Hello, internet! My name is Max Manco, and I've been a feature designer on the MTG Arena since 2023. I'm here today to talk about some really cool changes to how our game handles reprints and card styles.

MTG Arena has always had a complicated relationship with reprints. I don't mean that figuratively; tracking of players' inventories, reprints across multiple sets, and card styles creates an interconnected web of systems that were built for a very different world than the one we live in now. The ways we've approached how players collect cards has changed over the years to accommodate these paradigm shifts.

In an ideal world, players shouldn't have to consciously think about any of this. Players should be free to open packs, craft cards, and purchase card styles without worrying about doing things "the right way." I get it—if there's one thing Magic players love, it's learning to optimize their gameplay, but there shouldn't be an "optimal way" to bling out your deck.

In a recent article, we mentioned that changes were on their way. We're happy to report that with the client update on May 10, the next iteration of collection improvements is here!

Our Goals

We had three major goals with our new suite of improvements:

  • Player-Friendly Reprints: We should improve the experience of collecting cards, starting with how we handle reprints.
  • Intuitive Customization: Reprints and card styles should be easy to understand and collect.
  • Worry-Free Collecting: Players should spend less time worrying about optimizing their collection so that they can spend more time deciding which treatments look the coolest.

What does this all mean? Allow me to break down the benefits step by step.

Reprint Collection Improvements

0109_MTGTDM_Special: Arid Mesa

We've adjusted how reprints are handled to make it easier to fill out your collection. Previously, to use a playset of a specific printing in your deck, you needed to open or craft four copies of that exact printing of the card. For reprints, especially at rare or mythic rare, that caused some frustration. As an example, the new Arid Mesa from Tarkir: Dragonstorm is a lot less exciting if you already have a playset from Modern Horizons 2.

We knew something had to change. That's why we've made two big improvements in this area:

First, the number of copies of a card a player can use in their deck is equal to the number of copies of that card that player has collected across all printings.

As an example, let's imagine a player has one copy of Opt from each of the following: Ixalan, Dominaria, Throne of Eldraine, and the Strixhaven: School of Mages Mystical Archive. If they wanted to include four copies of Opt in their deck, prior to May 10, this player would have to use all four different printings of Opt or craft three copies of their favorite printing.

Starting next week, however, that same player could use four copies of Opt from any of those sets—they could even mix and match the different printings!

This is because the number of copies a player can include in their deck is equal to the number of copies of that card they've collected across all printings.

Second, once a player has collected four copies of a card, they'll only need to collect a single copy of any new printing to be able to use four copies of that printing in their decks.

Going back to our Opt example, if we were to reprint Opt in a future set, any player that already had four copies of Opt would only need to craft or open one copy of Opt from this future set. Once they do, the game will treat it as if they have four copies of the new printing.

And don't worry: MTG Arena is aware of how many copies of a card are useful to you and will prevent you from crafting more than you need.

TL;DR: You won't be required to collect as many reprints to fill out your collection.

Faster Duplicate Protection and Set Completion

With these changes, it's faster to collect a playset of reprinted cards. As such, duplicate protection and vault progress will both kick in sooner.

Duplicate protection still exists, so reprints of rare and mythic rare cards that you've already collected will still be deferred until you've collected all the other eligible cards of that rarity in the set. The difference is that, now, you'll only open a single copy of each reprinted card instead of four. Similarly, vault progress for reprinted commons and uncommons will also begin sooner.

For the purposes of completing a set, such as for the set collection screen or for certain achievements, you'll similarly only need a single copy of a card from a specific set as you have a playset of cards with that same name.

As always, duplicate protection is not applied when you open 14-card packs in Limited events, such as Draft or Sealed.

Any Card, Any Style

Previously, card styles were tied to specific printings of a card, which meant that to use a card style, you also needed to have sufficient copies of the default frame base printing to which that card style was bound.

A good example would be the "Mina Harker" version of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. This card style was bound to the Innistrad: Crimson Vow printing of Thalia. If you wanted all four copies of Thalia to use the "Mina Harker" Dracula series treatment, you needed four copies of the default frame card from Innistrad: Crimson Vow. If you had previously used your hard-earned wildcards on the Historic Anthology printing of Thalia, this was a major feel-bad moment.

Now, you can apply any card style to any base printing. To return to the Thalia example, this means that you can use the "Mina Harker" version even if all you have are the Historic Anthology or March of the Machine's Multiverse Legends printings of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

Fun fact: internally, we referred to this issue as the "Thalia Problem"!

You can even mix and match different printings so long as the total number of copies you've collected across all printings meets or exceeds the number you want to use in your deck.

Craft Using Lowest MTG Arena Rarity

All cards with the same name will now require the same wildcard to craft: the wildcard of the lowest rarity that the card has ever released at on MTG Arena.

Take Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. Originally printed in Core Set 2019 as a rare, it was reprinted as an uncommon in Pioneer Masters. With next week's update, crafting any printing of Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma will only require an uncommon wildcard, even if that printing is a rare!

This applies to any card reprinted at a lower rarity. If a card is ever released at a lower rarity in a future MTG Arena release, each of its printings will then require a lower rarity wildcard to craft.

Better Preconstructed Deck Discounts

Previously, preconstructed decks in the store were only discounted if they contained the exact same printings as the ones in your collection. This was especially annoying for decks that contained reprints of rare lands. Those lands are frequently reprinted, but players seldom craft them a second time.

The discounts for preconstructed decks in the store will now be based on the cards in your collection with the same name as the cards in the deck.

As an example, let's take Blooming Marsh, which was printed both in Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Kaladesh Remastered. If a preconstructed deck contained four copies of Outlaws of Thunder Junction's Blooming Marsh and you only had copies from Kaladesh Remastered, you wouldn't get a discount.

Following this update, a player in that same situation will instead be granted a discount for three of the four copies of Blooming Marsh. You'll still need one copy of the Outlaws of Thunder Junction printing to be able to use that visualization, but once you have that single copy in your collection, the game will treat it as though you had four copies of the card from the preconstructed deck.

Visual Card Collection Improvements

The old interface.

As you may have noticed from some of the screenshots above, there have been small visual improvements to our deck builder to match the changes to how cards are collected.

The new interface.

Collapsed stacks of cards with the same name should be clearer and more consistent. Since the exact printings and card styles in players' decks are now more interchangeable, there is no longer any need for so many combinatorial states for the "pips" above the cards. We've also adjusted the pip colors themselves to improve their general visibility across our ever-changing backdrop art.

Next, when that same card stack is expanded, the pips above each individual printing and style are now dynamic to better convey how many more copies of a card can be added to a deck. Printings and styles are still orange and blue, respectively, while anything a player has not collected will show no pips above it. Additionally, individual card styles will display the exact number of copies being used in the deck.

As always, we'll show appropriate warnings in the deck builder whenever a purchased or crafted card will grant a new visual option but not a game piece.

Closing Thoughts

We can't wait for these improvements to drop on May 10! We hope you enjoy them, and we look forward to your feedback and suggestions for improving the system in the future.

Be on the lookout for a more technical breakdown from Ben Smith, one of our senior engineers, soon!