It's Time To Fix Magic The Gathering Arena! | Dies To Removal 43

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Does Magic: The Gathering Have A Treasure Problem? - WotC Plz: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6bVoX-emrOWbM0

[@obadijahparks]

Yes, yes it does.

[@nottiredofwinning3736]

Why do you have a rapists book on your bookshelf though?

[@romina6115]

Saving up mana for later is really strong. Treasure is way to easy to get. Josh from the commandzone suggested an errata that lets Treasure tokens come into play tapped. Ugly but effective

[@TijnMercx]

Professor, I was wondering what your opinions are on hearthstone Ive been playing it for multiple years now and since you named a couple of things runeterra did that magic should do I got interested if hearthstone had similar aspects like that which magic could learn from Personally I'd say that magic has a terrible feeling to it, everything sounds the same and lies very still on the board Hearthstone on the other hand is really alive and warm With funny voice lines for every character and multiplayer options such as battleground

[@zacharylindahl]

The eternal tcg is also good an was designed by mtg pros. wotc seems to be taking notes from gw

[@zeradox1901]

My Top 3 Magic villains: 1. Hassans Bro, the Tithe-taker 2. The Wizards of the Cost 3. Micro, the flowing Transaction

[@thomasdick6797]

These are incredibly creative. Thanks for the chuckle 😃

[@Hemlocker]

Just by the names, I know that these creatures are 1. A boros treasure token generator 2. A mono blue counterspell-on-a-stick 3. A simic -value engine with no real wincon- mana dork

[@_somerandomguyontheinternet_]

Redeem Wizards, kill Hasbro, compleate microtransaction.

[@chriswright8114]

@@Hemlocker those are all fairly accurate, but the tithe-taker is spot on.

[@Singe0255]

@@_somerandomguyontheinternet_ one down, two to go! I been completing micro transactions since day one!

[@ArcturusMinsk]

The goal of Arena was never to bring the MTG experience to a digital market, it was to capitalize on Hearthstone's success.

[@romina6115]

Hs isnt that successful anymore. Arena will meet the same fate

[@SeriosSkies92]

@@romina6115 That was less the game and more the scandals.

[@javierlopezruiz7300]

And still Arena never had the spark that hs has or had

[@520_metal]

@@romina6115 hs makes tons of money still

[@boobonet9088]

I would argue it was to HARM hearthstones success primarily.

[@The5lacker]

I love when Spice8Rack writes the intro bits, he's got such a subtle touch.

[@ILikePi31415926535]

I could tell as soon as Daretti was mentioned Spice had a hand in it That damn sexy goblin... Daretti''s pretty hot too I guess

[@adamoberlitner1188]

APOLOGIST REVISIONIST damn it feels just like home (left twitter)

[@alexanderficken9354]

Baby needs money

[@pleasantvegetable]

That punchline at the end got me. Beautiful writing.

[@kaemonbonet4931]

I wouldn't call it subtle but it's certainly charming.

[@NoxiousWhat]

From what I was told, the reason they didn't plan for Commander on Arena was because WotC mostly thought Arena was a farce and a waste of time, before it was actually "finished" for a Beta release. There was no company-wide cohesive vision to make it a legitimate platform that catered to what people were playing at the time (= Commander), but rather it was intended to be a Standard-focused platform. Of course, anyone with five brain cells could've told them the idea of a Standard-focused platform was doomed to fail given the nature of rotation, unless the economy supported a platform focused on Standard, which of course it didn't. It was one of those projects they let people work on, but pinned absolutely none of their success on. I can only assume they would've made space for Commander in earlier stages of development if they had had any faith in Arena. They'll probably figure out some patchy workaround to let you "play with 4 other people", where it's really a 1v1 screen, but your opponent's avatar/board changes each turn to show a different opponent's board state, etc.

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Wow

[@david1913]

nailed it

[@lambdalandis]

And if there’s anything I learned from working at a software company, its that bad design choices in the beginning can be cripplingly hard to undo or work around once everything is dependent on them.

[@brushwagg7735]

The biggest tip-off is that the common bugs are all rooted in memory leak issues that increasingly get patched over without being fixed over the lifespan of the game.

[@atyrannosaurusrex]

The big problem I think is that after the fiasco of Duels, they just expected MTG Arena to be just like Duels. I think this was Wizards trying to monetize MTG digitally using a games as a service model. They wanted to focus on standard first because they felt that the standard rotation would drive sales of booster packs. I think this is a big reason why they are so stingy with wildcards and dusting. They want you to spend $100 on booster packs. A standard focused platform was the experiment. If the platform died, no big deal. The execs making this decision don't appreciate how hard it is to build on a foundation of shaky spaghetti code and are probably thinking it isn't worth the investment now. They'd much rather release new sets.

[@pleasantvegetable]

I just want to point out that the editing (especially visually) on this episode is *amazing,* especially for a podcast where you don't need to go above and beyond like that. Love the production quality on this channel.

[@User__Not__Found]

As a programmer, there's no reason WotC would struggle to separate Historic from Alchemy. Each card likely already has atrributes to tell them which set it comes from, there's no reason why they can't just make another attribute (if they haven't already) that says if a card is an Alchemy card. Separate the alchemy cards from Historic/Pioneer/Modern and make Alchemy versions of those. Keep Alchemy out of my games. I want my deck lists to work both in paper and if I transfer it over to digital.

[@HailtotheKiin]

Literally the functionality already exists! The card collection has a filter

[@User__Not__Found]

@@HailtotheKiin Doesn't surprise me, I figured they'd already made the identifier when they came up with the idea. This only helps my point though, there's no reason they can't separate alchemy into its own thing and keep that garbage out of my game

[@jasonfuqua4284]

Correct

[@johncreekpaum4998]

The Budweiser commercial with the Iguana saying "Wazzup!" was actually the third evolution of the commercial. First were 3 frogs in a swamp croaking "Bud", "Weis", and "Er". Then, the "Weis" frog was missing so the frogs added an iguana that kept trying to spice up its line "Weis" by adding syllables and such, ending on "Wazzah!". Then the iguana started calling people and just yelling "Wazzaaaaaaaaaaaa" as the people on the phone also yelled "Wazzaaaaaaaa". It was a weird story arc.....

[@Phantomwaxx]

I'm still scratching my head that Brian..err, the Prof, sticks his nose up at Dogfish Head beer after the Sam Adams acquisition. Why?

[@johncreekpaum4998]

@@Phantomwaxx I mean, it's probably being played up for laughs, but it's a hipster attitude of "I liked this thing until it became popular and corporated". Dogfish Head was one of the largest American breweries before merging with Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) and the owners became the 2nd biggest non-corporate owners of Boston Beer Company.

[@JStack]

American Carls Jr commercials now seem a lot less weird

[@sadfrog2575]

@@JStack You mean Hardee's.

[@QuantumMechanic343]

I liked the subtle product placement with the two deck boxes. I can’t wait to get mine next year!!

[@zztzgza]

Reasonable fixes to arena's economy? They had the economy stream, they had questions asking for reasonable fixes from the audience. The response was: sigh*...technology. The thing about a game's economy is that it has dials, switches, knobs, and sliders that can be changed, adjusted, added and/or removed to meet any criteria that wotc needs. Game engines, whether they're made in-house or licensed from another company are made with monetization systems so that games made using those engines can have any aspect of it easily monetized. That's a standard feature in game engines now. They can fix the economy, tomorrow, they don't want to.

[@deleteman900]

The part that gets to me, bro? It's cool that they're expanding the ways you can purchase SNC packs on Arena (buying multiple packs at a time with gold, more options for how many to buy at once with gems, you can open multiple packs at a time instead of just one or ten) but... why isn't this a thing for other packs on Arena? Why are mythic packs a thing for NEO, but not any of the previous sets? They've gotten it working, obviously, just... why not roll that out across all the sets?

[@alphadwuzzle1026]

remember when going to a pre-release got you a code for a sealed/draft token? now you get 6 packs. also pre-release codes shouldn't be set at 1 per account. I already spent money going to the pre-release, why punish me for going to multiple?

[@corpsefoot758]

@@deleteman900 Because they can make more money that way lol Always keep an eye on how often WotC “errs on the side of profitability”. If they’re literally doing so ALL the time, then it’s NOT an accident, and anybody unable (or unwilling) to recognize it is just a sucker for Hasbro’s bottom line

[@corpsefoot758]

@@alphadwuzzle1026 “Why”? Because if they can squeeze a single extra penny out of your wallet, they will lol Duh

[@KingBobXVI]

"Game engines, whether they're made in-house or licensed from another company are made with monetization systems so that games made using those engines can have any aspect of it easily monetized." Uh... no, not really. There are, say, plugins available to do payment processing and the like, but that's not the same as "made with monetization systems". Monetizing a game is going to be specific to the game, you can't just do a generic "monetization system" for every game because that's entirely dependent on the game's design. Like, no, Unity doesn't ship with a built-in hook to your Wizards account for payments, lol.

[@pistolpete7422]

How about this? : Put a “Rare Wildcard” token in the token or foil slot of packs in set/draft/collectors boosters. It has a code on the back for 1 rare wildcard to redeem on Arena. Put it at 10 - 25% to appear in a paper pack, more in collectors and less in draft boosters. This hits the paper-arena connection, relieves some burden of rare wildcards on arena for F2P players, and supports your players who want to spend time/money on both editions of the game. Plus you can even sell these like singles back to your LGS or trade to others if you’re a paper-only person

[@Barracius]

It would definitely need to be in the token slot (or maybe basic land slot). Putting it in the foil slot will mess up limited events through having some players end up with one fewer cards (even if it just ends up being instead of a common).

[@PaulStavne]

THIS!

[@ruecianbeoulve7770]

I would rather have a bad common foil.

[@DaveMustaine333]

For the chat function: Being able to make presets, that go through a filter, that you can replace the basic presets with. "Hello!" And "Nice!" work but the other presets are boring or unusable. Being able to say something like "That was awesome!" or something makes it feel more real.

[@coreysierchio4650]

Nice...Lol

[@ChilleDINJerseY]

wow great idea. Some additional specification to increase expression. I want a full chat; but this is way better than nothing.

[@JacktheDoctor]

Duels ended with Amonkhet indeed. Crazy thing is, Duels HAD multiplayer. It also had its own deck construction tied to rarity (1 mythic, 2 rare, 3 uncommon etc of each card per deck). Even after discontinuing it I would sometimes play with friends just to play 2v2. Honestly I played Duels a lot more than Arena overall.

[@RaunienTheFirst]

It's a pity they won't sell Duels anymore. I've never played Duels 2012, and I would like to. Yes, I know, Yar-har, but like, it's not like they have to do anything. Just make it available on steam and enjoy the slow drip feed of income.

[@BlueTemplar15]

Remember how we paid real money for those cards only for them to shut down the Duels servers after giving up a paltry sum of Arena gold ?

[@cdreid9999]

i understand the criticism of duels..but it was Fun. Arena is just tripling down on monetization by the most predatory corporation on the planet

[@PeterNXavier]

Duels was great. I had a new player that had just started playing Magic and I was like. "You know there's these games call Duels of the Planeswalkers and it does such a great job on teaching you the more complex mechanics of the game and they are just great games overall. They don't make them anymore but you should be able to buy the old versions on Steam for probably really cheap". I go on steam and to my surprise (or not), they have been removed and you can't buy them ever. I was like WTF. I'm not going to push Arena on this guy so I didn't even mention it.

[@CL0NK_]

Having worked in a few software companies as a dev, it's very possible that the teams behind arena just have poor leadership and direction. I've seen companies make decisions to stagnate the system because of it being more financially beneficial to do so and I've seen companies spend years to try and build their next platform and never make it. Poor decisions early on and poor direction and focus after that can lead to a lot of bloat and bad code which slows everything in future development down.

[@Evaders99]

As much as development leads like Chris Clay got so much slack, they had a vision around Arena and technology they wanted to design. They all left and the leadership is more concerned about profit numbers over any kind of good user experience or a better card playing platform. Definitely seems like they've left development and validation to the cheapest interns they can hire.

[@ddwkc]

For what I heard as my brother-in-law who knew people who worked with Arena, they skimp on the workforce whenever possible. Most of the grunt devs are shovelware level of skill (not that they are bad, just managed to make trash cashgrabs). When they say they gonna invest on the dev team is mostly name senior managers who are past their prime and a team of market people who are specialized in monetization. The rest are just shuffled around to meet workflow demands. It's not a surprise that they ignore most of the Arena problems. Devs who can aren't really allowed to fix them. Top seniors just don't understand or care why people complains about the economy. I remember at beginning of Arena during the open beta, devs promised Arena would be developed to have a good engine to add cards and they were more engaged with feedback from testers. Sadly this didn't last and they basically closed communication and put useless marketer mouthpieces in place instead.

[@jasonfuqua4284]

I fixed it by getting some friends together and playing paper commander with them, abandoning Arena.

[@dcrow9650]

I live really far from my friends and Arena is the only way for me to play Magic with a reasonable amount of time.

[@Russian_engineer_bmstu]

@@dcrow9650 what about untap cocktrice etc?

[@dogdriver70]

@@dcrow9650 mtgo is better

[@syllycatface]

@@dogdriver70 my worry with MTGO is theres probably a tonne of cedh people that just go on with the goal of winning every single game, not playing fun battle cruiser games

[@dogdriver70]

@@syllycatface there are those people, just like in paper, but you can set your preference when you make the game. Tons of people like to play casual and high powered as opposed to competitive

[@theotherkevindubrow]

At 56:44, the Professor hits the nail on the head for my #1 thing I thought WotC could add - the ability for me, a player, to pay gold to set up a friend "table" of whatever I wanted... Draft, Cube, etc. Because if I can convince 5-7 people to join me for a draft that costs them nothing (cause I paid), maybe some of them stay in the client.

[@the7569]

Let me just say, even during the time I took a break from playing magic (ixilan all the way to kamigawa) I still very often listened to this podcast. And it's not just because I wanted to stay up to date on Magic and that I genuinely enjoyed your guys's content, it's mostly that I absolutely adore the banter between you two. I would pay for a podcast that you guys do not even talking about Magic, I would love just like an hour and a half long thing unscripted of you guys just talking because you guys have such great comedic timing and such awesome banter with each other

[@patrickmchugh4616]

I had such low expectations of Arena and its laughably short list of features, that when I booted up Legends of Runeterra I was stunlocked. I starting playing when they just had a simple single player mode that went through a handful of enemies in the "Lab of Legends." Only a few short months later, suddenly this mode blossomed into a "Path of Champions" singleplayer option with vastly more starting Champion characters, more unlockable powers, expanded card pool, greater array of enemies with unique abilities...and the cherry on top is that it is a fun alternative to grinding the ladder that nevertheless showers me in resources to make competitive decks. Even more, the developers of Legends of Runeterra have said they want to do MORE with the single player mode, with expanded features and more overhauls. How sad is it that I am jumping for joy when developers actually care and provide amazing free content without kicking and screaming "Oh no, the technology isn't there" "Oh, you wouldn't want to destroy your precious collection that doesn't exist!" and other false explanations.

[@AltroseSenar]

Before Arena came out I had played Eternal, Elder Scrolls Legends, and Shadowverse. It was astounding seeing how lacking Arena was compared to these games that were older. All had storymodes and were massively more generous. They all also encouraged players to stay and invest more too. Just astounding the difference.

[@ddwkc]

@@AltroseSenar Indeed. Even cashcow Chinese knock offs that steal art have story mode and manage to be sometimes more generous than Arena and these games are scam. Even HS which lot of Arena defenders tend to bring up has a more level headed economy in comparison and more expansive content.

[@JStack]

LoR has really fucked Arena for me. It becomes clear all the shitty UI and predatory economy choices are entirely avoidable

[@a_guy_in_orange7230]

This is 6mo old but wanted you to know this convinced me to give LOR a go

[@patrickmchugh4616]

@@a_guy_in_orange7230 Awesome to hear. The Path of Champions mode is the main way I enjoy LoR nowadays. The process to unlock new champions can be a little slow, but it gives the progression of the single-player something to work towards as you try different runs.

[@waldllwyn139]

I dislike the massive push for alchemy, and whenever I'm building a new deck it's very annoying to see alchemy cards recommend even though I have the Standard filter set. Also whenever I get free alchemy cards from packs I've grinded out it annoys the hell out of me

[@havenschade8174]

I hate that you can use full alchemy cards in historic brawl and they give you the alchemy version of normal cards and wont let you use the normal ones

[@ChilleDINJerseY]

I really only draft on arena. On this past arena cube, there were these cards that were new to me (which isn't surprising), and as I continued playing, I would get more and more annoyed at the style of play these cards operated on. Eventually, I looked up the set and OF COURSE they were alchemy cards. Look, go ahead and experience wizards, but the alchemy cards stuck out like a sore thumb and were a really irritating form of gameplay for me.

[@forgottonpast6847]

If only one of this occurs I would love a story mode. They would be so much fun and make arena much more connected.

[@mmelkilany]

But but .... That doesn't make money 🙄

[@williamchan420]

Telling Time and Time Stop were some of the very first Magic artworks that really drew me into the game. I passed by an oversized poster displayed outside of a card shop and have been hooked as a blue main player ever since

[@tmbocheeko]

Explorer coming with the SNC update and Pioneer being officially on its way is maybe the best announcement they've made for Arena in a long time.

[@matthewnewman6039]

They have a lot of bad takes in this interview. Talking about how they will "alchemy" pioneer, when the announcement specifically says that's isn't happening.

[@gyorgyor7765]

@@matthewnewman6039 I suspect this video was shot before the announcement of Explorer (Pioneer Light), and was still being edited when the announcement came. Just one of life's little ironies

[@seraph_six]

Thank you for correctly assigning Ugin as a villain through his accomplice, Sarkhan.

[@nathanielreichley4640]

I had a bad day and this cheered me up (even though I haven't played arena in 6 months and don't intend to go back). Thanks you guys! Hope you're well.

[@mythwind3024]

I would love to have like in Shandalar (the super old PC game) a story mode that you fought vs. IA to gain cards. Back then the you could play with power 9 cards. It would be fun if in an "Adventure" environment you could get to use those cards.

[@Lusk1993]

Runeterra has this its fun

[@BlueTemplar15]

Forge already had a poor man's Shandalar, and has even been trying to add a "proper" one for some months now !

[@sammin101]

Yugioh Master Duel does have problems, but the 99.9% complete back catalogue is so nice! Also every time I play Arena now, i think about how Master Duel has a play history showing opponents’ decklists! The economy is way better there too, I’ve built over a dozen decks now! I can’t even imagine how long it would take to get wildcards for a dozen decks on arena

[@B-Ran_the_Man]

I play more Master Duel than Arena because Master Duel's economy is way better! They give you so many gems to start that, with a little research, you can build most of a top tier deck within a couple weeks of starting the game. Also, they have a great crafting system. Basically, you can create any card by dusting three cards of the same rarity! Could you imagine if Arena had that system??

[@TemjinZero]

I have only just started playing yugioh at all for the first time ever because of Master Duel's release. Before we even get to card catalog. Let's talk about POLISH. Master Duel's presentation and soundtrack are amazing! I can play seamlessly with my account on both my PC and my PHONE. Finally, when I did try Arena on my phone, that stupid App seems to have a horrendous memory leak. After playing like 30 minutes on mobile, the next match I play in Arena crashes during turn 1, making me rush to reconnect to try to complete the match, and then the game crashes a 2nd time when I do finish the re-logged game. Its even reproducible and I've had it happen to me three times before I just gave up trying Arena. Working client being on the list of 'missing features' is a massive problem.

[@blahblahgdp]

Talking f2p wise a long long time

[@phillipmeade7640]

I haven't even watched the video but these intros are getting better and better every episode. This was so funny. It literally made me laugh out loud and look around to make sure no one was staring at me.

[@RoryKenner]

Whomever edited this episode: 👌 thank you. Hilarious.

[@BrainSlug91]

lol @ Line Goes Up in the recommended videos, its been been a resident there for the past 2 months for me also.

[@theguywiththetail]

Love it, all fantastic points. I really hope you include outtakes in the future as well!

[@chancylvania]

The editing on these are absolutely stupendous

[@MrBoogerblood]

My LGS is running a sealed league from May through November. That solves my arena woes. Hopefully enough people join to keep it going.

[@Sincerity-415]

You have to go to wizard's website to report people on arena, I've done it a few time back when people were nexus looping. Not really worth it because you can't find out if they've taken action on it.

[@Aronia55]

You reported people for playing Nexus? :p

[@Sincerity-415]

@@Aronia55 nexus of fate looping without advancing the game state.

[@returningwhisper]

Loving Magic is the closest experience I've had to being in an abusive relationship lol.

[@Juzamdan55]

This is pure gold 😂

[@4444lowbrow]

I love most of your content Prof, though I am admittedly not a big fan on Dies to Removal. That said, I loved this installment. Keep up the great work, keep on keeping it real, much love.

[@stevenjog9290]

Love the idea behind arena but economy make it really uneasy to get into. I wish they just made it more accessible to everyone and tried to make most of their money through cosmetics and gems for special events.

[@nicoperez8307]

I agree 100%

[@bodaciouschad]

I think thats unfair. If you enjoy standard brawl, than its actually very easy to get into- you just don't get to pick your deck, don't get any good cards and have to concede whenever you go second and play aggro to stand a chance of winning enough games to eventually earn the gold from quests to build ONE decent brawl deck, and if you modify that one deck through a year of rotations, you'll have saved up enough to craft the other 40 rares and mythics you'd need to play that deck in historic with a 15% winrate.

[@dcrow9650]

I play for free and after like 6 month, I had a reasonable amount of good cards. My favorite format is Brawl, but I could play Standard but I hate it.

[@corpsefoot758]

@@dcrow9650 MTG Arena has the worst F2P economy of any AAA online CCG. Sorry pal

[@ToastbackWhale]

@@corpsefoot758 I see somebody didn’t play YGO Duel Links. I’ve not spent a penny on Arena and still enjoy playing it. Duel Links basically says “ok, if you don’t want to pay, enjoy taking 8 months to make the deck you want.” Ask me how I know that.

[@XJBG1001X]

The opening bits will always make me smile. Thank you very much!!!

[@bryceduyvewaardt8136]

51:58 sounds like a series of games to play between story beats in the style of Yugioh that works -I like it!

[@treyconover4107]

Also on that last bit, they added some random powerhouse (and dud) creatures onto the client to shake up the momir vig events including griselbrand, borborygmos, and Iona.

[@needmetal]

Best part of this was finding out the professor is a beer nerd! Cheers Professor!

[@Phantomwaxx]

Brian said "Beer snob" which is 100% worse than a Beer Nerd, IMO. Any kind of snob is bad; nerds are curious. Not drinking a beer you like because another (technically still) microbrewery did an acquisition is odd and petty.

[@mikespoerl2558]

please keep doing stuff together...i always look foward to these!!!!

[@Orkinetxegar]

Prof defending Daretti sounds alot like Spice8rack. Also he is right.

[@TherapyForNarhwals]

22:10 to 24:00 proves I’ll listen to Vince and Prof talk about literally anything just cause it’s entertaining.

[@del132]

Who is editing these god damn things?! I love them. I love them hard.

[@Tyke-Myson]

On the YGO Master Duel anecdote Vince had; yeah, pretty much hit the nail on the head. People created decks out of commons that let them kill themselves on the first turn so that they could just grab their rewards quick and be done. The client didn't ban the deck or anything, they just made the payout for winning games much higher so that you could achieve the top end rewards very quickly by competing. The suicide decks didn't dissappear, but far fewer people played it pretty much immediately, and they've maintained that new paradigm since.

[@moretimeproductions]

Thanks for beeing the spokesmen you guys are!

[@s.c.9681]

Man, you have been on fire with the humor these past couple of weeks! 🤣

[@ohnosmoarlulcatz]

The biggest problem for me was that gold was tied to daily quests. I found myself building stupid decks that I didn't like playing just because I was trying to hit daily quest goals and I ended up spending a lot of time playing decks that I hated just to get enough gold to buy another booster pack.

[@ryanmalinowski7529]

Editor is on point! Keep up the great work!

[@ConsoleCleric]

1. Bring in Pioneer, Modern and Other (Commander) Formats - 5:45 2. Multiplayer - 12:15 3. Dusting and Payouts - 17:47 4. Budweiser is Not Beer - 22:13 5. Gladiator - 24:05 6. Fix Chat - 26:27 7. Cross Paper and Digital - 30:46 8. Less Historic Anthologies - 35:59 9. Improved UI - 36:56 10. Trading - 40:30 11. Better Cosmetics - 46:50 12. Single Player Story Mode - 51:04

[@LithmusEarth]

List of things we need but will never ever get: A list of every book on your bookshelf. That Broodwar Comment, Exactly, same here. In his little thing, and in the sideline of this video: Line Goes Up is still being recommended to me, I watched it when it first came out because I'm subscribed to folding ideas, and it's a dope ass channel ran my Dan Olsen, and I've watched it since then because I felt I needed to. It's EVERYWHERE.

[@ssmmeeaarrggllee]

that intro was amazing, whoever wrote it real props

[@TheCaptainCruise]

Dogfish Head makes some of the most amazing beers - take the summer one with sea salt and lime... sounds awful, until you taste it sitting outside a Dogfish Head place during summer!

[@spartanlink_047]

That intro was absolutely fantastic, actually watched twice.

[@eliasschwartz7905]

Can you please reprint the reading the card explains the card play mat? I am fairly new to magic don't have a play mat yet, so I'm excited to pick one up.

[@hover2go]

Great MTG podcast! Convinced me to play YGO instead 👍

[@josephpropati5690]

I wanna see so many more videos of you guys together. These are hilarious, and I love them.

[@ShotensGaming]

I had an Igew-wana as a kid prof. Cool creatures.

[@poketech7192]

can we all take a second to appreciate those amazing socks the professors wearing.

[@rafaelvarela1024]

On the topic of story mode in Arena: the story-based PvE mode in Duels was really cool. There was one where you played as Jace against Alhammarret and you could only win through milling, and another where you played as Liliana in a 1v4 against her demons. Adding that to Arena would be so sick.

[@PatNave_]

Dusting is one thing but "Real Duplicate" protection would be really really nice imo. HS does this and it works well. Pity gems on opening a pack or when you get a duplicate rare in draft is just a feel bad over all.

[@erikburzinski8248]

how would that even work in draft

[@FiboSai]

This would create a terrible draft environment. Imagine getting the same bad rare every time just because you played so much that you already own 4 copies of the good ones. It is also highly exploitable. All you need to do is craft 4 copies of every bad rare and you would be guaranteed to open a bomb.

[@chimadang1573]

@@FiboSai what if you can still find duplicate rares in draft, but if you pick one you get a bonus random rare after your draft run is over?

[@definitelynotmany4972]

@@chimadang1573 That would be nice, but I doubt they would do that.

[@chimadang1573]

@@definitelynotmany4972 it's hard to imagine Arena getting any kind of quality of life updates. People are only hired to code new standard cards and dream up some alchemy ones

[@johannesgutenburg9837]

the editing keeps getting better and better

[@DiegoDeschain]

Pro tip on how to fix MTGA: step 1 - download Cockatrice, instantly get access to all cards in MTG's existence, and play for free with anyone in the world, in any format you choose, in a client where you actually have to play the game manually while looking at full size HD images of cards, making it the closest experience to playing in person paper magic you'll ever have. step 2 - never touch mtga ever again. step 3 - profit

[@kylefolmsbee3922]

That beer discussion had me cracking up lol

[@ClexYoshi]

the Whazzap commercials became so synonymous in pop culture that one of the great tag teams during the 90;s, the Dudley Boyz started doing a part in their routine where they'd go to the top rope, parody the Whazzap commercials and then do duo diving headbutt to the opponent's groin while the other held the opponent's legs open.

[@JStack]

The board state puzzles on Duels of The Planeswalkers (I think that was the one on Xbox arcade back in the day) literally got me into like second level thought for magic. I also have friends who don’t play mtg anymore but we talk about how fun 2HG and Those board state puzzles were. Single player mode sorely needed

[@DisregardedHappiness]

I legitimately forget im watching a podcast episode when im watching the opening until the theme song comes on. They're that good

[@TheGridMedia]

So True about Arena Tech. I work in a corporate environment and sometime when we meet about which technology to implement for X business project. Leadership had sided hard against what the “lower” people are suggesting and it burns. If Square Enix can shut down their MMO (FFXIV) acknowledge its not good and remake the game and bring it back online to be one of the most successful. Wotc can do the same for Arena, they just need to invest in the platform. Like you said that might be human capital they need. If their team can’t/does know how to code the platform using a solution that can do everything their customers want, they need to find the people that can.

[@PartisanGamerDE]

Lets face it. You all give WotC and Hasbro way too much credit. They wont "fix" anything ... for them Arena, its economy and everything that is wrong with it (from a consumer perspective) works "EXACTLY as intended". They are greedy soulless megacorps that care not for the game we love but only for shorterm profits and shareholders. To them its just a product like any other, and they treat it as such.

[@TheEmeraldboy100]

You sound like one of those magic doomers screaming Magic is dying since 1997

[@M2Brad]

@@TheEmeraldboy100 That's an exaggeration.

[@corpsefoot758]

@@TheEmeraldboy100 They literally walked back their precious Alchemy major marketing push with this new “Explorer” circus LMAO Not to mention finally adding Gold prices for packs, showing the Vault progress like we told those worms to do years ago etc. etc. Are you smelling toast? Wake up you joke, WotC’s finally starting to see the numbers slide and it ain’t pretty

[@AverageSneedEnjoyer]

I think they're messing up from a business angle too. Arena has a horrendous reputation that scares away new players, if a Hearthstone player has heard of Arena they probably know it's predatory. A fairer system that invites more players can generate more revenue overall, but they're fixated exclusively on milking whales

[@PartisanGamerDE]

@@TheEmeraldboy100 by pointing out that their business model for their digital client is horrendous and it is so by design ? Have you seen the world we live in? This aint 1997 anymore. Corporations dont give a single flying f**k anymore about reputation or a good relationship to their costumer base. I am not saying the whole game is dying ... but to not see that Arena has massive problems is being willfully ignorant.

[@sandeshdhyan7269]

Thankyou for speaking out about the corruption in Wizards.You are entitled to a rest, I personally find dealing with this game demanding and emotionally draining. Thanks for speaking out on behalf of the consumer. Cheers, get well soon, we need you.

[@greenirez2798]

3 minutes in and already my morning is going great. Thanks video

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Great to hear!

[@BrokenSonsOfAiur]

I spit my drink all over myself when the "What's vince going to say" music scroll kicked in 🤣🤣🤣

[@cipherdust2285]

That Lighting, Nice work looks great.

[@kemmakolstrup2700]

Shattered Angel's art is so pointedly haunting. I love it.

[@patrush4632]

Hey ya, thanks for the content. May I ask what the lightning in a circle tattoo on your right arm means?

[@nitramreniar]

I love how in the "Professor becomes self aware"-bit every video on the side bar is just the previous video from the channel and then there is also Dan Olson's "Line Goes Up" and I can't tell if this is meant as a way to show it to people and incentivise them to watch it, or if it's a commentary of the fact that that video seems to have been a fixed part of this recomended side bar for the last 3 months since it came out. (For me it is literally right next to the beginning of this comment section and I have watched it in its entirety 3 times so far - once directly when it came out and two more times since then just having it run in the background)

[@JimFaindel]

I live to see the openings of Dies to removal videos.

[@geraudbroussaud894]

I love that you want to bring back Shandalar on Arena ! :) (that's the ply in a story with a map environment part) seriously ! I'd love to play that

[@edac_plays6259]

Duels is what got me into magic and I cannot express how sad I was when I completed the story and there was never any additions or more stories to play through.

[@dylansporrer1198]

The full two seconds of silence and then prof saying "...Gwah-ka-moh-lee" is maybe the funniest thing that has ever come out of one of these videos.

[@kbowie123]

The beer rant side chant was legendary. Thanks gents!

[@BradyRay_333]

It's a good time listening to you two.

[@VeilsShack]

I gotta say, these have always been entertaining content wise, but god damn the editing takes it to a new level. Cheers to whoever fucking does it, making my mf day

[@hoss70711]

Totally agree something needs to be done about roping. Just last night, I had a win condition on my next turn, opponent knew this and made me sit through all three time outs before scooping.

[@2starkiller]

That intro was brilliant!

[@rohezalvomambo1208]

Entertaining and educating as always. Thank you very much.

[@ScottAtkins49]

Dies to Removal -> Favorite podcast!

[@aceundead4750]

Here in America we got the Budweiser Clydesdales as commercials. Iv heard from other British people on the internet about the iguana commercial, but never seen it personally.

[@SiegeAyy]

you know my first thought at prof's first line was "what, are they playing the d&t mirror?" Little did I know.

[@thinkwell4429]

Tolarian brewing co.!? Im a huge fan of Magic AND Brewing, so this was a very gratifying crossover for me. :D

[@MagicalEmma6]

Watching these videos made me understand that the arena economy was bad, but it wasn't until I started playing YGO Master Duel that I realized how bad it was. Like, Master Duel isn't perfect, but I think the fact that they immediately fixed the mistake they made with the first exhibition they held signals to me that they're willing to make needed changes. After a couple of the things you mentioned wanting in the video, I just thought to myself that Master Duel already has that and it's only been around a few months, so you know that whoever's in charge of arena could do something, but they refuse to.

[@ettoreozzy9932]

I hated the fact that Master Duel had replays (although 10 is too little), friend list somewhat, huge card list, craft and available on mobile on launch. How the hell freaking konami made a client with those things and Magic can't get that with YEARS of arena? I've played arena for a while when it launched and stopped only logging in after a few sets to get the 3 pity free boosters and have never tried to install it on my mobile to play it and Master Duel I felt the need to have it on my phone in order to play it more than just on my computer. I much prefer magic as a game than yugioh but I prefer playing Master Duel so much more than Arena. Maybe if modern or legacy was around I would try to grind in order to get the decks I like (or one at least), but not even that... At least on Yugioh I was able to make some decks I like and have fun with it

[@iliekcheesesteakk1814]

For reference for the yugioh event: The amount of points you got for losing was something like half as much as winning - forget the exact ratio, but it definitely allowed losing to be a strategy since you could get more games in less time And the event rewards were fairly good - a decent amount of gems for pack buying being the main reward So because of this, people built decks designed to self OTK as much as possible To counter this they handled it exactly as you said - after the changes winning got you many times more points than losing did, so while you could still technically self OTK, it took many more games than just playing normally and getting a few wins in

[@Oscar_Milde]

Exactly. As I remember it, the rewards for winning after the change were 10x greater than the rewards for losing, and then in subsequent events they simply banned some of the problem cards

[@bradphil5808]

The beer conversation was the best part of this video hands-down. And I understand what they’re trying to do to motivate wizards to improve arena but they’re so stuck up and just focused on money they’ll never fix it properly

[@MakeVarahHappen]

It doesn't make sense to "Revoker a Jitte." Choosing a name is a replacement effect so either it's on the stack and you don't need to say the name or its on the battlefield and you don't need to wait for priority.

[@Dalenthas]

Vince, don't worry, you're not crazy, we had those adverts here too.

[@haileydee9954]

I always loved the books and the tiny articles are no replacement for a paper book in my hands.

[@jamestrevelyan1268]

YOOOO GLADIATOR! Absolutely love the shoutout, thanks folks!

[@dragade101]

@30:30, with the last update to the 'playblade' just change decks via the last deck tab. That locks in your settings and there is less human error this way. No its not great UX nor UI but I have 100% click rate when selecting what I want to play when I’m on the last deck tab.

[@riffcrypt8438]

The segment towards the end speaking on the lack of single player content is very similar to what fighting games went through in the Street Fighter 5 era. All the big money decided the game part of videogames was completely vestigial in the era of e-sports, only competition matters right!? So, they slashed content entirely leaving a scar of 6 years with nothing but skeleton games at full retail prices. Very luckily Capcom FINALLY understood their audience and is making major course corrections for SF6. Ironically Riot games are ALSO deep in development making a fighting game that, similar to Runeterra, may resolve a lot of these problems. Also thanks for recommending Runeterra, tried that out thanks to your videos.

[@jonathanmcgreevy6806]

A story mode for each set would be a great way for them to convey the lore of the game AND push whatever dumb format theyre focussing on at the time 🤷🏼‍♂️ win win

[@reijiriffic]

not a bad idea. i dig this.