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GarbageCollector Nov 9, 2023 @ 5:36pm
Phantom Sealed/Draft Should Always Be Available
I have multiple friends who would like to try the game but refuse to pay the absurd prices for limited and obviously won't log in every day of the week to play one single draft match.

Why is some variant of Phantom Sealed not available all the time?

Doesn't have to be free even, a few hundred gold would be perfectly acceptable. Just can't cost as much as a draft currently does if people have no interest in playing constructed or collecting unsellable, untradeable digital cards. This platform has the potential to be the most accessible way for outsiders to try out the game and yet somehow you've made it cost even more than paper.
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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments
Winter Wolf Nov 9, 2023 @ 10:46pm 
If there was an event for a few hundred gold in almost any format I think it would be an instant hit. A few thousand gold is more likely to be the minimum. I remember constructed events at 500gp were very popular before they took those away.

I agree that ideally wotc would be looking to build Arena into an elite experience by favoring the player over profits but that's not their interest. Also every good idea requires many many professional hours of design and development that can't be spent making new cosmetic pets and selling us old set packs at a 15% discount. These things add up.

Btw, I am 99% certain that this forum is completely ignored (not even ignored really just not on their radar at all) by WOTC's decision makers.
#1
Minmataro Nov 10, 2023 @ 3:35am 
I used to have this mindset. Until i realized you dont pay to draft. You pay for the cards you get. Similar to paying for packs. the 0 win condition also gives you a pack and gems.

Actually playing with those cards and gaining rewards beyond what you paid is a bonus. So ask your friends. would they rather buy six packs of cards? or hand pick those cards and fish for rares.
#2
GarbageCollector Nov 10, 2023 @ 3:44am 
Originally posted by Minmataro:
I used to have this mindset. Until i realized you dont pay to draft. You pay for the cards you get. Similar to paying for packs. the 0 win condition also gives you a pack and gems.

Actually playing with those cards and gaining rewards beyond what you paid is a bonus. So ask your friends. would they rather buy six packs of cards? or hand pick those cards and fish for rares.

None of my friends are interested in constructed. Neither am I, I just do it as a chore to be able to play draft without needing a second or third job.
#3
Minmataro Nov 12, 2023 @ 5:30am 
Originally posted by GarbageCollector:
Originally posted by Minmataro:
I used to have this mindset. Until i realized you dont pay to draft. You pay for the cards you get. Similar to paying for packs. the 0 win condition also gives you a pack and gems.

Actually playing with those cards and gaining rewards beyond what you paid is a bonus. So ask your friends. would they rather buy six packs of cards? or hand pick those cards and fish for rares.

None of my friends are interested in constructed. Neither am I, I just do it as a chore to be able to play draft without needing a second or third job.


You should really appreciate what MTGA offers you then. If you were exclusively a drafter in MTGO or paper you would be paying $15+ just to draft. In MTGA you can use gold or gems and get your currency back if u are capable if not im sure you can build up enough gems every 2-3 drafts to play the following draft with what you earned.
#4
Minmataro Nov 12, 2023 @ 5:34am 
I need to ask but why do you think MTGA costs more than paper? Have you drafted paper? thats a $15 buy in minimum. A MTGA premium draft Doesn't cost this and you get gems and packs as rewards.
#5
GarbageCollector Nov 12, 2023 @ 5:48am 
Originally posted by Minmataro:
Originally posted by GarbageCollector:

None of my friends are interested in constructed. Neither am I, I just do it as a chore to be able to play draft without needing a second or third job.


You should really appreciate what MTGA offers you then. If you were exclusively a drafter in MTGO or paper you would be paying $15+ just to draft. In MTGA you can use gold or gems and get your currency back if u are capable if not im sure you can build up enough gems every 2-3 drafts to play the following draft with what you earned.

That MTGO pricing was even worse doesn't make this good.

Originally posted by Minmataro:
I need to ask but why do you think MTGA costs more than paper? Have you drafted paper? thats a $15 buy in minimum. A MTGA premium draft Doesn't cost this and you get gems and packs as rewards.

Because I can turn around and sell what I pulled at the end of the night and recover most of that buy-in, on average, before I even leave the venue.

You find a Virtue of Persistence in pack 1 in a paper draft you're almost playing for free that night. On Arena? It will sit in my collection unused. If you love playing a huge variety of stuff in all the different constructed formats that's awesome, I'm glad you have a variety of ways to obtain new cards. Not sure why preferring limited is less legitimate though.
#6
Minmataro Nov 12, 2023 @ 5:50am 
Stick to paper bro. the amount of goal posts you move... you're exhausting to talk to. Now you care about resale value. why bother posting at all my man?
#7
Soji Nov 12, 2023 @ 5:52am 
Hell I'd like to play phantom draft more even if there where no rewards, but the real answer of why they wont is probably because they want ways to be able to drive player engagement higher whenever? idk live service games are trash for this behavior
#8
GarbageCollector Nov 12, 2023 @ 6:02am 
Originally posted by Minmataro:
Stick to paper bro. the amount of goal posts you move... you're exhausting to talk to. Now you care about resale value. why bother posting at all my man?

????

lol I literally answered your question.

"You get gems and packs as rewards"

Yes, the gems are nice but unless you're a god, draft is going to cost you more on Arena than paper. And it seems like maybe you agree with this because you mentioned the packs? And anyone in their right mind will obviously realize that keeping the cards (since it's not a phantom draft, the topic I posted about) is a massive portion of the value.

Those aren't as valuable on Arena as they would be in paper because you can't sell them or even trade them in for dust to buy other cards like 99% of other trading card games' PC ports. If you don't have any desire to play constructed all of those go from low value to basically worthless.

Here are the questions I was asked:
"Hey how many drafts do you think I'd get to play if I downloaded the game and just did only the tutorials?"
"How much does a single draft cost in the f2p currency, converted to number of days I need to log in and time spent each day?"

If you give honest answers to those, Limited players are not going to be enthusiastic.
#9
GarbageCollector Nov 12, 2023 @ 6:24am 
Originally posted by Soji:
Hell I'd like to play phantom draft more even if there where no rewards, but the real answer of why they wont is probably because they want ways to be able to drive player engagement higher whenever? idk live service games are trash for this behavior

Could be. Hadn't considered that.

My instinct is because they simply can. It's the same in any pay to win game. Whales will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars and then you'll get other people caping for the business practices because it's not really pay to win because you can just quit your job and all your other hobbies and play for 3 hours+ a day every single day and then 6 months later you'll have the same amount of cards as the whale.
#10
GarbageCollector Nov 14, 2023 @ 9:13am 
Yeah, just checked because Lost Caverns of Ixalan is now out. In premiere draft you have to go 5-3 or better to earn your money back and in traditional draft you have to get 3 wins, the maximum number, for it to pay for itself.

4-3 in premiere gets you 1400 gems, 100 short of entry so that's close enough to paying for itself. But 3-3 and you only get 66% back. In Traditional draft you only get 2 wins and you're down to 66% also.

But that's gems, how much is it in gold, the free to play currency? 10,000. Like an entire week of logging in every single day and getting a minimum of 4 wins. To play one draft. Outrageous.


All of this is because you keep the digital cards. Digital cards you can't convert into literally anything else once you've got them. Digital cards that I and many others have no desire to stockpile in a useless collection for formats we don't want to play.

We should have some sort of way of opting out of this to just enjoy the draft for the sake of the draft. Standard blows.
#11
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Magic: The Gathering Arena > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: Nov 9, 2023 @ 5:36pm
Posts: 11

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