Magic The Gathering: Arena

Magic The Gathering: Arena Dev Tracker




07 Jan

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For more information on the upcoming Android Early Access, please refer to today's announcement article.

Kaldheim Pre-Orders

Prepare to journey to the icy realms of Kaldheim! From now until January 28, you can pre-order Kaldheim on MTG Arena! Grab both pre-orders and Bjorn the beautiful blue bear will be yours!

Kaya Pack Bundle

Contents:

  • 50x Kaldheim Boosters
  • 1x Kaya the Inexorable Card
  • 1x Kaya the Inexorable Card Style
  • Inexorable Sleeve

Niko Play Bundle

Contents:

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    on News - Thread - Direct

Jan 7, 19:00 UTC
Completed - Scheduled maintenance is complete. Patch notes are available, here: https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/70148 Thank you!

Jan 7, 16:15 UTC
In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.

Jan 7, 16:10 UTC
Scheduled - We will be performing scheduled maintenance on January 7, 2021 at approximately 8 a.m. PT (16:00 UTC) to deploy the 1.15.01 game update. Maintenance is expected to last approximately three hours.

While no downtime is expected, this is a required update. Players who are logged in prior to the start of maintenance will be required to restart their client to download the patch.

Patch note...

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06 Jan

Comment

Originally posted by wwertywq

Okay I see, thank you for the reply! Sounds like a good concept to try to understand the game from the players point of view, and trying jank/off-meta decks would be the best way to do it, since those decks often are the most fun to play. Follow-up question: When you play on your "work-account" is it still like a normal account except for the orange name, or do you for instance have access to all cards in the game so you can try out a variety of decks?

I only have the one account on the live servers, and it works like everyone else's (barring name color). No special permissions, access, or anything like that. Since I like to be able to try out a variety of decks, I draft a lot and build elaborate spreadsheets to track getting to rare complete. I play a good bit, and it's also pretty easy to convince myself to spend on the game :)

Most real testing happens on our internal development servers. There everyone on the team has many accounts with 1000 WCs, etc. so they can test whatever they need to, try particular decks, whatever. For example, before each emblem event we'll have playtest rounds on these internal servers to help us test what does/doesn't need to be in the ban lists. But for understanding what the real metas feel like, there's no substitute for playing on live.

Comment

Originally posted by wwertywq

Thank you too, it was a really fun and great game! I got lucky with top-decking the shock, otherwise you would most likely have beaten me. Hope to meet you again, always up for the challenge ;)

In general there are a variety of reasons I'm playing: - First, I've been playing Magic since Dark/Fallen Empires, and I just really love the game :) - I want to understand what the player experience generally feels like. I complete my quests and weekly wins (almost) every week, just finished my ZNR pass, etc. I want to know first-hand how doing that feels. - For overall meta understanding we have a variety of other data/tools we use to get the whole sense, but I like to supplement that with some qualitative experience. The data does a good job of showing what is/isn't balanced; it does worse with showing what is/isn't fun to play with/against. - I really enjoy playing jank/off-meta, and recently I've been spending a lot of time in the Play queue so I can better understand how well the matchmaking is working there

Basically, I think it's really important for anyone making a game to be an active player so they have a good understanding of what that's like.

Comment

Originally posted by j2kent

I wonder if there are required to NOT play net decks or jank. Yah know?

Employees are free to play what they want on prod. Designers and others who mess with balance are encouraged to play a good variety of decks/modes so they understand the space, but it's really up to the individual. For me, I'm mostly playing limited or janky fun things in the play queue. This was my "Mindless Aggression of Birds" deck, which I was largely playing for my "Play 40 Creatures" quest.

Comment

That was a fun match; thanks for the game!

Also, to continue the theme here, I've been playing since closed beta (duh) and I've only played against 3 other orange names on the live servers.


02 Jan

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When you went to combat, could your angels actually not attack? When I get back to work on Monday I'll take a look. Very likely the game was marking them as unable to attack because they are indeed forbidden from attacking YOU and your planeswalkers by Sandwurm Convergence... as well as the normal rules of the game of course. #wotc_staff


22 Dec

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    on News - Thread - Direct

Dec 22, 00:25 UTC
Completed - Scheduled maintenance is complete. Patch notes are available, here: https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/69950 You may need to restart your client to see the Standard Shakeup event. Thank you!

Dec 21, 23:01 UTC
In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.

Dec 21, 19:19 UTC
Scheduled - We will be performing scheduled maintenance on December 21 at approximately 3 p.m. PT (23:00 UTC) to deploy the 1.15.00.02 event hot fix. Maintenance is expected to last approximately one hour.

This is a data only deployment, and no downtime is expected. Players are encouraged to restart their client once maintenance is co...

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Bug Fixes

  • Standard Shakeup rewards are now duplicate protected.

Events

  • In order to implement the bug fix for the Standard Shakeup event rewards, the event has been restarted. Players who had previously entered this event can rejoin to earn a duplicate protected reward (this event has no entry fee).
  • Traditional Arena Cube Draft dates have been extended. The event will now run until December 27.
  • The Traditional Tinker's Cube Draft dates have been extended. The event will now run January 15 - 28.



21 Dec


19 Dec

Comment

Originally posted by JohnleyStanson

BO3 limited is less populated because the usual reward structure scares people away. I love BO3 Magic and would play only this type of drafts, but as a decent not great player I will always lose gems on average, so if I want more drafts I have to play BO1 which I don't love. I'm referring not only to the cube, but also regular draft (where I lose 500 gems for going 2-1) or the draft challenge where I went 5-2 and was gold neutral). I can assure you BO3 queues would be full of life if the payoffs encouraged more people than just the top echelon, infinite drafters etc.

It's not just draft modes. It's also ladder, constructed events, even Day 1 of Arena Opens. Best-of-1 modes get played more. Players value the ability to play quick games.