Since I've been the point man on Magic Online events, I've adopted a philosophy of trying things, measuring them, and keeping what's going well while making adjustments to what is not. I have a variety of updates to go over with you today. You can use the quick links below to jump to each specific topic.

Draft Changes

Magic Online players have been increasingly embracing Draft Leagues as a way to play at their own schedule and without having to wait for a long time between rounds. Since the launch of Leagues, Draft activity has overwhelmingly been in the 6-2-2-2 League. Many competitive players have been playing in that League over the 8-4 Draft, since 8-4 hasn't been offered as a League.

We haven't offered a competitive Draft League because we haven't had the ability to run single-elimination Draft Leagues, but we will starting November 16! We considered converting the 8-4 Draft into a League, but felt we would more effectively segment players if the competitive league more different from the 6-2-2-2 Draft League than the 8-4 Draft League would have been. So, let me introduce the new Kaladesh Competitive Draft League:

Entry Options:

15 Event Tickets

3 Kaladesh boosters + 5 Event Tickets

150 Play Points

3 Kaladesh boosters + 50 Play Points

Structure: 3 match wins or 1 match loss, whichever comes first, played at your convenience

Prizes:

3 wins: 6 Kaladesh boosters + 150 Play Points + 2 Qualifier Points

2 wins: 3 Kaladesh boosters + 150 Play Points + 1 Qualifier Point

Players with two or three wins get enough Play Points to join the League again, and on top of that they get booster prizes in multiples of three for convenient Draft sets. The entry options are higher, but strong players are well-rewarded for their finishes. This League will begin with the November 16 downtime, and the 8-4 queue will be ended at that time. We're also adding an entry option of both boosters and Play Points for this event as an experiment to see how it goes.

Also on November 16, we're going to rename the existing Kaladesh 6-2-2-2 Draft League to the Kaladesh Friendly Draft League. Along with other friendly Leagues, Qualifier Points in this league will be removed. We have heard from some players who currently don't feel it is very friendly now, but we hope that these changes will cause competitive players to move to the new League and make this League a better experience for other players. We'll continue to keep an eye on player behavior to see if further changes are warranted.

Prestige Avatars

We introduced trophies and leaderboards to Leagues, allowing players to show off how many times they've gone undefeated throughout the course of a League (or in a stage, in the case of the Friendly Sealed League). We're happy to see players embrace these and show off their trophies or try to climb to the top of the leaderboard.

We wanted to add this experience by introducing prestige avatars! Just before each Standard-legal set release on Magic Online, we'll grant prestige avatars to players who have earned them. These unique avatars will have an outer border and set symbol from the concluding set that is either mythic orange, gold, or silver. In order for them to truly represent a player's accomplishments, they will not be able to be traded. The different levels will have different requirements to earn them.

When you set your avatar to one of these, it will appear both to your opponents in the duel scene where your avatar normally appears behind your life total, showing the color of the level as well as the set symbol for the season during which the avatar was earned.

The prestige avatars for the Kaladesh season (along with what you'll need to do to earn them) are listed below. These avatars will be distributed to players once the Kaladesh season has concluded, during the downtime where Aether Revolt is added to Magic Online.

Here are the three prestige avatars:

These prestige avatars can be earned in any of the following ways for Kaladesh season:

Silver Prestige Avatar—Dovin Baan 5 trophies in the Friendly Kaladesh Draft League 5 trophies in the Friendly Kaladesh Sealed League 2 trophies in any single Friendly Constructed League

Gold Prestige Avatar—Nissa, Nature's Artisan 4 trophies in the Competitive Kaladesh Draft League 4 trophies in the Competitive Kaladesh Sealed League 4 trophies in any single Competitive Constructed League

Mythic Prestige Avatar—Chandra, Torch of Defiance 12 trophies in the Competitive Kaladesh Draft League 6 trophies in the Competitive Kaladesh Sealed League 6 trophies in any single Competitive Constructed League Finishing with 6 or more wins in any single MOCS Monthly event during Kaladesh season



Since the Competitive Draft League is being introduced mid-season, these values are lower than what they would be for a full Draft season. The other Leagues have been operating for some time, and trophies won in them before or after this announcement will count toward obtaining the avatars. As the Pauper Friendly League is being replaced on November 16 to implement a Peregrine Drake ban, the Dovin Baan Silver Prestige Avatar will awarded to any player with at least two trophies in the earlier league, or at least two trophies in the later league.

Have fun earning these avatars and showing them off in January once the Kaladesh season ends and it's time for Aether Revolt!

Treasure Chest Changes

Starting with the November 16 downtime, we're increasing the number of treasure chests players earn for getting 4 wins in a constructed league from 3 to 4. This applies to both competitive and friendly constructed leagues. We're also making changed to the Treasure Chests themselves at the same time, so read on for more on that.

Players will be able to trade their treasure chests after the November 16 downtime. If you think opening treasure chests is fun, great—go ahead! If not, you'll be able to trade them to others. We think this will make the treasure chest experience significantly better for many players.

Additionally, we know that many tradable items are given to bots or other player accounts that rarely if ever play. We wanted these accounts to be able to open treasure chests once they became tradable, so we're replacing the possibility of getting Play Points with the possibility of getting a booster.

We are also introducing select Commander (2016 Edition) and Conspiracy: Take the Crown cards to treasure chests with this update (plus one card from the original Conspiracy). In order to help make sure enough of these cards are created for players who want them, they have their own sheet in treasure chests. The new main table for treasure chests will be:

Slot Curated Card Modern Rare/Mythic Rare C16/CN2 Booster Standard Common/Uncommon 1 19% 45% 16% 20% 0% 2 5% 16% 10% 0% 69% 3 1% 1% 7% 0% 91%

A booster pull will usually be a single booster. But getting more stuff is exciting, so 1 in every 10,000 pulls for a booster will instead grant 36 boosters!

The following cards are available through a C16/CN2 pull, with the shown frequency ratio. Note that these Frequency Ratios are relative only to each other, and are independent from the curated list. These cards will all have the new Magic Online treasure chest expansion symbol:

Additionally, we're making some changes to the curated list. The following cards are being added to the curated list at the shown frequency ratio. All of them will either have the Magic Online promo expansion symbol or the Magic Online treasure chest expansion symbol.

The Candelabra of Tawnos promo will have brand new art!

The following cards are being removed from the curated list. They used to have the shown frequency ratios.

We know some players have been surprised with new versions of cards released in treasure chests, and in some cases have found them difficult to trade as a result. Going forward, we'll be listing the set the card is from, including the promo "set" or treasure chest "set." Note that some cards have multiple versions in treasure chests, and we'll be calling those versions out separately as well. The full treasure chest details will be released on November 16.

A week-long League of phantom drafts of the original Modern Masters begins today, and the Year of Modern Flashbacks continues with Magic 2012, so be sure to check those out this week. Have fun!

—Lee Sharpe

Digital Product Manager, Magic Online