The worst part is that the 'fix' for Arena/MTGO will, when it does come, almost certainly be **another** whole new client where you have to recollect/rebuy your cards all over again.
Yup. Get ready to buy your collection for the 4th time. But atleast you can cash out of paper and MTGO, but you can’t do anything with Arena, just a total 💰 loss.
The greed is too strong. I have said "put codes in paper packs" since the start of Arena. They are far too greedy for this....which led me to just printing Proxies for kitchen table. I love the game....why bother with their stupid prices? It costs me an ink cartridge...and I can play Vintage to Standard....Winning. I get nothing in Arena if I buy paper....and I really get nothing if I buy Digital. It's almost like Wizards is telling its Customers..."Go Away!" Well heard....and done.
Something interesting (I'd have to find the article) is wotc on their site released an article on how Emrakul came to arena, from the mouth of the team. What happened was they originally did not want to put Emrakul into the game because they didn't have the tech. It was due to one guy on his "free work time" coming to the wider team with a prototype of the tech that they would then work on for Emrakul. In addition, the team that is responsible for alchemy rebalancing is the same team that is responsible for adding new cards. Its clear that the people who are responsible for adding in things just don't have the people nor budget
It would be so much better if you could draft with friends like get yourself a pod and you all draft together hell make it so that players can make custom cubes and play them with their friends that would make draft get that social experience that is lacking in magic arena.
Yeah, digital formats like MTGO and MTGA are very useful for that exact thing, though I do prefer MTGO (simulator) over MTGA (video game) personally, both save people a lot of brain power when it comes to maths and keeping track of the game state.
I'm still annoyed that they released the face commanders for LCI onto Arena except for some reason, they decided not to put the Merfolk one. All the while, they are developing digital only cards that no one asked for and a lot of people don't like. Also, I accidentally crafted a Lae'zel (for Anim Pakal deck) because I wanted the paper version only to realize after the fact that she wasn't the same.
What's really insane, is that WotC has made multiplayer simulators in the past, they had the Duels of the Planeswalkers series of games, which from 2011 to 2015 was pretty decent, after the initial release, they added a new game mode with each iteration, of course removing a game mode as they went. We had Planechase, Archenemy, Two Headed Giant, Sealed etc. I truly believe, if it had not been for Arena, and the idea of chasing that e-sports high that they wanted, we'd have gotten a Duels 2016 which would've included a Commander game mode.
I love these games! I'm missing one xpack from 2014 and it drives me nuts, otherwise it was pretty rad you can actually heavily mod 2014 to play any card and deck you want (online too, as long as the other person has the same exact mods)
11:41 they are a publicly traded stock making insane return on what is probably a 6 person team. Building out commander would require a team bigger than that on the project alone, let alone maintaining what exists and what's coming out. The only way they improve the client is if people stop spending, which doesn't seem to be in the cards
Magic is also a unique case where there are so many rulings and complications these six people have to implement and have function. Theres a reason Yugioh has had several well made fan-made automated sims and Magic only has one singular unfinished one.
I hate the disconnectiom between digial and paper. I play mostly paper mtg and it would be awesome to be able to use my paper cards on arena with like a scanning system or something. Digital mtg should be able to transfer to paper getting value out if money is put into the client. Even 50% out for paper would be awesome.
Thankfully, MTGO still at least lets you convert full sets into paper. I remember back in the day you didn't even need a full set, you just needed to pay shipping.
Arena and paper aren’t even made by the same department at WOTC anymore, how are they meant to synergise when they have different bosses and different goals?
00:42 I stopped playing Arena when Alchemy happened. I decided to try MtGO a couple weeks ago and after getting the introductory bundle I looked at the interface, sighed, closed it and never reopened it. Haven't played even one game.
Oddly the UI is the best part. Pressing "ok" 24 times a turn and if you miss one the chess timer runs out while others wait as you don't realize you have a trigger It's terrible
I didn't stop playing Arena after Alchemy, but I sure as hell stopped buying gems for packs. Every pack I buy is earned through gold rewards from dailies now.
@@Aleblood That's what I did - I ended up with 15000 cards with 3500 rares and 800 or so mythics. Lots of sleeves and avators and stuff. I gave the account away a few months ago to a new RUclips Commander creator - I don't know if she's used it more than the once I saw on her channel but WotC hadn't given her a god account so I gave her an Apostle account.
In terms of Legacy cards from 40k, Rakdos Painter, a tier 1 legacy deck plays Chaos Defiler, which is also not on MODO. This is the reason why people don’t play Rakdos painter as much online, since Defiler being a big Welder target that can destroy permanents is a big reason to play RB over mono red
I think what upset me the most is the potential, that these two could be. They could made this like playing mtg n digital version, but nope they want to make it a homunculus deform child between Mtg and Hearthstone. Last time I checked they don't even have a spectator function, we can't even watch people playing the game like we did in lgs. (My apology if they already installed one)
The thing is Arena's card rules engine was designed to make it easier to implement cards faster. Implement a mechanic once, have the card engine implemented and UI designed, it would apply to every card using said mechanic. Had they planned Arena with paper's Pioneer from the start, it would have been the perfect tournament client to play Pioneer during the COVID years. They had the resources- they choose to dump it into Alchemy instead
Because Alchemy packs. It's all about profit now, sadly this is the way of most long running successful media. It will get watered down and whored out until no one wants to engage anymore then the suits cut losses and bankrupt a company and a legacy.
Honestly my biggest problem with Arena is just how often it freezes on me (on mobile). If I had a nickel for every time I nearly lost a game because I disconnected and didn't realize it, I'd have enough money to hire my own staff to fix the damn game :(
Desktop does the same. I've somewhat gotten the hang of telling the difference between a slow opponent and a freeze to be able to reboot quick enough to not get an L and, usually, not lose a turn. But, yeah, it's a big fucking bug that, given how long it's been going on, is either unfixable or they're just not willing to do so.
I regularly click on something to see if the game froze on mobile... that's a real issue. But when it's frozen I just restart the app and it gets me back into the game pretty quickly. Still a drag tho
@@EmperorSketzer That's fair. My big problem comes when I'm playing in the background, i.e. I am doing something else while playing arena. I won't be looking at the screen so I won't recognize that it is frozen until it's too late
right and people think adding two more spots for a commander game is a good idea great 3 guys hung up waiting for response. just one round of priority will kill it.
i find the board state much harder to read on arena, you have to hover over every card to read anything other than p/t and a lot of the shortcut stuff, like priority and autotapping lands just skips stuff
One issue I have with arena is sometimes if you let it auto resolve some castings it'll select the wrong mana and you are left without a second spell due to that. So I now tap everything manually before playing anything or activating abilities that involve mana. It also skips to attack phase sometimes when I want to cast things in my main phase.
stumbled upon your channel, and just wanted to commend you on your dedication! been looking for some podcast-like channels for mtg-like information and you nailed it. your upload frequency is insane, you got a crisp style (and satisfying voice haha), and your video editing doesn't look like some gen z ticktok-obssessed fuck sneezed over it. my only thing is you talk a bit fast due to your passion, but besides that amazing stuff mr. kenobi! looking forward to future content :)
Over in yugioh it took until a couple of years ago to have an officially supported way to play online at all, and it doesn't even follow the same ban list or card pool as the tcg. There's no way to officially play the one current paper format online. There's dueling book which you're banned from mentioning if you are ever on a konami live stream and one of the license holders got its predecessor taken down in about 2015 so that could potentially happen again. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than having to rent pixels to play the formats which never happen in physical cards because nobody can afford reserve list cards. When I started mtg I found the idea of buying/renting online cards so absurd that I've just refused to ever do it.
The dumb part was they went here's alchemy instead of here's cards that already exist or just came out. They hinted to why there is a major issue with making 4 player game on MTGA so I can understand that been struggle, but I fail to see how putting cards into the game don't work when it's not any different to coding cards like they already do. Tbf they are trying with Remasters on MTGA it's just slow. But it don't solve how commander decks don't crossover in anyway though it would be easy to print those as brawl decks for MTGA. Make Pre-cons alike to what we have but for brawl.
What amazes me, is that clients like xmage, and cockatrice have existed for longer than arena, and already have the template which works perfectly for both 1v1, and multiplayer. They dont have the resources that wizards have, but they manage just fine.
Regarding Arena's limited scope--from what I remember, it was developed as a passion project internally, so there were never any plans for multiplayer, so the codebase for multiplayer wasn't laid down. In order for Commander (or multiplayer Historic Brawl, as it would likely be called) to be implemented, it would require extensive changes to the program, which takes time and money that, frankly, Wizards is unwilling to spend. I mean, why bother? People still buy packs. They still use wildcards. If they DID implement MHB, they'd have a release or two of essential cards, but then that would be it. People would get those cards, and never have to update their decks again. That means not enough return on investment. So what's the alternative? How do they make money off of MHB? Remember when they introduced Historic and crafting cards was gonna cost 2 Wild Cards? Shit decision, but descriptive of their viewpoint. They'd probably make a subscription service so that you could play MHB--but of course you wouldn't get any cards. Anyway, I'm rambling. Main reason they don't have multiplayer in Arena is that it's not worth it in terms of return, IMO.
Also it wouldn't be as good as people think there's 2 scenarios you either have the 4 boards on one screen which would suck if your playing on a phone or you would have to change boards to see other players tables which makes it more likely to crash which the game already does
I personally love playing on arena, but I do absolutely hate the lack of commander support and how many missing cards their are. I don't have many opportunities to play paper magic, but I would love to be able to play with the universes beyond commander decks...
arena freezes up with two people alot, and you can't see anyones board state well, imagine two more players and a command zone. just too much going on for a mobile game in my opinion.
The digital games are lacking but having a number of very fumbly things like shuffling and stat tracking done for you makes the game feel so fluid. Despite how lamented it was at release, alchemy has really cool mechanics like perpetual, conjure and spellbooks.
I don’t agree with you on many things on this game, but this video is 100% correct. MTGO and Arena’s failures in terms of their card pools and formats are big issues, and I’d love if there was one Magic Digital Client that could hold the entirety of magic in it
Just curious about the What Not plug, is there something I am missing about that swamp? He has it as about $12.50 USD, and it doesn't look foil. If we assume it's foil then TCG has it listed at $5.50 median price, so Vince's autograph is worth $7? I must be missing something right?
Yes. If you want a signed card, that is what they are. If you don't, you can buy it elsewhere. Use the link in the descritopltipn to get $15 off your first purchase! Then it's essentially free.
I made a video like this a few months ago. Got a response from MOTO saying they're planning on adding the rest of the commander cards, just a man-power problem, so it's taking a long time. The 40k cards are also already programmed, but can't be released yet due to licensing issues, they can't release it yet
"... a lot of the changes in recent times aren't for the betterment of the game. They're for short term goals; they're for short term gains." You took the words right out of my mouth, sir. Wizards seems to have abandoned everything that led to the game being as successful as it was for as long it was, it's entire history and legacy just thrown away in order to chase some flaky short-term profit. It's a crying shame.
I'm just getting back into MTG after not really paying attention to it since high school (I'm nearly 40 now) and this whole situation is wild to me. The disparity between MTGO, Arena, and Paper is crazy. Arena has been how I've done all my playing because I like that it's modern and I like a bit of "video game shit" like a battlepass and ranking system. But I do find MTGO appealing because I like the idea of being able to play Commander, and weirdly Pauper interests me a lot. For me the ultimate version lies somewhere between the two, a bit less flashy than Arena but more modern than MTGO. The economy in both don't make sense to me. The thing I find most nuts is that almost no paper products come with Arena/MTGO codes. I picked up the '22, '23, and LOTR paper starter kits because they all came with Arena codes. It was a nice way to get some finished decks in that I could research how to upgrade. The fact that I don't get codes for Arena or MTGO with paper packs means I'm not giving them money for anything. I can't convince myself that digital packs are worth it, and I don't play enough paper to justify buying much for packs or precons. So I buy nothing and Hasbro doesn't get any of my money. I just grind fake currency in Arena for packs. If paper packs came with codes I'd just collect paper for fun (and for the rare times I'm with friends who still have cards) and do most of my playing digitally. Obviously the answer to all this is that they must have metrics that say that focusing on digital isn't how they make the most money, but it seems obvious, at least to me, an idiot, that with a unifying of the clients, a better economy, and at least some cross-promotion between paper and digital they'd exponentially increase interest and buy-in. I'd buy way more cosmetics in Arena if it was a much more encompassing client, but it's not. And MTGO doesn't sell cosmetics. I don't know man. It really seems like WotC and Hasbro have dug themselves a huge hole that they're going to struggle to climb out of. I think the solution probably lies in updating the Online client so the people who own cards there don't lose that real-money economy, but they'd have to take a hit as that would alienate people who have a lot of money invested in Arena, unless they could port collections over. But even then the issue is that really rare cards in Arena exist because people crafted them easily with Wildcards, so directing porting would NOT work. I'm not game designer, but even as a consumer I think their current systems are out of whack and they should INVEST in their digital platforms in a way that brings the community together instead of separating them. #RantOver
Product differentiation: that’s why WotC intentionally keeps online play different than paper. The fear is that having an Arena that perfectly recreates the paper game, will just cause Arena to significantly cannibalize paper sales, and I’m guessing to a certain degree, they are correct.
I think this is it but it goes a little further. They know they are burning people out with arena, so their plan is to double down on all the bullshit that burns people out in hopes that they just spend their money on paper and leave arena segregated to the people who spend money there and don't complain. I literally think they want the player bases to be completely separate so they can abuse them each in different ways.
I think given the success of collectors boosters disproves that. During the pandemic when people couldnt play physically the rate at which people bought paper cards went up. Because its still a collectors game outside of the card game and thats a massive amount of value that the people invested into a that wont go away over night
2 things that stop me from switching from physical to digital: 01.) I'm not spending more money to play with decks I already own. 02.) What happens once MTGO or Arena ends?? What happens to my "collection" if the platform doesn't exist?? Hasbro can go bankrupt, shut down WOTC and I still have my physical cards...
I loved MTG Arena, but the Alchemy update absolutely ruined it for me. I used to buy packs all the time, but why the hell would I ever do that NOW when they regularly nerf my favorite cards that I spent my wildcards on? The balancing is also highly questionable. Do you really mean to tell me with a straight face that Griselbrand and Sheoldred (apocalypse) are totally fine in Hist. Brawl, but Ugin is somehow too much? I could rant about this for many paragraphs, but it would do just about as much good as Alchemy cards being forced into Hist. Brawl. I know I'm one drop in an ocean, but they could've squeezed many hundreds of more dollars out of me if they had just kept parity between digital and paper cards. It's hard not to get heated about, feels like such a ruined opportunity.
I’d actually disagree, magic ISNT the greatest card game. But it is a very good card game. I’ve played just about every card game and I worked at two of my LGS’s I’d actually say power creep and planeswalkers ruined mtg , but imo Weiss Schwartz is the greatest card game made. The rules are simple, most sets balanced with eachother , and even older stuff can still be very competitive. It’s only draw back is the anime style of the game doesn’t appeal to everyone
Baldur's Gate annoyed me so much. Could we not have just gotten a Brawl draft format and used Alchemy cards to replace the commander only mechanics like Goad and Myriad? Would it have been so hard to add a second commander slot for Backgrounds(and Partners) to the game? And don't get me started on the Gates.
In a few years the only digital client will be Arena. They’ve been signaling for years they don’t care about MTGO. There will be no redemption, the client will just be gone. They’ve been trying to nudge the MTGO players to Arena.
Daybreak games specializes in keeping old games on life support for extremely long times. That's probably the best solution WotC could come up with. They have a company that will keep the servers running for the next decade and can move on towards other pieces of software.
I play Commander with friends via Cockatrice. Not a great UI, but it is very good, has all the cards, no bugs (because there is no automation). Everything is free, it's amazing.
I have no idea why alchemy even became a thing. Like I get the pitch was that they could rebalance cards but they barely do even that. I'm betting that the execs who even pitched in the first place are long gone and is only held up by greed
I think the big difference between MtgOnline and Arena is just how the cards are handled. They couldn't build an Arena-like interface on Modo because they didn't want to keep the ability to trade cards between users.
I don't think its a contract issue where they have to print the whole decks. I think its far more likely they just didn't buy the license to add Warhammer to digital. Thats generally its own license, so they have to pay extra for the license or make the in magic version to add it.
I started playing MTG when the werewolves cards came out on Arena. Never played paper before. Arena is beginner friendly and it's easy to make decks. I've build all the deck's I've wanted without spending any money.
I like arena my only real complaint is I feel like there is a certain way it gives me my first hand or draws. My deck i run has decent easy mana base except for 4 tap lands. I feel like i open with at least 2 of them almost every game, like come on just make it random. And i dont run a top meta but i have some answers in my deck and I will reach a point i draw only lands. Its like it wants to end the game unnaturaly on step 7 and just let the board state there be the end
Arena is such a miserable experience. Like 60 percent of the games I que into don't make it past turn three for one reason or another. One player hits curve while the other does nothing and quits. One player quits after three mulligans. One player quits after the first land drop. One player quits when they miss a land drop. 1v1 is just so pointed, when matches are so high powered, things like your opening hand, who goes first, and what your up against all matter more than how you play. Arena conveniently manipulates those things and it just doesn't feel good for the winner or the loser.
just imagine if every paper booster pack you buy you got a code for a pack on arena... Imagine if there was a user market to buy sell and trade in arena... imagine if edh was on Arena.... I think people would pay the same as a premium draft to play a commander game, that would keep people committed which i think is the main reason why they don't.
duels of the planeswalkers 2013 had a 4-player mode, but I think they removed it from subsequent duels games. It's weird that at some point they decided 4-player modes were a good idea and then never did that again. Arena will probably never have 4-player gameplay, maybe in ten years they'll make arena 2 with a 4-player mode. The duels games are a weird artifact, most of them were from before my time but I vaguely remember playing magic origins, there was this awful campaign mode, they'd give you some shitty starter deck to play against an ai opponent and it was rough, I remember fighting corrupted Avacyn in shadows over innistrad and she crushed me the first game but the second game she kept sacrificing her lands to cast Angelic Purge and I won.
Cards being missing from MTGO is a HUGE problem for legacy, one of the best sideboard cards that you can Green Sun's Zenith for against lands (Toxicrene) doesn't exist on MTGO. So in paper Lands decks usually have to play white to not auto-lose to it. So Lands exists on both MTGO and in paper but the decks look VASTLY different, causing other decks to be built differently to fight it, causing the entire meta to just be different as these missing cards just compound the problem.
It's hilarious that with 2 clients available the imo best way to play Magic online is through the Steam Table Top Simulator. There are other alternatives, but I've found most browser based Clients to be as bad as the official ones. TTS on the other hand has the best mix of DIY and automated scripts available. At least for EDH 😅
Your opening statement made me curious to know how many other card games you've played, Vince, and how many of them you think come close to magic's design. I personally think Netrunner has a much better design, have you tried it?
I’m definitely with you there. I’ve played a fair number of TCG/LCGs and both Netrunner and Flesh and Blood are towards the top for me as far as best card games I’ve had a go at, if looking only at the game itself. There may be other games I remember more fondly (MtG was my introduction to fantasy as a genre, L5R had the best community I’ve been a part of, I’m awfully partial to Overpower and Magi Nation despite some pretty big rules problems, etc), but Magic feels like a game whose greatness lies in the community and history that it’s built as an institution, on top of an admittedly very solid game structure.
A whole load- I talk about many of them as I play them for the first time on this channel. I dont see how people are so shocked that I might think the card game I devoted my life to is the best game? 30 years of history, competitive circuits, a great multilayer variant, limited format variants, and a dozen+ ways to play. A resource system that opens up lines of play other games miss, and a solid comprehensive rules system that works in ways many other games don't. Aesthetics, and canon that is far more interesting and exciting than any other card game on the market - Magic does so much that other cards never did, or don't.
Had WotC not been blinded by absurd levels of greed, they would have started including codes in physical boosters for free Arena packs. Like, sure - sell your stupid digital packs on the Arena shop too, but letting players build up a physical collection while also getting digital packs (or vice versa) keeps players in the MTG ecosystem overall for longer. Folks who wouldn't play Arena might give it a shot with all their stockpiled codes, and folks who haven't ever played paper might eventually piece together enough cards for a decent deck. Bonus: Standard might have survived as a format in paper as well.
I never played any digital MTG game. I have my physical cards and can't afford to buy the online again. And even if I would buy them online, I would not have more time to play them. But Arena and MTGO need fixing for all I hear. It would be great if there was a refit. I might enjoy commander online with friends. The games might be faster. Thank you for the Video
Active in the last 30 days is 5.1m arena players. If each arena player bought one share of hasbro it would put the magic collective as the 4th largest hasbro stock holder. Maybe then we could get some say in the shit show corporate is turning magic into
wotc chased every short term profit idea they had until the whole thing fell apart. they lost sight of maintaining the integrity of the overall game environment. if they wanted arena to be for 1v1 spikes the way to do that would have been to focus on getting it 1:1 with pioneer asap and never implemented alchemy bs. if they cared about the integrity of competitive play overall they would have never greenlit universes beyond sets with licensing issues to digital.
I hope arena perseveres, gets some nice updates, more formats etc.. paper is just too much of a hassle, I like it too but the cards are expensive as shit, u have to store them, be concerned about transporting, having them stolen, damaged…
Ill be honest i haven't played a paper game since the first covid lockdown. The LGS that hosted commander nights closed down. Nobody hosts a game night of commander either its just impossible to play now. I can go to our other LGS however they dont play commander they just draft. im basically stuck playing on arena
My issue with arena is that you will choose to "autopass" and it will still ask you to click resolve. On the flipside, you're chilling, waiting for the right moment and the game jus ignores you and goes to the next turn.
If I would buy today a physical card, tomorrow I'll have a physical card. If I"d buy today a MTG Arena card, tomorrow I'd have information. To me, this is the exact reason I'm not going to join Arena ever. Cheers mate
As a game dev I can tell you that the issue with MTGO is not adding new cards or even new mechanics. That's extremely easy and I'm sure that the engine is designed to make it even easier. The problems come when you have to change existing mechanics or rework how the game processes certain things, because then you don't just have to add the new cards or the new mechanics. No, you need to go and test every single card in the game that's affected by the change and make sure that it still behaves as intended in every single weird ass interaction possible. And even if it breaks just on one unplayable card, that might mean three times the amount of expected work or having to start from scratch. Even with automatic testing it's still a nightmare because you need to design tests for everything and periodically check if they need to be updated. It's a nightmare no matter what you do, it will only get worse as new cards are added and the game becomes more bloated with exceptions to the rules and the only solution is to hire more and more people to compensate. PS: this will sooner than later happen to arena too.
The problems with Digital is that MTGO should have merged with Arena, including all the formats that we expect MTG to have and to have the quality that MTGA has brought. The unsolvable problem that Digital has and will always has; The moment the game looks remotely unwinnable your opponent will scoop instantly. The game is far less satisfying because of this.
I have a group that meets weekly (Thursday) to play Physical tabletop EDH at a local Beirgarten & bring my backpack of 12 decks I haven't upgraded since War of the Spark. I play Arena daily because it only costs my time & allows me to play *newer* cards because I am still hesitant to spend actual money supporting a company that hires the Pinkertons. I have 3 budget modern decks & 11 pauper decks that I don't believe will find playtime. *Thanks for the Content!*
Alchemy was the worst idea for Arena. I still play Arena, but I refuse to use Alchemy cards because I don’t want to mess with my paper knowledge of cards. Changing what they do like goldspan dragon, or having them completely unique with the same art like Bladurs gate is the stupidest move ever
Arena is shit. Not just cuz of the economy, but the general game is just... ugh. It's horribly optimised, voulnerable to packet loss, and when some random bug happens in a match, you've lost since it'll take 3 minutes to restart that shit from an 2.M drive. Not only that, but the UI is just horrible. It really isn't meant to represent magic well. Countless times I've mistook tapped things for untapped things, since it isn't well displayed. Activating abilities of permanents with multiple ones brings up this hearthstone-like card menu, which not only lags but also requires you to swipe your mouse across the whole screen. Like, couldn't they have made a context dropdown like in the Magic Origins days? Blocking is a nightmare in nonsparse board states, with a Web of arrows pointing across the screen. Not only that, but Arena, despite having a full rules engine DOESN'T display certain information. Like THE ORDER OF THE OPPONENTS BLOCKERS. What. The. Heck. I only play the game since its better to play and not pay then not play, as playing is actually worth negative money for wizards.
Eh, I'd rather the online clients being different from paper would incentivize Hasbro to keeping the paper game around as opposed to just making Hearthstone
The problem is... MTG is a social game and thats why its popular. Its a social game with atrong levels of customization, like an RPG, in which case your preferred play style can truly shine. A lot of the gameplay is the _social_ aspect. This is why digital is lagging.
The worst part is that the 'fix' for Arena/MTGO will, when it does come, almost certainly be **another** whole new client where you have to recollect/rebuy your cards all over again.
Honestly, this wouldn't shock me in the SLIGHTEST 😂
Yup. Get ready to buy your collection for the 4th time. But atleast you can cash out of paper and MTGO, but you can’t do anything with Arena, just a total 💰 loss.
@@Zarbon000To be fair, the amount of free packs and Mythic Rare Wildcards turned into Sheoldred would probably bankrupt the company ten times over.
Arena has lasted longer than any other mtg video game that's not mtgo. They will kill themselves in the digital space abandoning it.
Mtga screens '2030 shutdown' just because it's an app
If they put code cards in physical packs I would never complain
Pokemon does this since forever and its great
The greed is too strong. I have said "put codes in paper packs" since the start of Arena. They are far too greedy for this....which led me to just printing Proxies for kitchen table. I love the game....why bother with their stupid prices? It costs me an ink cartridge...and I can play Vintage to Standard....Winning. I get nothing in Arena if I buy paper....and I really get nothing if I buy Digital.
It's almost like Wizards is telling its Customers..."Go Away!" Well heard....and done.
They do this with (some) starter kits, but needs to be across the board
Yeah, this was probably one if the biggest shocks to me coming from pokemon
@@lauralharris same for me, i cant believe it why you wouldnt do it. its not like people dont buy less pokemon cards because of those codes...
Something interesting (I'd have to find the article) is wotc on their site released an article on how Emrakul came to arena, from the mouth of the team.
What happened was they originally did not want to put Emrakul into the game because they didn't have the tech. It was due to one guy on his "free work time" coming to the wider team with a prototype of the tech that they would then work on for Emrakul.
In addition, the team that is responsible for alchemy rebalancing is the same team that is responsible for adding new cards. Its clear that the people who are responsible for adding in things just don't have the people nor budget
Why would you budget anything to anything that isn't marketing anirite?
I like how Arena can keep track of certain things like counters and mechanics like day/night. I would be fine just drafting different formats in arena
It would be so much better if you could draft with friends like get yourself a pod and you all draft together hell make it so that players can make custom cubes and play them with their friends that would make draft get that social experience that is lacking in magic arena.
Yeah, digital formats like MTGO and MTGA are very useful for that exact thing, though I do prefer MTGO (simulator) over MTGA (video game) personally, both save people a lot of brain power when it comes to maths and keeping track of the game state.
I'm still annoyed that they released the face commanders for LCI onto Arena except for some reason, they decided not to put the Merfolk one. All the while, they are developing digital only cards that no one asked for and a lot of people don't like. Also, I accidentally crafted a Lae'zel (for Anim Pakal deck) because I wanted the paper version only to realize after the fact that she wasn't the same.
What's really insane, is that WotC has made multiplayer simulators in the past, they had the Duels of the Planeswalkers series of games, which from 2011 to 2015 was pretty decent, after the initial release, they added a new game mode with each iteration, of course removing a game mode as they went. We had Planechase, Archenemy, Two Headed Giant, Sealed etc. I truly believe, if it had not been for Arena, and the idea of chasing that e-sports high that they wanted, we'd have gotten a Duels 2016 which would've included a Commander game mode.
I love these games!
I'm missing one xpack from 2014 and it drives me nuts, otherwise it was pretty rad
you can actually heavily mod 2014 to play any card and deck you want (online too, as long as the other person has the same exact mods)
11:41 they are a publicly traded stock making insane return on what is probably a 6 person team. Building out commander would require a team bigger than that on the project alone, let alone maintaining what exists and what's coming out.
The only way they improve the client is if people stop spending, which doesn't seem to be in the cards
in short, fuck capitalism
Magic is also a unique case where there are so many rulings and complications these six people have to implement and have function. Theres a reason Yugioh has had several well made fan-made automated sims and Magic only has one singular unfinished one.
I hate the disconnectiom between digial and paper. I play mostly paper mtg and it would be awesome to be able to use my paper cards on arena with like a scanning system or something. Digital mtg should be able to transfer to paper getting value out if money is put into the client. Even 50% out for paper would be awesome.
I'm in the same boat. Also very annoying when I play pre release events only one code works.
just play on spelltable.
Thankfully, MTGO still at least lets you convert full sets into paper. I remember back in the day you didn't even need a full set, you just needed to pay shipping.
Arena and paper aren’t even made by the same department at WOTC anymore, how are they meant to synergise when they have different bosses and different goals?
00:42 I stopped playing Arena when Alchemy happened. I decided to try MtGO a couple weeks ago and after getting the introductory bundle I looked at the interface, sighed, closed it and never reopened it. Haven't played even one game.
Oddly the UI is the best part. Pressing "ok" 24 times a turn and if you miss one the chess timer runs out while others wait as you don't realize you have a trigger
It's terrible
I didn't stop playing Arena after Alchemy, but I sure as hell stopped buying gems for packs. Every pack I buy is earned through gold rewards from dailies now.
@@Aleblood That's what I did - I ended up with 15000 cards with 3500 rares and 800 or so mythics. Lots of sleeves and avators and stuff. I gave the account away a few months ago to a new RUclips Commander creator - I don't know if she's used it more than the once I saw on her channel but WotC hadn't given her a god account so I gave her an Apostle account.
MTGO: "Minesweeper & Solitaire fucked while watching Lord of the Rings" Genius PK, pure genius!
In terms of Legacy cards from 40k, Rakdos Painter, a tier 1 legacy deck plays Chaos Defiler, which is also not on MODO. This is the reason why people don’t play Rakdos painter as much online, since Defiler being a big Welder target that can destroy permanents is a big reason to play RB over mono red
I think what upset me the most is the potential, that these two could be. They could made this like playing mtg n digital version, but nope they want to make it a homunculus deform child between Mtg and Hearthstone. Last time I checked they don't even have a spectator function, we can't even watch people playing the game like we did in lgs. (My apology if they already installed one)
The thing is Arena's card rules engine was designed to make it easier to implement cards faster. Implement a mechanic once, have the card engine implemented and UI designed, it would apply to every card using said mechanic. Had they planned Arena with paper's Pioneer from the start, it would have been the perfect tournament client to play Pioneer during the COVID years. They had the resources- they choose to dump it into Alchemy instead
Because Alchemy packs. It's all about profit now, sadly this is the way of most long running successful media. It will get watered down and whored out until no one wants to engage anymore then the suits cut losses and bankrupt a company and a legacy.
Considering MtGO came out of an old 90s Encyclopedia program, I'm not surprised.
Honestly my biggest problem with Arena is just how often it freezes on me (on mobile). If I had a nickel for every time I nearly lost a game because I disconnected and didn't realize it, I'd have enough money to hire my own staff to fix the damn game :(
The random freezing makes playing on mobile so fucked.
Desktop does the same. I've somewhat gotten the hang of telling the difference between a slow opponent and a freeze to be able to reboot quick enough to not get an L and, usually, not lose a turn. But, yeah, it's a big fucking bug that, given how long it's been going on, is either unfixable or they're just not willing to do so.
I regularly click on something to see if the game froze on mobile... that's a real issue. But when it's frozen I just restart the app and it gets me back into the game pretty quickly. Still a drag tho
@@EmperorSketzer That's fair. My big problem comes when I'm playing in the background, i.e. I am doing something else while playing arena. I won't be looking at the screen so I won't recognize that it is frozen until it's too late
right and people think adding two more spots for a commander game is a good idea great 3 guys hung up waiting for response. just one round of priority will kill it.
You should try Cockatrice, the newer free client for commander that Maldhound likes playing, full access to the complete mtg library at no cost.
What about forge mtg?
i find the board state much harder to read on arena, you have to hover over every card to read anything other than p/t and a lot of the shortcut stuff, like priority and autotapping lands just skips stuff
One issue I have with arena is sometimes if you let it auto resolve some castings it'll select the wrong mana and you are left without a second spell due to that. So I now tap everything manually before playing anything or activating abilities that involve mana. It also skips to attack phase sometimes when I want to cast things in my main phase.
It's nice to see him make such a positive video.
stumbled upon your channel, and just wanted to commend you on your dedication! been looking for some podcast-like channels for mtg-like information and you nailed it. your upload frequency is insane, you got a crisp style (and satisfying voice haha), and your video editing doesn't look like some gen z ticktok-obssessed fuck sneezed over it. my only thing is you talk a bit fast due to your passion, but besides that amazing stuff mr. kenobi! looking forward to future content :)
Over in yugioh it took until a couple of years ago to have an officially supported way to play online at all, and it doesn't even follow the same ban list or card pool as the tcg. There's no way to officially play the one current paper format online. There's dueling book which you're banned from mentioning if you are ever on a konami live stream and one of the license holders got its predecessor taken down in about 2015 so that could potentially happen again. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than having to rent pixels to play the formats which never happen in physical cards because nobody can afford reserve list cards. When I started mtg I found the idea of buying/renting online cards so absurd that I've just refused to ever do it.
The dumb part was they went here's alchemy instead of here's cards that already exist or just came out.
They hinted to why there is a major issue with making 4 player game on MTGA so I can understand that been struggle, but I fail to see how putting cards into the game don't work when it's not any different to coding cards like they already do.
Tbf they are trying with Remasters on MTGA it's just slow. But it don't solve how commander decks don't crossover in anyway though it would be easy to print those as brawl decks for MTGA. Make Pre-cons alike to what we have but for brawl.
What amazes me, is that clients like xmage, and cockatrice have existed for longer than arena, and already have the template which works perfectly for both 1v1, and multiplayer. They dont have the resources that wizards have, but they manage just fine.
Regarding Arena's limited scope--from what I remember, it was developed as a passion project internally, so there were never any plans for multiplayer, so the codebase for multiplayer wasn't laid down. In order for Commander (or multiplayer Historic Brawl, as it would likely be called) to be implemented, it would require extensive changes to the program, which takes time and money that, frankly, Wizards is unwilling to spend. I mean, why bother? People still buy packs. They still use wildcards. If they DID implement MHB, they'd have a release or two of essential cards, but then that would be it. People would get those cards, and never have to update their decks again. That means not enough return on investment.
So what's the alternative? How do they make money off of MHB? Remember when they introduced Historic and crafting cards was gonna cost 2 Wild Cards? Shit decision, but descriptive of their viewpoint. They'd probably make a subscription service so that you could play MHB--but of course you wouldn't get any cards.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Main reason they don't have multiplayer in Arena is that it's not worth it in terms of return, IMO.
Also it wouldn't be as good as people think there's 2 scenarios you either have the 4 boards on one screen which would suck if your playing on a phone or you would have to change boards to see other players tables which makes it more likely to crash which the game already does
I personally love playing on arena, but I do absolutely hate the lack of commander support and how many missing cards their are. I don't have many opportunities to play paper magic, but I would love to be able to play with the universes beyond commander decks...
arena freezes up with two people alot, and you can't see anyones board state well, imagine two more players and a command zone. just too much going on for a mobile game in my opinion.
Ooh what episode of Shuffle Up And Play did you play the Jaheira Deck on?
I do not know the episode number, sorry. But its the one with me in the thumbnail. 🤣
Left facing Vince is blowing my mind ngl
The digital games are lacking but having a number of very fumbly things like shuffling and stat tracking done for you makes the game feel so fluid. Despite how lamented it was at release, alchemy has really cool mechanics like perpetual, conjure and spellbooks.
I really, really love the Specialize mechanic from Baldur’s Gate where you flip the card into a class. Really fun translation of D&D!
I don’t agree with you on many things on this game, but this video is 100% correct. MTGO and Arena’s failures in terms of their card pools and formats are big issues, and I’d love if there was one Magic Digital Client that could hold the entirety of magic in it
Just curious about the What Not plug, is there something I am missing about that swamp? He has it as about $12.50 USD, and it doesn't look foil. If we assume it's foil then TCG has it listed at $5.50 median price, so Vince's autograph is worth $7? I must be missing something right?
Yes. If you want a signed card, that is what they are. If you don't, you can buy it elsewhere. Use the link in the descritopltipn to get $15 off your first purchase! Then it's essentially free.
@@PleasantKenobi Hey thanks for clearing up the confusion!
I made a video like this a few months ago. Got a response from MOTO saying they're planning on adding the rest of the commander cards, just a man-power problem, so it's taking a long time. The 40k cards are also already programmed, but can't be released yet due to licensing issues, they can't release it yet
"... a lot of the changes in recent times aren't for the betterment of the game. They're for short term goals; they're for short term gains."
You took the words right out of my mouth, sir. Wizards seems to have abandoned everything that led to the game being as successful as it was for as long it was, it's entire history and legacy just thrown away in order to chase some flaky short-term profit. It's a crying shame.
These videos are so thought out and well done. Thanks PK
I'm just getting back into MTG after not really paying attention to it since high school (I'm nearly 40 now) and this whole situation is wild to me. The disparity between MTGO, Arena, and Paper is crazy. Arena has been how I've done all my playing because I like that it's modern and I like a bit of "video game shit" like a battlepass and ranking system. But I do find MTGO appealing because I like the idea of being able to play Commander, and weirdly Pauper interests me a lot. For me the ultimate version lies somewhere between the two, a bit less flashy than Arena but more modern than MTGO. The economy in both don't make sense to me.
The thing I find most nuts is that almost no paper products come with Arena/MTGO codes. I picked up the '22, '23, and LOTR paper starter kits because they all came with Arena codes. It was a nice way to get some finished decks in that I could research how to upgrade. The fact that I don't get codes for Arena or MTGO with paper packs means I'm not giving them money for anything. I can't convince myself that digital packs are worth it, and I don't play enough paper to justify buying much for packs or precons. So I buy nothing and Hasbro doesn't get any of my money. I just grind fake currency in Arena for packs. If paper packs came with codes I'd just collect paper for fun (and for the rare times I'm with friends who still have cards) and do most of my playing digitally. Obviously the answer to all this is that they must have metrics that say that focusing on digital isn't how they make the most money, but it seems obvious, at least to me, an idiot, that with a unifying of the clients, a better economy, and at least some cross-promotion between paper and digital they'd exponentially increase interest and buy-in. I'd buy way more cosmetics in Arena if it was a much more encompassing client, but it's not. And MTGO doesn't sell cosmetics. I don't know man.
It really seems like WotC and Hasbro have dug themselves a huge hole that they're going to struggle to climb out of. I think the solution probably lies in updating the Online client so the people who own cards there don't lose that real-money economy, but they'd have to take a hit as that would alienate people who have a lot of money invested in Arena, unless they could port collections over. But even then the issue is that really rare cards in Arena exist because people crafted them easily with Wildcards, so directing porting would NOT work. I'm not game designer, but even as a consumer I think their current systems are out of whack and they should INVEST in their digital platforms in a way that brings the community together instead of separating them. #RantOver
They are too busy investing resources in making Alchemy cards
Product differentiation: that’s why WotC intentionally keeps online play different than paper. The fear is that having an Arena that perfectly recreates the paper game, will just cause Arena to significantly cannibalize paper sales, and I’m guessing to a certain degree, they are correct.
I think this is it but it goes a little further. They know they are burning people out with arena, so their plan is to double down on all the bullshit that burns people out in hopes that they just spend their money on paper and leave arena segregated to the people who spend money there and don't complain. I literally think they want the player bases to be completely separate so they can abuse them each in different ways.
I think given the success of collectors boosters disproves that. During the pandemic when people couldnt play physically the rate at which people bought paper cards went up. Because its still a collectors game outside of the card game and thats a massive amount of value that the people invested into a that wont go away over night
2 things that stop me from switching from physical to digital:
01.) I'm not spending more money to play with decks I already own.
02.) What happens once MTGO or Arena ends?? What happens to my "collection" if the platform doesn't exist?? Hasbro can go bankrupt, shut down WOTC and I still have my physical cards...
Thanks for the vid, champ!
man i might have to start playing digital if all this un-reprintable crossover crap isn't there
Lots of it is. There is no crap free client. Arena and MTGO both flooded with LOTR bullshit
@@JStackDo not get me started about the horse malarkey that is Dark Lord Sauron.
I loved MTG Arena, but the Alchemy update absolutely ruined it for me. I used to buy packs all the time, but why the hell would I ever do that NOW when they regularly nerf my favorite cards that I spent my wildcards on?
The balancing is also highly questionable. Do you really mean to tell me with a straight face that Griselbrand and Sheoldred (apocalypse) are totally fine in Hist. Brawl, but Ugin is somehow too much? I could rant about this for many paragraphs, but it would do just about as much good as Alchemy cards being forced into Hist. Brawl.
I know I'm one drop in an ocean, but they could've squeezed many hundreds of more dollars out of me if they had just kept parity between digital and paper cards. It's hard not to get heated about, feels like such a ruined opportunity.
I’d actually disagree, magic ISNT the greatest card game. But it is a very good card game. I’ve played just about every card game and I worked at two of my LGS’s I’d actually say power creep and planeswalkers ruined mtg , but imo Weiss Schwartz is the greatest card game made. The rules are simple, most sets balanced with eachother , and even older stuff can still be very competitive. It’s only draw back is the anime style of the game doesn’t appeal to everyone
11:05 we haven't even been able to do friendly challenges for months, so can't even make your own game with friends. It's actively anti social lmao
Baldur's Gate annoyed me so much. Could we not have just gotten a Brawl draft format and used Alchemy cards to replace the commander only mechanics like Goad and Myriad? Would it have been so hard to add a second commander slot for Backgrounds(and Partners) to the game?
And don't get me started on the Gates.
I'm happy to learn that Vince does not poop on his phone.
In a few years the only digital client will be Arena. They’ve been signaling for years they don’t care about MTGO. There will be no redemption, the client will just be gone. They’ve been trying to nudge the MTGO players to Arena.
Daybreak games specializes in keeping old games on life support for extremely long times. That's probably the best solution WotC could come up with. They have a company that will keep the servers running for the next decade and can move on towards other pieces of software.
@@carlhannah1884 I find there’s no one left on MTGO. Like no new folks come. Just the old crew that dwindles.
I play Commander with friends via Cockatrice. Not a great UI, but it is very good, has all the cards, no bugs (because there is no automation). Everything is free, it's amazing.
I have no idea why alchemy even became a thing. Like I get the pitch was that they could rebalance cards but they barely do even that. I'm betting that the execs who even pitched in the first place are long gone and is only held up by greed
I think the big difference between MtgOnline and Arena is just how the cards are handled. They couldn't build an Arena-like interface on Modo because they didn't want to keep the ability to trade cards between users.
I don't think its a contract issue where they have to print the whole decks. I think its far more likely they just didn't buy the license to add Warhammer to digital. Thats generally its own license, so they have to pay extra for the license or make the in magic version to add it.
No. An MTGO developer has explictly stated "we aren't allowed to sell these as not part of the full product".
I started playing MTG when the werewolves cards came out on Arena. Never played paper before. Arena is beginner friendly and it's easy to make decks. I've build all the deck's I've wanted without spending any money.
Why is it called modo
The demo of MTGO worked under the name Magic Online with Digital Objects, MODO for short
The highlight is the minesweeper/solitaire/content threeway
I like arena my only real complaint is I feel like there is a certain way it gives me my first hand or draws. My deck i run has decent easy mana base except for 4 tap lands. I feel like i open with at least 2 of them almost every game, like come on just make it random. And i dont run a top meta but i have some answers in my deck and I will reach a point i draw only lands. Its like it wants to end the game unnaturaly on step 7 and just let the board state there be the end
Arena is such a miserable experience. Like 60 percent of the games I que into don't make it past turn three for one reason or another. One player hits curve while the other does nothing and quits. One player quits after three mulligans. One player quits after the first land drop. One player quits when they miss a land drop. 1v1 is just so pointed, when matches are so high powered, things like your opening hand, who goes first, and what your up against all matter more than how you play. Arena conveniently manipulates those things and it just doesn't feel good for the winner or the loser.
MTGO Commander is decent; fills the void when you can't play in person. Agree totally with all your points. Great video
just imagine if every paper booster pack you buy you got a code for a pack on arena... Imagine if there was a user market to buy sell and trade in arena... imagine if edh was on Arena.... I think people would pay the same as a premium draft to play a commander game, that would keep people committed which i think is the main reason why they don't.
duels of the planeswalkers 2013 had a 4-player mode, but I think they removed it from subsequent duels games. It's weird that at some point they decided 4-player modes were a good idea and then never did that again. Arena will probably never have 4-player gameplay, maybe in ten years they'll make arena 2 with a 4-player mode.
The duels games are a weird artifact, most of them were from before my time but I vaguely remember playing magic origins, there was this awful campaign mode, they'd give you some shitty starter deck to play against an ai opponent and it was rough, I remember fighting corrupted Avacyn in shadows over innistrad and she crushed me the first game but the second game she kept sacrificing her lands to cast Angelic Purge and I won.
Have people forgot cocatrice?
Cards being missing from MTGO is a HUGE problem for legacy, one of the best sideboard cards that you can Green Sun's Zenith for against lands (Toxicrene) doesn't exist on MTGO. So in paper Lands decks usually have to play white to not auto-lose to it. So Lands exists on both MTGO and in paper but the decks look VASTLY different, causing other decks to be built differently to fight it, causing the entire meta to just be different as these missing cards just compound the problem.
As a fellow white player, I imagine you share my frustration at no Bennie Bracks on MTGO.
Having to recollect cards on arena I own on mtgo is the worst too
It's hilarious that with 2 clients available the imo best way to play Magic online is through the Steam Table Top Simulator. There are other alternatives, but I've found most browser based Clients to be as bad as the official ones. TTS on the other hand has the best mix of DIY and automated scripts available. At least for EDH 😅
Your opening statement made me curious to know how many other card games you've played, Vince, and how many of them you think come close to magic's design. I personally think Netrunner has a much better design, have you tried it?
I like the fundamental mechanics of Netrunner and Universus a lot more than MtG. The Game of Thrones LCG is also up there for me.
I’m definitely with you there. I’ve played a fair number of TCG/LCGs and both Netrunner and Flesh and Blood are towards the top for me as far as best card games I’ve had a go at, if looking only at the game itself. There may be other games I remember more fondly (MtG was my introduction to fantasy as a genre, L5R had the best community I’ve been a part of, I’m awfully partial to Overpower and Magi Nation despite some pretty big rules problems, etc), but Magic feels like a game whose greatness lies in the community and history that it’s built as an institution, on top of an admittedly very solid game structure.
A whole load- I talk about many of them as I play them for the first time on this channel.
I dont see how people are so shocked that I might think the card game I devoted my life to is the best game?
30 years of history, competitive circuits, a great multilayer variant, limited format variants, and a dozen+ ways to play. A resource system that opens up lines of play other games miss, and a solid comprehensive rules system that works in ways many other games don't.
Aesthetics, and canon that is far more interesting and exciting than any other card game on the market - Magic does so much that other cards never did, or don't.
Had WotC not been blinded by absurd levels of greed, they would have started including codes in physical boosters for free Arena packs. Like, sure - sell your stupid digital packs on the Arena shop too, but letting players build up a physical collection while also getting digital packs (or vice versa) keeps players in the MTG ecosystem overall for longer. Folks who wouldn't play Arena might give it a shot with all their stockpiled codes, and folks who haven't ever played paper might eventually piece together enough cards for a decent deck. Bonus: Standard might have survived as a format in paper as well.
I never played any digital MTG game. I have my physical cards and can't afford to buy the online again.
And even if I would buy them online, I would not have more time to play them.
But Arena and MTGO need fixing for all I hear. It would be great if there was a refit. I might enjoy commander online with friends. The games might be faster.
Thank you for the Video
I hate it that digital and paper are different things. First thing when making a big search on scryfall is typing "game:paper"
Magic online needs a phone app already. Ive spent hundreds on arena i want to do it again
There’s still cards from Forgotten Realms that haven’t been transferred to MtGO. The backlog is ridiculous.
Active in the last 30 days is 5.1m arena players. If each arena player bought one share of hasbro it would put the magic collective as the 4th largest hasbro stock holder. Maybe then we could get some say in the shit show corporate is turning magic into
Moxfield playtester + OBS virtual camera + spelltable
wotc chased every short term profit idea they had until the whole thing fell apart. they lost sight of maintaining the integrity of the overall game environment. if they wanted arena to be for 1v1 spikes the way to do that would have been to focus on getting it 1:1 with pioneer asap and never implemented alchemy bs. if they cared about the integrity of competitive play overall they would have never greenlit universes beyond sets with licensing issues to digital.
I hope arena perseveres, gets some nice updates, more formats etc.. paper is just too much of a hassle, I like it too but the cards are expensive as shit, u have to store them, be concerned about transporting, having them stolen, damaged…
Ill be honest i haven't played a paper game since the first covid lockdown. The LGS that hosted commander nights closed down. Nobody hosts a game night of commander either its just impossible to play now. I can go to our other LGS however they dont play commander they just draft. im basically stuck playing on arena
arena needs the ability to lower resolution and effects on mobile. it crashes so often.
Accommodating older phones would be nice.
@@PleasantKenobi its not even older phones. i have a s23, and it crashes all of the time. hell, it crashes when trying to edit a deck.
Oh absolutely. My phone is reasonably up to date and Arena runs the battery dead very quickly.
My issue with arena is that you will choose to "autopass" and it will still ask you to click resolve.
On the flipside, you're chilling, waiting for the right moment and the game jus ignores you and goes to the next turn.
If I would buy today a physical card, tomorrow I'll have a physical card. If I"d buy today a MTG Arena card, tomorrow I'd have information. To me, this is the exact reason I'm not going to join Arena ever.
Cheers mate
arena doesnt even have the updated block rules yet it is supposed to teach you the game
Please bring back edh and chill. UI be damned, those vids were very enjoyable.
As a game dev I can tell you that the issue with MTGO is not adding new cards or even new mechanics. That's extremely easy and I'm sure that the engine is designed to make it even easier.
The problems come when you have to change existing mechanics or rework how the game processes certain things, because then you don't just have to add the new cards or the new mechanics. No, you need to go and test every single card in the game that's affected by the change and make sure that it still behaves as intended in every single weird ass interaction possible. And even if it breaks just on one unplayable card, that might mean three times the amount of expected work or having to start from scratch.
Even with automatic testing it's still a nightmare because you need to design tests for everything and periodically check if they need to be updated.
It's a nightmare no matter what you do, it will only get worse as new cards are added and the game becomes more bloated with exceptions to the rules and the only solution is to hire more and more people to compensate.
PS: this will sooner than later happen to arena too.
Imagine in 2023 where you have to rent digital assets to use in a game. Is there really a need for that market.
The problems with Digital is that MTGO should have merged with Arena, including all the formats that we expect MTG to have and to have the quality that MTGA has brought.
The unsolvable problem that Digital has and will always has; The moment the game looks remotely unwinnable your opponent will scoop instantly. The game is far less satisfying because of this.
I play tabletop and it is my perferred way to play online.
I would love to see a video where a VG Programmer explains how fuqt it is to program these games
I have a group that meets weekly (Thursday) to play Physical tabletop EDH at a local Beirgarten & bring my backpack of 12 decks I haven't upgraded since War of the Spark. I play Arena daily because it only costs my time & allows me to play *newer* cards because I am still hesitant to spend actual money supporting a company that hires the Pinkertons.
I have 3 budget modern decks & 11 pauper decks that I don't believe will find playtime.
*Thanks for the Content!*
I could not agree more with Vince. I hate that digital is this bad.
Proxy magic. All the fun...none of the investment.
They need to adjust standard from 3 years to 6 months cycle. Fuck it.
Expand area to other formats and make every card ever made. Transfer collections from mtgo to arena and shut it down. Cost savings and happy customers
"A short-term grab at the latest trend"
Hmmm... sure sounds like diluting your existing IP by crossing over with other franchises...
Alchemy was the worst idea for Arena.
I still play Arena, but I refuse to use Alchemy cards because I don’t want to mess with my paper knowledge of cards. Changing what they do like goldspan dragon, or having them completely unique with the same art like Bladurs gate is the stupidest move ever
honestly hate how they handled the "Choose Your Background" legendaries on Arena, its so dumb
Me owning all 4 40k decks and 2 doctor who decks:
If there is no effort going on in Wotc to put four player on Arena, it's just a crime at this point.
Arena is shit. Not just cuz of the economy, but the general game is just... ugh. It's horribly optimised, voulnerable to packet loss, and when some random bug happens in a match, you've lost since it'll take 3 minutes to restart that shit from an 2.M drive.
Not only that, but the UI is just horrible. It really isn't meant to represent magic well. Countless times I've mistook tapped things for untapped things, since it isn't well displayed. Activating abilities of permanents with multiple ones brings up this hearthstone-like card menu, which not only lags but also requires you to swipe your mouse across the whole screen. Like, couldn't they have made a context dropdown like in the Magic Origins days? Blocking is a nightmare in nonsparse board states, with a Web of arrows pointing across the screen.
Not only that, but Arena, despite having a full rules engine DOESN'T display certain information. Like THE ORDER OF THE OPPONENTS BLOCKERS. What. The. Heck.
I only play the game since its better to play and not pay then not play, as playing is actually worth negative money for wizards.
Yeahhhh, the only online magic I play is on spelltable with IRL friends. I'd rather just not play than to play with mtg:o or arena.
Eh, I'd rather the online clients being different from paper would incentivize Hasbro to keeping the paper game around as opposed to just making Hearthstone
I love arena to play against random people 1 vs 1 historic and Standard
IRL i love commander free for all and playing sealed on pre realease.
The problem is... MTG is a social game and thats why its popular. Its a social game with atrong levels of customization, like an RPG, in which case your preferred play style can truly shine.
A lot of the gameplay is the _social_ aspect. This is why digital is lagging.
Cant cheat on MTGO or Arena