Standard Rotation in MTG: Current Sets, Rotation Dates, and Arena Differences

Standard’s next rotation happens in early 2027, when Nauctis: The Sunken Realm begins the new calendar-year rotation schedule. MTG Arena will implement that rotation on February 2, 2027. For tabletop Standard, Wizards ties rotation to the year’s first premier-set Prerelease; Nauctis has a February 5 tabletop release, but the reviewed official schedule does not yet provide a more granular paper rotation time.

That reset will remove releases from Wilds of Eldraine through Duskmourn: House of Horror. Everything from Magic: The Gathering Foundations onward remains, subject to the live banned list and any later policy changes. It is an unusually large rotation because Wizards delayed the reset while moving Standard’s annual turnover from the latter part of the year to the beginning of the calendar year.

What Standard rotation actually does

Standard is a rotating Constructed format built around relatively recent releases. A Standard deck has at least 60 cards in its main deck and may have a sideboard of up to 15 cards. Rotation periodically removes older sets from the format, changing which cards can appear in Standard decks without removing those cards from anyone’s collection. The official Standard format page carries the current set pool and format overview.

Rotation is based on sets, but set membership is not the only legality check. A card can belong to a Standard release and still be prohibited by the Standard banned list. Wizards listed 14 Standard bans on the checked date, including one Best-of-One-only Arena ban for Leyline of Resonance, so verify a deck against the current Banned and Restricted list rather than relying only on set symbols.

Sets currently legal in Standard

The following table shows the tabletop Standard pool as checked on November 4, 2026. Release dates come from Wizards’ official product index, while rotation status follows its current Standard page and October 2026 rotation announcement.

Set	Tabletop release	Status at the 2027 rotation
Wilds of Eldraine	September 8, 2023	Rotates
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan	November 18, 2023	Rotates
Murders at Karlov Manor	February 9, 2024	Rotates
Outlaws of Thunder Junction	April 19, 2024	Rotates
Bloomburrow	August 2, 2024	Rotates
Duskmourn: House of Horror	September 27, 2024	Rotates
Magic: The Gathering Foundations	November 15, 2024	Remains legal
Aetherdrift	February 14, 2025	Remains legal
Tarkir: Dragonstorm	April 11, 2025	Remains legal
Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY	June 13, 2025	Remains legal
Edge of Eternities	August 1, 2025	Remains legal
Magic: The Gathering \| Marvel’s Spider-Man	September 26, 2025	Remains legal
Magic: The Gathering \| Avatar: The Last Airbender	November 21, 2025	Remains legal
Lorwyn Eclipsed	January 23, 2026	Remains legal
Magic: The Gathering \| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	March 6, 2026	Remains legal
Secrets of Strixhaven	April 24, 2026	Remains legal
Magic: The Gathering \| Marvel Super Heroes	June 26, 2026	Remains legal
Magic: The Gathering \| The Hobbit	August 14, 2026	Remains legal
Reality Fracture	October 2, 2026	Remains legal

Wizards separately names The Big Score among the cards leaving Standard with Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Foundations is also worth circling in red ink: Wizards said it will remain Standard legal until at least 2029, so a simple “three years after release” calculation does not work for every product.

Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek was not yet part of Standard on the November 4 checked date. Wizards scheduled its MTG Arena release for November 10 and tabletop release for November 13, 2026, with Prerelease events beginning November 6. Its main set becomes Standard legal at release.

Exactly what leaves Standard in 2027

The 2027 reset removes these releases:

Wilds of Eldraine
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
Murders at Karlov Manor
Outlaws of Thunder Junction and The Big Score
Bloomburrow
Duskmourn: House of Horror

The surviving card pool begins with Foundations and includes every current tabletop set after it in the table above. Nauctis: The Sunken Realm then joins the format as the release associated with the reset. Its official tabletop release date is February 5, 2027.

Do not translate this into a permanent February 5 rotation date. The durable rule is that Standard rotates after the first premier-set Prerelease of the year. Individual product schedules determine the practical date, so players preparing for a paper event should confirm that event’s date and the live legality page.

Paper Standard and Arena do not have identical schedules

The broad card pool is shared, but Arena has two important wrinkles. First, Arena will apply the 2027 Standard rotation on February 2—three days before Nauctis has its listed tabletop release. That can briefly make an Arena deck and a paper deck answer the legality question differently.

Second, Arena Standard includes Through the Omenpaths, a digital-only release with no tabletop printing. It arrived on Arena on September 23, 2025 and is legal in Arena Standard as well as several other digital formats. You therefore cannot treat an Arena Standard deck list as an automatic shopping list for paper.

Environment	Next verified reset	Important difference
Tabletop Standard	With the first premier-set Prerelease of 2027	The reset is associated with Nauctis; its tabletop release is February 5, but confirm the exact Prerelease schedule.
MTG Arena Standard	February 2, 2027	Includes digital-only Through the Omenpaths and changes before the listed Nauctis tabletop release.
Alchemy	Retires February 2, 2027	Separate digital format; Wizards plans to discontinue it alongside rotation.

Standard rotation is not Commander, Historic, Timeless, or Pioneer rotation

A card leaving Standard does not mean it has been deleted from Magic. Commander is a separate format and does not rotate with Standard. Its legality follows its own card pool and ban decisions.

Arena likewise keeps rotated cards in your collection. Depending on the card and the applicable banned list, it may remain usable in nonrotating digital formats such as Historic, Pioneer, or Timeless. If the prospect of playing with the largest available Arena card pool sounds appealing—or mildly hazardous—our guide to MTG Arena’s Timeless format explains that particular sandbox.

Alchemy is the exception readers should not plan around long term. It has used digital-only cards and digital rebalancing, but Wizards says the format will retire on February 2, 2027. That is a format shutdown, not the normal annual rotation of an ongoing queue.

What happens to an existing deck after rotation

Nothing happens to the physical cards or digital objects themselves. What changes is whether the deck can enter a Standard event or queue. If even one required card rotates or becomes banned, the list needs editing before it is Standard legal again.

The practical effect depends on how much of the deck’s structure rotates. Losing a sideboard answer may require one substitution. Losing the mana base, central engine, or namesake threat can turn “update this deck” into “build a different deck wearing the same sleeves.” Rotation’s real cost is therefore not the raw number of outgoing cards; it is the role those cards perform.

For paper decks

Sort the deck and sideboard by set, then flag cards from the six outgoing release groups.
Check the live Standard banned list separately; a surviving set does not override a ban.
Identify each rotating card’s job—mana fixing, removal, threat, engine or sideboard coverage—before choosing replacements.
Test the revised mana curve and color requirements. A replacement with similar text but a different mana cost can quietly break the deck.
Keep rotated cards organized for Commander, casual play or other formats instead of assuming rotation makes them useless.

For Arena decks

Open or import the deck after the February 2 update and let Arena identify cards that are no longer Standard legal.
Decide whether to rebuild for Standard or switch the original list to a compatible nonrotating format.
Avoid spending wildcards merely to preserve the deck’s old name. Spend them only after checking whether the replacement recreates the deck’s actual engine.
Watch official Arena announcements for any 2027 Renewal program rather than assuming past rewards will repeat.

Wizards’ 2025 Renewal program included transaction warnings, a Renewal Egg and reward package, changes to some rewards and events, and card grants associated with new starting decks. That is useful precedent, not a confirmed 2027 promise. The reviewed official material does not yet guarantee specific Renewal rewards, starter decks or free-card grants for the 2027 reset.

Why the current pool became so large

In May 2023, Wizards extended Standard from a two-year to a three-year rotation period and skipped the rotation that would have accompanied Wilds of Eldraine. The immediate goal was to give cards and strategies more time in the format. That decision enlarged the pool, but it is not the whole current schedule.

Wizards subsequently shifted the annual reset to the beginning of the calendar year starting in 2027. The combination of the three-year window and delayed calendar alignment is why the next reset removes an unusually large block of releases. Future rotations are intended to remain annual while preserving a roughly three-year card pool.

How to plan purchases without trying to predict the market

For paper Standard, separate play value from resale speculation. A rotating card may still justify its cost if it lets you play enough events before the reset, and it may remain useful in another format afterward. Conversely, cross-format legality does not guarantee demand or a particular future price.

On Arena, the scarce resource is usually wildcards rather than storage space. Before crafting an older Standard card, compare its remaining Standard lifespan with the number of decks that use it and its usefulness in Historic, Pioneer or Timeless. Lands and flexible interaction can sometimes migrate between decks more easily than a narrow build-around, but legality and actual deck demand still matter.

The cleanest rule is simple: build around the schedule you can verify, not a guessed resale curve or an assumed Renewal handout. As of November 4, 2026, prepare for Arena to rotate on February 2 and for paper Standard to reset with the first 2027 premier-set Prerelease associated with Nauctis. Then check the official pages again before registering a deck—the cardboard may be permanent, but Standard’s permission slip is not.