Is MTG Arena rigged?

[JayDee Phoenix]

I remember when I used to play awhile ago when it came out I read about matchmaking being rigged so you would have to play longer to complete daily tasks. For example it put you against higher difficulty opponents so It took longer to complete daily wins. It certainly felt that way for me from what I remember. Has this been proven or has anything similar has happened? Because you know Wizards of the Coast is kinda sus these days. Also did they remove cards? I heard for some cards because of "racism".

[Tourette's Guy]

I don't think it's "rigged". But depending on the format you play, you will face certain deck archetypes much more frequently than others. For example, if you play Bo1 you will face monored and aggressive decks, mostly, because those are the most effective decks when there isn't a sideboard involved.

[[HdF] Almut Grete]

If you build a fast deck to stomp your way through games fast, you will get higher up enemys because you outclass yours. You also get more rank point for beating them, though.
Not riged more like balanced.

[Insomniac Jack]

It's definitely rigged. From constant mana flood/screw, hand smoothing, getting matched with counter-decks, to forced losing streaks.

[Annihilation Angel]

Originally posted by Insomniac Jack:

It's definitely rigged. From constant mana flood/screw, hand smoothing, getting matched with counter-decks, to forced losing streaks.

this. game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥. i didnt get to go first for 73 games in a row, the 5 times i got to go first after that i didnt draw a single land. every single time i play a creature focused deck, im matched with nothing but removal. if i play something thats to do with drawing lots of cards i'll only get matched with hand hate

[JayDee Phoenix]

I was asking for more definitive proof if there is any, like did anyone do any investigations or something or like leaks of the code etc. I mean there is motive and stuff like this has been done before so it's not really unexpected for this to occur.

[Sonic Mirage 🎸]

Yes, it is still rigged

[River]

Originally posted by JayDee Phoenix:

I was asking for more definitive proof if there is any, like did anyone do any investigations or something or like leaks of the code etc. I mean there is motive and stuff like this has been done before so it's not really unexpected for this to occur.

Folks have done statistical checks over on Reddit. Largely, they found the stuff that's impacted are the things that WotC admits is happening. You'll get matched against decks that are counters to yours, in order to get as close to a 50% win/loss rate as possible, your first hand before you mulligan will be weighted to have 2/3 lands and most hands outside of that will be discarded by the algo before you see it, and your deck will be sorted to prefer a 50% win/loss rate until it's shuffled mid-match.

So yeah, there's a lot being tampered with to try to provide a "better" experience for players, but hurts people who want to play natural games. If you do things like draft, brawl, or ranked, most of this stuff seems to be turned off, so you do have options, but there's no way to know for sure how heavy the thumb on the scales are, especially since WotC seems to rework weighted systems once enough players become aware of them.

[JayDee Phoenix]

Originally posted by Nargacuga:

Originally posted by JayDee Phoenix:

I was asking for more definitive proof if there is any, like did anyone do any investigations or something or like leaks of the code etc. I mean there is motive and stuff like this has been done before so it's not really unexpected for this to occur.

Folks have done statistical checks over on Reddit. Largely, they found the stuff that's impacted are the things that WotC admits is happening. You'll get matched against decks that are counters to yours, in order to get as close to a 50% win/loss rate as possible, your first hand before you mulligan will be weighted to have 2/3 lands and most hands outside of that will be discarded by the algo before you see it, and your deck will be sorted to prefer a 50% win/loss rate until it's shuffled mid-match.

So yeah, there's a lot being tampered with to try to provide a "better" experience for players, but hurts people who want to play natural games. If you do things like draft, brawl, or ranked, most of this stuff seems to be turned off, so you do have options, but there's no way to know for sure how heavy the thumb on the scales are, especially since WotC seems to rework weighted systems once enough players become aware of them.

How sure are you about it being turned off in ranked is?

[tkonicz]

It has a borderline abusive economy, but I don't think it is rigged.

[River]

Originally posted by JayDee Phoenix:

How sure are you about it being turned off in ranked is?

All I have is what WotC says for that, and they state that everything besides land weighting in initial hand is disabled in ranked. For matchmaking, you're matched primarily with people in a similar ranking, but that still means you'll see some wicked meta decks very early, while they're working their way up the rankings.

[[HdF] Almut Grete]

Originally posted by JayDee Phoenix:

Originally posted by Nargacuga:

Folks have done statistical checks over on Reddit. Largely, they found the stuff that's impacted are the things that WotC admits is happening. You'll get matched against decks that are counters to yours, in order to get as close to a 50% win/loss rate as possible, your first hand before you mulligan will be weighted to have 2/3 lands and most hands outside of that will be discarded by the algo before you see it, and your deck will be sorted to prefer a 50% win/loss rate until it's shuffled mid-match.

So yeah, there's a lot being tampered with to try to provide a "better" experience for players, but hurts people who want to play natural games. If you do things like draft, brawl, or ranked, most of this stuff seems to be turned off, so you do have options, but there's no way to know for sure how heavy the thumb on the scales are, especially since WotC seems to rework weighted systems once enough players become aware of them.

How sure are you about it being turned off in ranked is?

The mulligan thingwith lands and such was "turned off" or better to say not turned on in the beta leading to true random events. Playerbase did not like that all that much. Lot of ppl thought it was "tempering", but it was the lack of diminishing returns with algorhytems that made the game more plaayer friendly.

As someone that plays now and again, i prefer the "video games experience" more than true random. Although good deck building should counter the problems.
Not sure how they deal with ppl "exploiting" the "help" the game gives and e.g. useing way less lands than they should on a statistical basis or use decks that tend to counter themselfs but still fall in category A, B, C, ... for matchmaking.
I like pure creature decks that are fast, so i "meet" pew-pew-boom-bang decks on lower difficulties and pure creature decks with artifact/enchant removes on higher ranked opponents most of the time. I too mix in cards that can not be dealt with my deck now, to get the better results.
It is a give-and-take, but overall a lot of "normal paced" decks will loose in about 2-5 rounds vs. my spam with no options to get out. Better experience for me and the other on the long run.

[EdgeCrusher9]

There is something off about match making thats for sure, if you build a mill deck youll get paired with mostly 200+ card decks, if you build necrosummons you get paired against alot of graveyard exile. Its pretty awful really

[Sonic Mirage 🎸]

Originally posted by EdgeCrusher9:

There is something off about match making thats for sure, if you build a mill deck youll get paired with mostly 200+ card decks, if you build necrosummons you get paired against alot of graveyard exile. Its pretty awful really

+1000000

THIS is what ruins Arena imo.

I can deal with Wizards manipulating the mulligan phase to give each player 2 or 3 lands in their opening hands but INTENTIONALLY matching me up against a deck that is built to beat mine 9 out of 10 times in order to artificially suppress my win rate is #!^%!*)%#*

[Duncan McBiscuit]

YES. Your opponents deck IS NOT random.

Proof: The "Did you have fun button" If you click "No" you're teaching the Algo to not match you against that deck in the future. If I lose a match, I examine what I could do differently in the future, I tweak my deck. Their systems punishes me for this because I'm unlikely to face this opponent in the future.

They've designed a system that tries to reward bad players/decks so that everybody's W/L rate hovers around 50/50.

Lastly, it should be noted that WoTC is a racist company. Once you see the pattern in their artwork over the last couple of sets, you can't un-see it.

[Sonic Mirage 🎸]

They cant even be bothered to add the ONE line of code it would require to fix the auto-tapper...