Thanks to the unstoppable march of time and power creep, Magic: The Gathering cards are steadily getting stronger. We can see this in pushed new cards like Frenzied Baloth as well as in Modern Horizons sets. For better or worse, cards from these sets are able to compete in the strongest formats that Magic has to offer.
As of 2024, it’s not just paper Magic that is getting these supremely powerful format-dominating cards. For better or worse, Modern Horizons 3 came to MTG Arena last year, pushing Historic and Timeless further apart. Since then, we’ve also gotten the Through the Ages bonus sheet, which included a few spicy staples.
For better or worse, the same is true for the new Edge of Eternities Stellar Sights bonus sheet. While it might only contain lands, a few aptly stellar reprints could potentially be format warping. Unsurprisingly, this has stirred up quite a bit of discussion across social media. While pre-bans are a hot topic, they’re arguably not the biggest news of the hour.
The Power Nine and Duel Lands Are Coming to Arena
Your eyes don’t deceive you. According to Wizards of the Coast, the Power Nine and Dual Lands are actually coming to MTG Arena. This was recently confirmed by WotC_Jay on Reddit. Unfortunately, while this is tremendously exciting news, there is a slight catch to their implementation.
“OG Duals are in our “Not collectible (at least for a while)” list, alongside things like the Power 9. Not saying “never”, and on a long enough timeline I’m sure it’s a “when” not “if”. But I would not expect them in constructed anytime soon.”
WotC_Jay
So, while the original Dual Lands and Power Nine will come to MTG Arena eventually, it looks like there’s no strict timeline. Vague gesturing at some point in the far future is all we’re getting at the moment, which is fair. Obviously, each of these 19 cards would have a profound effect on the competitive landscape.
When these cards do finally arrive, there’s no chance that any of them will be legal in Historic. Even in Brawl, it’s highly likely that the vast majority of these cards will be banned outright. The only chance they’ll be playable is if Wizards implements a bracket system or a true competitive Brawl queue.
In Timeless, meanwhile, there’s a good chance that most of the cards will be restricted. The Power Nine, in particular, will undoubtedly follow the trend set by Vintage, only allowing one copy of each to be played. The OG Dual Lands, meanwhile, could feasibly be fully legal in both Timeless and Brawl. Whether or not this will happen, however, remains to be seen.
The Wait Begins
Technically, each of these cards is already on Arena and is perfectly pliable with no bugs or issues. The problem is that these cards aren’t craftable or collectible, so you can’t play them outside of special events, or without using unique Conjure effects like Oracle of the Alpha.
Unsurprisingly, this is very annoying to many MTG players, as they’re right there, just slightly out of reach. Outside of their immense power, that’d undoubtedly warp the Timeless metagame, there’s no reason not to release them. Due to this, there have been a lot of questions around whether or not Wizards will ever release these cards.
Now we know that the original Dual Lands and Power Nine are coming to MTG Arena, the question is when. Unfortunately, there’s no good answer to this question, although we can expect one thing for certain. When Wizards does finally release the OG Duals and Power Nine, you better believe we’ll pay for them.
Making two separate Anthologies out of the original Dual Lands and Power Nine just makes sense. This allows Wizards to basically print money for essentially no upfront cost. Considering these cards aren’t being reprinted otherwise, since they’re on the Reserved List, this seems like an obvious solution.
While a couple of superpowered Anthologies are a given, when they’ll be released is a big unknown. If you ask us, the Dual Lands could feasibly be released at any point, but the Power Nine would be too much right now. We’d need another overpowered Horizons set, or maybe an Eternal Masters set on MTG Arena, to make them more appropriate.
Don’t Hold Your Breath
Ultimately, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens in the future. Hopefully, alongside eventually getting Dual Lands and the Power Nine, MTG Arena can also get access to the other uncraftable cards. Between events, Alchemy, and Jumpstart, there are tons of playable, useful, but bizarrely uncraftable cards.
Admittedly, many of these cards aren’t playable or that useful, even in casual formats like Brawl. This long uncraftable list, however, does include cards like the Urzatron Lands and Sol Ring. At the very least, these cards would be fantastic additions to Brawl and wouldn’t ruin the format. Given Wizards’ recent statement, it feels likely that we will get these cards eventually. Again, however, there’s no guarantee about when that time will come.
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