One more note for all you computer dudes out there: I COULD edit my first list that tested this out. I just switched up the card groupings, but left all of the same cards as 4 ofs in the same row. My lands were 8 forest, 7 mountain as well. It's only when I took the list all the way to individual cards that I became unable to open the deck in the deck editor.
At some point, I'll put the list back into the computer in the usual mode. That way, I can edit the "randomized" list on arena still, then go back to my text file to make changes. You just end up with 2 lists that you need to make changes to, but at least you can still use arena to edit. You can also play the "usual mode" list as a comparison for fun if you still can't believe how well this works.
You really end up with beautiful hands all day long. It's amazing.
Alright. So I wrote a small scrip to grab the exported list. Interweave the lands with the spells using a crude randomizer to shuffle the lists before interweaving. Then copy that new list and import it.
It's late and I only had a chance to play a handful of games.
So far, the games do feel different but not in a good way. The 4-of clumps are gone but the card draw still feels a little "off". I can't quite put my finger on it however. I noticed that I get color screwed, ALOT. Way more than I was getting screwed before. This color screw is a direct cause of losing nearly all of my games.
I wanted to use a standardized deck so I used Eternal Thirst. I noticed the lands do tend to "clump" on this list so I intend to modify the script to better interweave the land mix then re-upload.
What's interesting is my script output isn't ruining the formating and Arena seems to accept it just find, no exclamation mark I was having problems with before.
Also of note, the power level of my opponents for this deck seems to be higher than what the normal, unaltered, deck encounters. I rarely encounter Planeswalkers but two decks tonight had them. I also encountered a Merfolk deck. A nasty all black deck that dismantled my hand. A Gates deck. And, surprisingly, two mirror matches.
@ SavannahLion That's weird, I used to get color screwed way more BEFORE I changed my decklist order. Now I don't. As far as your opponents changing, that does happen. It's not a function of changing up the card order on the list, it's because you loaded a "new" deck into the program. People have talked about this long before and Wizards has confirmed it. Wizards will match your decklist up with "similar power level decks" as they put it. For me, it meant always playing mono-red and mono-white. When you export, then import a list, even without shuffling it, you will get "new" opponents to play against. Until the system decides what deck lists they want you to play against, then they will just keep giving your that same garbage over and over again until you export then import the list again.
Just more stupid bull***** from Wizards that makes me think they are rigging it. It is not cool that they artificially select opponents for you. Just let everyone in the same rank play each other and quite it with this all of these extra layers of control.
**EDIT** Are you still unable to open your modified list in the deck builder?
To be clear: Since I can't actually edit my modified text file decklist on Arena, I must edit the text list then import it again every time I decide to change the decklist up. So every time you import a deck, even the same exact list, Arena starts treating it as a "new" deck. So it will pit you against a wide variety of opponents to begin with. Then with their evil formula, they start to give you the opponents they want you to play. The longer you play the same list, the fewer deck types you will play against.
I thought everyone had just given up on Merfolk because it was no good. Apparently not because since I've started continuously importing new lists I keep playing against them and stomping them. Also seeing mono-green, which I never saw before. I suspect that Wizards essentially is trying to put you up against opponents that will keep you from progressing too far up the ranks too quickly. Why would they do that? To get you to buy more gems to get different decks in hopes of winning. It's speculation that they are trying to use this to make money, but there are just too many of these weird things that keep adding up.
Before, I was playing against all tier 1-2 standard decks that have been winning tournaments et. Now I see WAY more rogue builds and lists I'd never seen before.
To be clear. I only played for about two or so hours. I went to bed around 3AM or so. So it could simply be an artifact that no one was awake my side of the world.
Yeah, I had forgotten about the bullocks matching system when you import deck lists. That would explain the power level disparity I saw.
I'm not entirely against the power level disparity. What I am against is the idea that WotC very clearly pushes the, "new player experience," and how this matching system appears to fly completely in the face of that goal.
As an aside, is anyone cracking Ravnica Allegiance packs? I just noticed that I have a nearly full set of Guilds of Ravnica Guildgates but not a single Allegience guildgate.
I have always been fervent in stating that I wanted to see proof of any rigging in shuffling before admitting it's there, that I'm not going to accept just anecdotal data and the rants of a salty YT crapposter.
This is a sufficient sample size and the data analyzed in a very well-thought out and consistent manner, and the data is presented in a very clear format that makes the point rather clear. I was wrong, there is a problem with the shuffler.
I'm convinced that there is an issue that's going on, and Wizards needs to address this rather quickly because it's a VERY damning issue for them. Until then, about the only thing you can do is arm yourself with the knowledge. For those not wanting to pour through all the technical details, here's a good tl;dr:
-- Limited Decks will constantly be mana-starved, no matter how many you play. Fill up on stuff low on the curve.
-- 22-23 lands is the sweet spot for not getting issues - Play too many more and you get flooded more often, play too many fewer and you get screwed more often compared to expected value.
-- 3 land opening hands are great. 2-land or fewer hands get starved more often, 4-land or more hands get flooded more often compared to expected value.
-- Taking any mulligan seems to put the land/spell ratio back to where it should be.
--By all accounts this appears to be a common mistake in implementing the shuffler algorithm in which the deck is randomized, but not randomized enough. This is why taking a mulligan fixes it. This is an act of incompetence moreso than malfeasance.
-- There is no data to suggest that Arena gives you more copies of specific cards more often than expected.
I am hopeful that the people in charge of this at WotC catch wind of this and are able to affect a fix of some kind. It shouldn't be that hard, from what the report claims.
The rigging part is sensationalism. The truth is that the developers messed up on the system for the first turn help in order to make best of one more livable. The problem that happens, and I've observed this myself, is that land pockets form in the deck when the assist is in place. There could be any number of reasons for this, but most likely it's not the fault of the actual randomization algorithm. The developers use the same core algorithm for both best of three and best of one, and taking a mulligan fixes the situation.
So with those observations in place, the issue is likely that they randomize the deck first and wrote the starting hand helper class and methods such that they pull cards they need from the randomly shuffled deck to form the seven card hands. Now, lets say it does this for two hypothetical hands, and once it has determined which one is better, it puts the other hand back into the deck: What operation would it proceed to go through to do so and is the client responsible or the server?
Well, for one they definitely do not want to do the randomization on the client side because that could allow someone to rig their own deck shuffle via third party tools, and if people think that throwing anti-cheat software onto it would be a viable solution: how about we don't repeat that entire thing that happened with Ubisoft? So the better choice would be to run the shuffler at the server. Now, this is a server that is getting hammered by millions of connected clients and reshuffles are expensive, so you'd want to minimize how many times you are shuffling the deck. Hence, I believe that when it puts the cards back into the deck, it simply inserts them back where it found them.
So, 60 cards, shuffle the deck, draw 14, optimize both by swapping cards between the hands and the deck, then reinsert the lesser of two hands back into the main deck using the same index positions they were drawn from. Is it any wonder you end up with land pockets when someone does that? Basically, they have to reshuffle the deck again after they reinsert the cards, but likely aren't figuring the deck is sufficiently randomized and want to save on server resources.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That's a good analysis Colt, and it seems like you have a lot more programming experience so I'll defer to you on that. I have also heard from a few people who are playing in the Mythic Invitational that the March 27th patch will also address the shuffling irregularities even though I can't see anything about it in the article. I'm not sure how much infrastructure it takes for Arena (The first 11 weeks had 250 Million games played, about 23 million a week - I expect it's closer to 27-28 million a week now) but hopefully they don't need too many more to apply this.
If it works, then I'll be rather pleasantly surprised at the quick turnaround. But we'll see fairly quickly if that's accurate.
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This is really frustrating. Why did they have to create a warping fake shuffler algorithm rather than a normal one?
Because they aren't interested in creating a fun and fair game experience here. Like Hearthstone, this game is really a creation of pure greed, and one of the worst ways to get people into Magic I could imagine. You can't even get an unrigged shuffle, for crying out loud! It's not a good representation of what the game is actually like. The UI is, honestly, in many ways worse than MTGO—there are times I can't even see what I am targeting because of the awful curved arrows and the huge cards blocking the screen so I can't just target something.
Arena as a replacement for the aging MTGO and a way to get more people playing is, itself, a good idea. If it'd worked as such, it'd be great. Arena is an utter failure, in my opinion, in both ways, however. The limitations on buying cards means it's pretty much the dreaded "pay to win." Its interface is actually a lot worse than that of MTGO because it can be nearly impossible to just properly target or time something thanks to an inexcusable amount of cruft. All the flash and effects mean nothing when the end result is clunkier than its predecessor.
At this point, I kinda just want to post a lot of reviews and everything recommending people to stay away from the game. Definitely don't spend money on it. Wizards needs to start losing money so they get the idea that the product, as given to us, with a rigged shuffler, pay-to-win gambling-style system (as opposed to more straightforward P2W where you could just at least buy individual cards), and utterly heinous UI, is not acceptable. This game is, sadly, a complete failure in all aspects right now.
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She was made of November rain
Pleasure and pain
Scorpion stings
Pretty things
and the flames of Phoenix wings
—Michelle Schaper
As an aside, is anyone cracking Ravnica Allegiance packs? I just noticed that I have a nearly full set of Guilds of Ravnica Guildgates but not a single Allegience guildgate.
The 8 card packs of arena have no land slot, so you don't get any guildgates from packs. New accounts come with a playset of all the guildgates, but since your's existed befor RNA release (I suppose), you only got the GRN ones.
It's not a problem if you draft a bit, but otherwise you might have to spend wildcards on them.
So, 60 cards, shuffle the deck, draw 14, optimize both by swapping cards between the hands and the deck, then reinsert the lesser of two hands back into the main deck using the same index positions they were drawn from. Is it any wonder you end up with land pockets when someone does that? Basically, they have to reshuffle the deck again after they reinsert the cards, but likely aren't figuring the deck is sufficiently randomized and want to save on server resources.
The exact implementation wasn't specified, but they stated they use two randomized instances of the same deck to determine two independent starting hands, not draw 14 cards of the same one. Obviously, there seems to be some more tampering going on, but as long as they're not blatantly lying (which I doubt), there is at least no reinserting.
Lol this is hilarious. "We need to make sure people don't feel bad with bad luck, so we are going to stack your deck to make turns one and two as fun as possible."
As an aside, is anyone cracking Ravnica Allegiance packs? I just noticed that I have a nearly full set of Guilds of Ravnica Guildgates but not a single Allegience guildgate.
The 8 card packs of arena have no land slot, so you don't get any guildgates from packs. New accounts come with a playset of all the guildgates, but since your's existed befor RNA release (I suppose), you only got the GRN ones.
It's not a problem if you draft a bit, but otherwise you might have to spend wildcards on them.
I signed up as soon as it went into open beta. Dominaria I think? It was definitely before GRN.
Open Beta went live on September 24, with the pre-releace events being September 29-30. Yesterday marked the 6 month mark for open beta.
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As an aside, is anyone cracking Ravnica Allegiance packs? I just noticed that I have a nearly full set of Guilds of Ravnica Guildgates but not a single Allegience guildgate.
The 8 card packs of arena have no land slot, so you don't get any guildgates from packs. New accounts come with a playset of all the guildgates, but since your's existed befor RNA release (I suppose), you only got the GRN ones.
It's not a problem if you draft a bit, but otherwise you might have to spend wildcards on them.
So, 60 cards, shuffle the deck, draw 14, optimize both by swapping cards between the hands and the deck, then reinsert the lesser of two hands back into the main deck using the same index positions they were drawn from. Is it any wonder you end up with land pockets when someone does that? Basically, they have to reshuffle the deck again after they reinsert the cards, but likely aren't figuring the deck is sufficiently randomized and want to save on server resources.
The exact implementation wasn't specified, but they stated they use two randomized instances of the same deck to determine two independent starting hands, not draw 14 cards of the same one. Obviously, there seems to be some more tampering going on, but as long as they're not blatantly lying (which I doubt), there is at least no reinserting.
If they are using two instances of the same deck the same kind of problem can still happen. What they have not specified is how the hands themselves are optimized. My guess is that they don't reshuffle after the optimization or are not properly fudging the randomization.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Okay, my tinfoil hat looks like a dang medieval helmet with all the layers going on by now.
MAJOR UPDATE ON WIZARD'S NEFARIOUSNESS!
So it appears Wizards is VERY MUCH aware of the shuffler problem because with the newest patch, your list no longer exports as imported. This can only mean they KNOW that importing the cards in a single order fashion fixes their broke ass shuffler. While the exported file will not be in the same order as if you made it through Arena initially, they will group all the cards of the same type in one row now. THERE WAS NO UPDATE ABOUT THIS IN THE PATCH NOTES!!! https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/53949
This means:
They must know their shuffler is broken.
Instead of saying "Update to the shuffler coming soon." Or actually fixing the problem, they keep trying to hide it.
They are hiding changes they make when they update the patch notes section.
Well, if it looks like bull*****, smells like bull*****, and there is a bull standing right next to the *****, it's probably bull*****.
I'm sure we could come up with perfectly reasonable explanations as to why they would do this, with a ton of mental gymnastics.
Bottom line, THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING, IT'S UNDENIABLE SINCE THEY DON'T MENTION THE ACTUAL CHANGES THEY MAKE. CHANGES THAT FIX THEIR BROKEN SHUFFLER. Either they are EXTREMELY INCOMPETENT and covering that up, or they have had designs on this the whole time and covering that up. I vote designs on this the whole time since they have denied their problem existed, then fix the one way you can work around their broken system. Also, the opponent decider is another way in which they have rigged it. Of course I "can't prove it." However, the evidence against them keeps stacking higher and higher.
Okay, my tinfoil hat looks like a dang medieval helmet with all the layers going on by now.
MAJOR UPDATE ON WIZARD'S NEFARIOUSNESS!
So it appears Wizards is VERY MUCH aware of the shuffler problem because with the newest patch, your list no longer exports as imported. This can only mean they KNOW that importing the cards in a single order fashion fixes their broke ass shuffler. While the exported file will not be in the same order as if you made it through Arena initially, they will group all the cards of the same type in one row now. THERE WAS NO UPDATE ABOUT THIS IN THE PATCH NOTES!!! https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/53949
This means:
They must know their shuffler is broken.
Instead of saying "Update to the shuffler coming soon." Or actually fixing the problem, they keep trying to hide it.
They are hiding changes they make when they update the patch notes section.
Well, if it looks like bull*****, smells like bull*****, and there is a bull standing right next to the *****, it's probably bull*****.
I'm sure we could come up with perfectly reasonable explanations as to why they would do this, with a ton of mental gymnastics.
Bottom line, THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING, IT'S UNDENIABLE SINCE THEY DON'T MENTION THE ACTUAL CHANGES THEY MAKE. CHANGES THAT FIX THEIR BROKEN SHUFFLER. Either they are EXTREMELY INCOMPETENT and covering that up, or they have had designs on this the whole time and covering that up. I vote designs on this the whole time since they have denied their problem existed, then fix the one way you can work around their broken system. Also, the opponent decider is another way in which they have rigged it. Of course I "can't prove it." However, the evidence against them keeps stacking higher and higher.
I'm curious what you mean, because when I exported my pseudo-randomized decklist to notepad, it was still in the same psuedo-random "cards added" order.
I also want to ask a dumb question: how does WotC benefit from having a clearly broken shuffler? The debacle was on the front page of Reddit, Chris Clay (the effective Boss of MTG Arena) was pinged multiple times in that thread. Wizards absolutely knows of the shuffler weirdness. And a lot of the players know that WotC knows. They can't ignore it at this point, and it's in their obvious self-interest to fix it.
You are asserting that Wizards is deliberately not fixing the shuffler they know is broken. This means that either A) It's in WotC's best interests to not fix the shuffler, or B) WotC is deliberately acting AGAINST its own best interests. So here's my question to you: Which do you think it is, and why?
Personally I would have very much appreciated at least a note that they're looking into things, and I'm a little concerned that there isn't one. Just because Artifact, once heralded as the game that would kill magic, has ceased to exist (their own numbers show less than 500 active players per day) doesn't mean Arena shouldn't keep being great.
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I'm curious what you mean, because when I exported my pseudo-randomized decklist to notepad, it was still in the same psuedo-random "cards added" order.
I also want to ask a dumb question: how does WotC benefit from having a clearly broken shuffler? The debacle was on the front page of Reddit, Chris Clay (the effective Boss of MTG Arena) was pinged multiple times in that thread. Wizards absolutely knows of the shuffler weirdness. And a lot of the players know that WotC knows. They can't ignore it at this point, and it's in their obvious self-interest to fix it.
You are asserting that Wizards is deliberately not fixing the shuffler they know is broken. This means that either A) It's in WotC's best interests to not fix the shuffler, or B) WotC is deliberately acting AGAINST its own best interests. So here's my question to you: Which do you think it is, and why?
Personally I would have very much appreciated at least a note that they're looking into things, and I'm a little concerned that there isn't one. Just because Artifact, once heralded as the game that would kill magic, has ceased to exist (their own numbers show less than 500 active players per day) doesn't mean Arena shouldn't keep being great.
To put it simply, and none too flatteringly, they probably don't care much. If Arena is making them money, and obviously it is, they're clearly not very interested in putting out a well-balanced product. Arena has a huge list of issues right now and not one of them has been addressed. The UI, for instance, is in massive need of an overhaul purely for clarity. The amount of things that do not work properly, either due to straight-up error (abilities not firing) or cruft on screen (try targeting multiple cards, or even one with keywords, where your card is blocking the right side of the screen, the arrows are in the way, and the reminder text on the abilities makes it impossible to see the card you're targeting). Instead of fixing that, they add the laughably overpriced Guild bundles that are so chintzy that they only give you some card styles, and not even any copies of the cards themselves. For $20, you get a few styles and sleeves, but no actual cards.
That alone shows they have no interest in creating an introductory product here, or a valid replacement for MTGO. They want only cash, and are charging pretty crazy prices for anything in-game. The game has no decent tutorial for new players. The UI is actively harmful to learning and playing the game. Building a decent card pool requires a lot of grind, which isn't itself a crime, or a huge expense, which when combined with the former is definitely a black mark.
I play Arena because it's fairly popular to stream and it's a way to keep sharp, practicing the game every day. I won't spend money because I won't support the insanely greedy practices WotC is showing here—and I used to think that Blizzard was bad with Hearthstone! Certainly I wouldn't recommend this game to new players, and Wizards needs to be told the many things they are doing wrong. Hopefully they can fix it and make Arena into something great. Right now, I definitely would not classify it as such.
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She was made of November rain
Pleasure and pain
Scorpion stings
Pretty things
and the flames of Phoenix wings
—Michelle Schaper
To put it simply, and none too flatteringly, they probably don't care much. If Arena is making them money, and obviously it is, they're clearly not very interested in putting out a well-balanced product. Arena has a huge list of issues right now and not one of them has been addressed. The UI, for instance, is in massive need of an overhaul purely for clarity. The amount of things that do not work properly, either due to straight-up error (abilities not firing) or cruft on screen (try targeting multiple cards, or even one with keywords, where your card is blocking the right side of the screen, the arrows are in the way, and the reminder text on the abilities makes it impossible to see the card you're targeting). Instead of fixing that, they add the laughably overpriced Guild bundles that are so chintzy that they only give you some card styles, and not even any copies of the cards themselves. For $20, you get a few styles and sleeves, but no actual cards.
That alone shows they have no interest in creating an introductory product here, or a valid replacement for MTGO. They want only cash, and are charging pretty crazy prices for anything in-game. The game has no decent tutorial for new players. The UI is actively harmful to learning and playing the game. Building a decent card pool requires a lot of grind, which isn't itself a crime, or a huge expense, which when combined with the former is definitely a black mark.
I play Arena because it's fairly popular to stream and it's a way to keep sharp, practicing the game every day. I won't spend money because I won't support the insanely greedy practices WotC is showing here—and I used to think that Blizzard was bad with Hearthstone! Certainly I wouldn't recommend this game to new players, and Wizards needs to be told the many things they are doing wrong. Hopefully they can fix it and make Arena into something great. Right now, I definitely would not classify it as such.
Honestly I'm glad that there's no cards behind the styles. Cosmetic DLC is a way to offer people something they want that doesn't disadvantage players who don't want it or can't afford it - it's a strategy that's certainly worked for Fortnite and I expect there's a significant number of people who have clamored for it or something like it.
I'm going to be honest, I liked the tutorial even though I've been playing since 2006. It probably was one of the things that kept me interested in the early game. It taught you controls moreso than gameplay, but I've never thought the gameplay was the hardest thing to learn outside of the minutia. I also wonder what abilities you haven't gotten to work right, I haven't had any issues personally.
You're right that there's a grind involved, and that you need to pay with Time or Money does mean you have to really REALLY grind to get good. For some people that's a turnoff, but are you expecting them to just give you a playset of all the cards for free? Serious question here.
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I'm curious what you mean, because when I exported my pseudo-randomized decklist to notepad, it was still in the same psuedo-random "cards added" order.
I also want to ask a dumb question: how does WotC benefit from having a clearly broken shuffler? The debacle was on the front page of Reddit, Chris Clay (the effective Boss of MTG Arena) was pinged multiple times in that thread. Wizards absolutely knows of the shuffler weirdness. And a lot of the players know that WotC knows. They can't ignore it at this point, and it's in their obvious self-interest to fix it.
You are asserting that Wizards is deliberately not fixing the shuffler they know is broken. This means that either A) It's in WotC's best interests to not fix the shuffler, or B) WotC is deliberately acting AGAINST its own best interests. So here's my question to you: Which do you think it is, and why?
Personally I would have very much appreciated at least a note that they're looking into things, and I'm a little concerned that there isn't one. Just because Artifact, once heralded as the game that would kill magic, has ceased to exist (their own numbers show less than 500 active players per day) doesn't mean Arena shouldn't keep being great.
To put it simply, and none too flatteringly, they probably don't care much. If Arena is making them money, and obviously it is, they're clearly not very interested in putting out a well-balanced product. Arena has a huge list of issues right now and not one of them has been addressed. The UI, for instance, is in massive need of an overhaul purely for clarity. The amount of things that do not work properly, either due to straight-up error (abilities not firing) or cruft on screen (try targeting multiple cards, or even one with keywords, where your card is blocking the right side of the screen, the arrows are in the way, and the reminder text on the abilities makes it impossible to see the card you're targeting). Instead of fixing that, they add the laughably overpriced Guild bundles that are so chintzy that they only give you some card styles, and not even any copies of the cards themselves. For $20, you get a few styles and sleeves, but no actual cards.
That alone shows they have no interest in creating an introductory product here, or a valid replacement for MTGO. They want only cash, and are charging pretty crazy prices for anything in-game. The game has no decent tutorial for new players. The UI is actively harmful to learning and playing the game. Building a decent card pool requires a lot of grind, which isn't itself a crime, or a huge expense, which when combined with the former is definitely a black mark.
I play Arena because it's fairly popular to stream and it's a way to keep sharp, practicing the game every day. I won't spend money because I won't support the insanely greedy practices WotC is showing here—and I used to think that Blizzard was bad with Hearthstone! Certainly I wouldn't recommend this game to new players, and Wizards needs to be told the many things they are doing wrong. Hopefully they can fix it and make Arena into something great. Right now, I definitely would not classify it as such.
Thanks FossilFirebird. Algernone, given your "black or white" logical fallacy, I'll go with A) it is in their best interests not to fix this, at least soon enough. They obviously do not have enough competent programmers and are unwilling to hire new programmers, or more programmers. Also, instead of something as simple as "We are updating the shuffling algorithm soon" they are still in an official denial that there even is a problem. I laid it out pretty clearly, either they are EXTREMELY INCOMPETENT, or THEY ARE USING THIS TO MAKE MONEY. In honesty, I don't know one way or the other, but it must be one in this case. What is clear is that THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY TRYING TO HIDE THIS because they did not mention the changes in the patch notes that directly affect this problem. In fact, THEY MADE IT HARDER GET A RANDOM SHUFFLE OUT OF YOUR DECKLIST. That's pretty strange if their goal is to provide a fair game to all who play.
Additionally, I've already explained why this could be monetarily motivated in a previous thread. While "rewarding" players who spend money won't make them spend more $, "punishing" players who don't spend enough money WILL get people to spend more $. (Those people will be motivated to buy new decks/cards et.) I'm not saying it is 100% for certain.
The way things changed is that I used to have a 60 individual card list with everything splayed out and the land "randomized" in the list. It helped fix the shuffler in a huge way, to the point where it felt like I was playing real Magic again. Now that I can't fully "randomize" my list, I once again notice the bull***** hands they keep giving me. If they know that making a randomized list FIXES the shuffler, then take the text file or whatever, then randomize it before hand, THEN send it through the shuffler. This really shouldn't take that much work from a programming standpoint. Just "shuffle" the deck once or twice (or however it's done) THEN decide your hand. Instead, they took away the option to fix the shuffler on your own. That is just a very damning piece of evidence that they are up to no good, especially because they changed something (to make the problem even worse) and they didn't mention they changed something, nor that "an update to the shuffler" was coming.
That's all it would have taken in the patch notes: "An update to the shuffler planned for next Arena update." As Firebird pointed out, they made sure that they had a new way for people to spend money on the game BEFORE they fix A CRUCIAL PROBLEM.
I'm glad to hear that people are getting fired up on Reddit about it though. Wizards tends to fix problems if the multitudes scream in their face about it. We must become the multitudes. It's absolutely disgraceful that they are hosting official Arena events with a "beta" but more like "broke ass" program. If they at least weren't putting prize money on the line, they might have some tiny out, but they don't. Disgraceful.
An update on my gameplay, I basically IMMEDIATELY noticed a difference after the update. I was called to check to see if my list was still randomized after like 10 games? Less than 20 for sure. I could tell they had changed it, even without checking to see if they had changed it. I am now getting "Keep a 2 lander and don't draw any land for 5+ cards deep" and "4 mountains in an opening hand even though I have a majority of non-mountains in my deck" hands. I'm sure y'all are familiar with the unlikely scenarios you keep running into. Additionally, I'm now back to "either have too few lands, or way too many lands." On average, I'm at 50% or above for land count to total card count. It's disgusting and really disheartening to have "real Magic" for a couple of brief weeks, then go back to "let's benefit mono-colored decks Magic" for bo1.
At some point, I'll put the list back into the computer in the usual mode. That way, I can edit the "randomized" list on arena still, then go back to my text file to make changes. You just end up with 2 lists that you need to make changes to, but at least you can still use arena to edit. You can also play the "usual mode" list as a comparison for fun if you still can't believe how well this works.
You really end up with beautiful hands all day long. It's amazing.
It's late and I only had a chance to play a handful of games.
So far, the games do feel different but not in a good way. The 4-of clumps are gone but the card draw still feels a little "off". I can't quite put my finger on it however. I noticed that I get color screwed, ALOT. Way more than I was getting screwed before. This color screw is a direct cause of losing nearly all of my games.
I wanted to use a standardized deck so I used Eternal Thirst. I noticed the lands do tend to "clump" on this list so I intend to modify the script to better interweave the land mix then re-upload.
1 Legion Lieutenant (RIX) 163
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Vampire Sovereign (M19) 125
1 Call to the Feast (XLN) 219
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Call to the Feast (XLN) 219
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Ajani's Pridemate (M19) 5
1 Isolated Chapel (DAR) 241
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Bishop's Soldier (XLN) 6
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Murder (M19) 110
1 Champion of Dusk (RIX) 64
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Herald of Faith (M19) 13
1 Forsaken Sanctuary (M19) 250
1 Murder (M19) 110
1 Moment of Triumph (RIX) 15
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Paladin of Atonement (RIX) 16
1 Forsaken Sanctuary (M19) 250
1 Ajani's Welcome (M19) 6
1 Inspiring Cleric (XLN) 16
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Bishop's Soldier (XLN) 6
1 Forsaken Sanctuary (M19) 250
1 Nightmare's Thirst (M19) 111
1 Inspiring Cleric (XLN) 16
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Leonin Warleader (M19) 23
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Epicure of Blood (M19) 95
1 Sanctum Seeker (XLN) 120
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Ajani's Pridemate (M19) 5
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Ajani's Welcome (M19) 6
1 Murder (M19) 110
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Resplendent Angel (M19) 34
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Legion Lieutenant (RIX) 163
1 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129
1 Swamp (M19) 269
1 Ajani's Pridemate (M19) 5
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Bishop's Soldier (XLN) 6
1 Skymarch Bloodletter (XLN) 124
1 Forsaken Sanctuary (M19) 250
1 Call to the Feast (XLN) 219
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Moment of Triumph (RIX) 15
1 Skymarch Bloodletter (XLN) 124
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Nightmare's Thirst (M19) 111
1 Plains (M19) 261
1 Epicure of Blood (M19) 95
1 Skymarch Bloodletter (XLN) 124
What's interesting is my script output isn't ruining the formating and Arena seems to accept it just find, no exclamation mark I was having problems with before.
Also of note, the power level of my opponents for this deck seems to be higher than what the normal, unaltered, deck encounters. I rarely encounter Planeswalkers but two decks tonight had them. I also encountered a Merfolk deck. A nasty all black deck that dismantled my hand. A Gates deck. And, surprisingly, two mirror matches.
Just more stupid bull***** from Wizards that makes me think they are rigging it. It is not cool that they artificially select opponents for you. Just let everyone in the same rank play each other and quite it with this all of these extra layers of control.
**EDIT** Are you still unable to open your modified list in the deck builder?
I thought everyone had just given up on Merfolk because it was no good. Apparently not because since I've started continuously importing new lists I keep playing against them and stomping them. Also seeing mono-green, which I never saw before. I suspect that Wizards essentially is trying to put you up against opponents that will keep you from progressing too far up the ranks too quickly. Why would they do that? To get you to buy more gems to get different decks in hopes of winning. It's speculation that they are trying to use this to make money, but there are just too many of these weird things that keep adding up.
Before, I was playing against all tier 1-2 standard decks that have been winning tournaments et. Now I see WAY more rogue builds and lists I'd never seen before.
Yeah, I had forgotten about the bullocks matching system when you import deck lists. That would explain the power level disparity I saw.
I'm not entirely against the power level disparity. What I am against is the idea that WotC very clearly pushes the, "new player experience," and how this matching system appears to fly completely in the face of that goal.
As an aside, is anyone cracking Ravnica Allegiance packs? I just noticed that I have a nearly full set of Guilds of Ravnica Guildgates but not a single Allegience guildgate.
The rigging part is sensationalism. The truth is that the developers messed up on the system for the first turn help in order to make best of one more livable. The problem that happens, and I've observed this myself, is that land pockets form in the deck when the assist is in place. There could be any number of reasons for this, but most likely it's not the fault of the actual randomization algorithm. The developers use the same core algorithm for both best of three and best of one, and taking a mulligan fixes the situation.
So with those observations in place, the issue is likely that they randomize the deck first and wrote the starting hand helper class and methods such that they pull cards they need from the randomly shuffled deck to form the seven card hands. Now, lets say it does this for two hypothetical hands, and once it has determined which one is better, it puts the other hand back into the deck: What operation would it proceed to go through to do so and is the client responsible or the server?
Well, for one they definitely do not want to do the randomization on the client side because that could allow someone to rig their own deck shuffle via third party tools, and if people think that throwing anti-cheat software onto it would be a viable solution: how about we don't repeat that entire thing that happened with Ubisoft? So the better choice would be to run the shuffler at the server. Now, this is a server that is getting hammered by millions of connected clients and reshuffles are expensive, so you'd want to minimize how many times you are shuffling the deck. Hence, I believe that when it puts the cards back into the deck, it simply inserts them back where it found them.
So, 60 cards, shuffle the deck, draw 14, optimize both by swapping cards between the hands and the deck, then reinsert the lesser of two hands back into the main deck using the same index positions they were drawn from. Is it any wonder you end up with land pockets when someone does that? Basically, they have to reshuffle the deck again after they reinsert the cards, but likely aren't figuring the deck is sufficiently randomized and want to save on server resources.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
If it works, then I'll be rather pleasantly surprised at the quick turnaround. But we'll see fairly quickly if that's accurate.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Because they aren't interested in creating a fun and fair game experience here. Like Hearthstone, this game is really a creation of pure greed, and one of the worst ways to get people into Magic I could imagine. You can't even get an unrigged shuffle, for crying out loud! It's not a good representation of what the game is actually like. The UI is, honestly, in many ways worse than MTGO—there are times I can't even see what I am targeting because of the awful curved arrows and the huge cards blocking the screen so I can't just target something.
Arena as a replacement for the aging MTGO and a way to get more people playing is, itself, a good idea. If it'd worked as such, it'd be great. Arena is an utter failure, in my opinion, in both ways, however. The limitations on buying cards means it's pretty much the dreaded "pay to win." Its interface is actually a lot worse than that of MTGO because it can be nearly impossible to just properly target or time something thanks to an inexcusable amount of cruft. All the flash and effects mean nothing when the end result is clunkier than its predecessor.
At this point, I kinda just want to post a lot of reviews and everything recommending people to stay away from the game. Definitely don't spend money on it. Wizards needs to start losing money so they get the idea that the product, as given to us, with a rigged shuffler, pay-to-win gambling-style system (as opposed to more straightforward P2W where you could just at least buy individual cards), and utterly heinous UI, is not acceptable. This game is, sadly, a complete failure in all aspects right now.
Pleasure and pain
Scorpion stings
Pretty things
and the flames of Phoenix wings
—Michelle Schaper
The 8 card packs of arena have no land slot, so you don't get any guildgates from packs. New accounts come with a playset of all the guildgates, but since your's existed befor RNA release (I suppose), you only got the GRN ones.
It's not a problem if you draft a bit, but otherwise you might have to spend wildcards on them.
The exact implementation wasn't specified, but they stated they use two randomized instances of the same deck to determine two independent starting hands, not draw 14 cards of the same one. Obviously, there seems to be some more tampering going on, but as long as they're not blatantly lying (which I doubt), there is at least no reinserting.
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
I signed up as soon as it went into open beta. Dominaria I think? It was definitely before GRN.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
It's been six months? Huh... feels a lot longer than that. So yeah, I guess I do have the GRN lands that way.
If they are using two instances of the same deck the same kind of problem can still happen. What they have not specified is how the hands themselves are optimized. My guess is that they don't reshuffle after the optimization or are not properly fudging the randomization.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
MAJOR UPDATE ON WIZARD'S NEFARIOUSNESS!
So it appears Wizards is VERY MUCH aware of the shuffler problem because with the newest patch, your list no longer exports as imported. This can only mean they KNOW that importing the cards in a single order fashion fixes their broke ass shuffler. While the exported file will not be in the same order as if you made it through Arena initially, they will group all the cards of the same type in one row now. THERE WAS NO UPDATE ABOUT THIS IN THE PATCH NOTES!!!
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/53949
This means:
They must know their shuffler is broken.
Instead of saying "Update to the shuffler coming soon." Or actually fixing the problem, they keep trying to hide it.
They are hiding changes they make when they update the patch notes section.
Well, if it looks like bull*****, smells like bull*****, and there is a bull standing right next to the *****, it's probably bull*****.
I'm sure we could come up with perfectly reasonable explanations as to why they would do this, with a ton of mental gymnastics.
Bottom line, THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING, IT'S UNDENIABLE SINCE THEY DON'T MENTION THE ACTUAL CHANGES THEY MAKE. CHANGES THAT FIX THEIR BROKEN SHUFFLER. Either they are EXTREMELY INCOMPETENT and covering that up, or they have had designs on this the whole time and covering that up. I vote designs on this the whole time since they have denied their problem existed, then fix the one way you can work around their broken system. Also, the opponent decider is another way in which they have rigged it. Of course I "can't prove it." However, the evidence against them keeps stacking higher and higher.
I'm curious what you mean, because when I exported my pseudo-randomized decklist to notepad, it was still in the same psuedo-random "cards added" order.
I also want to ask a dumb question: how does WotC benefit from having a clearly broken shuffler? The debacle was on the front page of Reddit, Chris Clay (the effective Boss of MTG Arena) was pinged multiple times in that thread. Wizards absolutely knows of the shuffler weirdness. And a lot of the players know that WotC knows. They can't ignore it at this point, and it's in their obvious self-interest to fix it.
You are asserting that Wizards is deliberately not fixing the shuffler they know is broken. This means that either A) It's in WotC's best interests to not fix the shuffler, or B) WotC is deliberately acting AGAINST its own best interests. So here's my question to you: Which do you think it is, and why?
Personally I would have very much appreciated at least a note that they're looking into things, and I'm a little concerned that there isn't one. Just because Artifact, once heralded as the game that would kill magic, has ceased to exist (their own numbers show less than 500 active players per day) doesn't mean Arena shouldn't keep being great.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
To put it simply, and none too flatteringly, they probably don't care much. If Arena is making them money, and obviously it is, they're clearly not very interested in putting out a well-balanced product. Arena has a huge list of issues right now and not one of them has been addressed. The UI, for instance, is in massive need of an overhaul purely for clarity. The amount of things that do not work properly, either due to straight-up error (abilities not firing) or cruft on screen (try targeting multiple cards, or even one with keywords, where your card is blocking the right side of the screen, the arrows are in the way, and the reminder text on the abilities makes it impossible to see the card you're targeting). Instead of fixing that, they add the laughably overpriced Guild bundles that are so chintzy that they only give you some card styles, and not even any copies of the cards themselves. For $20, you get a few styles and sleeves, but no actual cards.
That alone shows they have no interest in creating an introductory product here, or a valid replacement for MTGO. They want only cash, and are charging pretty crazy prices for anything in-game. The game has no decent tutorial for new players. The UI is actively harmful to learning and playing the game. Building a decent card pool requires a lot of grind, which isn't itself a crime, or a huge expense, which when combined with the former is definitely a black mark.
I play Arena because it's fairly popular to stream and it's a way to keep sharp, practicing the game every day. I won't spend money because I won't support the insanely greedy practices WotC is showing here—and I used to think that Blizzard was bad with Hearthstone! Certainly I wouldn't recommend this game to new players, and Wizards needs to be told the many things they are doing wrong. Hopefully they can fix it and make Arena into something great. Right now, I definitely would not classify it as such.
Pleasure and pain
Scorpion stings
Pretty things
and the flames of Phoenix wings
—Michelle Schaper
Honestly I'm glad that there's no cards behind the styles. Cosmetic DLC is a way to offer people something they want that doesn't disadvantage players who don't want it or can't afford it - it's a strategy that's certainly worked for Fortnite and I expect there's a significant number of people who have clamored for it or something like it.
I'm going to be honest, I liked the tutorial even though I've been playing since 2006. It probably was one of the things that kept me interested in the early game. It taught you controls moreso than gameplay, but I've never thought the gameplay was the hardest thing to learn outside of the minutia. I also wonder what abilities you haven't gotten to work right, I haven't had any issues personally.
You're right that there's a grind involved, and that you need to pay with Time or Money does mean you have to really REALLY grind to get good. For some people that's a turnoff, but are you expecting them to just give you a playset of all the cards for free? Serious question here.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Thanks FossilFirebird. Algernone, given your "black or white" logical fallacy, I'll go with A) it is in their best interests not to fix this, at least soon enough. They obviously do not have enough competent programmers and are unwilling to hire new programmers, or more programmers. Also, instead of something as simple as "We are updating the shuffling algorithm soon" they are still in an official denial that there even is a problem. I laid it out pretty clearly, either they are EXTREMELY INCOMPETENT, or THEY ARE USING THIS TO MAKE MONEY. In honesty, I don't know one way or the other, but it must be one in this case. What is clear is that THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY TRYING TO HIDE THIS because they did not mention the changes in the patch notes that directly affect this problem. In fact, THEY MADE IT HARDER GET A RANDOM SHUFFLE OUT OF YOUR DECKLIST. That's pretty strange if their goal is to provide a fair game to all who play.
Additionally, I've already explained why this could be monetarily motivated in a previous thread. While "rewarding" players who spend money won't make them spend more $, "punishing" players who don't spend enough money WILL get people to spend more $. (Those people will be motivated to buy new decks/cards et.) I'm not saying it is 100% for certain.
The way things changed is that I used to have a 60 individual card list with everything splayed out and the land "randomized" in the list. It helped fix the shuffler in a huge way, to the point where it felt like I was playing real Magic again. Now that I can't fully "randomize" my list, I once again notice the bull***** hands they keep giving me. If they know that making a randomized list FIXES the shuffler, then take the text file or whatever, then randomize it before hand, THEN send it through the shuffler. This really shouldn't take that much work from a programming standpoint. Just "shuffle" the deck once or twice (or however it's done) THEN decide your hand. Instead, they took away the option to fix the shuffler on your own. That is just a very damning piece of evidence that they are up to no good, especially because they changed something (to make the problem even worse) and they didn't mention they changed something, nor that "an update to the shuffler" was coming.
That's all it would have taken in the patch notes: "An update to the shuffler planned for next Arena update." As Firebird pointed out, they made sure that they had a new way for people to spend money on the game BEFORE they fix A CRUCIAL PROBLEM.
I'm glad to hear that people are getting fired up on Reddit about it though. Wizards tends to fix problems if the multitudes scream in their face about it. We must become the multitudes. It's absolutely disgraceful that they are hosting official Arena events with a "beta" but more like "broke ass" program. If they at least weren't putting prize money on the line, they might have some tiny out, but they don't. Disgraceful.