I find myself returning to this topic once again, because unfortunately, nothing has changed since my previous feedback. If anything, the situation has gotten worse. I genuinely hope that the upcoming banlist announcement will finally address these issues, because the current state of Historic is, frankly, tragic. I am writing this because I love this game and this platform, but I am increasingly frustrated by what feels like a lack of attention to the health of the format and an inability to identify and address the root causes of the problems that are driving players away.

Unfortunately, even with the ban of Scholar of the Lost Trove, the problem persists — and in fact, the problem IS Persist. Instead of reducing the dominance of reanimator strategies, the ban has unleashed a wave of similar decks that are now extremely common, especially in Bo1. Moreover, they no longer rely on a single key card to assemble their combo: they run a long series of redundant pieces, making disruption much harder. That is why Persist in particular is so deeply problematic, as are Life // Death, Necromancy, and similar cards: they enable consistent turn-2 wins, which makes for an unhealthy and frustrating gameplay experience.

But the problems with the current Historic format go beyond Persist. There are now many other deeply problematic decks that consistently close games on turn 2, leaving me with no meaningful interaction unless I completely warp my deckbuilding around hate cards. On top of this, fast mana has ruined the format. Mono Red Storm plays essentially as a solitaire game, and the same is true for Balaustrade Spy and similar strategies. These decks do not play Magic — they execute a script, and the opponent is simply a spectator. To make things worse, even the decks specifically designed to counter these strategies — such as High Noon builds against Storm — produce games that are, at best, tedious and one-sided. The hate works, but the result is not an enjoyable game: it is simply one solitaire replacing another.

It is a shame, because the format was healthy years ago. However, this issue risks ruining it, and more importantly, it severely limits deckbuilding creativity: in Bo1, every deck is effectively forced to dedicate 4 slots to Surgical Extraction just to have a chance against these strategies, and even Force of Negation barely makes a difference. This kind of constraint stifles diversity and punishes players who want to explore other archetypes. To make things worse, neither Surgical Extraction nor Force of Negation is a reliable answer for the same reason outlined above: no single piece of disruption is enough when the opponent can always find another way to close the game.

What makes this even more frustrating is a pattern I find impossible to ignore: to close on turn 2, these decks need two or three specific cards in their opening hand — and they consistently have them, far more often than probability would ever allow. I have been told by customer service that the algorithms are working as intended. I do not doubt the technical work that has gone into them, but I would gently suggest that outcomes working as intended can still produce results that feel deeply unbalanced in practice, especially as the meta evolves. The shuffler was likely designed to ensure that any deck has a playable opening hand — a reasonable number of lands, creatures, and spells. The same logic appears to apply to matchmaking, which seems to systematically favour these strategies in order to keep games playable. The problem is that this now actively works against the health of the format: it effectively gifts combo decks their ideal setup, making their already unfair strategies even more consistent.

The result is that the majority of games are not games at all — they are long, tedious solitaires. There is no gathering, no interaction, no Magic. The format has lost its identity entirely. When I queue into a match, my only thought is to get out of the application as quickly as possible. This directly damages the platform itself: it kills the desire to play, and I find myself logging off rather than queuing for another game. This is not what Magic is supposed to be, and it is driving players like me away from the format.

A further sign of this general neglect is the deteriorating social environment within the application itself. Emotes, which were presumably designed to make games more enjoyable and interactive, are now used almost exclusively to mock and taunt opponents. Similarly, it has become extremely common for players to abandon games they are about to lose without conceding, forcing their opponents to sit through the entire time rope just to claim a victory they have already earned. These are not minor issues: they speak to a broader failure to moderate and maintain a respectful playing environment, and they make the experience increasingly unpleasant even when the gameplay itself is not the problem.

My suggestions remain twofold. First, ban more aggressively and more frequently than in paper Magic: Historic is a digital format and can afford faster intervention. The banlist should be reviewed at least every two weeks. Nerfs and buffs would also be welcome in this regard: they were an interesting and promising way to manage the format's balance without resorting to outright bans, but they seem to have been completely abandoned. It may also be worth considering whether Historic needs access to Daze: a free counterspell of this kind could provide a meaningful tool to interact with these strategies without requiring players to dedicate excessive deckbuilding resources to hate cards. Second, fix the shuffler and draw algorithm: as long as combo decks are gifted their ideal opening hands at an implausible frequency, no amount of banning will fully solve the problem.

Historic is a digital format, and that is precisely its strength — it can be updated and adjusted far faster than paper Magic. I hope that advantage will finally be used more actively going forward.