Will a new set be enough to earn back the goodwill of Arena players? Even in aggregate, none of these problems have loomed large enough to coalesce general grumbling into a movement to abandon the game for alternatives like MTG Online (opens in new tab).

(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast) How is the community? Arena players felt like an afterthought, and the fiscal minutes didn't do much to disabuse them of the notion. Their intentions seemed to be continuing support for physical products as much as possible, even while touting online growth. In the same quarterly earnings call cited above, Hasbro CFO Deb Thomas said the analog playerbase of Magic: The Gathering remained larger than Arena, even accounting for digital migration during the pandemic. Prioritizing wins meant constructed decks in ranked play often leaned towards winning as fast and overwhelmingly as possible, pushing out interesting ideas in favor of brutal, crushing efficiency. The Magic Arena subreddit characterized (opens in new tab) the win-based missions as a funless grind (opens in new tab) up a ladder to earn the two currencies necessary for acquiring more cards.

'They did not want Jumpstart to be the reason everyone played Arena because Arena has a very specific-and let's be honest-very greedy economy.' 'Why would this incredibly popular way of playing Magic be removed at all, let alone so quickly?' he says in the video. The Professor, from the Tolarian Community College YouTube channel, listed it as an honorable mention among the worst mistakes (opens in new tab) in Magic for 2020.

The removal of Jumpstart, despite its clear popularity (opens in new tab) in both the analog and digital formats, led many to suspect decision-making around Arena followed maximum profitability over entertainment.

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