When we announced Magic Online Treasure Chests, we initially did not reveal the contents, in part because we wanted some people to enjoy the surprise of an opening they didn’t even know was possible, and in part because we didn’t want players who got unlucky to feel bad about this.



We changed direction somewhat after some player feedback that was given in response to the announcement (before Treasure Chests launched). Some players were opposed to not knowing exact prize contents on principle, and many had very pessimistic views about what they would receive in the treasure chests. Further the fact that they couldn’t be traded caused many players to complain they were required to accept the random chance of Treasure Chests when they did not want to do so.

For the upcoming November 16 Treasure Chest update, our goals were:

Add select cards from both Commander (2016 Edition) and Conspiracy: Take the Crown

and Make Treasure Chests tradable, and refine the design with this in mind

Cycle in and out some cards from the curated list



After Treasure Chests launched, we’ve received additional feedback from players. It’s clear that too often players feel they received nothing of use to them and when this happens their accomplishments in the league are not being rewarded in a way that makes them feel good. Naturally, this isn’t our goal, and so we’re looking to find ways to improve the design to minimize this. Due to our timelines, we weren’t able to do so for the November 16 update, but we hope to do so in a future update. All of this feedback has been helpful, and is benefiting not only Magic Online Treasure Chests, but other promotions as well.

We believe making it tradable will help mitigate some of these feelings, as players who find opening them too unappealing can trade them away instead. I’ll have an article on November 9 that will go into full details about the changes to Treasure Chests being made for the November 16 update, along with other Magic Online updates.

But we’ll be continuing to look at data about Magic Online players are behaving, both before and after this update, as well as the feedback we’ve already examined and additional feedback that the community will provide, as we not only look at the design and use of Magic Online Treasure Chests, but our other offerings as well.

- Lee