Magic The Gathering Arena Introduces Its Pioneer-Lite Format, Explorer
After weeks of testing and months of promising, Wizards of the Coast has announced it will be introducing a new format to Magic The Gathering Arena in today's update in response to the backlash it has faced over the introduction of the controversial digital-exclusive Alchemy.
Explorer is being introduced as something of a temporary format, serving as a stopgap while Wizards works on introducing the wider card pool to the game required for the often-requested Pioneer format.
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Outlined in a blog post on the official MTG website, Explorer is effectively everything Alchemy isn't: it is a nonrotating (meaning cards don't leave it in the same way they do Standard or Alchemy) format that aims to recreate the "true-to-tabletop" experience. This means Explorer won't be receiving the same digital errata's and digitally-exclusive mechanics we see in Alchemy and its own nonrotating counterpart, Historic.
Last December, when Wizards introduced Alchemy to Arena, players were upset that Historic quickly turned from the 'nonrotating Arena' experience it was originally billed as, into a digital-exclusive game that relied on the same controversial rebalanced cards and mechanics as Alchemy. In response, Wizards promised earlier this year to work on a format that filled the void left by Historic's change, which leads us to today's announcement of Explorer.
However, more than just being what Historic was before Alchemy was introduced, Wizards has confirmed Explorer will instead share more DNA with the popular tabletop format Pioneer (which is a nonrotating format that uses cards released from Return to Ravnica to today). For a card to be legal in Explorer, it
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