The last year has been even worse. If you ever win 3 games in a row, get ready to lose 5 in a row. Half those games will be mana screw/flood or no chance. It’s gotten terrible.
I had three games in a row today playing boros burn that I drew/saw 7-9 lands during the first six turns. As a mono red player IRL it feels so strange to flood somewhat consistently with 20 lands in the deck.
I recently played against a izzit deck and run 20 land in my ranked deck on arena I called it a night after that match I was getting nothing but lands and lost 3 in a row after getting a decent win streak with mono white I got screwed by getting flooded with lands
Arena is meant to promote quick games, to replicate the slot machine dopamine fix people get in casinos. When players, who are smart, begin to tailor their decks to bo1 quick formats, the meta gets faster and faster and power creep occurs, pitting hyper aggro against endless control. The result, to get “quality” games is to fix the matchmaking to avoid a control player from quitting the game forever because he faced rdw 10 times in a row, and vice versa to the aggro player. If arena was only bo3, it’d be much healthier. Arena also pits us against faceless online opponents, where we can’t connect as humans. Playing in person changes how we react to playing the game, good or bad.
You can also be a complete jerk and screw up the Bo1 queue with a very slow turtle deck... I like to play turbofog, haha. Drag them kicking and screaming into an hour-long game.
My dude over here seriously dropping some Freud and Nietzsche logic...love it bro...in Bo1 my wins feel hollow and my losses seem unnecessary....these aren't good numbers....
@@threethousandandoneI agree. When you are guaranteed to have lands in your starting hand, it lets aggro style decks get away with playing only 18 lands.
@@VG-ej4ut It also likes to give you one of your special lands up front in the hand too, which is annoying if you use something like Maze's End or Nykthos that isn't terribly useful right away.
I’ve always found that when you play really off meta decks, that’s when the game doesn’t know how to pair you against opponents and you see back to back “Did you have fun” messages post game. The algorithm is trying like crazy to find a place for your deck. I also rarely play the same deck back to back, at least not three times in a row, to stop the game from figuring out what I’m playing.
Playing a mill deck, I came across a mysterious player with a 240 card deck. (Remember, Battle of Wits doesn't exist in Arena....) It was probably 5 color, and he was drawing absolute bombs every turn, including that he was able to destroy all of my enchantments during the game. So the matchmaker wanted me to lose so badly that it made up a player and a deck just so it could give me an L. Garbage software just chooses whether you're going to win or lose before you even start the game.
A) yes - it wants you to have a 50/50 win rate in Play mode. Play ranked. B) Fat deck players are real - and you should only face them in exceptional circumstances unless your win rate is as bad as theirs.
@@snackplaylove It was in Ranked that this happened, and not anything to do with a low win rate. (Remember, the game sets your win rate so even bad decks still win on occasion... even if you deliberately build it badly.)
14 seconds or more and it has time to analyze the deck and put you against a deck that will most likely destroy you. I cancel before the 14 seconds. It helps but eventually after 5 to 7 wins it’s over with. Unless you pay a lot of money. And yes i tested this and spent 150 dollars and made mythic in a few hours
I used to play Arena a few years back. I liked playing mono-black, and at the time, Dimir Rogues was in the meta, so I was basically playing against it 80% of the time. Also, after about 6 to 8 wins, I would flood like crazy in the game for 2-4 games, while my opponent seemed like a draw god, always having every single response exactly when they needed it.
@@danielprevitalli7956 That dimir rogue mill deck was SO pushed... even anti mill tactics had a hard time against it. It was always getting the god hand. Just like the Heliod-based lifegain decks when he was in standard.... on curve EVERY TIME.
@@VG-ej4ut Yeah, I found that bot while playing my mill deck. I was monoblue using Drowned Secrets but he was hitting his enchantment removal like he created the game. Ever get matched up against an admin? I got that once too after I had been using my Supervillains deck for a while and eventually hit Mythic. They were playtesting an infinite turns deck after they released Strixhaven. But at least that didn't feel like they were rigging my wins and losses.
My greatest win was against a deck like that. The opponent had almost 200 cards but wouldn't finish me off, I think it was a green beetle deck. They set in play a combo they couldn't stop and it was so huge they ran out of cards and beat themselves. I wish I had streamed and recorded it. I would have called the vid "Rope a dope".
@@VG-ej4utAtraxa on curve... A fast deck should have won already at this point. Slower decks should have answers. ... If a turn7 Atraxa is a problem for you, then you should definitly work on your deck and don't seek lame excuses for your lose.
Same with my Etali deck. I exclusively play against that Rusko clock maker, Golos, and other Etali decks, rarely anything else. With my Kozilek deck I exclusively get matched up against mono green and artifact decks.
If you only get 2 land hands....you also won't draw another land until like 4 turns later and by then the games over and it happens roughly 70-80% of the time.
Legit dude, I always mulligan if I have 2 lands, and the worst part you’ll have two lands and the rest of the cards are every card you need, it entices you to keep it just to shaft you
there was recently a leak in mtg arena where they saw how cards are weighted and the matchmaker matches you with similar weighted decks - same values or same cards.
@nicolasmartin224 correct, but the don't think that wotc is so ambitious to have multiple separate systems. Most likely all their matchmaking works similarly.
@@nicolasmartin224when you dig deeper, some of the cards that were weighed higher were cards that didn’t make sense to play in brawl. Which makes you think that it’s not just a brawl thing. It’s just not as obvious in rank queue because most people are playing top meta decks
You need a placebo control group. Make a deck that has NO meta cards in it. Garbage deck, who cares. Just nothing the algorithm will pick up at all. Play about 20 times and see what you get matched with. Your boros burn deck its going to see as a boros burn deck. Your rakdos reanimator is going to be recognized as a deck in a specific group when it sees those cards because its a meta deck and its matchmaking. See what happens when it can't identify it. A placebo deck for the test
I've done this by myself for shits and giggles and that is totally the case. If you throw together a random ass deck with like 4 good cards you will have one or more of those 4 good cards in your starting hand like 60+% of the time and I also get matched up against decks that I literally had never seen before playing my main brawl decks. The drawer and matchmaking takes the card weight system in to consideration at all times.
You are right that MTGA is manipulating pairing, but it's not based on archetype. It's based on card composition. They try to pair decks with similar cards together, and they stared this back when it was still bot only limited, and people were exploiting the fact that bots didn't have proper card valuation. This came to a head with Throne of Eldraine when people were able to draft decks with 10 to 12 Merfolk Secretkeeper/Venture Deeper (because the bots would never pick them). Rather than fixing the bots, they simply started pairing the people who drafted problematic cards against each other. Unfortunately, they made that change universally, so constructed players were also stuck playing mirror matches far more often than would happen naturally. It's just lazy programming.
@@RobertEnleed There's also data to indicate that their pairings are designed to limit the total prize payouts, where undefeated decks (even 0-0) are only paired against other undefeated decks. They keep grinding the highest potential payouts against each other.
@@lloydlineske2642 There are a finite number of undefeated players IRL, and there's never an option for an 0-0 player to be matched against a 4-0 player. So no, that doesn't happen in real life.
Various cards winrates are recorded, so that meta decks and worse decks are sorted away from each other, kinda like nadu was in "hell queue" were if you play Nadu it was nothing but mirror matches, and since standard is a very agro heavy format rn, agro decks are experiencing heavy mirror match since they are high power
I went to mythic by following this strategy: Every third game I used a new deck because years of playing this rigged game showed me that the algorithm comes in after 2 games. Every time I try a new deck 2 games win then forced loss. Opponent with ajani out of 250 cards: no problem. dont trap against this bot matches. dont ever spend any money on this game. just deinstall.
This video is wrong in two ways: First it’s pure copium for not building a deck that is diverse enough to handle non-ranked meta decks. Second the matchmaking has already been cracked as binning based on meta scores from cards in your deck, I.e. meta decks play meta decks generally with a 50:50 match up (mono-red list generally all look the same and are effectively a coin flip due to viable turn 2 kills), this helps keep the meta diverse by allowing rogue decks to play other rogue decks and not get curb stomped by the highest performing meta decks.
I’ve been beating the Rigged horse for a while now, thanks for getting this out there. Love the thumbnail. I too am a mostly MTG channel. I get into frequent spats on X where the scummy big channels tell me “you don’t understand variance and it’s a skill issue”.
Dont forget about the shuffler. I got mill, with less than 30 cards left, I still cant find my combo pieces. Also, my graveyard deck will very much matched with graveyard hate deck. I wish they do random opponents like what you said.
I know the game is rigged when ever you get a winning steak. They put decks that go against your deck. So if im playing historic. I’ll switch to standard. And all of a sudden my win rates are more balanced. Then when they start the decks that can beat my deck I’ll switch to historic. That’s how got to mythic. I did it twice, but I’m starting to not care. With that said I think magic has gotten out of hand in power creep. I’ve been playing since revised era. I don’t expect the game not to evolve, but geez. I played a deck and on turn 3 or four they dropped two eldrazi and I lost all my lands and permanents. I came back to arena, and I was wondering why I stoped. It’s the white life gain decks that basically win by turn three. I also notice the colors aren’t balanced correctly in standard, which seems like an R&D issue. So you aren’t wrong with your assessment of arena.
Even your draws in game are rigged, I watched a bunch of monoblackmtg and dude was predicting his top decks like 90% of the time, and about the same rate of what his op was going to get when top decking. When you can accurately predict top decks is when you know that it is rigged.
this makes so much sense, bc me and my brother play 2 different decks and hes always complaining that he sees the same decks on the ladder. im like nah i never see those deck. and i tell him what i see and he doesnt see mines.
You are on to something for sure. I even emailed mtg about their shuffler not being truly randomized and they didn’t deny that it wasn’t. All they said was “we assure you that every player on arena is playing on an even playing field” but that kinda sounds like they’re confirming that the shuffler isn’t truly random. And opening hands are selected.
There was a report about Brawl being rigged... but only Brawl?! NAH! I played 15 matches and 80% were against aggro... so I was like lemme build a horrible deck that DESTROYS aggro... and every single match... EVERY SINGLE MATCH was against some weird combo control I've never seen before. I never once played against aggro. Switched back to the deck I was playing and BOOM AGGRO 80% again.... I've done this many times and KNEW IT WAS RIGGED!
This. Farking this. I'm trying to test a standard deck in preparations for a local heavy dimir and golgari meta with my own counter brew and what do I get matched with 20 games in a row? Burn, Domain, Burn, domain, jank, rinse and repeat.
@@ArtisticTomahawk i dont know if they realize its not a slot machine for casino... its magic...and magic player are smart....we see repeating pattern ...
Bro I tried to make a video about the statistics of all of this bullshit and people are ENRAGED that I would suggest such a thing (Im guessing there's at least 600 thumbs down on your dashboard). I fully predicted an artfact deck coming up in Bo1, swapped in removal, and beat them in 4 turns with an orzov deck. So thank you for making this video
I've drawn twenty mana in a row (on video) after having four mana in my opening hand because my non-net deck gave the algorithm fits. The only way to make me lose was mana screw over and over and over. Their obsession with rigging all our games mystifies me. I could almost stand the forced losses if you could play against anything but the same three forced match decks. Change your deck, congrats now your forced to face another same three etc. etc. etc. Shuffler rigging , match rigging, mana rigging, and all to maintain the forced loss/win rate.
So, MTGA does a couple of things in the background. One: The shuffler will draw three different hands and pick the 'best' starter hand for you out of the three before you get to your mulligan and turns out the best number of lands to get the most consistent amount of land drops was like 17-20 or something like that especially for monored aggro. CovertGoBlue had mentioned this tidbit. Two: The matchmaking is based on 'card weights' not archetypes like you said. Amazonian has made a video explaining on how cards how the card weights work using data that has been datamined all from an error someone got on a deck that used to be playable but can't be played because the deck weight was too low. She does do the video from the perspective of a brawl player, but had mentioned the weights are similar for other modes as well. Anyways, yeah, there are some deep dives into the algorithm and yeah it's rigged in various different ways to somehow or another screw you over, but at this point it's pretty much Stockholm Syndrome or something similar. We think it will change but it never does and we just keep going back to it because we 'love' it and we think it 'loves' us back when it doesn't and ends up abusing us again over and over.
The algorithm based matchmaking is even more apparent in brawl, depending on your commander youonly fight certain decks. Like if i play something like teregrid or esika ill be going upsgainst jodah, or another esika. Ill play mill, and my opponents will be reanimator when if i play reanimator ill never be matched up against another reanimator deck. Its shit like that that mskes it apparent and pisses you off lol
Sure, consumers dictating how they would want their products to behave and thinking companies such as WotC (a money hungry monster) actually care about the well-being of the community 😂😂 how idiotic.
Thanks for making this vid. Nice to see it on screen finally. You're points are good too. I still think it's based on specific cards. Like if you took your red white aggro and put 4 sunfalls in it your be matched differently.
It doesn’t matter what deck you play, could be blue red green white black but the match making system pits you against the same deck score as your own. The workaround I do is, I don’t allow the match making to go past 10 seconds. And I try and replace and high rarity cards with lower common uncommon that does the same or close to it for what I need when building the deck. All of your cards are on a rare score basis. I’m not sure the values but for example Mythic cards = 10 Rare = 8 Uncommon = 4 common = 1 per card then the totals are compared matched up.
How long did you make it into the video before coming up with this comment? I’m guessing you and 38 other people didn’t make it 8:30 into the video? Should at least watch it all before crying that a red player was crying. Shouldn’t point fingers, always 3 fingers pointing back at you 😅
Why dont we start a class action lawsuit? The game is marketed with an expectation that hands are dealt randomly and since real world money is involved(form of gambling) they have to be held accountable!
Hasbro is very careful not to use the term random in Arena TOS; not even pack openings are random because the entire client is weighted and manipulated to encourage spending.
I'm in complete agreement with you. All they throw up against me is the yin to my yang about 95% of all games played. What's more... I seem to be the only one that gets handicapped with land issues (either I can't get any, or that's all I get), filling my opening hand with late game spells, going 2nd about 85 to 90% of the time, or wasting my turns with nothing to play or do. Meanwhile, all my opponents get a land drop EVERY turn, something or multiple things to play EVERY turn, and their deck seems to work perfectly as it was built to do. Plus, MTG could seem like they care less. Whenever I posted my issues or contacted them about the overall gameplay/shuffler... They completely ignore me. This seems to be how they treat their fan base. They don't care! It's all a giant money grab. Just like when they screwed me out of my Marvel Secret Lair purchase. Real classy MTG.
Land draws are rigged lul. One time I got only 2 lands from digging like 20-ish cards of my deck already. I believe I was running 20 lands in the deck, but seriously the third land doesn't exist in the top 20 cards of the library. The deck was dug 20 cards without being shuffled. I should have found like 6 lands if I've dug a third of my deck. But nope, only 2. I didn't even discard or surveil/scry off any lands away. Only 2 lands in the top 20 cards of the deck. Very fun experience, on top of having to craft them rare lands that the game ended up hiding away from me. :D And don't forget, when the opponent goes first, they auto-win, their curve goes perfect. But when you do go first, you will draw lands all the time, or no more lands than what your starting hand gives. :D When I tried playing paper, it is NOT this bad. So my personal conclusion, it's rigged. :D For more supporting evidence, there are games when I top-decked the perfect card, as if the game is wanting me to win. And there are MANY games where I keep drawing non-lands for 10+ scries/draws when I need ONE land, that by the time the land arrives I'm losing the game already. And there are also MANY games when it's the opposite, I'm drawing like 5 lands in a row, and when I do get to see a non-land, it's a llanowar elves. :D :D :D The game also rigs me up whenever I play Storm the Festival. Choices be: Elvish Mystic, Forest, Llanowar Elves, Utopia Sprawl, Forest. The green lands + all of my 1-drops comprise around 27/60 of my deck, so at least 1 of those choices should be a better stuff or at least a Nykthos right? Nope, ain't happening. It's hard for me to see Karn or Kiora or even Nykthos from that spell. A 3 drop + utopia sprawl is about the common line for me. But when the game wants me to win, the choices be Nykthos/Kiora/Karn multiple times. But when the game wants me to lose, the elves brotherhood + their woods show up, followed by the same thing the next time I cast another copy of Storm the Festival (or flashback it). Fkin rigged. :D :D :D Speaking about Nykthos, the FOUR copies of them reside within the bottom ~35 cards of my deck in ABOUT HALF the games I've played. :D Play Cavalier of Thorns twice? Nope, you ain't getting yer Nykthos. Play Storm the Festival and feel happy that for once you see a Cavalier in the list, then proceed into more digging? Nope, you won't find Nykthos this time either. :D Just Storm -> Cavalier alone is 10 cards dug, not counting if you draw from Kiora. I tried running Beanstalk in my deck, so I dig even more, yet it's the same. There are games that Nykthos doesn't exist until your opponent is rigged to win on the following turn, and there are games where Nykthos just all spawn in the top 30 cards of your deck, sometimes 2 in your hand, other times they show up nicely in the digs one by one. So yeah, land draws are rigged. :) The arrangement of the so-called library is rigged. :)
Here’s some evidence (I basically only play Brawl): Play some mono color deck. You’ll get a bunch of random matches. Then, play Jodah, or any other 5 color commander. You’ll suddenly *only* get matched against Jodah/5 color commander decks… Or, make your best possible deck. Play some games, lose a bunch. Then, go though, and remove any Mythic or Super rare cards. Suddenly, you’re against other bad decks. There’s definite power level, and similarity deck matching.
I now expect that, when I play a new deck, I will be matched against a virtually identical deck for the first 2-3 games. After that, I'm up against burn until I beat that for a couple of games. As a long-time programmer, I am convinced that the matchmaker has some of the code in it from the training series that Arena puts a new player through until they can beat those "auto matches".
Couple things for people to note who are watching this. This is unranked BO1. Wizards already stated a long time ago that they skew BO1 mainly with hand smoothing. This does not extend to Bo3 particularly in ranked. The biggest problem is Bo1 is meant to be the introduction to arena. Like an expanded tutorial or testing ground. In your mono red run you actually played against 3 decks. Traditional mono-red, boros that I would ber money had sheltered by ghost and rakdos with callous sell sword. They are all aggro decks but they are not the same and saying they are "red" decks is very misleading. They are all aggro and have the same goal of smash enemy on face but, they do itbdifferent or in the case of boros offer a bit of a more control element The main reason the matchmaking does not appear as often in Bo3 is the sideboard. The games matchmaking note that you missed is your matches look like they linked closer to your mana value than a type. Also, to another point the most "fair" match up is a mirror match up but I agree that is boring. Final point that does change this a bit is you are recording during unranked. Arena is already considered casual compared to paper tourbaments or MTGO even in ranked. The matchmater is a bit better in ranked. Bo1 however is not "the" main competitive format by Wizards or arena in general. Its Bo3 Ranked where the hand smoothing is supposed to be gone and the meta is more diverse. The main point being having the sideboard to actually have options to play against any deck instead of being stuck against rock, paper, scissors. Complaining about the match maker and invoking wanting something competitive in the most casual and (already admitted by Wizards) manipulated format arena offers seems like conflicting points of view.
Yes, the algorithm definitely matchmakes to punish certain decks. When I play monored aggro, it always takes a minute or longer to matchmake, and I always get paired with monored aggro or a deck that is a perfect counter with perfect draws. If I get put against something besides monored or a perfect counter deck they make sure that I get mana screwed or mana flooded to ensure I lose. Whenever I play monoblack discard, I get put against mirror matches constantly. If I'm playing on the mobile app version and I'm winning a match the game suddenly ends and goes back to the main screen. Wizards actively punishes you for playing anything that is really strong in arena. The only deck I have that seems to work consistently even when the algorithm tries to beat me is my colorless artifact deck with Ugins and Ulamogs to deal with threats. Even then the algorithm gets tired of me winning and next thing you know I'm getting mana screwed or mana flooded for like three matches in a row. The matchmaking should not be controlled by an algorithm trying to ensure balanced wins and losses, it should be organic and totally random. I should be able to play against diverse decks and see how my deck works against various styles of play. The game is getting pretty dull since I only get to play against the same exact decks over and over again.
For me, I play mostly to complete the daily quests and the fastest way you do that is to play aggro. Most of the daily quests are like, play 20 or 30 cards of this or that color. So I just keep a mono white deck, a mono red deck, a mono black deck and a mono blue deck. Don’t keep a mono green deck on hand. Then I just use whatever deck fulfills that quest. Unfortunately, the quickest way is through aggro. I enjoy collecting the gold and then using the gold to draft and farm gems. Not so into the standard stuff.
I don't get your point. From the beginning it was comunicated that unranked is deck based pairing. Always was the case, always will be that way. Deck Strength / Type is the only way you can pair fairly. You play unranked to cheat the system and not play against high ranked players. Fine. But if you take the ranking out of the picture, you need to pair on something else to keep it fair. Now show it in ranked, then we can talk
to give some credit, sometimes you do wanna play against other people with interesting decks and low stakes, but yeah you're completely right this guy is complaining that he can't play against random weird creative decks with his super basic high strength decks, I understand the complaint that there's a lack of diversity in opponents but it's literally his fault lmao he's part of the problem taking an obnoxious burn deck with low interaction into unranked queue
My first theory was that Arena wants every gamr to be the most epic, dramatic, exciting game youve ever played. The shuffler is Fucked, the matchmaking is rigged, there is no random. And its because they think an exciting game will make you buy more shit. So they "try" to predict what you want and how you play - And they fail miserably.
Just play ranked and this is less of an issues. Its been proven unranked match making has a deck points system and matches u up against similar decks because there is no rank to go off.
Ran into same issues in ranked as this youtuber is talking about. Just haven't played best out of 3 going to give it a try to see if it same or not I always played 1 match.
I am so glad someone finally did this because I have been reporting this and recording every fucking game because no matter how odd and obscure the decks/cards are that I'm playing my opponent always has the exact counter. Seriously blows my shit
Playing unranked you'll commonly be matched with the same / similar decks. I've noticed that when playing ranked, this effect doesn't occur and I play against much more varied decks.
What you say is even more obvious if you play brawl. Arena tries to have games that are over by turn 4/5. The matchmaking algorithm will put effort in finding everything that can shut you down or that you can’t answer. They want all decks to be as close as possible to a 50% win rate, no matter what.
I play primarily green and I can play for 4 hours straight and most of my opponents are black/swamp You are right the cards we have in our deck activated the algorithm
Another thing i find that makes this worse is that everyone just goes online and copies some variation of the same deck which creates a stagnant pool of competitors.
It's even worse than what you've noticed. There's cards I've never seen before. I'll brew a new deck or look to tweak my current deck. I add some new card (not actually new. New to me.), and suddenly 60% of my opponents are running that card too. Change my deck up again and copy/paste. Also does it with card numbers. If you're playing 60. Opponents will have 60. If you go over, you'll start playing other players with 100 to 200 cards in their deck
Man I don't even play mtg arena and I can see that it's rigged. I'm sure yugioh master duel's matchmaking works the same way, because I've seen streamers guess exactly what they're going to play against next after taking out the cards in their deck that would hard counter it.
finally someone noticed what i noticed! im a 47 yo disabled veteran and it sad but all i do all day every day now that i really dont leave my house is play magic arena! i get my monthly statement and for November I played 2199 games thats 73.3 games every day for 30 days of November. it says i play more than 99% of everyone who plays and i believe them. you my friend are 100 percent correct on how it matches you based on your deck, examples, if you have any life gain in your deck you are more likely to face mono red, if you run a lot of enchantments it will have you facing decks with all types of enchantment destruction ect. i have moved over to alchemy and im pretty sure thats why they utilize heist in order to match you up faster if the matches does not know what to throw at you it will just throw a heist deck at you. im only in your video 4 min, but do you want to hear the worst part of what i noticed,,, when you log out then log back in to your account you get a more random match until it decides to throw you against more unfavorable decks, the only way to stop that from happening is to build a deck from scratch and win three games until it figures the deck out or (this is the most fuc@#$ up part) if you spend real money and buy more than 40$ of gems or wild cards it will shut off the unfavorable matchmaking for the rest of your session until you log out or the clock hits 1100 pm on the east coast then its a battle unless you spend another 40$. this is all much easier to explain and i have some tips around it with out spending money but its annoying if you just want to play. im a deck builder and only play my own original decks so it is what it is but thank you for making this video my mtg arena name is white rabbit if you see me on the ladder. oh also never concede ever this will wreck you in matchmaking and if you can get others to concede to you your next match will be more favorable. my new build is genesis wave+primeval bounty+ enduring tenacity.... ill leave the rest up to your imagination.
It is an unranked queue there has to be some ways to balance the match quality otherwise most ppl queuing unranked games will play against a ton of new players with tiny collections who are only using starter decks trying to learn the basics of Magic. That's what a majority of the unranked queue is. So yeah if you take a standard meta deck into an unranked queue it is going to pair you against other similar decks. It is trying to create balanced games around the strength of your decks/hidden mmr so that new players will enjoy learning mtg rather than getting smoked in really lopsided matchups and quit before they even really learn how to play.
They balance things all right - just not the way you think they do. They interchangeably put you in a punisher/victim group to reinforce your addiction. It works very similarly to gambling. Don't your victories taste better when they come after a bunch of sour losses? Pair all of this with a super-stingy economy and you've got a bunch of junkies chasing precious wildcards and splashing triple-AAA-game money a month (and that's not even considered being a whale!). Then ask those junkies, if they consider themselves being screwed. I wish you luck getting honest answers...
They admitted that in brawl and in nonranked play the matchmaking is rigged. In brawl MM is getting strenght of your commander and your deck, in nonrakend play you are getting decks that are similar in cards or power level (internal ranking or rare/common ratio), thats why you almost every time get mirror.
I quit playing Arena about a year ago cause for three reasons, 1. The matchmaking in unranked clearly isn't random and they're trying to balance it in some way. 2. I only care about Commander for the most part. and 3. It's way to expensive for a video game, Arena isn't a trading card game that let's you collect, sell, and trade cards. It's just a simulation of a trading card game. So personally they'd have to stop rigging the matchmaking, add four player commander, and cut the prices down by like 80% before I'd consider redownloading it. But I think your video highlights the matchmaking problem perfectly, and I've experienced that for a couple years before uninstalling Arena. It's wild that more people aren't upset by it.
Im glad a youtuber made a video that covers Arena's issues. I've been thinking this for months. Im fairly new to MTG. Learned how to play at my LGS playing Commander until the welcoming commity( being sarcastic) got disrespectful and unwelcoming. So I just played Arena more and started noticing a trend like whats covered in this video. My decks are mostly aggro bc thats what I started with and learned how to build. I get with a few people every onece in a while that plays Modern and my decks are usualy 40 to 60 percent win rate which I think thats good especially being sorta new and when I use to play precon I got mt ass handed to me. Arena I build a deck and its usually garbage bc my card collection isn't much it'll do 20 to 45 percent maybe 60 percent then after a while run into same issues usually after 20 games played on best of 1 match.
Absolutely. Thanks for giving more proof on camera. This has been so absolutely broken in the code, and it pales in comparison (unfortunately) to real magic. I find arena useful still, but really it's getting BAD.
Yes, I experience the same like you, they completely ruin the game with this 50--50 "politically correct" policy so even the people who deserve to lose always get their wins by reassuring that you lose your matches (land screws, land flooded, or just giving a starting hand with 4 copy of the same card). Thanks for making the video feels good that someone shares the same feelings about this issue.
As soon as you play control and all removals , all you are playing against are control mirrors which has zero creatures, as soon you shift to zero removal decks all you playing against are creature aura pump decks. Also winrate is involved too. Arena matchmaking is so BAD.
How about if you play real decks? "All removal" or "no removal" is bad... Even in paper magic has you to try to find the best amount of interaction for your deck...
Top mythic player. Bo1 limited is for matched based on elo and deck composition. The majority of my limited games are mirror matches which is batshit crazy. There is no meta when match making is manipulated. There is however a "trick the algo" meta. Anyway, its really sad what they've done.
This is why I stopped playing Arena. One of my decks always seemed to play black, even though in the meta game black is played less than 15%. Black was the deck I couldn't beat.
we knew it was rigged 5 years ago. this is something the devs addressed - taking decks with a certain power and matching them against one another. this was implemented after people quit from the game in the mono-red vs Teferi control days where a significant % of the players played the same exact tournament decks and ruined the format. instead of making an arena only ban list to stop the overtuned cards from taking over the format, they instead went with the "lets mirror/counter match people to force a 50% winrate" like it's League of Legends.
Observation: Play a deck that's mostly Red... ...matched vs deck with mostly Red Play a deck that's mostly Green... ...matched vs deck with mostly Green Play a deck that's mostly Blue... ...matched vs deck with mostly Blue Etc... ...same if playing an particular Sorcery/Creature/Instant/Planeswalkers... Playing Teferi?... ...matched vs deck with Teferi Playing Trickshot?... ...matched vs deck with Trickshot...
I'd say that such an algorithIm has a place: about every other match, often enough to prevent free/no chance too many times but rare enough to let you face a variety of decks
To me it seems like they have a rating system for the power level of cards, apply a power level to your deck, and pair you against someone with a different power level. That's why you tend to get mirror matches. It's definitely not just a random person in the que at the same level as you. But just random based on level would be better.
Yes, this has been the case since dominaria standard. The mono red deck was pretty dominant in best of one on arena and it would put you in the mirror match hell queue. I would run redcap melee cuz I was so confident I was getting paired up vs mono red.
The algorithm is trying really hard to figure out what your deck does, to rig you against decks and with draws that keep your winrate close to 50%. When a new good deck appears in a format because of a new set, the algorithm doesn't know it's strenghts and weaknesses yet, so it pairs you against truly random opponents to test the waters. I saw this very clearly in explorer when bloomburrow came out, i was playing golgari ygra combo and went on crazy winstreaks of like 20+. Then, after a couple of days, the algorithm has everything figured out, and it puts you against opponents who have answers and draw them at the perfect time, as well as sometimes clearly wanting you to lose by not making you draw the combo (i had way more matches than statistically expected where all the 4 copies of either piece of the combo were in the last 10 cards of the deck
I started playing a lot of premiere draft when foundations got released. At first it was all fun and games, but once I kinda got a grasp on what cards and what general builds are working well I started noticing certain patterns. At this point I am drafting daily and I am not saying that I only loose or win but for like more than a week every draft has been going to the same way. I build my deck, I loose the first game because I don’t draw more than two lands in the first 5 turns, I loose the second game because I draw to many lands in a row and starting with the third game the shuffler becomes more random allowing me to perform based on my deck or the matchup. I am not exaggerating or whining about it but I am generally confused since I don’t understand what (If it’s rigged) anyone gains from that. I am sure that it is in fact rigged because we are talking about 10+ drafts that have been going exactly like described and have been almost identical in their nature. The enraging fact is that this is happening in a format where you pay around 10$ for each draft, sure you might get your gems back if you win enough but the fact remains that you spend 10$ worth of gems on something that promises you to offer even more random outcomes than standard play but in reality is already coming with a predetermined course.
If you play the timeless format. If you use one of the 4 meta decks you usialy get paired aganist the ones you lose more frquently to. Now... i created a anti meta dimir control deck, as soon as i started playing with it, the only thing i face is brews and aggro and burn, and my deck is not prepared for that. As soon as change back into a meta deck the meta match ups come back one after another.
Playing Explorer with my Mill deck, I routinely (More than 50%) play against decks with 80+ cards. Even 120 to 150 is pretty common. Playing any other deck, I have NEVER seen an opponent with over 100 cards. 🤷♂️
Ed: you talk about competition- move to ranked. Play mode is designed to be casual, rubber matchmaking!! If you swapped to ranked and had a high hidden MMR then you’d play against the high win rate archetypes. If you get to say Plat 4 - and then just concede every match once you know what you are facing you can literally watch the tiers of deck change as your win rate drops. And yeah - it feels bad to us - but it must be good for retention because this is entirely deliberate. Even your play draw rate in Play mode is tweaked to make sure you sit at 50/50 and are happy enough to keep going.
it surely goes both ways on arena matchmaking but i always think it could not be more apart from paper experience, imagine you go to your LGS and the the door the shop owner asks you your deck archetype, and then he pois at the table you should sit, so your deck is strong agains or weak againts it, it happens too many times in arena to be random. i worked on game development and its a mobile game mindset, mobile games developers think the only way to balance a game is messing with matchmaking.
I really enjoy Magic, I wish I could play it everyday, but as soon as I found out about Arena's matchmaking and shuffling, and thankfully it was at the beginning, I knew I had to quit. Because that's an issue on top of an issue on top of another issue. I rather wait for a week to play with my friends on sundays, in person, than spend my money again on digital cards that I already own, just to get scammed by an algorithm.
I have had so many decks that were strange compared to the meta. The queue times were atrocious. 5-7 minutes before restarting searches, and still not finding a match. Switch to a meta deck, instant pop.
Totally factual that the matchups can be skewed and great title for your video. I play AGGRO because it's the best and my toughest matchups are always other aggro decks. Ugh to mirror-matches for sure. Also, if you have planeswalkers in your deck, it totally puts you in a higher level matchup. I took planeswalkers out of my decks and I had more winnable games. Thank you for sharing. 🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂
MY ARENA EXPERIENCE. ONE WIN ON TOXIC DECK. THEN 2 LOSSES AGAINST CONTROL DECKS. SO I SWITCH TO MY CONTROL DECK, AND THEN IT MATCHES ME AGAINST A LIFE GAIN DECK OR SOMETHING. THE SAME THING IN DRAFT. I GET ONE GOOD WIN RIGHT AWAY , THEN MY NEXT MATCHES ARE SEVERELY TOUGHER .
I've been noticing this. I play Brawl and it's pretty boring. Landfall vs landfall. Cascade vs cascade. Aristocrats vs aristocrats. Tokens vs tokens. I'm tired of playing mirror matches.
I only play 5 color singleton with various different build rules (even split of card types except for lands like 27-28ish sorceries, instants, creatures blah blah blah). I enjoyed elder dragon highlander back when mtgo was new, and after a few sets come out I'll build a new deck with a differen variation of rules. From what I understand the original algorithm was based on power of cards, so because I'd have 120 meta level cards I'd constantly be paired up against burn or white weenie and lose horribly because I'm only looking to go not quite infinite until the client crashes, not trying to win effectively. These days they seem to have accounted for larger decks so I do find I get matched with larger decks more often. I'd still rather play the bot, but I do like to draft now and again so when I'm close to getting enough gold I'll grit my teeth and join the historic queues. I *really* wish there was a place in client where similar deck builds/philosophies can have a sandbox of their own. I despise arena, but appreciate there's a solitaire option although it's sad how little it takes to get the client to have a fit. --- ahh I guess I do play a midweek magic brawl sorta thing if the build limits see intriguing but I'll do something like ivy tokens because I like tokens and interesting interactions.
bro.... so i draft ALOT and I mean like every day and its quite weird but the ONLY time i have "connection" issues is when im playing draft and especially when im about to go positive in regards to the entry gems/gold and if it isnt the game suddenly closing or my opponents freezing out of nowhere i wont draw a land for 5 turns after keeping a 3 land hand in a 40 card deck with 17 lands.... as you said it doesn't come down to skill it comes down to what bs happens during your match...the timer system needs to register if a player disconnects or something..... i dont spend money to play i spend my time and use arena to practice drafts ive been playing since the early 90s my first deck had craw wurm holy strength and serra angels for god sake and I feel like 60% of thr games i lose are bc the client just so happens to crap out on me at just the right moment and when you email wizards about it they immediately return a message saying oh were not going to reimburse you when I died even ask them for reimbursement in the first place i have tried so hard to get in touch with devs and employees about the time system and how it handles disconnected players bc all it takes is for someone to purposely DC themselves then both players server freeze and alot of the time you wont even know its frozen bc the game doesn't do any thing to signal they have DC and you can freely move your cards around but by the time you reset the client and come back you get a match loss bc the opponent who knew what they were doing with the disconnect already reset their client and are just waiting for the timeout rope to run out so that you lose to it i know this sounds conspiracy ish but my wife n i have tested it on so many different levels like having arena open on two laptops and our phones and playing until we get disconnected...well if the connection issue was on my end then in theory all the clients should be disconnected at the same time right? well thats not the case ..... if you goto the forums you will see that im far from the only person whos experience is like this and wizards employees tell you to email customer service and customer service tells you to post to the forums....its ridiculous
There are definitely some decks that fly under this matchmaking for sure unless they may have addressed this. I had a utility/tool box Lurrus during OG Eldraine. Until I got into Mythic I wasn’t facing the same deck every game but even still the deck was so extremely versatile and was hard for the algorithm to savage me in my match ups. Especially in BO1. But it’s 100% rigged and too consistent with how this match making is done.
I haven't watched the video yet bc I want to comment first, but I will watch it. I play standard brawl almost exclusively these days, and I have a very good Lili discard deck that I win with most of the time. Except of course when the game decides that I have been winning too much, so it places me on forced losers queue to balance out that w/L for a while. But what I want to point out specifically, is that my going 2nd rate with my successful Lili deck is somehow upwards of 74%. I saw this on the trackers and tallied it all up a while ago. Except, if nothing was being rigged under the hood, then I should not have such a crazy high going second rate with that deck. Period. I have done all the coin flipping simulations, even done some irl, and no matter how many times I flip the coin, the results are always very close to 50/50, as that is just how probabilities actually work. And yet, here I am on Arena, where it is the usual experience for me to magically go 2nd 6, 7, 8, 9 and even 10 times in a row with my Lili deck! The first time that happened to me, btw, being on the draw 10 times on a row (its happened several times now), I looked at the odds of that and it was like 1 in 1024, but I was like wtf, I probably haven't even played 1000 matches yet! So, could it be legitimately possible for me to go 2nd more than 70% of the time with my Lili deck? Sure. But im playing a f2p game, and like all f2p games, they have been optimized to maximize player engagement in order to make as much revenue as possible. It is a science for these companies to maintain a balance of keeping their players happy, but not too happy so that we keep coming back. So yeah, im pretty sure the game is rigged.
The only thing I found is if you win 2 or 3 games with aggro... Switch decks completely... To control or counter... Win 3 and switch... Keep repeating...
The unranked matchmaking in Arena has always been this way. It is no secret. You can slap together a bunch of unplayed cards, and see them in your opponents deck. Play Bo3 Ranked, and you'll have a better experience.
the sneaky shuffling too. pay attention to the decks. the decks will randomly shuffle stacking a player with their win condition. And it happens almost every game you are in. if you do what this guy is doing and not care about winning, just stare at the cards and you will see one or both decks shuffle via the server.
I’ve been playing a little recently. I played until right around 99-00. It’s been fun but it definitely seems formulaic what what I put against and when. There also seems to be another issue of occasionally never getting something or only getting something. No land, only land, only seeing a card that has 4 copies in the deck once over a couple of hours of queuing. I feel like even browsing decks and the win rates seem to reflect this too. However, this had only been a curiosity for me and it’s been so long since I’ve played and the game is so much different that I honestly don’t know what I’m talking about. Just wanted to mention it because I’ve wondered sometimes. Currently I only have one non starter deck but it’s a fun life gain deck that has performed very well. I have had my fair share of games that I know my opponent thinks I’m done for only to clutch a win. Overall it’s been fun. What I wish I had was a friend to play with and relearn and bounce off of because my ability to do a draft and get something to stick is terrible. I did my first draft the first week of pioneer and it will be a minute before I attempt that again.
I still do not see why people like Think Twice so much and also seem to not use Divination. Five mana draw two over a few turns, vs 3 mana draw two Right Now.
Arena is mostly burn decks these days because it's the fastest way to get your rewards at the top of the rank. The algorithm may have no choice but to give you fellow burn opponents if 90% queued are just burn ranking for rewards
What sucks is consistently having 30+ lands in a Brawl deck and then consistently not pulling land or mana dorks 7 turns in. Meanwhile on other platforms the same deck pulls land consistently.
Me and my buddy did a match on arena and I milled him for 20 cards and like 14 cards in a row were straight lands and he was getting land fucked the entire game before that. The shuffler is massively fucked, you'll have some games where you draw 7 cards with no lands, or draw 7 cards and only get lands. People tey to say "it's supposed to be like that, that's what random means when you shuffle". Piss off, everyone manaweaves their decks and than shuffles from that point on so at most you get 2-3 lands in a row and actually enjoy playing the game
I've been extremely frustrated with this for some time now. i thought maybe i was just imagining it. i barely built a mono red deck that i only get to face mono red with, it's pretty miserable.
I’m pretty much brand new to mtg and arena. I’ve noticed this significantly. In the speed draft I know I’ve not drafted well but I always eke out a very decisive win and get destroyed on 3 other rounds. Too small a sample to know for certain on my own results
The last year has been even worse. If you ever win 3 games in a row, get ready to lose 5 in a row. Half those games will be mana screw/flood or no chance. It’s gotten terrible.
Agreed. I am constantly into situations that matches do not make any senses and the cards I get from the shuffler are bat-shit crazy.
I had three games in a row today playing boros burn that I drew/saw 7-9 lands during the first six turns. As a mono red player IRL it feels so strange to flood somewhat consistently with 20 lands in the deck.
For me its the fact that my opponent gets exactly the same 7 cards every time
I recently played against a izzit deck and run 20 land in my ranked deck on arena I called it a night after that match I was getting nothing but lands and lost 3 in a row after getting a decent win streak with mono white I got screwed by getting flooded with lands
That’s nothing, I lost 12 in a row in one sitting in Bo1 in explorer and standard. And these are decks I feature on my channel that slap
Arena is meant to promote quick games, to replicate the slot machine dopamine fix people get in casinos. When players, who are smart, begin to tailor their decks to bo1 quick formats, the meta gets faster and faster and power creep occurs, pitting hyper aggro against endless control. The result, to get “quality” games is to fix the matchmaking to avoid a control player from quitting the game forever because he faced rdw 10 times in a row, and vice versa to the aggro player. If arena was only bo3, it’d be much healthier. Arena also pits us against faceless online opponents, where we can’t connect as humans. Playing in person changes how we react to playing the game, good or bad.
Then it should be considered a form of gambling!!!
You can also be a complete jerk and screw up the Bo1 queue with a very slow turtle deck... I like to play turbofog, haha. Drag them kicking and screaming into an hour-long game.
Im much happier playing paper commander even if I lose.
My dude over here seriously dropping some Freud and Nietzsche logic...love it bro...in Bo1 my wins feel hollow and my losses seem unnecessary....these aren't good numbers....
Yup. It keeps us from playing in ways that would get us punched in the face in real life 😂
Yep. The shuffler and the algorythm have been my most hated and consistent opponent on Arena
I agree 100%, let us play random opponents instead of algorithm based matchmaking
I dont even care about algorithmic matchmaking, the shuffler should be random its a core tenent of the game and if its not random its not magic.
@@threethousandandoneI agree. When you are guaranteed to have lands in your starting hand, it lets aggro style decks get away with playing only 18 lands.
@@VG-ej4ut17 lands was a meme for a reason.
@@VG-ej4ut It also likes to give you one of your special lands up front in the hand too, which is annoying if you use something like Maze's End or Nykthos that isn't terribly useful right away.
@@Sauvenil the amount of Phyrexian Tower/Locthwain/Takenuma opening hands in my black decks is absurd.
I’ve always found that when you play really off meta decks, that’s when the game doesn’t know how to pair you against opponents and you see back to back “Did you have fun” messages post game. The algorithm is trying like crazy to find a place for your deck. I also rarely play the same deck back to back, at least not three times in a row, to stop the game from figuring out what I’m playing.
I put smiley face when I pull all my lands. ALL and only lands.
100 games in a row. I only run 20
I think you’re on to something with the survey - doubt it’s used for customer satisfaction ;)
I NEVER respond to those pleas for feedback. They shouldn't be asking that.
I just click skip: I never click sad or happy. Cause I hate arena isn’t an option lol
bingo
Playing a mill deck, I came across a mysterious player with a 240 card deck. (Remember, Battle of Wits doesn't exist in Arena....) It was probably 5 color, and he was drawing absolute bombs every turn, including that he was able to destroy all of my enchantments during the game. So the matchmaker wanted me to lose so badly that it made up a player and a deck just so it could give me an L. Garbage software just chooses whether you're going to win or lose before you even start the game.
Nobody is stupid enough to play over 60 cards unless its a Yorion companion list.
Its painfully obvious.
Try mill in brawl.
A) yes - it wants you to have a 50/50 win rate in Play mode. Play ranked.
B) Fat deck players are real - and you should only face them in exceptional circumstances unless your win rate is as bad as theirs.
@@snackplaylove It was in Ranked that this happened, and not anything to do with a low win rate. (Remember, the game sets your win rate so even bad decks still win on occasion... even if you deliberately build it badly.)
Ran into same situation few times past 2 weeks.
@@Sauvenil This is some giga scizo level thoughts lol
Absolutely, long queue times means the algo is figuring out your “ideal” opponent. The game isn’t dead (yet), queues should last a few seconds.
I have seen it take almost a minute. Off meta deck that is crazy effective. I get a win and switch to a different deck.
14 seconds or more and it has time to analyze the deck and put you against a deck that will most likely destroy you. I cancel before the 14 seconds. It helps but eventually after 5 to 7 wins it’s over with. Unless you pay a lot of money. And yes i tested this and spent 150 dollars and made mythic in a few hours
I used to play Arena a few years back. I liked playing mono-black, and at the time, Dimir Rogues was in the meta, so I was basically playing against it 80% of the time. Also, after about 6 to 8 wins, I would flood like crazy in the game for 2-4 games, while my opponent seemed like a draw god, always having every single response exactly when they needed it.
@@danielprevitalli7956 That dimir rogue mill deck was SO pushed... even anti mill tactics had a hard time against it. It was always getting the god hand. Just like the Heliod-based lifegain decks when he was in standard.... on curve EVERY TIME.
@Sauvenil that deck was só boring to play against. Tbh Magic is only Fun with Friends and jank cards/combos ahhaha
@@danielprevitalli7956 Arena doesn't like my jank... it doesn't like when you play Secret Rendezvous and Gaea's Blessing 15+ times in a turn.
Does anyone else also notice occassionally going against decks with like 100-300 cards and just getting wrecked most of the time when you do?
5 color 300 card deck that somehow hits all their land drops and slams atraxa on curve
@@VG-ej4ut Yeah, I found that bot while playing my mill deck. I was monoblue using Drowned Secrets but he was hitting his enchantment removal like he created the game.
Ever get matched up against an admin? I got that once too after I had been using my Supervillains deck for a while and eventually hit Mythic. They were playtesting an infinite turns deck after they released Strixhaven. But at least that didn't feel like they were rigging my wins and losses.
My greatest win was against a deck like that. The opponent had almost 200 cards but wouldn't finish me off, I think it was a green beetle deck. They set in play a combo they couldn't stop and it was so huge they ran out of cards and beat themselves. I wish I had streamed and recorded it. I would have called the vid "Rope a dope".
How the fuck do you see how many cards are in an opponents deck?
@@VG-ej4utAtraxa on curve... A fast deck should have won already at this point. Slower decks should have answers.
... If a turn7 Atraxa is a problem for you, then you should definitly work on your deck and don't seek lame excuses for your lose.
He's on to something. Whenever I use my nazgul deck, 90% of the time I'm playing against another nazgul deck
Same with my Etali deck. I exclusively play against that Rusko clock maker, Golos, and other Etali decks, rarely anything else. With my Kozilek deck I exclusively get matched up against mono green and artifact decks.
If you only get 2 land hands....you also won't draw another land until like 4 turns later and by then the games over and it happens roughly 70-80% of the time.
Legit dude, I always mulligan if I have 2 lands, and the worst part you’ll have two lands and the rest of the cards are every card you need, it entices you to keep it just to shaft you
there was recently a leak in mtg arena where they saw how cards are weighted and the matchmaker matches you with similar weighted decks - same values or same cards.
Was for Brawl thought. and this time it is better as it just matches good decks vs good decks...
@nicolasmartin224 correct, but the don't think that wotc is so ambitious to have multiple separate systems.
Most likely all their matchmaking works similarly.
@@nicolasmartin224 they have said they do the same thing for unrated queues
Facts! Even the dual colored lands have a value and planeswalkers and any cards that are strong in the meta.
@@nicolasmartin224when you dig deeper, some of the cards that were weighed higher were cards that didn’t make sense to play in brawl. Which makes you think that it’s not just a brawl thing. It’s just not as obvious in rank queue because most people are playing top meta decks
You need a placebo control group. Make a deck that has NO meta cards in it. Garbage deck, who cares. Just nothing the algorithm will pick up at all. Play about 20 times and see what you get matched with. Your boros burn deck its going to see as a boros burn deck. Your rakdos reanimator is going to be recognized as a deck in a specific group when it sees those cards because its a meta deck and its matchmaking. See what happens when it can't identify it. A placebo deck for the test
I've done this by myself for shits and giggles and that is totally the case. If you throw together a random ass deck with like 4 good cards you will have one or more of those 4 good cards in your starting hand like 60+% of the time and I also get matched up against decks that I literally had never seen before playing my main brawl decks. The drawer and matchmaking takes the card weight system in to consideration at all times.
You are right that MTGA is manipulating pairing, but it's not based on archetype. It's based on card composition. They try to pair decks with similar cards together, and they stared this back when it was still bot only limited, and people were exploiting the fact that bots didn't have proper card valuation. This came to a head with Throne of Eldraine when people were able to draft decks with 10 to 12 Merfolk Secretkeeper/Venture Deeper (because the bots would never pick them). Rather than fixing the bots, they simply started pairing the people who drafted problematic cards against each other. Unfortunately, they made that change universally, so constructed players were also stuck playing mirror matches far more often than would happen naturally. It's just lazy programming.
Any form of intervention means it is rigged. that card game is supposed to be 'random' cards, games etc
@@RobertEnleed There's also data to indicate that their pairings are designed to limit the total prize payouts, where undefeated decks (even 0-0) are only paired against other undefeated decks. They keep grinding the highest potential payouts against each other.
@@newscoulomb3705So like in real life? If you are 2-0 you'll play against others that are 2-0. This isn't a conspiracy.
The matchmaking is though.
@@lloydlineske2642 There are a finite number of undefeated players IRL, and there's never an option for an 0-0 player to be matched against a 4-0 player. So no, that doesn't happen in real life.
Various cards winrates are recorded, so that meta decks and worse decks are sorted away from each other, kinda like nadu was in "hell queue" were if you play Nadu it was nothing but mirror matches, and since standard is a very agro heavy format rn, agro decks are experiencing heavy mirror match since they are high power
Which sucks because my squirrel deck uses a few meta cards to kill creatures
I went to mythic by following this strategy: Every third game I used a new deck because years of playing this rigged game showed me that the algorithm comes in after 2 games. Every time I try a new deck 2 games win then forced loss. Opponent with ajani out of 250 cards: no problem. dont trap against this bot matches. dont ever spend any money on this game. just deinstall.
This video is wrong in two ways:
First it’s pure copium for not building a deck that is diverse enough to handle non-ranked meta decks.
Second the matchmaking has already been cracked as binning based on meta scores from cards in your deck, I.e. meta decks play meta decks generally with a 50:50 match up (mono-red list generally all look the same and are effectively a coin flip due to viable turn 2 kills), this helps keep the meta diverse by allowing rogue decks to play other rogue decks and not get curb stomped by the highest performing meta decks.
I’ve been beating the Rigged horse for a while now, thanks for getting this out there. Love the thumbnail. I too am a mostly MTG channel. I get into frequent spats on X where the scummy big channels tell me “you don’t understand variance and it’s a skill issue”.
Dont forget about the shuffler. I got mill, with less than 30 cards left, I still cant find my combo pieces. Also, my graveyard deck will very much matched with graveyard hate deck. I wish they do random opponents like what you said.
When you play mill and all of a sudden your opponents play decks with 100+ cards
I know the game is rigged when ever you get a winning steak. They put decks that go against your deck. So if im playing historic. I’ll switch to standard. And all of a sudden my win rates are more balanced. Then when they start the decks that can beat my deck I’ll switch to historic. That’s how got to mythic. I did it twice, but I’m starting to not care. With that said I think magic has gotten out of hand in power creep. I’ve been playing since revised era. I don’t expect the game not to evolve, but geez. I played a deck and on turn 3 or four they dropped two eldrazi and I lost all my lands and permanents. I came back to arena, and I was wondering why I stoped. It’s the white life gain decks that basically win by turn three. I also notice the colors aren’t balanced correctly in standard, which seems like an R&D issue. So you aren’t wrong with your assessment of arena.
I like what you said and I agree.
If it is pairing to your disadvantage, what about your opponents who are supposedly getting an advantage? Why would it pick on you and help them?
This is too real. I've had games where I duress them to get rid of their answer only for the next turn for them to top deck it ...
Chaos Warp hitting the same thing I just got rid of, or something better...
Duress is a lame card. Yes it works at times but nothing is better than seeing my opponent whiff on a turn 1 duress.
@@chriswampler1its not a whiff if they know what you have. Duress rarely has downsides, even late.
How it is set up is that every card is assigned a point value based on its overall win loss rate. So decks of about the same value get matched.
Even your draws in game are rigged, I watched a bunch of monoblackmtg and dude was predicting his top decks like 90% of the time, and about the same rate of what his op was going to get when top decking. When you can accurately predict top decks is when you know that it is rigged.
this makes so much sense, bc me and my brother play 2 different decks and hes always complaining that he sees the same decks on the ladder. im like nah i never see those deck. and i tell him what i see and he doesnt see mines.
Ranked is a little different to the Play queue, but yes - you are correct
No the ladder you should just see the meta decks maybe a dark horse every now and then
You are on to something for sure. I even emailed mtg about their shuffler not being truly randomized and they didn’t deny that it wasn’t. All they said was “we assure you that every player on arena is playing on an even playing field” but that kinda sounds like they’re confirming that the shuffler isn’t truly random. And opening hands are selected.
There was a report about Brawl being rigged... but only Brawl?! NAH! I played 15 matches and 80% were against aggro... so I was like lemme build a horrible deck that DESTROYS aggro... and every single match... EVERY SINGLE MATCH was against some weird combo control I've never seen before. I never once played against aggro. Switched back to the deck I was playing and BOOM AGGRO 80% again....
I've done this many times and KNEW IT WAS RIGGED!
This. Farking this. I'm trying to test a standard deck in preparations for a local heavy dimir and golgari meta with my own counter brew
and what do I get matched with 20 games in a row? Burn, Domain, Burn, domain, jank, rinse and repeat.
@Aizen678 they must think we have gold fish memory or that we are all stupid 😔
@@ArtisticTomahawk i dont know if they realize its not a slot machine for casino... its magic...and magic player are smart....we see repeating pattern ...
Bro I tried to make a video about the statistics of all of this bullshit and people are ENRAGED that I would suggest such a thing (Im guessing there's at least 600 thumbs down on your dashboard). I fully predicted an artfact deck coming up in Bo1, swapped in removal, and beat them in 4 turns with an orzov deck.
So thank you for making this video
I've drawn twenty mana in a row (on video) after having four mana in my opening hand because my non-net deck gave the algorithm fits. The only way to make me lose was mana screw over and over and over.
Their obsession with rigging all our games mystifies me. I could almost stand the forced losses if you could play against anything but the same three forced match decks. Change your deck, congrats now your forced to face another same three etc. etc. etc. Shuffler rigging , match rigging, mana rigging, and all to maintain the forced loss/win rate.
They hope you’ll try and solve it with money. Thats all.
So, MTGA does a couple of things in the background. One: The shuffler will draw three different hands and pick the 'best' starter hand for you out of the three before you get to your mulligan and turns out the best number of lands to get the most consistent amount of land drops was like 17-20 or something like that especially for monored aggro. CovertGoBlue had mentioned this tidbit.
Two: The matchmaking is based on 'card weights' not archetypes like you said. Amazonian has made a video explaining on how cards how the card weights work using data that has been datamined all from an error someone got on a deck that used to be playable but can't be played because the deck weight was too low. She does do the video from the perspective of a brawl player, but had mentioned the weights are similar for other modes as well.
Anyways, yeah, there are some deep dives into the algorithm and yeah it's rigged in various different ways to somehow or another screw you over, but at this point it's pretty much Stockholm Syndrome or something similar. We think it will change but it never does and we just keep going back to it because we 'love' it and we think it 'loves' us back when it doesn't and ends up abusing us again over and over.
We can all feel the patterns.
The algorithm based matchmaking is even more apparent in brawl, depending on your commander youonly fight certain decks.
Like if i play something like teregrid or esika ill be going upsgainst jodah, or another esika.
Ill play mill, and my opponents will be reanimator when if i play reanimator ill never be matched up against another reanimator deck.
Its shit like that that mskes it apparent and pisses you off lol
Sure, consumers dictating how they would want their products to behave and thinking companies such as WotC (a money hungry monster) actually care about the well-being of the community 😂😂 how idiotic.
Yeah you are not playing against opponents you're playing against algorithm.
Only if you play unranked, and at that point aren't you anyway in a situation where you tried to find balanced matches.
Thanks for making this vid. Nice to see it on screen finally. You're points are good too. I still think it's based on specific cards. Like if you took your red white aggro and put 4 sunfalls in it your be matched differently.
Yup - deck points matter - adding bad cards makes your matches easier
Did I just watch a red player cry about playing red?
Right? LOL
Colorist
No, you need to go back and listen to the vid.
It doesn’t matter what deck you play, could be blue red green white black but the match making system pits you against the same deck score as your own. The workaround I do is, I don’t allow the match making to go past 10 seconds. And I try and replace and high rarity cards with lower common uncommon that does the same or close to it for what I need when building the deck. All of your cards are on a rare score basis. I’m not sure the values but for example Mythic cards = 10 Rare = 8 Uncommon = 4 common = 1 per card then the totals are compared matched up.
How long did you make it into the video before coming up with this comment? I’m guessing you and 38 other people didn’t make it 8:30 into the video? Should at least watch it all before crying that a red player was crying. Shouldn’t point fingers, always 3 fingers pointing back at you 😅
Why dont we start a class action lawsuit? The game is marketed with an expectation that hands are dealt randomly and since real world money is involved(form of gambling) they have to be held accountable!
Hasbro is very careful not to use the term random in Arena TOS; not even pack openings are random because the entire client is weighted and manipulated to encourage spending.
I'm in complete agreement with you. All they throw up against me is the yin to my yang about 95% of all games played. What's more... I seem to be the only one that gets handicapped with land issues (either I can't get any, or that's all I get), filling my opening hand with late game spells, going 2nd about 85 to 90% of the time, or wasting my turns with nothing to play or do. Meanwhile, all my opponents get a land drop EVERY turn, something or multiple things to play EVERY turn, and their deck seems to work perfectly as it was built to do.
Plus, MTG could seem like they care less. Whenever I posted my issues or contacted them about the overall gameplay/shuffler... They completely ignore me. This seems to be how they treat their fan base. They don't care! It's all a giant money grab. Just like when they screwed me out of my Marvel Secret Lair purchase. Real classy MTG.
Land draws are rigged lul. One time I got only 2 lands from digging like 20-ish cards of my deck already. I believe I was running 20 lands in the deck, but seriously the third land doesn't exist in the top 20 cards of the library. The deck was dug 20 cards without being shuffled. I should have found like 6 lands if I've dug a third of my deck. But nope, only 2. I didn't even discard or surveil/scry off any lands away. Only 2 lands in the top 20 cards of the deck. Very fun experience, on top of having to craft them rare lands that the game ended up hiding away from me. :D
And don't forget, when the opponent goes first, they auto-win, their curve goes perfect. But when you do go first, you will draw lands all the time, or no more lands than what your starting hand gives. :D
When I tried playing paper, it is NOT this bad. So my personal conclusion, it's rigged. :D
For more supporting evidence, there are games when I top-decked the perfect card, as if the game is wanting me to win. And there are MANY games where I keep drawing non-lands for 10+ scries/draws when I need ONE land, that by the time the land arrives I'm losing the game already. And there are also MANY games when it's the opposite, I'm drawing like 5 lands in a row, and when I do get to see a non-land, it's a llanowar elves. :D :D :D
The game also rigs me up whenever I play Storm the Festival. Choices be: Elvish Mystic, Forest, Llanowar Elves, Utopia Sprawl, Forest. The green lands + all of my 1-drops comprise around 27/60 of my deck, so at least 1 of those choices should be a better stuff or at least a Nykthos right? Nope, ain't happening. It's hard for me to see Karn or Kiora or even Nykthos from that spell. A 3 drop + utopia sprawl is about the common line for me. But when the game wants me to win, the choices be Nykthos/Kiora/Karn multiple times. But when the game wants me to lose, the elves brotherhood + their woods show up, followed by the same thing the next time I cast another copy of Storm the Festival (or flashback it). Fkin rigged. :D :D :D
Speaking about Nykthos, the FOUR copies of them reside within the bottom ~35 cards of my deck in ABOUT HALF the games I've played. :D
Play Cavalier of Thorns twice? Nope, you ain't getting yer Nykthos. Play Storm the Festival and feel happy that for once you see a Cavalier in the list, then proceed into more digging? Nope, you won't find Nykthos this time either. :D
Just Storm -> Cavalier alone is 10 cards dug, not counting if you draw from Kiora. I tried running Beanstalk in my deck, so I dig even more, yet it's the same. There are games that Nykthos doesn't exist until your opponent is rigged to win on the following turn, and there are games where Nykthos just all spawn in the top 30 cards of your deck, sometimes 2 in your hand, other times they show up nicely in the digs one by one.
So yeah, land draws are rigged. :)
The arrangement of the so-called library is rigged. :)
Here’s some evidence (I basically only play Brawl): Play some mono color deck. You’ll get a bunch of random matches.
Then, play Jodah, or any other 5 color commander. You’ll suddenly *only* get matched against Jodah/5 color commander decks…
Or, make your best possible deck. Play some games, lose a bunch. Then, go though, and remove any Mythic or Super rare cards. Suddenly, you’re against other bad decks.
There’s definite power level, and similarity deck matching.
I now expect that, when I play a new deck, I will be matched against a virtually identical deck for the first 2-3 games. After that, I'm up against burn until I beat that for a couple of games. As a long-time programmer, I am convinced that the matchmaker has some of the code in it from the training series that Arena puts a new player through until they can beat those "auto matches".
Couple things for people to note who are watching this. This is unranked BO1. Wizards already stated a long time ago that they skew BO1 mainly with hand smoothing.
This does not extend to Bo3 particularly in ranked. The biggest problem is Bo1 is meant to be the introduction to arena. Like an expanded tutorial or testing ground.
In your mono red run you actually played against 3 decks. Traditional mono-red, boros that I would ber money had sheltered by ghost and rakdos with callous sell sword. They are all aggro decks but they are not the same and saying they are "red" decks is very misleading. They are all aggro and have the same goal of smash enemy on face but, they do itbdifferent or in the case of boros offer a bit of a more control element
The main reason the matchmaking does not appear as often in Bo3 is the sideboard. The games matchmaking note that you missed is your matches look like they linked closer to your mana value than a type.
Also, to another point the most "fair" match up is a mirror match up but I agree that is boring.
Final point that does change this a bit is you are recording during unranked. Arena is already considered casual compared to paper tourbaments or MTGO even in ranked. The matchmater is a bit better in ranked. Bo1 however is not "the" main competitive format by Wizards or arena in general. Its Bo3 Ranked where the hand smoothing is supposed to be gone and the meta is more diverse. The main point being having the sideboard to actually have options to play against any deck instead of being stuck against rock, paper, scissors.
Complaining about the match maker and invoking wanting something competitive in the most casual and (already admitted by Wizards) manipulated format arena offers seems like conflicting points of view.
Yes, the algorithm definitely matchmakes to punish certain decks. When I play monored aggro, it always takes a minute or longer to matchmake, and I always get paired with monored aggro or a deck that is a perfect counter with perfect draws. If I get put against something besides monored or a perfect counter deck they make sure that I get mana screwed or mana flooded to ensure I lose. Whenever I play monoblack discard, I get put against mirror matches constantly. If I'm playing on the mobile app version and I'm winning a match the game suddenly ends and goes back to the main screen. Wizards actively punishes you for playing anything that is really strong in arena. The only deck I have that seems to work consistently even when the algorithm tries to beat me is my colorless artifact deck with Ugins and Ulamogs to deal with threats. Even then the algorithm gets tired of me winning and next thing you know I'm getting mana screwed or mana flooded for like three matches in a row. The matchmaking should not be controlled by an algorithm trying to ensure balanced wins and losses, it should be organic and totally random. I should be able to play against diverse decks and see how my deck works against various styles of play. The game is getting pretty dull since I only get to play against the same exact decks over and over again.
Everyone having access to the same cards with no limitations like there are in paper dictates that everyone plays the same deck
For me, I play mostly to complete the daily quests and the fastest way you do that is to play aggro. Most of the daily quests are like, play 20 or 30 cards of this or that color. So I just keep a mono white deck, a mono red deck, a mono black deck and a mono blue deck. Don’t keep a mono green deck on hand. Then I just use whatever deck fulfills that quest. Unfortunately, the quickest way is through aggro. I enjoy collecting the gold and then using the gold to draft and farm gems. Not so into the standard stuff.
I don't get your point. From the beginning it was comunicated that unranked is deck based pairing. Always was the case, always will be that way. Deck Strength / Type is the only way you can pair fairly.
You play unranked to cheat the system and not play against high ranked players. Fine. But if you take the ranking out of the picture, you need to pair on something else to keep it fair. Now show it in ranked, then we can talk
to give some credit, sometimes you do wanna play against other people with interesting decks and low stakes, but yeah you're completely right this guy is complaining that he can't play against random weird creative decks with his super basic high strength decks, I understand the complaint that there's a lack of diversity in opponents but it's literally his fault lmao he's part of the problem taking an obnoxious burn deck with low interaction into unranked queue
Ranked bo1 is the same. You get a colour matched opponent 80% of the time.
Make the entry in ranked cheaper then, if not fix the whole system because this is disgusting.
"pair fairly" it doesn't pair fairly. It predetermines the result of your game and then locks you in to the W or L you're slated for.
My first theory was that Arena wants every gamr to be the most epic, dramatic, exciting game youve ever played. The shuffler is Fucked, the matchmaking is rigged, there is no random. And its because they think an exciting game will make you buy more shit. So they "try" to predict what you want and how you play - And they fail miserably.
Just play ranked and this is less of an issues. Its been proven unranked match making has a deck points system and matches u up against similar decks because there is no rank to go off.
Yup - Play is HARDER than ranked - which is insane when you think about it 😂
Ran into same issues in ranked as this youtuber is talking about. Just haven't played best out of 3 going to give it a try to see if it same or not I always played 1 match.
Sigh.You guys miss the point.smh
I am so glad someone finally did this because I have been reporting this and recording every fucking game because no matter how odd and obscure the decks/cards are that I'm playing my opponent always has the exact counter. Seriously blows my shit
Playing unranked you'll commonly be matched with the same / similar decks.
I've noticed that when playing ranked, this effect doesn't occur and I play against much more varied decks.
What you say is even more obvious if you play brawl. Arena tries to have games that are over by turn 4/5. The matchmaking algorithm will put effort in finding everything that can shut you down or that you can’t answer. They want all decks to be as close as possible to a 50% win rate, no matter what.
I play primarily green and I can play for 4 hours straight and most of my opponents are black/swamp
You are right the cards we have in our deck activated the algorithm
Another thing i find that makes this worse is that everyone just goes online and copies some variation of the same deck which creates a stagnant pool of competitors.
It's even worse than what you've noticed. There's cards I've never seen before. I'll brew a new deck or look to tweak my current deck. I add some new card (not actually new. New to me.), and suddenly 60% of my opponents are running that card too. Change my deck up again and copy/paste.
Also does it with card numbers. If you're playing 60. Opponents will have 60. If you go over, you'll start playing other players with 100 to 200 cards in their deck
Man I don't even play mtg arena and I can see that it's rigged. I'm sure yugioh master duel's matchmaking works the same way, because I've seen streamers guess exactly what they're going to play against next after taking out the cards in their deck that would hard counter it.
finally someone noticed what i noticed! im a 47 yo disabled veteran and it sad but all i do all day every day now that i really dont leave my house is play magic arena! i get my monthly statement and for November I played 2199 games thats 73.3 games every day for 30 days of November. it says i play more than 99% of everyone who plays and i believe them. you my friend are 100 percent correct on how it matches you based on your deck, examples, if you have any life gain in your deck you are more likely to face mono red, if you run a lot of enchantments it will have you facing decks with all types of enchantment destruction ect. i have moved over to alchemy and im pretty sure thats why they utilize heist in order to match you up faster if the matches does not know what to throw at you it will just throw a heist deck at you. im only in your video 4 min, but do you want to hear the worst part of what i noticed,,, when you log out then log back in to your account you get a more random match until it decides to throw you against more unfavorable decks, the only way to stop that from happening is to build a deck from scratch and win three games until it figures the deck out or (this is the most fuc@#$ up part) if you spend real money and buy more than 40$ of gems or wild cards it will shut off the unfavorable matchmaking for the rest of your session until you log out or the clock hits 1100 pm on the east coast then its a battle unless you spend another 40$. this is all much easier to explain and i have some tips around it with out spending money but its annoying if you just want to play. im a deck builder and only play my own original decks so it is what it is but thank you for making this video my mtg arena name is white rabbit if you see me on the ladder. oh also never concede ever this will wreck you in matchmaking and if you can get others to concede to you your next match will be more favorable. my new build is genesis wave+primeval bounty+ enduring tenacity.... ill leave the rest up to your imagination.
It is an unranked queue there has to be some ways to balance the match quality otherwise most ppl queuing unranked games will play against a ton of new players with tiny collections who are only using starter decks trying to learn the basics of Magic. That's what a majority of the unranked queue is. So yeah if you take a standard meta deck into an unranked queue it is going to pair you against other similar decks. It is trying to create balanced games around the strength of your decks/hidden mmr so that new players will enjoy learning mtg rather than getting smoked in really lopsided matchups and quit before they even really learn how to play.
The diverse metagame exists. Its on the ranked queue and especially in bo3.
They balance things all right - just not the way you think they do. They interchangeably put you in a punisher/victim group to reinforce your addiction. It works very similarly to gambling. Don't your victories taste better when they come after a bunch of sour losses? Pair all of this with a super-stingy economy and you've got a bunch of junkies chasing precious wildcards and splashing triple-AAA-game money a month (and that's not even considered being a whale!). Then ask those junkies, if they consider themselves being screwed. I wish you luck getting honest answers...
They admitted that in brawl and in nonranked play the matchmaking is rigged. In brawl MM is getting strenght of your commander and your deck, in nonrakend play you are getting decks that are similar in cards or power level (internal ranking or rare/common ratio), thats why you almost every time get mirror.
I quit playing Arena about a year ago cause for three reasons, 1. The matchmaking in unranked clearly isn't random and they're trying to balance it in some way. 2. I only care about Commander for the most part. and 3. It's way to expensive for a video game, Arena isn't a trading card game that let's you collect, sell, and trade cards. It's just a simulation of a trading card game. So personally they'd have to stop rigging the matchmaking, add four player commander, and cut the prices down by like 80% before I'd consider redownloading it. But I think your video highlights the matchmaking problem perfectly, and I've experienced that for a couple years before uninstalling Arena. It's wild that more people aren't upset by it.
I quit, you quit, but they are still junkies with a Stockholm syndrome
Im glad a youtuber made a video that covers Arena's issues. I've been thinking this for months.
Im fairly new to MTG. Learned how to play at my LGS playing Commander until the welcoming commity( being sarcastic) got disrespectful and unwelcoming. So I just played Arena more and started noticing a trend like whats covered in this video. My decks are mostly aggro bc thats what I started with and learned how to build. I get with a few people every onece in a while that plays Modern and my decks are usualy 40 to 60 percent win rate which I think thats good especially being sorta new and when I use to play precon I got mt ass handed to me. Arena I build a deck and its usually garbage bc my card collection isn't much it'll do 20 to 45 percent maybe 60 percent then after a while run into same issues usually after 20 games played on best of 1 match.
Absolutely. Thanks for giving more proof on camera. This has been so absolutely broken in the code, and it pales in comparison (unfortunately) to real magic. I find arena useful still, but really it's getting BAD.
Matchmaking is atrocious, I second your claim of Arena being rigged, I'm 100% convinced of it.
Yes, I experience the same like you, they completely ruin the game with this 50--50 "politically correct" policy so even the people who deserve to lose always get their wins by reassuring that you lose your matches (land screws, land flooded, or just giving a starting hand with 4 copy of the same card).
Thanks for making the video feels good that someone shares the same feelings about this issue.
As soon as you play control and all removals , all you are playing against are control mirrors which has zero creatures, as soon you shift to zero removal decks all you playing against are creature aura pump decks. Also winrate is involved too. Arena matchmaking is so BAD.
How about if you play real decks? "All removal" or "no removal" is bad...
Even in paper magic has you to try to find the best amount of interaction for your deck...
Top mythic player. Bo1 limited is for matched based on elo and deck composition. The majority of my limited games are mirror matches which is batshit crazy. There is no meta when match making is manipulated. There is however a "trick the algo" meta. Anyway, its really sad what they've done.
This is why I stopped playing Arena. One of my decks always seemed to play black, even though in the meta game black is played less than 15%. Black was the deck I couldn't beat.
we knew it was rigged 5 years ago. this is something the devs addressed - taking decks with a certain power and matching them against one another. this was implemented after people quit from the game in the mono-red vs Teferi control days where a significant % of the players played the same exact tournament decks and ruined the format.
instead of making an arena only ban list to stop the overtuned cards from taking over the format, they instead went with the "lets mirror/counter match people to force a 50% winrate" like it's League of Legends.
Observation:
Play a deck that's mostly Red...
...matched vs deck with mostly Red
Play a deck that's mostly Green...
...matched vs deck with mostly Green
Play a deck that's mostly Blue...
...matched vs deck with mostly Blue
Etc...
...same if playing an particular Sorcery/Creature/Instant/Planeswalkers...
Playing Teferi?...
...matched vs deck with Teferi
Playing Trickshot?...
...matched vs deck with Trickshot...
I'd say that such an algorithIm has a place: about every other match, often enough to prevent free/no chance too many times but rare enough to let you face a variety of decks
To me it seems like they have a rating system for the power level of cards, apply a power level to your deck, and pair you against someone with a different power level. That's why you tend to get mirror matches. It's definitely not just a random person in the que at the same level as you. But just random based on level would be better.
Yes, this has been the case since dominaria standard. The mono red deck was pretty dominant in best of one on arena and it would put you in the mirror match hell queue. I would run redcap melee cuz I was so confident I was getting paired up vs mono red.
The algorithm is trying really hard to figure out what your deck does, to rig you against decks and with draws that keep your winrate close to 50%.
When a new good deck appears in a format because of a new set, the algorithm doesn't know it's strenghts and weaknesses yet, so it pairs you against truly random opponents to test the waters.
I saw this very clearly in explorer when bloomburrow came out, i was playing golgari ygra combo and went on crazy winstreaks of like 20+. Then, after a couple of days, the algorithm has everything figured out, and it puts you against opponents who have answers and draw them at the perfect time, as well as sometimes clearly wanting you to lose by not making you draw the combo (i had way more matches than statistically expected where all the 4 copies of either piece of the combo were in the last 10 cards of the deck
I started playing a lot of premiere draft when foundations got released. At first it was all fun and games, but once I kinda got a grasp on what cards and what general builds are working well I started noticing certain patterns. At this point I am drafting daily and I am not saying that I only loose or win but for like more than a week every draft has been going to the same way. I build my deck, I loose the first game because I don’t draw more than two lands in the first 5 turns, I loose the second game because I draw to many lands in a row and starting with the third game the shuffler becomes more random allowing me to perform based on my deck or the matchup. I am not exaggerating or whining about it but I am generally confused since I don’t understand what (If it’s rigged) anyone gains from that. I am sure that it is in fact rigged because we are talking about 10+ drafts that have been going exactly like described and have been almost identical in their nature. The enraging fact is that this is happening in a format where you pay around 10$ for each draft, sure you might get your gems back if you win enough but the fact remains that you spend 10$ worth of gems on something that promises you to offer even more random outcomes than standard play but in reality is already coming with a predetermined course.
If you play the timeless format. If you use one of the 4 meta decks you usialy get paired aganist the ones you lose more frquently to.
Now... i created a anti meta dimir control deck, as soon as i started playing with it, the only thing i face is brews and aggro and burn, and my deck is not prepared for that. As soon as change back into a meta deck the meta match ups come back one after another.
Playing Explorer with my Mill deck, I routinely (More than 50%) play against decks with 80+ cards. Even 120 to 150 is pretty common.
Playing any other deck, I have NEVER seen an opponent with over 100 cards. 🤷♂️
Ed: you talk about competition- move to ranked. Play mode is designed to be casual, rubber matchmaking!!
If you swapped to ranked and had a high hidden MMR then you’d play against the high win rate archetypes.
If you get to say Plat 4 - and then just concede every match once you know what you are facing you can literally watch the tiers of deck change as your win rate drops.
And yeah - it feels bad to us - but it must be good for retention because this is entirely deliberate. Even your play draw rate in Play mode is tweaked to make sure you sit at 50/50 and are happy enough to keep going.
it surely goes both ways on arena matchmaking but i always think it could not be more apart from paper experience, imagine you go to your LGS and the the door the shop owner asks you your deck archetype, and then he pois at the table you should sit, so your deck is strong agains or weak againts it, it happens too many times in arena to be random.
i worked on game development and its a mobile game mindset, mobile games developers think the only way to balance a game is messing with matchmaking.
I realized it was rigged during standard some time ago, I could never feel like I'm playing a real game after that.
I really enjoy Magic, I wish I could play it everyday, but as soon as I found out about Arena's matchmaking and shuffling, and thankfully it was at the beginning, I knew I had to quit.
Because that's an issue on top of an issue on top of another issue.
I rather wait for a week to play with my friends on sundays, in person, than spend my money again on digital cards that I already own, just to get scammed by an algorithm.
I have been complaining about this for a couple years and get shit on for it. Glad someone else noticed it.
I have had so many decks that were strange compared to the meta. The queue times were atrocious. 5-7 minutes before restarting searches, and still not finding a match. Switch to a meta deck, instant pop.
Totally factual that the matchups can be skewed and great title for your video. I play AGGRO because it's the best and my toughest matchups are always other aggro decks. Ugh to mirror-matches for sure. Also, if you have planeswalkers in your deck, it totally puts you in a higher level matchup. I took planeswalkers out of my decks and I had more winnable games. Thank you for sharing. 🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂
MY ARENA EXPERIENCE. ONE WIN ON TOXIC DECK. THEN 2 LOSSES AGAINST CONTROL DECKS. SO I SWITCH TO MY CONTROL DECK, AND THEN IT MATCHES ME AGAINST A LIFE GAIN DECK OR SOMETHING. THE SAME THING IN DRAFT. I GET ONE GOOD WIN RIGHT AWAY , THEN MY NEXT MATCHES ARE SEVERELY TOUGHER .
I've been noticing this. I play Brawl and it's pretty boring.
Landfall vs landfall.
Cascade vs cascade.
Aristocrats vs aristocrats.
Tokens vs tokens.
I'm tired of playing mirror matches.
I only play 5 color singleton with various different build rules (even split of card types except for lands like 27-28ish sorceries, instants, creatures blah blah blah). I enjoyed elder dragon highlander back when mtgo was new, and after a few sets come out I'll build a new deck with a differen variation of rules. From what I understand the original algorithm was based on power of cards, so because I'd have 120 meta level cards I'd constantly be paired up against burn or white weenie and lose horribly because I'm only looking to go not quite infinite until the client crashes, not trying to win effectively. These days they seem to have accounted for larger decks so I do find I get matched with larger decks more often. I'd still rather play the bot, but I do like to draft now and again so when I'm close to getting enough gold I'll grit my teeth and join the historic queues. I *really* wish there was a place in client where similar deck builds/philosophies can have a sandbox of their own. I despise arena, but appreciate there's a solitaire option although it's sad how little it takes to get the client to have a fit. --- ahh I guess I do play a midweek magic brawl sorta thing if the build limits see intriguing but I'll do something like ivy tokens because I like tokens and interesting interactions.
bro.... so i draft ALOT and I mean like every day and its quite weird but the ONLY time i have "connection" issues is when im playing draft and especially when im about to go positive in regards to the entry gems/gold and if it isnt the game suddenly closing or my opponents freezing out of nowhere i wont draw a land for 5 turns after keeping a 3 land hand in a 40 card deck with 17 lands.... as you said it doesn't come down to skill it comes down to what bs happens during your match...the timer system needs to register if a player disconnects or something..... i dont spend money to play i spend my time and use arena to practice drafts ive been playing since the early 90s my first deck had craw wurm holy strength and serra angels for god sake and I feel like 60% of thr games i lose are bc the client just so happens to crap out on me at just the right moment and when you email wizards about it they immediately return a message saying oh were not going to reimburse you when I died even ask them for reimbursement in the first place i have tried so hard to get in touch with devs and employees about the time system and how it handles disconnected players bc all it takes is for someone to purposely DC themselves then both players server freeze and alot of the time you wont even know its frozen bc the game doesn't do any thing to signal they have DC and you can freely move your cards around but by the time you reset the client and come back you get a match loss bc the opponent who knew what they were doing with the disconnect already reset their client and are just waiting for the timeout rope to run out so that you lose to it
i know this sounds conspiracy ish but my wife n i have tested it on so many different levels like having arena open on two laptops and our phones and playing until we get disconnected...well if the connection issue was on my end then in theory all the clients should be disconnected at the same time right? well thats not the case ..... if you goto the forums you will see that im far from the only person whos experience is like this and wizards employees tell you to email customer service and customer service tells you to post to the forums....its ridiculous
There are definitely some decks that fly under this matchmaking for sure unless they may have addressed this. I had a utility/tool box Lurrus during OG Eldraine. Until I got into Mythic I wasn’t facing the same deck every game but even still the deck was so extremely versatile and was hard for the algorithm to savage me in my match ups. Especially in BO1. But it’s 100% rigged and too consistent with how this match making is done.
I haven't watched the video yet bc I want to comment first, but I will watch it.
I play standard brawl almost exclusively these days, and I have a very good Lili discard deck that I win with most of the time. Except of course when the game decides that I have been winning too much, so it places me on forced losers queue to balance out that w/L for a while. But what I want to point out specifically, is that my going 2nd rate with my successful Lili deck is somehow upwards of 74%. I saw this on the trackers and tallied it all up a while ago. Except, if nothing was being rigged under the hood, then I should not have such a crazy high going second rate with that deck. Period. I have done all the coin flipping simulations, even done some irl, and no matter how many times I flip the coin, the results are always very close to 50/50, as that is just how probabilities actually work. And yet, here I am on Arena, where it is the usual experience for me to magically go 2nd 6, 7, 8, 9 and even 10 times in a row with my Lili deck! The first time that happened to me, btw, being on the draw 10 times on a row (its happened several times now), I looked at the odds of that and it was like 1 in 1024, but I was like wtf, I probably haven't even played 1000 matches yet!
So, could it be legitimately possible for me to go 2nd more than 70% of the time with my Lili deck? Sure. But im playing a f2p game, and like all f2p games, they have been optimized to maximize player engagement in order to make as much revenue as possible. It is a science for these companies to maintain a balance of keeping their players happy, but not too happy so that we keep coming back. So yeah, im pretty sure the game is rigged.
Honestly, I don't think we ARE playing against ppl most games
Wouldn't it be funny if even roping was coded? :D (I think you're totally right btw)
The only thing I found is if you win 2 or 3 games with aggro... Switch decks completely... To control or counter... Win 3 and switch... Keep repeating...
The unranked matchmaking in Arena has always been this way. It is no secret. You can slap together a bunch of unplayed cards, and see them in your opponents deck. Play Bo3 Ranked, and you'll have a better experience.
Triggers are messed up, mana flood, mana screw, and win tethering for those that free play is absolutely a problem.
the sneaky shuffling too. pay attention to the decks. the decks will randomly shuffle stacking a player with their win condition. And it happens almost every game you are in. if you do what this guy is doing and not care about winning, just stare at the cards and you will see one or both decks shuffle via the server.
I’ve been playing a little recently. I played until right around 99-00. It’s been fun but it definitely seems formulaic what what I put against and when. There also seems to be another issue of occasionally never getting something or only getting something. No land, only land, only seeing a card that has 4 copies in the deck once over a couple of hours of queuing. I feel like even browsing decks and the win rates seem to reflect this too. However, this had only been a curiosity for me and it’s been so long since I’ve played and the game is so much different that I honestly don’t know what I’m talking about. Just wanted to mention it because I’ve wondered sometimes. Currently I only have one non starter deck but it’s a fun life gain deck that has performed very well. I have had my fair share of games that I know my opponent thinks I’m done for only to clutch a win. Overall it’s been fun. What I wish I had was a friend to play with and relearn and bounce off of because my ability to do a draft and get something to stick is terrible. I did my first draft the first week of pioneer and it will be a minute before I attempt that again.
20 lands in a 60 card deck 8 lands drawn in a row multiple times. It absolutely is fixed. Mathematically it is near impossible.
I still do not see why people like Think Twice so much and also seem to not use Divination. Five mana draw two over a few turns, vs 3 mana draw two Right Now.
Arena is mostly burn decks these days because it's the fastest way to get your rewards at the top of the rank. The algorithm may have no choice but to give you fellow burn opponents if 90% queued are just burn ranking for rewards
What sucks is consistently having 30+ lands in a Brawl deck and then consistently not pulling land or mana dorks 7 turns in. Meanwhile on other platforms the same deck pulls land consistently.
Me and my buddy did a match on arena and I milled him for 20 cards and like 14 cards in a row were straight lands and he was getting land fucked the entire game before that.
The shuffler is massively fucked, you'll have some games where you draw 7 cards with no lands, or draw 7 cards and only get lands.
People tey to say "it's supposed to be like that, that's what random means when you shuffle". Piss off, everyone manaweaves their decks and than shuffles from that point on so at most you get 2-3 lands in a row and actually enjoy playing the game
I've been extremely frustrated with this for some time now. i thought maybe i was just imagining it.
i barely built a mono red deck that i only get to face mono red with, it's pretty miserable.
I’m pretty much brand new to mtg and arena. I’ve noticed this significantly. In the speed draft I know I’ve not drafted well but I always eke out a very decisive win and get destroyed on 3 other rounds. Too small a sample to know for certain on my own results
i've seen this too. I built a whole deck to beat half the meta and never play those games in the meta