Earlier this year, Wizards of the Coast announced Magic: The Gathering Arena's Historic format, which looks to allow players to continue to use their old Magic cards even after the MTG Standard format rotates. Since the announcement of the MTG Historic format, players have been planning to construct decks using just the card pool that is currently available on MTG Arena. However, a new announcement reveals that this will not be the full extent of what is playable in the MTG Arena Historic format.
As part of today's Magic: The Gathering Arena State of the Beta, Wizards of the Coast revealed that it plans to add cards from "across Magic's history" to Arena, and these cards will be playable in the MTGA Historic format. In November, Wizards plans to release 15-20 new MTG Arena Historic cards, and the goal is to release additional Magic: The Gathering Historic cards every quarter after that. While the developer has not revealed any specifics on what the first round of new Historic cards will be, they will certainly be exciting to those interested in the MTG Historic format.
Additionally, it is worth noting that cards that rotate out of Standard will also be considered Magic: The Gathering Arena Historic cards. This is important to mention because MTGA Historic cards will require that two Wildcards of the appropriate rarity be redeemed to craft them. For full clarity, this means crafting cards that are not legal in a Standard MTG deck, either because they have rotated out or because Wizards has added them exclusively for the Historic format, will require two Wildcards.
Furthermore, even if a card is reprinted into Standard, versions of the card that are not in a Standard legal set will be classified as Historic and will require two MTG Arena Wildcards. The MTG Arena State of the Beta uses Luminous Bonds as an example of this, indicating that the Rivals of Ixalan version of Luminous Bonds will cost two Wildcards to craft upon the launch of the MTG Arena Historic format while the Guilds of Ravnica version will only cost one.
Indeed, these newly announced crafting requirements will have a major impact on the barrier of entry into the Magic: The Gathering Historic format, and players that start playing in the future may find it prohibitively difficult to get started in Historic. For now, players should plan to craft sets of any cards that they would like to try in the MTGA Historic format before their Wildcard requirements increase in November, following the October release of Throne of Eldraine.
Magic: The Gathering Arena is available now in open beta on PC.
Source: Wizards of the Coast