Q&A with Oktagon - January Edition (2/1/18)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

We know that many of you have been waiting for the January Q&A Session, and we want to thank everyone for being so patient. For those that are also looking forward to the blog post, please note that we are in the final stages of releasing that content, and we plan on posting its chapters incrementally starting next week.

For now though, we hope that you enjoy the answers that Designer Pedro Rauiz and Producer Arthur Fukushima put together, as teasers for the upcoming Ixalan blog post!
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Is it possible to make Masterpiece Boosters award a non-duplicate card?
For now, a couple of things will change regarding the newly-named Elite Collection (the name change will be explained in the upcoming developer blog post for Ixalan):

• We’ve adjusted the drop rates and card pool for the Elite Packs in Ixalan.
• This means that you should have a much lower chance of getting a duplicate from your Elite Packs, and opening them will get you right on the way to becoming a resident, if not the mayor, of Valuetown!
• Finally, new bundles will almost always contain some accompanying Mana Jewels with them.

We believe that these changes, coupled with the slightly increased earning rate of Mana Jewels, should make for a more enjoyable experience overall. We will continue to keep a close eye on the Elite Collection/Mana Jewel situation, and will be making further adjustments as we move forward.

Are there any details you can reveal about your plans for expanding Story mode?
Currently, all we can tell you is that it won’t be an expansion of the current Story Mode per se, but more like a new way of incorporating the rich world and lore of Magic the Gathering into your gameplay experience (rewards included). We are all very excited about this idea here, however, our current priority is closing the gap between our set releases and MtG’s.

What are your plans for Events in the future?
Oh… Events… So much to say, so little time.

We are very excited about the new events in Ixalan (You can check them out in the upcoming blog post about Ixalan’s Events),and we will continue to incorporate what is unique about each Plane into our Event Design. Hopefully, this will help make events a lot more interesting and push you to find new and interesting ways to play the game.

Also, a quick note on older sets and events: If you enjoy these new events and would like to see our take on older sets, make yourselves heard in the forums and we’ll be listening.

Finally, just a quick comment on the Color Mastery issue. We understand that it isn’t an ideal solution for ranking, and we’re studying possible changes, however, once again, our priority right now is to catch up to tabletop Magic’s set releases, while making Events more attractive and interesting for all players.

Are there any plans to make Deck Slots more accessible to players?
Yes, there will be. In fact, you will be able to check out the new prices in the upcoming Blog Post regarding Ixalan’s Planeswalkers.

Are there any plans to improve the game so that it doesn’t drain battery life so much?
We understand this can be frustrating to users and we are currently working on a system that will lower the amount of data downloaded as you play the game. This is one of the main culprits that causes the battery drain issue and the future fix will show improvements.

Does Oktagon have any other plans of interacting with the community, beyond the monthly Q&A?
Right now, we are all working very hard to catch up with tabletop Magic’s set releases and we are very excited to work on MTG PQ. Moving forward, however, we’ll try to be as communicative as possible. While forum activity might not be possible on a regular basis, we are most definitely open to writing blog posts, or even put out some videos explaining new releases!  Please provide feedback once the blog posts are live.

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We hope you enjoyed the January 2018 Q&A Session! Keep an eye out for the Ixalan blog post coming out next week, and as always, thank you for playing Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest!