Broadly speaking, when you play Magic: The Gathering via its digital incarnation in Arena, you choose a format to decide whether you want to play with just new cards (Standard), a mix of new and old cards (Historic), or a mix of new and old cards but none older than the popular Return to Ravnica block (Explorer). There are other formats like Brawl, which lets you add more players, or Alchemy, which includes digital-only cards, but if you want to play a traditional one-on-one game of constructed Magic in Arena just like you would at the table, those are the three formats you pick from.
Until now. With the new Timeless format, Arena has yet another way to play. «We are creating Timeless as a home for MTG Arena's most powerful cards», senior product manager Dave Finseth wrote on the Magic blog. «As MTG Arena has grown, we have accumulated extra strong sets like Wilds of Eldraine Enchanting Tales and Strixhaven Mystical Archive. These cards did not have a great place to be played outside of their Limited formats without overrunning an existing Constructed format. Timeless will be a place to play these cards.»
That makes it sound a lot like Historic, which was supposed to be the free-for-all, use-any-card-you-own format. But over the years Historic has accrued a list of banned cards that are considered «a bit much» even in the free for all—enough that earlier this year there were two events, Historic No Banned List and Historic Basically No Bans, to let players bring back their overpowered faves for a limited duration. Those events were popular enough to spawn a permanent version, and that version is the Timeless format.
It helps that the new Khans of Tarkir set brings back fetch lands—cards that can be sacrificed to let you
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