MTG Arena Guide: A Quick Overview Of The Upcoming Formats

Magic: The Gathering Arena is all set to introduce an update this Thursday. With this new update, MTG is officially going to add the Constructed Brawl format to the game. A series of events dubbed Festival of the Fae are also going to be introduced. These let players earn some of the whimsical card styles of Throne of Eldraine. Today we look at the format of the new events included in the Festival of the Fae.

Constructed

The event has three main formats. The first is Constructed, which focuses on Artisan and Standard Constructed. For Artisan, all you need to know is:

• In this format, all cards need to be common or uncommon in rarity.
• Artisan events use either Standard or Historic format legality for cards.
• Other usual rules for Constructed decks apply which are:
  • Minimum of 60 cards in the main deck
    • Maximum 250 cards for main decks
  • Up to 15 cards in your sideboard, if used
  • Include no more than four copies of any individual card in your main deck and sideboard combined (except basic lands)

In order to be legal in this format, a card needs to be available at common or uncommon rarity on MTG Arena. However, if a version of a particular card is only available on MTG Arena as rare/mythic rare, then it is not legal. An example of a non-legal card in this format would be Narcomeba.

For Standard Cascade, each players starts the game with the Maelstrom Nexus emblem which has this ability:

When you cast your first spell each turn, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Other than that rule, the usual rules for Standard Constructed decks apply which include:

• Minimum of 60 cards in the main deck
  • Maximum 250 cards for main decks
• Up to 15 cards in your sideboard, if used
• Include no more than four copies of any individual card in your main deck and sideboard combined (except basic lands)

Limited

In Limited, players can join in the Omniscience Draft event. Each player drafts a 40-card deck and starts the game with an Omniscience emblem which has these abilities:

• You may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs.
• 0: Add WUBRG. Activate this ability only once each turn.

In addition, instead of seven cards, players only have three cards as their starting hand. Other than that, the usual Booster Draft rules apply:

• Minimum of 40 cards in the main deck.
• There is no maximum size for main decks.
• All cards from your Limited pool that are not in your main deck are considered part of your sideboard.
• A Limited deck may contain as many duplicates of a card as were included with the draft.

Preconstructed

Finally there is the Oko's Madness event. For this event, players start the game with a 60-card deck that contains only basic land. There is also going to be an Oko's Whims emblem which has these abilities:

• Creatures you control have base power and toughness 3/3 and are Elks in addition to their other types.
• Pay 1, Discard a card: Create a token that's a copy of a random creature with converted mana cost eight or less. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

So which format are you excited about?