MtG:PQ Q&A Session - December 2024

Hey, everyone!

January has been quite a busy month, and this impacted the answers from being published in the usual timeframe. We'll do our best to bring the questions from January in the expected time.

As always, thanks for your contributions. And submit your questions for the next edition through our form.

Lu

1. Is there any possibility in the future of the game being rebuilt from the ground up? It seems as though most of the issues with bugs stem from being built on top of an old problematic foundation.

   Answer: This is not our plan mostly because it would require keeping the game down for a long time, while we built it up from scratch. Right now we are focusing on improving and refactoring the game part by part. This is a harder path and takes longer too, but we believe the final product will be as good as a full reset would, with the upside of keeping the game up this whole time.

2. An idea for spending runes: the ability to "rent" Planeswalkers in the shop that you can use inside of Quick Battles only, so that you can try before you buy.

   Answer: Runes are currently scarce for new players but also do not have a great end-game utility for the more advanced players. This is one of the reasons why Runes (and all currencies) are being revised as a whole. Creating new uses for them is definitely one of the aspects we consider and trying new PWs is a nice idea at that!

3. What's the deal with life loss and damage? Some cards treat them as the same thing and some don't. Prevent damage for example used to prevent both but was updated to only prevent damage but effects that reduce damage still affect damage and life loss. Usually your Planeswalker's damage stays with it but life loss is reversed after the match is over but in Story when you're doing the Origins fights and learning the game you don't recover from life loss after the match. There's also cards that say they trigger off of either life loss or damage and only trigger off what they say they do and others that only mention one but trigger off of both. The most well known example of this being Fire Servant which says it triggers off of damage yet still triggers off life loss so it get used with Peer into the Abyss. Are they supposed to be two completely different things or when is there supposed to be overlap?

   Answer: Those are independent concepts and should not overlap. In MtG:PQ, events that trigger with life loss should not trigger when damage is done, and vice versa. If an effect triggers on both, it should mention both effects on its description. Also, Prevent Damage should only prevent Damage effects, not life loss effects. Any discrepancies on this should be verified and corrected.
   It’s always good to remember that this differs from paper MtG rules. Even if our cards and effect flavors are based on paper cards, rules are completely separated so concepts with the same name are not expected to work in the same way.

4. Triple packs say their odds are like triple the normal ones. That's not how math works! How the packs ACTUALLY work?

   Answer: The odds presented in the Store menu are not the average distribution of cards but the chances that at least one card of that rarity is opened. This way, triple packs almost triple the chance for Masterpieces, but the math is different for the other rarities.
   The odds presented in the Store menu are not the average distribution of cards but the chances that at least one card of that rarity is opened. This is calculated by measuring the chance of a certain rarity NOT being opened, then inverting it. For example, if the chance of opening an Uncommon card in a certain slot is 91.58%, the chance of NOT opening a Uncommon in 5 cards (one pack) is 8.42% x 8.42% x 8.42% x 8.42% x 8.42% = 0.00042%. This way, the displayed probability of opening a Common is 100% - 0.00042% = 99.958%