Citation :
THE IMPORTANT STUFF
Explorer is a Constructed, non-rotating, "true-to-tabletop" format using all the Pioneer-legal cards available on MTG Arena. Head over to our format hub for more information on Pioneer.
It will feature the same Constructed queues and events available for Standard.
It will begin with the same ban list as Pioneer, but we may need to manage it separately (more on that below).
It will be available in MTG Arena for deck building with the game update available today, April 21
Citation :
PAVING A PATH TO PIONEER
It's official! Starting with Streets of New Capenna, our new non-rotating "true-to-tabletop" format, which we are currently dubbing Explorer, will be available on MTG Arena. For those of you who have played in recent "What Was Written" Midweek Magic events, you're already familiar with what Explorer is: a non-rotating Constructed format using all the tabletop format Pioneer-legal cards available on MTG Arena. Consider this the first leg of our Pioneer journey, where one day Explorer will be "retired" as a format, and we simply call it . . . Pioneer (in the same vein that Classic format became Vintage on Magic Online).
Explorer will be available in Best-of-One and Best-of-Three matches for both ranked and unranked play, Explorer-format Constructed events, and specialty events like the upcoming Explorer Metagame Challenge.
If that sounds the same as everything available for Standard Constructed play, that's because it is! We plan to support Explorer in the same capacity, which also means Explorer ranked matches will contribute to your Constructed rank and you can earn Play-In Points through the evergreen Explorer Constructed events. Explorer will also be featured in some of our upcoming tournaments, so if you haven't already, you should check out our MTG Arena Premier Play announcement for information on MTG Arena's Premier Play system!
And if you're worried about where you're going to keep all these decks in your collection, good news! With the launch of Explorer, we'll also be increasing the maximum deck capacity to 100.
So, how do we plan to get Explorer to Pioneer?
Our goal is "all the Pioneer cards that matter," so when we eventually embrace the Pioneer name on MTG Arena, you should expect us to be at a point where the decks you want to play will be available. Cards will be added gradually, starting later this summer with Historic Anthology 6, which will include cards for both Historic and Explorer play.
We want to stress that supporting Pioneer on MTG Arena will take several years to accomplish. "All the cards that matter" means we'll be working toward all of the cards that are regularly played in Pioneer decks, much the same way that Vintage on Magic Online doesn't contain every 2/2 for two ever printed, but it does contain all the cards needed to mimic the paper Vintage format.
There are also a lot of cards in Pioneer-legal sets that were intended for Limited or multiplayer formats that aren't relevant to Constructed play or have become obsolete as better versions of the card have become available. Cards like that, as well as cards that have a high development cost with little or no play in the Pioneer format, are low on our priority list. Never say never, but our priority on card implementation will be driven by what we see in the Pioneer Constructed meta.
Now, on to the ban list. We plan to adhere to the Pioneer ban list, though there may be a times where a card becomes problematic in Explore because of the current differences in card pools. If that happens, we will not rebalance or suspend the card; we will ban it.
Rebalancing and suspending cards are tools we use for our digital-first formats like Historic and Alchemy. Explorer is meant to mirror a tabletop format, so a card will either be playable, or it will be banned. If a card is banned in Explorer, it will follow the same policy we have whenever we ban a card in Standard, Historic, or Alchemy: players will receive wildcards equivalent to the number of cards in their collection that they haven't already received a wildcard reimbursement for (i.e., cards banned in multiple formats at different times).
Eventually, as we move closer to Pioneer, we anticipate cards banned specifically in Explorer will become playable again as we realign the ban list to match tabletop, however, this does not affect our wildcard reimbursement policy. With the launch of Explorer, we currently do not have any additional cards we plan to ban.
Whew, okay. We think that covers all the important parts, but if there is something we missed, we encourage you to tune into Weekly MTG this afternoon, starting at 2:30 p.m. PT for our monthly announcement stream and Q&A session.
La hype.