Wizards of the Coast just announced today that the upcoming changes to Magic Arena are being delayed. Their reasoning behind this is that the massive back end system changes that was planned to be implemented on August 10th needed more time to be worked on before release. Unfortunately, the release of Historic Horizons, as well as the 100 Card Historic Brawl queues were tied to the release of this patch, and so those ended up getting delayed as well. The new dates for the release are as follows:
August 24th: Magic Arena Game Update
August 26th – October 14: Jumpstart: Historic Horizons
There are a few things that Wizards addressed regarding these changes, namely the split August Ranked seasons, and the addition of events to supplement content until the release of Historic Horizons. To tie everyone over who was waiting for the 100 Card Historic Brawl queues, there will be a free entry event going live on August 12th that will be 100 Card Historic Brawl, which will run until the implementation of the queue on August 24th
August Ranked Season
The ranked season for August was supposed to be split into 2 seasons, with the first half ending on August 10th, where the top 500 Mythic got invitations to qualifier weekend. The second half would be from August 10th to August 31, and would be more like a normal season. Now with the new changes, the August season is no longer “split”, but it will end on the 24th. Wizards is honoring that whoever hits top 500 mythic before the 7 AM PST on the 10th will still get invitations. They are also combining the rewards from the old split dates for this new August season, so there’s going to be basically double rewards. The September season will be from August 24th through September 30th, and will be a normal season.
Historic Events
To supplement the delay of Historic Horizons, there will be 3 Historic set premier draft events, and the first time that someone joins any of these events, the entry will be waived! Each event will run for about 5 days leading up to the release or Historic Horizons. Here is the schedule
August 10 – August 15: Amonkhet Remastered
August 15 – August 20: Kaladesh Remastered
August 20 – August 26: Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths
While it’s unfortunate that these updates are being delayed, I appreciate that Wizards decided to push it back. I’d much rather have a smooth launch of their new back end infrastructure and wait a couple weeks than having everything now and have the game be unplayable.
