Momir Vig, Simic Visionary | From the Vault: Lore
16, Jan, 25

Literal Random MTG Format Is Dividing Frustrated Players

One of the best bits about Magic: The Gathering is its creative freedom and complexity. No matter which format you’re playing, you’re able to build your own deck and play it yourself. Every decision you make throughout this process matters, and it’s largely why MTG is so compelling and fulfilling.

While these features can be found in most MTG formats, there’s one which has basically none of them. Momir is the weird ugly duckling compared to all other MTG formats, where random number generation, not skill, determines matches. Despite this massive departure from the game that we know and love, some MTG players adore it. Others, however, are sick and tired of its continued existence.

An Imperfect Storm

Factory of Momir Vig | MTG Arena
Factory of Momir Vig | MTG Arena

Recently, Momir has been back in vogue thanks to briefly being the latest Midweek Magic event on MTG Arena. Available from the 14th to the 16th of January, this event was hardly around for long and is pretty much over already. Despite this, the returning format has generated a huge amount of discussion across social media.

Immediately upon its release, MTG players weren’t happy that Momir was back. While it’s arguably not the most exciting Midweek Magic event, this reaction might seem a little bit overblown. To a lot of players, however, Midweek Magic is something that has to be participated in, rather than an optional extra.

For better or worse, every Midweek Magic event has rewards on the line that should be easy to earn. All you need to do is win three matches and you’ll earn two cards and one cosmetic. Considering how frustrating the MTG Arena economy can be, it therefore seems foolish not to spend some time participating.

For most Midweek Magic events, you’re at least able to earn your wins by building the right deck or playing correctly. In Momir, however, you’re completely at the mercy of the Factor of Momir Vig emblem. In case you’ve never played before, paying X and using this emblem creates a token of a random creature of X mana value.

While you do have to discard a card from your hand as an additional activation cost, there’s almost no strategy here. All you have to do is choose the amount of mana to pump into the emblem, and the rest is random chance. Some players have tried to crunch the numbers, but the odds of getting something useful really aren’t good. Sadly, you’re just relying on blind luck.

Momir: The Marmite Format

Divide by Zero | Strixhaven School of Mages
Divide by Zero | Strixhaven School of Mages

To many players, almost entirely random gameplay makes Momir incredibly frustrating and unpleasant. Grinding for even three wins can take a lot of time if luck isn’t on your side, which never feels nice. As a result, many MTG players take to arguably ruining the format by conceding games en masse.

In the eyes of some players, this odd action was the right thing to do to speed up games overall. If simply earning rewards is the goal, then these players technically are valiant soldiers who are helping out other players. In reality, however, hardly everyone hates Momir just because it’s random.

For quite a lot of MTG players, the completely random nature of Momir is what makes the format fun. The rest of MTG is so rigidly calculated and Momir presents a chance to cut completely loose and let RNG take over. As 1ryb pointed out in a recent post, “That’s the whole point of the format.

Thanks to the completely random nature, and low number of creatures in play, games can swing in an instant. No matter how much mana you pump into the emblem, there’s a non-zero chance of finding something useful. This becomes even more extreme later on as higher mana values have even more game-warping blowout potential.

Weird as it may be, this is a lot of fun to a great many players. Not only are there plenty of advocates for it on social media, but the format surely has plenty of players too. Momir appears semi-frequently as a Midweek Magic event, and Wizards wouldn’t do that unless it was truly popular.

Room for Improvement

March Toward Perfection | Alchemy: Phyrexia
March Toward Perfection | Alchemy: Phyrexia

Despite Momir offering a lot of fun for some players, it’s far from perfect. As several players noted across different Reddit posts, Momir can be horrendously slow. It might not seem like much, but the emblem requires players to pick the land they discard, and then choose the emblem’s cost.

While neither of these decisions takes long, the problem is that they’re largely pointless. The color of the lands you play doesn’t matter outside of rare activated abilities, and the emblem can only be activated once per turn. As a result, there’s little reason not to discard a completely random land and dump all your mana into Momir when deciding to use it.

Ideally, Wizards of the Coast could optimize Momir to reduce these needless time-consuming actions. As VoraciousChallenge points out, half of this was already available on MTGO, which made for a smoother experience. When picking an X selection, MTGO would automatically start from the optimal amount, which usually requires fewer changes. MTG Arena, on the other hand, always stars from zero, so clicks are always required.

Sadly, while this would greatly improve the speed of gameplay, implementing it could require tremendous amounts of work. The same is true for suggestions that using the emblem should automatically discard a random land. As such, it’s unlikely we’ll see any substantial changes anytime soon.

Offering an alternative solution, Reddit user lurgold suggested that Wizards could lean into Alchemy to Conjure creatures, rather than creating tokens. While this change could open up new synergies, as karmicnoose notes, it would nerf cards that care about tokens. Ultimately, it seems there’s no easy way to fix Momir without a fair amount of effort upfront.

Here to Stay

At the end of the day, even if sometimes annoying thanks to being random, Momir isn’t going anywhere. On both MTG Arena and MTGO, this format has plenty of fans who aren’t taking to social media. As we mentioned, Momir is a fairly frequent Midweek Magic event, so Wizards clearly knows it’s well-liked.

For those who don’t like it, it’s just going to have to be something to put up with occasionally. While it can be annoying to miss out on free rewards the alternative of Midweek Magic offering no rewards is certainly worse.

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