I should actually ask "What 'Quality of Life' improvements do people realistically hope for in the AER update?"

Cross-platform, real chat & matching-making, in-game tournaments, single card purchases, etc. are likely off the table and likely reserved for some other money-making product.

The last update brought the cute, but mostly useless (on gameplay), full art lands and card sleeves.

This upcoming update I really hoping Wizards do something to fix the awful Deck Builder. Since something needs to be done to enable addressing of more than 1024 cards and the AER expansion will break that number for total card pool size, I think this update should bring something new to facilitate deck building. How much? Who knows?

Anything else people are hoping for?

Interesting! Tell me more about that.

Like you, I'm hoping for a more refined deck builder.

If I recall correctly they said they where working on improving the search feature and it should be ready for AER, so hopefully that works out and becomes true.
I'm also still hoping for chat on the steam version, which certainly isn't out of the question given it was a thing before.

Besides a better deckbuilder, i think we will get the official Aether Revolt sleeve cardbacks and perhaps some new cardbacks for the "premium" category.

Also i think that playmats are not out of question, but with playmats is see a problem with the visual apperance of cards on the battlefield.

I still hope for more features because:
Fact 1: the timespan between KLD and AER was longer than between EMN and KLD (= more time for development)
Fact 2: AER is a smaller set, so less cards to code (=more time for development)
Fact 3: no difficult mechanics to implement in AER

Because of that reasons, it would be a disappointment when the give us only the new set and new sleeves. Even a new deckbuildertool (which was already on their agenda) could not be so timeconsuming. I think we will get the insightvideo in the next seven days and they will start perhaps today with a card spoiler (because of ther facebook announcement).

Really.. just matchmaking for Xbone. I don't see any other flaws as severe as that one. There's no super busted bugged cards to my knowledge, and the deck builder.. while clunky.. works.

Realistically hoping for? I would only hope for things that used to work before and theoretically shouldn't be too hard to roll back, like the Firebird crashing the game when attacking PWs and Xbox stream freezing at the loading screen after 2-3 matches.

More than that would be setting myself up for disappointment. A deck builder that isn't a pain in the dick to use would be nice. At least let it filter Planeswalkers now that we have over a dozen of them.

For Xbone users to get their platform working correctly, and the PW related card bugs (Firebird, UD, Garrison etc) to be fixed. New features other than MAYBE an improved deck builder seem like wishful thinking.

What I'm hoping for: Xbox connectivity the bugs mentioned above, chat for steam (a pipe dream but a guy can wish)

What we'll get: New card sleeves

It would be nice if Two Headed Giant was a little more stable.

Beyond that I would like to see more card and feature bug-fixes. Once all the old cards and features are working properly then I will care more about new features & quality of life stuff.

I would also like them to optimize loading into the card library, it takes longer and longer with each expansion especially on ios.

I read the thread title and my head was instantly full of ideas and I was ready to write a book here... then I saw you meant REALISTICALLY hope for.

Realistically hope for improvements to Duels? From Stainless?

lol

my memory isn't the best but are matchmaking issues for Duels on Xbox new to this iteration or was this a problem with Duels 2015? I can't remember.

If it is, I'd put Magic 2015 at the top of my "to buy" list for my Xbox for when I'm not broke.

A legend rank similar to Hearthstone for players after they hit rank 40, and a better deckbuilder (again, similar to Hearthstone, where you can simply search for all cards with a particular keyword).

Better match making and a higher ranking system (ideally all the way to 100) to give top players something to chase.

Its an issue related to the Bone.. not any particular game.. to my knowledge.

I'd be down with a rank 100 or whatever.. anything that gives me a goal to achieve.

nono I know beast, I'm trying to remember if the Xbox version of Duels 2015 had issues with matchmaking or is this totally new to this edition of Duels. Cuz I'm not having matchmaking issues on xbox with any other game other than Duels.

I also like the idea of rank 100, I'd play a heck of a lot more and can you imagine how refined builds would be by the time you take decks to rank 100?

On the 360.. Duels 2015 had no matckmaking issues to my recollection.

Rank 100 would mostly be populated by the numerous cheaters...

There is only one cheater I really know about and I've never actually matched with him, so I think this concern is overstated.

I know other kind of cheaters, the ones that (supposedly) make both players win the game before you look at your hand. I think this is how it works, otherwise it has no sense. I know they are more than 1, but i'm sure only about one name.