As the go-to digital platform for Magic: The Gathering, MTG Arena hardly needs an introduction nowadays. With an ever-growing list of cards and formats, the client has been consistently going from strength to strength. That said, there are still gaps in the game’s offerings that have consistently frustrated players.
Thanks to a pair of new updates, however, there’s some hope that change might be on the horizon. Nothing is set in stone right now, but it looks like Wizards is gearing up for some rather major changes.
Reports Revealing the Way?
Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast officially announced that player reporting is coming to MTG Arena. Intended to combat inactivity, hate speech, abuse, spamming, and inappropriate usernames, this feature has been a long time coming. Realistically, it does feel wild that Arena has lacked this feature for so long; however, social features are admittedly limited.
With this in mind, many MTG players immediately started speculating that more social features would be added soon. Wizards even appears to be setting this up in its own article, highlighting this as a “foundational step” forward. Ideally, this could mean that chat features are finally coming soon; however, that’s purely speculation.
Realistically, past statements have shown that social features, let alone four-player Commander/Brawl, are a long way off. Due to this, I wouldn’t expect much from this new reporting feature, beyond what it actually is. As much as four-player multiplayer and chat features are in demand, this doesn’t guarantee Wizards is ramping up development.
Banned as Commander Coming Soon?
As if one new feature wasn’t enough, Wizards also sneakily buried another addition in the latest MTG Arena patch notes. Now, both Brawl and Competitive Brawl support banning cards as Commanders, which is a hugely unexpected change. Notably, while this feature is now in MTG Arena, Wizards hasn’t done anything with it yet.
While bans didn’t happen immediately, this update does make future bans seem inevitable. In theory, these could happen at any time, too, since MTG Arena doesn’t always follow the set ban schedule. Equally, Wizards might not ban anything anytime soon, as this feature could just be future-proofing.
Realistically, though, considering Wizards could have added this feature in secret, the patch notes surely indicate something. It makes sense that Wizards would leverage this feature, too, as it allows for more granular ban control. Ideally, this could somewhat free up a bunch of the powerful legends that are currently locked behind the Competitive Brawl banlist.
Sadly, while both of the newly added MTG Arena features have exciting implications, Wizards isn’t showing its entire hand here. After all, as much as we can hope for future features, nothing is being promised, especially short-term. Still, we can’t help but be cautiously optimistic, even if we don’t expect major changes anytime soon.
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