The past month of Open Beta has seen an incredible amount of creator content having fun, teaching, competing, and brewing in Magic: The Gathering Arena. Seriously, thank you. We want to promote our creators in new ways and celebrate them among the players. And we want to do that in a way unique to Magic.

To accomplish just that, I'm excited to announce the start of custom events, built around creators in the community—Streamer Events.

Each month, we will hand-select a few creators in the community and invite them to work with us on a Streamer Event. We will build a customized event around their personality and play style. We'll then make the events available in-game for a weekend. We'll also promote the creators in-game and give players reasons to want to get to know them better.

When is this new initiative starting? Tomorrow, with Day[9]'s Insta-Ban and Gaby's Greedy Dominaria Draft.

There are plenty more amazing creators on deck over the next few months. Let's see what events we can dream up together.

How can a creator be a part of this?

There is no formal application process to be considered for Streamer Events. Our goal is to invite a mix of creators and rising stars in whom we see potential. Every month we will try to work with new creators. So, if you don't see your favorite creator in our lineup yet, you may in the future. We have so many awesome people we want to work with!

Are you only choosing streamers for events? What about other creators?

The first batch of creators we are working with are mostly streamers. But this event is open to content creators of all types. We want to work with them all on creating custom events. If you are making cool content that is having a positive impact on players, we may want to work with you.

But when will you let me play with my friends?

Okay.

We know playing with friends is the top requested feature that the game is lacking. We read all your comments.

Oh, and you can play with your friends soon. #MTGArena pic.twitter.com/wyXcCwH6QN — MTG Arena (@MTG_Arena) October 25, 2018

Step one in giving you ways to play with friends is Direct Challenge. Seriously, we're building it right now and we know it can't come fast enough. It's coming soon. How soon? "Hopefully" November.

Here is how Direct Challenge will work:

You and your friend open the Direct Challenge option. You type in each other's username and five-digit code. You hit "Battle." You play a match against each other.

We're working on more robust friends list features for down the line. We're going to see how the community plays against each other using this and build from there.

MTG Arena is still growing and expanding, and we're excited to keep rolling out new features as quickly as we can. I can't wait to show you what else we have in store!