Unsettled Mariner is ok, but won't stop the illusion clause from triggering. What Illusion really needs is another lord. Instead WOTC makes an alternate art Phantom Warrior then reprints Phantom Warrior the following month lol
-Trading/gifting - 100% will never happen, it will be too easy to same the system where you make dozens of accounts and just have all of the hydra head accounts funnel their cards to the main one. Give me an afternoon and I could have playsets of effectively everything you'd ever want.
Not if freebies & rewards earned from playing are not tradable, or it takes half a year before they become tradable, or only cosmetic items are tradable. There are multitudes of restrictions that can be put in place to prevent such exploits. Other games, some almost a decade old now, have done it before. But I'm not kidding myself, the sole reason trading won't be available is the same reason as other games with no trading - Wizards wants all purchases to themselves. It's actually a pretty cunning move, by not enabling trading and dusting, players won't be able to get any value out of cards or extra copies they won't be using meaning they'd have to spend more (or grind more) than they would if such features were enabled. At the same time they can convince the more... supportive players that it's all for the sake of fair play. Brilliant.
I cannot believe the game is now Open Beta and there is almost zero social aspect in it. No friend list, no practice games with people you know, no gifting or trading, not even a simple chat box. I seriously cannot remember another online multiplayer game that went into open beta like this, and I've played a lot (not CCG ones though).
The game is not very welcoming to new players as a result. MTG has never been easy to introduce to new players in the first place, I cannot understand why it has to be made harder. I want to invite my friends to Arena, but if I can't even play games with them to teach them more than the tutorial does, or at least let them play comfortably without getting intimidated by getting a permanent loss record or playing against someone they don't know, then the chance of them staying drops significantly.
Right now, I feel the game is still geared towards experienced players. And even they won't be guaranteed to stay because of the grind and uncertainty. It feels bad to receive a 5th copy of a card without even knowing where it goes (without research, outside of the game), and even worse once you find out how miniscule the percentage it contributes to the hidden vault. I'd rather keep the useless card hoping someday I can give it away to be honest, than have it disappear and contribute a measly 0.5% towards opening the vault.
The only incentive I feel when I play the game is grinding so I can complete a competitive deck. And to be honest after a week of playing I'm no longer compelled to go back to it. I'm already bored playing the same 2 decks over and over, because if I play something else my progress would be even slower, not to mention it's going to be a preconstructed deck I don't really want to be playing anyway. Sometimes I just want to play, not caring about losing or winning or rewards, just play. You know a game is good when you feel that, and you know you're going to back to it. Paper MTG makes me feel that way, hell I sometimes do it alone in Cockatrice, so by extention Arena does too, but the difference is Paper lets me do it, Cockatrice lets me do it, Arena however, because of its shortcomings and how cards are aquired, does not which is just... well, sad.
It's sad that ever since this tribe became viable because of LotU, there hasn't been any decent illusion printed afterwards. That's 6 years. Spirits already got a great new lord plus other spirits that are very playable while illusions gets a bunch of crap walls and a crap vanilla 2/3.
Not if freebies & rewards earned from playing are not tradable, or it takes half a year before they become tradable, or only cosmetic items are tradable. There are multitudes of restrictions that can be put in place to prevent such exploits. Other games, some almost a decade old now, have done it before. But I'm not kidding myself, the sole reason trading won't be available is the same reason as other games with no trading - Wizards wants all purchases to themselves. It's actually a pretty cunning move, by not enabling trading and dusting, players won't be able to get any value out of cards or extra copies they won't be using meaning they'd have to spend more (or grind more) than they would if such features were enabled. At the same time they can convince the more... supportive players that it's all for the sake of fair play. Brilliant.
The game is not very welcoming to new players as a result. MTG has never been easy to introduce to new players in the first place, I cannot understand why it has to be made harder. I want to invite my friends to Arena, but if I can't even play games with them to teach them more than the tutorial does, or at least let them play comfortably without getting intimidated by getting a permanent loss record or playing against someone they don't know, then the chance of them staying drops significantly.
Right now, I feel the game is still geared towards experienced players. And even they won't be guaranteed to stay because of the grind and uncertainty. It feels bad to receive a 5th copy of a card without even knowing where it goes (without research, outside of the game), and even worse once you find out how miniscule the percentage it contributes to the hidden vault. I'd rather keep the useless card hoping someday I can give it away to be honest, than have it disappear and contribute a measly 0.5% towards opening the vault.
The only incentive I feel when I play the game is grinding so I can complete a competitive deck. And to be honest after a week of playing I'm no longer compelled to go back to it. I'm already bored playing the same 2 decks over and over, because if I play something else my progress would be even slower, not to mention it's going to be a preconstructed deck I don't really want to be playing anyway. Sometimes I just want to play, not caring about losing or winning or rewards, just play. You know a game is good when you feel that, and you know you're going to back to it. Paper MTG makes me feel that way, hell I sometimes do it alone in Cockatrice, so by extention Arena does too, but the difference is Paper lets me do it, Cockatrice lets me do it, Arena however, because of its shortcomings and how cards are aquired, does not which is just... well, sad.