MTG Arena Historic format announcement incites outrage from players

Today’s MTGA State of the Beta announcement of double wildcard costs to unlock cards in the upcoming Historic format in MTG Arena has upset the community.

The reveal of the upcoming Historic format on MTG Arena was meant to be a positive announcement, but it’s turned into a disaster on social media. The MTG community was on board with the reveal until Wizards of the Coast said that existing and new cards added to the Historic format will cost two wildcards as opposed to one.

“Starting after an update in November, crafting a Historic card will require you to redeem two Wildcards of the appropriate rarity instead of one,” WotC said in the State of the Beta address. 

The double cost of wildcards to unlock Historic cards will balance out the costs on MTGA’s end for adding new cards to the format from older single Standard sets, according to WotC. For players who participated in the closed beta, however, adding cards outside of what’s already in the system doesn’t make sense.

“Don’t you have Amonkhet, Aether Revolt, Hour, and Kaladesh all ready to go in terms of adding old sets?” a Twitter user asked.

The MTG Arena Twitter responded and said that “they’re not off the table, but we’ll be focusing on cards over sets for at least the next few releases.”

In addition to having sets preloaded into the MTGA data banks already, the current player base is concerned with how the double wildcard charge will affect newer players.

“Charging double for cards in Historic is deeply unfair and puts up a HUGE barrier for new players to get involved in formats with a larger card pool,” a Twitter user said. “And is not something similar games like Hearthstone have ever done. Please change this before launch.”

For now, it seems like WotC is sticking to the double wildcard charge in the MTGA Historic format when it comes to unlocking cards. Complaints from the MTG community in the past have persuaded WotC to change its mind, however.