The highly-anticipated Theros: Beyond Death set has officially launched in MTG Arena, featuring 254 new cards, events, gameplay upgrades, cosmetics, and more.
Set releases in MTG Arena, like Theros: Beyond Death (THB), contain a massive amount of information regarding changes and updates to the client, along with specific interactions regarding the new cards. The MTGA January update also included changes to the Mastery system, including rewards and levels. A full breakdown of the THB Mastery Pass can be found here.
THB card interactions
Several of the new THB cards require special interactions concerning when to enter the full control mode, mechanics, and the stack.
Titans
Titans Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger, and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath are sent to the graveyard upon entering the battlefield unless they’ve used the Escape mechanic. There’s an option to sacrifice the elder giant prior to it entering the graveyard with Witch’s Oven, but players must either put a hold on the phase or enter full control.
Nightmare Shephard
Disabling the “Auto Order Triggered Abilities” under gameplay settings allows a player to mouse over each trigger to pull the corresponding creature from the graveyard.
Nyx Lotus
A devotion count will display on the Nyx Lotus badge and it’ll always be the maximum amount. Players can opt to manually tap or hover over spells to see what the auto-tap feature will use.
Storm Herald
Storm Herald lets players bring auras back from the graveyard to the battlefield. Players must choose what each aura will be attached to a specific creature before any enter the battlefield.
Whirlwind Denial
This counterspell requires players to pay one spell/ability at a time. Each spell/ability being paid for is highlighted on the stack.
Gameplay updates
There are two major updates that have taken place with the release of the THB set. New cards added to a player’s library are now noted with a tab above them and when cracked open via booster packs. But these tabs aren’t present when playing in a Sealed or Draft tournament. Once the game is closed, the tabs will remove themselves. Players can mouse over the tabs to remove them, too.
Arranging decks also got a tad easier with a new “favorite” option, along with updates to the drop-down organization tabs.
Other important updates include a tab to note who an enchantment belongs to when on an opponent’s creature and going full control will disable auto-tap. Players also don’t have to mouse over a card to see an adjusted cost of a spell caused by an ability or effect from another permanent. A full list of all MTGA gameplay updates can be found here.
January MTG Arena events
With the addition of the THB set comes a handful of new events and tournaments.
- Sealed Theros: Beyond Death: Jan. 16 to Feb. 9
- Brawlers’ Guildhall: Jan 16 to Feb. 13
- Traditional Draft:Theros: Beyond Death: Jan. 20 to April 16
- Standard Metagame Challenge: Jan. 24 to 27
- Ranked Draft Theros: Beyond Death: Jan. 31 to Feb. 14
- Theros Beyond Death Set Constructed: Feb. 2 to 5
- Standard Treasure: Feb. 9 to 12
THB Cosmetics
Several new cosmetics are available with the January MTGA update, including individual card styles and bundles. A full list of cosmetic prices and additions can be found here.
A number of the new card styles and some older versions are only available for a short time.
- Ox of Agonas
- Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths
- Polukranos, Unchained
- Midnight Reaper
- Chandra’s Spitfire
- Rotting Regisaur
- Thought Erasure
Several items are no longer available in the MTG Arena store.
- Elspeth Play Pre-order bundle
- Ashiok Pack Pre-order bundle
- Adventure Abound bundle
- Animated Armory bundle
- Court Knights bundle
- Familiar Faces bundle
- Aggressive Negotiations
- Uncovered Artifacts bundle
- Standard 2020 Rotation bundle
- Throne of Eldraine Mastery Pass
Bug fixes
- Repositioning and resizing of cards tucked under enchantments and artifacts.
- Planeswalkers being cast with an alternate cost are showing their Loyalty Ability icons.
- Casting planeswalkers with Fires of Invention correctly shows its loyalty abilities while in the casting browser.
- Permanents that have an extremely large number of +1/1 counters no longer display a higher number before returning to the correct value when additional counters are placed on it.
- Exiled cards that are castable are now highlighted to show they can be played.
- Creatures with “first strike” no longer animate a second time for regular damage, if the only blocker has zero power.
- Planeswalkers that have become an enchantment in addition to their other card types display their Loyalty while located in the Enchantment row.
- Shifting Ceratop’s ability only grays out abilities the creature already has.
- Sarkhan the Masterless leaving other planeswalkers as dragons when he was removed from the battlefield has been fixed.
- Players won’t become stuck in the Mulligan browser if they choose to take a mulligan as their timer runs out.
- Players no longer receive a soft lock if they uncheck “Resolve All” while the stack is resolving if full control is also enabled.
- Revealing Sphinx of Foresight no longer shows an additional copy in hand.
