Magic: The Gathering’s parent company Hasbro is testing a video game version of Commander, which may be released separately to the existing digital game MTG Arena. According to the toymaker boss, Arena has some serious missed potential, failing to tap into Magic’s biggest format, as well as the card game’s ‘collectibility’. This was revealed in a recent interview with CEO Chris Cocks, published by Bloomberg on November 20.
The multiplayer MTG format of Commander has become the most popular way to play Magic: The Gathering, dwarfing other paper formats, so it makes sense that Hasbro would be eyeing up a digital version. Indeed, this has been on the cards for months, as Cocks told investors in an earnings call in April that he wanted to bring Commander to Arena. However, this is the first sign that Hasbro is planning a brand new game for the format.
At first glance, there are obvious advantages to bringing the Magic: the Gathering Commander format to Magic Arena rather than starting anew. Arena already has an established playerbase, working ecosystem, and – perhaps most importantly – thousands of cards programmed in. As an eternal format, Commander has a cardpool of more than 20,000 playable cards. Implementing just a fraction of that is going to be a serious headache, especially if the devs are starting from scratch.
On the other hand, since MTG Arena was not designed to host matches with more than two players, adding EDH to the game would require some serious changes. A new client, transformations to the UI, and a more robust engine are the sort of things we’d guess would be needed. Plus, many cards that are already programmed into the game would likely have to be completely remade anyway, to allow them to function with four players: Arena may not be a good foundation to build upon after all.
This notion of improving ‘collectibility’ on Arena to catch up with paper Magic is also something Cocks raised back in April. At the time, we weren’t quite sure what he meant, but to Bloomberg he’s now given an example of a game he thinks has done it better: Marvel Snap.
We’d guess he’s talking about placing greater emphasis on alternate card styles and art, then. Marvel Snap not only has loads of cool variants of various heroes and villains, it also has a function which lets you ‘upgrade’ cards, making them shinier, break out of their frames, animate slightly (it’s more of a wobble), and so on.
MTG Arena has alternate art styles and fun card treatments just like paper Magic. However, this isn’t exactly the best-implemented or best-presented feature in the game. It’s quite hard to even figure out how to unlock card styles on Arena, and they’re simply purchased with in-game currency: providing none of the addictive, dopamine-releasing feelings of luck or progression which are so valuable for online TCGs.
It’s been seven months since Cocks last said this was a focus, and we’ve not seen much change since, but now he’s reaffirmed it, we wonder if Arena will shift in that direction and what might be coming. Could it mean the advent of expensive Collector Boosters on Arena? A more interesting way of upgrading cards? Perhaps Wizards will start making detailed animations again, but make them an unlockable feature you can strive for, rather than something that’s enabled by default.
Cocks also says Hasbro’s working on a DnD game, but gives precisely zero details about it. It’s gotta be tough being the follow-up act to Baldur’s Gate 3, that’s for sure.
For more content, check out our guide to the best MTG Arena decks, and all MTG sets in order.
Source: Wargamer
