Magic: The Gathering is back with another big adjustment to the state of the formats in a surprise announcement that will shake things up for Magic Arena players.
Magic is Retiring the Alchemy Format
Not long ago Magic: The Gathering had to make an adjustment to the banned list to get the Fantasticar metagame under control and now the officials are back with another big shakeup.
The latest state of the formats update confirms that Alchemy is being retired at the start of the next standard rotation in early 2027.
The reason for retiring Alchemy really come down to how many additional cards have been released on Magic Arena over the last few years.
“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.”
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
Here is a breakdown of when each of the major changes are going to take place in the coming months:
- 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.
It will be very interesting to see how this change plays out on Magic Arena over the next few months. For players who will miss the format, they still have one more round to check out. Alchemy: Reality Fracture is the last Alchemy release planned for MTG Arena.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.
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