Everyone can play Magic: The Gathering Arena from next week

Magic: The Gathering’s latest stab at taking the collectible card game digital is opening its doors to all next week.

Magic: The Gathering Arena is launching into an open beta on September 27th at 9pm BST, following a lengthy closed beta only accessible to those with a key.

Those who played the closed beta and purchased gems – Arena’s in-game currency – will have their gems refunded as part of the app’s final resetting of accounts, with the in-game store briefly shutting down from tomorrow, September 21st, until the launch.

The wipe will also remove any cards acquired, but all closed beta players will be given Masterpiece copies of the Ral, Izzet Viceroy; Teferi, Hero of Dominaria; and Vraska, Golgari Queen planeswalker cards in return.

Arena, which is free-to-play, will launch with a free Singleton event – in which players can only use a single copy of legal Standard cards – when the open beta goes live, with the chance to win prizes.

When Magic’s next expansion, Guilds of Ravinca, launches in early October, each planeswalker deck will include a code to bring the same set of cards into Arena, with pre-release packs unlocking access to a Sealed event. Physical boosters will also come with codes to get cards in Arena.

If your internet’s a little slow, you can pre-load Arena ahead of launch through the Magic: The Gathering website right now.

In the meanwhile, take a look at Machete star Danny Trejo joining Sean ‘Day9’ Plott to offer the Magic pro advice in Arena’s slightly bizarre announce trailer.