Magic: The Gathering Arena’s Historic Mode Is Getting Over 500 New Cards

As far as Wizards of the Coast is concerned, there’s no such thing as downtime in Magic: The Gathering. With just days to go until the collectable card game’s latest set release, Core 2021, makes first contact with fans via MTG Arena (tabletop is due to officially release a week later), the company is already looking further afield in anticipation of the arrival of a different type of expansion experience altogether.

First revealed earlier this year, Jumpstart represents somewhat uncharted waters in terms of what’s included in the box. Each 20-card booster pack of this particular set contains an overarching theme (cats, pirates, Phyrexians, etc.) that can be played straight out of the wrapper – no deckbuilding required. The majority of the 500+ cards players will find in Jumpstart are confirmed to be reprints, all of which will be obtainable in Arena‘s Historic mode.

Well, almost all, anyway. Wizards has confirmed in a recent update to followers on Twitter that approximately 20 cards will be omitted from Arena due to balance concerns, with the offenders removed intended to be replaced with alternative choices. In regards to the specific cards being swapped out, you’ll have to wait until July’s State of the Game address which, if schedules are adhered to, should arrive sometime next week.

For those not familiar with the format, Historic is Magic: The Gathering Arena‘s answer to Eternal rulesets such as Vintage and Modern in tabletop and allows for the use of all cards ever released for the former. Originally introduced as a fun accompaniment to Standard, Historic’s growing popularity has seen Wizards add further cards as part of so-called Anthologies.

Jumpstart, on the other hand, will represent the single largest infusion of new cards for that format since its inception and it’ll be interesting to see how much an impact it’ll have on the meta when launch day rolls around.