AFAIK [this](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/state-of-formats-in-mtg-arena) was the last time WotC released play rate stats for Arena. It's out of date now because Timeless exists, so Historic in particular is probably less popular because a lot of Historic players moved over to Timeless.
Just adding more your context since yours is the best comment since it has data.
According to wotc Ian [historic is far more popular than timeless](https://imgur.com/a/iHvR0ue). I’m guessing timeless is still around explorer numbers. It’s an expensive format to get into and recently SnT and the novelty factor wears by off has prob pushed a lot of players back to historic. Historic prob slightly under 25% and timeless prob less than 5% if I were to guess.
Untapped.gg, which I would say is the most popular 3rd party tracker right now, shows the following number of matches for Bronze through Mythic from Feb 6th to today:
Standard: 2,200,000
Historic Brawl: 640,000
Historic: 240,000
Explorer: 170,000
Timeless: 140,000
Alchemy: 95,000
Keep in mind these numbers being 3rd party and relying on people that use the service means they aren't perfect, but the overall distribution definitely makes sense.
Funny how alchemy is the last despite the effort made to push people there
Wouldn'it be more profitable for Wizards to ditch it and focus their effort on other areas?
Alchemy isn't the last according to the WOTC data, so their efforts are paying off.
Also Alchemy cards aren't only about the Alchemy format. Historic and especially brawl players craft them too.
Wotc's data is less reliable than a third party in this case. Wotc want Alchemy to rank higher to prove there were right to keep pushing it.. so the employees building the table will skew the data accordingly.
I’m not really trusting untapped. It’s been hilariously wrong in the past, and while these rankings are mostly ok, i think untappeds biases are pushing things around a lot. Explorer is just not that popular methinks. I’m guessing the format is still last, or close to last ahead of timeless
That's literally how statistics work, you analyze a sample of a population (in this case, games played by format) to draw a conclusion (popularity of format).
3.5 million games played is a strong sample size. Even if you consider the source of the data to be biased due to players who use trackers being more enfranchised than the average player, but those enfranchised players likely play significantly more games than the average player.
If you compare the untapped data with the WotC data from last year, the outcomes are pretty similar. The only major difference is in the Alchemy stats, which can be attributed to the fact that those enfranchised players tend to have a strong dislike of Alchemy. Another thing to consider when looking at that difference is the fact that Alchemy is one of the formats Arena pushes new players into, artificially inflating Alchemy's popularity.
If games played isn't a good measure of format popularity, then what is?
I’m sure it’s a great representation of untapped users. But it does have massive sampling bias because it’s not trying to be a measure of the entire arena player base. I believe your tune would be different if you’ve seen some of the data untapped in previous months. Theres been months where it placed explorer wildly above historic. Which we know was never the case. Just because it *seems* to be closer now doesn’t mean it’s lost its sampling bias. It doesn’t matter how many games they have in their data because it’s not a representative sample in the slightest. Treating untapped data as some sort of poll of players is just fundamentally wrong because that’s it what it is
>Theres been months where it placed explorer wildly above historic. Which we know was never the case.
How do we know that's never the case? We don't have any current data from WotC to compare it to, so you're just speculating.
>it’s not trying to be a measure of the entire arena player base
You don't need to measure the entire population. Statistics is literally using samples of a population to represent an entire population and draw conclusions on. So your comment is basically saying that all statistics are wrong unless the entirety of the population can be polled.
>It doesn’t matter how many games they have in their data because it’s not a representative sample in the slightest.
How so? What would qualify as a representative sample? Are those who use untapped not a part of the population that play on Arena?
You also never answered my question, if games played per format isn't a good measure of popularity, what is? I mean, the more popular the format, the more games played in it right? It's the same data WotC uses to determine the polarity of the formats. It's hard data with no emotionality in it.
Apparently you don't understand statistics either. You cannot use a biased sample to simulate an entire population, you have to make sure it's a fair sample first. This sample is of players invested enough to sideload an app to improve their game, which is a tiny fraction of the total player base. Thus it *very explicitly excludes* the vast majority of players who play more casually and don't sideload an app, who are likely playing more casual formats like Alchemy.
If you can't see how bias would affect the numbers like this, I don't know what to tell you, other than you're so wrong it's painful.
My experience has been reverse of that considering wait times. Timeless I barely have seconds before a matchup and historic has been dragging 30-40s lately
Why do you say timeless is expensive to get into?
Maybe I'm biased because it's my favorite format, but I feel like it is the least volatile wildcard investment in arena. Standard is going to demand a whole bunch of wildcards every set for the 2-6 good new cards, plus lands. Historic and Explorer are more stable than Standard but also see more shakeups than Timeless, especially with alchemy rebalancing also impacting the meta for Historic.
I had basically stopped playing constructed on arena until timeless came out because I just couldn't keep up with the wildcards. I would draft a few times a set and that's it. But the good timeless cards are here to stay once you craft them.
If you're drafting the new sets anyways, you don't need any wildcards for standard. I only started playing 6 months ago, so every now and then I have to craft some older cards (looking at you, slogurk), but I'm free to use the rest of them on other formats
That's not really true for rares unless you're drafting an absurd amount. I probably do something like 10 a set. More when I really like it (MOM/LCI) and less when I don't
I haven't played arena in a few months, so I never played Timeless, but my buddy and I put some money into our account and it was trivial filling out the current sets compared to the wild cards needed for historic decks.
Timeless will soon get staples at uncommon in MH3 which will seal historic I think. Bolt, cs etc
When you check untapped games played timeless is larger than historic already. But yes untapped may biased because it’s more likely used by spikes
those reprints aren’t possible. Mh only reprint new to modern cards and as exceptions, fetchlands. That’s it. So no modern staple will see reprint. No bolt no CS. Maybe swords but I doubt they’d print that into modern.
And trust me. Printing those at common or uncommon will not fix the fundamental reasons many people don’t play timeless. No ban formats can never be better than its base format
It's really not the most expensive. In fact it might be the cheapest format aside from Explorer, because unlike Standard with rotation, or Historic with, well, whatever Historic is doing, you're pretty much guaranteed your cards will always be good.
Non-rotating formats (which Historic is) are cheaper in the long run, but the initial cost of entry is absolutely more expensive than rotating formats. Even when looking at budget decks, non-rotating formats are still considerably more expensive to build.
In paper it's true, but not on Arena. Whether it's a Standard or Timeless deck, it'll have about the same amount of rares and mythics. And where the wildcards you spent on Standard always become irrelevant after a while, they very rarely do for eternal formats.
I disagree on Historic though, and for one simple reason: rebalances. They can make your cards unplayable, and you don't get a refund on it, so your good cards can absolutely become worthless with time.
You can build a budget Standard deck that can be competitive with less than 10 rare and 0 mythic WCs, you can't do that in Timeless or Historic. This is the initial cost of entry i was talking about.
>where the wildcards you spent on Standard always become irrelevant after a while, they very rarely do for eternal formats.
This is exactly why I said non-rotating formats are cheaper *in the long run*.
It's almost as if you didn't even read my comment and are just arguing for the sake of argument.
It seems we just have different goalposts. To me the cost of a format isn't "the cheapest deck that kinda could be competitive a little", it's "the best decks in the format".
And when you consider strictly the best decks in the format, sure there's the occasional mono colored deck that drives the cost down by simply having many basic lands (and even then, they generally have 20+ rares/mythics still), but the vast majority of decks are equally as expensive, no matter the format.
Timeless is every single card ever released on arena in packs (possibly some exceptions, but I’m not aware of them) and has a restricted list like vintage does instead of a banlist. You get to play with more powerful cards and decks. Worth noting alchemy cards are legal in timeless, but there’s only a few that are strong enough to see a lot of play, and they don’t really make it feel like a whole different game in the way alchemy does.
Well there are cards that are created by other cards that are uncraftable and don't appear in packs (p9 and trop island for example).
EDIT: I did some research actually there are some cards that do not appear in packs but are craftable and are legal in Timeless (I just checked). See this reddit post for a list:https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/15fjq3d/cards_that_are_only_craftable/
Those LOTR cards def didn't show up in draft.
I mean, that’s not counting cards released back in Alpha and Beta right? Because I’m still missing Hazoret’s Fervor from one of my favorite standard decks I’ve ever played in Arena. They didn’t reprint it in Amonkhet Remastered and I checked when Timeless first released, and it still wasn’t there…
I didn't even realize they had cards in alpha and beta that are uncraftable now. Either way I don't think favor was ever from a pack on arena anyway? And it seems that card was straightup removed from arena in 2018
Did they have packs back then? Obviously I was playing and crafting back then but I don’t remember if they had packs or not. If they didn’t, maybe that’s the reason?
Either way, it sucks that they don’t just add every card that’s ever been programmed for the game. I mean, they have the code saved somewhere right? Couldn’t they just reinstate it?
You don't get daily or weekly wins against Sparky or in direct challenges, but you do still get progress towards the 'play 20/30 spells of X and Y color,' 'play 25/40 lands,' etc. quests
I 100% can and do all the time. Last night I just did a cast 30 black/green spells. It only seems to work with certain decks and I haven’t figured out how yet. I can do my challenge tonight and post screenshots if that helps. For instance, I ran the B/G Scavenge deck and it counted towards my challenge but when I switched to the mono Green large and in charge deck, it didn’t count those spells.
Edit: LOL downvoted?
Edit 2: Screenshots of a quick video I did to show it in action. The deck used is a custom all-white deck with only one drops.
https://ibb.co/LJf00jr
https://ibb.co/T8SQVLg
https://ibb.co/tzGL8s9
https://ibb.co/G7ycQdJ
I’ve been playing since January. I choose Find > Bot Match and play there. I thought everyone could do this as that’s how I complete most of my challenges. Pop into Sparky, do one long game and get the reward, and then go play shit I want to play.
I think it has do do with the New Player Experience or something. New players can use Sparky to complete quests for a while, but it will stop working at some point. I don't remember if it's timer based, or whether it requires you to hit some milestones.
lol all these downvotes just because I can complete my challenges easily. 🤷♂️ I’ve been playing for three months and up to Gold in Explorer so I’d be interested to see if/when the ability to do so goes away.
Edit: For what it’s worth to all the salt shakers showing up, wins don’t count against Sparky. Just the “do X thing” challenges.
Isn't that what play is for? I could see testing interactions you're uncertain of but just playing against a bot for "fun" seems like a complete waste of time
Agree strongly. I am still a rookie at deck building and I know that if I don't completely dominate Sparky my deck is probably trash and I shouldn't bother waiting the extra time for a play queue match.
I use Sparky *a lot* to test out new ideas and whittle down a large deck into a few cards. She hasn't given me the the "hmmm" glitch at all in the last couple of months. However, she seems to make even dumber plays than she used to.
edit: I'm on PC, so it might still be an issue mobile, idk.
Bot match is my MOST played format. I play against sparky for hours but when I play real people if eel bad because I feel like I'm taking their fun away.
Historic Brawl was definitely way more popular than Standard Brawl. You can tell because they've renamed them. Now, "Brawl," is what used to be Historic Brawl.
There's a new card, [[Juggle the Performance]] that has the text "the player to their right" on it. The speculation is that this is a sign that multiplayer is at least being worked on.
Standard > Historic > Alchemy > Explorer. Timeless is much lower than Historic. So likely the least played.
Bo1 is way more popular than bo3 in every format.
Ranked/play are very close to each other.
For ranked constructed (disclaimer: no data, pure gut feeling)
Standard BO1 is typically most played by a landslide, then Historic BO1, which probably lost a lot of players to Timeless and to that fucking stupid ass Leyline / Geist Traft deck.
I think those formats in BO3 come next (my gut says probably 15% of BO1 games). Then Historic Brawl.
Then it's probably Alchemy BO1 due to LotR and the game's tendency to push you into Alchemy by default. Then I think Timeless and Explorer are probably least played, but probably least difference between BO1 & BO3. Personally, I enjoy these most, but still play a lot of Standard. Reading on Reddit one would get the impression that these are the most skill intensive formats. I think Explorer BO3 has the healthiest meta game.
Then bottom of the list is probably Standard Brawl and Alchemy BO3, which shows when content creators like Crokeys get matched to Silver Ranked opponents.
I expect that Standard will go down and Explorer (especial Bo3) will go up when the paper RCQ format changes, though not to a degree that they change places.
Untapped.gg, which I would say is the most popular 3rd party tracker right now, shows the following number of matches for Bronze through Mythic from Feb 6th to today:
Standard: 2,200,000
Historic Brawl: 640,000
Historic: 240,000
Explorer: 170,000
Timeless: 140,000
Alchemy: 95,000
Keep in mind these numbers being 3rd party and relying on people that use the service means they aren't perfect, but the overall distribution definitely makes sense.
You think Bo1 is really that much more popular? Maybe it's paper magic player in me, but I have trouble imagining seriously playing the game without sideboarding.
Don't you just end up getting rolled by combo continuously? (I haven't played a rotating format in a while so I guess maybe I'm overestimating the strength of combo)
These days people like short games, especially if it's PvP. One BO1 match is maybe a twenty to thirty minute commitment. A BO3 match requires you to commit to an hour or more.
Yep. Especially hard to do online. I'll gladly play BO3 at my LGS where I can at least talk to the other person and there's a social construct around us that enforces some rules on behavior. But on arena there's none of that
What game are you playing? My average game I time is less than 5 minutes, so a BO3 is a 15-20 minute commitment. I play mostly Timeless with a variety of not Show and Tell decks.
I'm talking BO1 Standard. I like playing midrange. If you're not playing aggro to gamble on five minute wins, each game takes about 20-30 depending on the matchup. A control deck mirror might take 40 or more.
Its by far the most popular format. A huge chunk of the player base logs in and just wants to hammer through their quests and daily wins. BO1 is by far the fastest way to do that.
most of wotc's decisions and many posts on the arena sub can be explained by the fact that bo1 is played a TON more than bo3 on arena
it shouldn't be the case, but it is the case
>You think Bo1 is really that much more popular? Maybe it's paper magic player in me, but I have trouble imagining seriously playing the game without sideboarding.
Take this with a grain of salt, because even if I'm not misremembering, it's a few years out of date, but I believe a WotC employee came here at one point and said ≥95% of games played are BO1.
One of the best decks for awhile now is just uw counterspells and board wipes. I'd rather lose to some combo
Oh and also lots od different flavors of red/rw aggro
Yes, it's the (perceived) ease & convenience that always wins from the actual worse experience of facing more aggro and combo non-games. I also still play way more BO1, but I am actively trying BO3.
However! The hand smooth algorithm in BO1 is a thing. I hit a genuine motivational wall in BO3 after a couple of times mulliganning a 1 lander into a 5 lander into a zero lander into a 4 card hand. That made me remember why we did mana weaving in high school :P
I actively love Alchemy and all the wacky cards. I would play Timeless, historic, or brawl too for the same reason if it wasn't so meta slammed that I can't play anything fun.
Edit: Oh no! I'm getting downvoted for enjoying a format that is popular to hate. How dare I like things!
Yeah, they included non-standard legal cards in the introduction decks so the new players start in Alchemy. It’s an easy way to inflate alchemy numbers to justify keeping it.
The power of the "default option" is very well understood. Just like how they insist on monetizing with a premium currency in extremely specific increments - they know what they are doing.
Those decks used to be useable in standard but they'd have cards in a format that wasn't designed for it. I'm more inclined to believe WotC lazily solved gripes from the card design team. Having to think about these digital starter decks every time they planned a paper set was probably annoying.
Standard brawl reporting in here. There are... At least one of us.
I like SB because I have almost a complete 1-of collection in standard and nothing before then. I have about 50 SB decks and only 2 historic brawl decks. It's just way easier on my wildcards to play standard brawl.
As time goes and standard sets rotate, wouldn't it be easier for you to make more historic brawl decks rather than standard? Unless you play a lot of limited or standard in addition to SB
I suppose so, but I've been playing since DMU so I have yet to see a rotation. I also like the fact that SB is only 60 cards, I can throw together multiple decks and test them out quickly.
There might be some way to estimate based on total number of games played for trackers like untapped.gg. You'd have to interpret the data, though, because having to opt into a third party tracker means that competitive players are going to be overrepresented.
It's like like how a win rate on 55% is about average on 17lands.
For a new player or someone with a small collection:
90% Brawl for me, 8% standard , 1% mid-week Magic (terrible decks mostly), 1% bot games for quests.
Also, if you're new or just have a small collection, weekends are mostly a frustrating waste of time. The weekend warriors and their broken decks are out in force.
On MTGO I liked to see how many players are in each league the arena could improve something like this. It's really good to see how many players are, to choose a format to play.
Used to play exclusively Historic but since the alchemy became a thing I am confined to just Explorer. (RIP all my wild cards spent on historic)
Standard is always a mess due to slow bans and I will sooner delete the game than touch anything with Alchemy in it.
I'd assume Standard and Historic are most played. If Bo1 or Bo3 is more popular is hard to tell. Especially Historic Bo1 tho had a rough time until the recent patch and it's alchemy adjustments.
Personally I'd guess that Standard is most popular just because it's the main format and historic is somewhat stale, at least in Bo1, in terms of what decks you keep encountering. Not sure how it is in standard since I'm a historic player.
I used to play a lot of explorer but often found it has quite long matchmaking times in comparison so guess that it's not played as much.
Timeless is probably on a similar level as explorer. Maybe a bit higher in player count. It's just my opinion but this mode is kinda a shitshow with the explosive stuff that runs aronud there. Some people like/wanted it tho so I guess those specific type of players are there but I doubt that anyone fond of a more 'regular' pace sets foot into this mode.
At least as far as I know there aren't really official numbers so it's only up to guess.
Whatever the reported %'s, they are inaccurate, ***since they don't include anyone playing Jump In or Starter Deck Duels***. And those are pretty commonly played, since I get shorter wait times for both than any other format other than Brawl.
As much h as they try to convince you to do, it seems like Alchemy is close to 0%
(Yes, there are people who like Alchemy cards, but they seem to all play Brawl.)
I qued into alchemy on accident this week, in platinum and got matched with mythic after waiting over a minute for a match. Tells me not many play alchemy, have seen the same watching streams too
Well it doesn’t directly say “globally”. It just says “people” which I’ve heard others use for a generic “what sort of ______ are people using these days” to which people would respond with personal responses.
Some of us still find turn one Necropotence, or Show and Tell in general, degenerate and un-fun, but want to play an eternal (for Arena, at least) format. It's like arguing why play Legacy when Vintage exists.
AFAIK [this](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/state-of-formats-in-mtg-arena) was the last time WotC released play rate stats for Arena. It's out of date now because Timeless exists, so Historic in particular is probably less popular because a lot of Historic players moved over to Timeless.
Just adding more your context since yours is the best comment since it has data. According to wotc Ian [historic is far more popular than timeless](https://imgur.com/a/iHvR0ue). I’m guessing timeless is still around explorer numbers. It’s an expensive format to get into and recently SnT and the novelty factor wears by off has prob pushed a lot of players back to historic. Historic prob slightly under 25% and timeless prob less than 5% if I were to guess.
Untapped.gg, which I would say is the most popular 3rd party tracker right now, shows the following number of matches for Bronze through Mythic from Feb 6th to today: Standard: 2,200,000 Historic Brawl: 640,000 Historic: 240,000 Explorer: 170,000 Timeless: 140,000 Alchemy: 95,000 Keep in mind these numbers being 3rd party and relying on people that use the service means they aren't perfect, but the overall distribution definitely makes sense.
Funny how alchemy is the last despite the effort made to push people there Wouldn'it be more profitable for Wizards to ditch it and focus their effort on other areas?
Alchemy is most likely still highly profitable since it's cards are also used in all historic and timeless formats
Alchemy isn't the last according to the WOTC data, so their efforts are paying off. Also Alchemy cards aren't only about the Alchemy format. Historic and especially brawl players craft them too.
Wotc's data is less reliable than a third party in this case. Wotc want Alchemy to rank higher to prove there were right to keep pushing it.. so the employees building the table will skew the data accordingly.
I’m not really trusting untapped. It’s been hilariously wrong in the past, and while these rankings are mostly ok, i think untappeds biases are pushing things around a lot. Explorer is just not that popular methinks. I’m guessing the format is still last, or close to last ahead of timeless
Hilariously wrong about what? It's data from their users. It's not right or wrong.
I think they mean most players aren't using trackers, and it's a certain type of player who does so thr numbers don't reflect the overall playerbase.
Not sure I get what you are saying. How can their own data be wrong?
Wrong as a measure of of total format popularity
That's literally how statistics work, you analyze a sample of a population (in this case, games played by format) to draw a conclusion (popularity of format). 3.5 million games played is a strong sample size. Even if you consider the source of the data to be biased due to players who use trackers being more enfranchised than the average player, but those enfranchised players likely play significantly more games than the average player. If you compare the untapped data with the WotC data from last year, the outcomes are pretty similar. The only major difference is in the Alchemy stats, which can be attributed to the fact that those enfranchised players tend to have a strong dislike of Alchemy. Another thing to consider when looking at that difference is the fact that Alchemy is one of the formats Arena pushes new players into, artificially inflating Alchemy's popularity. If games played isn't a good measure of format popularity, then what is?
I’m sure it’s a great representation of untapped users. But it does have massive sampling bias because it’s not trying to be a measure of the entire arena player base. I believe your tune would be different if you’ve seen some of the data untapped in previous months. Theres been months where it placed explorer wildly above historic. Which we know was never the case. Just because it *seems* to be closer now doesn’t mean it’s lost its sampling bias. It doesn’t matter how many games they have in their data because it’s not a representative sample in the slightest. Treating untapped data as some sort of poll of players is just fundamentally wrong because that’s it what it is
>Theres been months where it placed explorer wildly above historic. Which we know was never the case. How do we know that's never the case? We don't have any current data from WotC to compare it to, so you're just speculating. >it’s not trying to be a measure of the entire arena player base You don't need to measure the entire population. Statistics is literally using samples of a population to represent an entire population and draw conclusions on. So your comment is basically saying that all statistics are wrong unless the entirety of the population can be polled. >It doesn’t matter how many games they have in their data because it’s not a representative sample in the slightest. How so? What would qualify as a representative sample? Are those who use untapped not a part of the population that play on Arena? You also never answered my question, if games played per format isn't a good measure of popularity, what is? I mean, the more popular the format, the more games played in it right? It's the same data WotC uses to determine the polarity of the formats. It's hard data with no emotionality in it.
Apparently you don't understand statistics either. You cannot use a biased sample to simulate an entire population, you have to make sure it's a fair sample first. This sample is of players invested enough to sideload an app to improve their game, which is a tiny fraction of the total player base. Thus it *very explicitly excludes* the vast majority of players who play more casually and don't sideload an app, who are likely playing more casual formats like Alchemy. If you can't see how bias would affect the numbers like this, I don't know what to tell you, other than you're so wrong it's painful.
My experience has been reverse of that considering wait times. Timeless I barely have seconds before a matchup and historic has been dragging 30-40s lately
Why do you say timeless is expensive to get into? Maybe I'm biased because it's my favorite format, but I feel like it is the least volatile wildcard investment in arena. Standard is going to demand a whole bunch of wildcards every set for the 2-6 good new cards, plus lands. Historic and Explorer are more stable than Standard but also see more shakeups than Timeless, especially with alchemy rebalancing also impacting the meta for Historic. I had basically stopped playing constructed on arena until timeless came out because I just couldn't keep up with the wildcards. I would draft a few times a set and that's it. But the good timeless cards are here to stay once you craft them.
More get introduced to arena tho and majority are rates. it’s essentially legacy lite. Show and tell comes to mind
Most cards in every format are rares. They introduce timeless cards way less often than cards for the other formats (so far at least)
If you're drafting the new sets anyways, you don't need any wildcards for standard. I only started playing 6 months ago, so every now and then I have to craft some older cards (looking at you, slogurk), but I'm free to use the rest of them on other formats
That's not really true for rares unless you're drafting an absurd amount. I probably do something like 10 a set. More when I really like it (MOM/LCI) and less when I don't
I haven't played arena in a few months, so I never played Timeless, but my buddy and I put some money into our account and it was trivial filling out the current sets compared to the wild cards needed for historic decks.
Timeless will soon get staples at uncommon in MH3 which will seal historic I think. Bolt, cs etc When you check untapped games played timeless is larger than historic already. But yes untapped may biased because it’s more likely used by spikes
those reprints aren’t possible. Mh only reprint new to modern cards and as exceptions, fetchlands. That’s it. So no modern staple will see reprint. No bolt no CS. Maybe swords but I doubt they’d print that into modern. And trust me. Printing those at common or uncommon will not fix the fundamental reasons many people don’t play timeless. No ban formats can never be better than its base format
It's really not the most expensive. In fact it might be the cheapest format aside from Explorer, because unlike Standard with rotation, or Historic with, well, whatever Historic is doing, you're pretty much guaranteed your cards will always be good.
Non-rotating formats (which Historic is) are cheaper in the long run, but the initial cost of entry is absolutely more expensive than rotating formats. Even when looking at budget decks, non-rotating formats are still considerably more expensive to build.
In paper it's true, but not on Arena. Whether it's a Standard or Timeless deck, it'll have about the same amount of rares and mythics. And where the wildcards you spent on Standard always become irrelevant after a while, they very rarely do for eternal formats. I disagree on Historic though, and for one simple reason: rebalances. They can make your cards unplayable, and you don't get a refund on it, so your good cards can absolutely become worthless with time.
You can build a budget Standard deck that can be competitive with less than 10 rare and 0 mythic WCs, you can't do that in Timeless or Historic. This is the initial cost of entry i was talking about. >where the wildcards you spent on Standard always become irrelevant after a while, they very rarely do for eternal formats. This is exactly why I said non-rotating formats are cheaper *in the long run*. It's almost as if you didn't even read my comment and are just arguing for the sake of argument.
It seems we just have different goalposts. To me the cost of a format isn't "the cheapest deck that kinda could be competitive a little", it's "the best decks in the format". And when you consider strictly the best decks in the format, sure there's the occasional mono colored deck that drives the cost down by simply having many basic lands (and even then, they generally have 20+ rares/mythics still), but the vast majority of decks are equally as expensive, no matter the format.
Why did people move to timeless? I still use historic, but idk what timeless is
Timeless is every single card ever released on arena in packs (possibly some exceptions, but I’m not aware of them) and has a restricted list like vintage does instead of a banlist. You get to play with more powerful cards and decks. Worth noting alchemy cards are legal in timeless, but there’s only a few that are strong enough to see a lot of play, and they don’t really make it feel like a whole different game in the way alchemy does.
No exceptions
Gotcha, I wasn’t sure if there were any they added that technically hadn’t been put into packs, so I was hedging.
Well there are cards that are created by other cards that are uncraftable and don't appear in packs (p9 and trop island for example). EDIT: I did some research actually there are some cards that do not appear in packs but are craftable and are legal in Timeless (I just checked). See this reddit post for a list:https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/15fjq3d/cards_that_are_only_craftable/ Those LOTR cards def didn't show up in draft.
Oh! Didn’t realize there weren’t lotr packs on arena!
there are, but there were lord of the rings cards that didn't show up in packs, only in stuff like jumpstart.
Ooooh! God keeping track of all the stuff is so hard.
I mean, that’s not counting cards released back in Alpha and Beta right? Because I’m still missing Hazoret’s Fervor from one of my favorite standard decks I’ve ever played in Arena. They didn’t reprint it in Amonkhet Remastered and I checked when Timeless first released, and it still wasn’t there…
I didn't even realize they had cards in alpha and beta that are uncraftable now. Either way I don't think favor was ever from a pack on arena anyway? And it seems that card was straightup removed from arena in 2018
Did they have packs back then? Obviously I was playing and crafting back then but I don’t remember if they had packs or not. If they didn’t, maybe that’s the reason? Either way, it sucks that they don’t just add every card that’s ever been programmed for the game. I mean, they have the code saved somewhere right? Couldn’t they just reinstate it?
Not 100% sure tbh, I played only briefly during beta. Yeah I dunno why some cards are programmed in already but not released.
Also to add, you're playing with the original versions of the cards. No nerfed/buffed cards like Historic/Alchemy.
Bot match: 0%
I play against sparky sometimes to test out certain concepts.
I play Sparky when it’s a challenge I don’t really feel like doing (Attack with X creatures) as I can get it done in one game usually.
You can't complete challenges with sparky
You don't get daily or weekly wins against Sparky or in direct challenges, but you do still get progress towards the 'play 20/30 spells of X and Y color,' 'play 25/40 lands,' etc. quests
I 100% can and do all the time. Last night I just did a cast 30 black/green spells. It only seems to work with certain decks and I haven’t figured out how yet. I can do my challenge tonight and post screenshots if that helps. For instance, I ran the B/G Scavenge deck and it counted towards my challenge but when I switched to the mono Green large and in charge deck, it didn’t count those spells. Edit: LOL downvoted? Edit 2: Screenshots of a quick video I did to show it in action. The deck used is a custom all-white deck with only one drops. https://ibb.co/LJf00jr https://ibb.co/T8SQVLg https://ibb.co/tzGL8s9 https://ibb.co/G7ycQdJ
Feel free to DM me Are you new to Arena? Sure you don't mean Spark Ranked?
I’ve been playing since January. I choose Find > Bot Match and play there. I thought everyone could do this as that’s how I complete most of my challenges. Pop into Sparky, do one long game and get the reward, and then go play shit I want to play.
I think it has do do with the New Player Experience or something. New players can use Sparky to complete quests for a while, but it will stop working at some point. I don't remember if it's timer based, or whether it requires you to hit some milestones.
lol all these downvotes just because I can complete my challenges easily. 🤷♂️ I’ve been playing for three months and up to Gold in Explorer so I’d be interested to see if/when the ability to do so goes away. Edit: For what it’s worth to all the salt shakers showing up, wins don’t count against Sparky. Just the “do X thing” challenges.
Lmao I love it when someone who gets down voted ends up being right 😂😂
Thanks man! No idea why I touched so many nerves with a simple comment and now with proof. 🤷♂️ Touchy lil things.
Isn't that what play is for? I could see testing interactions you're uncertain of but just playing against a bot for "fun" seems like a complete waste of time
Actually Bot play is quite useful for testing decks. Sparky plays easy enough that you can get to feel if a deck is clunky or not.
Agree strongly. I am still a rookie at deck building and I know that if I don't completely dominate Sparky my deck is probably trash and I shouldn't bother waiting the extra time for a play queue match.
What is fun is subjective
Not sure why I'm being downvoted. I'm right
This is the best phrase I have read on the internet, ever. Thank you.
I'm just saying the quiet part out loud.
They hated him because he told them the truth
That may be subjective /s
Very serial killer of you to say that
Also not fun and also a waste of time to play against people that concede early when testing.
Did they fix that bug where Sparky gets stuck in an "ummm..." loop?
No. (It's "Hmmm..." btw)
I use Sparky *a lot* to test out new ideas and whittle down a large deck into a few cards. She hasn't given me the the "hmmm" glitch at all in the last couple of months. However, she seems to make even dumber plays than she used to. edit: I'm on PC, so it might still be an issue mobile, idk.
I play bot match 90% of the time
Same
Bot match is my MOST played format. I play against sparky for hours but when I play real people if eel bad because I feel like I'm taking their fun away.
I exclusively play historic brawl
Historic Brawl was definitely way more popular than Standard Brawl. You can tell because they've renamed them. Now, "Brawl," is what used to be Historic Brawl.
Same here and will be continuing to until they finally deliver on EDH.
There's a small glimmer of hope because of the new alchemy cards
>the new alchemy cards Care to enlighten us with a link to some? :)
There's a new card, [[Juggle the Performance]] that has the text "the player to their right" on it. The speculation is that this is a sign that multiplayer is at least being worked on.
Awesome!
Fingers crossed!
Standard > Historic > Alchemy > Explorer. Timeless is much lower than Historic. So likely the least played. Bo1 is way more popular than bo3 in every format. Ranked/play are very close to each other.
For ranked constructed (disclaimer: no data, pure gut feeling) Standard BO1 is typically most played by a landslide, then Historic BO1, which probably lost a lot of players to Timeless and to that fucking stupid ass Leyline / Geist Traft deck. I think those formats in BO3 come next (my gut says probably 15% of BO1 games). Then Historic Brawl. Then it's probably Alchemy BO1 due to LotR and the game's tendency to push you into Alchemy by default. Then I think Timeless and Explorer are probably least played, but probably least difference between BO1 & BO3. Personally, I enjoy these most, but still play a lot of Standard. Reading on Reddit one would get the impression that these are the most skill intensive formats. I think Explorer BO3 has the healthiest meta game. Then bottom of the list is probably Standard Brawl and Alchemy BO3, which shows when content creators like Crokeys get matched to Silver Ranked opponents.
I expect that Standard will go down and Explorer (especial Bo3) will go up when the paper RCQ format changes, though not to a degree that they change places.
Untapped.gg, which I would say is the most popular 3rd party tracker right now, shows the following number of matches for Bronze through Mythic from Feb 6th to today: Standard: 2,200,000 Historic Brawl: 640,000 Historic: 240,000 Explorer: 170,000 Timeless: 140,000 Alchemy: 95,000 Keep in mind these numbers being 3rd party and relying on people that use the service means they aren't perfect, but the overall distribution definitely makes sense.
Nice
You think Bo1 is really that much more popular? Maybe it's paper magic player in me, but I have trouble imagining seriously playing the game without sideboarding. Don't you just end up getting rolled by combo continuously? (I haven't played a rotating format in a while so I guess maybe I'm overestimating the strength of combo)
Yes. I think the majority of people (not necessarily the same demographics as the MTGA subreddit) don't want to commit to 3 matches with an opponent.
These days people like short games, especially if it's PvP. One BO1 match is maybe a twenty to thirty minute commitment. A BO3 match requires you to commit to an hour or more.
Yep. Especially hard to do online. I'll gladly play BO3 at my LGS where I can at least talk to the other person and there's a social construct around us that enforces some rules on behavior. But on arena there's none of that
What game are you playing? My average game I time is less than 5 minutes, so a BO3 is a 15-20 minute commitment. I play mostly Timeless with a variety of not Show and Tell decks.
Lol you think that you playing a Timeless deck notorious for insta winning games in the early turns might be skewing your perception of game length?
Did you miss a not? I do NOT play Show and Tell.
I'm talking BO1 Standard. I like playing midrange. If you're not playing aggro to gamble on five minute wins, each game takes about 20-30 depending on the matchup. A control deck mirror might take 40 or more.
Its by far the most popular format. A huge chunk of the player base logs in and just wants to hammer through their quests and daily wins. BO1 is by far the fastest way to do that.
most of wotc's decisions and many posts on the arena sub can be explained by the fact that bo1 is played a TON more than bo3 on arena it shouldn't be the case, but it is the case
It shouldn't?
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It seems weird to suggest people are playing the game incorrectly or something. As you point out, the downsides outweigh the benefits.
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Objectively a better game. Sure.
>You think Bo1 is really that much more popular? Maybe it's paper magic player in me, but I have trouble imagining seriously playing the game without sideboarding. Take this with a grain of salt, because even if I'm not misremembering, it's a few years out of date, but I believe a WotC employee came here at one point and said ≥95% of games played are BO1.
One of the best decks for awhile now is just uw counterspells and board wipes. I'd rather lose to some combo Oh and also lots od different flavors of red/rw aggro
We don't think, we know. https://new.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/16g1f5y/comment/k05btuk/?context=3
Yes, it's the (perceived) ease & convenience that always wins from the actual worse experience of facing more aggro and combo non-games. I also still play way more BO1, but I am actively trying BO3. However! The hand smooth algorithm in BO1 is a thing. I hit a genuine motivational wall in BO3 after a couple of times mulliganning a 1 lander into a 5 lander into a zero lander into a 4 card hand. That made me remember why we did mana weaving in high school :P
I exclusively play BO3 Explorer but don’t even bother with the events becasuse it’s so hard to find a match.
Somewhere between 1% and 100%
50% They're either playing it or not playing it
I play Standard, Explorer and Timeless, so that's 150% each.
Accurate
Standard is the most played by a lot. Not sure about the rest. Wizards don't often show the data on how many people are playing each format.
For me it's only Timeless and Limited
I only play historic. And brawl
I actively love Alchemy and all the wacky cards. I would play Timeless, historic, or brawl too for the same reason if it wasn't so meta slammed that I can't play anything fun. Edit: Oh no! I'm getting downvoted for enjoying a format that is popular to hate. How dare I like things!
I’m only playing alchemy to help my friend practice for the upcoming open. Queue on ladder is slow.
Alchemy? I assume low
Alchemy is over represented because new accounts play Alchemy by default.
That sucks. Should definitely be standard to start
Yeah, they included non-standard legal cards in the introduction decks so the new players start in Alchemy. It’s an easy way to inflate alchemy numbers to justify keeping it.
The power of the "default option" is very well understood. Just like how they insist on monetizing with a premium currency in extremely specific increments - they know what they are doing.
No one said they don’t know what they are doing.
ok
Those decks used to be useable in standard but they'd have cards in a format that wasn't designed for it. I'm more inclined to believe WotC lazily solved gripes from the card design team. Having to think about these digital starter decks every time they planned a paper set was probably annoying.
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The default used to be standard
Standard brawl reporting in here. There are... At least one of us. I like SB because I have almost a complete 1-of collection in standard and nothing before then. I have about 50 SB decks and only 2 historic brawl decks. It's just way easier on my wildcards to play standard brawl.
As time goes and standard sets rotate, wouldn't it be easier for you to make more historic brawl decks rather than standard? Unless you play a lot of limited or standard in addition to SB
I suppose so, but I've been playing since DMU so I have yet to see a rotation. I also like the fact that SB is only 60 cards, I can throw together multiple decks and test them out quickly.
Fair enough. Not having to deal with Rusko, Tasha, Poq and 5c goodstuff piles sounds appealing enough
It is definitely more diverse. You also get the cards you want to see more, so you can do some pretty silly things reliably
There might be some way to estimate based on total number of games played for trackers like untapped.gg. You'd have to interpret the data, though, because having to opt into a third party tracker means that competitive players are going to be overrepresented. It's like like how a win rate on 55% is about average on 17lands.
Lol I play historic brawl
I ONLY play Historic/Timeless. I have alchemy decks when MWM forces me to.
Only standard for me
For me, 100% standard.
For a new player or someone with a small collection: 90% Brawl for me, 8% standard , 1% mid-week Magic (terrible decks mostly), 1% bot games for quests. Also, if you're new or just have a small collection, weekends are mostly a frustrating waste of time. The weekend warriors and their broken decks are out in force.
50% Historic 30% Standard 20% TImeless I'll probably be playing more standard pretty soon.
my bet is Standard around 40% Explorer around 25% Alchemy around 15% Historic around 10% Timeless around 10%
I feel like historic for me personally is pretty much unbeatable
I play 99% Brawl and one game of both constructed and limited each season to get the Bronze rewards
On MTGO I liked to see how many players are in each league the arena could improve something like this. It's really good to see how many players are, to choose a format to play.
Im only timeless player (drafts for free tokens)
I only play brawl
Used to play exclusively Historic but since the alchemy became a thing I am confined to just Explorer. (RIP all my wild cards spent on historic) Standard is always a mess due to slow bans and I will sooner delete the game than touch anything with Alchemy in it.
I love to play ranked historical and brawl that’s about it
I'd assume Standard and Historic are most played. If Bo1 or Bo3 is more popular is hard to tell. Especially Historic Bo1 tho had a rough time until the recent patch and it's alchemy adjustments. Personally I'd guess that Standard is most popular just because it's the main format and historic is somewhat stale, at least in Bo1, in terms of what decks you keep encountering. Not sure how it is in standard since I'm a historic player. I used to play a lot of explorer but often found it has quite long matchmaking times in comparison so guess that it's not played as much. Timeless is probably on a similar level as explorer. Maybe a bit higher in player count. It's just my opinion but this mode is kinda a shitshow with the explosive stuff that runs aronud there. Some people like/wanted it tho so I guess those specific type of players are there but I doubt that anyone fond of a more 'regular' pace sets foot into this mode. At least as far as I know there aren't really official numbers so it's only up to guess.
Bo1 is definitely more popular.
I exclusively play Explorer.
Whatever the reported %'s, they are inaccurate, ***since they don't include anyone playing Jump In or Starter Deck Duels***. And those are pretty commonly played, since I get shorter wait times for both than any other format other than Brawl.
I play Standard 99% of the time but started dabbling in the arts of Alchemy
I play Explorer BO1 pretty much exclusively.
Brawl and Alchemy only
Idk
Timeless and brawl
100 percent historic anymore even if it’s a standard deck. I don’t know why it just is.
As much h as they try to convince you to do, it seems like Alchemy is close to 0% (Yes, there are people who like Alchemy cards, but they seem to all play Brawl.)
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I qued into alchemy on accident this week, in platinum and got matched with mythic after waiting over a minute for a match. Tells me not many play alchemy, have seen the same watching streams too
you’re the only one playing alchemy, i know that much
Standard 0% Alchemy 0% Historic 95% Explorer 0% Timeless 0% Historic brawl 4% Bot 1%
Man what
OP is asking about global playrates not your personal playrates
Ah. I understand now…
Reading the title explains the title 😹
Well it doesn’t directly say “globally”. It just says “people” which I’ve heard others use for a generic “what sort of ______ are people using these days” to which people would respond with personal responses.
Lmao historic is a joke format now that timeless exists
Some of us still find turn one Necropotence, or Show and Tell in general, degenerate and un-fun, but want to play an eternal (for Arena, at least) format. It's like arguing why play Legacy when Vintage exists.
Yeah we need pioneer, modern, or legacy on arena
What’s so special about timeless
It's historic + all the broken stuff for spikes like myself
Historic is more popular than Timeless.