Glad you enjoyed it, I've had a real urge to play it the last few weeks but haven't been able to access Duals deck was such a blast to play though

It still is! I promise

I see everyone is complying to the nda...

I'm just wondering about first impressions, but I guess nobody's gonna share and risk getting excluded.

If you watched the streams, it's really the same.
Usual issues that you could expect in an alpha build.
Nothing worthwhile to be talking about, as it was all pre-con decks.
Only talking about economy would be the real NDA breach, and still too few information to crack any math atm.

I wouldn't even have put NDA if I had been in them.

I've enjoyed it, played to the last minute. They've started with just two decks, but then unlocked a whole bunch more midway, including some that weren't shown on streams. I've also ran into Legend and Ninja4Hanzo :-)

For those who didn't get in this time, they've also sent out a followup email, saying they are going to do the same stress test every Sunday starting Nov 12th! Hopefully you guys get more lucky then.

Are you guys allowed to talk about how the games feels?

Quite a bit different to Duels. Probably about as much as we could say, but I didn't have as many complaints about the interface as I thought I would after use.

I don’t mind different. I just want it to feel fun and like Magic. All the Duels games have had that. I like being able to think and stuff.

As an example, I really like poker but not all poker games are fun or feel like poker.

It’s fun all right!

Browsing their forum now, and man, there’s stuff that feels more confidential than anything I saw in the game. Nothing too sensational though, just some insight into past playtesting.

I like duels interface more tbh, but i guess i have to try it more.

I too have some gripes about the interface. I’m sure MTGO players don’t mind, but some aspects were living hell for me. I hope they will listen to feedback after the beta starts.

Is Elvish Piper in? I need it for research on how to cast Eldrazi turn 1 !!!

Just go mod DotP 2014.

He already hacked the hell out of it! There’s video proof! That’s a notorious hacker you’re talking to. Now he wants to make Arena players miserable as well

Hackers oughta share so we can try out, then.
If WotC can't handle hackers this time around and the product can be tampered with, the title can't survive.
Duels provided a free experience, Arena is something else.

QFT.

They should invite 1wcbq or whatever the name is, and let him try and manipulate whatever he does.

Step 1: try and make it as tamper-proof as possible.
Step 2: serious enforcement with perma-bans for ****. (a derogatory term for the lowlife mucus-eating scum-sucking cheating bitches of the world)

1cbwqh was the stupidest kind of a hacker possible: a CheatEngine one. Using that software, it takes about 10 minutes to find the location that holds a known value, such as X for the X mana cost spells. Not rocket science, to put it mildly. That guy was more about annoying people and feeling important than hacking.

All Wizards need to do to prevent this kind of hacks is to pay for and run anticheat software. The question is: do they even need it. Duels were point-to-point, Arena seems to be client-server. If the protocol is designed properly, you can't cheat the server.

I don't think he could get away from it on arena tbh, On Duels it wasn't a case of him not being caught (WOTC knew he existed and even commentated about him a couple of times IIRC) It was that they and stainless/steam just didn't give a **** and didn't throw out any punishments.

True, if Arena wants to be a good and community wide product moving forward; then they need to add some kind of protection, and be serious about it.

Check your mails for the November 12th Playtest invites!

Stress Test players should all receive it, plus waitlisted priority users and maybe some more.

From 9am PT November 12th, to 9am PT November 13th.