Major MTG Arena Change Timeline

Here are the important MTG Arena changes timeline, latest at the top.

• December 9, 2021
  • A new digital-only format called Alchemy is introduced to Arena. It’s a Standard alternative, featuring rebalanced cards that also exist in paper, and special additions. Rebalanced cards are initially intended to be also used for Historic over “real” ones.
  • Play Blade (the menu for choosing game modes and queues) finally reworked.
  • Jump In improvements for new players.
• October 14, 2021
  • Some digital-only cards from Historic Horizons are rebalanced in Arena’s first (not counting the sneak change of Demon of Loathing from the beginner set).
  • A new event called Jump In introduced — Jumpstart-like but Standard, to become one of the better entry points for beginners.
• August 24, 2021
  • An important patch with a large-scale change to backend systems was applied (moved forward from 10th of August). Ranked season ended early, and servers were down for several hours.
    • The next iteration of dual-colored starter decks were be distributed to old players (new players were getting them since AFR release).
  • Following the patch, in two days Jumpstart: Historic Horizons (J21) set/event is added to Arena, containing 782 cards legal in Historic.
    • It will reuse some existing Arena cards, add some cards from Modern Horizons and Modern Horizons 2, and new-to-Magic cards.
    • New cards are purely digital and employ some mechanics that could not efficiently work in paper.
  • Historic Brawl queue is made permanent.
• May 27, 2021
  • Historic Anthology 5 added.
• March 25, 2021
  • Arena mobile now available for iOS and tablets.
• March 11, 2021
  • Historic Anthology 4 added.
• February 12, 2021
  • The first offer of Traditional (best-of-three) Sealed, followed by February Arena Open and the March qualifier in the Sealed format.
• January 28, 2021
  • Arena mobile “early access”, powerful Android phones only.
• December 12, 2020
  • The first offer of Traditional (best-of-three) Cube (it was even extended due to the popularity), with another one announced for January.
• November 12, 2020
  • Kaladesh Remastered released on Arena, legal for Historic. Combines parts of Kaladesh and Aether Revolt into a 286-card set (plus basic lands) plus Sculpting Steel as a “box topper”.
• August 13, 2020
  • Amonkhet Remastered released on Arena, legal for Historic. Combines most of Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation plus some other reprints into a 303-card set (plus basic lands).
  • Next iteration of starter decks released and distributed to existing players.
• July 16, 2020
  • Jumpstart released on Arena, legal for Historic (with 20 replacements compared to the paper version).
• June 25, 2020
  • MacOS version released via Epic Games Store.
  • A sort of duplicate protection introduced for same-art Rare and Mythic reprints.
  • Completely free Brawl queue announced starting July 1st.
• June 12, 2020
  • Cube draft event first introduced.
• May 21, 2020
  • Historic Anthology III and permanent Historic Ranked queue added.
• April 16, 2020
  • Player drafts introduced, Traditional draft (best-of-three) structure changed to 3 Swiss rounds.
  • Card visualization changes implemented.
• March 12, 2020
  • Direct messaging for friends added.
  • Historic Anthology II added.
  • New Player Experience reworked, introducing Color Challenges.
• January 16, 2020
  • Epic Games Store release.
  • Permanent Historic Constructed events added.
• December 12, 2019
  • Monthly paid-entry permanently available Brawl queue added, now known as Brawler’s Guildhall.
  • Suspensions introduced for Historic.
• November 21, 2019
  • Basic “Friend List” feature added.
  • Historic Anthology I and temporary Historic Ranked queue added.
• October 18, 2019
  • Free Brawl queue open on Wednesdays.
  • Set Mastery experience added for 10 daily wins.
• September 26, 2019
  • Official release. Historic unranked queue added.
• July 2, 2019
  • Set Mastery introduced, featuring Mastery Passes and replacing weekly packs reward.
• March 27, 2019
  • Cosmetics added: card styles and sleeves.
• February 14, 2019
  • Deck builder improvements, including adding unowned cards, format filters and advanced search.
• January 31, 2019
  • Best-of-three Ranked Constructed added.
  • Limited MMR removed from Ranked (Quick) draft matchmaking, Win/Loss Record put ahead of rank.
• January 17, 2019
  • Duplicate protection for 5th copies of Rares and Mythics added: replacement or Gems.
  • Constructed events rewards nerfed to account for Duplicate protection bonuses.
• December 13, 2018
  • Ranked system with seasonal rewards added. Draft bots got “personalities”.
• November 15, 2018
  • “Direct Challenge” feature added.
• September 27, 2018
  • Open beta launch.
  • The last collection wipe. Only sets from Ixalan onwards left in the game.