For Magic to continue to grow and become a part of (or at least trend toward) eSports, there needs to be some change in coverage. One of the reasons games like League of Legends (LoL), Defense of the Ancients (DoTA), and Hearthstone are so wildly popular is because of how good the coverage is. While there are other reasons, I cannot stress enough how important good coverage is to a game’s success as an eSport. I’ve discovered plenty of games myself on Twitch by seeing someone randomly put it on or by checking out one of the games being streamed the most.

Twitch.tv (or if you’re old enough to remember when it was Justin.tv) has helped introduce a new era of video games and ways to consume media. There are (as of the time of writing this) over 200,000 people watching the top three games alone. This does not include the hundreds of other games being streamed at any given time to thousands upon thousands of other viewers. People are tuning in from across the globe to share in their enjoyment of watching video games and being able to interact with other people who share the same interests. We certainly live in a future world where, from the safety of your living room, watching, simultaneously with 3,000 other people, someone hundreds of miles away play a game is a real possibility. In real time, you’re able to chat and discuss a wide range of things with those people. That is astounding to me.

For game developers, streaming has become a fantastic way to market new games or have another path for potential customers to see. Large tournaments with huge prizes and titles draw crowds and players; and, while Magic certainly has a large draw to it, on weekends it can certainly be a little lacking compared to some of the other games.

Magic: Arena is a new take on the current online client, Magic the Gathering Online (or MTGO). First, and most importantly, Arena is NOT replacing MTGO as the client of use. While I do think that IS the future of Arena, we are looking at a timeline of several years before this is could become reality. For now, Arena looks to be a new way for players to play the game in an accessible way. I watched the pre-alpha premiere of Arena on Twitch and was quite impressed with the user interface. It appears to be fluid, clean, and delightfully easy to look at, which, compared to its predecessor MTGO, is a wonderful upgrade.

However, there are costs associated with a new program. MTGO has a robust economy with plenty of stores around for players to buy and sell cards with. This allows players both professional and casual alike to to obtain value from purchased cards, drafting, or from performing well in tournaments. This is a major reason some folks still play MTGO despite not being quite happy with the system. MTGO offers PTQs and similar tournaments as a path to the Pro Tour. One of the major concerns with Arena is when, or even if, these types of tournaments will start to appear. If/when they do, we’ll potentially see support taken away from the tournament offerings on MTGO for Standard and Limited tournaments. If that happens, I would imagine adding Modern and similar formats to Arena would be next, and MTGO’s end of life would be in sight from there. While we can hope this doesn’t happen, it is certainly a possibility.

Arena is on a free to play engine. The big difference here is, while you can put money into Arena to obtain cards or enter tournaments, it doesn’t appear, as of this moment, that trading will be a viable option. If you’re not interested in putting money into the game there will be the option to grind out a collection, which is fantastic for players not sure if they are willing to commit. Magic can be kind of expensive, and offering a free to play version is a fantastic way to draw new players in.

For coverage, it is significantly easier to use a digital product. Being easy to digest is very important for both new consumers and old. Part of the appeal of Magic is being able to play with physical cards or head to a store to play with friends. Arena provides a clear depiction of cards in each player's hands, the player’s life totals, and the field is kept nice and neat. While this isn’t something we can expect out of the physical half of the game, it’s a great step forward in making coverage more accessible for new viewers. Magic is extremely complex, so being able to see each and every thing that happens makes it easier for someone to move in and out of watching or for a viewer to jump into the middle of a game and have a better understanding of where we are at.

As I’ve discussed previously, part of the appeal of Magic is being able to play with real cards and travel to different places. Until Magic moves to a digital platform for large tournaments, we still have to deal with coverage of physical games.

How do we make the physical card game easier to digest?

For starters, I firmly believe Japanese Nationals was the future of coverage. Not only was I able to clearly see the board state, I was fortunate enough to be able to easily see a player’s hand.

But you might be thinking that’s all well and good, but the opponent is playing a graveyard based deck. Can we get a close up of that?

Yes. Yes you can.

This should be the standard. The camera angles are very clear, and when Wizards did a rebroadcast it was as different as night and day. Wizards has certainly made quite a few strides in the last years and increased the quality of their coverage, but Japanese Nationals made it feel even further behind in just the camera angles alone and nothing else. Clarity is extremely important, not just for viewers, but new players and even commentators. Ryan Overturf joined me on my podcast, Grinders Cast MTG, and we were able to discuss some things about commentary, including what he was looking at during matches. The computer screen in front of them is not the largest thing (harder to travel with bigger screens) and I can believe that adding more cameras to see graveyards or hands would be a boon for the commentary team as well. Being able to see every draw step gives anyone watching even more information.

It’s clear to me WOTC is working hard to increase the player base and help new players get into the game. Arena seems like a great step toward the future of coverage and I’m excited to see development. Here’s hoping I get into the Beta!