Perhaps the truth is out there after all. Perhaps this is WotC encouraging us as a community to go forward with the project. Aaron's tweet came at a very coincidental time, when the main Magic website was running an informative article by Quinn Murphy about 'Making your Own Magic Format'. With some dedication and hard work this could be made a reality. #MagicRevolution! #MTGEternal! Excited to be a part of this and see how it turns out! - Modern Nexus February 21, 2016įor those claiming it would be lame, what about duals over shocks is the most appealing. Eternal might not exist yet for anyone at Wizards, but surely the community can spearhead its creation. This fairly innocuous tweet by Aaron above could have many different connotations. The community is willing to step forward, and many think Wizards of the Coast is fully pushing us to do so. 'Eternal' is not the name of a format, real or imaginary. Eternal, like Modern, can be a format where everything is reprintable as well. Debate all we want, but Eternal as a format (whether it's ever picked up by WOTC or not) is more realistic than the Reserved List going away. Whether players want to admit it or not, the Reserved List will always add a hard cap to Legacy and Vintage as formats and remain 'something we have to deal with,' to use the words of Mark Rosewater. Modern has its own issues, from price spikes, to regulation via the ban list, to card pool. I think Maro's response implies that Modern was created for a reason, but that the solution doesn't stop there. Many would argue the solution to 'no-Reserved List Legacy' was the Modern format, but I don't think that's true. The most important was simply, 'What if.' What if WotC releasing EMA is a gateway to the re-definition of what 'Eternal' means? Could there be a new format to finish the three-format cycle that once was Standard-Extended-Legacy? From Mark Rosewater's tumblr With a fair share of hype came a host of new questions. When Eternal Masters (EMA) was announced on February 16, all of these conversations immediately came back to the forefront. This has been a narrative for quite some time, with a constant back and forth between players and Wizards on how the Reserved List directly affects all of us and the formats beholden to it. One of the concepts behind this format was the dialogue around what Legacy would be like without the Reserved List. This is clearly a different landscape than just 'shocklands in Legacy' or 'adding Force and Wasteland to Modern.' It features a lot of great aspects from both formats, while removing the stranglehold of the Reserved List.Įven before this format was called 'Eternal,' it has long been a topic among Magic players. At the same time, players would be able to enjoy all the great interactions from Legacy with cards like Wasteland, Force of Will, and even Brainstorm. Inception and IdeologyĮternal would essentially be taking from both Legacy and Modern in the sense that it would add ten more years of Magic to the Modern card pool.

Many players have their fair share of praise and skepticism, so in the interest of being inclusive to all those points I want to write this article (and many more) to be as informative as possible. Every new format will have growing pains, scrutiny and praise, and I don't want to leave anything out. Eternal at its core could be a new solution to a bevy of old issues when it comes to the current eternal formats, and very well redefine what the term means in today's community.Īt some point I want to bring everything to the table and address all aspects, whether positive or negative, about Eternal. Some have volunteered to be a part of this project with the hope of the format ultimately receiving recognition from Wizards of the Coast. I wanted to address many of these points about Eternal in the face of both long, constructive conversations and a fair amount of scrutiny. It's a format built on the foundation of powerful interactions, self-regulation, and reasonable prices. It's a proposal for a format that won't have the long-standing issues of the Reserved List, and which could lend itself to being supported in a meaningful way. It's a culmination of years of conversations among players, and many ideas as to how a new eternal format can accommodate and include today's playerbase. It's the community responding to the inherent issues of both Modern and Legacy at the same time. Today I want to take the time to address a grassroots movement sparked by the release of Eternal Masters, the so-called 'Eternal Format.'įor many this has been a long time coming.

Eternal lands per deck