MTG Arena artwork featuring Vraska

While MTG Arena is a highly enjoyable game, and one that has consumed the better part of my free time these past two weeks, it unfortunately has a bit of a problem when it comes to its in-game economy. To be more specific, right now acquiring a 5th copy of a rare or mythic card feels absolutely awful. Instead of getting a brand new toy to play around with, opening a 5th copy of a card only gives you a very small amount of Vault progress, which when fully completed barely gives you any new Wildcards to use.

Given that this is currently the most complained about problem in the entire game, I am delighted to announce that MTG Arena developers have now not only acknowledged all of the concerns, but also outlined what they're planning to do in order to correct the issue. You'll find the full developer post over at the official website, but if you're looking for the short version, here's a couple of choice quotes:

"To affirm what we talked about back in September, a smarter system that provides what we have dubbed "duplicate protection" is still our top contender, and the current design space we're working with."

"Okay, so we have the goals we want to accomplish, we have the problem space, and we have a system that will help us reach these goals... so why haven't we implemented it yet? What's the hold-up? Why is it taking so long? And the honest answer is, even though we feel this is the best solution to accomplish the goals we've set, it also happens to be a complex solution that touches on a lot of different systems, from the events we offer, to the rewards you earn, to the finite amount of cards that are available in each rarity."

"Realistically, we are still looking at a few more months. Our current estimate for duplicate protection is sometime in Q1 of 2019."

"We still plan on allowing players with completed Vaults to open them once changes go live (at least for a time), but the expectation is still that the Vault will go away and that its contents will not change. If you don't have a completed Vault it won't be lost, and we're working on what it will provide."

As for what exactly will happen with the various limited formats that shower you with duplicate cards, the MTG Arena team is still in the process of finding a solution that benefits everyone. No details regarding this have been shared just yet, but according to the developer post, they are running some simulations in order to see what would happen if the currently announced changes went through.

Once more information becomes available I'll make sure to let you know, but until then at least we'll have the upcoming friend challenge system to keep us busy.