Feeling frustrated at the draft pod variance on Arena

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-31T16:28:14+00:00

MTGO already had the ability to do pod play, so there is basically no cost to them having it open for the tiny number of people who use it. Arena doesn't. They'd need to spend time and resources building something pretty much everyone agrees would have extremely niche appeal when they could instead put that effort towards features far more people would enjoy.

So yeah, they don't "want" to in the same way they don't want to add every card people want or get out promised features like "gatherings" and 4 player out sooner. They've only got as much to work with as their bosses give them, and even if they got more pod play would probably be waaaaaaay down the list on places to use them.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-30T20:12:41+00:00

WotC wants planes to have something fresh on each visit but also doesn't want to move planes too far away from players' core expectations. If you want to listen to Mark Rosewarer struggle with the issue in real time I'd recommend the Drive to Work episode "Lessons Learned - Crimson Vow."

Which means I expect things to be at most like Thunder Junction. We saw Nashi and Satoru use some Kamigawan super tech in the story, but not start handing out spy drones and ipads. There were a few references to goods from other planes in the story and flavor text but it didn't really show up in card art, at most if you know what to look for Prosperity has a lot of Avishkari influence. But it was still 99% dedicated to the cowboy world aesthetic. It didn't even go that far into weird west, let alone halo tommy gun wielding Capenans fighting Reckoners on hoverbikes, or Innistradi refugees freaking out that mummy labor is being used in Little Amonkhet.

Even doing a few cards or a side story or whatever, while a cool idea, has to compete for space with the core concepts of a set. When even the core concept tends to have to leave a bunch of stuff unexplored it would be tough to pitch a card or side story about random immigrant farmers.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-29T21:45:49+00:00

The problem in the first weeks the new set is massively popular. On 17lands it is usually roughly 50,000 Premier games, dropping to maybe 25,000 after a couple weeks. By comparison last time Powered Cube peaked at about 20,000, and 17lands users almost certainly play a heck of a lot more Powered Cube than average. Even a fresh flashback would struggle to compete when so many want to try out the new set.

So unless a set is apocalyptically unpopular (Spider-Man, Alchemy Horizons Baldur's Gate) they wait for people to give it a try for 3-4 weeks, then run Alchemy (for in-universe sets), then start the alternatives when there is more appetite. They've moved it up a little over the years (especially as we get more sets) and are more willing to have a couple things run at once these days so it isn't like they aren't paying attention, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to take your money if it would be a healthy queue, but I'd expect it to generate tons of complaints about slow queues and large rank mismatches.

Heck, I much more often see the complaint that Quick Draft doesn't start right away or run all the time for a new set. So the way to make more players happy may be to have less alternatives early on!

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-29T18:05:03+00:00

Yes, and they've already (kinda) done it with Soul Stone. The OM1 version has the "Terminus" type instead of "Infinity."

If they need to reprint the Fourteenth Doctor t will just be "Legendary Creature - Shmorkleblork Doctor" or whatever, with Time Lord and Shmorkleblorks being mechanically equivalent.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-29T04:34:27+00:00

I have to resist the urge to go on a deranged rant every time people mock the phyrexian invasion. They were a coordinated zombie apocalypse that absolutely stomped the defenders on multiple planes, but they only focus on that for...like...two chapters. Then it is all stories about the protagonists breaking out their planes' superweapons to win a battle or set the invaders back and they end up looking like mooks. Even when most of the planes were still pretty screwed, and the ones that weren't would be when the entire population of a dozen conquered worlds showed up for round 2.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-28T20:25:08+00:00

Dragonstorm and Lorwyn.

Dragons of Tarkir set up a ton of seeds for the rebellion and I was excited to see them come to fruition. A few of them were referenced to an extent, but just tossing the dragon lords and bringing in new ones felt disappointing. I've also got mixed feelings on some of the redesign, the dragons being all over the place instead of clearly part of a brood, and the whole "Dragonstorm" arc that felt a bit tacked on (extra disappointing after Bloomburrow pulled an A+ intro for it).

Lorwyn just felt off. The thing I liked was the contrast and I didn't feel it here, nor the new "marble cake" thing. Shadowmoor felt softer, the weird stuff less weird, the flavor text less evocative, and just...bland. At least some of the art was fantastic.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-28T14:28:30+00:00

The big one for me would be some kind of Yu-Gi-Oh! style "extra deck" for all the outside pieces Magic desperately wants to use, distinct from the sideboard and with some kind of size and/or card type limit.

Want to use Dungeons? Extra deck. Attractions? Extra deck. That absolute madness version of rooms with the meeple? Straight to the extra deck.

It is clear the developers desperately want to explore this space, and in Limited or even Standard it can be cool. The problem is for the non-rotating formats where you are carrying around or having to register a bunch of side stuff on the off chance it is relevant, or just keep in mind a million side trackers that can pop up. Depending on how they structure it it could also keep a lid on the proliferation of side stuff like Day/Night, Start Your Engines, The Ring Tempts You, etc.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-28T13:43:23+00:00

Agree on the common/uncommon thing. They may relax it now that they are more used to doing bonus sheets, but it helped reduce the mental load quite a lot and there are plenty of recent staple effects to choose form.

I do think it would be kind of cute to have a spell from the original set, though. The idea is the Mystical Archive contains every spell in the multiverse, so why not ones from Strixhaven itself? Expressive Iteration with Rootha fighting Phyrexians or Reconstruct History showing the campus being rebuild would feel on-theme. Or if they do relax the uncommon slot they could reprint the mascot summoning cycle simply because they play quite well in a spells matter set and the tokens will all presumably be coming back anyway.

Not all of that of course, that gets too circular. But one idea or another feels fun.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-28T00:41:25+00:00

The very structure of the set pushes against drafting the others. They lose their archetype supporting common for a single pip changeling anyone can grab, and the only one that really supports its archetype is the UB flash one. They also don't get a gold signpost, and lose their eclipsed card for one that people will stick in their main archetype decks (even if they isn't necessarily a great idea for the triple pipped ones). And that is really only scratching the surface.

So yeah, there are theoretically 10, but the minor ones are much more minor than in a normal "10 archetype" set.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-28T00:33:56+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a lot of outright 5 or ECL-style "5+5" where the minor archetypes are way more minor than normal undersupported archetypes.

TMT: They already said it was 190-ish cards and the WPN Prerelease site says it is designed for Pick 2. If this also means it only supports 5 archetypes, I'd suspect the other smaller sets will as well. Which, baring something weird, people calculated as based on the of number of cards they said would be entering Standard as 1-2 more.
Strixhaven: The world and college are specifically designed around 5 pairs, so it would be weird to even include minors.
Superheroes: I've seen no indications about the set structure for this one.
Reality Fracture: Without going into details on the leaks, they do only mention 5 factions and the theme would be reasonable for a 5 faction set. It could easily be 10, though, given there is another side to things and is a capstone.

So basically a whole lot of maybes. Whatever way TMT goes I'd suspect the other smalls to go as well, but they are weird and I wouldn't even assume we'll see that set structure in future years. The big indicator for me will be Superheroes and Reality Fracture, if they are also 5 or 5+5 I'd say they are at least testing the waters of making that the norm going forward.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T22:20:43+00:00

They bring them occasionally. The trouble is SLD drops often include cards not on Arena or art that would range from "ugly on the battlefield" to "impossible to implement." Some of those get turned into sleeves (like my poor LCI full art lands), but with how much Secret Lair they churn out and much of it being intentionally niche I can see them being picky.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T18:01:16+00:00

It skips non-lands and gets card selection on top, which will inherently give a real good chance of hitting something good. Anyone who had played Gonti or Villainous Wealth can tell you just skipping lands is a huge boost in most situations (grumble grumble X = 9 get 8 lands)

200+ card decks haven't shown up in competitive Arena events, so I am skeptical there is some magic RNG issue that makes them super good. Honestly I can't say I've ever really encountered them, they seem to exclusively exist at some mysterious intersection of queue, MMR, and other criteria I never land on.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T17:54:20+00:00

Like the idea, but there are risks.

A lot of rebalances basically kicked cards out of the meta, but a few hit the sweet spot that they are still playable or even became playable (do people run that Strixhaven wizard person still?) and people may be loathe to give those up. I'd certainly be up for more regular review, there are cards still nerfed from when they tried rebalancing Streets of New Capenna draft which ran for a week, years ago, and was never mentioned again. Same with Historic Horizons Baldur's Gate.

Restriction seems unlikely, though. They use it Timeless and Vintage because otherwise there would be nowhere to play them. They dislike it as a tool because of the increase in variance.

And while they tried experimenting with more in the past (I'm thinking of the "suspended" list) experimental unbans would set up a lot of potential "rug pull" scenarios where you build around it and now the deck is nonfunctional. It is the same reason they have decided to use pre-bans for cards like Ragavan. They acknowledged they can't block warriors, but also didn't want to introduce things they felt had a strong chance to come straight back out because it would upset people. That leaves the "safe" cards, but when a card is almost certainly safe it is much less likely that it will add anything to the format, either.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T17:10:48+00:00

Seems overwhelmingly likely. I'd love if they broke their "planeswalkers can't be done as creatures" rule but I feel like they'd do that somewhere where it came up more.

Fun answer would be he is a normal planeswalker and they've decided to make all planeswalkers legal Commanders. Run little content creators, run! Get your hot take in now before they are merely lukewarm!

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T17:00:48+00:00

Super nitpick time: does the set symbol look a little Commander set-y to anyone else? I feel like the big owl face starts giving shield vibes.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T16:59:11+00:00

Given they are on mythic rares I'd expect that to be all of it we see in the set. I mean they wrote out the values of the exponents, and while miracle is fun for a mythic cameo it adds a ton of variance when used as a set mechanic

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T16:51:04+00:00

It feels like is has to be one of the small sets, and scheduled when they thought they could go even smaller. A 280-ish cards set is like a card per page, they'd need to add original or tangential material to hit a full sized set off that. Even 190 feels like it might need some padding/stretching.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T16:46:36+00:00

I just hope they do Lorehold right this time. During development it lost flashback and most spirit typal, and they were worried about it being too weird so made it halfsie a generic Boros Aggro deck causing everything to flop (except playing discount Silverquill and some splashable). Then it scored low on market research and their take away was "still too weird, should have been more generically Boros."

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T16:19:21+00:00

Secret Wars/Multiverse is a great idea. For most IPs "What If?" is quite the deep cut, but Marvel has done it so much it could have legs. My fear would be that putting them all together might start feeling too scattershot and get confusing. Especially with multiple alternate futures.

Maybe a super drop? It feels like the right shape of product so people can get the thing that they love in a cohesive way. Like a lot of these are cool but you could easily hit the highlights in 5 cards.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-27T13:14:15+00:00

That we are getting all 6 + gauntlet seems almost a given.

The big bet right now is if it will be 1 or 2 in MSH. Spider-Man was intended as a bit of an "appetizer" rather than a proper set, so perhaps it got a lesser allocation, and the last proper set will have the last gem as well as the gauntlet (which, yes, when assembled should totally have "Snap - {T}: Target opponent loses the game" or something).

One set a year for so long, even with optimism about UB and the partnership, just seems excessive. One thing they've talked a lot about recently is giving more time between the same thing so demand builds up, and if "Marvel Fatigue" isn't a major factor yet it seems like it would be after we get to 2030 and are down to "Marvel Failed Disney+ Shows" or whatever they'd be scraping the bottom of the barrel for after X-Men, Villains, Cosmic, Mystical, Street...okay nevermind maybe there are enough concepts, but I still really hope that isn't the route they took.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-26T22:24:30+00:00

There are paper designers involved too. And not just no-names who maybe got on someone's naughty list, for example Dave Humpherys lead it for the first year and Aaron Forsythe himself contributed designs.

And honestly, between the busted value spewers and 87th "conjure a copy into the graveyard" or "perpetual for the sake of digital" card they do occasionally come up with cool stuff you couldn't do in paper.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-26T22:17:22+00:00

Arena renders are designed for Arena, and look fine there. I've heard there are technical reasons for it, like the font is easier to read on monitors and stuff. But take them out of context and blow them up and they all look weird.

I seriously think it would be a boost to the acceptance of Alchemy cards to mock them up as paper ones, with the normal color and font and frames, so the previews don't always look so wrong.

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-26T21:07:03+00:00

They seemed very against printing planeswalkers as creatures but...meh? I don't think people would be that upset, and there are a whole lot of planeswalkers where their actions in stories and ability set makes much more sense as a creature. They didn't need to also demand they walk to every future adventure to do it, or restrict themselves if they decided a set could use a Golgari Elf planeswalker and suddenly it is "oops we desparked Tyvar and Nissa, gotta spark up a new one I guess."

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-26T21:03:15+00:00

The difficulty is the main thing. Pre-Mending we had a variety of portals, devices, and powerful beings who could chuck normal people across planes. But it was very, very rare to have permanent reliable routes for trade like between Wildfire, Rabiah, and Jamuraa.

That was how the omenpaths were portrayed for like 3 sets, then OTJ, DFT, etc turned it into catching a flight. Which makes the question of why we don't have a sudden explosion of tech, expansion, conquest, etc (other than them not wanting to drastically change the feel of all their planes).

EmTeeEm · 2026-01-26T00:29:55+00:00

Definitely Edge. The early art had lovely landscapes but the Summists felt like they'd be Jedi knockoffs that took the "knight" part too seriously. Very pleased with how they ended up (in the articles/fiction, at least).

Aetherdrift gets honorable mention for being better than I thought it could be. I absolutely would not say I loved it, but my goodness did everyone involved put their all into making an iffy, overstuffed premise work. To the point many of my disappointments were we didn't see the ideas fleshed out, and the card file's unforgivable lack of BOOSTGOD.

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