MTG 2024 Recap: Highlights, Controversy, & Market Trends

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024

Explore the highs and lows of MTG 2024, from format shakeups to standout cards and controversies. Discover key changes in Standard and more.

2024 was a huge year for MTG. It was a lot of things. Controversial, exciting, frustrating, promising, and refreshed. We saw some formats get ruined, then fixed, then ruined again. We saw some great changes to Standard that not everyone was fans of at first, but they seemed to quickly warm up to them. We saw Wizards effectively abandon a format in favor of propelling Standard into a more prominent position. We saw some great cards printed for Standard, and some promising things to come in the next year that were announced. Along with that, a fair amount of people were still bothered by the new trajectory of the format. Some are calling into question the longevity of MTG now with the heavy lean into Universes Beyond. A little bit of everything happened this year in the MTG world, and it was interesting if nothing else. On a personal level, it was also a hell of a year for me, as I took down two different events and grew a lot as a player. We are going to look at The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from this year!

The Good

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited that we have an infinite gain and drain combo in Standard right now. With Enduring Tenacity and Bloodthirsty Conqueror having made a lot of my dreams come true in my favorite format. Although the deck isn't the most viable in the format, it is incredibly fun to play, and I'm just happy that we had such exciting cards printed in the format. It leads to good card design going forward, and gives us promise for what's to come in the next year.

Keeping up the good, I had a heck of a year in competitive Magic. I qualified for my first Regional Championship, learned some new formats, and won a store championship with a deck that I cooked up on my own. The year was great for my development as a player, and I definitely learned and improved a lot.

Enough about me though, what else was good this year in MTG for everyone?

Something in recent memory that a lot of players were ecstatic about was the bans in Modern. People have been calling for The One Ring to be banned in Modern for over a year. Players got some unbans that they wanted too, and now the format is healing.

Many people were happy to see that Pioneer Masters came to Arena before the year ended. It is a fun set to draft, and it also brought some staples to the Explorer format as it progresses towards transforming into Pioneer. It will be nice to have almost every competitive format on Arena, as it is the better client. It follows what I figured Wizards wanted to do with Pioneer. It seemed like they abandoned it at first when they announced the competitive formats for 2025, but it appears that they are working on the format to both differentiate it from Standard, and also to get more people into it by following through with the implementations they promised on Arena.

The Bad

There is good news and bad news here. The good news is that the set releases got better as the year progressed. The bad news is that Murders At Karlov Manor was one of the worst Standard releases in recent memory. Product sat on the shelves at game stores for months, and they even lowered their prices because of it. There was another change that came with this release. It was the first set where we saw the new product in Play Boosters. A lot of people weren't too happy about this change, as set boosters and draft boosters had become such commonplace, and were honestly a really good way to separate products for people who wanted to crack packs, and people who wanted to do drafts or sealed events. I don't believe that the set flopped the way it did solely due to the product change, but I do not believe that it helped anything.

We got a couple of good things from MKM, but the set overall was underwhelming. It was not a good set to draft either. Let's check out some redeeming things:

Vein Ripper was such a fun card when it was announced, and it actually made Standard a lot of fun when the card was released. It was really hard to deal with, and having a bomb like that as a vampire that gains and drains was a dream come true for me. It also was a house in Pioneer for a bit.

The surveil lands were a great addition to MTG in general. They are played in almost every format, and they have retained good value in the market. We hate on MKM a lot, but it did give us a couple of good things that nobody complains about.

The Ugly

There was a card that came out this year that caused a ton of controversy. I'm sure you remember it. People called for it to be banned as soon as it was spoiled.

The card that was originally "designed" for commander ended up being a format-defining card in Modern, and it took over the format itself. It was impossible to play any competitive event without seeing a Nadu deck. It became unbearable, and the card saw a ban. Many will say that it took too long, and I don't disagree. What I found to be the worst part of all of it was Wizards openly admitting the fact that it was not playtested in constructed formats. It caused worry for the future focus of constructed formats, as many have started to worry that Wizards leans too far into Commander.

This is something that we will have to pay attention to as the year progresses. We have a lot of promise for the constructed formats, but we have to avoid any other blunders that allow for improper testing to effectively ruin a format until a card is banned. We all have our fingers crossed that Universes Beyond lives up to the hype, and that cards are properly tested before being released.

I had a great time writing articles for you all this year, and I look forward to doing it next year. I hope that your new year is prosperous, and that MTG gives you everything that you want to get out of the game! Cheers!

Rate this article

I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

numb_skull_

Check out more content by Numbskull

Explore the power of Rakdos Dragons in this midrange Magic: The Gathering deck. Unleash combos, removal, and ramp for competitive edge in Standard.

This Deck is Sneaky Good! Get Ready for RAKDOS Dragons!

You didn't think I could only give you one dragon deck, did you? I honestly saw too many fun options to do just Boros, so today I'm bringing you another. This one steers toward the more midrange, good ol' honest Magic side of things. I wanted to center a deck around something that is more consistent with the status quo of dragons: carnage and destruction. We have plenty of removal in this deck, and a creature that doubles as a board wipe when needed. Since we aren't doing a super fancy combo in this deck, I wanted to add element of ramp to get to the higher mana spells that we have in the deck. We will be able to use early creatures to help out with that, and also a new fancy artifact. We will torch the board and force our opponents to be more resilient than we are, while flying over the top of what they might manage to keep on the board. Let's take a look at the deck and then I'll tell you some of my favorite things about it. You can see some of the fun that we will have right off the bat with this deck. We are looking to smash aggro decks, and still punish other decks that don't play to the board. Although this one has fewer dragons on paper, we have a few permanents that can actually turn into them, and this leads to some cheeky interactions. Let's check out some of the new cards from Tarkir Dragonstorm that are in this deck, and then we will go over some fun combos! Key New Cards

It's Time to Mobilize the Aristocrats with Mardu Combo!

There is an ongoing argument in both Standard and Pioneer currently. What color combination is the best for aggressive decks? We have seen people try out Jeskai Aggro to try and incorporate the best of both worlds between Azorius Aggro, and Boros Aggro. Some like to stick with Gruul Aggro because of the high rolls that it allows for, and there is also an argument that sometimes all you need is mono red - and the results have proven as much in major events. There has been a bit of a surge of some Mardu Aristocrat/Sacrifice decks, and today's list will follow that to some degree. We went a little bit more aggro-based, but there is a combo element to it, along with a healthy sideboard that should provide for balanced gameplay. We will look to get a bunch of creatures onto the board, and then create a bunch more based on the amount that we have, while punishing the opponent when they die. If that isn't enough, the go-wide strategy should also allow us to swing for ample damage at an ample pace. A new ability called Mobilize that is being brought to us in Tarkir Dragonstorm is going to allow us to pull off some pretty powerful swings in combat. Mobilize allows us to create a bunch of tapped and attacking 1/1 tokens based on either the number behind it, or circumstances that pertain to "X." Something that is particularly fun is that we can benefit from our creatures dying, because the mobilize ability requires us to sacrifice the creatures that we get from mobilizing at the beginning of our end step. This is yet another deck that can allow us to win on the end step which is always fun. Another fundamental reason why I think the deck is good is because we are rewarded for something that would normally be considered a setback. If you find enough ways to turn negatives into positives, it usually can translate into the small margins that win you a match. Enough of me blabbing. Let's take a look at the cool new cards! Key New Cards

Demons Are Getting New Toys, and This Deck is ROTTEN

We have seen the vast majority of the cards that will be released in Tarkir Dragonstorm, and the excitement is definitely building. Magic players are expecting this to meet the hype that Duskmourn brought us, and hopefully more. We were left a bit underwhelmed with Aetherdrift, but this is proving to be all but a filler set. It's something that is so easy to be excited for. Who doesn't love dragons?! Anyone with an ounce of nerdiness is interested as soon as they hear the word. Although I don't have a dragon deck for you today, I am going to do my obligatory Mono Black Deck for the new set. If you have read my articles in the past, you know that I do one every set - and this one is no different. We finally have enough cards from Tarkir to give me what I needed to make a new-and-improved Demons list for you. We have a new one that will let us pull off some combos on earlier turns, and hopefully have a better body early on to put pressure on aggro decks. I think that should give us a better shot against the meta, since the threat of a 5 damage crackback can definitely give someone extra things to consider in combat phases. He also isn't a bad creature to discard, as he has an ability to activate from the graveyard. This will help us against the bounce/pixie decks. We have ample graveyard hate and removal for the graveyard combo decks, so I like most of our matchups against the current meta. The only thing we will have to see with time is if the meta shifts with this monster of a new set. We really have some fun cards to add here, and we are adding another type of threat to the deck. We have historically not used our graveyard for much, but now we are able to get additional value from it with a new addition. Our sideboard even has a dragon with an adventure that reads like The Meathook Massacre! I've said enough, let's check out these cards. Relevant New Cards

Free Dragons = Turn 4 Wins!

We are officially in the perpetual spoiler season of the MTG year, and Wizards has not been disappointing us. Most people can get behind a set centered largely around dragons, and it definitely helps that the plane itself is one that we have wanted to see them bring back for a long time. Over a decade later, we are going back to Tarkir. I played a good bit of Magic and did a lot of deck building the last time we had some fun dragons on Arena, and I knew that this set was going to call me back to those days. My favorite archetype a couple of years ago was Boros Dragons. I largely played that in the Alchemy format, but I am going to bring you a Boros Dragons Standard Deck today. We are going to take advantage of a combo that is used in Standard currently, but we are going to use a different payoff this time. We are going to cast dragons for FREE and then either they will have the opponent dead just from entering, or we will hopefully have a way to give them all haste! We will take a look at the new cards that are awesome. Then I'll let you know about the combo that will help us get there. We want to keep the board as clear as we can for our dragons and then slam them all on the board at once to clean things up. We also have some smaller creatures that we can use to chump block earlier in the game. When needed, we also have board wipes to deal with other creatures. New Cards from Tarkir Dragonstorm

I See a Monument and I want it Painted Black

It's been a few weeks since Aetherdrift came out, and we are starting to see the cards that are standing out in the meta. We didn't expect the set to change things too much with regard to what we have been seeing. What we did get from it is a nice supplement to many other decks. Although we did not get a ton of format-shaping cards, we have seen a couple that have lit up fringe archetypes. What I've brewed for today plays off of a familiar archetype, and it was one that we kind of already had, but it allows us to pivot in a certain way and get additional value from it that we may not have gotten in the past. One of the biggest things that our deck can do is have plenty of action on the end step/cleanup step. It's an interesting scenario because usually when we think of the cleanup step at the end of each turn, we remove damage, and we discard to hand size. Usually discarding to hand size is pretty much the final step, and there aren't any triggers... until now. We will be using Monument to Endurance to have triggers when we discard to hand size, and get additional value from it. Now we don't care if we end the turn with nine or ten cards in hand, because we are going to benefit from it. This will help us possibly get in some finishing damage against our opponent, or get extra value. It is worth noting that this will cause triggered abilities on the cleanup step, and this is something that our opponents can respond to. This has historically been a point in the turn where no player can respond to actions. We'll take a look at the relevant cards in the deck, and then I'll detail a few fun combos that we may see during gameplay. Relevant Cards

We've had a Couple of Weeks to Try Achievements on MTG Arena, and I have Opinions

The economy on MTG Arena has always been a pain point, and a grand debate over how far a digital version of a card game should go to ensure players feel as if they are getting proper value for their time. Wizards has two different versions of its beloved game on the internet, and they both seem to have their benefits and drawbacks. On February 11, Arena launched the Achievement System to reward players for hitting milestones in-game, and completing specific tasks. While it is always fun to do these kinds of things in each game, something that gamers always do is assess whether the reward for doing so in-game is worth putting forth the extra effort for the task. While there are some things in the achievement tab that I believe to be kind of fun, and certain things that I know people will want, I view the entire thing as largely a waste of time. Today we will look at why the new feature on Arena simply isn't enough for what the game should have, and what it could be. The Good and The Bad There are plenty of things that we love about Arena, with how it is the easiest way to play our favorite decks from Standard, and not spend thousands of dollars in doing so. It is probably the most efficient way to try out decks. We also love the wildcard system. Although it is not the easiest to obtain them, it is great that a rare/mythic wildcard could buy a rare/mythic card that is of any value and it still just costs one wildcard. This was especially helpful in getting a play set of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I still don't have a play set in paper simply because I don't want to spend that much money on it, but on Arena it was easy. I had the wildcards to do what I needed. The only part where this may be lacking is the economy itself. What if we could earn wildcards for hitting certain achievements (I.E. the achievement tab giving us wildcards instead of sleeves, etc.)? I believe that the rewards from this new feature being solely cosmetic underscores the ongoing issue of the economy on Arena simply not being enough for us.

This Deck is Sneaky Good! Get Ready for RAKDOS Dragons!