wotc_Cromulous

This is a bit of feedback that I've seen a few times and that makes a lot of sense! Gems are technically more valuable than gold, since they have better buying power in a few situations, but you need to be hyper fluent in the Arena economy for that to feel like it matters very much. For many other players, it's kind of unsatisfying. We'll certainly be taking this into account for the future.

<3

We will absolutely do it again - in one form or another. :)

Sure. As we were starting up the Workshop series, we were looking at all kinds of sources for decks content - this is a new feature, and it wasn't clear (still isn't!) what kinds of things players would enjoy or hate. One source we tapped was the old NPE precon decks that you see here (and there's another Workshop coming in a few weeks that uses a different set of decks from the same family).

For a couple reasons, this Workshop didn't get as much direct scrutiny during development: one, these decks came from that common source, and two, having three decks is a bit of a backstop for lopsided matchups (as players can go try the third deck instead of beating their heads against the unfavored one). We certainly don't want to put up an imbalanced scenario, but we have limited time and attention, and we focus them where we think they will do the most good.

That said, regardless of the "expected" deck balance, experience with the tools will make a noticeable diffe...

Sadly, our Emblem Guy headed off to a deserted island with some animal friends at the last minute, so here we are... ;)

I kid, I kid. Really, we just try to mix up the types of events we offer, especially within a connected series like the Festival. Different Magic players like different play experiences, and we want to provide a wide spread - something for everyone, you know? Emblem events are sweet, but they can be taxing for newer players who don't own the more offbeat cards, and many players just don't enjoy building a whole new deck for a temporary event.

I hope you still got those styles and that it was at least interesting for you, even if it wasn't what you were expecting. And thanks for the feedback! #wotcstaff

I'll be around. :)

This is a somewhat delicate matchup. Both decks have nigh-unbeatable draws, and games can be quite precipitous. The difference between, say, playing an accelerant to help offset a land-light draw, versus losing it to a Drill Bit, can make the rest of the game look either pedestrian or impossible.

That said, this one did turn out kind of harsh. It's almost exactly 60/40 for Empty Throne, which is outside the range I consider "successful," even for an event that only requires one win. (For some background, the enchantments deck had a lot of trouble taking off during testing - too many hands that just petered out or folded to a little disruption. I spent multiple iterations boosting its resiliency and adding a little inevitability, but it seems I Went Too Far.)

Hey, thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

We sent Bolas and [[Chandra, Fire Artisan]] to their rooms with everyone else. They do *technically* have passives, but they really aren't going to work the way players would want, so we thought we'd save folks a little pain.

And, uh, it looks like [[Jace, Arcane Strategist]] got hit with the banstick despite having a viable passive? That's an error on our part, but at this point, we're probably gonna let it ride. Sorry about that. :|

#wotcstaff

:o

Is it possible to learn this power?

I'm not familiar with this card. Can you explain what it does?

That is about the same shape as the internal numbers - very tight, with the Scions ever so slightly ahead (like, sub-51% last I looked). Go team Kenrith!

Thanks!

I, uh, would like to see this list.

For science.

When you run enough trials, you're going to get a few fun-looking outliers.

For the record, we consider it important and positive that weird situations can happen. Predictability is a major concern, so even if we know a color is strong and can support a lot of drafters, we don't hard-code a fixed number of them into every table. We just arrange the numbers so that they usually end up there - but it's not for sure, and it's up to the player to figure out what their specific table is up to.

Anyway, don't worry, the bots like black just fine. :)

This isn't *universally* true - there are situations in which the automated drafters will take cards outside their colors. But that can easily not come up by pick 4 in a pack.

In general, though, you are correct to point out that a multicolor card is less likely to fit any given drafter's colors and therefore more likely to be passed (whether they're automated or human).

I appreciated reading this.

I joined the Arena team partway through this year, and this was a good, salient reminder of all the change that brought Arena up to that point. (Not to mention all the change that has happened since, of course, but the things that I wasn't around for are harder to internalize.)

Thank you for your effort here, both in the snapshots and in your personal thoughts.

Hey, glad you're enjoying it!

That mostly matches our internal data from earlier today: https://twitter.com/MTG_Arena/status/1205570343898759169

I see no lie here.