If wizards wants us to treat non-standard formats on arena like a joke, they should just tell us directly.

Obviously this Anthology was a huge miss in terms of bringing Pioneer to Arena.

I think the more important question is why was development time wasted on cards that no one will use when so many established T1 decks are missing vital cards? Who approved this?!

The contents of the latest Explorer Anthology are laughably bad. I would normally be more constructive with my feedback, but 70% of the anthology contents seeing zero Pioneer play and having almost no interesting casual appeal is just a joke. I was really looking forward to this release but after seeing its contents, will happily spend my money elsewhere. Do better, Wizards.

When Explorer Anthology 3 was announced I was ecstatic - Pioneer/Explorer is the constructed format I get most excited about playing on arena and I immediately put in my calendar the date that previews would begin - so you can imagine my frustration about the lackluster choices for the cards included.

Cards like Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Bring To Light, and Chained To The Rocks all seemed like shoe-ins with Wizards' previously stated stance of wanting to prioritise cards that see a lot of paper play in Pioneer, to merge the formats in the most efficient way possible. It's not hard to see that several cards in this anthology have never seen competitive play in any pioneer deck ever.

I was going to spend my money on this, but I think I'll be saving it for something else now - and will be wary about getting my hopes up about future anthologies if they're going to be as lackluster as this one.

I had hopes for treasure cruise or hidden strings in EA3 to play my favorite decks from pioneer. EA3 left me very disappointed and makes me feel like Wizards prioritizes profits over a good product.

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.