It’s rare that MTG cards are literally unplayable. Sure, there might be a lot of Draft chaff, but you can still put these cards in your deck. Is it a bad idea to do so? Absolutely, but it’s nonetheless an option if you’re building a janky deck. Sadly, while Draft chaff is technically playable, some cards on MTG Arena literally aren’t.
Unfortunately, the highly controversial Alchemy format is to blame for most of these cards. Specifically, the Spellbook and Conjure mechanics have long been adding cards to the game that can’t be played elsewhere. You might be lucky if you Draft them in a Cube, but you can’t add them to your decks outside of that.
Continuing this frustrating trend, two new interesting MTG cards have just been added to Arena.
The Worst Kind of Reprint
Along with the 30 new cards that Alchemy: Bloomburrow introduced, the set came packed with two additional reprints. Both Empty the Warrens and Body Count are now technically playable on MTG Arena, but only just. If you want to cast these cards, you’ll need either Charged Conjuration or Dazzling Flameweaver to create them first.
Sadly, being cards conjured via Spellbooks, these cards can’t be added normally to any deck on Arena. You can’t even craft them, or spend money for them in the store. This doesn’t really make much sense, as the cards are otherwise fully implemented and seemingly work without issue.
To make matters worse, both of the new reprints are quite good. Body Count, for instance, is a potent draw engine in Commander/Brawl. If you’re playing a sacrifice-focused aristocrats deck or cast a board wipe, Body Count is basically a better Ancestral Recall! Admittedly this does take some doing, but it’s nonetheless a fun card.
Similarly, Empty the Warrens is a very fun card, and a win condition in a fair few decks. Currently, many Ruby Storm decks are using Empty the Warrens as one of their win cons in Modern. While Historic or Timeless don’t really have Storm decks at the moment, it would still be nice to have this card.
Just like Body Count, Empty the Warrens could easily work well within a themed Brawl deck. With Stella Lee, Wild Card as your Commander alongside plenty of cantrips and cost reducers, you could easily pop off. While you can already do this with Dragonstorm, Grapeshot, or even Indris, the Hydrostatic Surge, more options are always nice.
A Persistent Problem
Thanks to the new additions, there are now reportedly 120 cards on MTG Arena that can’t be crafted. While not all of these cards are staples, or even very good, the vast majority of them are inoffensive. So long as they work as expected, Wizards could add 90% of these cards without any issues at all.
Out of the long list of unplayable MTG cards, there are some which are a touch overpowered. The Power Nine and the Urzatron lands are the biggest offenders in this regard. While these cards are incredibly powerful, MTG Arena has Timeless now, which solves this problem. Even if these cards need to be restricted, they could absolutely go into this high-powered format.
Admittedly, while these cards may work in Timeless, it would absolutely warp the metagame. The same is true for Historic, although Wizards would likely play it safe here. Regardless of which format gets affected, randomly warping the meta is rarely done on a whim. It’s a different story if the metas are state or in disarray, but that’s not the case right now.
While this important factor makes adding the Power Nine incredibly difficult, there are still 94 other viable cards. The vast majority of these could be added with absolutely no problem or fear of forced rotation. Instead, these cards would simply be new tools for Brawl players to utilize in their decks should they want to.
Many of the cards, such as Darksteel Plate and the Signet cycle would be absolutely fantastic in Brawl. The fact we’re waiting for these cards to be properly added for basically no reason is definitely disappointing. Hopefully, Wizards can fix this injustice soon enough and let players actually enjoy these already programmed cards.
A Payment Problem?
Previously, these missing unplayable cards seemed to be held back by a need to buy them. Whether it be in packs or an Anthology, Wizards hasn’t been in the business of giving away cards for free. Wizards have even been hesitant to just release cards that were only accessible via crafting. All that, however, has changed recently.
For April Fools Day in 2024, Wizards added One with Nothing to MTG Arena, just for fun. Following this, Bloomburrow added many new reprints to Arena which couldn’t be found in packs. Instead, players had no choice but to craft these cards from Courageous Critters. Now both of these have happened, there’s no reason to keep these cards locked away.
While it would be a very unusual Anthology, MTG players have even expressed a desire to pay for these cards. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get our hands on them soon in one way or another, but that’s hardly guaranteed. This problem has been ongoing since even before the release of Alchemy, so it’s unclear why anything would change now.
Still, we can’t help but be hopeful, as finally getting Sol Ring would be a real blessing.
Read More: MTG Players Predict Future Remastered Sets
