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Magic: The Gathering Arena adds Streamer Events in time for TwitchCon

Magic: The Gathering Arena's open beta is adding a special feature aimed at its growing streamer base.

Ozzie Mejia

October 25, 2018 9:45 AM

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Magic: The Gathering Arena has been the hot new digital card game on the block over the past couple of months, with developer Wizards of the Coast bringing the open beta along across 100 million games. With TwitchCon on the horizon, the team behind Magic: The Gathering Arena is unveiling something special for the game's burgeoning streamer base.

Streamer Events will see various Twitch streamers create variants of the standard Magic game for special limited-time events. Sean "Day[9]" Plott and Gaby Spartz will be the first two streamers to have special events, each with different rules. Here are the two events and how they'll work, according to Thursday morning's press release:

• Day[9]'s Insta-Ban: We're giving Constructed new house rules with Day[9]. Day[9] has always had a burning displeasure for counters and tricks. So together we created INSTA-BAN, where you bring a 60-card deck with zero instant spells in it. Instant speed effects such as flash or activated abilities are permitted, but if the spell is an instant, it is BANNED.
• Gaby's Greedy Dominaria Draft: We're giving Draft new house rules with Gaby Spartz. Gaby loves drafting and building ambitious decks. So together we are running a GREEDY DOMINARIA DRAFT. Draft 3 packs of Dominaria around a few unique rules in this game of Magic. Everyone can play two lands per turn, start with 9 cards, and has no maximum hand size.

These events will run from Friday, October 26 through Monday, October 29.

In addition to this, Magic Arena is introducing Direct Challenges. This allowed players to directly challenge their friends by looking them up via their in-game name. Look for this feature, along with other friend-centric features, to debut with the upcoming November update.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?