wotc_Cromulous

No more for at least a while. We have a lot of content and features that need our focus right now, but in the future, hey, who knows?

That said, even if the Workshop series is on ice, we still learned a lot about offbeat experiences and what players enjoy. That knowledge isn't going anywhere. You'll probably see some stuff that might have been in a Workshop show up in FNMs, Festivals, or other events.

Dogs are actually running (very slightly) ahead across all players.

Absolutely. We also especially pay attention to cases where winners come away more "sad" than usual or losers are especially "happy." (Just recently, the Mastermind workshop fell into both categories, which is an interesting case.)

When you get the survey, your opponent always does, too. We divide the responses by the game result, because as you guessed, winners tend to be happy more frequently.

#blessed

You will just lose to players having more-explosive draws on turn 1.

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."

Of course, that experience can still be frustrating. At least for this event, we tried to also make it as fast and fantastic to watch as possible. :-)

Unfortunately for this specific case, the stock Omniscience emblem that we use does have limits. We considered some solutions, but they were either unsatisfying, too expensive at the time, or had undesired side effects. As it stands, the Apex cards in the event are daunting enough monsters to make the grade on their own, and finding another mutate card to activate them can be a cool success moment - but I certainly appreciate that it's a bit unintutive.

And just to note, while I was willing to live with this for a controlled specialty event, I do consider it a must-solve for looking at a full-on Ikoria Omniscience draft.

It's a trade-off. Like any limited-time event in any venue, a shorter timeframe can draw people in because it feels more special. Also, more people are playing at once instead of being spread out - queue health is always something we have in mind for specialty events.

As for closing entries, we just want to make sure that anyone entering has enough time to play the games they need. Even if you could enter 5 minutes before the event ended, you wouldn't be able to actually get the prizes.

Hmm, that read a little more definitive than I wanted. It's not about forcing everyone to play big stuff - it's just making it feel like a possible choice, since it's thematic for the set. Anyway, we try to save the super-long ban lists for events like Shakeup.

Our thought process was pretty straightforward:

• Treasure helps you ramp into giant, crazy stuff.
• Agent scales with how giant and crazy your opponent's stuff is.
• Treasure helps you ramp into Agent - even if you're not playing ramp or playing blue!

This event is supposed to be about doing wild stuff, and having Agent looming over things is a way to make people not want to be so wild. Nothing more than that.

All decks in the Heroes workshops are decks from actual players that went for 7 wins on the live server. (I don't think we differentiate between 7-0/7-1/7-2, though.)

This was really a victim of how quickly language develops. We weren't on guard to differentiate between a solid deck with some cycling synergy layered on top for extra kick vs. the extremely specific set of cards that players now refer to as "The Cycling Deck." Given how that label is now used, I would have chosen a different name for this deck in hindsight.

Anyway, even if the deck is somewhat unconventional, it still got 7 wins!

Hawk is non-interactive in its own ways. A large Paradise Druid can be answered in ways a large Hawk can't - say, with a Foulmire Knight to block or a bunch of tokens to attack around it and race.

To be clear, all three of the decks I named were at levels that could justify some kind of action. We would prefer to hit a single enabler that crossed many problematic archetypes than do individual cards for each. This was an opportunity to do some good in a lot of places with (relatively) minimal upheaval.

We don't love doing preemptive bans, and this was locked in well before Ikoria even came out, let alone any specific piece of content. If this deck is as prevalent as the general expectation, there will be some action for next time.

Last time we ran an Artisan event, Hawk had a very high win rate and play rate. We were pretty surprised to see it, so we dug in a bit more, and it turns out it was a meaningful component of multiple top-performing decks: lifegain, enchantments, and flyers. The numbers were extreme enough that we thought it warranted action.

There's a brand-new dance based on an old phrase!

There is a meaningful selection effect in players who use third-party trackers. The actual numbers are around 73/27.

We have the raw numbers internally. They aren't quite that extreme, but they are significant. The point of my post was that we are aware this event missed the mark.

I am, thanks for asking.

And yep, players are struggling more with the Vadrok deck. It is naturally harder to be the one trying to find the perfect spot for each spell, but as currently constructed, it looks like it's too difficult to piece that together. The overall card quality in Vadrok's deck was sort of forced down in order to provide enough grist for both mutating and cheap spells, and we didn't dock enough points from Chevil to keep things in line.

For those out there fighting the good fight with Vadrok:

• Kill Chevil. At instant speed, right before playing your creatures. Use the free mulligan.
• Create tokens. The Chevil deck does have some removal, but not enough to keep up. Even just two tokens can be enough to secure you a mutate target.
• Amass tokens are serious-business mutations.

Me and one of our Duel Scene devs every time I bring up Battle of Wits

Let's just call it an ongoing conversation.