y3E
— Robert Taylor (@fireshoes) July 23, 2021
Originally released in 2020, Jumpstart was a Magic product and self-contained format where any two packs from the set could be combined into a functional deck and then played against each other. The set was released on Arena alongside its original paper release, and was popular enough to see its return in July of 2021. Now it seems that Wizards of the Coast has created a new version of Jumpstart that is intended to introduce new cards into the Historic format, and it will only be released on MTG Arena.
Previously, Jumpstart packs contained lands (including basic lands with new arts for each color) to allow paper players to build decks using only the contents of the pack. This time around, the set has apparently been designed specifically for Arena, and so the packs will not include any lands. Instead, the Arena client will add land cards automatically depending on the color(s) of your chosen packs. Decks with two colors will automatically include tapped “gain lands” from Core Set 2020, while mono-colored decks will receive tapped cycling lands from Historic Anthology 2.
The original Jumpstart had a set list of cards that were determined to come with each theme pack, but according to the leak, Jumpstart: Historic Horizons will have some slots in each pack that can include different cards that still fit the theme. The idea behind this change is to make the format a bit more dynamic and keep it fresher for Arena players who want to enter the event multiple times.
Perhaps the most interesting piece of information from this leak is that Jumpstart: Historic Horizons will include 31 cards that are new to Magic- that is, cards that will only exist on Arena and not in paper. This won’t be the first time that Arena has exclusive cards that aren’t available in paper, as the Arena Beginner Set includes a handful of relatively low powered cards that come in the Starter Decks and are always legal in Arena best-of-one Standard. Nevertheless, the new cards from Jumpstart: Historic Horizons may cause more of a stir, as they will likely be at a higher power level to make them potentially relevant in the Historic Format.
Robert Taylor shared a screenshot of one of the decklists with his Twitter post, but claims that none of the links in the article work yet. Therefore, our access to information on the new Jumpstart set is still very limited for now. It can be reasonably assumed that we will get full access to information from the set on Monday, July 26th, the day the article is dated for, so be sure to check back for more details, pack lists, and new cards from the set.
