MTG Arena Release Notes – The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
Dinosaurs! Exploration! Exploring with dinosaurs! Dinosaurs that explore! Sure, there are also ancient gods, there's danger around every corner, and it's unknown whether you'll discover treasure or certain doom, but at least it's certain to be doom with dinosaurs.
Next week, we journey into The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, where ancient wonders and adventure await! You've seen the cards, you've read the story, and now it's time to learn what to expect when the set releases on MTG Arena!
Mechanics
For more information, check out the dedicated The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Mechanics article.
Our journey to the wondrous center of Ixalan brings us three new mechanics: craft, descend, and discover, alongside the returning mechanic, explore. Below, you'll see examples of how each mechanic works on MTG Arena, so you know what to look for when trying out the new set!
Craft is an activated ability that lets you take the ordinary and make it awesome. To activate a craft ability, you need to do three things: exile the permanent with craft, exile the specified materials, and pay some mana. The materials are other permanents you control and/or are cards from your graveyard. They are described in the craft ability itself and may vary from card to card! For example, while Idol of the Deep King specifies "craft with artifact," other cards may say "craft with creatures," or "craft with cave," because why not?
You descend each time a permanent card is put into your graveyard from anywhere. For some cards, it doesn't matter how many times you've descended that turn, only that you've done so at least once. It also doesn't matter that the permanent card is still in your graveyard.
But we must go deeper …
Some descend cards do care about the number of permanent cards in your graveyard, while others count how many times you've descended that turn—and some just can't go deep enough. Fathomless descent cards don't require a minimum number of permanent cards in your graveyard; they just get more powerful the more you have.
Good news is MTG Arena keeps track of all this information for you. If you descended that turn, the descend badge on cards will light up, cards that care about the number of permanents in your graveyard will have a counter badge, and cards that track the number of times you've descended will show that number next to the descend badge.
Lastly, the aptly named keyword action discover lets you … well, discover cards from your library. When told to discover, exile cards from your library one at a time until you exile a nonland card with a mana value of the discover number or less. From there, you can either cast that card without paying its mana cost or put it into your hand. All the other cards you exiled, including the land cards, are then put on the bottom of your library in a random order.
On MTG Arena, when you discover, you will be shown an in-game browser highlighting the discovered card alongside the other cards that didn't meet the discovery criteria (such as land cards, or cards with a higher mana value than the discover number). From there, you can either choose to cast it without paying its mana cost or put it into your hand.
Collecting The Lost Caverns of Ixalan on MTG Arena
Along with the latest card set, you'll find plenty of other treasures to add to your collection as you journey through the ancient depths of Ixalan.
(Disclaimer: we do not recommend exposing your Magic collection to water, capybaras, or any combination of the above.)
In addition to this (and other truly adorable stickers), players will also be able to collect both the Oltec and Dinosaur borderless card styles, Core land card sleeves, and select cosmetics from our Universes Beyond collection.
(Treasure Trove Box Toppers, Special Guests, and the Legends of Ixalan/Gods of Ixalan showcase treatments will not be available on MTG Arena).
Set Mastery Rewards
Looking to dig even deeper? Our Set Mastery includes both cards and cosmetic rewards, allowing you to earn The Lost Cavern of Ixalan packs, card styles, and some truly epic avatars.
If you want to excavate everything these caverns have to offer, our Mastery Pass takes your adventure even further, allowing you to earn even more rewards as you spelunk through the set. You can explore all the details in our Set Mastery article.
Take Command
For our Historic Brawl fans, we have even more for your journey into the untold depths: we are bringing four legendary creature cards from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander decks to MTG Arena!
- 1x Admiral Brass, Unsinkable
- 1x Clavileño, First of the Blessed
- 1x Pantlaza, Sun-Favored
- 1x Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood
Get These Cards on MTG Arena by Playing at Your Local WPN Store!
For the first time ever, if you play with the preconstructed Commander decks at your local WPN store, you'll also be eligible to receive these Commanders for your Brawl decks on MTG Arena! More information on the Ixalan Commander Party event and how to receive these rewards will be coming later this month!
Alternatively, you can use wildcards to craft these cards to use as your Historic Brawl Commander or as powerful additions to your Historic decks.
Historic Brawl Starter Decks
Also starting with this release, new MTG Arena players can earn one of five Historic Brawl Starter Decks as part of completing the new-player experience. Existing players will be able to preview these options in the Starter Decks folder of their collection, though you'll have to use cards from your collection to play them! Alternatively, you can use these decks as a starting point by cloning and editing them to make them your own.
ICYMI: Favoriting Card Styles
As part of our ongoing efforts to unify card printings and card styles, we made updates to our Preferred Printing feature during our October 23 game update. Card styles will appear alongside printings in the Preferred Printing menu, meaning all visualizations of a card are found in the same place.
Not only does this make it easier to find the visualization you want, but it also means that you can finally favorite card styles themselves. Favoriting any visualization can be done the same way as before: by selecting the favorite heart icon on the printing or style you prefer.
Your decks will now default to the printing or style you've chosen. You can do this for any style in your collection!
Get Even Wilder
One final change we're making to the Store with The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is removing the purchase restrictions on the wildcard bundles. Both the rare and mythic rare wildcard bundles will be available for purchase as often as you like!
Treasure Bites Back
Begin the adventure of multiple lifetimes with dinosaurs and ancient gods guarding untold treasures when The Lost Caverns of Ixalan arrives on MTG Arena starting November 14, 2023. Tune in to today's Streamer Event as your favorite content creators try out the set for the very first time, head to your local WPN store this weekend to participate in a Prerelease, and keep an eye on our status page for the latest information on maintenance times.
