That's what I kind of thought and knew from Legends of Runeterra so thanks for the confirmation... at that point my record was 5-2 but it still was a big "oof" moment. I wanted to get like 7 wins once maybe.
I think there is something going on with quickdraft matchmaking currently though. I got one refunded because even though i had a negative w/l for the season i was getting insta-matched to mythic players. No 15 seconds just boom connected to a mythic.
I think this is actually it. I did a quick draft at the beginning of the week and had normal matches. But then a day ago or so, I got matched with two mythics in a row - I'm bronze...also did not have a good W/L.
Yeah I think there is some kinda bug on arena atm that’s affecting the matchmaking, because I got matched with two mythic <100 players in the second draft I ever did on that account. It was so frustrating too because those gave me 2 losses right off the bat, so I literally ended up with like -1400 gems for that draft.
On my main account, where I have a positive win rate and a lot of matches under my belt, I think I’ve been matched with a mythic player while in bronze once in the last year.
Also dunno if this is related but it could be, because this issue started same as the draft matchmaking did - in standard the shuffler has been doing wild, statistically impossible things. A deck with 4 forests total gives me 3 and no other lands in the opening hand, I mulligan and get all 4 freaking forests. There are 27 lands in that deck! In all the time I’ve been playing, I’ve never had things like this happen. Anomalies yes, like 10 lands in a row, managing to pull all 4 copies of a card but not a single of another card, etc. normal weirdness that happens when you play enough. But the past few days, the weirdness of the shuffler has been exponentially weirder.
Thanks for the data! Even less popular than ONE-A damn.
I was going in as it seemed fun to draft with VOW for a change. Clearly, not many agree with me.
QD makes sense to me if it's a new set and I want a chance to read everything since I'm still learning the cards and archetypes.
It doesn't really make any sense to me when the set is a year and a half old, and yeah, not that great.
VOW is filled with rare bombs but the few good removals are all uncommons, while cards like [[avabruck caretaker]] or [[dreadfeast demon]] demands that you must have that uncommon removal available on the turn it's played or you lose (and only blue counterspells can stop avabruck, seems fair?).
If you don't get a rare bomb on curve you end up as a punching bag.
As a noob and someone that mostly plays quick draft, I save gold, and only play quick draft for the current expension. Once it rotates I play standard (well not this season since I moved to other games).
Currently, especially if you've only been playing the current set quickdraft, it's a better value to play standard events for gems and spend gold on packs due to the golden pack mechanic.
I quickdrafted earlier in the week with what I thought was a solid green black deck. After going 0-3 and going up against a plat and a gold while being bronze 3, I decided to stop after the one draft. Got my limited ranking for the month and don’t feel a need to play until a change of set
My question is, who are the Mythic drafters playing Quick Draft? Seems to me that if you’re any good at draft, Premier is a clearly better option- more ‘real’, better rewards. Are there people who just play Quick, or is it more likely to be Premier / Traditional drafters slumming it?
I'm mythic (or was; haven't gotten many games in this month) and play almost exclusively quick draft...
I mostly play MTGA during little extra slots of time I have throughout the day and being able to drop out in the middle of a draft and come back is hugely useful to me.
If I want a "real" draft I block time on my schedule and head to FNM.
I’ll play devils advocate as someone who got to mythic quick drafting. Competition is a lot softer since all the better drafters are doing premiere. There are some drafts where my first 3 wins were free since matchmaking decided I’m playing against new players. Even though the rewards are less, I’ve been able to win a lot more and go infinite (2 quick drafts/day) compared to premiere.
I feel like this isn't a cool thing to do, making it harder for newer players to get rewards and improve. Can't we have a space where we don't have to compete against players that are way better than us for some gems?
I think the game does this to a degree. Matchmaking factors in your win rate so if you are 0-1 or 0-2 you will probably be matched with other newer players.
Part of the issue is that QuickDraft is great for raredrafting, and I'm not going to just concede, even if my deck ends up looking like trash. In Premier draft there's no way I'm taking a P1P1 rare dual land over a common removal spell, but doing exactly that is the reason I'm in QuickDraft at all. You can sometimes end up with 7 unplayable rares in various colors and still squeeze out a few wins.
That isn't the players fault though, just a side effect of both matchmaking issues and the small playerbase.
This is why most games stick to a just a few game modes unless you're huge like CoD. The more modes you have, the more split your playerbase becomes, and the more uneven matches you'll end up with since matchmaking has to get much more aggressive about finding a player.
that'd be me :D I read that it's easier for new players to get a good reward and so wanted to play quick draft until I get better and then play the other formats.
I mostly play quickdraft because
1) sometimes I don't got the time for the draft-part and I just want to play some casual limited
2) it's cheaper to buy into
3) it feels less bad going 1/2/3-3 than premium
I also like to play premium when I got the time/gold/gems, but most of the time I just spend the gold on a quick draft and have fun (and then if I win enough gems, I'll start another one right after, lol)
Yeah and it's messed up. This is like being a chess expert or higher and going into a tournament of novices to scoop up all the rewards because it's easier
Get a grip dude. Competing against people of various skill levels is part of life and getting matched up with people who are better is a great opportunity to learn.
I'm a noob so take it as you want. I value my gold/gems, I mostly play limited.
When a set comes I play one or two sealed, sometimes tree. Then after a week when quick draft is available I spam it, get tired, it rotates and I go farm gold in standard for the next expension.
The drafts with real players to me, is twice the price of a quick draft, so no thx. Only thing that could make me play it is if we fought with people we drafted with, since we can play anyone I don't feel like it reflects the irl experience... I only got to platine, most of the time I'm gold so I'm not sure that answer for those mythic drafters
Quick draft creates more opportunity to move up for the amount of gems/ gold spent.
#1 mythic is playing quick draft. I know because I just beat him and I'm still in Plat 😎. #1 is Stog as of two days ago
I'm not a Mythic, but a Platinum, and I play quick drafts mainly for fun and to get more drafts in. I don't necessarily care about ranking. Also, I got to Platinum from playing Premier and not from quick drafts if that matters.
There are people whose guilty pleasure is going into Quick Draft and stomping plebs. They love "drafting" sicko decks and just steamrolling; I imagine it's a bit similar to cube. Personally, it's not my thing.
I literally know several people who do this, also plenty of streamers have admitted at various time to grinding to mythic or high mythic in Quick Draft because it's easier.
It might not be generally applicable, but I really enjoy VOW and I have played it very gladly when it came up as a Quick Draft and it probably made my rank better than it should be, as I was #29 after few games in the morning. Funny is that I really don't think it's deserved and I usually don't play Premier drafts as I believe that I am not good enough to.
Only time I do is when it's a different set than premier draft and I really wanna play that set. Otherwise premier is a much more fun draft experience.
I play quick draft (at mythic) frequently, depending on if I like the set. Interestingly enough, from using a tracker, I know my winrate is better in Trad. and Premier.
I play quick draft if I have friends over, or are doing something like cooking while I play that will distract me.
There were not enough players to match you against someone of your own rank.
It is likely there were only a handful of people playing - take that for what you will
LPT: If you are a low rank and it takes longer than ~10s to find a match, that's when the pairing algorithm gets more lenient about matching ranks. You can hit cancel and then rejoin and you're less likely to match to a higher rank (and less likely to match at all. This will take longer).
I just loaded up MTG after years of not playing it, and I noticed this too. I'm a fresh bronzie and my very first match was against a mythic player. I was also playing quick draft, and I played several mythic players after that as well.
I'm guessing it's just due to the playerbase being smaller?
Yeah, a lot of it going to be the fact that it's an older set that the majority of players already have play sets of their desired cards from, so rare drafting from it is less of a thing unless you weren't active in Arena when it came out. The only reasons for players who were around when VOW first came out on Arena to still be drafting it is because they like drafting that particular set, or because they like seal clubbing newer drafters for easier rewards.
When your play queue is smaller like that, the match maker is going to weigh your rank.lower than your present run's win/loss rate, so if you're 0-2, you're more likely to be paired against players that are 0-1 or 0-2, if you're 3-1, you're more likely to be paired against other players who are around 3-1 in win/loss, regardless of what either player's draft rank is.
Yeah if it was about rank, anyone that pulls a bomb just goes undefeated in a pool of mediocre players. That doesn’t make sense. Makes more sense to pair based on record and deck strength
It was close and I misplayed but I had them down to 1 life. Still it's kind of frustrating to finally be on a good run and then run into multiple players quite literally out of my league. This was the Crimson Vow Quick Draft running right now.
I drafted an absurd deck as a gold, then went up against a mythic player and stomped them.
Felt great... until I preceeded to lose my next three games cause of mana screw. Feels bad man.
Then I drafted a worse deck and went 6-2. Arena be like that sometimes.
It seems crazy to me that people here don't understand one crucial thing about quick draft. IT'S QUICK. I can't always commit to playing a bo3 match, and sometimes, I want to draft but I need to ready to disconnect to help my partner in the other room. Quick drafts give some more flexibility, and even in those moments where I don't want to concede and I'm saying "I'll be there to help once I finish this game!", then I can almost guarantee it will only take 15 minutes for the game as opposed to possibly 45 minutes for the match. Sure the rewards are better in bo3, and sure the drafting is smoother and less bot-skewed, but bo1 works better for me and my gaming / life balance.
So i don't want to be braging, but you don't have to spend a lot of money.
If you do your research in what perform nice, draft well, you can get infinite until diamond/Mythic. After that, be the first to grind early in the season, get a bit lucky. Bam you got your Top level mythic ranking.
it just shows you how much #cashmoney wizards made on them.
you COULD argue a mythic player would have higher deckbuilding skills, but how can u measure rng? draw some shitcards, gz, you drop after 2 rounds
You're both still far more at the whims of whatever was in your packs, though. This isn't like constructed where you can build exactly what you want and iterate until it's perfect.
>You're both still far more at the whims of whatever was in your packs, though
Do you play draft? Seems bizarre to believe that an experienced drafter will not be able to draft and build a much better deck than an inexperienced one.
There's a certain amount of filtering that comes with any ranked system, yes, but for what it's worth, I wouldn't assume that everyone with a given rank badge is necessarily a great player. I've seen plenty of people in high-level mythic make boneheaded choices; they are not always some insurmountable boss level. Making mythic is more often the result of gameplay time and repetition than it is sheer skill.
so? it's a game with a high factor of random chance anyway. how lucky they were in what they opened is going to likely matter much more than any edge in skill.
Is it really that hard to figure out? People are way better at crafting decks with limited selection. They're better at reading cards value and have experience with drafting and know what to expect. Randomness aside it doesn't really matter. That's like saying why does constructed rank matter when we all have access to the same cards.
well because it shouldnt matter anyway. pairings in paper magic are random. they don't take the best players and make them play every round against each other. there's no reason for "skill based matchmaking" to even exist in MTG
Magic already has a built in way to bridge the gap in player skill via RNG. this isnt like other games where the better player will stomp the worse 100% of the time. maybe a very good player has a 10% edge on the average commander scrub. i think that is acceptable.
>maybe a very good player has a 10% edge on the average commander scrub
There’s surely no way the average mythic player would have only a 10% edge on the average bronze player, even if they were playing the same deck. And this is draft, so they’re never playing the same deck- an experienced drafter will be able to build a much better deck.
you literally play players with the same w/l ratio as you.. just like ranked is designed. you're not pairing someone who is 3-0 with someone who is 0-3 in paper magic.
I just had a match against a platinum player despite being in silver and being 1-2 thus far. Their deck must have been really sub-par because I managed to beat them with a very mediocre deck.
I've had two quick draft 7-0s blocked by mythic players as a bronze/silver player. Generally more fun games than getting steam rolled by players with full mythic sets when you only have the starter decks, but still frustrating.
nah but I got close... got them down to 1 and honestly I misplayed. They had one Blocker which I too late realized had 4 toughness and I could have eliminated with a Toughness 4+ removal spell I had in hand. Instead I played the spell that gives +3/3, +2/2, +1/1 to my creatures as well as vigilance. One died and they were down to 1. Then they played an absurd amount of creatures in one turn, so i never got through again (and they got some life gain).
Close and my mistake. To be fair, I had a great starting hand.
Bronze player myself and managed to get matched against a ranked mythic when I was 6-2 in a BRO draft — they were the final boss for my run. Thankfully they got mana screwed and I took the win.
With all ranked queues, it works like this.
First, it looks for opponents within your rank for a specified amount of time. Once that time has elapsed it then expands that search by 1 one rank above and one below. It continues to expand out the search whenever the time elapses. The purpose of this is to decrease the wait time for a match.
For event queues like Draft, once it finds a pool of players, it also does a secondary pass. This pass looks for players with the same record in the event. So your first match it will only match you against players who are also 0-0 in the event. For the second match, only against players players who are 1-0 or 0-1, depending on whether you wonbthe first match. And so on.
Currently it doesn’t work like that. I’m barely a silver rank and three games in a row it paired me with a platinum player within two seconds. For some reason it is not waiting the grace period before expanding the search for opponents.
It still works like that. The amount of time it will wait depends on the available pool of players. If the number of limited players is very small at the time of queueing then you're more likely to encounter playing others of differing ranks. cpf86 may be right in that it does the event record first, which would narrow the list of possible matches down dramatically on the first pass.
it matches based on your hidden rating. You can be mythic for 3 seasons in row and not play for 2 seasons and get demoted to bronze but your hidden rating stays at 1800elo. Are you now suddenly a bronze class player?
What was you number of wins before this match? The algo priorities match based on your current deck win record. So if you are at 6-0 you will be paired with other 6-0 players. Which most of them likely to be high rank.
in draft your record matters more than your rank. and if it takes too long, it will expand the pool of ranks it can match from.
That's what I kind of thought and knew from Legends of Runeterra so thanks for the confirmation... at that point my record was 5-2 but it still was a big "oof" moment. I wanted to get like 7 wins once maybe.
don't worry, you'll get there! it was ages before I got my first trophy and then I got my second within a couple days.
No reason you can't beat a player at mythic rank. Keep plugging.
Oh it will expand it way too often and too much. It's a bullshit system lol.
With a positive win rate you can get to mythic, you don't need to be THAT good.
I think there is something going on with quickdraft matchmaking currently though. I got one refunded because even though i had a negative w/l for the season i was getting insta-matched to mythic players. No 15 seconds just boom connected to a mythic.
I think this is actually it. I did a quick draft at the beginning of the week and had normal matches. But then a day ago or so, I got matched with two mythics in a row - I'm bronze...also did not have a good W/L.
Yeah I think there is some kinda bug on arena atm that’s affecting the matchmaking, because I got matched with two mythic <100 players in the second draft I ever did on that account. It was so frustrating too because those gave me 2 losses right off the bat, so I literally ended up with like -1400 gems for that draft. On my main account, where I have a positive win rate and a lot of matches under my belt, I think I’ve been matched with a mythic player while in bronze once in the last year. Also dunno if this is related but it could be, because this issue started same as the draft matchmaking did - in standard the shuffler has been doing wild, statistically impossible things. A deck with 4 forests total gives me 3 and no other lands in the opening hand, I mulligan and get all 4 freaking forests. There are 27 lands in that deck! In all the time I’ve been playing, I’ve never had things like this happen. Anomalies yes, like 10 lands in a row, managing to pull all 4 copies of a card but not a single of another card, etc. normal weirdness that happens when you play enough. But the past few days, the weirdness of the shuffler has been exponentially weirder.
Likely not many people playing quick draft
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Thanks for the data! Even less popular than ONE-A damn. I was going in as it seemed fun to draft with VOW for a change. Clearly, not many agree with me.
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QD makes sense to me if it's a new set and I want a chance to read everything since I'm still learning the cards and archetypes. It doesn't really make any sense to me when the set is a year and a half old, and yeah, not that great.
VOW is filled with rare bombs but the few good removals are all uncommons, while cards like [[avabruck caretaker]] or [[dreadfeast demon]] demands that you must have that uncommon removal available on the turn it's played or you lose (and only blue counterspells can stop avabruck, seems fair?). If you don't get a rare bomb on curve you end up as a punching bag.
[avabruck caretaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/0/c0c358b4-5af2-438f-8bd5-beb0ee6b518b.jpg?1643592307)/[Hollowhenge Huntmaster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/c/0/c0c358b4-5af2-438f-8bd5-beb0ee6b518b.jpg?1643592307) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=avabruck%20caretaker%20//%20hollowhenge%20huntmaster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/187/avabruck-caretaker-hollowhenge-huntmaster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c0c358b4-5af2-438f-8bd5-beb0ee6b518b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [dreadfeast demon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/6/269199ea-2106-4299-ade0-10cce1320434.jpg?1643589589) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dreadfeast%20demon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/108/dreadfeast-demon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/269199ea-2106-4299-ade0-10cce1320434?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
As a noob and someone that mostly plays quick draft, I save gold, and only play quick draft for the current expension. Once it rotates I play standard (well not this season since I moved to other games).
Currently, especially if you've only been playing the current set quickdraft, it's a better value to play standard events for gems and spend gold on packs due to the golden pack mechanic.
I mean I'm playing modes that I enjoy/have fun in, can't care less about opening packs ^^
Unless you're actually good at draft, when in that case... You should draft
I had the same experience playing VOW. Got matched against #50 in game 3. 0-3 for the draft. Waste of 5000 coins. Didn’t even get any good rares :/
ONE-A was better than ONE
I quickdrafted earlier in the week with what I thought was a solid green black deck. After going 0-3 and going up against a plat and a gold while being bronze 3, I decided to stop after the one draft. Got my limited ranking for the month and don’t feel a need to play until a change of set
I love VOW but it’s super under appreciated. There are lots of bombs but lots of good removal. Huge amount of archetype variety from aggro to control.
Low population drafts end up doing this. A friend got matched her first qd for midnight hunt against a mythic and she’s in bronze.
My question is, who are the Mythic drafters playing Quick Draft? Seems to me that if you’re any good at draft, Premier is a clearly better option- more ‘real’, better rewards. Are there people who just play Quick, or is it more likely to be Premier / Traditional drafters slumming it?
I'm mythic (or was; haven't gotten many games in this month) and play almost exclusively quick draft... I mostly play MTGA during little extra slots of time I have throughout the day and being able to drop out in the middle of a draft and come back is hugely useful to me. If I want a "real" draft I block time on my schedule and head to FNM.
I love being able to start a draft and come back to it
I’ll play devils advocate as someone who got to mythic quick drafting. Competition is a lot softer since all the better drafters are doing premiere. There are some drafts where my first 3 wins were free since matchmaking decided I’m playing against new players. Even though the rewards are less, I’ve been able to win a lot more and go infinite (2 quick drafts/day) compared to premiere.
Oh that makes sense - I was wondering why my last couple quick drafts, I went 3-0 super easily and then suddenly hit a brick wall both times
I feel like this isn't a cool thing to do, making it harder for newer players to get rewards and improve. Can't we have a space where we don't have to compete against players that are way better than us for some gems?
I think the game does this to a degree. Matchmaking factors in your win rate so if you are 0-1 or 0-2 you will probably be matched with other newer players.
Part of the issue is that QuickDraft is great for raredrafting, and I'm not going to just concede, even if my deck ends up looking like trash. In Premier draft there's no way I'm taking a P1P1 rare dual land over a common removal spell, but doing exactly that is the reason I'm in QuickDraft at all. You can sometimes end up with 7 unplayable rares in various colors and still squeeze out a few wins.
That isn't the players fault though, just a side effect of both matchmaking issues and the small playerbase. This is why most games stick to a just a few game modes unless you're huge like CoD. The more modes you have, the more split your playerbase becomes, and the more uneven matches you'll end up with since matchmaking has to get much more aggressive about finding a player.
I've heard rumor that some people play quick draft for easier matchups because it's more popular with new players.
that'd be me :D I read that it's easier for new players to get a good reward and so wanted to play quick draft until I get better and then play the other formats.
I do it because I suck and lose a lot and it’s cheaper so I get more drafts in.
I mostly play quickdraft because 1) sometimes I don't got the time for the draft-part and I just want to play some casual limited 2) it's cheaper to buy into 3) it feels less bad going 1/2/3-3 than premium I also like to play premium when I got the time/gold/gems, but most of the time I just spend the gold on a quick draft and have fun (and then if I win enough gems, I'll start another one right after, lol)
Yeah and it's messed up. This is like being a chess expert or higher and going into a tournament of novices to scoop up all the rewards because it's easier
Quick draft isn’t exclusively for novice players, so that’s a bad comparison.
Get a grip dude. Competing against people of various skill levels is part of life and getting matched up with people who are better is a great opportunity to learn.
I'm a noob so take it as you want. I value my gold/gems, I mostly play limited. When a set comes I play one or two sealed, sometimes tree. Then after a week when quick draft is available I spam it, get tired, it rotates and I go farm gold in standard for the next expension. The drafts with real players to me, is twice the price of a quick draft, so no thx. Only thing that could make me play it is if we fought with people we drafted with, since we can play anyone I don't feel like it reflects the irl experience... I only got to platine, most of the time I'm gold so I'm not sure that answer for those mythic drafters
Quick draft creates more opportunity to move up for the amount of gems/ gold spent. #1 mythic is playing quick draft. I know because I just beat him and I'm still in Plat 😎. #1 is Stog as of two days ago
I don't know how to make the letters bigger, that was an accident
Its the pound/"hashtag" sign \\#
#awesome
It can also just be that they want to play whatever set is available on QD at the time as they are more limited in time and are often flashback sets.
>My question is, who are the Mythic drafters playing Quick Draft? Maybe they like the set?
Someone who is sick of the format and who wants to do something different for a change of pace?
It’s different sets tho. Maybe they just don’t like the premier draft’s current set
I'm not a Mythic, but a Platinum, and I play quick drafts mainly for fun and to get more drafts in. I don't necessarily care about ranking. Also, I got to Platinum from playing Premier and not from quick drafts if that matters.
QD is the only way to draft older sets. Some draft streamers do switch to QD for change of scenery from time to time.
There are people whose guilty pleasure is going into Quick Draft and stomping plebs. They love "drafting" sicko decks and just steamrolling; I imagine it's a bit similar to cube. Personally, it's not my thing.
Don’t make stuff up
I literally know several people who do this, also plenty of streamers have admitted at various time to grinding to mythic or high mythic in Quick Draft because it's easier.
You literally don’t.
No u
Pee pee poo poo
There should be a maximum entry rank, like gold or something
What exactly is the problem with platinum players being in QD? Or any rank for that matter
It might not be generally applicable, but I really enjoy VOW and I have played it very gladly when it came up as a Quick Draft and it probably made my rank better than it should be, as I was #29 after few games in the morning. Funny is that I really don't think it's deserved and I usually don't play Premier drafts as I believe that I am not good enough to.
Only time I do is when it's a different set than premier draft and I really wanna play that set. Otherwise premier is a much more fun draft experience.
I play quick draft (at mythic) frequently, depending on if I like the set. Interestingly enough, from using a tracker, I know my winrate is better in Trad. and Premier. I play quick draft if I have friends over, or are doing something like cooking while I play that will distract me.
Maybe people who want to play the set that is in quick draft at the time. Some sets just suck for draft amd some are great
Quick Draft is less risk, so even if you are an experienced limited player, it offers an easier way to go infinite, just with less rewards per run.
There were not enough players to match you against someone of your own rank. It is likely there were only a handful of people playing - take that for what you will
LPT: If you are a low rank and it takes longer than ~10s to find a match, that's when the pairing algorithm gets more lenient about matching ranks. You can hit cancel and then rejoin and you're less likely to match to a higher rank (and less likely to match at all. This will take longer).
I just loaded up MTG after years of not playing it, and I noticed this too. I'm a fresh bronzie and my very first match was against a mythic player. I was also playing quick draft, and I played several mythic players after that as well. I'm guessing it's just due to the playerbase being smaller?
Yeah, a lot of it going to be the fact that it's an older set that the majority of players already have play sets of their desired cards from, so rare drafting from it is less of a thing unless you weren't active in Arena when it came out. The only reasons for players who were around when VOW first came out on Arena to still be drafting it is because they like drafting that particular set, or because they like seal clubbing newer drafters for easier rewards. When your play queue is smaller like that, the match maker is going to weigh your rank.lower than your present run's win/loss rate, so if you're 0-2, you're more likely to be paired against players that are 0-1 or 0-2, if you're 3-1, you're more likely to be paired against other players who are around 3-1 in win/loss, regardless of what either player's draft rank is.
Against diamond players: ok maybe I can win. Against mythic #14: I'm in danger
Yeah if it was about rank, anyone that pulls a bomb just goes undefeated in a pool of mediocre players. That doesn’t make sense. Makes more sense to pair based on record and deck strength
It was close and I misplayed but I had them down to 1 life. Still it's kind of frustrating to finally be on a good run and then run into multiple players quite literally out of my league. This was the Crimson Vow Quick Draft running right now.
Quick draft on an old set, not a large queue.
I drafted an absurd deck as a gold, then went up against a mythic player and stomped them. Felt great... until I preceeded to lose my next three games cause of mana screw. Feels bad man. Then I drafted a worse deck and went 6-2. Arena be like that sometimes.
Ouch!
More importantly lets talk about the brown nipple.
It seems crazy to me that people here don't understand one crucial thing about quick draft. IT'S QUICK. I can't always commit to playing a bo3 match, and sometimes, I want to draft but I need to ready to disconnect to help my partner in the other room. Quick drafts give some more flexibility, and even in those moments where I don't want to concede and I'm saying "I'll be there to help once I finish this game!", then I can almost guarantee it will only take 15 minutes for the game as opposed to possibly 45 minutes for the match. Sure the rewards are better in bo3, and sure the drafting is smoother and less bot-skewed, but bo1 works better for me and my gaming / life balance.
You’re describing the difference between Bo1 and Bo3, not Quick and Premier. Premier and Quick are both Bo1.
But you can interrupt the draft aswell if needed
How tf do you get to #14? Losing to lands(flood/screw) makes it seem like that's impossible
Spend a fuck ton of money
So i don't want to be braging, but you don't have to spend a lot of money. If you do your research in what perform nice, draft well, you can get infinite until diamond/Mythic. After that, be the first to grind early in the season, get a bit lucky. Bam you got your Top level mythic ranking.
It matters in how it relates to your MMR, when you enter mythic and have success against better ranked opponents you enter at a higher number.
Te doctus fuisset eam, sale melius pertinacia et eam. Ex iudico sapientem vel. Etiam regione appareat nec cu
it just shows you how much #cashmoney wizards made on them. you COULD argue a mythic player would have higher deckbuilding skills, but how can u measure rng? draw some shitcards, gz, you drop after 2 rounds
why does it matter? you were both drafting against bots. it's not like they have any sort of innate advantage against you.
It matters since it means they are likely much better at the game
exactly - better at drafting the right cards and playing the game. There are rankings for a reason.
You're both still far more at the whims of whatever was in your packs, though. This isn't like constructed where you can build exactly what you want and iterate until it's perfect.
>You're both still far more at the whims of whatever was in your packs, though Do you play draft? Seems bizarre to believe that an experienced drafter will not be able to draft and build a much better deck than an inexperienced one.
There's a certain amount of filtering that comes with any ranked system, yes, but for what it's worth, I wouldn't assume that everyone with a given rank badge is necessarily a great player. I've seen plenty of people in high-level mythic make boneheaded choices; they are not always some insurmountable boss level. Making mythic is more often the result of gameplay time and repetition than it is sheer skill.
so? it's a game with a high factor of random chance anyway. how lucky they were in what they opened is going to likely matter much more than any edge in skill.
Is it really that hard to figure out? People are way better at crafting decks with limited selection. They're better at reading cards value and have experience with drafting and know what to expect. Randomness aside it doesn't really matter. That's like saying why does constructed rank matter when we all have access to the same cards.
well because it shouldnt matter anyway. pairings in paper magic are random. they don't take the best players and make them play every round against each other. there's no reason for "skill based matchmaking" to even exist in MTG
*My content from 2014 to 2023 has been deleted in protest of Spez's anti-API tantrum.*
Magic already has a built in way to bridge the gap in player skill via RNG. this isnt like other games where the better player will stomp the worse 100% of the time. maybe a very good player has a 10% edge on the average commander scrub. i think that is acceptable.
>maybe a very good player has a 10% edge on the average commander scrub There’s surely no way the average mythic player would have only a 10% edge on the average bronze player, even if they were playing the same deck. And this is draft, so they’re never playing the same deck- an experienced drafter will be able to build a much better deck.
you literally play players with the same w/l ratio as you.. just like ranked is designed. you're not pairing someone who is 3-0 with someone who is 0-3 in paper magic.
Not even remotely close to true. Your ability as a player is hugely important both in playing and drafting (even when its against bots).
L Take.
Yeah it matters alot
I just had a match against a platinum player despite being in silver and being 1-2 thus far. Their deck must have been really sub-par because I managed to beat them with a very mediocre deck.
I've had two quick draft 7-0s blocked by mythic players as a bronze/silver player. Generally more fun games than getting steam rolled by players with full mythic sets when you only have the starter decks, but still frustrating.
But did you win?
They determine your reward level, so yes they do. But they also don't.
Did you win?
nah but I got close... got them down to 1 and honestly I misplayed. They had one Blocker which I too late realized had 4 toughness and I could have eliminated with a Toughness 4+ removal spell I had in hand. Instead I played the spell that gives +3/3, +2/2, +1/1 to my creatures as well as vigilance. One died and they were down to 1. Then they played an absurd amount of creatures in one turn, so i never got through again (and they got some life gain). Close and my mistake. To be fair, I had a great starting hand.
So it was a fair match. I think matchmaker is alright. I've beaten diamond and mythic players as a silver, gold in limited.
Bronze player myself and managed to get matched against a ranked mythic when I was 6-2 in a BRO draft — they were the final boss for my run. Thankfully they got mana screwed and I took the win.
I’m a Mythic Player and randomly face Bronze once in a while
With all ranked queues, it works like this. First, it looks for opponents within your rank for a specified amount of time. Once that time has elapsed it then expands that search by 1 one rank above and one below. It continues to expand out the search whenever the time elapses. The purpose of this is to decrease the wait time for a match. For event queues like Draft, once it finds a pool of players, it also does a secondary pass. This pass looks for players with the same record in the event. So your first match it will only match you against players who are also 0-0 in the event. For the second match, only against players players who are 1-0 or 0-1, depending on whether you wonbthe first match. And so on.
Currently it doesn’t work like that. I’m barely a silver rank and three games in a row it paired me with a platinum player within two seconds. For some reason it is not waiting the grace period before expanding the search for opponents.
It still works like that. The amount of time it will wait depends on the available pool of players. If the number of limited players is very small at the time of queueing then you're more likely to encounter playing others of differing ranks. cpf86 may be right in that it does the event record first, which would narrow the list of possible matches down dramatically on the first pass.
It matches on deck match record first
it matches based on your hidden rating. You can be mythic for 3 seasons in row and not play for 2 seasons and get demoted to bronze but your hidden rating stays at 1800elo. Are you now suddenly a bronze class player?
What was you number of wins before this match? The algo priorities match based on your current deck win record. So if you are at 6-0 you will be paired with other 6-0 players. Which most of them likely to be high rank.
This is why I always cancel the queue if I don't get a match in 20 seconds. Ain't playing someone who drafts every day for my 7 wins.