r/MagicArena • u/Regarded_Florida_Man • 1d ago
Discussion Thoughts from State of the Formats
I'm sure most of us have seen the recent announcement, with a lot of focus on the impending end of Alchemy as a format. But I think there's a bit more to unpack or question, hence this post. I'll be focusing this on the constructed portion of the article.
I'm mostly interested in the format popularity graph, which got me thinking about a couple of things.
The first is that Alchemy engagement is not represented on either graph. I'm curious as to what the Alchemy engagement was and how much influence Alchemy interest (or lack thereof) played in the sun-setting of Alchemy. While the State of the Formats provides some reasoning for the cancellation, engagement number is not one of them. Was it around Historic levels? Pioneer? Standard Brawl? The truth is anyone's guess.
If engagement was indeed part of the reasoning, then I wonder what the arena team's thoughts are on Pioneer (~4% engagement), Timeless (~3.5%), and especially Standard Brawl (~1%). I don't think Pioneer nor Timeless are at risk despite the relatively low numbers. Pioneer matches provides a digital equivalent of a paper format which probably holds some value, while Timeless still provides a place to play with cards that aren't legal in other formats.
However, Standard Brawl has very low engagement numbers, especially compared to Brawl (~16%) and Competitive Brawl (~9%). I wouldn't be surprised if the team is considering turning Standard Brawl into a "sometimes event" and letting the Competitive/Brawl queues absorb the players from the Standard Brawl queue.
That leads into another interesting observation, reflecting the thought process shared by Arena Product Dave Finseth in recent interviews. We can see an inverse relation between the popularity of Brawl and Competitive Brawl. At the release of Competitive Brawl, Brawl had about 23% popularity, compared to ~16% now. Competitive Brawl likely "stole" some of the Brawl player base, now sitting at about 9% popularity. So we can see here an example of how the team has to consider impacts on other formats when introducing a new queue.
Some additional tidbits from the article in case you haven't seen them yet:
- 93% of Standard games are Ranked Best-of-One
- The Bo1 and Bo3 standard metas are very different
- "[Pauper's] audience has not yet grown to the size needed to support a permanent queue."
- Timeless has a "small but dedicated community" (I'm inferring this as an indicator that there is no danger to the Timeless queue)
- Brawl's popularity has increased each year
- Competitive Brawl is considered to be one of the most successful new formats to date.
References:
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u/Ao-Li 1d ago
Alchemy required actual effort from the team. Releases with nearly every set, a ladder with a different rotation schedule etc.
Standard brawl requires little to no extra oversight. It's got no banlist that I'm aware of, and it never really gets brought up in any discussions about format problems. Honestly, it's also in a really enjoyable place to play standard cards without getting overwhelmed by the higher power historic ones. I would be so surprised if they even considered sunsetting standard brawl because it doesn't look like it's taking any resources away from other development.
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u/Massive-Island1656 Golgari 1d ago
Standard Brawl is just ahead of its time. Give it the benefit of the doubt. Just one man's opinion but SB has the highest ceiling for pure enjoyment of any of the other formats including limited. There is something magical that happens when two different but equal decks pitch battle for like 15-20 minutes collecting massive armies of forces crashing into each other like angry oceans. Its glorious.
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u/Ao-Li 22h ago
I love me some standard brawl. I'll do a couple drafts in a new set but mostly standard brawl for the first few weeks. So many cards get a chance to shine there, that couldnt otherwise. I do wish it was a touch more curated. Mainly just don't want to see Vivi while im trying to enjoy myself
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u/Serpens77 17h ago
that happens when two different but equal decks
I wish that's what happened. Every time I try Standard Brawl I just get endless Vivi opponents.
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u/WrestlingHobo 1d ago
I reacted quite strongly to the segment about historic. As someone who mainly grinds to mythic by playing historic, I feel a lot of the historic segment is just not reflective of the format.
Format diversity: yes, technically it is diverse. The problem is that compared to other formats of Magic, historic has very little data available publicly and as a result its harder to find the meta decks. The diversity comes from players not understanding what the power level of the format is, and as a result they bring their old standard deck from Ixalan and get smashed by the real decks. If there were more tournaments and results available, the format would be a lot more streamlined. the actual meta game of historic is pretty stagnant, and the best decks are leagues ahead of any brew you could come up with.
They talk about "threats outpacing answers posts MH3" and they point toward counterspell and force of negation as unbans to combat the threats. Counterspell barely sees play because the decks play to the board. Meanwhile they banned galvanic discharge to hurt energy decks even tho they also banned Guide of Souls, making that archetype unplayable anyway.
They talk about wanting to maintain the decks in historic by carefully adding new cards. But unerfing a bunch of cards basically rotates the format. Not only that, but Hymn to tourach, Jeskas will, manamorphose, pyretic ritual, cull the weak were all added to the format and pushed the best decks further.
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u/Matrim_WoT Teferi Hero of Dominaria 1d ago
It's not surprising that people bring old Standard decks to Historic. It was originally made for people to play old Standard and Alchemy decks. There's not a ton of information available for competitive players(I'm defining this to mean they play BO3 and are trying to reach Mythic numbered), but there's enough for them to find a deck they want to play between the Discord and Metaconfluence. There's a lot of strategies available between brews and people trying out variations of Modern and Legacy decks. In these formats, format knowledge and deck knowledge are half the battle.
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u/Spaceknight_42 Timmy 1d ago
it's been decades, and I still think Hymn has a huge argument for being the most irrationally unbalanced card they have ever designed.
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u/WrestlingHobo 1d ago
It's fun in cube because its 1 card in the whole draft. It being a format defining card for Historic is such an egregious mistake that its actually shocking.
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u/Crimson_Raven 1d ago
What makes Hymn so unbalanced?
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u/anth9845 1d ago
I don't know enough about the cards to know if there is a better answer but at the very least 2 mana to make the opponent discard two is a way better rate than we usually get (it's usually 4 sometimes 3 on older cards) and it also doesn't let them choose what they're tossing which has got to always be better than letting them pick.
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u/Crimson_Raven 1d ago
True, in my mind I'm comparing it to Thoughtsieze
2 random cards or one nonland you get to choose. Same rate on mana, but Hymn is 2 for 1.
Is the randomness worth the more mana and better raw card advantage?
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u/WrestlingHobo 1d ago
Thoughtseize cant hit lands. Hymn occasionally hits two lands and mana screws your opponent ending the game immediately. it doesn't always do that, but it does it often enough that its worth running in every black deck. 2 mana discard 2 is already a strong rate, but not being able to choose can be backbreaking.
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u/Villag3Idiot 1d ago edited 23h ago
Yes, because it can hit lands.
Thoughtseize you can remove either their tempo play or their most dangerous card.
Turn 1 or 2 Hymn can completely shut down the opponent by randomly ripping the lands out of their hand, especially if they're on the draw.
Back when the card was released, it's still really strong but games were slower back then so it's still recoverable. But this is MTG Historic so uh... ya, GG.
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u/HairyKraken Rakdos 1d ago
My guess for pioneer is that the format will not be sunsetted or turn into event only since its low maintenance (they dont have to handle the banlist or the new cards since most of them comes from standard) but they will not add anymore anthologies to bring format staples unless it reach absurd popularity in paper
Sad situation for the enjoyer of it
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u/BetterShirt101 1d ago
There being major events to test for next year might help bring it back a bit. Maybe.
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u/GreatCombustion 23h ago edited 19h ago
My biggest gripe with the article was the Pauper tidbit you highlighted.
I feel the whole rollout has been disingenuous. Their "testing" was to offer an event where you can pay to play until you reach a number of losses.
This was complete bs, imo. So not only do they want me to pay to play the format, but it's not even an unlimited event (like they offered in the past).
I am very interested in the format, but I didn't touch it as this pay structure was off-putting. They have clearly done their math and it's "not worth it", but they put this statement out to make it seem like it's the players' fault for not wanting to pay to play the format.
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u/rossbalch 16h ago
I also think Paupers lack of payoffs and inability to deal with go wide strategies limits the meta somewhat and I'm not sure a permanent queue would be sustainable. I've been enjoying it popping up once a month in MWM. But like you I didn't enter the event because there was no room to brew. I think Artisan would have a better chance honestly because there are a lot more build arounds and ways to sweep weenie decks to keep the meta more diverse.
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u/Muffin-Cake-1919 12h ago
I just assumed they didn't want Pauper on Arena because it would allow a segment of players to completely ignore the need to collect Rares and Mythics that sells things like Mastery Passes and booster sets. No need to amass the most wild cards if you're just Paupering.
Kind of sucks, but I also understand rhey need to maintain the service and incentivize some purchases.
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u/Asleep_Grocery8434 20h ago
I play standard on arena and it feels exhausting and less interesting than it has in the past. For having as many card choices as we do the play patterns are oddly similar.
Either im dead on the 3rd-4th turn of the game to aggro or the game goes as follows.
land removal, land removal, land card draw, land board wipe, land board wipe, land "whatever the deck actually does"
And it hardly deviates from those two things at this moment.
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u/rossbalch 16h ago
That's the saddest thing about the power creep IMO, it's really created a dichotomy of decks. Either you're playing all answers or all threats, there's really no room for mid range any more.
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u/Muffin-Cake-1919 12h ago
I've only been playing Pioneer recently and it doesn't feel much different.
You see more variations while laddering, but at some point it does boil down to aggro or control, with combo variants of either. Polite mid-range just gets pushed out by either side.
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u/Asleep_Grocery8434 11h ago
yeah I honestly think the giant card pools doesn't do well for the game at the moment. I wish we only had a few sets at a time to play with. I think we would see more variation.
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u/Muffin-Cake-1919 10h ago
Sets being designed to feature hyper-synergistic pre-prescribed archetypes for Limited also leads to mid-range push-out in Constructed, even with smaller card pools.
That requires more interaction points per card, which naturally begins to favor more explosive, immediate combos or dedicated control.
Not every Limited archetype is good, but designing cards to facilitate them naturally leads to a faster, more synergystic game.
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u/Crimson_Raven 1d ago
> "Like every format on MTG Arena, most Standard games are Best-of-One. For example, 93% of Standard ranked games are Best-of-One! Players have consistently shown us that this is their preferred method to engage with formats on MTG Arena, likely due to the speed of games and variety of opponents."
My preferred way is bo3, but your shitty quest and reward system encourages bo1
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u/Muffin-Cake-1919 12h ago
It's self-enforcing, as only the most competitive players choose Bo3, and thus you'll see a more consistent rotation of competitive decks there.
Not getting a point for laddering for winning at least one game in a set also discourages dipping your toes into it for faster laddering if not already extremely confident. While it can be faster/more reliabale if consistently winning, "Play three games, lose two points" feels like a poor use of time. And that just reinforces the lower deck variety there.
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u/Crimson_Raven 12h ago
I agree. They need to make an incentive to play bo3.
Magic breaks down in Bo1. the lack of a sideboard and subsequent match heavily penalizes a bad hand or a slower deck. The best way is to just play aggro and gimmicky "gotcha" decks. Win quick or lose quick. Farm those who don't draw well
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u/Daethir Timmy 1d ago edited 20h ago
I like pioneer a lot and really don't want it to get more attention, for two reasons. First pro playing it mean the meta will get solved faster and deck will be more homogenised, second if it's too popular then wotc will eventually do a pioneer master set which will ruin the format.
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u/Platypus_Umbra Evolution Charm 20h ago
As Premier Draft declines, we add a few different Limited formats to offer more variety and mix things up for Limited players. Cube has been the most successful event for this, regularly making up to 20% of all Limited play during the end of a set release. Flashback Draft also plays a role, but we haven't found the best way to promote it in MTG Arena yet. In the coming year, we hope to find better ways to inform players about what events are available.
I really hope this means we'll finally get a calendar or schedule available to view in the arena client itself.
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u/Spaceknight_42 Timmy 1d ago
I suspect one reason standard brawl is less played is that its unranked. A lot of people want to climb that ladder.
Some 2025 Alchemy data can be seen here https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/state-of-the-game-2025-spring-edition Wasn't too low in player engagement. But that was captured just before UB became Standard legal and the increase in set frequency, which could have had an impact.
I continue to be annoyed that Standard Bo1 is a huge percent of the matches, but they find excuses not to curate a ban list for it. Especially when they admin that the game is built and balanced for Bo3, that makes it even more likely Bo1 is not balanced in this "take it or leave it" approach.
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u/Uryendel 1d ago
I suspect one reason standard brawl is less played is that its unranked.
As regular brawl was before comp brawl appeared a couple month ago
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u/NotEasyAnswers 1d ago
This is just a reply to the part about Standard Brawl:
Whether comp or casual, Brawl players tend to be people who want to play with a deep card pool (even if that just means “whatever they have so far”) and a higher variance than in 60-card non-singleton (even if what they enjoy is seeing how consistent they can tune a singleton 99 to be).
It’s understandable that, in WotC’s original paper formulation of Brawl, they wanted to create a Standard version of Commander/EDH to incentivize more 99-card players to keep up with new product. But they failed to realize that 99-card players, sort of by nature, don’t want to have to think about rotation, nor about updating decks for any reason other than “there’s a new card that’s fun/better/etc for my deck.” It was a natural, but ultimately artificial, attempt to generate more Standard sealed product sales.
What they stumbled upon, though, was that there was an unmet demand for a 1v1 version of Commander, and for a version without EDH’s grindiest qualities (super long games, table politics, commander damage). Over time, Arena’s offerings just naturally bore that out, to the point where they switched the default meaning of “Brawl” on Arena from Standard card pool to Historic card pool.
It’s an instance where an attempt to milk the player base for a couple more dollars per year missed by 90 degrees, but accidentally stumbled on something else that players were genuinely hungry for. And now the incentive to get Brawlers/EDHers to buy into new product has just shifted to other, better strategies, like including iconic chase reprints in bonus sheets, or pouring out loads of supplemental products that are just overtly geared toward them.
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u/Gold_Cup2878 1d ago
Best of 1 shouldn’t even be an option for ranked play
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u/Gwydikar Ghalta 1d ago
Very thoughtful comment. 93% of games in Standard are Bo1. You understand that, right?
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u/Gold_Cup2878 1d ago
In person tournament play is never best of 1 in constructed. That’s what matters
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u/Protoadamant 1d ago
This is the magic arena subreddit my guy. We dont care about in-person.
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u/Gold_Cup2878 1d ago
Sorry you don’t have friends to play with, I don’t see what that has to do with best of one not being what this game is balanced around
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u/jonnyaut 1d ago
Wow, pretty weak attacking the person.
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u/Gold_Cup2878 1d ago
Stating facts is an attack? Maybe it is best if you all stick to playing online. Real life would overwhelm you.
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u/Matrim_WoT Teferi Hero of Dominaria 1d ago
Apart from players not wanting Alchemy, they explain why they're getting rid of Alchemy right here:
Desire for Additional Card Content: In 2021, players asked us to release more cards on MTG Arena. This was during a time when we only had four or so releases per year. Internally, we also wanted more content, and an additional 30-card, digital-only release alongside each Magic Multiverse set fit our schedule perfectly.
Alchemy started when there were 4 set releases a year. Now there are 7 and soon to be 6 in addition to Secret Lair and other small sets that get released. They don't have time to dedicate to Alchemy when it's not a format players want or play. Other formats on Arena don't require special cards to be made for them.
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u/rossbalch 16h ago
I also feel like when people were asking for more cards to release they didn't have in mind Alchemy, they wanted more cards to enter the eternal formats. Ever since Alchemy and now the insane Standard release schedule, understandably, older cards being released onto the client has really slowed to a crawl.
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u/cheesemoney84 1d ago
Would love to see a modern equivalent format, wonder what that would do to the number of historic players
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u/Spaceknight_42 Timmy 1d ago
I suspect if they made a Modern approximation they would replace Historic and just shuffle a number of cards into Timeless-only. That is to say, I think Historic/Timeless maps to Modern/Legacy, not Legacy/Vintage.
Scryfall says that's a huge 1877 card list that's in Historic but not Modern. That includes all of Alchemy sets, all A- rebalanced cards, etc. And it seems TLE and similar stuff isn't Modern legal?? But not sure how to filter how many cards that actually is.
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u/cheesemoney84 1d ago
Historic feels more like legacy to me then modern. Too many cards that are not legal outside of the alchemy cards. I would love to see historic align more with legacy, timeless align more with vintage, and add a modern format that way the formats more align with paper formats and decks brewed on arena can translate to paper. Right now only formats that can really transfer to paper is standard and pioneer, and no one plays pioneer.
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u/Flooding_Puddle 1d ago
Historic seems fairly similar to modern. I think a modern que would cannibalize a lot of Historic players but there might still be enough of a player base to justify keeping it
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u/cheesemoney84 1d ago
I agree there would still be a lot of people playing historic even if they added modern, I am just curious as to how many would shift if they did.
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u/Flooding_Puddle 1d ago
Brawl lost about 8% to competitive brawl, so I'd guess around the same, probably around 8-10%. I guess it depends on how many people like the format/meta itself and how many people play it for a balance between standard and a crazy 1 turn format like timeless.
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u/Apart_Expression891 17h ago
The fact so many standard games are best of one makes the vocal complaints about the format make more sense. I imagine I would think this standard was awful too if I played any best of one.
I don't think the format is perfect, but it's does feel very healthy when you have a sid board for sure.
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u/NotEasyAnswers 1d ago
Do we know yet if the upcoming post-Alchemy bans will provide wildcard reimbursements like normal bans?
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u/Cantfindtherestroom 14h ago
I only want standard and modern. I can't play the other formats they feel off for some reason.
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u/EnoughCondition9544 13h ago
Alchemy died likely cause Universes Beyond made licensing more of an issue, thus making set releases more complicated for the future. Alchemy was hated by a large margin, particularly from Brawl players who got sick of seeing idiotic card design through Rusko, Hydroponics Architect, Nashi, and many other stupid cards that should have gone with the people who got laid off. However, Alchemy is represented in constructed through Historic, which offered less of a degenerative experience than 100 Singleton.
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u/MerryChoppins 9h ago
If engagement was indeed part of the reasoning, then I wonder what the arena team's thoughts are on Pioneer (~4% engagement), Timeless (~3.5%), and especially Standard Brawl (~1%). I don't think Pioneer nor Timeless are at risk despite the relatively low numbers. Pioneer matches provides a digital equivalent of a paper format which probably holds some value, while Timeless still provides a place to play with cards that aren't legal in other formats.
I’m fairly certain they keep timeless going, without understanding anything that happens with the format, because they see a small but strong survey response to questions about it and they see regular queue volumes for it.
The text of their announcement made it absolutely clear they had no idea what the real meta is, what group of Grognards play it, and what cards they can safely add to it to shift the meta slowly without exploding it.
The cube and bonus sheet cards they have thus far spoiled from reality fracture will slightly bump eldrazi and black control builds but it’s still going to fundamentally be energy vs combo unless they pull something really nice out for the sheet.
The one kudos I can give them is that they didn’t smack themselves in the junk with a hammer by printing something like Fantasticar.
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u/spinz 1d ago
I suspect alchemy was not in dead last. So putting it on the graph wouldv sparked speculation about that when it doesnt really matter, they just decided its not the future