On July 25, the Chronicles event will be returning to MTG Arena via a major update, along with an improved updating system, bug fixes, and overall performance repairs.
Catching a ton of heat (and not from Chandra) after the last major M20 update, MTGA is dropping another biggie tomorrow. With the return of the Chronicles event, featuring several new tournament formats, players will notice new card styles and land cards associated with the event.
Update 07/25/2019: Today’s update was planned to run from 10am CT to noon but has now been extended to 3pm CT. The reasons for the extension are unknown at this time, but MTGA has provided a link for players who are locked out of the game.
New update system
With the new update, WotC has improved how MTGA will update on a players PC in the future. Previously, many had to download and reinstall the client with major updates. After the July 25 update, players will no longer have to follow this process.
Performance improvements
While the improved update system is a welcome addition, many MTGA players are hoping the bugs and performance issues are taken care of. This includes the Mastery Pass cat (which has resulted in some 50 players receiving five-day suspensions), along with some players still complaining about a drop in frames-per-second, and various card bugs.
Related: WotC responds to suspensions over spam clicking cat on MTG Arena
MTGA Chronicles event
The first featured tournament from Chronicles is set to launch Sunday, July 28. Each tournament will last three days, as opposed to the previous weekly runs from the War of the Spark Chronicles event.
Related: Three new tournament formats are coming to MTG Arena in Chronicles event
- Plane-Cation Chronicles has no entry fee
- There’s no record of losses kept, only wins
- The first win rewards players with 1,000 XP.
- Each reward per tournament can only be earned one time.
- Times for the events are Sunday 10am CT to Tuesday, 10am CT
- Basic land rewards only need to be earned once, allowing players to add any number of copies to their decks.
- Three new events are coming in addition to Pauper and Treasure Constructed.
MTGA log outputs
In addition to the performance upgrades expected with the new patch, WotC is changing the log outputs on MTGA. Some software players use that is attached to MTG Arena and will require an update on the players end to ensure it’s tracking properly. WotC posted an example of what the output log file should look like after the update, and can be found here.
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The scheduled July 25 update on MTGA will commence at 10am CT. The game will continue to run during the update but will need a restart afterward.
