wotc_Cromulous

So that Constructed months and Limited months are identical opportunities.

One of the goals of the new system was to be simple, and in this case, that meant making the monthly events as directly comparable as possible. As soon as there is some variation in the entry prices, or in what you get from the events, there's now a difference in the value of different months that players have to unpack and calculate. Everyone would need to know a lot more about the system in order to figure out what's "correct" for them - and we would prefer that decision be much simpler, and just based on things like their preferred formats.

I'll admit it's awkward that the first month was Limited, so players haven't seen a Constructed version yet to compare to.

Thanks for the report. We will get a fix into the pipeline.

Players are encouraged to respond to whatever incentive you offer. If you need to play 10 instants, but don't need to win, the optimal path is not to brew a spells-matter deck (especially if it would cost wildcards). It is to make a Cantrip Tribal deck that completes the requirement quickly.

Yep, this is the exact problem. Players will search for the most efficient way to accrue value, even at the expense of their own (and certainly others') fun. We sometimes talk about alternative progression systems internally, but they all have their own issues. With daily wins, at least the incentive is aligned with the inherent and expected goal of a game of Magic.

That doesn't mean we'll never have another system, and we certainly won't stop thinking about it. But anything we consider would have to clear a pretty big hurdle to be better than the simplicity of "play to win the game." (And for all you memelords out there, we'd probably have to...

Yes... Ha ha ha... YES!

For what it's worth, I am looking to solve this. If you could take a screenshot of one or more of the affected decks and add it to this post, and optimally an export of the decklists as well, that would help us figure out what state you're in that isn't clearly displaying itself.

No. They were never legal in this format previously.

Cards (and packet themes) will be removed when they rotate out.

It is the unfortunate fate of all last-of-the-rotational-year sets that their time with us is so short. Let us remember it fondly...

That won't be happening, I'm afraid. Once it gets close enough to rotation, we stop running Quick Drafts of the sets that are about to rotate out, so we are skipping AFR and going straight to the sets that will remain in Standard and Alchemy after the fall.

Nothing specific to share yet, but it's not, like, right around the corner. There are a lot of pieces to that puzzle because it deals with cards and decks rather than just cosmetic items; it just felt worth calling out because it's all part of how players get to present themselves in game, and we know players are very interested in it.

Just to be clear, a Blood Artist pointed at yourself still gains you the life back, so it's almost always a wash that results in no change to the board state. This change does mean that you can't be forced to kill yourself if the opponent has, say, both Shalai and a Rampaging Ferocidon, but that's such a narrow case that we feel it's well worth it for the improved play experience.

We are still figuring out what happened here, but I don't think there is even a dev-facing setting to choose that could cause this. The reward display is (supposed to be) determined directly from the way the rewards are given. To be honest, I didn't even think it was possible to have the event giving rewards one way (in this case, only at the end) and displaying them another, but hey, we learn something new every day.

As to "why events," well, even when it's not a new previously-impossible behavior, they involve tons of different pieces of data and pass through multiple hands on the way to the user. Even at a low error rate, over a large enough data set, some loose ends happen. We're always finding new ways to improve the process and make things more error-proof, but the nature of development is to also be constantly inventing new types of errors to make.

Oh, and events are also highly player-facing - moreso than almost any element of the game, other than t...

I know it's popular to demonize the company, but that's a pretty rude backhanded comment, and I don't appreciate it.

Those "+"s are a visual glitch - you only get 100 gold total, as long as you finish with at least 1 win. (Sorry about that, the UI wasn't supposed to be part of the foolin'.)

The Reality Chip does have a lot of types, but it doesn't quite fit any of the supported blue themes in this build. Maybe next time.

That is all I have to say.

I can tell you that Neon Dynasty is well-represented in the card list. (Turns out, when you're trying to find cards that cross over between two or three themes, sagas with three chapters and multiple card types can be preeeetty handy.)

No ticket needed, we should be able to find everyone ourselves since we already know what to look for. We will let folks know when this is happening, and if you still haven't gotten it after that point, then send in a ticket.

Thanks for the report, we are on it.

Just to set expectations, resolution will most likely come next week. We'll grant the showcase style to anyone who got the depth art from the event, and the event will be fixed for the remainder of its run.

To be clear, that was supposed to only change the "default sort" - that is, the placeholder that determines which cards are shown until you choose a format by hand. We do want players to be able to see and choose their Alchemy cards in this state if they are just flipping pages aimlessly, but also to still be able to easily choose whatever format they actually intended. The format selector getting overridden and not displaying anymore is a bug.

As for what people are basing their takes off, I generally assume it is their in-client experience.

It's a bug. When you create a new deck, the client is supposed to show the format dropdown right away in the main deckbuilder. It's documented in our system, and we will get a fix out when we can.

(By the way, this would be an incredibly ineffective way to try to "force" players into a game mode anyway. Even if it did result in more decks of that type being saved, players still choose what format they want to play when they enter a queue or an event! It wouldn't accomplish anything except frustrating players, as evidenced by this and other posts about the issue.)