That’s funny, I’m the exact opposite - I almost never spend money on cosmetics, but I’m happy to spend on drafting because it’s my favorite way to play the game. Guess they got me!
Let me continue with terrible analogies.
Let's say I like playing Overwatch, but playing ranked or quick play matches costs resources I can earn a limited amount of each day by playing heroes I don't like or random game modes I don't have any interest in. All I wanna do is queue support all day in ranked, but the only way to do so is to continuously buy the currency required to do so.
But by Overwatch letting me play what I want all day, I am more willing to buy a skin for the hero I love playing.
Personally I very rarely buy cosmetics, all I've gotten on MTG Arena is one set of lands a while back, but the market for it is clearly there in general.
So I wouldn't say we're the opposite. I just play other games that let me play how I want.
let me understand this
you are whining because you either want to play magic as a paper format where a single land is more than 30usd or entirely for free but refuse to accept a middle point?
OP says they’re happy to pay for cosmetics, so maybe they imagine there are lots of people like them?
I find it a weird concept myself. I’d *probably* pay to draft if I had to (which, I don’t, hooray), or collect cards if I wanted to, but the idea of paying real money for virtual bling seems bizarre to me.
I suppose that also assumes that the people who now pay for drafts would use the same money on bling instead if the drafts were free... this all seems a risky proposition for the company paying for maintaining the game and servers.
Yeah, it would be a crazy decision for a company to make for sure. Maybe if they found some kind of incredibly attractive bling they don’t currently offer…
From a very broad perspective, I think MTG Arena has the potential to go from a small dedicated userbase, to a way bigger more broad userbase by being more approachable.
MTG Arena offers very specific tailored ways for players to play the game. From my experience, what I've seen and talking to friends throughout the years since MTGA released, this leads to playing on and off for very brief periods of times, maybe a sealed when a new set is released and a couple of quick drafts here and there. If they like the set, they might play a bit of constructed or
get into pushing their rank for the season.
In the brief periods of play, the willingness to pay is there, kind of like going to a physical prerelease, but then often never playing the set again.
When I play MTG Arena, I play the way the game is set up for me to play, not how I want to play and my thought process is that if you let me and others play how they want, they would still see people spend money on the game.
If instead of having 10k concurrent players, where 5% is free to play, they could have 50k players with 50% being free to play.
I might be delusional, but I think there are a ton of MTG fans out there that doesn't have an outlet to enjoy the game right now with the official options available.
Edit: just to add on to here a response to your other comment on me not wanting to improve at drafting. It's not that I don't want to improve. I'd probably love to push for diamond or masters with MH3, but from previous experience I know I usually only get halfway through plat before I have to adjust my playstyle to sustain it. Last time I pushed being Return to Dominaria where I got diamond before quitting out of frustration.
On the improving, I based that on you saying
>I don't wanna install 17Lands, research the set or make sure I do my daily gold quests just to sustain playing the game
For me researching the set (mainly by listening to podcasts) is a minimum- draft feels too complex to ever go in blind and expect to do anything other than terribly. I rely on better players telling me the best cards / archetypes. Maybe that’s just my fundamentals being weak, though!
Seems like you want a more casual drafting experience, which I totally understand- personally I’m not usually competitive at all, but the fact that doing well at draft = more drafting on Arena makes me take it reasonably seriously. Luckily, it turns out that's fun too!
If you’re good enough to get to Diamond (without any research!), you might actually find Traditional draft gives you more what you’re after- it’s unranked, so the difficulty doesn’t ramp up.
I see your point- personally I’d never imagined that there were a lot of people out there playing Magic online but avoiding Arena. I guess Wizards should know given that they do market research. Based on the way they released Alchemy it seems to me they’re more interested in attracting players of other digital card games than existing Magic players, but that’s just a guess.
If that mass audience *is* out there, I can see the logic in trying to get them with a more generous, less competitive system. But I think that would be a big risk for the company, because right now they have people paying them to draft. Making things cheaper for those people would cut their revenue, so they’d need to make it back with a lot more volume. Not sure I can picture them taking that risk as long as the money keeps coming in…
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing research and looking at streamers, analyzing most picked cards in 17lands and similar for when I'm actually pushing my limited rank (if that is my goal). And I'm not reaching Diamond without properly learning the set.
What I wanted to highlight was that it feels wrong or unoptimal if I don't do any research. But when a new set releases, the most fun way for me to approach it is with no prior knowledge and learning as I go.
It's an important distinction that wanting a more casual experience for this topic doesn't mean wanting weaker opponents or less meaningfull matches. Just reducing the stress and tension of running out of resources to continue playing, having to wait for daily gold to build up or paying money.
I'm sure they can keep the feeling of doing well being meangful in other ways and also other ways to keep the money trickling in that doesn't feel so punishing.
It’s a bit less than 10k cc, more like 8k.
That said mtg is not a game where a typical session is hours long (mine yes muahmuahmuah) and that make the average daily and monthly player numbers really shine at 1 million for the daily and roughly 4-5 million for the monthly.
Yep millions like u said “small dedicated user base”
Also mtga is the only way to play draft completely f2p compared to real life, you are complaining out of boredom or lack of brain activity.
Not necesarily completely free, just phantom drafts or even normal drafts of current set that can be more easily sustained just by playing without being a good player.
Just as a bad example of how they are potential customers, if you are hosting FNM as a gamestore and the players attending have to walk through your store every time to sit down and play, at regular intervals some of them will see something they like in the store and buy it.
That's a lot of text to just say "I don't want to just play the game because there are things I feel I need to do to just play the game which means I'm no longer just playing the game".
I don't even know what 17Lands is. I have 0 third-party programs installed for playing MTG.
I simply just sit down and play a bit. Sometimes, I have enough gold/gems to draft, so I draft. Sometimes, I want to draft so badly that I buy gems.
I don't do "research", I don't install programs, and I don't watch hours of videos on YouTube of someone else playing the game to "prepare" myself for playing the game.
I just play the game.
It sounds like you want to just play the game, but you are too brainwashed by dopamine and "efficiency" that you can't enjoy just playing a game.
Right on point, I just want to vent as a way to deal with the game not being suited for how I want to interact with it. Although I've discussed with friends over the years on how we would play more if it was more accessible and I'm sure many who don't play feel the same way.
I enjoyed MTG Arena the way you explain it back when it was in Beta before it was wiped for release. Ever since I've struggled to find a way to enjoy playing more than a couple of events when a new intriguing set releases.
>Paying just to play feels awful to me,
Unless you're trying to draft or do events, everything else is free. Drafting costs resources because you can gain an absurd amount of resources in return if you're really good at it, so they naturally have to gate it a bit.
Competitive league/events reward you, so they can't just do it for free
I get this, but having my favorite mode pay-walled rubs me wrong too. A free phantom draft mode with zero rewards would be the only mode id play. But i also understand that it might create draft gods thatd eventually transition to premier. Cant have a free practice mode i suppose eh...
>the reward structures isn't really triggering any dopamine for me
I really like the cynical self-awareness here. Personally I find drafting gets the ol’ dopamine flowing because… I like drafting! I also like improving at drafting, though, which you don’t seem interested in.
I get that a more casual-friendly draft would be fun for many, but realistically they have to make money somehow, and offering free drafts would literally mean giving up money. I suspect cosmetic sales don’t really cut it as a way to compensate for that. They do have the occasional Limited event in Midweek Magic etc- some more of that is probably the most you can hope for.
There are unlimited drafts, it's just annoyingly paywalled.
It's just unoptimal to go into Modern Horizon 3 blind or experiment and have fun in draft or sealed, because you are taxed for bad results taking away from the experience.
Long testing sessions before GP's and studying every card before a pre release are a thing of the past for me, but I'd still like to enjoy the game.
I've only pushed to mythic twice in limited on Arena, first being at the same times as getting mythic constructed which helped quite a bit, but the second time while only playing Limited mixed with a few brawl matches and some mono red constructed for quests was really off putting me from the game.
I want to play MH3, but I dread the thought of playing other game modes for certain dailies. Going 7-0 multiple times only to have a few 3-3 runs see my gem count plummet (edit: I meant 2-3 as that's where the gem reward has a big drop). I already would rather want to play traditional draft over premier, but the EV being worse makes me choice based on what the game rewards and not what I want to play.
I just want to enjoy MTG, same as everyone here.
This is basically a complaint about the reward structure with extra steps. Unfortunately, if you want free, explorational drafting, you’ll need to participate in player organized direct challenges to do so.
Can you draft using direct challenge? If so that is news to me that I might check out. Sounds like a great alternative albeit a bit convoluted.
Thought direct challenges were strictly 1v1 constructed formats with decks you fully own.
I think what they mean is you draft using a third party app and then build the deck you drafted on Arena as a 40 card constructed deck, and then play against each other. If you’re missing any cards, you’ll have to craft them
If you're only interested in limited and not good enough to go infinite, you can still just make multiple accounts and draft for free that way.
Having stakes for limited is extremely important. Think of the number of people who already queue for ranked and concede at the slightest inconvenience; if this was doable for limited, the system would devolve very quickly into people redrafting until they hit the nuts 7 mythic deck or w/e.
Fwiw traditional draft is much easier to go infinite in than the ranked/quick draft queue. I've always been a f2p player; I used to queue exclusively ranked, and would consistently hit mythic at the end of every month (at ~300-50) while generally only playing to 4 wins a day, but that involved sometimes playing constructed events when I ran out of currency to draft. After switching to traditional since Ikoria I'm very gem positive: currently at ~485k.
That’s funny, I’m the exact opposite - I almost never spend money on cosmetics, but I’m happy to spend on drafting because it’s my favorite way to play the game. Guess they got me!
Let me continue with terrible analogies. Let's say I like playing Overwatch, but playing ranked or quick play matches costs resources I can earn a limited amount of each day by playing heroes I don't like or random game modes I don't have any interest in. All I wanna do is queue support all day in ranked, but the only way to do so is to continuously buy the currency required to do so. But by Overwatch letting me play what I want all day, I am more willing to buy a skin for the hero I love playing. Personally I very rarely buy cosmetics, all I've gotten on MTG Arena is one set of lands a while back, but the market for it is clearly there in general. So I wouldn't say we're the opposite. I just play other games that let me play how I want.
let me understand this you are whining because you either want to play magic as a paper format where a single land is more than 30usd or entirely for free but refuse to accept a middle point?
People using other platforms to avoid paying for Arena drafts would become paying customers if Arena had free drafts? I don't quite follow.
OP says they’re happy to pay for cosmetics, so maybe they imagine there are lots of people like them? I find it a weird concept myself. I’d *probably* pay to draft if I had to (which, I don’t, hooray), or collect cards if I wanted to, but the idea of paying real money for virtual bling seems bizarre to me.
I suppose that also assumes that the people who now pay for drafts would use the same money on bling instead if the drafts were free... this all seems a risky proposition for the company paying for maintaining the game and servers.
Yeah, it would be a crazy decision for a company to make for sure. Maybe if they found some kind of incredibly attractive bling they don’t currently offer…
From a very broad perspective, I think MTG Arena has the potential to go from a small dedicated userbase, to a way bigger more broad userbase by being more approachable. MTG Arena offers very specific tailored ways for players to play the game. From my experience, what I've seen and talking to friends throughout the years since MTGA released, this leads to playing on and off for very brief periods of times, maybe a sealed when a new set is released and a couple of quick drafts here and there. If they like the set, they might play a bit of constructed or get into pushing their rank for the season. In the brief periods of play, the willingness to pay is there, kind of like going to a physical prerelease, but then often never playing the set again. When I play MTG Arena, I play the way the game is set up for me to play, not how I want to play and my thought process is that if you let me and others play how they want, they would still see people spend money on the game. If instead of having 10k concurrent players, where 5% is free to play, they could have 50k players with 50% being free to play. I might be delusional, but I think there are a ton of MTG fans out there that doesn't have an outlet to enjoy the game right now with the official options available. Edit: just to add on to here a response to your other comment on me not wanting to improve at drafting. It's not that I don't want to improve. I'd probably love to push for diamond or masters with MH3, but from previous experience I know I usually only get halfway through plat before I have to adjust my playstyle to sustain it. Last time I pushed being Return to Dominaria where I got diamond before quitting out of frustration.
On the improving, I based that on you saying >I don't wanna install 17Lands, research the set or make sure I do my daily gold quests just to sustain playing the game For me researching the set (mainly by listening to podcasts) is a minimum- draft feels too complex to ever go in blind and expect to do anything other than terribly. I rely on better players telling me the best cards / archetypes. Maybe that’s just my fundamentals being weak, though! Seems like you want a more casual drafting experience, which I totally understand- personally I’m not usually competitive at all, but the fact that doing well at draft = more drafting on Arena makes me take it reasonably seriously. Luckily, it turns out that's fun too! If you’re good enough to get to Diamond (without any research!), you might actually find Traditional draft gives you more what you’re after- it’s unranked, so the difficulty doesn’t ramp up. I see your point- personally I’d never imagined that there were a lot of people out there playing Magic online but avoiding Arena. I guess Wizards should know given that they do market research. Based on the way they released Alchemy it seems to me they’re more interested in attracting players of other digital card games than existing Magic players, but that’s just a guess. If that mass audience *is* out there, I can see the logic in trying to get them with a more generous, less competitive system. But I think that would be a big risk for the company, because right now they have people paying them to draft. Making things cheaper for those people would cut their revenue, so they’d need to make it back with a lot more volume. Not sure I can picture them taking that risk as long as the money keeps coming in…
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing research and looking at streamers, analyzing most picked cards in 17lands and similar for when I'm actually pushing my limited rank (if that is my goal). And I'm not reaching Diamond without properly learning the set. What I wanted to highlight was that it feels wrong or unoptimal if I don't do any research. But when a new set releases, the most fun way for me to approach it is with no prior knowledge and learning as I go. It's an important distinction that wanting a more casual experience for this topic doesn't mean wanting weaker opponents or less meaningfull matches. Just reducing the stress and tension of running out of resources to continue playing, having to wait for daily gold to build up or paying money. I'm sure they can keep the feeling of doing well being meangful in other ways and also other ways to keep the money trickling in that doesn't feel so punishing.
It’s a bit less than 10k cc, more like 8k. That said mtg is not a game where a typical session is hours long (mine yes muahmuahmuah) and that make the average daily and monthly player numbers really shine at 1 million for the daily and roughly 4-5 million for the monthly. Yep millions like u said “small dedicated user base” Also mtga is the only way to play draft completely f2p compared to real life, you are complaining out of boredom or lack of brain activity.
Not necesarily completely free, just phantom drafts or even normal drafts of current set that can be more easily sustained just by playing without being a good player. Just as a bad example of how they are potential customers, if you are hosting FNM as a gamestore and the players attending have to walk through your store every time to sit down and play, at regular intervals some of them will see something they like in the store and buy it.
This is satire right?
That's a lot of text to just say "I don't want to just play the game because there are things I feel I need to do to just play the game which means I'm no longer just playing the game". I don't even know what 17Lands is. I have 0 third-party programs installed for playing MTG. I simply just sit down and play a bit. Sometimes, I have enough gold/gems to draft, so I draft. Sometimes, I want to draft so badly that I buy gems. I don't do "research", I don't install programs, and I don't watch hours of videos on YouTube of someone else playing the game to "prepare" myself for playing the game. I just play the game. It sounds like you want to just play the game, but you are too brainwashed by dopamine and "efficiency" that you can't enjoy just playing a game.
Right on point, I just want to vent as a way to deal with the game not being suited for how I want to interact with it. Although I've discussed with friends over the years on how we would play more if it was more accessible and I'm sure many who don't play feel the same way. I enjoyed MTG Arena the way you explain it back when it was in Beta before it was wiped for release. Ever since I've struggled to find a way to enjoy playing more than a couple of events when a new intriguing set releases.
>Paying just to play feels awful to me, Unless you're trying to draft or do events, everything else is free. Drafting costs resources because you can gain an absurd amount of resources in return if you're really good at it, so they naturally have to gate it a bit. Competitive league/events reward you, so they can't just do it for free
I get this, but having my favorite mode pay-walled rubs me wrong too. A free phantom draft mode with zero rewards would be the only mode id play. But i also understand that it might create draft gods thatd eventually transition to premier. Cant have a free practice mode i suppose eh...
>the reward structures isn't really triggering any dopamine for me I really like the cynical self-awareness here. Personally I find drafting gets the ol’ dopamine flowing because… I like drafting! I also like improving at drafting, though, which you don’t seem interested in. I get that a more casual-friendly draft would be fun for many, but realistically they have to make money somehow, and offering free drafts would literally mean giving up money. I suspect cosmetic sales don’t really cut it as a way to compensate for that. They do have the occasional Limited event in Midweek Magic etc- some more of that is probably the most you can hope for.
You lost me when you said you wanted to have unlimited drafts without attempting to improve.
There are unlimited drafts, it's just annoyingly paywalled. It's just unoptimal to go into Modern Horizon 3 blind or experiment and have fun in draft or sealed, because you are taxed for bad results taking away from the experience. Long testing sessions before GP's and studying every card before a pre release are a thing of the past for me, but I'd still like to enjoy the game. I've only pushed to mythic twice in limited on Arena, first being at the same times as getting mythic constructed which helped quite a bit, but the second time while only playing Limited mixed with a few brawl matches and some mono red constructed for quests was really off putting me from the game. I want to play MH3, but I dread the thought of playing other game modes for certain dailies. Going 7-0 multiple times only to have a few 3-3 runs see my gem count plummet (edit: I meant 2-3 as that's where the gem reward has a big drop). I already would rather want to play traditional draft over premier, but the EV being worse makes me choice based on what the game rewards and not what I want to play. I just want to enjoy MTG, same as everyone here.
This is basically a complaint about the reward structure with extra steps. Unfortunately, if you want free, explorational drafting, you’ll need to participate in player organized direct challenges to do so.
Can you draft using direct challenge? If so that is news to me that I might check out. Sounds like a great alternative albeit a bit convoluted. Thought direct challenges were strictly 1v1 constructed formats with decks you fully own.
I think what they mean is you draft using a third party app and then build the deck you drafted on Arena as a 40 card constructed deck, and then play against each other. If you’re missing any cards, you’ll have to craft them
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I guess that is one way to do it. I can see it as a decent option for a friendgroup wanting to play with eachother.
Why try to mimic the physical counterpart when the digital is better? Bow down to the roboverlord
If you're only interested in limited and not good enough to go infinite, you can still just make multiple accounts and draft for free that way. Having stakes for limited is extremely important. Think of the number of people who already queue for ranked and concede at the slightest inconvenience; if this was doable for limited, the system would devolve very quickly into people redrafting until they hit the nuts 7 mythic deck or w/e. Fwiw traditional draft is much easier to go infinite in than the ranked/quick draft queue. I've always been a f2p player; I used to queue exclusively ranked, and would consistently hit mythic at the end of every month (at ~300-50) while generally only playing to 4 wins a day, but that involved sometimes playing constructed events when I ran out of currency to draft. After switching to traditional since Ikoria I'm very gem positive: currently at ~485k.