WOTC already confirmed 2 Mystical Archive cards that won’t be legal in Historic format
Wizards of the Coast officially revealed Strixhaven: School of Mages during the DailyMTG livestream on Thursday, giving us a glimpse at the five colleges of the most elite university of the Magic: The Gathering Multiverse, new Commands, and the Mystical Archive, a seperate set of alternate-art cards associated with Strixhaven.
Similar to Kaladesh’s Masterpiece Series, the Strixhaven’s Mystical Archive includes 63 of the most famous instants and sorceries of all time in specially designed showcase frames and at all rarities. The cards will only be legal in formats that they are already legal in, and they will appear more often than the Masterpiece Series. The cards may also be used in Limited formats like Booster Draft and Sealed. Thes cards with specially designed showcase frames can be found in Strixhaven booster packs: one each in Draft Booster and Set Booster, and three in each Collector’s Booster.
Since the announcement, fans have been wondering if the Mystical Archive cards will be available to draft digitally on Magic: The Gathering Arena, and if any or all of them will be legal in Historic, the game’s eternal MTG format.
To make things clearer for MTG Arena players, Wizards of the Coast took it to Twitter to confirm that the Mystical Archives will be included in Strixhaven Booster Drafts in MTG Arena, but noted that some “a handful of these cards won’t join Historic for power level reasons.”
So far, only 3 Mystical Archive spells have been revealed, but WOTC already confirmed that there will be a total of 63 sorcery and instant cards getting reprinted in Mystical Archive form. Unsurprisingly, Wizards already confirmed that the cards Demonic Tutor and Swords to Plowshares will not be legal in Historic format, but most of the Mystical Archive cards like Opt will be.
There are probably more Mystical Archive cards that will not be legal in Historic, so expect Wizards to announce a list of them that won’t be by the time previews begin this March. It’s likely that they might be replaced by other spells originally not a part of the tabletop Mystical Archive.
Be sure to check out the Strixhaven: School of Mages spoilers page for the full list of cards revealed so far.
Strixhaven: School of Mages is scheduled to release for tabletop on April 23. The set is expected to release digitally on MTG Arena and Magic Online at an earlier date. You can find out more details about Strixhaven here.
