MTG Arena General Discussion

[morgan_coke]

So I've been in the closed Beta for awhile now and they just dropped the NDA today. There was supposed to be an account wipe and a switch over to the new progression system today, but that hasn't happened yet.

The old progression system was complete garbage, but it's gone now, so there's not much point in focusing on it. I'll just say that it was bad enough that literally 95% of the posts on the closed beta forums were about how much the progression system sucked. Several of us mathed it out and came up with it being approximately 13x LESS generous than Hearthstones when you factored in the differences between the two games and card pools.

Fortunately they scrapped that nonsense. The UI of playing is definitely designed to more closely resemble a physical game than MTGO does. Which is good for making things similar, and bad for letting you see all the cards super clearly. There's currently a stupid giant avatar head in the middle of your play area that makes it hard to click on your cards instead of the stupid giant head. This has been brought up frequently and hopefully it gets fixed. Cards are all "half cards" only showing artwork and power/toughness on the battlefield. Taps are at a 30 degree angle, instead of 90 like MTGO, again, I think to simulate paper, but it does make it slightly harder to tell what's tapped and what's not. They are also slightly desaturated which helps a little, but not enough.

The phases are more clunky than MTGO, and they're not very customizable yet. Like, you can select "full control" which means every possible stop always triggers, or you can click "auto" which means it will automatically skip every phase you don't have a spell to cast in. In other words, you put up with a billion click throughs or you give away a ton of info to your opponent.

The collection screen is worse than the current one on MTGO which is honestly just fucking impressive at this point. Why they can't/won't bring back the binders from the Leaping Lizards days and simply add a nice selection of filter buttons is beyond me.

Tapping mana is super annoying right now, dunno if that'll get fixed or not, lots of people are complaining about it, but we'll have to wait and see. Right now your cards reshuffle their order and location when you tap them. This goes for both attacking and blocking creatures and tapping lands. Complex combat/blocking is basically impossible in the game right now because of this.

If you've seen screenshots, you already know the game borrows HEAVILY from Hearthstone in design. Really wish they'd gone a little lighter on that, because it's not really a layout that works that great for MTG. Your screen just gets really cluttered. Lands are crammed into the bottom left corner, creatures in the center, artifacts and enchantments in the bottom right, and 'walkers go into the far right side of the screen. Emblems are far left. Honestly the play screen in general has an absurdly huge amount of wasted space on it, solely because they so slavishly copied Hearthstone's layout. This means your Graveyard (and your opponent's) basically don't exist as far as information. Same thing with Exile zone. But the use of screen real estate is just criminally bad, I'm playing on a 43" monitor and sometimes I have trouble making out the cards because they're so small. I would say only 1/2 of the screen is actually used to for playing info, and probably 1/4 of that is used for the stupid giant avatar heads and "play bar" idiocy.

Some of the animations and voice overs are cool, some are just annoying. Having flying creatures actually "fly" above the plane of the battlefield is fucking brilliant and really works.

I can't see them NOT eventually ditching the MTGO dinosaur, but I have no idea when they'll finally pull the plug on that. Let me know if you have any questions or want to know about anything specific and I'll try to answer.

[thecrav]

I logged in, saw that there were no pre-cons, attempted to build a deck for ten minutes, then closed Arena and played Workshops on MTGO.

[morgan_coke]

I logged in, saw that there were no pre-cons, attempted to build a deck for ten minutes, then closed Arena and played Workshops on MTGO.

Whenever the wipe happens all accounts are supposed to start with 10 precons (they're not great, but they're solid starters for new players) and 3 packs from every legal expansion.

[Barook]

I can't see them NOT eventually ditching the MTGO dinosaur, but I have no idea when they'll finally pull the plug on that. Let me know if you have any questions or want to know about anything specific and I'll try to answer.
Thanks for the insightful write-up. It sounds like there isn't much positive to say about Arena (who would have thought? :really:)

I'm not too sure if they can afford to ditch MTGO soon. The way you describe it sounds like a gigantic clusterfuck that is bound to fail. Valve's Artifact release this year doesn't really help in that regard, either. It wouldn't be suprising if they tried to rush out Arena to get a headstart over it. Wouldn't be the first time they release a completely unfinished product. :rolleyes:

[morgan_coke]

Thanks for the insightful write-up. It sounds like there isn't much positive to say about Arena (who would have thought? :really:)

I'm not too sure if they can afford to ditch MTGO soon. The way you describe it sounds like a gigantic clusterfuck that is bound to fail. Valve's Artifact release this year doesn't really help in that regard, either. It wouldn't be suprising if they tried to rush out Arena to get a headstart over it. Wouldn't be the first time they release a completely unfinished product. :rolleyes:

I'd say its actually ahead of where MTGO v3 and v4 were when they were released, but it really suffers from copying Hearthstone's gameplay/battlefield design so closely. Just an absolute TON of unused space on the screen right now when you're playing. Not sure if that's something they can actually fix or not.

But yeah, I have no idea how they think they're going to get around the game not having a trading economy. The problem isn't players. They can buy them off with free product. The problem isn't even the digital shops, they can screw those guys and not pay a huge price for it. The problem is how many large brick and mortar stores ALSO have digital storefronts with $100K's of product on MTGO. They can't screw those guys because it will bounce back on their physical sales and FNM's and whatnot.

[Matsu]

Artifact was designed by Garfield. Maybe Hasbro will buy Valve and release MtG using a similar engine or just buy the engine.

Concerning MTGO, I think most of the big company who owns card in MTGO will know in advance when to dump their stock. SCG, CF, etc... always had inside information about the future of MtG. That is why they exclude some cards from their buy list. Increase the price of other cards. As an example when I was selling part of my collection I did not use a couple of month ago. they gave me back 2 copies of Food Chain, but bought a ton of other crap cards. I expect it will be reprinted in a future set. They did the same with Rishadan Port.

[Barook]

Artifact was designed by Garfield. Maybe Hasbro will buy Valve and release MtG using a similar engine or just buy the engine.

Concerning MTGO, I think most of the big company who owns card in MTGO will know in advance when to dump their stock. SCG, CF, etc... always had inside information about the future of MtG. That is why they exclude some cards from their buy list. Increase the price of other cards. As an example when I was selling part of my collection I did not use a couple of month ago. they gave me back 2 copies of Food Chain, but bought a ton of other crap cards. I expect it will be reprinted in a future set. They did the same with Rishadan Port.
I don't think Gabe Newell would sell that easily. Remember, Valve is a private company. And I don't think Hasbro has enough cash in the war chest to buy Valve, even if they wanted to.

As for MTGO's demise, it's pretty easy to predict how it's going down - they'll slowly make things suck until people don't care anymore. That's their modus operandi. Worked for Extended, the Modern Pro Tour (until it came back due to Modern's popularity), FTV, etc. - and the same thing is already in motion, more or less. The prediction of some people on Twitter that treasure chests are the biggest threat to MTGO collection values might not be even that far off. WotC gains profit at the cost of the collection values and continues to do so as more and more reprints are dumped into the system. For them, it's a win-win situation - cards get cheaper, making it more attractive for more people to play while reducing the fallout once they're going to nuke MTGO for good.

What really puzzles me is WotC business approach regarding Arena by copying HS. Alot of people already complain how expensive Heartstone is, yet making a copy of this system that is somehow significantly worse and expensive is pants-on-head retarded. What they should have done is integrating an auction house where you can buy and sell your cards while they take a small cut every time. Unless Artifact is going to be a dumpster fire, it's going to make Valve mad dosh simply based on that. Being able to recoup or even gain some money from playing MtG is definitely an aspect which is completely lost with Arena. You can't even cash out. Since Valve has already announced that they're going to use some of the auction house money to feed an Invitational-style event, it's going to blow Arena out of the water in terms of marketing as you can probably win millions while the MtG World Champion gets a "measly" 500k.

[ReAnimator]

As a non video game aware person can i get the bullet points on what "Artifact" is?

[morgan_coke]

WotC has had such utter crap in senior leadership for so long, once they finally started getting held accountable, they just copied whatever the new hotness was. And 2-2-3 years ago, about when MTG:A's development would have started, that was Hearthstone. It's such an amazingly blatant rip-off. It's funny, because even HS has realized their monetary model is way too stingy and started upping the amount of free packs and sales they have. MTG:Arena started off at 13x less generous because WotC is still run by idiots who couldn't figure out the differences in cardpool/rotation/starting collection between the two games.

[morgan_coke]

As a non video game aware person can i get the bullet points on what "Artifact" is?

It's a trading card game based on MOBA's - specifically DOTA 2 - with hero cards and three "lanes" of combat. Sounds pretty cool from most descriptions, just have to wait and see how it plays out.

[Phoenix Ignition]

As for MTGO's demise, it's pretty easy to predict how it's going down - they'll slowly make things suck until people don't care anymore.

Wait, Hasbro has been plotting MTGO's demise from the first day it was launched?

[Barook]

Wait, Hasbro has been plotting MTGO's demise from the first day it was launched?
Nah, things started to suck pretty fast once WotC started to develop it in-house. It's just harder and slower to increase the suck now due to diminishing returns. :tongue:

Edit: Looking at the Arena streams that are up now on Twitch, this looks REALLY bad. I never thought I would miss MTGO's interface.

[phonics]

Nah, things started to suck pretty fast once WotC started to develop it in-house. It's just harder and slower to increase the suck now due to diminishing returns. :tongue:

Edit: Looking at the Arena streams that are up now on Twitch, this looks REALLY bad. I never thought I would miss MTGO's interface.

Its funny you mention that because that was one of my initial thoughts as well, the ux tries to emulate hearthstone, but the ux works for hearthstone because mechanically it is a lot more streamlined and screen economy isn't such a large issue. I mean you can play hearthstone on your phone, just imagine trying to play arena on your phone. Despite using 'half cards', the screen economy feels worse than mtgo somehow. It may have modern aesthetics but functionally it looks like it preforms worse than mtgo.

I don't know if it is lag from it being stressed in beta or something, but the game hanged a lot and was not smooth at all. Just watching some of the streams, pretty much every action hangs a bit, and I don't think it is only because of priority. Saw someone try to concede, have it hang for a few seconds, then the game did a bunch of superfluous things like empty the stack and switch phases before the concede actually happened.

[Barook]

Its funny you mention that because that was one of my initial thoughts as well, the ux tries to emulate hearthstone, but the ux works for hearthstone because mechanically it is a lot more streamlined and screen economy isn't such a large issue. I mean you can play hearthstone on your phone, just imagine trying to play arena on your phone. Despite using 'half cards', the screen economy feels worse than mtgo somehow. It may have modern aesthetics but functionally it looks like it preforms worse than mtgo.
Hearthstone was designed with a maximum of 7 minions per side. Now compare that to MtG's midrange grindfests. Decks that have alot of permanents are probably going to be hell, especially token decks. That seems to be another failure of WotC not realizing that just copying HS doesn't work.

[morgan_coke]

It took me awhile to figure out, but it's the way everything is forced into the center of the screen that screws it up. That and the giant playbar and avatar head in the center of both play areas.

The MTGO interface uses the corners, the sides, the middle, everything. Arena forces itself into a much smaller screenspace for literally no benefit at all. Blows my mind just how much unused space is on that screen. Also, the way they have to search libraries and graveyards sucks.

[phonics]

Hearthstone was designed with a maximum of 7 minions per side. Now compare that to MtG's midrange grindfests. Decks that have alot of permanents are probably going to be hell, especially token decks. That seems to be another failure of WotC not realizing that just copying HS doesn't work.

I would go further and say that Hearthstone essentially has 7 'permanents' per side, considering arena is going to be draft and standard, games are probably going to get to 7 lands alone not to mention any of the other permanents that will get into play. Hearthstone doesn't have a graveyard and things like mana crystals, secrets and deck are off on the side taking up minimal space. I assume they thought everyone thought mtgo was bad because it looked like it was from the 90s, so they made arena look contemporary, but at the same time sacrificing the functionality for aesthetics.

[Lord Seth]

Artifact was designed by Garfield. Maybe Hasbro will buy Valve and release MtG using a similar engine or just buy the engine.Gabe Newell has stated in the past he's not interested in selling Valve, and even if he did, it'd probably cost several billion dollars to purchase a controlling interest in. Sure, spending that kind of money can be worth it, Disney spent billions to get Star Wars, but the main reason to purchase Valve would be Steam.

[morgan_coke]

After logging in tonight and checking out the latest update, I'll admit it, I'm impressed with the improvements they made. Huge upgrades in the play interface, how to navigate the store and the UI, quest tracking, letting people know about what kind of bonuses they're getting, it's all really good stuff.

Played several of the pre-con decks that come with the program. They're all bad, but they're also all fairly fun to play against each other. Any of them would get absolutely slaughtered against any kind of FNM deck, which will be an issue later, since all progress in the game is based on wins, but, eh. They're still in Beta. From what the progression is showing right now, they're not there yet on economy balance, still way too stingy, but at least they're up to about 3/4ths of a pack a day in rewards, vs. the previous 1/4 to 1/2 pack. Progress.

The deck construction screen might have actually gotten worse. FFS people, just go find an old copy of the Leaping Lizards version from 2003 and copy that. It's better than every single one that has come along since.

Play area still has unbelievably large amounts of unused space. But now, if you click on it, or the fire braziers, you get little graphical effects.. so that's pretty wizard. Also have a total of 2 giant different giant annoying faces to take up space instead of the previous option of just one.

[Barook]

https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/978653682467209217

Don't expect economy tweaks before late April.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I'd really like Arena to succeed (because try as I might, MTGO just doesn't feel like magic), but this doesn't sound promising. Playing "marginally better than sealed" quality decks is just not gonna do it for me.

[morgan_coke]

https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/978653682467209217

Don't expect economy tweaks before late April.

Holy fuck.

This is going to fail so much harder than I ever imagined.

It's like, I'm sort of happy BioWare is going to die in a fire when Anthem comes out and bombs, because they haven't made a good game since ME2, but I'll still be sad BioWare that I used to love is gone. Same thing with Star Wars movies after TLJ and whatever clusterdump Solo turns out to be. Guess I'm now adding Magic to that list.

When Schadenfruede is the only kind of joy you can get, take it and roll with it I guess.

[porcupinetreeman]

Hearthstone is reducing the time for daily quests in next expansion. Why? because a lot of people don't have that much time to invest in a game everyday.

mtg arena will fail with those times

[Phoenix Ignition]

It's like, I'm sort of happy BioWare is going to die in a fire when Anthem comes out and bombs, because they haven't made a good game since ME2, but I'll still be sad BioWare that I used to love is gone. Same thing with Star Wars movies after TLJ and whatever clusterdump Solo turns out to be.

Rogue One was legitimately good.

[morgan_coke]

Rogue One was legitimately good.

Agreed. By far the best since the OT. It put the War back in Star Wars.

[Barook]

https://rngeternal.com/2018/03/28/going-deep-analyzing-the-mtga-economy/

So somebody did the math and apparantly Arena is slightly less generous than Hearthstone, assuming Arena at its best and Hearthstone at its worst.

[Zombie]

Agreed. By far the best since the OT. It put the War back in Star Wars.

There is a problem on the horizon.

[Claymore]

I think the summary of that article is that it takes 2 months to build a competitive deck on Arena (assuming "an extremely generous chance of having a 10% chance of opening a wanted Mythic, and a 20% chance of opening a wanted Rare"), and the vault basically may as well not exist for how poor the rewards out of it are.

Part of the thing with Arena vs Hearthstone is that with Hearthstone, you can dust your old deck and recycle part of it. Impossible with Arena, your old cards are sunk value. There's marginal value I assume with Wildcards that would carry over to the new rotation.

So, Arena is 100% pay to win as far as I can tell.

[Darkenslight]

https://rngeternal.com/2018/03/28/going-deep-analyzing-the-mtga-economy/

So somebody did the math and apparantly Arena is slightly less generous than Hearthstone, assuming Arena at its best and Hearthstone at its worst.

It's almost like someone wants the company to fail, isn't it?

[morgan_coke]

To call that math "generous" in favor of Arena is to obliterate the meaning of the word. You'd be lucky to get a 1 in 15 "useful rare" ratio out of a single sets packs. Consider that in actual deckbuilding "useful rare" is generally one of 2-3 specific cards in a given set, it's more like 1 in 50, and most decks run cards from multiple sets, so you need to get that 1 in 50 chance about 30 times to finish your deck.
A specific, tier 1 deck isn't 2 months. It's 5 or 6 at the current drop rates. And that's assuming they go back to putting wildcards in the vault, instead of its current shitty "random rares/mythics or wildcards."

[morgan_coke]

This is probably the best summation of what's wrong with Arena I've seen anyone post in the Beta forum about why they're quitting the Beta. (there have a been a LOT of those posts) Currently the devs say the earliest they'll address any changes to the economy is late April. I cannot at all see that being a reasonable date, but I guess we'll see. Anyway, figured I'd share it here.

In many ways the designers are to be congratulated: I cannot conceive of a more offputting system that emphasises all the worst aspects of Magic while removing the better ones.

This game is simply not fun. There's no compelling reason to keep playing.

With card acquisition the way it is now, this game is dead in the water.

If you have a poor deck that needs additional cards, this game makes it harder than it needs to be to acquire those cards. Your deck is bad, you are going to lose. A lot. The only way to acquire a random new card is to win. You won't win often. Should you manage to win there's maybe a 1% chance that the card you get will improve your deck.

Newer players are faced with a daunting task, and that task will get harder as the game goes on, not easier. What people are complaining about now is the easiest this system will be. Think on that, then think about a full standard implementation and some joke decks to start people off. No one is going to put in the time, as the game will not reward players for doing so.

At the very least, ICRs need to be based on daily activity, not daily wins. Let people progress somewhat even if all they do is get smashed 5 times a day. Or they'll leave.

Vault opening is a joke without the mythic wildcard included. This needs to be put back in asap.

A couple of starting decks is fine, but 10 is actually too many. Most new players will waste wildcard after wildcard trying to build 4, 6, 8 or all of these decks into something playable before realising it's futile. Then they will leave. More choice is not the same as better, and being given 10 poor decks is no way to connect new players to this game and encourage them to stay.

What players should get to start with is 2-3 (at most) decks, along with a deck's worth of wildcards. I mean 40 commons, 20 uncommons, 8 rares, and 4 mythics. All wildcards, all whatever you want them to be. Players need to be able to quickly move to something that is partway playable (think Challenger deck level) to encourage them to keep going and play more.

I think the game's designers have done a fine job of replicating Magic in an interesting way graphically, but to surround it with this tedious hamster wheel of an economy makes all that effort worthless.

Maybe these things will change at some magical future point. However for now I feel the best feedback I can give as a beta tester is to do what I think the majority of players will do when faced with this joke of a system: stop playing. I'm done. See you when the game becomes worth the time it takes to play.

[jmlima]

Hearthstone was designed with a maximum of 7 minions per side. Now compare that to MtG's midrange grindfests. Decks that have alot of permanents are probably going to be hell, especially token decks. That seems to be another failure of WotC not realizing that just copying HS doesn't work.

It's actually surprisingly easy since Arena automatically stacks the tokens by groups.

[jmlima]

I think there's a bit of fair criticism and a bit of unfair criticism. Let me try to quickly sum up my thoughts. (BTW, I was on the second wave of testers, so I've been going on in there for a while).

Interface - Like many others, I agree that copying Hearthstone might have sounded appealing but it's a bit of a problem. Resolutions aside, since that side is not finished, the view angle makes reading cards difficult and you spend (or I do) a lot of time right-clicking cards to see what they are. There's acres of empty space, that I hope will be used more effectively in the future. Compared to MTGO, I can see that younger players will prefer the Arena version, but MtG is not Hearthstone and some cards will be a pain in the bum to read in mobile / tablets.

Gameplay - Pretty good. I find the experience of gameplay smooth, I don't find land tapping particularly taxing, and even if the trigger / stops take a bit of getting used to, they work.

Collection - AKA, meat and bones. In the last update, we went backwards. There’s no denying that. The removal of mythic wildcards from the vault was a major mistake. But there is a more fundamental problem, MtG is not Hearthstone (HS). For comparison, I’m a F2P player in HS and by playing some 30mins per day have amassed a collection that allows me to play a new standard deck per rotation and to have several of the most expensive in dust wild decks. There’s no bloody way I would be able to do that in Arena. And the reason, is a disconnect between the rewards and the requirements. In MtG a standard deck can have something like 10 or 12 mythics, plus another 10 or 12 rares. Of these, some can be full playsets. In HS, you can have a singleton of each mythic and at most 2 of each rare. In Arena , at present, you are getting HS style of rewards whilst trying to build MtG style decks. Guess-timating, some 75% of players won’t be able to have their first deck before rotation kicks in.

Now, where I think there’s a bit of unfairness is that, after reading the above you are thinking ‘it sucks’. Yes, it does. But we still have no clue how drafts will work and what impact will drafts have on collection progress. This is clearly a game aimed at the limited-draft axis, not the ‘I’ll buy the best standard deck’. What’s more, we do not know how gems will work. They can flip all of this upside down.

TL;DR – We are lacking serious pieces of information to judge the economy; it’s very stable and a decent platform to play on.

[morgan_coke]

Really? Lands are easy to tap? Despite the way they constantly dance around and re-arranged themselves every time you tap one?

If they looked at the last economy and honestly thought "let's make it way less generous because that's a good idea" there is no way in hell I, or anyone else, should remotely give them the benefit of the doubt going forward. Also, a lot of players DON'T LIKE LIMITED. So saying that's the only way to progress (maybe, theoretically) isn't really saying much.

Don't even get me started on the fact that you can't read your cards while they're in hand unless you left click on them, because fuck it, why not, pictures are all you need, right?

[jmlima]

Really? Lands are easy to tap? Despite the way they constantly dance around and re-arranged themselves every time you tap one?
...

I just tried it. Say you have a stack of forests and want to click all of them. You put your mouse over them, click one, it moves away, click , moves away, click, moves away and so on. Not sure what is the difficulty?



If they looked at the last economy and honestly thought "let's make it way less generous because that's a good idea" there is no way in hell I, or anyone else, should remotely give them the benefit of the doubt going forward. Also, a lot of players DON'T LIKE LIMITED. So saying that's the only way to progress (maybe, theoretically) isn't really saying much....

I think you are missing my point. I agree with what you say. But my point is that we do not have the full economy in place to judge how it will work. As an example, before they introduced Amonketh and Hour of Devastation , it was dead easy to keep collecting wildcards due to the simple fact that you were constantly filling the vault since the more packs you opened the more repeat cards, the more the vault filled. Now, the vault takes aeons to fill since opening packs does not automatically results in half the cards being repeats of cards you have. How do we know what the heck will happen with drafts, ladders , more sets, etc all in place? We don't it's the simple answer.

[Barook]

But my point is that we do not have the full economy in place to judge how it will work.
Given their track record with MTGO, I wouldn't get my hopes up. All they ever did was continously increase their rake.

They have no expert for online economies and how their "improvement" of the system made it worse, Arena seems to go down the same path. WotC doesn't know how to be generous.

[morgan_coke]

I just tried it. Say you have a stack of forests and want to click all of them. You put your mouse over them, click one, it moves away, click , moves away, click, moves away and so on. Not sure what is the difficulty?


Because when you don't have a stack of forests but instead have four or five different types of lands, like many, if not most decks do, clicking on them is a godamned nightmare game of fruit ninja.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Because when you don't have a stack of forests but instead have four or five different types of lands, like many, if not most decks do, clicking on them is a godamned nightmare game of fruit ninja.

This is being really blown out of proportion. Your stack of untapped lands moves after you tap a land sometimes. They move once, then you click on them wherever they are. I'm all for shitting on random stuff in Arena, but lets not pick one that a 5 year old could figure out.

The economy is terrible. One of the most fun things to do if you are a budget player is build a deck surrounding some stupid mythic rare that is 50 cents and then go 2-2 at a tournament with it, but Arena's mythics-all-cost-the-same economy is the worst thing in the world for that. It penalizes people in multiple ways for trying to innovate or do creative-but-bad things. With only 1 daily quest that *sometimes* isn't requiring you to win, the bulk of the system is rewarding people who win.

While at first glance that seems fine, what it really does is incentivizes winning quickly and not obtaining a good win percentage. When this is the case, the best strategy is to play a super aggro deck that has a great curve and then mulligan + concede if you don't hit a great hand or win in the first 4 turns. Anyone playing 15+ minute games is just doing it wrong. If there's a ranking system that puts you up against players "of equivalent skill" that's even worse since it means I'd much rather play games against noobs and win 95% of them, then concede to keep my rating down. All of this minimizes the amount of time I have to grind the game so that then I can eventually build whatever deck I was hoping to.

[Barook]

Economy update (https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2018/04/wizards-reveals-mtg-arena-economy-updates-the-cost-of-gems-constructed-and-draft-events-cost-payouts/)

I'm interested about the math behind this.

[Lemnear]

Economy update (https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2018/04/wizards-reveals-mtg-arena-economy-updates-the-cost-of-gems-constructed-and-draft-events-cost-payouts/)

I'm interested about the math behind this.

"Wizards estimates that the average player should be able to get around 10 packs per week by completing weekly and daily quests"

I love how they assume you pretty much max out daily rewards (1,050 to 1,300 gold max) for 30 days in order to open the Vault ONCE PER MONTH and call that "average", especially as the daily rewards are often tied to wins, in a game which heavily favors P2P users. To add insult to injury, entering events COSTS GOLD OR PREMIUM CURRENCY.

So you have to decide between buying boosters OR play events. Brilliant idea. *facepalm*

[Claymore]

That "nickle and dime" uneven gem buying levels...love it. Just blatant scumbaggery.

750 Gems: $4.99
1,600 Gems: $9.99
3,400 Gems: $19.99
9,200 Gems: $49.99
20,000 Gems: $99.99

600 Gems: 3 Packs (200 gems per pack, or about $1.33 per pack)
1,200 Gems: 6 Packs
3,000 Gems: 15 Packs
9,000 Gems: 45 Packs
18,000 Gems: 90 Packs

[rufus]

That "nickle and dime" uneven gem buying levels...love it. Just blatant scumbaggery.

750 Gems: $4.99
1,600 Gems: $9.99
3,400 Gems: $19.99
9,200 Gems: $49.99
20,000 Gems: $99.99
...

600 Gems: 3 Packs (200 gems per pack, or about $1.33 per pack)


Those are 150/$ to 200/$, so 200 gems is ~$1 if you buy in bulk.

[Lemnear]

Those are 150/$ to 200/$, so 200 gems is ~$1 if you buy in bulk.

Now we still need to set that into relation with booster structure itself and its value/junk rares/mythics

[morgan_coke]

Holy fuck that's awful. I'll be honest, I just don't see how basing your entire revenue model around parents not keeping track of what their kids buy on their credit cards is a good idea. But hey, what do I know?

[Lemnear]

Holy fuck that's awful. I'll be honest, I just don't see how basing your entire revenue model around parents not keeping track of what their kids buy on their credit cards is a good idea. But hey, what do I know?

It works pretty well on the mobile market for almost 10 years when "microtransactions" became "freemium", gatcha Mechanics made their way into the global game market and recently got flak in regards to lootboxes. You would be shocked so see the revenue of some of these games (which are often public).

I dunno if there is much of a difference between gambling with 20,000 gems in Arena or do the same with a box of Dominaria from your local dealer.

[Claymore]

I wonder if that Belgium "loot boxes are illegal" court ruling would make Arena an illegal video game.

[morgan_coke]

It works pretty well on the mobile market for almost 10 years when "microtransactions" became "freemium", gatcha Mechanics made their way into the global game market and recently got flak in regards to lootboxes. You would be shocked so see the revenue of some of these games (which are often public).

I dunno if there is much of a difference between gambling with 20,000 gems in Arena or do the same with a box of Dominaria from your local dealer.

The problem isn't the model, the problem is they won't get a single "free" player under this method, and if you don't have those, you don't have a userbase, and you don't have new blood to convert to paying customers. Also, the return rates for the $$ are a bad joke.

[jmlima]

The problem isn't the model, the problem is they won't get a single "free" player under this method, and if you don't have those, you don't have a userbase, and you don't have new blood to convert to paying customers. Also, the return rates for the $$ are a bad joke.

They have several problems and if they don't sort them Arena will just be another MTGO, trudging along without making any big dents into a highly profitable market:

a) The link between paper and digital means we can always have another caw blade or energy deck turning every single stream into the same thing over and over again. They will not be able to artificially balance things by tweaking the digital cards like HS does.
b) By and large they are aiming at two groups. The FTP and the people already using MTGO. Saying to the people already in MTGO, easy to move into Arena, just spend even more money there to play only Standard, is not going to have mass-appeal.
c) Related to b), if you are a FTP, I have done every single quest and maximized my wins since the last wipe-out, I've opened the vault once (!) and still do not have enough mythics / rares wildcards to make any of the top decks. I must say the vault was amazing when they offered mythics and we only had a couple of sets.You got so many repeats when opening packs that filling up the vault was dead easy. Now, with so many sets in there, it's becoming tediously slow to fill it.

There's still a chance to make it work, but it's beginning to look iffy.

[morgan_coke]

They have several problems and if they don't sort them Arena will just be another MTGO, trudging along without making any big dents into a highly profitable market:

a) The link between paper and digital means we can always have another caw blade or energy deck turning every single stream into the same thing over and over again. They will not be able to artificially balance things by tweaking the digital cards like HS does.
b) By and large they are aiming at two groups. The FTP and the people already using MTGO. Saying to the people already in MTGO, easy to move into Arena, just spend even more money there to play only Standard, is not going to have mass-appeal.
c) Related to b), if you are a FTP, I have done every single quest and maximized my wins since the last wipe-out, I've opened the vault once (!) and still do not have enough mythics / rares wildcards to make any of the top decks. I must say the vault was amazing when they offered mythics and we only had a couple of sets.You got so many repeats when opening packs that filling up the vault was dead easy. Now, with so many sets in there, it's becoming tediously slow to fill it.

There's still a chance to make it work, but it's beginning to look iffy.

The main problem they have is they're basing their economy on HS, which just flat out doesn't work with MTG's deck construction rules, power levels at various rarities, and giant card pool.

You need 40-50 rare+ cards to make the vast majority of standard decks. Given the size of MTG's cardpool you're almost never going to get the rare/mythics you need out of packs. And given you need 4x+ of a card before it starts filling the vault, pack progression is pretty much all you've got for filling the vault. Thus any pack is basically 4% of whatever you actually need. It's insane.

[Lemnear]

Thus any pack is basically 4% of whatever you actually need. It's insane.

That's what you end up, if you employ idiots without any knowledge of the digital market: They simply copy & paste the rates for chase rares from other known games, without questioning, if these fit for your own game.

3% is about the industry standard for chase rares, but no other game requires you to pull 40+ cards at that (or a similar) rate. This level of incompetence in regards to pricing, odds and awareness of ones own deck structures is indeed unbelievable

[Tittliewinks22]

They should take a page from Yu-Gi-Oh duel links economy.

Was able to get a top tier deck there relativity fast just grinding NPC's/Online.

[Barook]

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/8fscwm/game_director_chris_clay_will_be_hosting_an/

There's another Arena AMA tonight on Reddit. It's probably not leading anywhere, given how much people are pissed about the economy, but who knows.

[morgan_coke]

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/8fscwm/game_director_chris_clay_will_be_hosting_an/

There's another Arena AMA tonight on Reddit. It's probably not leading anywhere, given how much people are pissed about the economy, but who knows.

What do you think the odds are they curate it so it's just fanboi's asking why they're giving losers so much free stuff in the game already? 2:1? 3:1?

[Jander78]

b) By and large they are aiming at two groups. The FTP and the people already using MTGO. Saying to the people already in MTGO, easy to move into Arena, just spend even more money there to play only Standard, is not going to have mass-appeal.

I'm trying for the life of me to understand who this is going to appeal to, and I can't get past this point. They're trying to create a competitive digital environment by invalidating and alienating their already existing (and deeper) digital environment. It feels like a Duels of the Planeswalkers game with a pay-to-play component.

[Barook]

What do you think the odds are they curate it so it's just fanboi's asking why they're giving losers so much free stuff in the game already? 2:1? 3:1?
They might try, but chances are that it would still get drowned in a flurry of angry economy questions. People are fucking furious and the latest update hasn't changed much about it.

[morgan_coke]

I checked in on that AMA. As expected it was a giant pile of fuckery where the few economy questions that slipped in got deflected.

They're still in total denial. I will enjoy their tears.

[Claymore]

I'm sure Wizards has complete control over that subreddit. Mods who vehemently insist no card board issues, bunch of accounts that perpetually deflect and say the card board is amazing. I imagine we'll see the same thing about Arena.

[Barook]

I'm sure Wizards has complete control over that subreddit. Mods who vehemently insist no card board issues, bunch of accounts that perpetually deflect and say the card board is amazing. I imagine we'll see the same thing about Arena.
Trying to control the narrative isn't going to increase their revenue, though. It has yet to been whether they fall back to their old routine after the Garfield set (which sells like hotcakes) or not.

[morgan_coke]

I think there was one exchange which was pretty telling.

Someone got through with a question about the lands moving around when you tap them and how much everyone hates it and how stupid it is.

The response was that they were working to improve AutoTap so you never had to bother tapping the lands yourself.

Like, the community clearly identifies a simple, significant problem with an easy, obvious fix... and the response is to double down on some nonsense that nobody asked for, doesn't work and is unlikely to ever work well enough in the future for true competitive play.

[Barook]

Also loved this exchange:

Question:

The new player experience is BAD, in my and many others opinions. With the software currently in beta, are you and the team going to look into how to make that experience better?

In my opinion, this is the biggest thing (in addition to the economy that people are surely going to ask about) that should be answered, since new player retention is the biggest thing that means the software lives or dies.

If you are going to make the new player experience better: what steps are you and the team going to do while the beta is ongoing to test this?

Answer:

Right now the new player experience is right along the lines of tossing a kid in a pool and hoping they don’t drown. We’re going to be tackling this on multiple fronts. Matchmaking changes, NPE Tutorials, and quests that help guide players through their initial goals. (We do not endorse trying this at home.)

The most scary part about this whole disaster is that WotC/Hasbro might nuke MTGO out of the blue of Arena isn't working out, with the idea that forcing players onto the platform to make it succeed. Given their lack of vision and common sense, it's a real possibility.

[Lemnear]

The most scary part about this whole disaster is that WotC/Hasbro might nuke MTGO out of the blue of Arena isn't working out, with the idea that forcing players onto the platform to make it succeed.

I always thought that Arena was meant to replace the casual unfriendly MTGO? Why should they keep MTGO around if they can move modern and standard to Arena?

[phonics]

Also loved this exchange:

Question:


Answer:


The most scary part about this whole disaster is that WotC/Hasbro might nuke MTGO out of the blue of Arena isn't working out, with the idea that forcing players onto the platform to make it succeed. Given their lack of vision and common sense, it's a real possibility.

Nuking mtgo in the foreseeable future would be akin to digital suicide. Arena is a replacement for the 'duels of the planeswalker' games that were an annual affair, and it will be years before they ever get a cardpool to allow for modern let alone real eternal formats. Not to mention the 'paying money for pixels you dont own' issue that will inevitably come up once any transition begins, it was easy for them to ignore it for the other games they killed, but a lot of people have serious amounts of money in their online 'collection'.

[Claymore]

Another part of the QA said that they're going to make a new non-rotating format on Arena. Almondkat on I guess. Not surprising, but I wonder if they'll translate that into paper too.

I did find it funny that Arena originally said there wasn't going to be crafting because they don't want players to have the feel-bad of destroying their collection to make a rare that underperforms...but now you have all the grind that goes into one Wild Card, and you can still have those same feelbads. Except now it's a completely sunk cost, the economy is way worse, so the risk is much higher.

[Captain Hammer]

I'd really like Arena to succeed (because try as I might, MTGO just doesn't feel like magic), but this doesn't sound promising. Playing "marginally better than sealed" quality decks is just not gonna do it for me.

They really need to give people who spent money to unlock cards in “Magic Duels” access to all the cards they unlocked in Arena as well (or atleast an equivalent number of tokens that they can use to unlock cards in arena.

They should do the same with MTGO players.

That’s the only way us Duels players will consider switching over to Arena. Otherwise we will all just stick with Duels.

Arena will flop if digital magic players don’t get the magic cards they bought in other venues transferred over to Arena

It’s a reasonable thing to do. Give the people that bought digital cards in your previous iteration access to those same cards in your New iteration.

[Barook]

It’s a reasonable thing to do. Give the people that bought digital cards in your previous iteration access to those same cards in your New iteration.
Isn't that WotC's entire shady digital business model? Making you buy the same shit you already own over and over again? :eyebrow:


Another part of the QA said that they're going to make a new non-rotating format on Arena. Almondkat on I guess. Not surprising, but I wonder if they'll translate that into paper too.

I did find it funny that Arena originally said there wasn't going to be crafting because they don't want players to have the feel-bad of destroying their collection to make a rare that underperforms...but now you have all the grind that goes into one Wild Card, and you can still have those same feelbads. Except now it's a completely sunk cost, the economy is way worse, so the risk is much higher.
Evan Erwin was on-spot with this tweet:

https://twitter.com/misterorange/status/991763278576734209

Until you have 4 copies of a card, you make no progress. And boy, the first Standard rotation is going to be a shitshow.

[morgan_coke]

It's just kind of impressive. You're watching this HUGE car crash in slow mo and everybody but the driver can see it coming, and they're even yelling at the driver "hey man, you're gonna wreck!" and the driver is all like "nah fam, this is cool".
The game is flat out unplayable for the F2P crowd unless you just really, really, really love playing bad precons. I mean, I've seen Sealed Decks that were better than some of the pre-sets you get.

[morgan_coke]

Just an update from the Beta. They nerfed the Vault. Again.
It's like they're actively trying to sabotage the game at this point.

[jmlima]

Just an update from the Beta. They nerfed the Vault. Again.
It's like they're actively trying to sabotage the game at this point.

Indeed. Since the last reboot, I keep collecting wildcards to see how I could get by playing all quests, etc. I still do not have enough Mythic / Rares to build a standard T1 deck .

[Barook]

Just an update from the Beta. They nerfed the Vault. Again.
It's like they're actively trying to sabotage the game at this point.
They did? What did they change this time? I'm suprised there wasn't a major outcry yet.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

I don't think the update is quite out yet https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/26191.

Morgan might be referring to an in-game update though and I haven't been able to log in for about a week so I may have missed it. Supposedly the big economy post is out later today so I'm sure we'll have plenty to roll our eyes at then.

[morgan_coke]

They nerfed pack progress from 4% to 3.3%. Draft packs do not count for packs opened.

To cover this, 5th+ copy Mythics went from 1% to 1.1%.

I am not making any of that up.

[Barook]

They nerfed pack progress from 4% to 3.3%. Draft packs do not count for packs opened.

To cover this, 5th+ copy Mythics went from 1% to 1.1%.

I am not making any of that up.
Do they really think that an increase by 0.1% Vault progression is going to make the feel bads from wasting mythics go away? And they nerfed pack progression by 17.5% at the same time?

It amazes me how deep they can have their heads in their asses at times.

[Lemnear]

They nerfed pack progress from 4% to 3.3%. Draft packs do not count for packs opened.

To cover this, 5th+ copy Mythics went from 1% to 1.1%.

I am not making any of that up.

Being not familiar with "pack progress" and the refered "5th+ copy mythics", could someone elaborate for a dummy like me?

[procobrito]

Being not familiar with "pack progress" and the refered "5th+ copy mythics", could someone elaborate for a dummy like me?

The Vault progress is one of the most important things in Arena, when you complet 100% you get 1 mythic, 2 rares, 3 uncommon wild cards, that you can change for any card of the dame rarity. Wild cards is what matters, since there isn't trade or dust, is the only gmway to you truly get the cards you want.
When you get the 5th copy of some card, you get an ridiculosly small increasment in your vault, instead of the card:
1.1% for mythic
0.7% for rares (I think)
0.3% for uncommons
0.1% for commons
You need to get 90 5th+ copies of mythic rares to trade the vault reward.

[Lemnear]

The Vault progress is one of the most important things in Arena, when you complet 100% you get 1 mythic, 2 rares, 3 uncommon wild cards, that you can change for any card of the dame rarity. Wild cards is what matters, since there isn't trade or dust, is the only gmway to you truly get the cards you want.
When you get the 5th copy of some card, you get an ridiculosly small increasment in your vault, instead of the card:
1.1% for mythic
0.7% for rares (I think)
0.3% for uncommons
0.1% for commons
You need to get 90 5th+ copies of mythic rares to trade the vault reward.

Ah, pack progress and the 5th copy value increase refer to the vault fill progress. Gotcha. Have many thanks

[Y The Alien]

I'm playing Arena now after like 10 years of not playing Magic.

I don't get what their design goal is for Arena. It's more expensive that paper or the existing digital platform and because of things like adding animations and voiceovers they clearly don't intend to add the entire cardpool any time soon so it can't be a Magic Online replacement. Is it literally just to sucker some Hearthstone people in for a year and get $200 out of them? I mean it sort of worked - I've been playing Hearthstone for the last three years, but as a free player, and I won't be paying into Arena without some clarity about the future of the platform, and I doubt many other people will be either, besides the psychos who spend a thousand dollars on any Magic product in existence.

[morgan_coke]

I'm playing Arena now after like 10 years of not playing Magic.

I don't get what their design goal is for Arena. It's more expensive that paper or the existing digital platform and because of things like adding animations and voiceovers they clearly don't intend to add the entire cardpool any time soon so it can't be a Magic Online replacement. Is it literally just to sucker some Hearthstone people in for a year and get $200 out of them? I mean it sort of worked - I've been playing Hearthstone for the last three years, but as a free player, and I won't be paying into Arena without some clarity about the future of the platform, and I doubt many other people will be either, besides the psychos who spend a thousand dollars on any Magic product in existence.

Last quarter Hearthstone made $440 million. MTGO made $250 million.

Arena is aimed squarely at the shareholders who want that mobile money, but it's run and designed by idiots who don't understand how to make it profitable.

[Barook]

Last quarter Hearthstone made $440 million. MTGO made $250 million.
Correction: MTG made roughly 250 million as a whole, including Paper. Even the old 40% of MtG's revenue number (which would be ~100 million $) is quite outdated and from times before MTG entered its Golden Age.

Take these numbers with a grain of salt, though. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/666594/digital-collectible-card-games-by-revenue/)

Realistically, MTGO's revenue might be a bit higher than that, but I can't see it surpassing 50$ million - and that's pretty generous. That's how shitty their digital department is ever since they've had competition.

[Y The Alien]

Yeah Hearthstone didn't make $440 million dollars in a quarter either. Hearthstone's total yearly revenue was about $400 million in 2016 and about $215 million in 2017, according to analysis. That being said I'm just not sure why a push for the casual market wasn't done in, say, a revamp to the existing digital platform's interface and visuals, rather than a whole new client.

[jmlima]

Yeah Hearthstone didn't make $440 million dollars in a quarter either. Hearthstone's total yearly revenue was about $400 million in 2016 and about $215 million in 2017, according to analysis. That being said I'm just not sure why a push for the casual market wasn't done in, say, a revamp to the existing digital platform's interface and visuals, rather than a whole new client.

Because the existing MTGO client cannot operate outside PCs. It's based on .net, casual market means mobile gaming, that needed a new platform, they can barely keep MTGO running without bugs let alone port the entire thing to a new engine, so they decided on the path of least resistance.

[Barook]

Because the existing MTGO client cannot operate outside PCs. It's based on .net, casual market means mobile gaming, that needed a new platform, they can barely keep MTGO running without bugs let alone port the entire thing to a new engine, so they decided on the path of least resistance.
Given how blatantly they rip off Hearthstone, it seems more like an attempt to appease shareholders who want the Hearthstone bucks more than anything else.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Kaladesh block, best of 3, 24/7 drafting, normal standard, and a bunch of free cards coming on june 7th. Free cards include 4x of a bunch of standard staples (https://i.imgur.com/BtrN7TF.jpg), 1x of every other mythic/rare, and 2x common and uncommon.

Not a bad way to introduce kaladesh at all in my opinion.

[Tylert]

Kaladesh block, best of 3, 24/7 drafting, normal standard, and a bunch of free cards coming on june 7th. Free cards include 4x of a bunch of standard staples (https://i.imgur.com/BtrN7TF.jpg), 1x of every other mythic/rare, and 2x common and uncommon.

Not a bad way to introduce kaladesh at all in my opinion.

So good news :)
Guys, if you weren't playing before, now this is time :)

[jmlima]

So good news :)
Guys, if you weren't playing before, now this is time :)

Aren't we gonna have a collection wipe-out in the near future?

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Aren't we gonna have a collection wipe-out in the near future?Yep, I was just commenting that it was a good way to get the cards into peoples hands without forcing people to save wildcards or buy gems.

There isn't a date for the wipe yet and the only thing people will keep is a refund of any gems they've spent.

[morgan_coke]

They finally did their big "economy post" they've been talking about for months.

Hilariously, it's literally a giant wall of nothing that says MTG is more complex, so it costs more to play, and they're not changing the drop rates.

Complete and total failure. Although I will say if they do a Kaladesh style drop of one-of each of the rares and mythics for every new set, the economy would actually be fine, because your choice would be pay for a good version of the deck you want, or play a bad version for free, which seems much more reasonable.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Yeah that post is pretty ridiculous. Doesn't bode well at all.

[morgan_coke]

I think my favorite part of the post is when they list "mono-green stompy with 7 mythics and 22 rares" as the standard of a competitive deck.

Dude, in standard, that's your MANA BASE. Doesn't even touch the rest of the deck. Pete Jahn, who is a huge MTG apologist, pointed out that the average standard tier one deck includes a max of 4 uncommons.

God I'm going to enjoy the schadenfreude when this thing fails hard.

EDIT: jesus the "economy post" thread is getting brutal. They're on like a second straight page of discussing the best ways to get Hasbro to issue refunds now. The consensus view seems to be WotC will whine and cry and offer "other products of equal value" but Hasbro direct will eventually return your cash.

[jmlima]

I think my favorite part of the post is when they list "mono-green stompy with 7 mythics and 22 rares" as the standard of a competitive deck.

Dude, in standard, that's your MANA BASE. Doesn't even touch the rest of the deck. Pete Jahn, who is a huge MTG apologist, pointed out that the average standard tier one deck includes a max of 4 uncommons....

I would point out that after doing all the quests (rolling for higher payouts) and all the daily rewards, I'm not yet able to do that deck.

[Barook]

The Economy Post - for your reading pleasure (https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/26770)

Considering they aren't going to budge on their stance in ecomnomy questions, this is going to be a spectacular garbage fire.

My favorite part was the "We need two different currencies to differentiate between F2P and P2W, but we'll also give out P2W currency to F2P players, making the distinction completely nonsensical." - What? :really:


So, when you're purchasing gem bundles, we want you to focus on the amount of money you want to spend, not what you want to spend your gems on.

Seriously, this shit is comedy gold.

[Claymore]

If I'm reading this stuff right:


It takes 95 - 145 packs to build out any Tier 1 deck
You can earn 11 packs a week
F2P: It would take roughly 9 - 13 weeks to build out any Tier 1 deck (around 3 months)
Paid: It would cost around $125 every three-four months to build out any Tier 1 deck.


Hmm yeah this is going to go well.

[Lemnear]

If I'm reading this stuff right:


It takes 95 - 145 packs to build out any Tier 1 deck
You can earn 11 packs a week
F2P: It would take roughly 9 - 13 weeks to build out any Tier 1 deck (around 3 months)
Paid: It would cost around $125 every three-four months to build out any Tier 1 deck.


Hmm yeah this is going to go well.

On what criteria did you root the 95-145 packs? Taking the actual rarities of a standard deck or the wierd one they claimed to be enough? Just trying to get context about the economy.

[Bithlord]

On what criteria did you root the 95-145 packs? .

They expressly said that that was the number of packs they expect to be needed. They also said that the middle ground expectation of a tier 1 deck is 7 mythics and 23 rares. Meaning *half* your deck is rare or higher, and this is expected and good. NWO killed the days of being able to build a passable uncommon deck.

[Bithlord]

If I'm reading this stuff right:


It takes 95 - 145 packs to build out any Tier 1 deck
You can earn 11 packs a week
F2P: It would take roughly 9 - 13 weeks to build out any Tier 1 deck (around 3 months)
Paid: It would cost around $125 every three-four months to build out any Tier 1 deck.


Hmm yeah this is going to go well.

Don't forget that they *expressly* acknowledged that it costs more than other games, but its ok. People will pay more because magic is just better. Right?

[morgan_coke]

They expressly said that that was the number of packs they expect to be needed. They also said that the middle ground expectation of a tier 1 deck is 7 mythics and 23 rares. Meaning *half* your deck is rare or higher, and this is expected and good. NWO killed the days of being able to build a passable uncommon deck.

Which is funny, because real decks are like 50+ rares/mythics. So your actual rate of acquiring stuff is something like every 5 months. But new sets are released every 3 months.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm...

[Claymore]

Yeah, they used the example of Mono Green Stompy, which has 23 rares and 7 mythics, and according to their simulators it would take about 125 packs to build that deck. Other meta decks would take between 95 and 145 packs to build.

I can't access the post directly but that is explicitly from Wizards in that link above.

I'm assuming the price would be $1 = 1 pack but it's likely lower. So maybe just $100 per set (3 months).

[supremePINEAPPLE]

My favorite part was in the followup posts, the dev that was replying wasn't having fun with the f2p model so they spent $120. Economy working as intended.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/8nr8lr/chris_caos_responses_to_the_economy_post/

[Barook]

People will pay more because magic is just better. Right?
The amount of arrogance they're showing is baffling and it will be their downfall. MtG is a good game, but only having a fraction of the formats available (and the worst ones at that) while your client is a Hearthstone rip-off is not exactly how you can charge premium.


Which is funny, because real decks are like 50+ rares/mythics. So your actual rate of acquiring stuff is something like every 5 months. But new sets are released every 3 months.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm...
That also completely discounts the fact of months of painful, unfun grinding with a shitty deck - WotC just doesn't attribute any value to people's time; they've done the same with MTGO. Meta changed and your deck isn't viable anymore? Congratulations, you're fucked.

Being stuck with the cards you're randomly getting (aside from wild cards) is one of the main problems of Arena. You can't simply switch decks and the resources spent for the previous deck is pretty much a sunk cost.

[Claymore]

That also completely discounts the fact of months of painful, unfun grinding with a shitty deck - WotC just doesn't attribute any value to people's time; they've done the same with MTGO. Meta changed and your deck isn't viable anymore? Congratulations, you're fucked.

Being stuck with the cards you're randomly getting (aside from wild cards) is one of the main problems of Arena. You can't simply switch decks and the resources spent for the previous deck is pretty much a sunk cost.

This is funny too, because Wizards stated that the reason they didn't go with Dusting is that players will destroy good cards and end up being locked into shitty decks. But, now you're having to pour your wildcards into one given deck, which turns out to be shit...

I can see that focusing on collecting the entire set is good for player flexibility and wizard$, but when the economy is this shit their system falls apart and hurts the player.



I'd rather see them have this luck of the draw model AND have a subscription model (flat $20/month for example) where you have access to all cards in the set. Maybe that's what they're insinuating; you just need to buy up 145 packs to build the set at the start of the season, but locking it into this model makes it feel like a cash grab on the roulette wheel.

[Megadeus]

I don't understand why they don't just allow trading or dusting to get a certain card you want or something. I mean I guess I understand the why (money), but it would solve many of the gripes I feel. Oh well. This is very much destined to fail. I now see why they have an advertisement on the mothership basically begging people to play and stream the game

[morgan_coke]

I don't understand why they don't just allow trading or dusting to get a certain card you want or something. I mean I guess I understand the why (money), but it would solve many of the gripes I feel. Oh well. This is very much destined to fail. I now see why they have an advertisement on the mothership basically begging people to play and stream the game

It's really remarkable that they've gotten so much specific feedback about the exact problems they have and are completely unwilling to do anything to address them.

[H]

It's really remarkable that they've gotten so much specific feedback about the exact problems they have and are completely unwilling to do anything to address them.

I don't know, corporate greed really isn't all that remarkable to me. I guess I am just used to it?

[rufus]

I don't know, corporate greed really isn't all that remarkable to me. I guess I am just used to it?

I think people are more surprised at how unsophisticated WotC's approach seems to be.

[morgan_coke]

I think people are more surprised at how unsophisticated WotC's approach seems to be.

Yeah, it's not the greed that surprises me, it's the repeated, blatant incompetence.

[morgan_coke]

Sorry for the double post, but this was just too rich. It's from Pete Jahn's State of the Program article where he talks about MTG Arena.


Magic does not (yet) have any sort of play-against-an-AI option. The game is complex enough that developing a playable AI may never be feasible – or affordable. Without an AI opponent, Magic Arena opponents will be forced to play against real opponents.

That is AMAZING. There have been literally a dozen different mtg games with ai opponents.

Amusingly, he also goes on to say that MTG:A is doomed, but he approaches it from the "people don't like losing, and FTP players won't stick around if they're always getting creamed by real decks" angle.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Their follow-up to the disaster yesterday. Vague changes coming soonTM.

https://mtgarena.community.gl/forums/threads/26830

[Claymore]

Yeah, it's not the greed that surprises me, it's the repeated, blatant incompetence.

[Barook]

Yeah, it's not the greed that surprises me, it's the repeated, blatant incompetence.
It's WotC, what did you expect? It's their modus operandi.

Just like this, announcing more announcementsTM.


Their follow-up to the disaster yesterday. Vague changes coming soonTM.

https://mtgarena.community.gl/forums/threads/26830

[morgan_coke]

I like how the "economy post" they'd been hyping for weeks is retroactively labeled "an overview of the current economy" and not, this thing about the future of the economy we've been telling you it is for weeks now.

I think it's all best summed up by one guy who just posted in response to it:

"How are you so bad at this?"

[Barook]

https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/27221

So apparently, you can only competitively draft by paying with gems, which should translate into 10-12$ each. And while 3-2 or higher makes you go infinite, you'll never be able to sell the cards you're drafted - meaning the rest of the prices are going to get worthless rather quickly.

What's the point then? MTGO lost ground because it's too expensive, yet they keep pulling the same horseshit on MTGA with their "premium content" excuse. This is hilarious and downright sad at the same time.

[jmlima]

...
What's the point then? MTGO lost ground because it's too expensive, yet they keep pulling the same horseshit on MTGA with their "premium content" excuse. This is hilarious and downright sad at the same time.

Things is, there is nothing to say this (gems only) will not start to be rolled out for other popular game modes (say ranked games, etc.)

I must say the economy development has been truly and utterly baffling.

[Barook]

Things is, there is nothing to say this (gems only) will not start to be rolled out for other popular game modes (say ranked games, etc.)

I must say the economy development has been truly and utterly baffling.
Isn't it possible for Hasbro shareholders to ask questions during shareholder reports? It would be hilarious if somebody with shares who plays MTG roasts them for their terrible management of MTGA.

[jmlima]

Isn't it possible for Hasbro shareholders to ask questions during shareholder reports? It would be hilarious if somebody with shares who plays MTG roasts them for their terrible management of MTGA.

I believe you need quite a number of stocks to be able to do that directly. Nothing preventing stockholders from writing to them, I believe they have a lawful duty requiring them to answer such queries.

I just cannot understand any more who this game is aimed at. This type of thing, gems only, seems clearly aimed at the usual suspects. But why would they swap from MTGO if they effectively can get a much bigger return there by selling cards?

[Barook]

I believe you need quite a number of stocks to be able to do that directly. Nothing preventing stockholders from writing to them, I believe they have a lawful duty requiring them to answer such queries.

I just cannot understand any more who this game is aimed at. This type of thing, gems only, seems clearly aimed at the usual suspects. But why would they swap from MTGO if they effectively can get a much bigger return there by selling cards?
According to the Hasbro CEO shareholder info this week, it's mainly aimed at former player and newcomers (here's the link (https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/1003814116040028160)). It's still questionable why

a) old players would pick up a gimmicky version that doesn't even have the old cards they love (let's face it - if you return to magic, you want to play with your old, awesome shit, not the new, overcosted garbage) and
b) new players would pick up a way more complex game that is several times more expensive than the competition and has F2P experience that is ass.

[Claymore]

I've run into people (okay, one) who used to play Magic on a very casual level, and they picked up Magic Duels and loved it on tablet. I imagine Arena is aimed at people like that, who used to love cafeteria magic and can now dick around with it on a tablet or phone.

However, I can't see that player dropping $12 in gems to play a single series of premium Limited.

[Barook]

That's the thing, freemium games mostly financed by whales who spend a metric shitton of money on the game (90% of the entire revenue, if not more, is pretty common). But you still need a substantial playerbase to attract said whales. Meanwhile, WotC wants to have their cake and eat it, too - and that's the problem. The way they construct their economy, they expect alot of the playerbase that should normally be F2P to drop money on the game. This is never going to work, no matter what dumb excuses they're going to cook up next.

[morgan_coke]

I expect there will be many firings after it launches and bombs, but once it has launched and bombed, it takes awhile to get over that - if they ever do, and that depends on making the correct fixes right away, which they probably won't do either.

[Bithlord]

Fundamentally it comes down to them treating this as a competitor to paper, and not a companion.

[Barook]

Interesting tidbit: Mishra's Photoshop (also well known for doing economy math for MTGO) did the math on Arena competitive drafts and apparently the rake on MTGA is a whooping 53% (https://twitter.com/MishrasFotoshop/status/1004749241707835393) (because the game drops you at X-2, so it isn't a full swiss triange)

[thecrav]

Isn't it possible for Hasbro shareholders to ask questions during shareholder reports? It would be hilarious if somebody with shares who plays MTG roasts them for their terrible management of MTGA.

Someone did this with the reserved list a couple years ago.

[morgan_coke]

Dowloaded the June update. Actually played a fair bit tonight. The collection dump of Kaladesh really is a huge difference maker. Honestly, once you have a collection where you can at least build something to play, the rewards feel ok. But if they don't do the "here's one of every card in the set, plus some extra playables, or at least a bunch of wildcards" every time a new expansion drops I can't see anyone playing this from scratch.

Playing legitimate MTG decks with a shitty sealed collection is literally nobodies idea of a good time. But playing with some jank brew that includes a few bombs can be pretty fun. So far my shitty Red Rock concoction based on Chandras and a single Karn I burned by sole Mythic Wildcard on is doing pretty solid. 2-1 in a competitive league thing I joined for 1k Gold. I mean, I've literally only played against the red/black Chainwhirler deck so far, but it turns out ramp+giant monsters+removal is a good plan vs. that deck, so cool so far.

The 4B Saga is really strong value if you can hit it early.

[Tylert]

I also found that the game itself was more fluid.
It looks as if they optimized the code a bit...
And of course the addition of khaladesh is a great thing. I hope they will give us some kind of a collection out of the pre-constructed decks so that we can brew a bit when we will move into open beta.

[jmlima]

...decks so that we can brew a bit when we will move into open beta.

Technically, it stops being beta testing when you have to pay money to 'test' some of the features.

I do quite a bit of testing and game design for other companies, I just wish we could charge a fee to each tester like they are doing. Honestly, it just confirms my (poor) expectations relative to the human race.

[Lemnear]

Technically, it stops being beta testing when you have to pay money to 'test' some of the features.

I do quite a bit of testing and game design for other companies, I just wish we could charge a fee to each tester like they are doing. Honestly, it just confirms my (poor) expectations relative to the human race.

There was a time companies had inbound gametesters on their payroll to release a quality product. It's indeed ridiculous that people now PAY for being a lab rat testing some companies products.

[Brael]

Technically, it stops being beta testing when you have to pay money to 'test' some of the features.

I do quite a bit of testing and game design for other companies, I just wish we could charge a fee to each tester like they are doing. Honestly, it just confirms my (poor) expectations relative to the human race.

The industry standard for MMO's and TCG's is paid betas.

[Tylert]

not only MMO and TCG. most video games now have an alpha access where you have to pay.... think PUBG and H1Z1.

[Technics]

not only MMO and TCG. most video games now have an alpha access where you have to pay.... think PUBG and H1Z1.

Star Citizen is still in Alpha and have 24,000$ purchases for players to make. They have raised some 2M$ from in game purchases in Alpha...

[Barook]

Star Citizen is still in Alpha and have 24,000$ purchases for players to make. They have raised some 2M$ from in game purchases in Alpha...
Star Citizen is also one of the (if not THE) biggest scams in gaming history. 2 million $? They're probably beyond 200 million $ now. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/technology/personaltech/video-game-raised-148-million-from-fans-now-its-raising-issues.html)

[alderon666]

All they need to do is add a dusting mechanic that adds a % to your vault. Done.
Magic has too many crappy rares and mythics, allowing you to dust only your fifth copy of a cards is just greedy.

[Technics]

Star Citizen is also one of the (if not THE) biggest scams in gaming history. 2 million $? They're probably beyond 200 million $ now. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/technology/personaltech/video-game-raised-148-million-from-fans-now-its-raising-issues.html)

Yes, 20M was the figure I was looking for, but that was vastly wrong still...

I don't know about biggest scam ever... MTGO rakes in ~20M a month and that's basically still in Alpha...

https://venturebeat.com/2017/01/28/superdata-hearthstone-trumps-all-comers-in-card-market-that-will-hit-1-4-billion-in-2017/

[Barook]

Yes, 20M was the figure I was looking for, but that was vastly wrong still...

I don't know about biggest scam ever... MTGO rakes in ~20M a month and that's basically still in Alpha...

https://venturebeat.com/2017/01/28/superdata-hearthstone-trumps-all-comers-in-card-market-that-will-hit-1-4-billion-in-2017/
You're reading the data wrong - the 20 million number is yearly revenue. How the mighty have fallen... :tongue:

This is also pretty interesting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/8q265h/red_shell_spyware_present_in_mtg_arena/

I wonder if using that programm is GDPR compliant. I don't think it is, but then again, I'm no lawyer.

[Bithlord]

You're reading the data wrong - the 20 million number is yearly revenue. How the mighty have fallen... :tongue:

This is also pretty interesting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/8q265h/red_shell_spyware_present_in_mtg_arena/

I wonder if using that programm is GDPR compliant. I don't think it is, but then again, I'm no lawyer.

At this point, the lawyers don't even know for sure on a lot of things. Courts have a LOT to hash out with GDPR.

[Tylert]

No complaints on MTGA these days?
what do you guys think of the last patch finally?
I still hate drafting with bots, however, the rest is neat.
I wish they could give us a good starting card collection as they did when they will wipe the servers. I will hate to have to play bad pre-cons for some months before having a good deck.

There are still some bugs (Game crashed when my opponents conceded during my selection of the spell to be cast with torrential gearhulk and i got stuck without anyway to leave the game although i had win), but the overall quality is good.

PS: I found the limit of the game: casting a token maker with 16 annointed priests in play and already 100 tokens in play on both sides. 5 seconds to resolve a trigger, 2 min to resolve the click on attack, 2 more for the combat click and then the block shitfest... :)

[Lemnear]

No complaints on MTGA these days?
what do you guys think of the last patch finally?
I still hate drafting with bots, however, the rest is neat.
I wish they could give us a good starting card collection as they did when they will wipe the servers. I will hate to have to play bad pre-cons for some months before having a good deck.

There are still some bugs (Game crashed when my opponents conceded during my selection of the spell to be cast with torrential gearhulk and i got stuck without anyway to leave the game although i had win), but the overall quality is good.

PS: I found the limit of the game: casting a token maker with 16 annointed priests in play and already 100 tokens in play on both sides. 5 seconds to resolve a trigger, 2 min to resolve the click on attack, 2 more for the combat click and then the block shitfest... :)

Going infinite on WotC software. Doomed.

[Barook]

No complaints on MTGA these days?
Most people probably have stopped caring, at least as long as its in Closed Beta.

[morgan_coke]

Most people probably have stopped caring, at least as long as its in Closed Beta.

Yeah, they're supposed to completely revamp the economy next month, but everyone expects it to be a complete shitshow, just like the last three times they re-vamped the economy. There's a whole lot of not caring going on.

Standard being a total dumpsterfire doesn't help either.

[morgan_coke]

LOL. Called it. Here's a link to the new video on Arena economy changes.

https://mtgarena.community.gl/forums/threads/30293

Basically it sounds like they're phasing out "the vault" entirely (progress from packs is going away) and haven't revealed what they're replacing it with, because let's be honest, they have no fucking clue.

So, like, almost a full year into the closed Beta (with Open Beta due soon!) and they're starting the economy/progression bit over from scratch. Fucking Amazing.

Also, they still haven't announced what they're going to do with rotations, because they also haven't figured that out yet. Next rotation is in 3 months.

[Bithlord]

I'd rather they start it over from scratch than stick us with what htey had before...

[Barook]

Let's not forget they also have to do the big wipe at some time. I wonder if they do it before or after their latest batch of economy changes.

[morgan_coke]

They're letting beta testers give out invite codes on July 20th. There's some speculation that they'll wait for October rotation to do the last wipe/Open Beta soft launch so that they can kick the can of rotation down the road a year.

Personally I don't think they're that competent, so it'll probably happen in September or something.

[morgan_coke]

So there's currently a bug locking people completely out of their accounts in the Beta. From what folks can tell, it's also severely reduced the amount of Gems (paid cash currency) and Gold (free-to-play currency) on their accounts. This is the WotC response:


Servers are now up, but we are aware that some players are still experiencing an issue that will result in an “Unable to Login – Could not resolve player inventory” error. Players seeing this error are locked out of the game until after the update this Thursday. Sorry to everyone affected for the inconvenience. We’ll be working to make sure you have an extra good time when the update hits on Thursday.

Seriously. The FUCK?!? Is the "extra good time" a handy? A free pack? Goddamned incredible. You're got a fair number of players - many of whom are paying for this shit, locked out for nearly a week, and from what they can tell, having lost real money to the vaporizer machine, and THAT'S your answer?

Fucking incredible.

Again, I just have to ask, HOW ARE YOU SO BAD AT THIS?

[Bithlord]

So there's currently a bug locking people completely out of their accounts in the Beta. From what folks can tell, it's also severely reduced the amount of Gems (paid cash currency) and Gold (free-to-play currency) on their accounts. This is the WotC response:



Seriously. The FUCK?!? Is the "extra good time" a handy? A free pack? Goddamned incredible. You're got a fair number of players - many of whom are paying for this shit, locked out for nearly a week, and from what they can tell, having lost real money to the vaporizer machine, and THAT'S your answer?

Fucking incredible.

Again, I just have to ask, HOW ARE YOU SO BAD AT THIS?

ITS A BETA.

Hell, it's not even in open beta, it's still closed beta. This is when shit like this is supposed to happen. The whole point of beta testing is to identify shit like this before you go live.

[morgan_coke]

My problem isn't the bug, it's the response. Agreed closed Beta is when you get shit like this figured out.

[Lemnear]

ITS A BETA.

Hell, it's not even in open beta, it's still closed beta. This is when shit like this is supposed to happen. The whole point of beta testing is to identify shit like this before you go live.

The actual difference between being "in beta" or "live" is hard to grasp if you charge people for playing

[rufus]

...

My problem isn't the bug, it's the response. Agreed closed Beta is when you get shit like this figured out.

...

To me, it seems like the only problem with that response is, "We’ll be working to make sure you have an extra good time when the update hits on Thursday." Which is a pretty dumb thing to say in that context.

[Barook]

The actual difference between being "in beta" or "live" is hard to grasp if you charge people for playing
This.


To me, it seems like the only problem with that response is, "We’ll be working to make sure you have an extra good time when the update hits on Thursday." Which is a pretty dumb thing to say in that context.
They're WotC, incompetence runs in their blood.

One step closer to Arena crashing and burning.

[Matsu]

Is it possible WotC will discontinue paper Magic and move to the digital platform ONLY after the release?
The same way Blizzard did with Hearthstone and WoW tcg.

Pros.
1. Easier access to the client
2. Easier to restrict/ban/errata cards
3. No problem with card production/quality
4. No cheats
5. Tournament cost reduction (GP & Pro Tours can be made online)
6. Huge influx of new players
7. No card leaks
Cons.
1. Current cards become worthless
2. Companies preying on RL cards are dead
3. Paper Mtg becomes an nostalgic Old Man game you play in a pub.

Am I the only one who thinks it will be a great way to celebrate 25 years of Mtg ?
Any other thoughts about it?

I am not discussing how good/bad Arena will be (Pay to win, server issues, game lags, etc.)

[Lemnear]

Is it possible WotC will discontinue paper Magic and move to the digital platform ONLY after the release?
The same way Blizzard did with Hearthstone and WoW tcg.

Pros.
1. Easier access to the client
2. Easier to restrict/ban/errata cards
3. No problem with card production/quality
4. No cheats
5. Tournament cost reduction (GP & Pro Tours can be made online)
6. Huge influx of new players
7. No card leaks
Cons.
1. Current cards become worthless
2. Companies preying on RL cards are dead
3. Paper Mtg becomes an nostalgic Old Man game you play in a pub.

Am I the only one who thinks it will be a great way to celebrate 25 years of Mtg ?
Any other thoughts about it?

I am not discussing how good/bad Arena will be (Pay to win, server issues, game lags, etc.)

While this all sounds great to move the game from physical cards to online with all the benefits for erata, tournament Organisation, secondary market, etc. it would put MTG in direct competition with Hearthstone, Gwent & Co with a digital department and game designers still stuck in 2002. They would crash & burn. The physical game is all what keeps the brand alive.

The moment the remaining MTG players rather open an app at the pool with a longdrink next to them, rather than going to a shabby store to play physical cards, will be the very end for MTG

[Megadeus]

While this all sounds great to move the game from physical cards to online with all the benefits for erata, tournament Organisation, secondary market, etc. it would put MTG in direct competition with Hearthstone, Gwent & Co with a digital department and game designers still stuck in 2002. They would crash & burn. The physical game is all what keeps the brand alive.

The moment the remaining MTG players rather open an app at the pool with a longdrink next to them, rather than going to a shabby store to play physical cards, will be the very end for MTG

As someone whose only motivation to keep playing the game is for the social aspect at this point it would be awful to see paper discontinued. There would be MASSIVE backlash I'd like to think by stores and players.

[morgan_coke]

They make more on the paper game than digital. They're not going to scrap the successful half of their operation.

[Matsu]

They make more on the paper game than digital. They're not going to scrap the successful half of their operation.

I am not sure about the revenue from MtG paper, but after seeing this (below). I am curious how close paper MtG against HS digital is.

Info from wiki:
On May 6, 2015, Activision Blizzard announced that Hearthstone and Destiny have generated nearly $US1 billion in revenue for the company.[119] According to SuperData Research, in June 2015 Hearthstone generated about $20 million in revenue during that month.[120]

Even if HS is only 20% of 1 billion USD, i still think Hasbro might be tempted to do the move.
In fact at the moment we have HS, maybe Eternal, Gwent is not yet release and market competition might be health for the game and lets not forget Artifact designed by the mighty R.Garfield.

I am not advocating they should do it. I am more interested, why they should not do it?
I think based on revenue of HS and the price pool for pro players (1 million USD in one tournament at the beginning of this year) if we compare it to the incoming Beta Draft, it looks miserable.

I would prefer as a company to have a digital platform to reach more clients and the better i perform (as a game) the more new people I can attract.

But i totally understand that WotC is made of concrete people form the 90'. We can easily see it how they treat the game.

@Lemnear:
I had the opportunity to play a HS tournament at a Pub, it was good fun and we socialise without a problem. You have to add your opponent as a friend to play against him. So you can keep a contact to him in the future.

[Lemnear]

@Lemnear:
I had the opportunity to play a HS tournament at a Pub, it was good fun and we socialise without a problem. You have to add your opponent as a friend to play against him. So you can keep a contact to him in the future.

It's an option to retain the social aspect, i guess. Would say, that's stripping MTG from another argument it had over HS.

P.S. Isn't Pokemon doing something similar in regards to tournaments/world cup/whatever?

[Barook]

Is it possible WotC will discontinue paper Magic and move to the digital platform ONLY after the release?
The same way Blizzard did with Hearthstone and WoW tcg.

Pros.
1. Easier access to the client
2. Easier to restrict/ban/errata cards
3. No problem with card production/quality
4. No cheats
5. Tournament cost reduction (GP & Pro Tours can be made online)
6. Huge influx of new players
7. No card leaks
Cons.
1. Current cards become worthless
2. Companies preying on RL cards are dead
3. Paper Mtg becomes an nostalgic Old Man game you play in a pub.

Am I the only one who thinks it will be a great way to celebrate 25 years of Mtg ?
Any other thoughts about it?

I am not discussing how good/bad Arena will be (Pay to win, server issues, game lags, etc.)
Main difference is that Blizzard is a competent digital game developer. WotC, on the contrary, is a bunch of incompetent chucklefucks. Going digital only would ruin the company in record time as they don't know what the fuck they're doing. See: Arena - they're only poorly copying a successful concept without understanding why it's working.

[morgan_coke]

My favorite part of this current account lockout mess is that they had the ability to fix it when it happened by pushing the patch early, and they DID do that for streamers that got locked out, but they left the bulk of the beta players to just wait until today because... eh, it's a beta, fuck'em.

[morgan_coke]

Apparently coming out of the update there's a new bug stopping people from being able to log in. 4 posts on the beta forums in the last 30 minutes about it from different people. No official response yet. Fucking incredible.

I feel so bad for people who've been spending real money on this game.

[phonics]

Is it possible WotC will discontinue paper Magic and move to the digital platform ONLY after the release?
The same way Blizzard did with Hearthstone and WoW tcg.

Pros.
1. Easier access to the client
2. Easier to restrict/ban/errata cards
3. No problem with card production/quality
4. No cheats
5. Tournament cost reduction (GP & Pro Tours can be made online)
6. Huge influx of new players
7. No card leaks
Cons.
1. Current cards become worthless
2. Companies preying on RL cards are dead
3. Paper Mtg becomes an nostalgic Old Man game you play in a pub.

Am I the only one who thinks it will be a great way to celebrate 25 years of Mtg ?
Any other thoughts about it?

I am not discussing how good/bad Arena will be (Pay to win, server issues, game lags, etc.)

Consider that WOTC have had more than 2 decades worth of development into a digital client and what they have to show for it (mtgo and arena), they don't have the means, knowledge or desire to make a compelling digital product. Plus, there is a social/ communal aspect to paper that wouldn't survive the transition.

[Matsu]

Apparently coming out of the update there's a new bug stopping people from being able to log in. 4 posts on the beta forums in the last 30 minutes about it from different people. No official response yet. Fucking incredible.

I feel so bad for people who've been spending real money on this game.

I am so happy i do not participate in this farce.

@phonics
I will not count two decades, because 20 years ago no one was thinking about having something like a mobile phone and the ability to communicate with the whole world and play games with the whole world.

I never played MTGO or Arena, the only way i played MtG on a computer was the MicroProse game from 1997. We had a great fun with my little brother.

When i came back to MtG after a 12 years hiatus the shopkeeper told me that the recent huge influx of players happened thanks to Duel of the Planeswalker video game.
Young people were attracted by the game, but wanted to experience more.
I never played DotP, but i heard it is a good platform to learn MtG and according to wiki they made this game since 2012, so 2 years before Hearthstone started to dominate the Virtual-CCG market.

Based on Social events I though everyone want to socialise via fb, twitter or instagram and speaking someone face to face starts to be less and less popular. At least this is my impression when i speak to younger people then me. Look at the people on this forum, i can assure you most of the users play paper MtG once or twice a week. MtGo opens the doors to play more often, to compare, in my bus in the morning there is a guy who plays HS, every morning.

[Humphrey]

I wouldnt be so sure that most users here play paper regularly, let alone weekly. The last time I played physical mtg has been 3years ago. Partly because the legacy scene died, but partly because our local mtg community is a bunch of hyperactive morons. Im glad im able to play mtg online, although I mostly use xmage these days, because mtgo doesnt support cube drafts.

That said, I think the digital versions of magic are always just a promotion for the paper cards, because the way magic works, itll never be as fluid digital as it is irl.

10 years from now i can see both worlds merge and we get some kind of digital paper cards that communicate via wifi

[Skyl3lazer]

They'll never move from paper, which is good. Turns out magic is kind of a shit game without shortcutting.

[morgan_coke]

I have five beta key codes to give away if anyone wants in on Arena. PM me or reply here in thread.

[mistercakes]

Is it still PC only?

[jmlima]

I have five beta key codes to give away if anyone wants in on Arena. PM me or reply here in thread.

I also have 5 codes if anyone wants one.

[morgan_coke]

Is it still PC only?

Yes, they don't have it working on mobile yet.

[thecrav]

Is it still PC only?

Used this super neato new thing called google

>Q. What platforms will MTG Arena be available on?
>
>A. We're starting with PC only, but we've built MTG Arena on a flexible engine to expand to other platforms when it's ready.

[Barook]

Used this super neato new thing called google

>Q. What platforms will MTG Arena be available on?
>
>A. We're starting with PC only, but we've built MTG Arena on a flexible engine to expand to other platforms when it's ready.
Translation:
"We're putting it on other platforms when Hasbro forces us to due to shareholder pressure, ready or not."

[mistercakes]

Thanks I never heard of Google. I'll bookmark it.

[Andy_Prime]

I cant even give my 5 codes all away. Says something about the interest in this product.

[Matsu]

Thanks I never heard of Google. I'll bookmark it.

You made my day.:laugh:

[jmlima]

I cant even give my 5 codes all away. Says something about the interest in this product.

So we now have 15 codes on offer on this thread alone and nobody wants them... indeed.

[ReAnimator]

So we now have 15 codes on offer on this thread alone and nobody wants them... indeed.

Just going to go out on a limb and assume most of us here are probably outside the target market.


I've been offered a lot of keys as well from my non legacy magic friends. I'm interested in this product in so far as i liked Duels of the Planeswalkers as a fun distraction. But i don't have an interest in messing around with an unfinished product especially considering all the stuff i've read in here.
If (and it's a big if) when this thing is done and it can be a casual fun thing to mess around in, and it works and the economy isn't complete garbage, i'll try it out and probably some Brawl or whatever doesn't chew up a bunch of time and money. I dont' really play video games at all, the last one i did was Duels. I don't have any illusions that this would replace competitive IRL play for me, i'm just hoping its a fun functional distraction in the end. I won't hold my breath.

[morgan_coke]

Just sharing this because it's fucking hilarious. This is an actual post from one of the MTG:Arena devs on the beta forum, about why there's no update thing like there should be today.


Hey all! Due to some technical difficulties (my computer is very sick, and the prognosis is not looking good), the Community Spotlight has been pushed out until tomorrow. See you then!

[the Thin White Duke]

Just sharing this because it's fucking hilarious. This is an actual post from one of the MTG:Arena devs on the beta forum, about why there's no update thing like there should be today.

At least that guy has a fallback career as a Tech Journalist. Too bad he didn't just say it was a "glitch".

[Barook]

Just sharing this because it's fucking hilarious. This is an actual post from one of the MTG:Arena devs on the beta forum, about why there's no update thing like there should be today.
Sounds like he caught a virus when clicking on a sketchy pop-up or visiting a dubious site. Which is totally in the realm of possibility, given how stupid WotC employees are in context of technology.


At least that guy has a fallback career as a Tech Journalist. Too bad he didn't just say it was a "glitch".
"Why visiting a Jace smut site gave my computer aids - and that's a good thing! - Here's why"

[Captain Hammer]

Arena has been a blast. Much better progression system than Duels or any of the prior games used. Wild cards are very rewarding to collect and redeem.

It just really sucks how wizards adverized Duels as being the product that gets all future sets when it released a few years ago, and after people put a bunch of cash into it, announced they are dropping it for this and neither the cards nor the actual cash spent will carry over.

That just makes me hesitant to put any money into Arena. Who knows how long till Wizards drops this too, and not carry over any of the cards people bought with actual money over to Arena 2 or whatever they replace it with. Yes they said this one is permanent but they said the same thing about Duels and got people to spend a ton in Duels.

As far as the game itself, its great. It feels like a final product, not a beta.

[Tylert]

yeah, for those saying that it sucks, you obviously did not log in since a long time :)

there are only three real bad points today:
- Limited cardpool: You can't play legacy on it
- Drafts are done with bots and not humans
- No sealed experience at all

The game still has bugs thought. Yesterday, when one of my eternalized sunscourge champions died while others were doing lethal damage, on of them ended up in my hand has a card i could eternalized :) Also, song of freyalize 3rd step doesn't use the stack. you have to stop in the upkeep if you want to do something before the trigger happens (like creating a token at instant speed for example).
It's still a very good game compared to it's competitors like HS.

[morgan_coke]

Cards with any kind of "cast from the graveyard" ability on them show up in your hand in Arena. They're separated from cards actually in your hand a little bit, but the Sunscourge appearing in your hand wasn't a bug. That said, the game is riddled with bugs and freezes and other issues. And the deckbuilder is so bad they've admitted they're scrapping it and replacing it with something new entirely. But yes, it is much, much, much better than it was a few months ago.

[Tylert]

Cards with any kind of "cast from the graveyard" ability on them show up in your hand in Arena. They're separated from cards actually in your hand a little bit, but the Sunscourge appearing in your hand wasn't a bug. That said, the game is riddled with bugs and freezes and other issues. And the deckbuilder is so bad they've admitted they're scrapping it and replacing it with something new entirely. But yes, it is much, much, much better than it was a few months ago.

it was the token card that was in my hand for a few seconds before the end og the game :) so yes it was a bug.

aaahhh yes; i forgot to mention that the deck builder is crappy.
the filtering options on the collection is crappy too. you cannot filter by edition or format.

[Captain Hammer]

It was a long wait but it looks like MTG Arena will be launching Nov 27...

https://mobile.twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1024704399631822849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1024704399631822849&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html%231024704399631822849

[Purple Blood]

I've never played Hearthstone but I have played Eternal. I'd say the UI is pretty much exactly the same. Things are pretty intuitive. One problem I had was trying to hold priority/only let part of the stack resolve so I could respond. Anyone know how to do that? I had a match where I almost lost where I wanted to cast a Glimmer before countering their spell. As soon as I cast Glimmer the whole stack resolved.

My biggest complaint after messing around with Arena for the past couple of days is that the graphics are too intense for my poor 7 year old laptop :laugh:

[Barook]

It was a long wait but it looks like MTG Arena will be launching Nov 27...

Out of all launch dates they could choose, they chose the one next to Artifact? Or where do you get that from?

[thecrav]

Out of all launch dates they could choose, they chose the one next to Artifact? Or where do you get that from?

The same thing that they get from running PT 25th Anniversary on GenCon weekend - Everyone knowing that their marketing staff is made up of morons.

[Captain Hammer]

Out of all launch dates they could choose, they chose the one next to Artifact? Or where do you get that from?

It was sarcasm.

I do fully expect WoTC to push out Arena before Artifacts launch to try to blunt its momentum however. They dont to lose a bunch of potential players to Artifact

[Barook]

It was sarcasm.

I do fully expect WoTC to push out Arena before Artifacts launch to try to blunt its momentum however. They dont to lose a bunch of potential players to Artifact
I expect it around the release of RtRtR, alongside the collection wipe. The 20$ price tag on Artifact might kill alot of momentum for it by itself, though.

[Humphrey]

after playing arena for a while, I reactivated my mtgo account and play there. getting a collection done in arena is just stupid and you are pretty much stuck on one deck unless you spend infinite amounts of money on it and you collection becomes worthless as soon as standard rotates. also i dont like the sluggish gameplay with useless animations and stuff. also it horrible to bluff there and becomes much worse than mtgo. Sry, program is a fail for me, but it seems its more or less focused on drafts, most money to make there and the name "arena" (see hearthstone) already suggests where its going.

[Nestalim]

getting a collection done in arena is just stupid and you are pretty much stuck on one deck unless you spend infinite amounts of money on it and you collection becomes worthless as soon as standard rotates.

I mean, if you're gonna rant on mtga, don't use an argument for mtgo..

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Wait, you mean WOTC wants you to spend money on magic arena, well I never.../s

Biggest problem I have is the rate at which you get rare wildcards is too low. Between what you need for your manabase and actual cards in your deck, you almost never have enough.

Put in some form of dusting and adjust how often you get rare wildcards a little (at the expensive of mythics I guess, I personally haven't had that much of an issue getting the mythics I need vs rares) and the economy would be fine IMO.


I mean, if you're gonna rant on mtga, don't use an argument for mtgo..

For what it' worth, you can sell out of MTGO which does change things a bit

[phonics]

For what it' worth, you can sell out of MTGO which does change things a bit

That is the big difference. You spend money on both products but your arena account will essentially be worthless outside of account selling which I assume wont be condoned by WOTC. There is no trading either so there is basically no economy at all, so what you get is what you get. The buildup to getting a collection where you would be able to just play whatever you wanted seems insane, whereas on mtgo you can just 'rent' the deck by buying and selling if you want.

[morgan_coke]

That is the big difference. You spend money on both products but your arena account will essentially be worthless outside of account selling which I assume wont be condoned by WOTC. There is no trading either so there is basically no economy at all, so what you get is what you get. The buildup to getting a collection where you would be able to just play whatever you wanted seems insane, whereas on mtgo you can just 'rent' the deck by buying and selling if you want.

Yeah, this. You just can't justify paying regular MTG prices for a product you can't sell out of, which is what MTGA is trying to do. Especially considering how badly WotC just fucked people on Duels when they shut that real money game down.

[Nestalim]

Yeah, this. You just can't justify paying regular MTG prices for a product you can't sell out of, which is what MTGA is trying to do. Especially considering how badly WotC just fucked people on Duels when they shut that real money game down.

Wait what ?

One pack on Arena is 3 times less expensives than on Mtgo and has better reward due to the Wildcard system. The game gave you daily reward for just playing even for fun which mtgo will never do.
You can basically get 3 to 4 meta deck for 200$ which is unrealistic on Mtgo. And the game let you grind a lot on daily average.

Yes your collection will become worthless (or not, we have no idea how Wotc is gonna manage rotation on Arena) but it is a far cheapier cost to enter.

[Tylert]

Yes your collection will become worthless (or not, we have no idea how Wotc is gonna manage rotation on Arena) but it is a far cheapier cost to enter.

I hope they create at least an arena eternal format (and the best would be that they start introducing old extensions to the game retroactively).

[jmlima]

I hope they create at least an arena eternal format (and the best would be that they start introducing old extensions to the game retroactively).

Funny you mention that, there's new formats coming, but no sets older than SoI, which means there will probably some form of 'Modern' in Arena, SoI onwards, but nothing older than that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/95ngbg/mtg_arena_pauper_and_momir_coming_the_mtg_arena/

[Barook]

Yes your collection will become worthless (or not, we have no idea how Wotc is gonna manage rotation on Arena) but it is a far cheapier cost to enter.
Or you can even make money and come out ahead when selling out of MTGO.

That's the thing: Arena is a sunk cost, no matter what.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I agree, selling out of MTGO is a pretty wise idea given how shit it is

Pretty much no way you don’t come out ahead there.

[Humphrey]

as i said, arena is mainly for drafting and for those it might be better than mtgo. but for constructed, mtgo is the way to go, since as others said, you can buy in and sell out of decks in a couple of minutes and have all the formats available.

[chezJacques]

Hey guys, if any of you still have spare beta codes, I'd appreciate it

[morgan_coke]

Hey guys, if any of you still have spare beta codes, I'd appreciate it

check your pm's.

[Phoenix Ignition]

So I haven't been following very closely, are they still going to have another economy reset at some point?

[rufus]

So I haven't been following very closely, are they still going to have another economy reset at some point?

At least one at the end of beta.

[Barook]

Apparently, WotC is trying to figure out a solution to the rotation problem - by fall 2019.

https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/1030482799059447810

Comedy gold. I don't know what people did expect of this company.

[Phoenix Ignition]

But there's going to be an account wipe around when Ravnica releases. That fixes the problem until ~Fall. Am I missing something?

[Barook]

But there's going to be an account wipe around when Ravnica releases. That fixes the problem until ~Fall. Am I missing something?
There's going to be an account wipe. RtRtR would be the logical point to do it, but then again, we're talking about Wizards here.

[morgan_coke]

There's going to be an account wipe. RtRtR would be the logical point to do it, but then again, we're talking about Wizards here.

Don't forget, last week they eliminated Bo3 (Best of three matches w/sideboard) from the client, then realized they had to put it back in because that's literally what MtG is.

Oh, and the client is still occasionally wiping hard drives if you try to uninstall it.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

That whole debacle was funny, not only because it's something WOTC will add back in later anyways (so whats the point in removing it) but the player base is so casual that I question why they even gave a shit.

[morgan_coke]

So yesterday, WotC had a bunch of cryptic 9.19 statements on their Arena account on Twitter.

Crickets on the forums about whatever it is so far. I'll let ya'll know if it turns out to be anything or they're just being their usual cocked up selves.

EDIT: Here's a link to the official announcement: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-open-all-starting-september-27-2018-09-19

Highlights:

Open Beta on the 27th, full RtRtR.

Last account wipe hits everyone.

Progression will still be trash because they haven't figured out a solution to the fifth card problem yet, but it's better than it was earlier in the beta.

Some "select" Ravnica physical product will have digital codes in it.

If you were in the beta, you get 1 copy each of the fancy, full art 'walkers - Teferi, Ral, Vraska.

No word yet on what happens to your stuff after rotation, as expected, they're kicking that can down the road a year.

[jmlima]

It's the (potentially) last wipe and the transition into open beta (= release). Plus some extra stuff:

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/9h5wfk/magic_the_gathering_arena_open_beta_announce/

[jmlima]

...

No word yet on what happens to your stuff after rotation, as expected, they're kicking that can down the road a year.

And that's a bit of a bummer as I was expecting at least an idea of what was going to be done. Without any idea, we'll all flock into the best standard deck without any other considerations in collection building.

[thecrav]

open beta (= release)

Everything wrong with modern software development expressed in three words

[CptHaddock]

Everything wrong with modern software development expressed in three words

No dude, it's just 1 word and that word is Agile.

[Phoenix Ignition]

And that's a bit of a bummer as I was expecting at least an idea of what was going to be done. Without any idea, we'll all flock into the best standard deck without any other considerations in collection building.

I dunno, I've been having an unexpected blast playing mono U storm in Standard. I have accumulated enough other cards to probably make 1 other high tier Standard deck but don't really want to win with creatures or slow control.

The only change I really wish they had is to make some of the silly events free, I'm not spending my gold to play something as stupid as Standard Momir, but I'd probably mess around in there if they didn't try to make it competitive.

[jmlima]

.... but I'd probably mess around in there if they didn't try to make it competitive.

Don't bother. It's a heck of a crappy experience (standard momir). First player to 9 mana wins.

[Barook]

One thing that really annoys me since the release of Arena (and let's face it, the open beta is just a name to justify putting out an unfinished product) is not being able to find good magic streams anymore. Everything plastered with a) paid shills or b) people with < 20 viewers, most even in the < 5 viewers range. There are currently 40 Arena streams up with 1 or 0 viewers and 88 Arena streams with <20 viewers. Wading through this sea of shit makes me lose interest in watching Magic streams.

[phonics]

One thing that really annoys me since the release of Arena (and let's face it, the open beta is just a name to justify putting out an unfinished product) is not being able to find good magic streams anymore. Everything plastered with a) paid shills or b) people with < 20 viewers, most even in the < 5 viewers range. There are currently 40 Arena streams up with 1 or 0 viewers and 88 Arena streams with <20 viewers. Wading through this sea of shit makes me lose interest in watching Magic streams.

http://www.mtgstreams.com/ shows all the streams and you can filter to whatever format you want.

[morgan_coke]

According to Pete Jahn's article series over on MTGO Traders, the cost of a "1 of everything" collection on MTGO has dropped by $3000 in the last two weeks. That's a huge amount. Now amplify it by a couple dozen or hundred or however many card sets the big bot chains have. I can't imagine they'll keep eating that kind of loss without raising hell with WotC. And a lot of those big MTGO bot chains are extensions of big physical MTG stores.

I don't expect WotC to do anything smart here, but I wouldn't at all be surprised by some asinine hairbrained reaction from someone. That's a LOT of "on paper value" getting destroyed fast.

[Barook]

According to Pete Jahn's article series over on MTGO Traders, the cost of a "1 of everything" collection on MTGO has dropped by $3000 in the last two weeks. That's a huge amount. Now amplify it by a couple dozen or hundred or however many card sets the big bot chains have. I can't imagine they'll keep eating that kind of loss without raising hell with WotC. And a lot of those big MTGO bot chains are extensions of big physical MTG stores.

I don't expect WotC to do anything smart here, but I wouldn't at all be surprised by some asinine hairbrained reaction from someone. That's a LOT of "on paper value" getting destroyed fast.
WotC has zero long-term planning. While it might contribute to the issue, I don't think Arena is the main problem here. Why would Eternal cards drop that heavily when you can't even play it on Arena? The main problem is WotC enriching themselves on cost of the players (and bot chains) by using Treasure Chests as prizes. More and more supply with no demand to match is going to drive down prices heavily, matching the doomsayers from months ago claiming that treasure chests are the biggest threat to collection values, not Arena. And here we are. While it's awesome that you can get decks comparatively cheap now, it seems like a bad investment, considering cards will keep on dropping due to treasure chests.

@phonics: Awesome link, thanks!

[MorphBerlin]

So you're basically complaining that card prices are getting lowered which makes legacy more avaliable online? Which also is the main goal for abolishing the RL in paper magic?

[Barook]

So you're basically complaining that card prices are getting lowered which makes legacy more avaliable online? Which also is the main goal for abolishing the RL in paper magic?
Low entry prices are good (even from WotC's standpoint), but if this keeps going, then owning cards is going to lose you money. Since MTGO is built around the bots, this is going to fuck up the entire ecosystem once major, reliable bots don't become sustainable anymore because WotC could never be assed to integrate an auction house. That's unlike Paper, where price gauging works due to the RL and shitty reprint policies, so scalpers and hoarders have a field day.

[morgan_coke]

Low entry prices are good (even from WotC's standpoint), but if this keeps going, then owning cards is going to lose you money. Since MTGO is built around the bots, this is going to fuck up the entire ecosystem once major, reliable bots don't become sustainable anymore because WotC could never be assed to integrate an auction house. That's unlike Paper, where price gauging works due to the RL and shitty reprint policies, so scalpers and hoarders have a field day.

Yeah, this. I don't know if any of you were around on MTGO before the bots showed up en masses, but jesus was that ever a clusterfuck. It was like a mid-90s AOL chatroom with everyone just screaming into the void. Also, no fractional ticket prices on anything. Basically, if any of the big bot chains detonate themselves, it has huge ripple effects, because it puts that much more pressure on the rest of the botchains to do the same or get left holding the bag, and it completely obliterates the way Limited works on MTGO.

But yes, in general, I'm thrilled prices are dropping. The problem is the reasoning behind and speed of said drops.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

No dude, it's just 1 word and that word is Agile.

Sorry, can't hear you I'm regression testing for cr6

[TsumiBand]

Sorry, can't hear you I'm regression testing for cr6

Yeah I looked at that PR you put up, it had a comment in it so I can't approve it because we only do Clean Code here

[Humphrey]

3000$ loss on all cards is like -0.15$ on each card on average. hardly even noticable as a customer. besides there are tons of reprinted cards that are stupidly high priced because they were released in special sets and more or less a dead investment anyway (for the trader) since nobody will every buy them.
I wish mtgo would become more accessible in the future, because lower card prices will bring back more players. like in RL, magic should first be a game and then a secondary market buisness model.

im surprised how f2p friendly arena is (for now), so i play it a lot. its also fun because not everybody runs netdecks (for now)

[morgan_coke]

3000$ loss on all cards is like -0.15$ on each card on average. hardly even noticable as a customer. besides there are tons of reprinted cards that are stupidly high priced because they were released in special sets and more or less a dead investment anyway (for the trader) since nobody will every buy them.
I wish mtgo would become more accessible in the future, because lower card prices will bring back more players. like in RL, magic should first be a game and then a secondary market buisness model.

im surprised how f2p friendly arena is (for now), so i play it a lot. its also fun because not everybody runs netdecks (for now)

That's not really how it works. The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of cards on MTGO are essentially "free" with prices on bots of something like .0001 tix. Tournament playables are a much smaller pool, and they've been losing a LOT of value.

[Phoenix Ignition]

3000$ loss on all cards is like -0.15$ on each card on average. hardly even noticable as a customer. besides there are tons of reprinted cards that are stupidly high priced because they were released in special sets and more or less a dead investment anyway (for the trader) since nobody will every buy them.
I wish mtgo would become more accessible in the future, because lower card prices will bring back more players. like in RL, magic should first be a game and then a secondary market buisness model.

im surprised how f2p friendly arena is (for now), so i play it a lot. its also fun because not everybody runs netdecks (for now)

Agreed, MTGA's accessibility is incredible. If you're just playing the constructed ladder it will match you up against people with "similarly powerful decks" whatever that means. I think it goes based on the number of rares/mythics in your deck, which is a decent enough guideline until people figure out the actual equation and exploit it. I've gotten decent games even with stuff like tokens decks. The rock deck I'm making with all the rares/mythics I have finds similarly powerful decks to play against as well so it seems like they're doing that pretty well.

With the card economy as nice as it is, I don't see myself ever buying an online card again from MTGO (although I quit that a long time ago).

The average playskill is laughable, if you do guilds drafts (fun set btw) you'll have a pretty easy time going infinite. Might be people getting used to the client and how clicking once can skip your main phase or whatever, but for now it's "profitable."

Also, I'll say the auto-tap lands thing is generally good. I use it out of laziness and it only screws up how I'd want to tap once every few games, and usually not in a game losing way.

[Humphrey]

careful with the autotap though, but once you know how it works you can still manually tap. it wont use colorless special lands otherwise or tap you out of colors. running a couple of duals makes it very convenient though.

[Aggro_zombies]

I've started playing Arena a bit recently since drafting paper doesn't consistently work with my schedule and I hate MTGO.

Man, this program is...very "in beta".

I get disconnected at the end of probably 95% of my games. I googled the problem and it seems I can fix it by fucking with the ports on my router but I'd really rather not potentially compromise my security to try to get Arena to be mildly less annoying. Also, it seems that the Arena development team's stance on the issue is that it's client-side and not on their end, so all the complaints people have been submitting have met with polite corporate "fuck you"s. That doesn't give me a lot of hope for it going forward, when real bugs start cropping up.

Also, it's really irritating that there doesn't seem to be a way to disable the auto-turn-pass feature, which makes it incredibly obvious when one player has an instant. Making decisions about whether to play around or into certain spells is now super easy because there will be a giant glowing neon sign that says, "I HAVE A RESPONSE" whenever your opponent fails to breeze through the steps and phases of their turn. There's basically no point to holding mana up and/or not running out your entire hand if you don't have an instant unless you're trying to dodge mass removal or something.

It does seem to be F2P friendly, at least relative to Hearthstone, but unlike that game you can't dust cards you don't want to make cards you do and the card pool is bigger, so making the decks you want is actually a bigger grind. If you made the same mistake I did and built a Standard deck that's now off-meta, you're kind of SOL because getting the rare/mythic wildcards is a sloooooooow process. Drafting lets you keep the cards (nice!) but drafting without paying money for at least an initial stockpile of gems is basically impossible (boo!) and the draft robots seem to have sub-Bestiaire level AI and avoid Boros and Dimir like the plague, meaning 80+% of your opponents are on one of those two decks (super boo!).

I haven't been impressed so far and I'm waffling on whether I want to keep going with it or pick up Gwent or Eternal instead. It does look pretty, though.

[Barook]

I've started playing Arena a bit recently since drafting paper doesn't consistently work with my schedule and I hate MTGO.

Man, this program is...very "in beta".

I get disconnected at the end of probably 95% of my games. I googled the problem and it seems I can fix it by fucking with the ports on my router but I'd really rather not potentially compromise my security to try to get Arena to be mildly less annoying. Also, it seems that the Arena development team's stance on the issue is that it's client-side and not on their end, so all the complaints people have been submitting have met with polite corporate "fuck you"s. That doesn't give me a lot of hope for it going forward, when real bugs start cropping up.

Also, it's really irritating that there doesn't seem to be a way to disable the auto-turn-pass feature, which makes it incredibly obvious when one player has an instant. Making decisions about whether to play around or into certain spells is now super easy because there will be a giant glowing neon sign that says, "I HAVE A RESPONSE" whenever your opponent fails to breeze through the steps and phases of their turn. There's basically no point to holding mana up and/or not running out your entire hand if you don't have an instant unless you're trying to dodge mass removal or something.

It does seem to be F2P friendly, at least relative to Hearthstone, but unlike that game you can't dust cards you don't want to make cards you do and the card pool is bigger, so making the decks you want is actually a bigger grind. If you made the same mistake I did and built a Standard deck that's now off-meta, you're kind of SOL because getting the rare/mythic wildcards is a sloooooooow process. Drafting lets you keep the cards (nice!) but drafting without paying money for at least an initial stockpile of gems is basically impossible (boo!) and the draft robots seem to have sub-Bestiaire level AI and avoid Boros and Dimir like the plague, meaning 80+% of your opponents are on one of those two decks (super boo!).

I haven't been impressed so far and I'm waffling on whether I want to keep going with it or pick up Gwent or Eternal instead. It does look pretty, though.
Against my better judgement, I started playing Arena this weekend. It feels kinda nostalgic to build shitty decks to play against other shitty decks.

That said, the economy is pretty ass and their solution to the Vault being shit is hiding it being shit (unless you look up the current value in your log - good job, you incompetent chucklefucks). And boy, this whole Vault thing is ass:


Mythic — 1.1%
Rare — 0.5%
Uncommon — 0.3%
Common — 0.1%

Opening the Vault requires getting duplicates through packs/drafting: 900 common, 300 uncommon, 180 rare, or 90 mythic rares duplicates. Duplicates progress define value of 1 mythic = 2 rares = 3.3 uncommon = 10 common duplicate cards. Therefore, the value of a single Vault with 1 mythic, 2 rare and 3 uncommon wildcards is equal to 3 mythic wildcards. That way a single wildcard of any rarity equals 30 duplicates of the same rarity.
90 mythics = 1 mythic wildcard payout. Good riddance.

I might play it for a while for the novelty of it, but anybody who spends money on this (who isn't a content creator) is insane. Burning money is probably more profitable than this. Alot of people are in for a rude awakening sooner or later.

[morgan_coke]

Against my better judgement, I started playing Arena this weekend. It feels kinda nostalgic to build shitty decks to play against other shitty decks.

That said, the economy is pretty ass and their solution to the Vault being shit is hiding it being shit (unless you look up the current value in your log - good job, you incompetent chucklefucks). And boy, this whole Vault thing is ass:


90 mythics = 1 mythic wildcard payout. Good riddance.

I might play it for a while for the novelty of it, but anybody who spends money on this (who isn't a content creator) is insane. Burning money is probably more profitable than this. Alot of people are in for a rude awakening sooner or later.

Funnily enough, those %'s are actually HIGHER than they were in the closed beta.

[Bithlord]

That said, the economy is pretty ass and their solution to the Vault being shit is hiding it being shit (unless you look up the current value in your log - good job, you incompetent chucklefucks). And boy, this whole Vault thing is ass:


Throughout the entirety of closed Beta, they made absolutely ZERO attempts to improve the economy. All of their economy tweaks were designed to keep the same acquisition rates, and just present them in different ways that they hoped wouldn't "feel as bad". They are locked in on the card acquisition rates, and they are not going to change them.

[Phoenix Ignition]

With all of the new players on MTGA I'm surprised all of you are having such a hard time with staying at least even while drafting. If you don't have a bomb you can force dimir and win pretty easy. With daily gold payouts you can pretty easily keep to ~1 draft/day (where you get to keep all your drafted cards!) without ever putting money in. In the future when new players aren't so abundant I'm betting it will be much harder, but right now you get to just farm these noobs.

As for the economy, I guess I'm not that huge into standard so I'm happy with my 1 deck that's about 80% of where I want it to be in terms of card selection. I could finish it, but I'm not willing to waste rare wildcards on the manabase when I only lose like 1 in 20 games because of it. I haven't gotten to play Abzan in modern/legacy in a long time and it's pretty great in standard, so it's a lot of fun.

If you compare the amount of money it takes to build a deck here with MTGO I'm guessing MTGA wins by far.



Also, it's really irritating that there doesn't seem to be a way to disable the auto-turn-pass feature, which makes it incredibly obvious when one player has an instant. Making decisions about whether to play around or into certain spells is now super easy because there will be a giant glowing neon sign that says, "I HAVE A RESPONSE" whenever your opponent fails to breeze through the steps and phases of their turn. There's basically no point to holding mana up and/or not running out your entire hand if you don't have an instant unless you're trying to dodge mass removal or something.

This is probably my favorite part of MTGA. You can click on a phase to have it auto yield for that phase, or hit control to bluff you have a response to something. It's so underused that you can so very easily mindgame people that you do have a spell. I'm guessing most opponents won't really notice, but for those who do it will absolutely make them misplay around your bluffed card (holding space auto-passes priority so you can bluff not having a card if you want as well).

[alderon666]

What annoys me the most is the inconsistency of the phase auto-passing.
On MODO you set up your stops, and after some time, you get the flow of it and get to play without thinking too much.

On Arena, the phases auto-pass following certain fixed rules, but if you're not paying attention you'll skip phases and turns because you didn't realize you had no instants in hand.

[morgan_coke]

After briefly stabilizing last week, a complete MTGO collection dropped another $1000 this week. That's $7000 total over the last month. Which is like, a lot. Seems to be concentrated in Vintage/Legacy staples at this point, but who knows if that will continue or not. "Arena Modern" is supposed to debut next year at rotation, and they have cards at least back through one of the Innistrad's already programmed (this is known from the Beta), so who knows what the future holds.

In other, related news, they also just updated the interface for MTGO, so maybe they're serious about this whole "double program" thing, at least for now. It's a pretty standard WOTC style mess.

[Megadeus]

I'm surprised the legacy and modern stuff would lose value when MTGO is the only platform to play those formats. I figure standard cards wouldwould tank

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

In other, related news, they also just updated the interface for MTGO, so maybe they're serious about this whole "double program" thing, at least for now. It's a pretty standard WOTC style mess.

I suspect thats WOTC leaving a backdoor in case Arena tanks. It's looking good so far (the community seems to like it and the pros do as well) but WOTC has an at best mediocre track record when it comes to digital anything really so who knows.


I'm surprised the legacy and modern stuff would lose value when MTGO is the only platform to play those formats. I figure standard cards wouldwould tank

The writing is on the wall for MTGO, may as well not hold onto any cards in MTGO if you don't absolutely have to. Standard has a lot of hype behind it plus it's a pro tour format (Arena isn't quite there yet, although Sam Black has mentioned wanting to test for the pro tour on Arena)

[apple713]

What is happening with the masterpiece series in MTG Arena? Are these included or totally omitted? Maybe they will add them later?

Also, did WOTC ever explain why they dont include complete packs? 15 cards per pack...

Grinding in this game feels terrible.

Although there are bugs to work out the platform shows promise. If only MTGO was like this in some capacity instead of the shit show it is now.

I could see WOTC using the money from this game to create all the cards for MTGO and then and only then would they switch MTGO to this style of game play. So we're talking like 1-2 years depending on how committed they are.

Also, they really need better game designers. The UX just seems inferior to hearthstone. UX is the main thing blizz tends to get right and it's consistent throughout their games. I dont know how else to describe it but MTG Arena seems flat and lifeless.

[apple713]

I suspect thats WOTC leaving a backdoor in case Arena tanks. It's looking good so far (the community seems to like it and the pros do as well) but WOTC has an at best mediocre track record when it comes to digital anything really so who knows.



The writing is on the wall for MTGO, may as well not hold onto any cards in MTGO if you don't absolutely have to. Standard has a lot of hype behind it plus it's a pro tour format (Arena isn't quite there yet, although Sam Black has mentioned wanting to test for the pro tour on Arena)


This is the perfect time to buy into MTGO. They arn't going to kill MTGO and MTG arena will NEVER replace MTGO. What'll happen is that people will sell out of MTGO move to MTG arena. Then once WOTC is able to improve the interface for MTGO they will and ppl will move back to it. MTGO is the closest thing to irl mtg that will ever happen. Of course the interface is garbage but i'm referring to the things like trading and packs actually containing 15 cards.

[Lemnear]

This is the perfect time to buy into MTGO. They arn't going to kill MTGO and MTG arena will NEVER replace MTGO. What'll happen is that people will sell out of MTGO move to MTG arena. Then once WOTC is able to improve the interface for MTGO they will and ppl will move back to it. MTGO is the closest thing to irl mtg that will ever happen. Of course the interface is garbage but i'm referring to the things like trading and packs actually containing 15 cards.

For quite a long time MTGO was the ONLY choice you had. That has changed and I can see that plenty of players moving to MTGA due to its superior interface, more players and evasion of secondary market insanity. For Legacy and Vintage you wont have many alternatives to MTGO, but these formats aside, I have a tough time justifying to go for MTGO tbh

[Tylert]

I do agree with Lemnear.
If hearthstone has so much sucess, it's due to its good interface.
MTGA has the good interface that makes everything easier for people and this is the Platform they will promote.
At one point in time, MTGO will go away. Not yet, but it's nearly sure...

[morgan_coke]

Here's the thing though. WotC doesn't actually decide when MTGO will end. It will end, regardless of what WotC does, once the major bot chains decide it's a losing proposition.

[iatee]

In other, related news, they also just updated the interface for MTGO, so maybe they're serious about this whole "double program" thing, at least for now. It's a pretty standard WOTC style mess.

Yeah, they put batman symbols on planeswalkers. Perhaps they're purposely sabotaging the program at this point.

[Barook]

Perhaps they're purposely sabotaging the program at this point.
Isn't sabotaging MTGO their general modus operandi? :eyebrow:

On topic: I'm already bored with Arena. God, the reward system is complete garbage.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

This is the perfect time to buy into MTGO. They arn't going to kill MTGO and MTG arena will NEVER replace MTGO. What'll happen is that people will sell out of MTGO move to MTG arena. Then once WOTC is able to improve the interface for MTGO they will and ppl will move back to it. MTGO is the closest thing to irl mtg that will ever happen. Of course the interface is garbage but i'm referring to the things like trading and packs actually containing 15 cards.

They’ve had how many years to fix MTGO and they haven’t yet, they are not going to, they don’t want to (or lack the resources to). Arena likely would not exist if fixing MTGO was seriously considered.

[apple713]

They’ve had how many years to fix MTGO and they haven’t yet, they are not going to, they don’t want to (or lack the resources to). Arena likely would not exist if fixing MTGO was seriously considered.

I agree that resources was the issue. MTGA helps with that because it is a significantly smaller project to undertake than MTGO, (lower startup costs). Additionally, it will generate cash flows while they finish developing. There are tons of cards they need to program into MTGO with the MTGA code and they can work on it while MTGA is generating cash flows.

I dont see the F2P model as something ideal for competitive magic. I see MTGA catering to a casual crowd and MTGO, after its been remade, taking over.

[Lemnear]

I agree that resources was the issue. MTGA helps with that because it is a significantly smaller project to undertake than MTGO, (lower startup costs). Additionally, it will generate cash flows while they finish developing. There are tons of cards they need to program into MTGO with the MTGA code and they can work on it while MTGA is generating cash flows.

I dont see the F2P model as something ideal for competitive magic. I see MTGA catering to a casual crowd and MTGO, after its been remade, taking over.

Sounds like a lot of work requested for WotC to be put into an old software just to support Formats WotC knowingly doesnt care about and a shady secondary market they gain nothing from.

From a business perspective, there is next to no point putting work into MTGO after MTGA has been established. Judging from the financial development in MTGO in the last 3 weeks, I dont think people have much faith for MTGOs future and slowly cashing out as prices and user numbers decline.

[Ahab]

You need tix to enter events, every event "destroys" tix as the price payout is lower than the total tix required to start it. Also trading with bots requires tix, which are bought directly from wotc. That's different from a normal market where cash is allowed. So if the market grows because people are buying more cards, are drafting etc. this means more cash for wotc. Compare this with the physical card market, where the financial gains for wotc from my purchases of old cards are indirect at best.

[JosefK]

Yeah, i think the mtgo model will still be with us until the death of MTG. I will never play Arena unless i can buy exactly the cards i want up front. I don't care for collecting or opening boosters to slowly build a deck. I want a way to play paper mtg on the internet and MTGO gives me that (or at least close enough). It might not be that MTGO the client will remain, but i think the model that closely follow how paper magic works will remain. Hopefully an eventual replacement for MTGO will keep the collections, but i don't think Arena ever will be that replacement. Arena will be a f2p version of MTG.
The absolute worst thing that could happen is that they start to "dumb" down paper mtg to be better suited for online play, like removing some phases or removing some priority shifts. That would really annoy me.

[MorphBerlin]

Sounds like a lot of work requested for WotC to be put into an old software just to support Formats WotC knowingly doesnt care about and a shady secondary market they gain nothing from.

From a business perspective, there is next to no point putting work into MTGO after MTGA has been established. Judging from the financial development in MTGO in the last 3 weeks, I dont think people have much faith for MTGOs future and slowly cashing out as prices and user numbers decline.

Arena really is the future and anybody how doubts it will be the focal point of digital magic moving forwards. Heck, as a competitive Legacy and Casual EDH player I just bought 20k gems for playing standard (obviously it helps that it is really great atm) and even draft (I never thought that) for the first time. Those formats are actually fun with the the speed of MTGA. I have actually not played legacy on mtgo because it feels like such a slug...

I doubt though that the decline of mtgo will be as rapid as you describe. Modern is still the most played format there and as long as their financal benefits from modern, legacy, cube and throwback drafts etc outweigh the additional resources the have to put into keeping mtgo up2date. I doubt we will see much improvement on the software but I will think newe cards will still be coded for quite some time. It will be interesting though how the economy develops if moving forward almost all of standard and current draft will happen on mtga. How will new cards get into the system because currently draft is the main way besides chest right?


You need tix to enter events, every event "destroys" tix as the price payout is lower than the total tix required to start it. Also trading with bots requires tix, which are bought directly from wotc. That's different from a normal market where cash is allowed. So if the market grows because people are buying more cards, are drafting etc. this means more cash for wotc. Compare this with the physical card market, where the financial gains for wotc from my purchases of old cards are indirect at best.

Sure but that percentage is really low right? I am too lazy too calculate it now but I have a win% in legacy barely above 50% and I very rarely need to buy tix and can actually exand my collection with what I win. (selling all chests to bots of course)


Yeah, i think the mtgo model will still be with us until the death of MTG. I will never play Arena unless i can buy exactly the cards i want up front. I don't care for collecting or opening boosters to slowly build a deck. I want a way to play paper mtg on the internet and MTGO gives me that (or at least close enough). It might not be that MTGO the client will remain, but i think the model that closely follow how paper magic works will remain. Hopefully an eventual replacement for MTGO will keep the collections, but i don't think Arena ever will be that replacement. Arena will be a f2p version of MTG.
The absolute worst thing that could happen is that they start to "dumb" down paper mtg to be better suited for online play, like removing some phases or removing some priority shifts. That would really annoy me.

IMo you will be the minorty moving forward. If legacy and edh were on arena I would instantly throw my money there. Arena is that replacement if you like it or not, it's not f2p (for competitive play). You can play Arena just like PaperMTG if you need to (full control mode), and when you play you will see that the speed up version is actually fine 90% of the time and improves the gaming experience so much.

[JosefK]

I probably should try Arena before I talk about it :) But currently I really have zero interest in it so i guess I just stop talking instead :) Its cool to know that in 5 years we will have the answer!

[apple713]

Sounds like a lot of work requested for WotC to be put into an old software just to support Formats WotC knowingly doesnt care about and a shady secondary market they gain nothing from.

From a business perspective, there is next to no point putting work into MTGO after MTGA has been established. Judging from the financial development in MTGO in the last 3 weeks, I dont think people have much faith for MTGOs future and slowly cashing out as prices and user numbers decline.

Digital MTG is actually the only way they can make money off of those eternal formats. There is a demand they can't meet in paper magic because of the reserve list.

As for the secondary market, if WOTC was smart, they would implement a store feature where WOTC was the only "bot" and the price was determined by pure supply and demand. A good implementation of what i'm referring to is the WoW token that exists in world of warcraft. No one complains about the price because it's 100% supply/demand driven.


Yeah, i think the mtgo model will still be with us until the death of MTG. I will never play Arena unless i can buy exactly the cards i want up front. I don't care for collecting or opening boosters to slowly build a deck. I want a way to play paper mtg on the internet and MTGO gives me that (or at least close enough). It might not be that MTGO the client will remain, but i think the model that closely follow how paper magic works will remain. Hopefully an eventual replacement for MTGO will keep the collections, but i don't think Arena ever will be that replacement. Arena will be a f2p version of MTG.

You hit the nail on the head here. MTG Arena can't be a competitive or even a real replacement for MTGO because people cannot buy the cards they want. They don't even have a reliable way to collect them. It's actually kinda sad that MTGA puts competitive magic so far out of reach for the majority of players. However, that is probably WOTC's plan. Use MTGA as a way to introduce players to magic without investing a bunch of money then once they are hooked, get them to play MTGO where then can drop big dollars buying decks and playing competitively.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I probably should try Arena before I talk about it :) But currently I really have zero interest in it so i guess I just stop talking instead :) Its cool to know that in 5 years we will have the answer!If you have no interest in standard, I wouldn’t bother. It’s unlikely to have modern/legacy for a long time (if at all, although I’d guess they’d eventually want those formats to exist in it).

[Lemnear]

As for the secondary market, if WOTC was smart, they would implement a store feature where WOTC was the only "bot" and the price was determined by pure supply and demand.

-snip-

You hit the nail on the head here. MTG Arena can't be a competitive or even a real replacement for MTGO because people cannot buy the cards they want.

So if they implement a shop into Arena to buy cards (even old ones) they can axe MTGO?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

As for the secondary market, if WOTC was smart, they would implement a store feature where WOTC was the only "bot" and the price was determined by pure supply and demand. A good implementation of what i'm referring to is the WoW token that exists in world of warcraft. No one complains about the price because it's 100% supply/demand driven.

They're digital objects, if you use supply and demand everything would be free because the supply is infinite.

[morgan_coke]

So if they implement a shop into Arena to buy cards (even old ones) they can axe MTGO?

Arena has Wildcards. They'd just sell wildcards rather than old cards or new cards, or any cards, and let players turn them into whatever they want. But it's more profitable for them to hide the wildcards behind RNG and nonsense and sell packs, so they do that instead.