Catch up with the latest info and events on MTG Arena.

In this edition:

  • Modern Horizons 3 Streamer Event June 5
  • Modern Horizons 3 Historic and Brawl Pre-Bans
  • MTG Arena Matchmaking and You
  • Card Styles Button Returns
  • Explorer Best-of-One Play-In This Weekend
  • Currency Update for Players in Japan
  • Event Schedule
  • Evu@mtgzone.com
    ·
    5 months ago

    I think it's probably for the best that we can't see those numbers. For one thing, being able to see your MMR would turn casual games into ranked games, effectively. Plus there's the fact that both numbers are really just the developers' best guess, subject to a lot of fluctuation and not guaranteed to be accurate at any particular point in time, not to mention that you sometimes get paired way up/down if the system can't find a match fast enough. I think publicizing MMR or deck weight would lead to a lot more complaining and bad feelings, while not significantly improving the quality of your games.

    • Mike@mtgzone.comM
      ·
      5 months ago

      Just out of curiosity, they must be using this for unranked and the play queue right? If not, there has to be something else they're using for those matchups because I still never see a wide deck/player disparity even in the unranked queues.

      • Evu@mtgzone.com
        ·
        5 months ago

        The article says:

        the matchmaking we're discussing today only applies to the Best-of-One play queues ... and does not apply to Ranked play, Best-of-Three play, premier events, or events that have win/loss targets.

        Interesting that they exclude casual Bo3. What exactly does that mean? I could see an argument that deck weighting is less important in a format where you have access to sideboards. But they must still do player-skill-based MMR, right? Casual play would surely be a nightmare without it.

        We know from the Reddit spreadsheets that they have separate weighting for Standard Brawl and Historic Brawl. I'd bet that each format -- Standard, Explorer, Alchemy, etc. -- has its own set of weights. The reason we only know the weights for Brawl is because only commanders can have negative weights. So no Explorer deck, for example, can ever fail to validate because of a negative total weight.

        • Mike@mtgzone.comM
          ·
          5 months ago

          I think they have to be doing some player-skill-based matchmaking in those queues. I think it would just be really un-fun if they didn't, and I'd bet Arena is optimizing for player hours over anything else. Nothing ends an Arena session like getting dunked on multiple games in a row in a ranked queue lol.

          I’d bet that each format – Standard, Explorer, Alchemy, etc. – has its own set of weights.

          I never thought about that but I'd bet you're right and I'd hope they're getting updated a lot more regularly than the Brawl ones.