Extremely Suspect MTG Arena Draft Gameplay - Potential Cheating Found Live

Here's a breakdown of some footage I caught during a recent live stream of an allegedly human playing making unusual, illogical spell and targeting decisions with a deck made almost exclusively of uncommons. Something seems amiss here.
Join this channel as a member to get access to EPIC perks:
/ @desolatormagic
Support me on Patreon for mad rewards: / desolatormagic
Get epic Desolator Magic shirts: teespring.com/stores/desolato...

[@DJVinyl]

9:41 to clarify why he targeted your creature with that saga is because he did not want to boost his creature in range of your Triumphant Surge. Edit: He should of stacked the triggers of Elspeth's Nightmare to go first then Triumph of the anax so he can boost his creature safely.

[@theauberman]

That makes enough sense

[@danielhoffman4026]

I don't think this only happens in draft, I think it happens in all formats of play. A lot of sus activity going on in mtga.

[@JJEMTT]

The things AI can do is kind of sickening when you get a glimpse of it working, it's like a magic trick but it feels sinister (even though of course, it's "just" a machine).

[@braddl9442]

Yup, MTG arena is rigged. Back when you showed that leaked dev stuff it was very clear that they could in fact rig every aspect of this game.

[@macfryling8421]

Unsurprising at this point, considering that the previous time i tried a draft i had something very similar to this happen to me for all three of my games, and I lost all 4 because I got mana screwed and they didn't.

[@thedudeabides7737]

I absolutely 💯percent believe this. If I lose 2 in a row, I almost am guaranteed a win in the 3rd match. If I win 2 in a row I always lose the 3rd game.

[@seanmachlan3282]

I just played a Premium Strixhaven Draft - which I thought was all humans - and on my 3rd game I came up against an opponent that had at least "8" rares in his deck. That would require 3 on theme rares from his own packs, 2 from both players on either side of him, and 1 through the aether. Never drafting arena again. No way that's not cheating.

[@DesolatorMagic]

I almost forgot. Cinder has a video where he literally pulls up the card list in a browser and runs it against a draft live, proving you can predict what cards are next: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmixmWqkr9aaoJI

[@DisheveledHuman]

So basically they can't program a complex enough seed for draft pack generation when it comes to the way uncommons show up but they can create a matchmaking algorithm that matches ID on if you payed to play or Free to played, rig you with an opponent with a better deck and then fix the opponents deck to beat you. Come on this is crazy speak. The video you linked is just bad/lazy programming from their launch set which had issues with the bots underevaluating Dimir cards so everyone played Dimir.

[@thedeadgentleman3188]

I actually commented on this exact thing in my own live stream. Mid stream I noticed I was hitting 2 or 3 wins and then getting crushed

[@teamawp-gamesfunforsome259]

i literally lost to the same sequence.

[@mathieubrebouillet714]

whenever I do a draft, I have noticed the same stuff whenever you want to get to your 3rd win, including fighting decks who had two mythics.

[@royalapples9707]

My thing about getting a deck in is maybe they are using some sort of buffer overflow exploit to get their deck in. I think it would be easier if you know that arena is hosted on a cloud platform, I think it would be a lot easier to do exploit like that.

[@davgm2380]

I don’t know if I’m just lucky or something but I’ve never noticed this and I’ve played magic arena for like 2 years, and I usually get 3 to 6 wins

[@casparash5370]

Same bro ! i think its people thinking they are better than they are....or not understanding that statistic or average wis you should go 3-3

[@Cindershadow]

i get this a lot. win 3 in a row is near impossible, i think i have done it once. I have yet to do a perfect 7-0 in draft. it is normally 7-2, and once in a while the 7-1 happens, but i have never 7-0 with the way the match making is, i normally have a game where i get completely blown away

[@kingfuzzy2]

I've gotten 7-0 once with mainly commons in Azorious party in draft (two of the cards were uncommon) but 98% of the time I go 0-3 or 1-3 my winrate that I've kept track of is less than 30%

[@Leidnix]

3 Wins in Draft no problem but the fourth one is super hard. I don't want to say its rigged but it's so sus that it's always the 4th one ;)

[@alexmaragh7766]

@@Leidnix because the matchmaker matches you against other 3+win decks and those are often good decks

[@AxiomofDiscord]

I often go 3 wins in a row usually games 2-4 if I do but that said I rarely win over 5 and average just under 4 so not much better than the 50/50 most say they are getting. The long and short of it is even if I can win 3 in a row that is pretty much the end of my winning almost every time.

[@casparash5370]

ive gone 7-0 enough times i dont think this is legit

[@LaserPenguinGames]

Sometimes I draft a super strong deck and then never get to play any cards go 0-3 or 1-3 because mana screw , flood and Mulligan every game.

[@Aqsticgod]

this is a few years later but i just did a draft and not only did it feel rigged against me, its curious how all three of my opponents had the perfect counter to the makeshift deck i made from draft, it almost felt like constructed decks that were stacked with perfect counters to my strat

[@retroarcadefan]

Why do they have AI built into what should be RANDOM events? This garbage is why I do not play Arena anymore.

[@cplrichmond]

After 2 or 3 wins, it's not a better opponent, it's an algorithm programmed to either mana fuck you, or mana flood you. Your deck is shuffled in a weird way compared to your first or second games.

[@cplrichmond]

If you put 4 copies of a snowland in your deck, and the rest of the mana basic, count how mamy games in a row you pull a snowland in your beginning hand. It's almost every game. The statistics for that are extremely low in paper... But in Arena... Nope. That and getting all copies of a card (you put 4 copies of) within your first two turns on a natural draws.

[@D4rthridiculous]

This is bad news man. As kind of a last bastion against broken cancer embercleave horse $hit, i now know you can’t rely on fun interactive gameplay.

[@justinwhite2725]

@2:29 it's called a pseudorandom number generator. Most random number generators follow a seed and then pick the next number in the sequence based on that seed. They should be re-seeding the random nber generator between packs (for example, with the time in millisecs or some other essentially random noise) and obviously they don't.

[@justintaylor3416]

The same thing happened to me in a Theros quick draft recently. It seemed odd since I was doing really well in the Kaldheim quick drafts just a few weeks ago. Is it possible they dont have the AI tuned to the latest sets or dont have good decklists yet for new releases?

[@slushydude901]

I've had aether reservoir loaded hundred life platinum angel and infinite turns and opponents who don't conceed for a full 30+ minutes

[@georgemccann9141]

Know this is months later but..... glad to see you finally believe me about the bots.

[@D4rthridiculous]

This is bad news man. As kind of a last bastion against cancer broken embercleave-less shit, i now know i can’t rely on limited for fun interactive gameplay.

[@54321eclipse12345]

That Witness of Tomorrows in the Thumbnail made me laugh

[@jpremssem9321]

Had today also a nice opponent matching, I was plat 4 and played against mythic rank 100

[@Hunter-sw3rl]

I just had a match where for my 6th win i was went agenst a bronze with a deck that’s a little two consestsnt and even tho I won his player name didn’t show up on mtga assistant

[@Brand-yk6dw]

DM: how many Uncommon does it take to fix a match? me: dont you mean a lightbulb? Also DM: ....................... perhaps........

[@josephcourtright8071]

I've seen that a lot. Just lost to a guy with that consistency. Interestingly enough I never got priority passed to me on my opponents turn.

[@ShawnJeezie]

Don't worry. You're not the only one who feels like it's rigged. I never get good pulls in my packs and then when I play I see every opponent have like 3 copies of the same rare or mythic. Ontop of this, the matchmaking stinks.

[@typhlocf5062]

I've been noticing what looks like Sparky's decks in the free to play matches like monoblue flyers. Are more bots getting used cause there's not enough players?

[@3boysnj]

I think that they targeted your Chimera with the triumph saga because if they targeted their creature, you can kill the creature with your 4 or grater kill spell before the black saga takes it away. Then again that seems way too smart for a Bronze player lol

[@yohyzo5889]

I just played someone named Muaddib. I was able to Siphon Insight early game for their Search for Greatness. THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GAME I was drawing mana as my card, while they kept pulling suspect moves, such as convenient creature destruction, card draw abilities (usually into creature removal), and life gain abilities. Somehow I was able to win, thanks to Lithoform Engine that allowed me to copy creatures. Fuck you Muaddib for making the game last so long!

[@joshreed316]

I've done tons of drafts. I feel like I'm a good draft/ sealed players because I always perform well at the 2 shops i played at pre quarantine... On Arena, I tend to draft a lot when new sets come out and then not really after that. Usually what happens in the first 3-4 drafts i do, I have strong decks and win 6-7 games. Then it's almost like the AI realizes im winning too many gems and will absolutely screw me 3 drafts in a row. Ill have decks I feel equally strongly about but will play against exclusively powerful opponents and simultaneously get land screwed or flooded and only win 1-3 games in those drafts. I had 1 particular experience with Zen Rising where I won 7 games, 3 drafts in a row. Next draft I did I won 0. All 3 losses, I had 3 lands in opening hand and never drew a 4th.

[@LastFractionZero]

They were clear that in ranked ladder they're using a bullshit algorithm instead of a straightforward MMR system. I have no idea how the fuck people can know that and still insist there isn't some convoluted algorithmic bullshit for draft matchmaking...

[@beachday4439]

I have a theory that if you have a creatures with haste in your deck, you have a lower rate of going first.

[@GuTRoT-OwN]

there's a fuck ton of sus shit in arena

[@teamawp-gamesfunforsome259]

i lost to the same red black deck about 2 weeks ago.

[@autobotjazz1972]

I stopped playing arena a while back for several reasons, including suspect games in constructed and draft. Also got annoyed at how often they updated the game and how the updates were handled. ( should not need to redownload the whole damn thing to update it or seeming need to do so ).

[@connorlemons7888]

You aren't the only one this happens to, but at least this didn't happen in a premier draft That's where I constantly get kicked in the teeth after 2 wins

[@jakkard5026]

You are overthinking it, they already have a database of the decks with win rates already calculated at hand, they would just need to filter the ones with the lowest winning rates and done, make a random num generator to pick a deck ID for the IA and presto.

[@RandyRandomson]

Akroan War is rare

[@jdw159]

I was here live on youtube. Just uncommon after uncommon and I agree Super sus.

[@robertpearce2244]

That looked as dodgy as some of the draft games I’ve suffered through...😑

[@fredlandik5035]

Yes, Wizards do cheat. I've just have had a draft with a guy playing extremely well aligned blue deck with cards wich you cannot pickup from the draft table (and which I did not see on that table either). The deck was blue spirits with 10+ enchantments played. Like draft table will never give you those 10 enchantments normally, not even saying you will not be able to pick them all up since other playing would pick them too. So dissapointing. I am not going to play in this game anymore.

[@BenSmith-cm8oc]

Are you really surprised!?!?!

[@marcusanthony9322]

The last draft I played was ikoria, when some twat came at me with a deck with 3 starix mutate bullshit, never trusted bit since.

[@jdw159]

Also if you can cheat the system I wonder if you can use it to also draft the cards you want if you don't plan on opening alot. Like boost your free play pics so you don't need to use as many wilds for stuff

[@Zaelkrie]

Des do you have any links to prove ow rigged this game is?

[@AxiomofDiscord]

I went 2-0 and then lost the next three in a Standard event. Had two real bad draw games last game was pretty even rather fair decent bad luck on both sides.

[@teamawp-gamesfunforsome259]

like 4 rares. and all uncommons. same the draft targets me for like 3 or 4 drafts in row before they leave me alone.

[@kingfuzzy2]

Quick draft is def rigged more than constructed I only play it to get gems for the more fun drafts.

[@14stockfan]

Arena rigged? Say it ain't so!

[@davgm2380]

I donut like this at all

[@hugodiazroa]

I think quick drafts are definitely rigged. Here and everywhere. Drafting vs bots has historically sucked and it will continue in the near future. The problem is that arena bots have a pick order fairly predictable so you can study the format, or lurk for other's opinions, and find a archetype miss evaluated by the AI. An example of this is mill in throne of eldraine. Draft vs humans is dope tho.

[@mrlucky704]

I havent watched this video yet but...i do think MTG arena riggs the drafts...All I do is draft because its the most fun to do personally but you cant keep doing it unless you win ALOT or pay $...Arena knows this and ensures that you LOSE more then win...not sure if im playing bots or if they control what cards are drawn...i notice i get land screwed often...also its usually like lose 2-3 in a row like i got put in the "make him lose" category when queing up for a game. I could go on...also have to add I just do daily gold quests to earn the 5000gold and then play in hopes i win back gems to keep playing. MTG arena doesnt like me cause I havent put money into the game in awhile

[@justinwhite2725]

An ai would target you wihh a beneficial spell if it calculates no benefit either way. If two options are equally good then they are value neutral - even if the one seems totally random and a human wiipd never do it.

[@Blueballon]

i also want a refund.

[@cavemantero]

Des @ 8:57 he says GG...i think its a shill acct not a bot

[@cristian-fv9mm]

I had 5 in 0, wanted to screenshot it to send you :) but didnt want to bug you with it. I wos silver 4 got matcht up vs gold and hiher, and then I just lost 3 in a row

[@nickstaten2220]

lmao this is the best one yet

[@AceHardy]

Gg 👑

[@infantryman2781]

the game does have cheats in it

[@joecarr3345]

You a screwed dev, you don't buy gems so wizards won't let you win. I have that happen to me. I buy 3400 hundred gems and I'm on a hot streak for 2 drafts and then I start getting mana flooded. Did 2 drafts 0-3 each draft all 6 games I had drawn 12 of my 16 lands. Now the only way around this is to be a streamer the sucks on the salty taint of wizards.

[@themonsterlegend3709]

I was a tier 2 bronze and went up against a tier 1 gold. The only difference was I got stomped (I was 3 and 1)

[@alexmaragh7766]

someone drafted a good deck in bot draft? must be cheating

[@poorsap1598]

Blacklist are real

[@magicthegatheringlover4277]

Des, getting 3 wins is impossible. Me: in ZNR can get reliable 5 wins :)

[@cavemantero]

Shut up paypig ive got to 7 wins...thats not the point and not what des said

[@jimbones5621]

Arena is such a scam. Just the fact that shuffling isn't an actual random number generator is enough for me to not play.

[@alexmichaelfriedman]

yo did u queue up with gold or gems for this? So put on your tin foil hat but I have this theory that the Matching system is built to give you way harder opponents decks ( rigged ) if you buy into a draft with gold instead of gems. At least in my experience in kaldheim when I draft with gold I almost NEVER get more than 2 wins but when I draft with gems I can go 4-5 wins fairly regularly....

[@CharlesPerrin-xr3cb]

That game is total crap

[@VEXF0R]

Flesh and blood area

[@Ohmophobe]

Dude just play Bo3 and draft against humans then.

[@inuyasha1102nick]

This just looks wrong. If this continues the game will die.