Live from PAX East - it's Em-Tee-Gee Ayyyy!

If you're not getting the reference, that's probably because I'm too old and all my references are dated. What I'm going for is “Not ready for prime time”.

Wizards made a huge announcement last week. Arena is going to feature prominently in some high-stakes, eSport events. Notably, a $1,000,000 prize pool for an Invitational at PAX East in Boston in 2019. I'm a little surprised.

More than a little, actually, because I assume this means that they're going to exit the Beta testing before these events happen. I can't imagine they're going to run events like this if the program is still considered to be in Beta. Maybe I'm wrong there.

While I personally think that Arena is a fantastic product, and they've got a solid foundation to proceed, I think it's far from ready for a full launch. So here's what I think needs to be “fixed” before they go to a full open release.

Time for a change.

Mileage will vary on these, and any “top” list is going to be controversial, but I think the biggest component of the game that needs a healthy revision is the timer system. I'm not sure what the answer is, or how to balance the somewhat opposed needs of an in-game timer system.

From what I can tell, Wizards’ priority for the timer system is fluid, brisk game play. In MTGO they use a “chess clock” system. Which is to say that each person gets 25 minutes per match, and anytime you have priority, your clock is running - theirs is not. There's also a 10 minute “idle” kill - which is to say if you take no game actions within that 10 minute window, you forfeit the game. If you run out of time, you lose the game and match.

Personally, I love playing with this system. I'm a quick enough player that I almost never run up against time issues, and I have won matches that I almost certainly would have otherwise lost because my opponent ran out of time. More importantly, is the idle forfeit, which Arena does not really have right now.

However, this system does not foster a brisk pace of play. You're managing an entire 25 minutes of time, not a few minutes of idle countdown. You actually have the time to sit and and think about your moves, which his very important in Magic, and even more so in formats like Legacy and Vintage.

Unfortunately, Arena’ s timer system readily lends itself to abuse. Most of the players I talk to have had the experience of someone “roping” them - which is to say allowing the timer to burn completely down before taking a game action, and then taking a quick action to advance the game just a little, so they can let the timer burn down again. (Roping is a term which many people will be familiar with from Hearthstone, where the timer “fuse” is represented in game by a length of rope).

However, there are certainly also times where the other player runs into legitimate issues of system lag or connectivity problems. This can seem like they're roping their opponent, when they're not. It make this kind of thing very hard to police by Wizards, because figuring out what's a legitimate system issue, and what's intentional time-wasting is nearly impossible.

So what's the solution? Well, damned if I know. I think it will involve a revision of the timing system, to reduce the ability to abuse it, perhaps by having a hard time limit on any given turn.

Trash for Treasure

The next elephant in the Arena isn't a Loxodon. To make another dated reference - “It's the economy, stupid.”

The biggest issue here is what's become known as “the 5th card problem”. This stems from the fact that you can only have 4 copies of any uniquely named card in your deck, so in the digital realm, you only ever need 4 copies of any given card. So what happens when you open that ever looming “fifth” copy?

Well, right now that copy is converted into “Vault” progress. The Vault contains Wildcards. Three Uncommon, two Rare, and one Mythic. The trouble is that Vault progress is ridiculously slow. Opening the 5th copy of a Mythic only adds 1.1% to your Vault, and Commons and Uncommons are practically worthless when it comes to this.

Again, I'm not sure where the solution lies. I don't have much experience analyzing or designing FTP game economies. And, like with the timer system, it's a balancing act. Wizards needs to find the sweet spot between enabling players to build the decks they want in a timely fashion, while also limiting how quickly they can totally max out their accounts. I think one good alteration would be to set the system to not drop a Mythic or Rare when you already own a playset. At some point, it will probably have to override that, if you've collected everything at those rarities, but I think it would be a good place to start.

You might say that a “dusting” system (where you can exchange existing cards for some resource which you can convert into different cards) like Hearthstone's would be good, but Wizards has intentionally rejected that type of system. It's their philosophy that newer players will be compelled to spend a ton of time researching what to dust and what not to before they can do anything, and this encourages them to research and spend time on forums, instead of playing the game. Honestly, I have to agree. I've only played Hearthstone a little, but that's one of the things that turns me off about the game. I had no idea which cards I should “dust” and what to convert them into.

Rankin Ass, or A Match Made in Heaven

I'm going to group these next two together, because I think they're related topics - and that is the Ranking system and the Matchmaking System.

Both of these are totally FOBAR, and I realize that both of them are going to get a revision starting in mid December 2019 (later this week), but I thought they deserved to be mentioned here.

The ranking system is utterly meaningless. I remember winning half a dozen games, slowly clawing my way from Silver 1 to Silver 2, being just one win away, and then having one loss which tanked literally all of the progress I'd made. That's the moment where I stopped giving any fucks about what my ranking was.

The pairing system is also “odd”, to put it mildly. Prior to the transition to Open Beta, it was engineered to pair high-tier decks - decks which had been performing well at major events - with each other. I'd still get long runs of either a mirror match, or an opposite match.

Hopefully, we'll see some true improvements on both these fronts.

My buddy, 
My buddy, 
My buddy and me. 

I know we're still dealing with the prototype build on the direct challenge, and there's no in-game friends list yet, but this needs to be addressed before Arena goes live.

The direct challenge system, as it sits, is hopelessly cumbersome. Again, I'm not criticizing it. I'm sure what's happening now is Wizards testing the underlying architecture for functionality, but is 4 months enough time to get it right? Let's hope so.

A scene of pure horror

This next one is a pet peeve of mine, that's bothered me since day one on Arena. That nightmare of a Deck Construction scene. What a hot pile of garbage.

Here's one spot where MTGO has it all over Arena, in spades. Seriously, I do NOT need the cards in my collection to be three times the size of the ones in the deck, and for the actual deck portion of the screen to be the same vertical width as the collection section.

This one is real easy, Wizards. Just do what you did in MTGO. That deck builder is fantastic. It's the one place there that clunky, outdated pile of code actually gets it right.

Knife to a Gunfight 

I'm going to end this with a personal thought, although I'm not really sure this needs to be implemented before going to a full release.

I think there should be a “precons only” scene, or the matchmaking system in Ladder games should be set up so that if you're playing an unaltered precon, you'll only be matched against other precons.

There's a real “feel bad” moment when you're just starting out in Arena, not to mention Magic itself, where you're bringing a spitball to a gunfight. I've been playing for a long time, so I'm no stranger to being outgunned in a Magic match. But I recently started an account that I am intentionally not spending any money in, to see how well I can progress, and I have to say, I've had some pretty rotten moments where I've gotten hammered playing a precon. It's not cool, and I can see  how that might be enough to make someone not want to play.

I’m Tweeting now @23rdPlayable. I’m also streaming on Twitch as 23rdPlayable. And, as always, you can find me on Facebook in the MTG Arena Players group, where I’m a mod. 

Have fun, Play on, and Be kind to one another.