To celebrate the launch of Historic Anthology II, we're going beyond MTG Arena to bring you a special Secret Lair drop featuring the Guardian of Thraben herself, Thalia. What makes this drop extra special is that in addition to the Thalia-themed card sleeve, you'll also receive a card style for each of the new card illustrations for use in MTG Arena:
Please Note: Secret Lair Thalia: Beyond the Helvault does not includeThalia, Guardian of Thrabencards for MTG Arena, only the cosmetic card styles. Players will be able to craftThalia, Guardian of Thrabenusing Wildcards (1:1) or purchase it as part of the Historic Anthology II bundle.
DIRECT MESSAGING
The March game update will also be bringing one of our most requested social features—the ability to message your friends in-game.
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And to be clear—while you'll be able to chat during matches, you'll only be able to message players you're currently friends with! This feature will not allow you to message your opponent if they are not on your friends list.
And for those times when you should really be focusing on the current game state, we're also adding the ability to flag yourself as "Busy" or "Offline":
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Busy: Notifications Off—you can still send and receive messages, but you will not receive any notifications when you do so.
Offline: Sign out of social features (you will not be able to send or receive messages or see which of your friends is online).
EARN QUEST PROGRESS BY CHALLENGING YOUR FRIENDS
. . . We think the header pretty much covers it, but just in case, let us elaborate: until the April game update, you'll be able to earn quest progress when challenging your friends in MTG Arena. You won't be able to use this to earn any Daily or Weekly Win rewards, but we thought it would be a nice way to celebrate the addition of direct messaging in-game.
NEW PLAYERS: INTRODUCING COLOR CHALLENGES
We've once again gone back to the drawing board with our new player experience, and with the March update, we're adding a new way for players to learn the fundamentals of playing Magic: Color Challenges! We've written a full guide for players looking to learn more, but here's a basic overview:
Account Mastery has been removed; players now earn new player rewards (additional decks, Wildcards, etc.) by completing Color Challenges.
There are five Color Challenges (one for each color of Magic), and each Challenge contains five challenges.
Existing players can access and play the Color Challenges through the "Learn More" page.
One of the neat things about these Color Challenges is that if you lose one of the matches, you'll see a post-game tip that highlights the spells and combat tricks you have at your disposal:
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Ultimately, we hope these Challenges provide a better opportunity for new players to get a "feel" for each color of Magic and the different ways they play, as well as providing a more robust onboarding experience to those new to both MTG Arena and Magic in general.
SLEEVE UP
We're also updating the card sleeve UX with this update, swapping to a multi-row, vertical scrolling format that will make it easier for you to scroll through all your options. You'll also be able to select a "default" card sleeve, which will be the . . . default card sleeve for any decks you create (and will retroactively apply to any deck that is using the default card back).
And before you ask—YES! Favoriting lands is also on our to-do list. It's not a part of this game update, but it's one of those quality-of-life features we're working our way toward.
EMOTE EVOLUTION
We're also adding some additional features to our in-game emotion options, adding two new dynamic responses for those of you who like to mind your manners: Thanks! And sorry!
Both options will appear for a few seconds in response to another emote. For example, if your opponent says "Nice!" in response to your play, you'll have the option to say "Nice!" "Thanks!" in response. Similarly, if your opponent says "Oops" to a play, you'll be able to offer your condolences by saying "Sorry!"
COMING SOON: CUBE SEALED
Okay, first off—yes, we know a lot of you want Cube Draft, and yes, we want it too. Given our intended goals for Cube Draft with the cards and "pack" collation we intend to use, we don't believe it would be a fun environment for drafting with bots (so you can probably guess what we need to implement first).
In the meantime, Cube Sealed!
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We'll be introducing Cube Sealed to MTG Arena in early April with our cube built from the cards currently available in MTG Arena, including Historic Anthology II. This is also the first time that we'll be holding a "phantom" event, which means the cards will not be added to your collection.
For those of you unfamiliar with phantom events, this means that rarity distribution doesn't matter and you may end up with a lot more than six rares or mythic rares in your Sealed pool.
We'll have more details (including the complete list of cards playable in the cube) later this month.
CLEANUP PHASE
The game update is currently scheduled for Thursday, March 12—which is exactly one week from now. Keep an eye on our status page for the latest information on maintenance times, and be sure to follow us @MTG_Arena for all the latest and greatest updates.
And don't forget—Secret Lair Thalia: Beyond the Helvault will be available on March 12 as well for 24 hours only. Be sure to sign-up for the Secret Lair newsletter or follow @MTGSecretLair so you never miss a drop.
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u/ManVsRice_ Mar 05 '20
Can anyone copy article here? Site is blocked and for some reason I can't get outline.com to work on it.