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There still really isn't a good option for playing the most popular format, Commander, on any sort of official app and I doubt there ever will be. It's an inher

by slaymaker1907 3y ago

There still really isn't a good option for playing the most popular format, Commander, on any sort of official app and I doubt there ever will be. It's an inherently social format (the banlist is a complete joke) and MTGA doesn't support Commander at all. The closest MTGA has to Commander is Historic Brawl which is a completely different format as it is 1v1 and Commander is really a 4 player deathmatch. Even playing Commander with 3 people has a completely different feel. They sort of support Commander on MTGO, but MTGO has an atrocious and difficult UI plus it doesn't support a ton of popular Commander cards (and always lags behind in support by months or even years for the Commander cards they do support). Again, it also cannot be understated how social of a format Commander is. Another thing you're missing about TCGs in general is the satisfaction of playing and owning physical cards.

everforward 3y ago
From the little testing I did, XMage supports commander and there were no unsupported cards in the 5 or 6 decks Ive tried. You do have to use the beta release though, the stable release is like 3 years old. It's still a little clunky, but handling priority is generally a nightmare in a 4 person game. I think that's part of why Arena doesn't even bother trying. Waiting for 4 people to pass priority is annoyingly long when it happens like 12 times per turn. Games would take all day to complete.
- slaymaker1907 3y ago
  I'm aware there are unofficial solutions like XMage which is why I mentioned "official". As for handling priority, they really need something like the "auto" option from Master Duel where there is some rules engine that tries to figure out when you would want to hold priority. For example, I'll generally only want to tap a mana dork on my turn or if I have some instant speed ability/card in hand to use that mana. There are exceptions, but the auto system just needs to be good enough that I can anticipate how it'll work so I can turn it off as needed. Master Duel also has a cool feature where you can press down your mouse to always ask for a response if you know your opponent will do something soon that you care about.

everforward 3y ago

From the little testing I did, XMage supports commander and there were no unsupported cards in the 5 or 6 decks Ive tried. You do have to use the beta release though, the stable release is like 3 years old. It's still a little clunky, but handling priority is generally a nightmare in a 4 person game. I think that's part of why Arena doesn't even bother trying. Waiting for 4 people to pass priority is annoyingly long when it happens like 12 times per turn. Games would take all day to complete.

slaymaker1907 3y ago
I'm aware there are unofficial solutions like XMage which is why I mentioned "official". As for handling priority, they really need something like the "auto" option from Master Duel where there is some rules engine that tries to figure out when you would want to hold priority. For example, I'll generally only want to tap a mana dork on my turn or if I have some instant speed ability/card in hand to use that mana. There are exceptions, but the auto system just needs to be good enough that I can anticipate how it'll work so I can turn it off as needed. Master Duel also has a cool feature where you can press down your mouse to always ask for a response if you know your opponent will do something soon that you care about.