Wizards reverts MTG Arena Historic rebalanced cards, but not all

Wizards of the Coast has dropped rebalance changes made to a total of five Magic: The Gathering Arena cards that have rotated out of Standard for the Historic format. 

The October MTG Arena State of the Game surprised players today with reverts to rebalanced cards that were previously in both the Alchemy and Historic formats. Multiple Standard legal cards were digitally rebalanced with the launch of the Alchemy format, carrying over into the Historic format as well. WotC announced today that five cards are having their rebalanced stats and abilities reverted back to tabletop cards in the MTG Arena Historic format only. 

The reverts are taking place now due to the cards rotating out of the Alchemy format, according to WotC. And despite the launch of DMU and rotation taking place in September, “time constraints combined with necessary technical work” pushed back the changes to coincide with the Dominaria United Alchemy rebalance changes. The cards having their digital rebalance reverted are Divide by Zero, Esika’s Chariot, Faceless Haven, Goldspan Dragon, and Luminarch Aspirant. 

“Now that these cards have rotated out of Alchemy, we go from having them legal in two formats to one and can balance around that,” WotC said. “While many of these cards were powerful to the point of banning in Standard, Historic has a larger card pool and therefore more ways to interact or respond to powerful cards.”

Not all cards that received Alchemy rebalance changes will get reverts now that they have rotated out of the Alchemy format but are still playable in the Historic format. Alrund’s Epiphany, for example, is not getting any reverts to its digital balance changes, according to WotC. The same strategy is being applied to any cards that received digital buffs, instead of nerfs—with “no plans” to revert those cards, according to WotC. 

The new DMU Alchemy cards and MTG Arena Alchemy balance changes will go into effect on Oct. 6. This includes the reverts to the five cards announced today for the Historic format only. 

All images via WotC.