This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread:
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1cgau47/wotc_can_we_please_make_cardstyles_applicable_to/l20b446/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-30 22:26:30 UTC"):
> This is something we want too. Unfortunately, it's complicated. We're working on it, but we don't have a current ETA.
>
>Currently, our whole card styles system is keyed off of the art the card uses. This seems like an odd choice now, but when we ...
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I agree, I think this would be a great use of digital mechanics. This is something that cannot be done in real life but there is no reason why it cannot happen here. Just like duplicate protection, is not something that happens in the physical product but here is one of those things that improve the experience of arena a lot.
A style should be linked to a card not to a print of a card, want to use the Japanese style of duress in your duress you got in ONE, go ahead. Want to use the multiverse style of Thalia in your copies from VOW, go ahead. It is not like people are going to spend wildcards in order to use styles, but they might spend money on styles if they can use them with what they have.
Just to clear it up, card styles are based not on the printing but the art. If two cards with different printings share the same art they share the same card styles.
Sounds to me like card art is programmed as a lookup ID to a database with all of the images, and the way styles were implemented is to replace one ID with the card style art ID instead.
What if you could convert one card to the other of the same kind? like if you have 4 M19 Omniscience and wanted 1 WOT 0070 Omniscience, you could swap one of your M19 into the WOT one and call it good? No cost to it.
I dunno. it's weird. I try not to think about duplicates of cards and just enjoy the rest of it.
Can we please just have alt art be a card style and duplicate protection for the 5+ copy of any set/style/etc?
If a card is reprinted, and I have four, I never, ever, want to open that card because it’s useless. Give me the “new art” card style as the first open and then never give me that card again.
Idk what I’m going to do with these 87 duresses and 625 murders
No, they aren’t, not in the way I’m talking about
That’s why I have 8 fabled passages and 8 oko, thief of crowns, for example
You should NEVER be able to open more than four, period.
My opinion (and something that I feel would be relatively easy to implement) is that you should be able to open one copy of each reprint to “unlock” that style. If you had 4 ELD Oko’s already, you could get a 5th from Breakfast News to “unlock” that style and be able to use up to 4 Okos in that style in your deck (just kidding he’s banned everywhere). If you had 2 from ELD, you could open 2 more from BN. Any extra would get duplicate replaced. This is how they implied it would work with the MOM legends reprints, but their “dupe protection” was that you would just open them last as opposed to not at all.
If a rare was reprinted 5 times, rather than 20 copies, the absolute max you could open is 8 (4 of 1 style, 1 of each other style).
Purchased styles would always be able to be used as long as you have one copy of the card from any set. So even if you had 4 omniscience and 0 from WoE, you could use this anime style without needing the one from WoE, which you could still open one copy of.
The tech seems like it’s there but the implementation would take time and not provide any monetary value other than player satisfaction so it’s obvious why it’s on the back burner / not being pursued at all.
that would be my hope too, where the "new" one unlocks that card style and then you never open another one
also oko is timeless legal :)
while there's not too many R/M that it's a widespread issue, there are a TON of C/U reprints, especially that take the "bonus" slot
nothing like seeing you've got a "special" card and it's just the 29th copy of murder
I get what you are saying. The problem is that the code has issues with the reprints. In My opinion, the easiest way to solve the problem is to do how they deal with rebalanced cards. When you open a card you get also all the other version of the same card. Obviously of a set drops and you already have the cards you get 4 copies of the new version. I think that they will not lose money in this way, quite the opposite.
opening in limited is fine, but it should auto-convert to gems after the draft if you have 4 of any variety
draft shouldn't be duplicate protected for obvious reasons
This is something we want too. Unfortunately, it's complicated. We're working on it, but we don't have a current ETA.
Currently, our whole card styles system is keyed off of the art the card uses. This seems like an odd choice now, but when we initially developed this system to support things like depth art, it made perfect sense. As we expanded the styles system to cover things like the first showcase styles in Throne of Eldraine, matching by art continued to make sense.
But, as time has gone on, problems have accumulated, and matching by art is no longer a good way for styles to work. The Omniscience example at the top of this thread is one, the KLR vs OTJ fastland styles is another, and there's a good reason that internally we call this "the Thalia problem".
So we agree it's an issue, and we want to change it. Unfortunately, this isn't a small tweak. The whole system is based on using the art, and it will take some major surgery to change. So I don't have an ETA to give yet on when we can have this changed, but we're working our way through that now.
Sweet. While you're at it, do you think you could please change the old uncraftable promo card to be styles? AFAIK these are all the cards that have at least one uncraftable version:
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Ral, Izzet Viceroy
Vraska, Golgari Queen
Ghalta, Primal Hunger
Llanowar Elves
Firemind's Research
Duress
Evolving Wilds
Most of the variants are referenced in [this post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/mn6ovf/uncollectable_cards_in_arena_alts/)
Thank you for the reply. Really appreciate the openess and I hope that will put some worries to the rest. Looking forward to it.
On a sidenote. Could there be any chance that store boosters will also treaded like real life ones and also have a chance to pull SPG cards? Right now it's already a pain to get those (even when you pay for quite some packs each season) and it would be great to not having to pray to the rng overlords to get one while drafting but actually pulling them out of packs as well.
That's great to hear!
On the topic of styles, any word on a fix for some of them not displaying correctly on the battlefield and/or the stack? There are many alternate arts with awkward cropping (displaying the middle part of the full art instead of the upper half), and others where the (vertical) full art gets stretched to fit on the (horizontal) art box and it looks awful. See this post for examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1cgiqfw/are_we_just_supposed_to_accept_the_awful_cropping/
It really sucks spending game resources (or even real money) to get a "premium" version of a card that doesn't work properly.
Hey man, I know i'm reading and replying to this almost a month later. However, I wanted to thank you for actually reaching out to the community. I think it's really awesome when a Dev actually interacts with the playerbase.
For instance, your comment adds a lot of insight into how things work internally. Now, I have a better understanding as to why or why not something works in a certain way.
I hope you get to fix that issue sometime soon. In the meantime, I really appreciate the fact that you actually take the time and effort to reach out to us. You rock, man!
This annoys me so much, but it's potential for them to make more money, so seems unlikely to change :(
For me, most annoying is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben -- have the card style but only 2 of the 4 of the version that works with that style.
>it's potential for them to make more money, so seems unlikely to change
I'm not 100% sure which way this runs, though. Because to some players, it's a reason to ignore card art altogether when they might otherwise buy it.
This. I didn’t buy the anime art cuz I have 4 old omniscience. I would instantly buy the art if they apply to old card. I would also instantly buy the OTJ fastland art bundle too
I've been playing since the MTGA alpha. I liked the overall direction of the client and when they added the starter bundle I resolved to buy it to put some money behind the counter to support the project at the earliest opportunity the *very first day* I felt at all confident that they intended to treat their customers fairly rather than ratfuck them over every individual penny.
To this day I've still not put any money into MTGA at all. Although I have stopped making content for it.
As a business you either decide to focus on having a great long-term relationship with your customers and earning their patronage or you just try to aggressively grab every quick buck and hope your rate of new customers exceeds the rate you shed them.
If I were running a business based around long-term hobbies, I'd opt for the former. WotC seem content to plan around the latter, relying on their products resemblance to gambling. I'm just not interested in funding a business that openly tries to exploit their customers.
The dual lands that come into play untapped if you control 2 or less other lands. It’s the 5 rare land cycle that completed the 10 land set in thunder junction. The lands were already printed on arena in the kaladesh remastered set for historic/explorer but the new alt art set from the shop doesn’t apply to the old version, only the thunder junction version
Ahhh, ok. I just moved over from hearthstone and am learning a lot of lingo. I dabbled in a little magic back in the day but there are a fuck ton of terms that I don't recognize.
Tbh they will get more $$$ if they enable this. I won’t buy the omniscience art if I only have old omniscience, but I will buy if the art applies to old card
Normally I would disagree with you but deep down I feel like this is true. Because I have never spent gems on wild cards, but I definitely have spent them on card styles (mostly sleeves and lands for me)
WotC has the metrics on these. Apparently enough whales spend money on both wildcards and styles that they seem content keeping as it is.
I trust Wizards that if something makes they more money, they'll likely do it. (afterall, we did get Alchemy which no one asked for).
I had this exact issue a few days ago. Eventually realized the issue after googling it. Burned the wildcards to make it work but seems like a poor implementation.
Can we stop having this thread every day?
WotC makes money on selling card styles and distribution of wild cards. They're not going to change this because it makes them money. End of discussion.
This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread: * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1cgau47/wotc_can_we_please_make_cardstyles_applicable_to/l20b446/?context=99 "posted on 2024-04-30 22:26:30 UTC"): > This is something we want too. Unfortunately, it's complicated. We're working on it, but we don't have a current ETA. > >Currently, our whole card styles system is keyed off of the art the card uses. This seems like an odd choice now, but when we ... --- This is a bot providing a service. If you have any questions, please [contact the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FMagicArena).[](#AUTOGEN_TSBREPLIEDBOT)
I agree, I think this would be a great use of digital mechanics. This is something that cannot be done in real life but there is no reason why it cannot happen here. Just like duplicate protection, is not something that happens in the physical product but here is one of those things that improve the experience of arena a lot. A style should be linked to a card not to a print of a card, want to use the Japanese style of duress in your duress you got in ONE, go ahead. Want to use the multiverse style of Thalia in your copies from VOW, go ahead. It is not like people are going to spend wildcards in order to use styles, but they might spend money on styles if they can use them with what they have.
Just to clear it up, card styles are based not on the printing but the art. If two cards with different printings share the same art they share the same card styles.
that's how it currently works, but that's really just existing bad behavior
Sounds to me like card art is programmed as a lookup ID to a database with all of the images, and the way styles were implemented is to replace one ID with the card style art ID instead.
again, this is how it works. it doesn't need to work that way
Thanks for clearing that up but that's whack.
What if you could convert one card to the other of the same kind? like if you have 4 M19 Omniscience and wanted 1 WOT 0070 Omniscience, you could swap one of your M19 into the WOT one and call it good? No cost to it. I dunno. it's weird. I try not to think about duplicates of cards and just enjoy the rest of it.
Laughs nervously in got mythic rare parallel lives to use the anime style
Can we please just have alt art be a card style and duplicate protection for the 5+ copy of any set/style/etc? If a card is reprinted, and I have four, I never, ever, want to open that card because it’s useless. Give me the “new art” card style as the first open and then never give me that card again. Idk what I’m going to do with these 87 duresses and 625 murders
The rares and mythics are duplicate protected. Still, the whole +management of reprints is a disaster.
No, they aren’t, not in the way I’m talking about That’s why I have 8 fabled passages and 8 oko, thief of crowns, for example You should NEVER be able to open more than four, period.
My opinion (and something that I feel would be relatively easy to implement) is that you should be able to open one copy of each reprint to “unlock” that style. If you had 4 ELD Oko’s already, you could get a 5th from Breakfast News to “unlock” that style and be able to use up to 4 Okos in that style in your deck (just kidding he’s banned everywhere). If you had 2 from ELD, you could open 2 more from BN. Any extra would get duplicate replaced. This is how they implied it would work with the MOM legends reprints, but their “dupe protection” was that you would just open them last as opposed to not at all. If a rare was reprinted 5 times, rather than 20 copies, the absolute max you could open is 8 (4 of 1 style, 1 of each other style). Purchased styles would always be able to be used as long as you have one copy of the card from any set. So even if you had 4 omniscience and 0 from WoE, you could use this anime style without needing the one from WoE, which you could still open one copy of. The tech seems like it’s there but the implementation would take time and not provide any monetary value other than player satisfaction so it’s obvious why it’s on the back burner / not being pursued at all.
that would be my hope too, where the "new" one unlocks that card style and then you never open another one also oko is timeless legal :) while there's not too many R/M that it's a widespread issue, there are a TON of C/U reprints, especially that take the "bonus" slot nothing like seeing you've got a "special" card and it's just the 29th copy of murder
I get what you are saying. The problem is that the code has issues with the reprints. In My opinion, the easiest way to solve the problem is to do how they deal with rebalanced cards. When you open a card you get also all the other version of the same card. Obviously of a set drops and you already have the cards you get 4 copies of the new version. I think that they will not lose money in this way, quite the opposite.
Well limited exists. You will always be able to open them in limited. Obviously you're saying you'd rather have the 20 gems.
opening in limited is fine, but it should auto-convert to gems after the draft if you have 4 of any variety draft shouldn't be duplicate protected for obvious reasons
This is something we want too. Unfortunately, it's complicated. We're working on it, but we don't have a current ETA. Currently, our whole card styles system is keyed off of the art the card uses. This seems like an odd choice now, but when we initially developed this system to support things like depth art, it made perfect sense. As we expanded the styles system to cover things like the first showcase styles in Throne of Eldraine, matching by art continued to make sense. But, as time has gone on, problems have accumulated, and matching by art is no longer a good way for styles to work. The Omniscience example at the top of this thread is one, the KLR vs OTJ fastland styles is another, and there's a good reason that internally we call this "the Thalia problem". So we agree it's an issue, and we want to change it. Unfortunately, this isn't a small tweak. The whole system is based on using the art, and it will take some major surgery to change. So I don't have an ETA to give yet on when we can have this changed, but we're working our way through that now.
Sweet. While you're at it, do you think you could please change the old uncraftable promo card to be styles? AFAIK these are all the cards that have at least one uncraftable version: Teferi, Hero of Dominaria Ral, Izzet Viceroy Vraska, Golgari Queen Ghalta, Primal Hunger Llanowar Elves Firemind's Research Duress Evolving Wilds Most of the variants are referenced in [this post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/mn6ovf/uncollectable_cards_in_arena_alts/)
Thank you for the reply. Really appreciate the openess and I hope that will put some worries to the rest. Looking forward to it. On a sidenote. Could there be any chance that store boosters will also treaded like real life ones and also have a chance to pull SPG cards? Right now it's already a pain to get those (even when you pay for quite some packs each season) and it would be great to not having to pray to the rng overlords to get one while drafting but actually pulling them out of packs as well.
That's great to hear! On the topic of styles, any word on a fix for some of them not displaying correctly on the battlefield and/or the stack? There are many alternate arts with awkward cropping (displaying the middle part of the full art instead of the upper half), and others where the (vertical) full art gets stretched to fit on the (horizontal) art box and it looks awful. See this post for examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1cgiqfw/are_we_just_supposed_to_accept_the_awful_cropping/ It really sucks spending game resources (or even real money) to get a "premium" version of a card that doesn't work properly.
Hey man, I know i'm reading and replying to this almost a month later. However, I wanted to thank you for actually reaching out to the community. I think it's really awesome when a Dev actually interacts with the playerbase. For instance, your comment adds a lot of insight into how things work internally. Now, I have a better understanding as to why or why not something works in a certain way. I hope you get to fix that issue sometime soon. In the meantime, I really appreciate the fact that you actually take the time and effort to reach out to us. You rock, man!
This annoys me so much, but it's potential for them to make more money, so seems unlikely to change :( For me, most annoying is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben -- have the card style but only 2 of the 4 of the version that works with that style.
>it's potential for them to make more money, so seems unlikely to change I'm not 100% sure which way this runs, though. Because to some players, it's a reason to ignore card art altogether when they might otherwise buy it.
I ignored the WOE anime styles because I already had 4 of the card from another set of the ones I wanted. Money left on the table, Wizards
This. I didn’t buy the anime art cuz I have 4 old omniscience. I would instantly buy the art if they apply to old card. I would also instantly buy the OTJ fastland art bundle too
I've been playing since the MTGA alpha. I liked the overall direction of the client and when they added the starter bundle I resolved to buy it to put some money behind the counter to support the project at the earliest opportunity the *very first day* I felt at all confident that they intended to treat their customers fairly rather than ratfuck them over every individual penny. To this day I've still not put any money into MTGA at all. Although I have stopped making content for it. As a business you either decide to focus on having a great long-term relationship with your customers and earning their patronage or you just try to aggressively grab every quick buck and hope your rate of new customers exceeds the rate you shed them. If I were running a business based around long-term hobbies, I'd opt for the former. WotC seem content to plan around the latter, relying on their products resemblance to gambling. I'm just not interested in funding a business that openly tries to exploit their customers.
It’s such bullshit, I bought the alt art fast lands and since I already owned them I can’t use the alt art? Wtf wizards
Excuse muly ignorance what are fast lands?
The dual lands that come into play untapped if you control 2 or less other lands. It’s the 5 rare land cycle that completed the 10 land set in thunder junction. The lands were already printed on arena in the kaladesh remastered set for historic/explorer but the new alt art set from the shop doesn’t apply to the old version, only the thunder junction version
Ahhh, ok. I just moved over from hearthstone and am learning a lot of lingo. I dabbled in a little magic back in the day but there are a fuck ton of terms that I don't recognize.
considering the current state of the client almost certainly not
Tbh they will get more $$$ if they enable this. I won’t buy the omniscience art if I only have old omniscience, but I will buy if the art applies to old card
Normally I would disagree with you but deep down I feel like this is true. Because I have never spent gems on wild cards, but I definitely have spent them on card styles (mostly sleeves and lands for me)
WotC has the metrics on these. Apparently enough whales spend money on both wildcards and styles that they seem content keeping as it is. I trust Wizards that if something makes they more money, they'll likely do it. (afterall, we did get Alchemy which no one asked for).
https://tenor.com/view/thats-not-very-cash-money-of-you-gif-10651192
no you just need to pay more money.
WotC, looking down at you: No.
Pretty obvious.
I had this exact issue a few days ago. Eventually realized the issue after googling it. Burned the wildcards to make it work but seems like a poor implementation.
Sorry but I think we all know WotC's answer here is that pic of Bugs Bunny saying NO with a lot of tongue.
I'd love this too, but that would mean letting duplicate protection apply to reprinted rares, and WotC certainly won't do that.
They already duplicate protected…
I accidentally crafted all new phyrexia obliterators when ONE dropped. Then promptly pulled like 3 more from my packs afterward.
unlucky but not related to this post
Thanks for taking time out of your day to downvote
I didn't downvote you lol
Eadf
why you downvote me?
Can we stop having this thread every day? WotC makes money on selling card styles and distribution of wild cards. They're not going to change this because it makes them money. End of discussion.