I was really surprised by the cards that were chosen to be in the latest anthology because so few of them see meaningful competitive play. I'm curious how they were identified as needing to be on Arena, but even without knowing, this was a significant disappointment. Feels like a lot of time and effort was wasted here.

I was so perplexed by the initial announcement that I spent the time to collect data from all the recent Regional Championships to determine what cards are seeing actual play in real life Pioneer events. The fact that we only got 4 of the cards in the attached list demonstrates the disconnect between the Arena team and the players of the format.

A handful of key cards are still missing from explorer that would make several decks playable. As it stands now, Lotus/Hidden Strings, Bring to Light, and Phoenix are unplayable in arena. The recent addition of Sylvan Scrying is a particularly egregious example of this gap, since that card doesn't have a home outside of lotus.

This anthology was a very big let down, I cannot think of any card in this anthology that promotes new strategies or strengthens old ones.

I’m normally not a hyperbolic magic player, I like the game and I generally believe wotc has my best interests in mind. But I’m a competitive player and EA3 was a slap in the face. You might as well have called it historic brawl anthology, not sure what the arena team was thinking but whoever is in charge of making long term decisions should be replaced.

I don’t want to play mtgo anymore for pioneer, please stop making me. I play lotus combo and it’s very hard to click through on magic online.

I completely agree. I would be open to having additional "mini anthologies" come out more frequently as that could be an option to add cycles (like the origins flip walkers) in the client without taking up space in the bigger anthologies.

100% agree

100% agree

I appreciate the effort to bring pioneer to MTGA. It is my favorite format and I highly look forward to it being fully available. This explorer anthology however is a let down and feels disingenuous towards reaching that original stated goal. Including numerous cards in this anthology that are not even remotely commonly used when there are so many cards with significantly higher play rates on MTGO and paper magic still missing feels like a genuine slap to the face. I hope more can be done to get the missing pioneer cards to this platform expeditiously.

EA3 a real bummer for those who want competitive magic with a paper analog on Arena.

This Explorer anthology feels disingenuous, based on Wizards' previous statements. It does next to nothing in terms of bringing Explorer closer to Pioneer. (For reference: https://twitter.com/fireshoes/status/1678551411305455621)

So many missed opportunities to play decks!! We need our pioneer cards

This Explorer anthology feels disingenuous, based on Wizards' previous statements (see image). It does next to nothing in terms of bringing Explorer closer to Pioneer. (For reference: https://twitter.com/fireshoes/status/1678551411305455621)

I am very disappointed in this Anthology. I play mostly Explorer and have no interest in purchasing this Anthology. The most disappointing thing about this Anthology isn’t the lack of cards that interest me specifically but rather the lack of cards that will propel the format forward. There will be no new Pioneer deck available after this set release. They added key pieces to Creativity decks but won’t definitively make that deck better. And key pieces to Lotus Control which may propel that deck from tier 2 up to tier 1.5.

Yes, please!

First, I am thankful for the fact that WOTC has developers focused on bringing more cards to explorer. I appreciate the hard work that process takes. At the same time, as a player who's primary paper format is pioneer, I am very frustrated. With pioneer being the current RCQ format, I have invested significantly into it in paper, and would love to be able to practice the format on Arena. Arena is, quite simply, superior to MTGO in so many ways, and the fact that active competitive pioneer players cannot use it to play the format that WOTC itself is trying to promote, is extremely frustrating.

I think the cards chosen in this anthologhy are not the right ones to make Explorer becomes Pioneer, moreover there are some cards that even when are legals in Pioneer, are more played in commander, so whats the point of make a Explorer anthologhy when many of the cards are from Brawl?

I was planning on having EA3 be my first real money purchase on MTG Arena. By my count there are 15 cards in this anthology that see ZERO play in Pioneer. Of the cards that will see play, I can craft the ones I want using wildcards, and receiving 4x of Worldspine Wurm and Xenagos would have been completely useless.

I wanted to vote with my wallet and show y’all to keep doing these anthologies to make explorer and pioneer the same, but after seeing this anthology there’s just no incentive to actually spend money on this when there are so few cards that I would actually want to receive.

And Tango lands? Accorded’s Shield? Cyclonic Rift/Eidolon as spoilers? That’s so extremely out of touch it’s so easy to just go to mtggoldfish.com and see exactly what explorer players want out of these anthologies.

This explorer anthology is terrible. There is no reason you cannot code some of the missing pieces of Pioneer into explorer and come closer to unifying the formats on arena. Please reconsider this release and release more pioneer legal cards onto the arena platform. You are shooting yourself in the foot. Follow fireshoes and look at the information he's telling you.
I will reward you with money if your product meets my demand. Please. More pioneer on arena.

I am very disappointed with the quality of the recent Explorer Anthology. I invested into Arena when the Explorer format was announced with the promise that Pioneer will be coming over time. While I understand there are players who do not follow competitive Pioneer and wish to play their own way, the severe lack of competitive Pioneer cards being added, especially with the promise that Wizards was going to be looking into competitive data for cards to add, is disheartening. If this is the quality we can expect from future Anthologies, they should be releasing at a much faster pace, perhaps monthly, not approximately 2 per year.

If this current trajectory continues, I will not be investing any more of my resources into the Arena client. I also will not be purchasing this upcoming Anthology.

I and most of the community has felt let down by this anthology. The point of anthologies, according to the Wizards statement, was to review the Pioneer meta and add cards to the explorer format from this. Some of the cards in the anthology are not and have never been Pioneer meta cards, so their addition to this anthology has caused many of us to shake our heads. I think the takeaway from a set like this is that the best intention of the player is not at the forefront, and other, maybe financially incentivized motives are at the forefront. I feel that sticking to your word of adding cards that are playable from the Pioneer meta is what needs to happen, not what was done with this most recent anthology. Hopefully there can be some sort of relationship mending after this, but unfortunately at this point, the community is disheartened.