Magic The Gathering: Arena Dev Tracker

I'm on vacation (so you definitely don't see me posting) and I plan on digging into this more when I'm back, but I've been just playing as a customer and noticed something a little ironic. There is something to your theory that performance can degrade more on higher spec machines. We still have a number of per-frame memory allocations we are working on killing. So if you are running at a very high frame rate (I was around 250), you are allocating a lot more memory and, therefor, incurring a lot more garbage collections. Capping my FPS to 60 smoothed me out a lot. It's only one small piece of the puzzle, bit I though I'd mention it.

Not at a computer to double check my work, but you can add a minus sign to exclude a given term:

-e:ana

If you run out of time, autoresponder takes over. Autoresponder has one goal: successfully get to the end of the turn. It will do what it considers the simplest possible decisions to get there, regardless of how good those decisions are.

For selecting targets, it will pick the lowest id(s) it's offered. In this game, you appear to be player 1, so it picked you instead of your opponent player 2.

As far as I'm aware we have no plans on making this process "smarter". The (relative) simplicity of the system has a lot of advantages. If you are regularly running out of time with this deck, can you link a video of it so we can see if there are opportunities to improve the timer rules to support its play patterns? #wotc_staff

There is a dependency, even if either ordering should result in the same outcome: Sephara does [flying -> indestructible], Frogify removes all abilities including flying without any requirement. Therefore, all else being equal, Frogify's effect should apply first because it affects the "input" of Sephara's effect without caring about its output.

613.7a An effect is said to “depend on” another if (a) it’s applied in the same layer (and, if applicable, sublayer) as the other effect (see rules 613.1 and 613.3); (b) applying the other would change the text or the existence of the first effect, what it applies to, or what it does to any of the things it applies to; and (c) neither effect is from a characteristic-defining ability or both effects are from characteristic-defining abilities.

Frogify changes what Sephara applies to. #wotc_staff

Patch to the Game Rules Engine. Doing one of these currently involves taking down all of our match servers to update the engine, so we try to do it only at scheduled intervals. #wotc_staff

Did you mean [[Warden of Evos Isle]]?

Yaaay, I fixed it. As many in the comments here allude to, the problem was with dependency detection between "losing all abilities" and any effect that gives an ability if you have some ability (e.g. Sephara, or Kwende).

Because no dependency was detected, the effects assumed that the application of one of them would have no impact on which objects were affected by the other. So Sephara and Frogify both started thinking they applied to Alela, and after Frogify applied Sephara didn't recheck.

Detecting the dependency fixes the issue. Our next GRE patch is still a ways away, but this will be fixed in it. #wotc_staff

This is a bug. The intent is that muting the opp stops all pet animations, but there’s a bug that can cause the petting anim to get stuck on. We thought we had a fix in this update, but found out at the last minute that it didn’t fully prevent the problem. Should be fixed soon.

Thanks for the report, I see where the problem is ("exile until" effects specifically create return zone changes from the exile zone - since the Commander didn't end up there, the return effectively "fizzles"). We should have this fixed for the full rollout of Brawl. #wotc_staff

There are a lot of knobs and levers behind the scene we're flipping to try to balance the long term health of the game with players' abilities to craft cards. This is a tough balancing act. This pricing is where the team landed for wildcard redemption, and to offset this, we will be providing other avenues for players to add these cards to their collections such as through Historic events in November, Historic drafts, and future monthly Historic events.

Err, “closer bets” is “closed beta”. What I get for replying on my phone.

Yes, in most of closer bets enter was “pass to everything”, with shift+enter being “pass unless I have any responses”, but after many complaints we flipped those. To get the “hard pass” you’re looking for, use shift+enter.

To be fair, there are other card games out there where "then" does mean "if you do, then." I've always found that weird though. #wotc_staff

Thanks for the thoughts. On the 6-mana planeswalkers (from the planeswalker decks), we didn’t think of those as a big reward, just a nice extra thing to throw in to fill out players M20 collections. In retrospect, I wish that was more clear in the presentation. I’ll think on the other suggestions.

I've been playing for 20+ years myself, and, as someone with a pretty busy job, Arena has made it much easier for me to play the game I love. So you can imagine I'm pretty motivated make sure it stays great. Keep up the feedback (even if it sometimes means giving us hell). We honestly are always trying to do right by you and all the players, and it's helpful to hear where we are (and aren't) getting that right.

Refilling back up to 3, keeping any progress on existing quests.

You'll be able to get the 15 levels we mentioned through events and codes, yes. By my math we've got 9 out currently (2 codes for 2 levels each, 5 through the Planecation events). There's more coming too.

If you've purchased the Mastery Pass, you can click on any level you haven't gotten to yet to purchase your way to it. As we've said, this isn't the way we intend players to get their levels, and we'll be providing several options for players to earn the XP they're missing. But if this is the right answer for you, it's available now.

Mastery Orbs earned in M20 are only for that Mastery Pass. If you have unspent orbs for M20, the pass will stick around for you to be able to slot them in until the ELD pass ends.

You can earn M20 progress until early in the morning on 9/26; it ends just before the Eldraine pass begins. Also, when the the new pass starts we'll be fully refreshing all your quests and weekly wins, so you can start the new pass with a fresh slate.