Q&A w/ Oktagon - December Edition (1/28/19)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

We hope everyone is having a great new year so far! With the holiday break and the recent 3.2 update, the team had their hands pretty full and haven't been able to address the December Q&A until recently. Having said that though, they still wanted to try and get a few short but sweet answers out to the community, so we hope you enjoy the following Q&A session!

We want to give a big thank you to the 3 Oktagon team members that took the time to review and answer all of these questions: Alain Valchera, Matheus Funfas, and Pedro Rauiz!
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Gameplay

Are there any plans for a stable set of comprehensive rules to be written and put into place for MtGPQ?
The "Pro Mode" plans, currently in concept phase, include several rules and guideline updates, along with revised articles accessible through the Help Center. A few other aspects also need work before such a mode is put in place though, such as card texts from older sets not describing the correct effect or differing from standard writing, and some system updates needed to detain loops and balance effects.

Speaking of balance, how does your team balance card strength between different colors?
On color distribution and balancing, we have a few formulas in place (such as we do for building each card), and we keep track of how the interplay between each color is working under the game restrictions, while maintaining their color identity. They do need some tweaking from time to time and manual adjustments, based on the way we can adapt the original effect from the paper version to the game's infrastructure, and due to Magic: the Gathering's own variety of effects set by set. Some of several cards in review from MtGPQ's earlier days are on that list precisely because they break the balance in some way by being either weaker or stronger than a card of that color should.

Events

Is there a plan to adjust the Duel Deck format to disincentivize consecutive victories by a single side?
We're working on that. The changes for the Duel Decks EvZ event still need implementation and testing, and should be available in the near future.

Can we expect to see new Coalition events in the future?
Certainly, though it should take a while given our packed scheduled with Allegiance and the upcoming War of the Spark. But we can announce that upon the release of 3.2, we will schedule the former Battle of Four Tribes event as a 2 part event with reworked encounters and rewards, along with the return of The Dragon War event.

Coalition

Are there any plans to upgrade the Coalition interface? Coalition page, rules, etc?
We have plans for a Coalition interface update, along with the addition of more interactive systems, which should allow new game modes and options for Coalition players and friends. Those changes are tied to the Player Profile improvements road-map and Seasons content, so we'll be able to detail them a little bit more in a future blog post later this semester.
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Thanks for checking out the December Edition of the Q&A w/ Oktagon. With January almost over, we plan on rolling the January questions into February to make up for any lost time, so if you have questions you'd like to ask them for the combined January & February Edition, then please submit them HERE