Wizards of the Coast Announces Major Changes to ‘Magic’

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Wizards of the Coast announced yesterday, in an article titled “Metamorphosis” by Research & Development member Mark Rosewater, sweeping changes to the way that Wizards releases future Magic the Gathering sets and how it will affect organized play format rotation and more. In addition, Mr. Rosewater explains – in depth – the reasons behind these sweeping changes.

You can read Mr. Rosewater’s article in it’s entirety by clicking here (and we highly recommend you do).

However, we’ve put together for you the major changes, in a nutshell:

1. Beginning in Fall 2015, Magic Blocks will consist of two sets instead of three.

Beginning with the release of the set codenamed “Blood,” Magic blocks will consist of one large set and one small set, instead of three sets.

2. Beginning in Fall 2015, Magic will have two blocks per year.

3. Beginning in 2016, Core sets will cease to exist.

Wizards is eliminating the core set (the Magic 20XX sets). The core set due out next year will be the last.

4. Beginning in 2016, the first set of each new block (the fall and Spring sets) will trigger a format rotation.

“This in some ways isn’t a change, but rather an adaptation to match the new Two-Block Paradigm. The first set of a block has always caused a rotation in the past. The Two-Block Paradigm just means that this now happens twice a year (in the fall and in the spring) rather than just in the fall,” said Mark Rosewater, in his article, to explain this change.

5. Beginning in 2016, the Standard Organized Play format will consist of three blocks, instead of two blocks.

In effect, to keep Standard fresh, interesting and robust, Wizards will be changing the size of the standard format. Ultimately, roughly the same amount of sets will be legal, except that the format rotates twice instead of once.

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And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. What do you think of these changes? Please sound off in the comments below – we want to know what you think!

Tags: Blocks, Magic the Gathering, Mark Rosewater, MTG, R&D, Standard, Wizards of the Coast
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