Regardless of the theme of an MTG set, players can’t help but get excited about reprints. In this respect, Bloomburrow is rather disappointing, as the main set contains remarkably few reprinted cards. In fact, outside of the Commander precons, this MTG set has significantly fewer reprints than normal, as The List is nowhere to be seen.
Typically, Wizards would announce the contents of the list a few weeks ahead of the set’s release date. This time around, however, there’s been nary a peep about The List on WeeklyMTG. It turns out, this is because Wizards of the Coast has canceled The List. Sadly, this change isn’t just for Bloomburrow, as it appears to have been scrapped entirely.
Quietly Canned
You’d be remiss for not noticing that The List had been unseramously scrapped. There has been no official announcement about it on Wizards official news page, after all. Instead, this very important tidbit of information was subtly revealed just over two weeks ago. Found at the bottom of the Collecting Bloomburrow article, it’s no wonder this detail was missed.
In this article, Wizards stated that “Starting with Bloomburrow, de-archived cards, commonly known as The List cards, […] will no longer appear in Play Boosters.” Considering The List cards were legal in Draft, and on MTG Arena, this is an absolutely monumental change. The fact it wasn’t given a proper announcement or any explanation is downright baffling.
That said, technically, the slot within Play Boosters for The List still exists. As Wizards continues, however, the only cards found here are the ten Special Guests cards. These cards will be found in roughly 1.5% of packs, which is a much lower rate than what The List appeared at.
Ultimately, we’re shocked this change wasn’t properly announced. Even if players don’t need to know about cards they won’t be finding, this is nonetheless a significant change. This is especially true for MTG Arena players, who are now sorely missing out.
A Massive Disappointment
For paper and digital MTG players both, this change is a major downgrade. Not only are reprints now less available, but MTG Arena is getting fewer new old cards now. This latter point was one of the best bits about The List following its Play Booster-prompted overhaul.
While a one-to-one Draft environment wasn’t always promised, The List offered an avenue for useful and needed reprints. Considering Explorer still has a long way to go to match Pioneer, The List was ideal for bridging the gap. Technically, Special Guests can still fulfill this role somewhat, however, that is a much smaller set of cards.
Outside of MTG Arena, the cancellation of The List is also a disappointment for paper players. Not only does it make Limited matches a little less interesting, but it obviously limits the supply of new reprints. This, in turn, reduces the potential of a juicy find when cracking packs and keeps prices of reprint-worthy cards high.
All told, this change is nothing but a lose-lose for everyone involved. The only marginal upside is that new MTG players should be slightly less confused upon finding a card from The List. While this is a concern, the rise of Commanders in Play Boosters shows that players can handle different set symbols just fine.
Not the Biggest Surprise
At the end of the day, while we’re definitely disappointed by this change, we’re not really too surprised. Since the introduction of Play Boosters, the work that went into The List has increased dramatically. After all, now Wizards needs to balance them around a set’s Limited environment and add them to MTG Arena too.
This is a lot of extra work for Wizards of the Coast, which comes at a time when they’re already incredibly busy. Now that MTG Foundations has carved out a new spot on the calendar, each year is more congested than ever. This puts an especially big strain on the MTG Arena team, who are likely already stretched thin by card additions.
Sadly, this lack of resources has long prevented Alchemy from getting the frequent rebalancing it needs. Thankfully, Wizards does still rebalance cards and Historic is getting a much-needed rebalancing in a few weeks. The time it takes for changes like this to happen, however, speaks to the lack of resources holding the game back.
Hopefully, this issue can be mitigated in the future through one avenue or another. If this happens and the Arena team gets additional support, The List could even return. Sadly, given the recent announcement, this does seem unlikely, but we can’t help but hope.
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