Source
r/freemagic•
DLJeff

First impressions of Draft on Magic Arena

GENERAL

This past weekend we got our first chance to draft in the Magic Arena Closed Beta. The format was Hour/Amonkhet, it will change to Dominaria for this coming weekend's drafting. The price to enter is "5000 gold" or "750 gems." In real world money you can look at it as $5. For a F2P-only player, 5000 gold is roughly what you can expect to grind for free in a week of playing the daily quests. You draft against an AI table and then play against human opponents. You play single-game-matches until you reach 7 wins or 3 losses, whichever happens first. At 6 wins, your prizes will give you entry into another draft so that's kind of a magic number if your goal is to "go infinite" on drafts.

I did a few and ended up slightly ahead of breaking even. As a limited-only player on Magic Online, all I really want from Arena drafting is to be able to reasonably chain together a lot of runs assuming I can achieve a solid win rate. I am willing to input a few dollars from time to time. To that end, I think Arena's drafting is okay, but I'd prefer either a slightly more lenient threshold for winning your entry back, or a lower cost in exchange for not keeping the cards you draft (currently you DO permanently keep the cards you draft).

The interface while drafting is fine. Since you're against AI, there didn't appear to be any timer on your picks, which might be nice for people who really like to take their time. The deckbuilding screen is clunkier than the equivalent screens in MTGO. On MTGO you get to lay out your deck in a nice visual format DURING the draft as you move from pick to pick, which is great. Would like Arena to mirror that.

I only have a small sample size, but I definitely wonder about how good the AI drafters are. It will be hard to follow signals if they're running a poor algorithm and making nonsense picks. Then again, at the LGS a given draft will often have a clueless donkey in it that "screws up" the picks so I guess that's true-to-life, haha. Best-of-one matches (all games in Arena Beta are currently best-of-one) are sometimes hard to swallow. For example, I lost one draft match when opponent slammed Cruel Reality, an enchantment that is a pretty specific kind of win condition. Obviously, if I had an opportunity to sideboard for games 2 & 3, I would adjust my gameplan accordingly.

Overall: I'm positive on Arena Draft and excited to get some Dominaria drafts in this coming weekend. The pricing might need some tweaking, maybe a "phantom" option that is cheaper but you don't keep the cards permanently - apparently that is how Hearthstone does it?

Posted May 7, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

918
[deleted]•

You draft against an AI table

Oh, so it's not draft.

You play single-game-matches

Oh, so it's not magic.

Can somebody explain why I'm supposed to be excited about this game again? Because I can't imagine myself ever playing it.

8
Schaef93•

I've been in the beta for over a month now, and it's for casuals. If you just want a quick game of magic to just relax at night, it's perfect. If you care about being competitive or trying to improve your gameplay, it's not very good

2
[deleted]•

I consider myself casual. I'm not interested in grinding GPs, SCGs, or getting to the Pro Tour. This sounds like it is for scrubs.

3
Taco-Time•

Sounds like a poor substitute for practicing limited then. That's too bad.

7
fussomoro•

I'm going to grind this week to get into draft next weekend. But I really don't like that you don't play against who you draft. But hey, that's the price right?

4
aWintergreen•

Ugh. This is just way too much like hearthstone. It's one of the things I don't like about HS arena. Drafting is part of the game and if you aren't drafting with the people you are playing against a lot of the play in draft is lost.

4
DLJeffOP•

A note on the concept of playing against the same table of opponents with whom you drafted (as we do in paper drafts at our local shops): That ship has sailed for online play. Even on MTGO everything is now in a "League" format. What that means is, you do draft against a real table of 8 human drafters, but then after the draft portion, you go into a big pool with everyone else (say several thousand drafters) and play your matches against them based on some matchmaking criteria (i.e. same record).

There are pros & cons. Obviously, it sucks when you read signals well and draft a strong archetypal deck, only to run into an opponent from another table who has that same deck archetype, maybe even with an extra power uncommon/rare in their pool to boot. The benefits are being able to play your rounds at your leisure, even over multiple days, instead of having to play all three rounds right then. I have come to prefer it after an initial period of misgiving. It's just so much easier on the schedule; I can do a draft and play one round, then go to bed if I want. Before the advent of Leagues, if I signed up for a draft after I put the kids to bed, I'd be locking myself in for a 3+ hour session, which just doesn't always fit into my night very well.

1
meanderingtowershel•

At this point I’ve come to accept pod drafting it a paper draft feature. As much as I miss it on mtgo leagues it’s so much more convenient to have league drafts or asynchronous drafts.

It’s one of those bittersweet features. I love it but do still miss pods.

1
GreatPoster50•

I don't see how you will string together drafts or go infinite under their system. They have matchmaking, so no matter how good you are your win rate will inexorably fall to 50% or at least certainly below 60%. Throw in the best-of-one format and you have yourself a lottery.

4
Cmonman887•

You draft against an AI table and then play against human opponents

LOLwut? So you can't use signals to draft, and every once in a while someone's going go have a broken deck where the AI went retardo and you have 0 chance against them?

I mean the price isn't bad, but this is a MAJOR issue and I hope they don't think that people will put up with this when everything's keepsies lol.

2
Kreenish•

I doubt signals will be a concern. Everyone will just force the best archetype and quickdraft will be the same deck over and over again.

2
Idras_Hairline•

I can see that if the AI card evaluation is predictable

2
mnemosyne-0002•

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1
MathisVail•

Wait, It's AKH/HOU? Not even IXA/RIX? That strikes me as odd.

1
Cruentum•

Three HOD packs and 1 AKH, Dominaria draft next month. They rotate events every week. I expect Ixalan will be sometime next month.

1
Cmonman887•

So they have you draft the deck with AIs so it doesn't constrain 8 people making picks at the same time, but then they make you play upwards of 10 matches within the same week? Or are they single games so the variation of mana screw makes it almost impossible to get to the top prize levels because of bad draws?

Whoever thought this system up is a complete idiot.

2
MathisVail•

Huh, strange

1
meanderingtowershel•

$5 for draft? I haven’t had a chance to play draft on arena yet but that feels great. Paper drafts near me are 10-12$.

I’m a big fan of the asynchronous drafts on eternal (btw everyone should go give eternal a shot. Very fun can’t recommend it enough). So I’m excited it see how arena works with it. As for the AI drafters skills that will develop as overtime as it’s probably learning algorithm.

I’ll wait till Dominaria draft comes to arena to give it a shot because I can’t stand Hour/Amonkhet draft. I got so burnt out on it.

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