MTG Arena Announcements – August 18, 2025

Editor's Note: Card rebalances have been appended to the Alchemy: Edge of Eternities section.

In this edition:

• Alchemy: Edge of Eternities
• Arena Direct Events
• Introducing Arena Anthologies
• Event Schedule

Alchemy: Edge of Eternities

Prepare to test your mettle among the stars! Alchemy: Edge of Eternities takes flight tomorrow! This set features three new spellbooks that will guide your adventures as you traverse the galaxy. Scope them all out here!

Additionally, with the release of Alchemy: Edge of Eternities, some cards are being rebalanced.

A-Cori-Steel Cutter

• No longer gives +1/+1 and trample.

Cori-Steel Cutter needs no introduction. It's by now seen play in almost every Magic format thanks to its sheer power and efficiency. The goal of this rebalance is to keep this as a viable choice in dedicated Prowess decks in Alchemy while toning down the numbers that make it a metagame-warping force. It will still churn out tokens when unanswered, but it will end games less quickly, and blocking with small and large creatures alike will be more effective counterplay.

Awestruck Cygnet

Changed: Whenever a creature you control with flying enters
To: Whenever another creature you control with flying enters

This change addresses the particular interaction between Mockingbird and Awestruck Cygnet. The curve of Cygnet into Mockingbird currently nets two Cygnet triggers, which means that a single removal spell isn't enough to stop this card from attacking during your next turn. With this rebalance, there will be only one trigger, reducing the polarity of this play pattern and the number of non-games that result.

A-Recruit Instructor

Changed: Whenever one or more Mice you control attack
To: Whenever Recruit Instructor attacks

Despite the loss of Monstrous Rage, Mice remains one of the premier aggro decks in Alchemy with the help of Brave Meadowguard and Recruit Instructor. The Instructor in particular injects too much pressure into the game at too early a point. When it is following up a one-mana Mouse, it can often be back-breaking. We would like the Instructor to remain a strong option to encourage a red-white Mouse deck that's distinct from mono-red aggro variations, but we are reducing its ability to snowball by giving opponents the counterplay of removing it at sorcery speed. Forcing the Instructor to get into the action itself instead of sitting back at home also makes combat at least a little risky.

Housemeld

Changed: Then put it onto the battlefield under your control.
To: At the beginning of your next end step, put it onto the battlefield under your control.

We didn't intend for Housemeld to have the impact in Brawl that it did, and the experience of losing access to your commander is something we hope to keep out of the format as much as possible. This adjustment will remove the commander-nullifying nature of the card while preserving its primary function as a novel Control Magic effect.

A-Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

Changed: You may put a Vampire creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
To: You may put a Vampire creature card with mana value 6 or less from your hand onto the battlefield.

Sorin and Saint Elenda form a combo that is flexible, potent, and difficult to interact with. It slots into a variety of Historic shells and decides many games on turn three. We've decided to keep Sorin legal but have restricted his mana-cheating ability to slightly more reasonable Vampires. We expect Sorin will still see play with Vein Ripper and friends, but without the utility of Saint Elenda, he should be less of a format boogeyman.

Ribald Shanty

• Cost: (was )

With Choruses rotating out of Alchemy, we wanted to revert the previous rebalance intended for the Alchemy format. Enjoy your Chorus decks in Historic and Timeless!

Shellfish Scholar

• Cost: (was )
• 2/2 (was 3/2)

Thought Rattle

• Gains: You gain 1 life for each Rat card in your hand.

The Rat cards in Alchemy: Bloomburrow were not "priced to move" in Constructed. These improvements aim to make them more appealing as a package and strengthen their appeal in casual games and Brawl.

Speedbrood Stalker

• 3/4 (was 4/3)
• Gains: Lifelink

Speedbrood Stalker has an exciting built-in minigame that is a good showcase of MTG Arena's digital design space. We're raising this creature's toughness and lowering its power to give it a clearer metagame role in a fast-paced Alchemy format and allow the minigame to show up more often

We're also updating the templating of some cards. With Alchemy: Edge of Eternities, we're updating the language around conjuring random creature cards to be more concise. Formerly, cards referred to conjuring "a duplicate of" a random creature card. Moving forward, they will simply "conjure a random creature card."

Two Arena Direct Events Featuring Standard and Sealed
(August 22–25)

The next Arena Direct is coming in for a landing this week! This time, we'll be holding two simultaneous Arena Direct events. From August 22–25, players can compete in Edge of Eternities Sealed and/or Standard Constructed. Players who reach seven wins before two losses will earn two (2) Edge of Eternities Play Booster boxes while supplies last! For complete details, including the event's terms and conditions, please visit the Arena Direct page.

Introducing Arena Anthologies

By Jay Parker

Initially, we aimed Anthology releases at specific formats, like Historic or Explorer. But, as we've expanded the number of formats on MTG Arena, we've seen that many of our most-engaged players enjoy multiple formats, bouncing from one to another. Because of that, we're thinking more about MTG Arena's overall card pool, not just for the experiences we offer today, but for ones we may offer in the future as well.

This led us to try something new. We're excited to introduce our first two Arena Anthologies. These are designed not so much to target a specific format but rather to build out MTG Arena's card pool in interesting and useful ways. These cards will be legal in Historic, Timeless, and Brawl, save for one pre-banned card.

Arena Anthology 1 provides a host of artifacts, fleshing out our offerings with Signets, Talismans, and Swords.

If that's a little one-note for you, Arena Anthology 2 is a spicy antidote, offering a wide range of cards that are sure to make an impact in multiple formats, though we think Mox Opal would make too much impact on Historic, so that card is pre-banned in Historic.

These Arena Anthologies will be available tomorrow, August 19, in the MTG Arena Store. We can't wait to see what decks you build.

Brawl Decks Take Flight in the MTG Arena Store

Edge of Eternities's spacefaring saga continued to blaze a trail across the sky last week. Hearthhull, the Worldseed and Inspirit, Flagship Vessel Brawl decks launched, giving players two awesomely battle-ready decks to face off with. Check out the full decklists here.

Reminder: Parental Consent for Child Accounts

As announced last week, changes are being rolled out regarding how parents and guardians give their children permission to create Wizards Accounts while adhering to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

As a result, all MTG Arena players will be required to enter their date of birth. Players under the age of 13 will be required to obtain parental consent to create a new account or to continue using a previously created Wizards Account.

For details and instructions, please visit this support article. 

Event Schedule

Events open at 8 a.m. PT on their starting dates (excluding Midweek Magic) and close to entries at 8 a.m. PT (UTC-07:00; UTC-08:00 after November 2) on the end date shown unless otherwise noted.

Midweek Magic

Midweek Magic events open on Tuesdays at 2 p.m. PT and close to new entries on Thursdays at 2 p.m. PT (UTC-07:00; UTC-08:00 after November 2).

• August 19–20: Alchemy Constructed
• August 26–27: Pick-Two Draft Magic: The Gathering Foundations
• September 2–3: Brawl Builder Challenge
• September 9–10: Chromatic Start Standard

Quick Draft

• August 19–September 1: Aetherdrift
• September 2–11: Edge of Eternities
• September 11–23: Magic: The Gathering Foundations
• September 23–October 2: Bloomburrow 

Competitive Play Schedule

All times listed are Pacific time (UTC-07:00; UTC-08:00 after November 2).

Premier Play

Qualifier Play-In events are single-day tournaments in which players compete to earn invitations to that month's Qualifier Weekend events.

Qualifier Weekend events are two-day events in which eligible players compete for invitations to upcoming Arena Championship events.

Qualifier tokens earned through Seasonal Rewards are delivered to your MTG Arena inbox. Remember to claim them before the event starts!

August Qualifier Weekend Format: Limited

• August 22: Best-of-Three Play-In
• August 23–24: Qualifier Weekend

Season Rewards

Players will receive their rewards for the July 2025 season at the start of the August 2025 ranked season (12:05 p.m. PT on July 31).

You must have played at least one ranked game in the respective format to receive seasonal rewards.

• Bronze Reward: 1 Edge of Eternities pack
• Silver Reward: 1 Edge of Eternities pack + 500 gold
• Gold Reward: 2 Edge of Eternities packs + 1,000 gold + Vote Out card style
• Platinum Reward: 3 Edge of Eternities packs + 1,000 gold + Vote Out card style + Lightstall Inquisitor card style
• Diamond Reward: 4 Edge of Eternities packs + 1,000 gold + Vote Out card style + Lightstall Inquisitor card style
• Mythic Reward: 5 Edge of Eternities packs + 1,000 gold + Vote Out card style + Lightstall Inquisitor card style