While every MTG prerelease tends to try something a little bit different, the format, Sealed, has remained a constant. Sealed is the best way to experience a new set’s cards since players are forced to use everything from commons to Mythic rares. This also grants players more cards that they can take home to try in other decks.
Unfortunately, playing Sealed comes with its hurdles. Whether it’s a lack of tokens, life counters, or balance, Wizards of the Coast constantly tinkers with new ideas to try and make the average player’s experience better. Aetherdrift’s prerelease is no different.
Unfortunately, some of the changes made for Aetherdrift’s events don’t have players too pleased. MTG Arena players, in particular, are getting heavily affected by changes to this weekend’s proceedings.
No More Arena Codes?
It’s no secret that MTG Arena codes are slowly getting phased out of existence. We’ve already seen the departure of MTG Arena’s digital bonus codes after they implemented a player inbox. While players still get the little 3-pack bonuses they always did, they get mailed directly to the player instead of requiring a player to input a code. This is certainly a good thing since players no longer need to search for promo codes.
Now, prerelease MTG Arena codes no longer exist, at least for Aetherdrift’s prerelease. In the past, entering one of these codes granted you six packs on MTG Arena to open, mirroring the number of packs in a paper prerelease kit. Similar to the recent phasing out of digital codes, these rewards aren’t going away.
Now, MTG Arena will be mailing these six packs to players. While that certainly alleviates the need to input codes, there is a very disappointing caveat: packs can be delayed for up to two weeks. This is hardly impressive when players were able to simply input MTG Arena codes themselves and redeem their packs immediately.
Play Prelease Events is Now Required
Another debatably even bigger downside is that only players who play in physical prerelease events will receive these packs. Many MTG players have the routine of buying and taking away prerelease packs from stores to play with a smaller group of friends. If this is your plan, you will no longer get prerelease rewards on MTG Arena. To be specific, you must register for your local game store’s events with your Wizards account to be eligible for your MTG Arena prerelease bonuses.
This is perhaps the biggest change turning players away from prerelease events. Some MTG players aren’t fond of public events and would rather play with a smaller group of friends. These players now lose a significant amount of value on their purchase:
“This totally sucks. It played a big factor in deciding to buy a pre-release kit for me. It’s a no go. I don’t really have interest in public events, but i play with a small group of friends occasionally.”
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Of course, some local game stores could simply register players who purchase prerelease products and drop them upon the event starting. This would avoid the hassle related to this change, but whether or not stores will offer this option is an entirely different story.
No More Code Collecting
While mercifully not quite as major, there are even more downsides to this fundamental change as non-Arena players can’t share their codes anymore. Since not every player cares for Arena, it has been common for codes to be shared for free on social media. For a long time, only one prerelease code was allowed per account – likely to avoid exactly this kind of practice. Recently, however, an adjustment was made.
Many MTG players, especially hybrid ones who play both paper and digitally, attend multiple prereleases per set release. To honor their dedication more accurately, now MTG Arena accounts can honor multiple prerelase codes from the same release, but there is still an upper limit. This means that some MTG Arena players could attend one prerelease and max their account out.
The good news is that players who attend multiple prereleases should still get all the packs that they purchased. Heck, the upper limit may even be entirely removed now. That said, players will now only be able to open digital packs that they actually purchased. This is perfectly fair, so it isn’t really a big deal. Still, some players are lamenting the loss of free codes.
Dubious Dice?
Prerelease kits traditionally include a spindown die. Counting down from 20 to 1, this is a great collectible way to help players keep track of their life totals for prerelease games. In some prerelease events, there are even chase dice that players can try to track down. As you might imagine, these dice can have an impressive secondary market value.
While Aetherdrift doesn’t seem to have any chase dice, the First-Place Finish Bundle ones look… a bit messy. The dice nail home the checkered flag motif commonly seen with any race-related apparel, but this particular picture from Redditor Gabba-Gundalph certainly makes it seem that the die has seen better days.
All of the black paint from the checkered flag appears chipped or faded, creating an unimpressive appearance. Players were sure to call this out, but many had bigger issues with past dice in comparison to these ones.
As sloppy as Aetherdrift’s dice may look, at least they are legible. That cannot be said for some of the dice that appeared as part of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth’s prerelease. Players have a much bigger issue with being unable to read a die since it can make an opponent’s life total difficult to discern.
This problem also occurred in Phyrexia: All Will Be One. Chase dice that were written in Phyrexian were impossible for players to read during prerelease. This expanded to cards written in Phyrexian, as well. The illegibility created a lot of problems during not only prerelease but even the Limited portion of Phyrexia’s Pro Tour.
Will This Return?
While some players are not a fan of the changes done to Aetherdrift’s MTG Arena prerelease codes, a few adjustments could make this change a success. Firstly, the delay for packs needs to be fixed. I would hope that, after this test run, Wizards of the Coast will make adjustments to, at an absolute minimum, reduce the size of the delay significantly.
The other issues can be worked around by store owners. With some adjustments, players who want to play a private prerelease should be able to get their Arena packs fair and square.
All in all, dice aside, these changes will likely be positive ones once the problems are worked out. As for whether or not these problems will be fixed, however, is something that players will have to find out in the future.