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.

This is probably a lot easier for me to say than it would be for the programmers to implement, but: the weighting system seems to only judge cards on an individual basis. I wonder how feasible it would be to weight card combos. Like -- Aftermath Analyst isn't too scary by itself, but if you see it in a deck with Nissa, Resurgent Animist, that's a different story.

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.

I appreciate that they acknowledged the Brawl weighting system -- ignoring it would have been a real mistake -- and I'm satisfied with what they said about it.

I read some of the discussion about it on Reddit, and people were angry (because there are always angry Magic players on Reddit), but it seemed like most of the frustration was that the system isn't accurate enough, not that it exists.

Personally, I'm upset in the first place that Magic cards are so imbalanced that a weighting system is necessary, but given that they are, I'm glad such a system exists, at least for casual formats.

They talk about continuing to make changes to the system. The main change that I hope they'll make is to allow negative-weight decks to validate. Then I can take some of the useless utility lands out of my zero-weight Mycotyrant deck.

This set looks powerful … will we see Historic bans on day one?
Most Modern Horizons 3 cards will be legal in Historic and fewer than 20 will be pre-banned. We'll let players know what ones before the set releases.

"Fewer than 20"?? They are trying to make that sound like it's not a big deal, and failing. Any number of pre-banned cards is a big deal. The fact that there is a double-digit number of cards in MH3 that are so powerful Wizards doesn't dare let them see the light of day in Arena's second most powerful format is jaw-dropping.

As someone who rarely plays older formats, the only reward I value in here is the draft token. Drafts normally cost 1,500 gems. Unlocking the Horizon Hideaway costs 2,300 gems. Are a bunch of cosmetics, mostly for cards I won't play often, worth 800 gems to me? When I put it that way, it doesn't sound like they should be. I guess we'll see what they look like?

The Ashling avatar looks pretty cool, although I prefer my avatar not to be a named character (currently using the Dreadhorde one).

I played Pirates in On The Edge and did well, lost to Dinosaurs but then won the next three.

It's not OTE-legal, but here's my Slimes deck:

Deck
4 Forest (MKM) 286
6 Island (MKM) 279
2 Boseiju, Who Endures (NEO) 266
1 Otawara, Soaring City (NEO) 271
1 Hedge Maze (MKM) 262
4 Restless Vinestalk (WOE) 261
2 Field of Ruin (THB) 242
4 Consider (MID) 44
4 Otherworldly Gaze (MID) 67
4 Founding the Third Path (DMU) 50
4 Picklock Prankster (WOE) 64
24 Slime Against Humanity (MKM) 177

You're right that the lack of removal hurts. Sometimes just having huge creatures isn't enough.

I think this is what I'll be playing in On the Edge this week:

About
Name OTE Pirates

Deck
7 Island
6 Mountain
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Conduit Pylons
1 Tarnation Vista
4 Shock
1 Lost Jitte
3 Diamond Pick-Axe
4 Spyglass Siren
4 Staunch Crewmate
4 Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
2 Malcolm, the Eyes
4 Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider
3 Kitesail Larcenist
3 Breeches, Eager Pillager
4 Roaming Throne

Looking at the upcoming Midweek Magic events, I see they've taken my complaints about Omniscience Draft to heart. Not sure a three-card opening hand will make enough of a difference, but as long as it's free, I'll try it out.

That sounds unique, I'd be interested in seeing the list!

Thanks! When it comes to ranked matches, I play Bo3 Standard almost exclusively. I have a few decks that I consider competitive, but probably the one I play most and have the most success with is a blue/white poison/proliferate list that I found on magic.gg. Thinking about doing a write-up on it, so keep an eye out for that!

This week's Midweek Magic event is Gladiator. You'll pick from 10 preconstructed decks (I'm leaning towards "Naya Bard Class"), so you don't need to actually build a deck, but in case you were wondering what the format is, scroll down this page a bit. Briefly, it's 100-card singleton without commanders.

Looks like a pretty good slate of Midweek Magic events coming up this month; I'm also excited for Jump Into OTJ and On The Edge (which this time should be LCI + MKM + OTJ constructed). Anybody have any ideas for OTE decks? I'm thinking I can probably adapt my Standard Pirates without having to lose too much.

Yeah, I was playing the recent all-access Ravnica event right up until they closed the queue. You're not wrong about the phantom limited events but I usually play them anyway, even for a bit after I've gotten all the rewards. I just think the limited environment is more fun, I guess.

In the Massacre Girls list I've removed the Prices of Betrayal along with one Despark and one Bleeding Edge to make room for four copies of Soul Search, to try for a better match-up against control without giving up too much ground against planeswalkers. It seems to have been an improvement.

Here's a pretty obnoxious Feather list that's done well in the few games I've played with it so far. The numbers might still need to be tweaked.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm really enjoying this format.

About
Name Feather Heroic

Deck
6 Plains
8 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Elegant Parlor
2 Guildmages' Forum
4 Frantic Scapegoat
4 Goblin Banneret
2 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Swiftblade Vindicator
4 Tenth District Legionnaire
4 Feather, the Redeemed
4 Defiant Strike
4 Gird for Battle
4 Maximize Velocity
3 Lightning Helix
1 Connecting the Dots

I'm interested in the War of the Spark draft coming later this month. I remember liking that format.

The MKM story deck festival ends soon, and I already got my five wins, so it's kind of moot, but... has anybody else not been able to join a game of it all weekend? I go there and the "Play" button just says "Home" and takes me back to the home screen. I was really enjoying playing a slower-paced format for a change.

My main concern is how this will affect new players. You're losing the opportunity to teach them what needs to be entered, as well as the opportunity to teach them implicitly about what "the battlefield" is, and zones of play in general. The more knowledge that you need to already have before you can understand what a card does, the less accessible the game becomes. And this is while they're trying harder than ever (via Universes Beyond) to attract outsiders.

That lines up with what I've experienced in the past. I edited the link again to use WIZARDS.

Thanks guys. The link I originally posted still works for me, so I don't know what the deal is, but I replaced it with this one, which also seems to work for me. If it still doesn't work for anyone, you could also try: https://survey.marketpointsinc.com/wc0224gb1/WIZARDS

(Disclosure, I didn't actually watch this video.)

This is the second streamer I've heard of moving from Twitch to YouTube recently. Did something happen at one or the other of those sites?

I watch a lot more on YouTube than I do on Twitch, primarily because I prefer to watch on my own schedule, and it seems like there's a perception that Twitch is for live streams and YouTube is for prerecorded stuff. But there's no reason it has to be like that.

For artifact hate, [[Ancient Grudge]] is a classic choice. Not sure about the best way to deal with planeswalkers.