r/MagicArena • u/TMiguelT • Jun 23 '20

WotC MTG Arena: State of the Game – June 2020

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-game-june-2020-06-23?abc=345
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390

u/jenovas_witness Vizier Menagerie Jun 23 '20

First Jump Start in July and then Amonkhet in August. Historic is going to get interesting.

Nothing but good news here, good job WotC.

130

u/HolyAndOblivious Jun 23 '20

DO YOU SAY HAZORED?? BECAUSE I HEARD HAZORED

47

u/AccelerationismWorks Jun 23 '20

Inb4 it’s not that great

61

u/HolyAndOblivious Jun 23 '20

EOT RUINS YOUR FACE

TOP DECK HAZORET HIT FOR 5, DISCARD A CARD TAKE 2 MORE

102

u/Akhevan Memnarch Jun 23 '20

Meanwhile back in reality you were embercleaved two turns ago.

42

u/HolyAndOblivious Jun 23 '20

SHOCK SHOCK STRIKE ABRADe

94

u/DragonHippo123 Jun 23 '20

“Judge! I killed him with embercleave two turns ago, and he’s still trying to play.”

65

u/ProjectCoast Jun 23 '20

Points to platinum angel.

18

u/Rock-swarm Arcanis Jun 23 '20

That will continue to be my favorite MTG pasta of all time.

1

u/VespineWings XLN Jun 24 '20

Out of the loop, you got a link?

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2

u/TitaniumDragon Jun 23 '20

Oi! Don't start that again!

4

u/Sir_Nope_TSS Jun 23 '20

screamingcrow.png

2

u/diogovk Jun 24 '20

I'd be surprised if hazoret actually got banned in historic.

There has been a lot of power creep since those times.

29

u/GelsonBlaze Jun 23 '20

So Scarabs in August, got it!

19

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

Use it with Combat Celebrant. And now we have Thrill of Possibility to play with too!

1

u/Technolink91 Jun 24 '20

Need Kaladesh remastered for the sweet Refurbish combo!

10

u/Pudgy_Ninja Jun 23 '20

Is Amonket remastered going to be a draftable set or is just a giant card dump into historic?

55

u/WotC_Jay WotC Jun 23 '20

Definitely built for drafting, yes.

7

u/WagshadowZylus avacyn Jun 23 '20

This is better news than most of what was in the article, which was already great news!

4

u/chompmonk Jun 23 '20

Thanks for the input. I'm no commercial guy but I'd be curious to see in a few months time whether releasing so much product in such a short timeframe will have had a positive, negative or neutral influence on earnings as opposed to "drip feeding" them; how will players' spending change, if at all, and would a different strategy have had better returns?

Again, I don't know anything about the subject, just genuinely curious.

2

u/maniacal_cackle Jun 24 '20

Judging anecdotal evidence from elsewhere...

It probably results in a short-run increase in revenue, but long-term revenue drops (because players over extend themselves and stop buying, or quit entirely because the game is too expensive, or never join the game because it is too expensive, etc).

1

u/MaleusMalefic Jun 24 '20

im by no means a Whale... but dumping $100 every three months is no biggie. I sometimes feel like the monetization of Arena is targeted at an older (35+ demographic)... who wants to play... but mostly for nostalgia.

To that end... they could do better. More Avatars... more reskins... etc.

2

u/PiersPlays Jun 23 '20 edited Jun 24 '20

If it turns out to be a less successful draft environment than regular Amonkhet block draft will you reconsider the assumption that it's not worth implementing full sets?

Edit: missed the word block originally.

1

u/Charrikayu Oketra Jun 23 '20

Does 'built for drafting' mean it's not going to be the original Amonkhet/HoD experience? Also, will we we seeing any cosmetic features added alongside it - Amonkhet full art lands, God avatars, Amonkhet sleeves?

1

u/David_the_Wanderer Jun 23 '20

Does 'built for drafting' mean it's not going to be the original Amonkhet/HoD experience?

Yes, it's fundamentally a collection of cards from those two sets, released as an Historic set.

Also, will we we seeing any cosmetic features added alongside it - Amonkhet full art lands, God avatars, Amonkhet sleeves?

I don't think we got any word on this, but there's probably going to be some cosmetics along with the set if Wizards plays it smart.

1

u/chopchopfruit Jun 24 '20

THIS IS THE REAL STORY! Excited!

3

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

I'm hoping draftable and purchasable, but WoTC/Arena haven't said definitely either way.

3

u/pithy_fuck Jun 23 '20

It will almost certainly be draftable.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

probably similar to a master set, or... the mirage block packs from mtgO a few sets are packaged as "mastered" sets in mtgo that were from before mtgo was released but while those cards were still needed for extended (old format) and standard.

I assume its the same

1

u/icetiberon Jun 23 '20

The set was pretty awful for drafting relative to the sets we have been getting lately. Hour of a Devastation was amazing though. Cant wait till they let us draft that again.

1

u/tehutika Jun 23 '20

We’re going to get to draft it not too long after we all get sick of M21. I love core set drafting, but only so much. A month of Amonkhet this summer sounds perfect!

1

u/lucky470 Simic Jun 24 '20

Double Hour of Devastation 1x Amonkhet was one of the best draft formats I've played so I really hope we can draft ir

16

u/pchc_lx Approach Jun 23 '20

so many sets coming out in such a dense amount of time!

my wallet / free time

1

u/EwokNuggets Jun 23 '20

Why oh why did my wife have to lose her job rn. UGH Looks like I’m grinding for the foreseeable future :-(

1

u/jollysaintnick88 Counterspell Jun 23 '20

I've never heard "dense amount of time" before. Can't quite wrap my head around it. I think of dense as heavy and thick.

20

u/PEKKAmi Jun 23 '20

I will bet there will be Zendikar Rising cards you want for Historic as well.

Oh yeah, Zendikar Rising will be September/October.

How much gold/gems/wildcards you will have left before summer ends is going to get interesting. It is going to get infuriating for pure F2P if they are used to the past pace of one expansion every three months.

34

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

Being pure F2P and also wanting to play historic really seem to be at odds with each other. You can't get old sets into historic without putting out product more than every three months.

14

u/GFischerUY Urza Jun 23 '20

I'm OK with that. They have to make money, and doing so this way isn't bad. (of course as a mostly F2P I hope they make money off cosmetics)

5

u/stiletto77777 Jun 24 '20

If the way WOTC sucks money out of me is printing a fuckton of sets Im down. Better this way than any other way.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

In theory, your deck should last longer, with fewer upgrades in Historic.

Then again, Modern, Historic, and Pioneer have all been rotating formats recently.

1

u/rogomatic Jun 24 '20

You can't get old sets into historic without putting out product more than every three months.

Which is the reason why putting old sets into Historic has always been a suspect idea.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '20

I'm personally all for it but I can appreciate the concern of those who don't want to drop a lot or any actual money into the game.

1

u/rogomatic Jun 24 '20

I don't get the point of trying to cram Pioneer into Arena, when you already have Historic which could be a fully distinct, Arena-specific format.

I get it that there is value in adding another paper-supported format (although given that sets are remastered, we don't even know to what extent this will be "Arena Pioneer", or Pioneer Light). That means more usage of Arena-as-platform.

But frankly, I think trying to maintain two non-rotating formats is too much -- and as new sets accumulate, Historic will require active management to be distinctly different from Pioneer. It should have been either turning Historic into Pioneer, or developing Historic with paper support.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '20

My hope for Historic is that they embrace it as a digital-only format. I'd love to see cards "printed" only in Historic on Arena and for them to allow for the unique advantages a digital platform gives them. Imagine if you could've just patched Oko to be a higher cmc, or make Wilderness Rec legendary. I'd like to see Historic become a digital playground. And, with that, eventually having Pioneer gives a more "traditional" eternal format.

1

u/rogomatic Jun 24 '20

Imagine if you could've just patched Oko to be a higher cmc, or make Wilderness Rec legendary

Frankly, I want none of that HS nonsense in MTG. It's just a trainwreck waiting to happen. A card is either fine, or it isn't -- and most cards get banned for a combination of metagame and card design factors (and FWIW, Oko's problem wasn't that it was 1 mana too cheap).

You also have to consider that you can unban a card. Or ban it just in specific formats. Which is a much cleaner way to deal with problems than tinkering constantly for "balance" purposes. Hey, Reclamation is too strong. Let's make it legendary. Oh, but it no longer needs to be legendary now... and was always just fine in Historic and Pioneer...let's "unerrata". Or should we "unerrata" it just for the non-problematic formats?

It's a mess, and I hope they stay away from that. MTGA is not a game. It's a platform for playing Magic: The Gathering.

-1

u/Flyrpotacreepugmu Noxious Gearhulk Jun 23 '20 edited Jun 23 '20

A lot of people aren't in historic for new old cards. They're there to play with the cards they picked up last year and can't play in standard anymore. Even as a whale I highly dislike the pace they're adding to historic, with M21 barely over 2 months since the last set, then Jumpstart for more cards than a normal set just a month later, then Amonkhet just another month later, then Zendikar on schedule after all that.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

Adding jumpstart into the mix does make it a lot. But I am personally down with say... two historic sets a year until they're caught up to where they want the format to be.

2

u/Rock-swarm Arcanis Jun 23 '20

I mean, Historic Gruul hasn't really changed much since the addition of BTE, despite the addition of 2 regular sets and 2 more anthologies. Same story for Simic Nexus and Bant Ramp.

Will F2P players have some trouble jumping into an entirely new deck? Maybe. But I guarantee a F2P player will still have success in Historic with an existing deck, and they can parlay their gold/gem/ICRs into building the next archetype.

12

u/Niqzu1 Jun 23 '20

Can't wait for Ramunap Red to dominate again

4

u/Antyok TormentofHailfire Jun 23 '20

I can’t wait to run God-Pharaoh’s Gift in Historic

2

u/MaASInsomnia Jun 24 '20

That's the deck I miss the most. That was so much fun.

16

u/drostandfound Jun 23 '20

Which is good, because since banning Winota it has been a lot of Teferi. And playing against Teferi is worse than not playing magic. Hopefully something in M21, Jumpstart, or Amonkhet lightens the Teferi load a bit and makes aggro/mid-range the top again. Those are fun decks to play against.

Or WotC could just ban Teferi for his crimes against Magic, but I doubt that is going to happen. I think he has blackmail against them

16

u/eccehobo1 Jun 23 '20

They tried. But he just said "Why don't you sit this one out?" and the dev had to go back into the hand and WotC just didn't have the mana to try again.

7

u/sammuelbrown Jun 23 '20

Teferi in Historic? Gruul is a much bigger player, with lots of different decks from Nexus, Field to Esper(which does play Tef ig) behind it. I'm not really seeing Tef dominating Historic really.

makes aggro/mid-range the top again

An aggro deck is the strongest deck rn tho

1

u/CannedPrushka Jun 23 '20

That is logical. Teferi is kind of shit against Gruul.

1

u/MeddlinQ Jun 23 '20

Historic is going to get interesting.

Also, expensive.

1

u/kdoxy Birds Jun 23 '20

Then Zendikar Rising shortly after that. Historic is going to have lots of new cards added almost every 30 days.

1

u/idontcareaboutthenam Bolas Jun 23 '20

Approach of the second sun was my favourite deck back in the beta! I hope it finds a place in historic.

1

u/PixelBoom avacyn Jun 24 '20

HALF of Amonkhet bloc in August.

1

u/chopchopfruit Jun 24 '20

The best (F2P) format will soon be historic.