MTG Arena may have come a long way since its launch in 2019, but it still has some problems. The game’s economy, for instance, is notoriously stingy. While some skilled players can go infinite with Drafts, the early game can be rough. Thankfully, there are a few features that make MTG Arena’s economy more bearable.
Free codes, packs, and the occasional daily deal are always nice, however, Wildcards make the world go around. While these are often in short supply thanks to a lack of a dusting system, Wizards doesn’t exactly go giving out Wildcards. That is the case, at least, outside of when a card gets banned.
Whenever a card gets banned on MTG Arena, Wizards compensates players with the appropriate number of Wildcards. In the case of the recently banned Jegantha, the Wellspring, for instance, MTG players can receive up to four rare wildcards. Unfortunately, this typical Wildcard distribution hasn’t happened as intended, and it’s safe to say MTG players are miffed…
Wizards Fixed Free Wildcards…
As mentioned, Wizards of the Coast doesn’t exactly go around giving out Wildcards for no reason, even at Christmas. Thanks to this, MTG players often try to game the system in those rare instances where Wildcards are up for grabs. Thankfully, it has historically been very easy to do this.
Back in the good ol’ days, Wizards of the Coast would announce bans on a Monday. MTG Arena, however, doesn’t update until Tuesdays, which gives players a lot of leeway. It was very easy to simply log into the game, craft everything that was going to be banned, and then reap the Wildcards on update day. This essentially made every card you crafted free and all you needed was a few Wildcards up front.
As you might have been able to tell from our choice of words, this is no longer the case. Following updates to the backend of MTG Arena, Wizards is now able to push newly announced bans without any delay. In theory, this is a long overdue change that makes Arena better match paper, but it does mean no more free cards.
Admittedly, not getting to craft four copies of Jegantha, the Wellspring for free isn’t the greatest loss in the world. That being said, MTG Arena players are still losing out here. Anyone who wanted four Jeganthas for whatever reason, now has to craft them normally. Even if this isn’t the biggest deal now, future bans could have theoretically provided free Historic or Timeless staples.
Ultimately, this is definitely a change for the worse, for MTG Arena players. Unfortunately, however, the problems don’t even end there. This change over to the new ban system hasn’t gone smoothly.
Bugged Ban Compensation
Following the ban announcement, it didn’t take long for MTG Arena players to start receiving compensation from the Jegantha ban. Unfortunately, however, many MTG players weren’t receiving the correct amount of Wildcards. Reddit user Ok_Nefariousness_740, for instance, stated they only received one rare Wildcard, despite having three copies of Jegantha, the Wellspring.
According to WotC_Jay, this was not an isolated issue, as “many players” are experiencing this unfortunate issue. The bug is so widespread, in fact, that even the MTG Arena Twitter account addressed the issue. Unsurprisingly, Wizards is currently working on a fix to this problem, but it’s unclear when compensation will be correctly provided.
On Reddit, WotC_Jay explained that the issue came from how Wildcard compensation was calculated behind the scenes. Supposedly, the system was meant to check how many Multiverse Legends copies a player owned before then looking at Ikoira: Lair of Behemoths. Evidently, something went wrong during this process, as many players didn’t get their intended compensation.
Judging by the comments on Reddit, there’s not a clear pattern in how the compensation calculation broke down. Some players received the intended number of Wildcards, while others only received one or two. Hopefully whatever went wrong behind the scenes will be an easy fix, even if new bans aren’t scheduled until March next year.
Thankfully, Wizards is currently working on a fix for this issue and is planning to dish out the correct compensation. According to WotC_Jay, any missing Wildcards will be delivered via the player inbox. In fact, these deliveries should have already happened, so the compensation crisis should already be over.
Digital Difficulties
Considering that this compensation-based issue has already been fixed. It’s hard to get too worked up about this brief bug. That being said, it is yet another reminder about just how fragile MTG Arena can be. If nothing else, this is worrying for the future when you consider everything that Wizards has planned.
Right now, the next big project for MTG is finally getting multiplayer implemented on the client. While this has been a long time coming, this feature will require an obscene amount of work. Not only will there be tons of code changes behind the scenes, but MTG Arena will likely need a UI overhaul too. Unfortunately, each one of these changes is a potential breaking point for bugs to creep in.
Due to the potential for bugs, it’s little wonder that Wizards may be considering a separate multiplayer-focused client to minimize issues. While this could help keep everything working smoothly, hopefully, Wizards won’t need to use this nuclear option. Given that the implementation of multiplayer is still a couple of years out, at least, Wizards should have time to get everything working smoothly.
