Snippet of the Alchemy changes:

After five more years of development, the issues Alchemy was created to address are simply not as much of a factor anymore. MTG Arena has various nonrotating formats for cards outside of Standard. We release more sets per year than in 2021, and our growing number of formats offers significant variety for Constructed players. With these problems no longer pressing, Alchemy's role has become less clear. So, we want to focus our attention on delivering new sets and our growing formats like Brawl.

How Will This Work?

Digital Cards

Digital-only Alchemy cards will remain on MTG Arena and legal in Historic, Timeless, Brawl, and Competitive Brawl. Several of these cards have become staples in their respective formats, and some have even been printed as physical cards in Mystery Booster releases. We like these cards, and I am proud of our work on those sets and think they are a fun and important part of Magic's history.

We may choose to ban or rebalance digital-only Alchemy cards in the future as we manage the formats they are a part of. We have found this to be an effective tool for these digital sets.

Alchemy: Reality Fracture is the last Alchemy release planned for MTG Arena.

Rebalanced Cards

On September 22, over 200 rebalanced versions of tabletop Magic cards will be reverted to their original printings across all formats. Those cards will match their tabletop versions in all formats where they are legal. This means we will update the banned card list for various MTG Arena formats, as many of these cards are significantly more powerful after being reverted. I'll discuss these more later in this article, but here are the relevant changes to those banned card lists:

Historic

• Galvanic Discharge is banned.
• Guide of Souls is banned.
• Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned.
• Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is banned.
• The One Ring is banned.

Timeless

• No changes

Brawl

• Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned.

Competitive Brawl

• No changes

Timeline

• September 22, 2026: All rebalanced cards with tabletop printings will be reverted to their original printings across all formats. The new banned card list changes for Historic and Brawl will take effect.
• October 13, 2026: Alchemy: Reality Fracture will be released. Additional sendoff events are scheduled to celebrate the Alchemy format, including a massive preconstructed deck event featuring all Into the Future decks from the past.
• February 2, 2027: The Alchemy format will be removed from MTG Arena with 2027's rotation alongside Nauctis: The Sunken Realm Prerelease events. This includes Alchemy Play, Alchemy Ladder, Alchemy Constructed, Alchemy Direct Challenge, and the Best-of-Three versions of these events.

cross-posted from: https://mtgzone.com/post/4546318

cross-posted from: https://mtgzone.com/post/4538124

TL;DR: Cards printed at common in the Zeta set WILL be legal in Pauper (starting Monday Sept 7), reversing their previous decision.

Narcomoeba and Price of Progress are pre-banned

Baleful Strix, Vandalblast, Dispatch and Cut Down are all being watched carefully to see if they cause problems

Limited is my favorite way to play. I really like the Draft Night product because it's obviously meant to be played. I don't care much for the collector booster prize pack (mostly because of the huge added cost), and sometimes the lands are useful but most of the time I have access to my land station. So I've been thinking about how to make my own.

Headed out of town and this new toiletry bag my wife bought works well for this. We'll play 2 player sealed, so I don't need many lands. Sleeves and a shooter of Scotch as the prize.

Moving forward I'll probably just buy a play booster box to get more games per dollar.