Webcore Q&A Session - October 2023 (ANSWERS POSTED - 11/17/2023)

Magic:PQ Support Team

MtG:PQ Q&A Session - October 2023

Hey, everyone!

Thank you for all of your questions this past month. Our team had a blast answering them! It was great noticing we are on the same page about many plans - but no spoilers! Let’s dive right into it.

Lu

---

1. Will you consider introducing new ways to use Mana Crystals?

Answer: We do not have anything solid to share at this point in time regarding the potential uses for Mana Crystals. As we are brainstorming new feature designs to implement into the game, some twists into use of existing mechanics are being brought into discussion and we’ll love to share our plans when they are more concrete.

2. What do you think of this as an exchange: trade 1 million runes for 50 crystals?

Answer: Thanks for bringing this suggestion. We understand that the current state of Mana Rune is not ideal and not new, as it was inherited with the game. This is one of the major points we have been discussing internally. While this proposed rate would not generate an exploitable situation, it would not be a solution that would work for the majority of players. We want to bring new positive ways to bring uses to mana runes that do not compromise the health of the game, while still being accessible to a large portion of the community.

3. Hello! Are you planning to introduce some different new game mode such as a real sealed event (like the one that has always existed in physical MTG or magic arena), not this strange jumpstart that the previous developers did. Or some other type of event where, for example, the event ends once an objective is arrived and you do not always have to take all the lives of the opponent (this would create a different type of decks than what we have done for so many years), or even events where it is mandatory to play only with a single mythical/MP and a single rare (or 2 rares) for example...
   P.S.: It would be interesting to add additional filters when searching for cards, such as filtering by strength, toughness (some cards/skills require a specific value and searching one by one is very slow), cards that contain one word but not another, monocolor...
   Greetings and good luck with this new project

Answer: Hello, and thank you for your time to write to us! While we want to bring many new takes into existing concepts and bring new experiences altogether, many of which could draw some parallels and inspiration from tabletop Magic, we are also looking into making the game accessible to newer players. While the tabletop is a rich experience that entices generations of players, it can also feel really complex to some, and we want to make sure that newcoming players do not feel the need of having previous experience with those dynamics to feel included.
We believe that Magic: Puzzle Quest has a lot to offer in terms of unique and enticing event experiences that are yet to be tapped into. We just need a few more turns to play the right cards.

4. Are you guys planning on giving us the option to craft from specific legacy sets, like was being planned before the handover? I think if we're going to see more legacy events in the future you should at least give us newer players the ability to hunt down our legacy chase cards at better than ~1/1000+ odds

Answer: Short answer: YES, we intend to bring Legacy Crafting into the game.
Long answer: Our plan is to make Legacy Crafting available. It is very close to the top of our list of features we want to implement or revise, but it needs to be inserted into the development cycle of the upcoming sets without compromising their quality. Another recurring topic which is also being worked in is the Ranking System. We wish to bring you news about it as soon as our efforts in the qualities of the new releases allow us to.

5. The MtG tabletop paper game doesn't offer a Blue-Black-Green Planeswalker, and only one Red-Green-Black walker (Lord Windgrace).
   Would you be willing to create Planeswalkers that are not available in paper form, like the PMA walkers, if they make sense?

Answer: The creation of entirely new Planeswalker is something that, while possible, can only occur on exceptional occasions, previously approved by Wizards of the Coast, in order to not compromise the integrity of some of the carefully crafted characters. That being said, it’s not entirely out of the table, and might happen when the timing is just right, to shake the rules a little bit and bring some fresh new mana to the game.

6. Do you have any leeway in regards to the color pie that you can port a Planeswalker in from WotC's original design? For example, Ashiok Wicked Manipulator. Were you only allowed to keep them mono-black, or could you theoretically have made them dual-color if you wanted to? I understand that it's not as important in the paper game to have different colors, but since the game is designed the way it is, it would be great to have Planeswalkers with more unique color combos for new play styles.

Answer: We understand that Planeswalkers having more colors gives access to more cards to be used with them, but that stretch can’t be made lightly. As we create new content for the game, we keep in mind that monocolored Planeswalkers should be entertaining on their own and we aim that their unique abilities compensate for the fewer cards options. Also, there are still plenty of planeswalkers that have yet to join the ranks of Magic: Puzzle Quest so expect some new additions in the near future.

7. Wizards of the Coast has recently changed their stance regarding the number of planeswalkers in a set. Previously the average number was three, but starting from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan the usual amount will be one. Also, to fit most decks, these will often be mono-colored planeswalkers.
   How do you see this change affecting Magic: Puzzle Quest, where new multi-color planeswalkers are likely popular purchases.

Answer: Ah, yes, the Desparking! This key event affected our take on Planeswalkers, but we still have over a hundred planeswalkers that have not yet crossed the Blind Eternities from already released sets into Magic: Puzzle Quest. This way, you should expect to see more Planeswalkers from older sets alongside the new ones. This mix will guarantee there will still be a healthy amount of Planeswalkers being released in every set for a few years to come. About their colors… we know the players like multi-colored ones and we’ll bring a few of those sooner than you think.

8. Have you considered including Vanguards into the craftable card pool and/or as part of the cards that you can pull from non duplicate packs? If not, why? What's so special about those cards that makes them impossible to obtain in those 2 ways? Their paper counterpart, Planeswalkers, are 100% obtainable from regular packs.

Answer: We did study the possibility of having Vanguard cards accessible through other methods, but this change would not harmonize with the gameflow path we have in mind for players. Vanguard cards have an inherent complexity and power levels, and we visualize a path where players will seek these as they begin mastering game concepts and are moving towards taking their game into the next level. We are still touching up on the finer details, but we want to make sure that the path feels organic and coherent. We’ll speak more regarding this vision at a future date.

9. It seems that the Elite Packs have been all over the place lately. Are you planning on bringing that back to a regularly scheduled weekly rotation? Also, will you be reviewing and considering bringing more Legacy Elite Packs to the vault? There is only 1 Legacy EP weekly currently and it takes a long time for these older cards to become available to the community. For example, M19 has been offered 0x in 2023 and only 1x in 2022. Whereas Kaladesh has been offered 3x in 2023 and 3x in 2022. Do you plan on addressing irregularities like that with Elite Packs? Thanks!

Answer: First of all, thank you for taking the time to put together the historical information to complement your question. Those are very good points, and we agree that this distribution of product needs to be rotated in more effective ways that make content available to players. We are still working into the fine tuning of this process to ensure a healthy balance of Standard and Legacy content to the store.

10. A much asked change to this game is how rare Vanguards can be acquired. Many players would like to see something changed, like you did with the PMA cards. Packs where rare Vanguards can be acquired as a non-dupe, without the gambling aspect to it. Keep the current pack as it is for people that like to gamble for a mythic, but also add a pack for people that don't want to waste precious resources on dupe cards. Maybe up the price a bit, say 300 gold, for a non-dupe rare Vanguard with also a 0% chance of getting a mythic (for example).

Answer: That kind of pack would have an important (and probably damaging) impact on the economy of the game if it were widely available to purchase. Still, we will think about the implications of implementing something like this in a healthy way, but no promises, OK?

11. Can legacy events be reviewed to match what we see in standard? I love we are seeing some old events again, but I would ask if rewards, charge time, and even the partial objective points be updated in those events. Those QOL updates in standard are amazing.

Answer: Yes, we intend to review the legacy events. These changes are part of larger plans to update existing events, and are currently being discussed. The event charges system, specifically, was the central topic of the discussions recently, as we would like to have it adapted to allow a better event experience for players across all timezones. Regarding the event rewards, discussions are a bit more advanced on how to better adjust event rewards to resonate with the upcoming rework of events and rankings.

12. Can we please get the latest set packs as rewards for daily events? The daily rewards and events are still all showing the last set. We would really like to start increasing our collection.

Answer: The new events will reward in the latest set, and most of the events that were tied to the last set should be changing soon to the newest set.
Regarding the daily rewards: For Halloween, we wanted to bring a treat and unique experience to all players spending this time with us, by awarding all the community with a Super Pack. Since the 6.3.1 patch, the regular daily rewards structure has been updated to include Wilds of Eldraine as rewards.

13. Would you be willing to post publicly (here) what your priority list (plan, doing ,done) is, and update it periodically?

Answer: We really want share the long list of upcoming new features, revisions and plans of what’s coming to the game with you all, but we believe that we are not at the point to share these yet, for a very simple reason: We are still refining existing processes, implementing new internal tools, and the timeline of some of these are changing often, either because something is taking longer to implement due to complexity or requirements that are relevant at a future point in the process, or because sometimes this process is moving faster than expected. What we can say now is that the list is long, but not quite ready to be shared yet.

14. Cards that enter play ("permanents”) with Outcast are still exiled at the end of turn, this should only happen to cards in hand, possibly also in graveyards. Can you give us an idea on the timeframe of this fix?

Answer: The Outcast mechanic should not be exiling cards that are in play at the end of the turn after being played. This is already being addressed, and a fix should be available by the next update following the release of version 6.4.0.

15. What is the reason you changed some of the objectives for the Tour de Ravnica event? I mean, the second encounter is Selesnya which is all about creating tokens. One of the objectives was about token creation. The new objectives are not related to Selesnya in any way.

Answer: Thank you for bringing this point to our attention. The revision of older events is currently still an ongoing process. There are still small tweaks that need to be performed, and lore oriented points such as this are as important to the revision process as other functionality elements.

16. Why do you keep adding full art cards to older sets when releasing a new set?

Answer: The full art cards implemented with the launch of version 6.3.0 that were not included in Magic: Puzzle Quest’s version of the Wilds of Eldraine were part of the Enchanting Tales sub set. These were added due to the tie-in with the main set, to add a new spin into existing cards that might either not be included into the main set, or were already previously released into Magic: Puzzle Quest.
This is mainly the point of the FBLTHP event. Basically, we do it because we think the players like having pretty cards with exclusive full arts of cards they already own.

17. Has the shuffler been reviewed since you have taken over? In one of the previous changes from the last developers we have seen a huge increase in seeing the same card over and over and it appears the randomization is off.

Answer: After operations transitioned to us, our development team checked the shuffler structure, and we could not find any evidence that pointed towards unbalanced or “rigged” results. It is important to keep in mind that many in-game effects can affect the cards present in the libraries during the course of a match, and thus, altering the odds of drawing (or not drawing) a specific card. Also, just to make it clear, no changes were made to the shuffler structure during this analysis.
For each exceptional top deck, there is an equally impressive dead draw that is possible.

18. Are there any plans to revamp the Planeswalker selection screen? The way it works now is completely out of date. All the Planeswalkers that have been added since the game was created means that it takes far too long to select PWs that are further down the alphabetical order. Do you have any good ideas to make selecting the Planeswalker we want easier?

Answer: The revision of both the planeswalker and card search functions is part of our UI revision efforts. We agree that both these functionalities could receive some new QoL improvements. As mentioned above with the question regarding the Legacy crafting, these features need to be inserted into the development cycle of the release of the upcoming sets without compromising the quality of either effort.

---

Hello, everyone!

Hope you are all well.

Here's another Q&A SESSION.
You can send your questions through this link and we'll answer here the ones sent up to October 31st.

This is the same link as previous month because this form with remain open continuously, so you can keep sending questions even if there is not an official post 'open'.

If you have more than one question on different topics, submit them separately.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Lu

DAllofAbove

What are your thoughts on revamping the shuffler? Is it accurate it is a 40 card deck of 4 of each card that cycles when a card falls below 40, or..?

Sarah

Asking again since you skipped this question in September:

Something that frustrates a lot of players is the disappointing rankings after dropping a few points—there are so many perfect scores that they often take up the first hundred or so places in PVP events.

Most of these events (and their rewards) were originally designed for pools of 300 players compared to the pools of 3000 players these days.

Will you consider either narrowing the competition AND/OR increasing the rewards to better reflect the time & effort players give to the game?

Machine

@Magic:PQ Support Team : when can we expect the answers to the October questions? It's almost half November...

BongoTheGrey

@Magic:PQ Support Team Can we expect an answer for October's questions or should we resubmit them in November?

Opperstamper

@BongoTheGrey said:
@Magic:PQ Support Team Can we expect an answer for October's questions or should we resubmit them in November?

I was wondering this too. With the constant changing coalition events, the ups and downs of the PMA boosters and the whole Deploy debacle, the level of communication that Webcore started with (not even 2 months ago) has been rapidly decreasing.

How can we stay interested if the feeling doesn't appear mutual?

Killroy

Myself, as well as many players, are looking forward to the revamp/rebuild of the Outcast mechanic. Thank you in advance for addressing this issue.

Raistlin0309

Outcast getting fixed = wahoo!! Had to pull a lot of cards out if previously established decks due to the permanents exiting. Will be nice when it is working properly again.

Now, the shuffle issue is another story. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of players that have documented these issues. My first 8 cards shouldn't be 4 of one and 4 of another. It gets VERY frustrating. And it seems to happen A LOT. We're talking like 50% of the time. We all realize there are bound to be times like this with completely random odds, but that is not what we have been seeing.

Overall, your answers are great and all of the work you are putting in Webcore is highly appreciated by most of the community. Keep up the great work!!

ArielSira

I just wanted to say I appreciate the time you guys take to answer these questions. But especially explaining the reasoning behind certain choices.

ertaii

I'm feeling very frustrated on your answer on crafting vanguards. While I understand that you want to keep standard vanguards an exception, legacy vanguards, especially WAR vanguards should really be available through more deterministic way. I hope you'll consider it.

Tremayne

Thank you for an impressively large number of answers to this month Q&A.

I don’t recall having seen so many questions answered in one go. Now it is understandable why you needed some extra time to post the answers.

Regarding answer 2 - I will not be surprised if you will encounter problems (like angry players) when trying to fix the mana rune issue. Because the problem has been allowed to grow so big (as I expect it is), by the previous developers. I am sure any solution that caters to veteran players with millions and millions of mana runes would wreak the in game economy. I am one of those players and I would like to suggest that you find a general solution for the average players (I’m assuming that the average player does not have more than a few hundred thousands of mana runes at most) and then decide on a compensation for the special case, which is doable without ruining your earnings or the in-game economy.

I could suggest something but I have no substantial insight into what would be a workable solution. Right now, mana runes are next to useless for me and I guess a reset of my runes is a given, but since runes are useless anyways, I don’t expect to be that bothered - as long as I get a proper warning on changes to come, so I can use my runes wisely.

I admit freely that I’m keeping my stash exceptionally large, because I have previously seen extremely favourable conversions, which I have benefited tremendously from, and should that occur again I do not want to miss out. (I have also seen the problems to the in-game economy and I do not wish the game destroyed on me gaining another windfall).

ertaii

@treymane they could give us something totally useless but that allows veterans to show off in the game while not getting any advantage: such as alternate arts for some walkers or alternate art / full art for legacy cards, given that we already own them walkers/cards. And that would be quite cheap to implement too: no new game mechanics, apart from the "store" system.

NickBKK

Dev, what’s happening with ATV duration and recharge this weekend is completely the opposite of your QoL answer in Q&A No.11. Is it deliberate or an error?

Machine

@NickBKK said:
Dev, what’s happening with ATV duration and recharge this weekend is completely the opposite of your answer in Q&A No.11. Is it deliberate or an error?

Fully agree here @Magic:PQ Support Team . No coalition event should run through on Monday. You've postponed this event so many times, and now that it is running, it runs for far too long. Please reconsider changing the duration to match the standard events. That would be a use QoL improvement for everyone, whether they like to play ATV or not.

ertaii

We all agree on that point. The old charge patterns forces upon player last matches in the middle of the night. It's bad on weekends, it's even worse on weekdays! I assume it was an unintended change in your side, please communicate about what you are going to do about it.