Magic the Gathering Arena

[ind33d]

What if you exploited a bug and made a deck that was unbeatable? What would the algorithms and equitable distribution algorithms do to you? Like, what's the maximum thing they could do to rig your match and force a loss? Purposely disconnect you, reject your decklist, force all of your hands to be lands until you're back at 50% WR? Send the Pinkertons to break your kneecaps?

Literally the second I was on a hot streak on MTGO and made some cash (infinite for a whole season), suddenly my board states would never hold up even when the opponent was Go Blanked with no hand and had only one or two outs

 

[lukaszek]

What if you exploited a bug and made a deck that was unbeatable?

yes, people already shared decks exploiting those.
I have edited my jank brawl decks too. And deleted others. For example it was easy to get my tezz under 1k, while inniaz had to be deleted as its honestly jank and for whatever reason is worth 720 points alone.

Sub hell queue is basically brain dead copy paste decks of the week.

 

[spectre]

What if you exploited a bug and made a deck that was unbeatable? What would the algorithms and equitable distribution algorithms do to you? Like, what's the maximum thing they could do to rig your match and force a loss? Purposely disconnect you, reject your decklist, force all of your hands to be lands until you're back at 50% WR? Send the Pinkertons to break your kneecaps?

They will rig the shuffler to force a mulligan to three. Then the opponent will just concede because their nan asked them to peel them taters, leaving the algo with no other option than freeze your client so the win never registers and you get a draw.

Ain't all this shit overly dramatic? Other than an easier time hitting the dailies, there's nothing you can "win" in play queue anyway by gaming the system.
So you get to enjoy that unless they decide to tweak the weights or straight up ban some shit.
As far as I'm concerned, they can do whatever in unranked. From what I've been reading over the years, that's pretty much what the casuals have been clamoring for - pair my jank with other jank.

 

[lukaszek]

As far as I'm concerned, they can do whatever in unranked. From what I've been reading over the years, that's pretty much what the casuals have been clamoring for - pair my jank with other jank.

issue is that weights make little sense. There was a suspicion that those weights are same for all formats.
And then we did receive odd confirmation - there are weights for constructed and limited. Meaning that they must be doing some shady shit in drafts after all!

This is typical for them, hide the issue without fixing it. Weights on their own are fine, having historic weights in brawl is not. Example:

this gobo pirate is worth 5 times this:

It was also confirmed that they do not refresh those weights in automatic manner, not in 2 weeks time at least

 

[spectre]

issue is that weights make little sense. There was a suspicion that those weights are same for all formats.
And then we did receive odd confirmation - there are weights for constructed and limited. Meaning that they must be doing some shady shit in drafts after all!

Well, the shady shit in draft is probably just which cards the bots will pick. Unfortunately, when it gets worked out, people will game the everloving shit out of it.
And it gets worked out sooner or later, one way or another. No way around it, the bots need to follow some sort of logic. Only solution is if they change it up every now and then,
perhaps they do, but it feels like doing actual work so nah.

This is typical for them, hide the issue without fixing it.

I reckon their biggest problem is that people were able to mine the values, leading to a whole lot of "well ackshually this makes no sense" which I imagine they were
trying to avoid. It's been their long standing policy - keep it hush hush, unless someone complains, there's no problem... and tbh that's exactly what I would have done were I tasked to manage this shit.

Weights on their own are fine, having historic weights in brawl is not. this gobo pirate is worth 5 times this:

The other card didn't load, but even then, I blame laziness. They'd have to have a dedicated team work out a weighing system,
splitting hairs about individual scores for different formats... like, you really see this happening? And a lot of folks would still bitch about it.
So again, if I were tasked with this shit, I'd adapt some simple heuristic, like scrub data from drafts, adjust for competitive playlists and popularity of usage,
adjust with a flat + or minus for stuff casuals hate (discard, counters, removal), there you go, fuck off to play some CS.
Best keep it hidden, as long as it works... it works. And even then, we don't know what the actual objective of this weight system is.
Perhaps it's doing the thing they want it to do.

 

[lukaszek]

The other card didn't load, but even then, I blame laziness

other card is paradox engine, the 'I win button' of many decks that for whatever reason was not banned.

 

[anvi]

Why are there not more MTG rip offs? Just change the names and artwork and tweak the rules to not suck. I've tried a few other "CCGs" and they seem small and weak. I bet AI could help design and make one of these games in no time.

 

[spectre]

The other card didn't load, but even then, I blame laziness

other card is paradox engine, the 'I win button' of many decks that for whatever reason was not banned.

Well, that shows they're not basing it on perceived power levels or rarity. Perhaps it's simply just based on draft picking order?
Not sure how widespread paradox engine combos were, but I believe that's what casuals are supposed to enjoy - janky combos and all that jazz.
And if I were to make something brainless with Breaches (which I am told are no fun), this guy goes right in, no questions asked.
So it could be the weighing is based on popularity, perhaps even some sort of "competitiveness". It goes into pretty much any mono red aggro that can have it and is a, sorta, kinda, removal, so that's two boxes ticked.
If the objective was for the matchmaker to provide "fun games," which is what casuals were clamoring for, I guess it would make sense to weigh it like this.

Why are there not more MTG rip offs? Just change the names and artwork and tweak the rules to not suck. I've tried a few other "CCGs" and they seem small and weak. I bet AI could help design and make one of these games in no time.

Yeah, looks simple until you actually get around to doing it. There's a reason why it sticks around, for all its faults.
I wonder, what bits of MtG rules are actually copyrighted. The actual colors, perhaps card types, planeswalkers most likely as well as lands as a source you draw from, but the rest?
The stack mechanics is used by a whole lot of games, the actual naming would probably go under copyrights, but that's about it.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Why are there not more MTG rip offs?

you must be new to the internet. dude, we drowned in its clones. they all at some point clashed with the mindset "if i have to spend money i'd better on the real deal instead of the knockoff". but there's been billions and billions and billions and billions of them.

 

[anvi]

Why are there not more MTG rip offs?

you must be new to the internet. dude, we drowned in its clones. they all at some point clashed with the mindset "if i have to spend money i'd better on the real deal instead of the knockoff". but there's been billions and billions and billions and billions of them.

I guess but all the ones I tried were small fry. Hearthstone was about the only one I played for more than a week or so. MTG has so many insane cards if you play with all the old crazy shit. To me that's the only real attraction.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

because heartstone had blizzard fanboys behind, gobbling distilled shit because it was blizzard's.

 

[lukaszek]

Not sure how widespread paradox engine combos were, but I believe that's what casuals are supposed to enjoy - janky combos and all that jazz.

step back. Im talking about brawl specifically(also its the only that doesnt have competetive queue) and how bad it is to have it share weights with other formats.
Paradox engine is banned in commander. For whatever reason its not banned in brawl. Its a death sentence, that takes 10min of watching player play solitaire. Its main combo piece that is impossible to interact with for most decks.
People put it into their decks. They add tutors only to find it faster.
There are commanders who can tutor it. All of them are in hell queue. Many are in hell queue only because of paradox engine. Look at poor magda - could be fun to play around otherwise but with curent implementation its paradox or nothing.

Paradox engine is not warping historic format but it is busted in brawl. This 'leak' shows us that you can put it into every deck for 'free'.
There are other examples but this one is most polarizing

 

[spectre]

Paradox engine is banned in commander. For whatever reason its not banned in brawl.

A'ight, I don't play these formats so I don't really follow. In any case, that's what I needed to know and it may be so that they dun fuk'd.
Makes sense to keep the bans list consistent across similar formats, unless Brawl is just their red headed stepchild.

But that's the matter of banlists, if we're talking about deck weighing, I don't think PE is the offending piece that needs to be wieghted a gazillion points, because when it comes down to it, a 5 mana mythic
better bring something to the table. Comparing it to Firebrand is pretty apples and oranges, and when it comes down to it, it all depends what the scoring system is trying to achieve.
I am sure you have plenty of other degenerate combos out there and, frankly, I don't see the point of singling out this particular one - should it be forced to play other combo decks all day long?
Or other "competitive" decks (whatever this means in the format's context), or the objective is for random piles to play other random piles.
Another thing is, how much can a single card swing the deck's weight? Tutors, I imagine, will be weighed pretty high and so are the commanders that can tutor artifacts (everyone at this point should know these are abusable, right?)
So, for whatever it's worth, in the end the resulting weight of the entire paradox combo deck can score pretty high regardless if the score for this particular card is questionable.

I believe my point stands - depends on whatever the fuck they were aiming for with the matchmaking algo. And they do not really want to disclose or discuss that because they don't want
people to game the system. Personally, I am against such shenanigans on principle. They tend to bring out the worst in people, and different folks have different ideas about what a "good game" is,
so not sure if it's ever going to be productive. but thankfully I can just opt out by not touching the "play" button.

What I can comment on is the hand smoothing. Playing with it and without it (in Bo3), I'd much rather have it on, cause there's fewer non-games and eye-rolling during mulligans.
Still, that's less of about WotC meddling with things and more of a general observation that the game's resource system is fundamentally screwed, randomized shuffling with
no weaving and other mambo jumbo only reveals its true colors.

 

[ind33d]

someone needs to test these algorithms on MTGO. if you play a mostly common/uncommon deck like Ensoul Artifact in pioneer, do you get better matchups or what?

 

[lukaszek]

I have jank walls brawl deck. Turns up some of the cheap walls that I was using were costed at 45. For example 2 mana 0/4 wall that draws a card. Odd... 1 mana dorks are cheaper.
Anyway I got rid of expensive outliers with cheaper versions and my jank deck is now 800, now I can have fun with it with other jank decks

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

how do you measure deck shittyness? because i tried, damn i tried, but even my "all commons" decks got paired with the usual meta suspects.

 

[lukaszek]

ow do you measure deck shittyness?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...5usa3WnmdjNHW_9UTDXdPAutA/edit#gid=1292628386

hell queue is around 2k points

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

too much effort. i'd rather keep not playing.

 

[anvi]

The meta was only about 5 or so decks when I last played. Even the game itself felt like glorified Rock Paper Scissors. So it's extra crazy to then choose your opponents. So you choose to play as Scissors and haven't won for a while? It matches you with paper. Next round you are playing against Rock, good luck.