Every week Pete Jahn on PureMTGO publishes an article called State of the Program. It is one of the longest-running and I believe the most popular article series on that site.

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In the articles, Jahn gives his opinion on the current affairs of MTGO, an overview of hot decks, and provides a list of the most expensive cards in each format and their week to week price fluctuation. At the end of each article Jahn also gives a number, which became the basis for this article.PureMTGO is sponsored (or owned, I don’t know) by MTGOTraders, one of the largest and oldest bot chains on MTGO. They provide Jahn with the number at the end of each article. This number is the price of a complete playset of MTGO, meaning the price you would pay to buy every single different card (if multiple versions exist, only the cheapest one counts) on MTGO four times from them.The chart above runs from September 2016 to October 2018.

If you own cards on MTGO and these numbers don’t make you gasp, then examine them more closely. At the high point of the curve, right at the beginning, the complete playset went for $29,000. While this seemed to be a bit of an outlier, MTGO playsets cost around $26-28k for an extended period of time in the midst of 2016.As of last Friday, Jahn puts the value of an MTGO playset at $13,850, just about half of what it was a little more than two years ago.What happened? Why have MTGO cards become so much cheaper in the last two years? The answers, I believe, are relatively straightforward: Arena and Treasure Chests. Before I discuss their impact and how they answer the question, I would like to dig a little deeper into the history of MTGO to put the recent developments in context. The following chart shows the value of a complete MTGO playset since March 16, 2012 (the oldest data point I have), annotated with some of the most impactful events in that period.From 2001 to 2012I started playing MTGO at the beginning of 2003.

Legions had just come out. MTGO was a little over half a year old at that point. Back then it was completely unheard of what Wizards was trying with Magic Online. It had been unimaginable ten years earlier that players would spend thousands of dollars on playing cards, but it was absolutely mind-boggling that you could get them to spend their money twice, once on physical cards and once on digital cards. Originally, the general consensus was that it couldn’t be done.

Magic Online was bound to fail. It was a time when eCommerce was still a thing of the early adopters. Amazon, for example, was still much more a promise than actual business. Who would spend money on digital objects?

Especially when you already spent money to own the cards in paper?It turns out the product was not only ambitious, but successful. The Leaping Lizard Software-developed product was initially quite stable (at least I remember it this way) and offered a completely unique playing experience. Magic Online was not big—usually a few hundred players concurrently in that time—but it grew and proved that it had a valid concept.A little later, Wizards decided to take further development of MTGO in-house and immediately stability became a major issue. To be fair, it might not have been entirely Wizards’ fault. MTGO grew, but the infrastructure of the program had apparently been built in a way that could only support 4,400 players at the same time.As MTGO approached its limit, stability waxed and waned as Wizards deployed patch after patch to mitigate the issue.

Eventually, Wizards decided that MTGO had to be built anew, from the ground up. This new version, v3, was originally planned to be launched in 2006, but was delivered in April 2008. Morningtide, the last set to be released on v2.5, delivered an unforgettable experience for all players active during that time. Release events had always been the most popular events on MTGO and as the player base had steadily increased over the years, the server (there was actually only one) was by no means equipped to handle the strain.

During the Morningtide prerelease, servers had to be taken down frequently—sometimes without warning—and whenever you managed to finish a Draft without some kind of breakdown it felt like a minor miracle.Things could only get better with v3, couldn’t they? It turns out Wizards had delivered a disastrous product. It was ugly, lacked core functionality, the UI seemed to make things as hard as possible, and the servers weren’t super-stable either. There was nowhere else to go, though. If you wanted to play Magic online, then this was all you had. Over the years, the client of v3 underwent tons of improvements and I wouldn’t say it was beloved at the end, but when the v4 client went into Open Beta for the first time in September 2012, it was the v3 release story all over again: ugly, seriously laggy with a horrendous UI, and the players were clamoring for v3 to stay online.

The v4 client turned out to be so bad that Wizards supported both version for a period of two years before pulling the plug on v3. Interestingly, Wizards seemed happy enough with what v3 delivered on their end, and decided to continue using their v3 server architecture, while the v3 client was replaced with a client that has itself evolved a lot since its launch in 2012. From 2012 to 2015My data set starts a little before the first demo of v4.

You can see that despite the specter of v4 looming in the background, there didn’t seem to be major concerns about the state of MTGO. The value of the cards increased steadily anyway, which indicated that people generally trusted in Magic Online’s continued existence. This was despite Kiblergate happening in that period.In case you weren’t around during this time, Kiblergate happened when Brian Kibler played in an important MOCS event, broke the format, and went undefeated in all rounds he played, only to see the event crash one round before the end. Kibler was livid and harnessed his social media presence for maximum effect. The player base chimed in and Wizards was forced to put all events on hiatus.

At that point, there were no Leagues on Magic Online and events of various types were the primary way of playing Constructed, so this meant almost a complete stop for Constructed on Magic Online. Some events returned relatively quickly, but new problems surfaced and they were taken down again. It took Wizards almost a year to sort it all out, but despite that, collections didn’t lose significant value in that period.In June 2013 Modern Masters was released. This was special in that it was the first time an all-reprint product had been brought to Magic Online.

Previously there had been Masters sets, but in contrast to the modern versions, these had actually brought cards to Magic Online that were from sets before Magic Online was conceived. Thus, Masters Edition I-IV had not increased the supply of existing cards, but brought completely new cards to Magic Online. Unsurprisingly, prices for Modern staples fell after the Modern Masters cards were spoiled and again as the cards were released, but the drops were comparatively small, and quickly recovered.In contrast, when Wizards announced the definite end of v3 in May 2014, the anticipation of impending doom triggered a frenzy of selling that lasted for weeks and dropped prices of MTGO cards by about 20%. The crying and complaining didn’t help.

The average MTGO player seemed to loathe v4, but v3 went dark on July 25, 2014 nonetheless. And although the complaints about v4 didn’t really stop, collection values were once again restored relatively quickly, which indicates that players accepted the status quo, even if grudgingly. The Introduction of Play PointsUntil 2015 the backbone of the economy had always been event tickets (or tix). The idea is that you need tix to enter every event and tix can never be earned in any way. The only way for new tix to come into the system is when somebody buys them from the store.

You might not need to buy them yourself, because you could trade your prize boosters for tix from somebody else, but invariably somebody bought these tix from Wizards of the Coast. This way, Wizards secured a constant stream of income.In June 2015 Wizards announced the introduction of Play Points, an alternative currency that you could use to enter events. Play Points are similar to tix, the main differences being that they are untradable and that you can win them in tournaments.For some reason, many players loathed the idea, although at that point the main way of paying out prizes, booster packs, had long turned out to be unsustainable.

Originally, MTGO was mainly used for Drafting—Constructed played a minor role. Players Drafted all the time, or played Sealed Deck, and the prize boosters immediately went back into the queues. A few extra Constructed players didn’t cause any problems as a couple of extra boosters could easily be absorbed by the system.The balance shifted over the years, though, with a more robust Constructed scene emerging. The way that prizes were structured in Constructed events, these events churned out boosters at an astonishing rate. When a new set came out, the Booster Draft queues could still absorb the amount of boosters generated, but when interest in Draft waned, booster supply did not, or even increased as players turned from Draft to Constructed.

Invariably, booster prices started plummeting. At the beginning, this happened only late in the cycle, but the problem became more serious over the years. At the end of a drafting season you could usually buy a pack from a bot for less than 2 tix. This in turn hurt interest in Constructed as well, because the expected value of playing Constructed diminished with the falling booster prices.

Nobody was happy about the situation.Yet, players didn’t really seem to understand what Wizards was doing when they introduced Play Points. They panicked and sold out just as Wizards had decided that it was of paramount importance to make the MTGO economy more stable—so important that they even accepted a hit to their own profit. Every Play Point (ten, actually) in the system is an event ticket that does not have to be bought, and every ticket not bought is a dollar that Wizards doesn’t earn.Players sold out right after the announcement and continued to do so until Play Points went live. It turned out that Play points were not the end of the MTGO world, and in fact the new system was much more stable than the previous one. The economy rebounded and card prizes went up to an all-time high.

Treasure ChestsIn September 2016, Wizards announced another big change to prizes and thus the economy of MTGO: Treasure Chests. As usual when changes are announced, players went ballistic. The thing is, they went ballistic about the wrong thing. Players were furious because they feared that Wizards was cutting down on prizes, which—while tangential to the topic—was not true at all.

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Prizes were even a little better than they had been.Predictably, the outcry ebbed quickly, and people started posting pictures of lucky Treasure Chest openings on Twitter. Everybody was happy.

What few seemed to realize was that with this change, Wizards was not going to make the economy better by spending their own money. They were actually taking money out of the players’ pockets.How so?A part of the value of Treasure Chests comes from the Play Points that are in them, but the larger portion comes from the cards you open. It doesn’t require a genius to figure out what that leads to.

If you have the faintest idea of economics, then you know that increased demand generally drives prices up and increased supply drives them down. Predictably, as the supply of almost all cards increased constantly with Treasure Chests, the prices of cards on MTGO went down, and have done so ever since the introduction of Treasure Chests.This hurts every single person that owns cards on Magic Online.Every single time a Treasure Chest is opened, your collection loses a little of its value.You might argue that something similar happens when boosters are opened, but that is actually not the case for two reasons.

Boosters impact only Standard legal sets, so your old cards retain their value no matter how many boosters are opened. And redemption also provides an additional, essentially almost unlimited demand for Standard cards, which then vanish from the system. In contrast, additional cards from Treasure Chests need to find buyers on Magic Online and stay in the system forever.If you take a look at the chart I provided, you can see that the bloodletting started right at the moment Treasure Chests were introduced, and as I said, this loss in collection value is considerable. Just as an illustration: I personally own most of the Modern-relevant cards on MTGO, and the more basic Legacy and Vintage stuff like power, duals, Forces, etc. How much money in collection value do you think I lost in the last two years? More than $4,000, I would say. This comes down to almost $200 per month.

As I write this, it is the first time I think about it in this way, and despite being aware of the general trend for a long time, I find these numbers staggering.Interestingly, this was all not supposed to happen. Back in the day there was a provision in the Magic Online user agreement (or whatever it was called back then), that specified Wizards would only reprint an amount equal to 1% of the amount of product initially released for any given set. This was specifically there to build trust in Magic Online by ensuring that collections wouldn’t become worthless overnight. I don’t know when this provision was removed, but if you look at the current user agreement, you won’t find that anywhere.As an aside, for a long time there was also a passage about how much time in advance Wizards had to announce when they wanted to terminate Magic Online. I believe Wizards was supposed to notify every user at least two years in advance.

What does the user agreement say now?“Wizards may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the game at any time.”In case that wasn’t clear enough, the next two sentences reinforce what that means:“Wizards may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the game without notice or liability. You have no interest, monetary or otherwise, in any feature, content or availability of the game.”Personally I have always given Wizards a lot credit for the way they kept their promise about the Reserved List, and doubled down on it when they realized they had made a mistake by reprinting limited quantities in From the Vault. But when it comes to Magic Online, I would not want to bet too much money on Wizards keeping their promises. When Wizards can change the user agreement at any time and shows a willingness to remove passages that were meant to protect the users, then you have to realize that you are completely at their mercy. ArenaRight after Arena was announced, you can see a drop in the value of a complete MTGO set of about 15-20% in a matter of weeks. This drop is clearly visible even on top of the already negative trend.

You can’t prove a causal relationship to the sudden drop in prices, but it should be logical that the announcement of a new digital Magic platform leads to anxiety regarding the future of Magic Online. The public response was just that anyway.Just about seven weeks ago, Arena went into the Open Beta stage. The loss of value of Magic Online cards has visibly accelerated since. Again, other factors might be at play here, but as Occam’s Razor suggests, the simplest solution is usually the correct one, and there is a very simple explanation here: People like Arena. While there was a bunch of complaining in the beginning, with tweets like this one being the norm:I played one match with Arena and then couldn't bring myself to play another. I think at this point it's better to scrap it entirely than try to fix it. I really hope I'm wrong though.— Jon Finkel (@Jonnymagic00)Nowadays, we get:“I love Magic Arena.

I didn’t expect to even like it, but I love the whole experience it provides.” -Javier DominguezAnd Javier is not alone. Originally, I observed that Arena had a lot of success with more casual Magic players, like my girlfriend or friends that had retired from competitive play long ago. Most of the pros didn’t feel like Arena was for them, but now Brad Nelson and William Jensen tweet about how great Arena is, and you hear Sam Black and Gerry Thompson say on their podcasts that they really like Arena and much prefer the play experience to MTGO.If that is the state of Arena, then it should come as no surprise that people are selling out of Magic Online. Why would they maintain two separate digital collections? It’s not even like there is a selling frenzy right now. People just realize that Arena is great and even if they miss some of the formats that MTGO provides, Arena is free and Magic Online is costly.

If you are a die-hard Modern fan then you will stay on MTGO, but if you are only there for the Drafts and are not hardcore competitive, then why would you pay $15 for a Draft you could get for free?People are moving to Arena and consequently selling out of Magic Online, which further depresses prices on Magic Online. This is happening even as Arena is still in the Beta. A ton of important features are not yet even implemented, including simple things such as friends list or a meaningful ladder structure.

As Arena continues to get better we should expect even more players to leave Magic Online, which constitutes the second force that drives MTGO collection prices down. The FutureWizards promised that Magic Online would stick around and I believe that at this point Wizards believes in their promise.

What I do not believe is that Wizards can keep this promise.The future of Magic Online depends heavily on the future of Arena. As far as I can tell, Arena is already more popular than Magic Online ever was. Generally, you would expect Wizards to maintain the more popular platform and eventually scrap the other, but there is this promise to Magic Online users. But if Magic Online dies despite this promise then we cannot expect Wizards to keep Magic Online on life support indefinitely.The survival of Magic Online depends on the platform finding its niche. Wizards has described this niche as nonrotating formats and high-end competitive play.

How realistic is it that Magic Online can actually claim these niches for itself and survive—maybe even thrive—on it?As for the nonrotating formats, the most popular nonrotating format by far is Modern. If Modern dies, then Legacy, Vintage, and Pauper alone will not keep Magic Online alive. These formats are just too small. Recently asked about Modern on Arena, the developers’ answer was that this is not a current topic as there are so many other improvements that have to happen first. This is a completely noncommittal answer, but the “correct” answer, if Magic Online’s survival was any priority, would have been, “If you want to play Modern, play Magic Online.” This opens up the door to bring Modern to Arena if the public asks for it, which they probably will. If that happens, Magic Online will die quickly.Even if Wizards decides to keep the distinction between Magic Online and Arena clear, there is a related way that can spell doom for Magic Online.

A relatively hotly debated topic around Arena is what happens to cards on Arena once sets rotate out. The reason for that question is the current lack of any format bigger than Standard on Arena. The answer is—and this is an answer that implies the existence of concrete plans—that when the first rotation on Arena happens in September/October 2019, there will be a to-be-named nonrotating format on Arena, which allows cards from all sets available on Arena.What will happen if Arena Eternal turns out to be an interesting format? There will be demand for similar events in real life.

But there is only so much room for different Constructed formats and the natural player base to draw from would be Modern’s. If Modern stops being popular, that again will be the end of Magic Online.Is this likely? I don’t want to go too deep into speculation here, but just reflect a second on the current state of Modern.

The format has a lot of fun, old cards, but the format also has become the poster child for a high-powered format with little counter play expect for insanely powerful sideboard cards that bring their own problems. Modern is still popular, but at the moment it seems to be popular more from habit and lack of alternatives than from the great game play it provides.Starting a nonrotating format with Ixalan, the first set on Arena, would make a lot of sense. It would be a format where every set has at least been touched by Play Design.

Most of the fun cards from Modern would be gone, but most of them are also the cards that drive Modern’s power level through the roof. Not having access to fetchlands would solve a bunch of problems, mostly importantly the constant shuffling in real life. I could go on, but this is not the focus of this article and the topic is deserving of its own article.It is by no means set in stone that Arena Eternal will replace Modern, or even be successful at all, but there are arguments in favor of such a format, and as such it is a “threat” to Modern and thus Magic Online that cannot be disregarded.The other niche of Magic Online is that it is supposed to be the high-end of competitive play, and again I am skeptical that this is a sustainable niche. At the moment with all the infrastructure in place on Magic Online and barely any on Arena things have to be this way, but how will the situation present itself in two or three years?Arena is successful already, and let’s imagine that it gets as successful as Wizards hopes. This means that there will be millions of players on Arena.

There will also be an active streaming scene. Basically, Arena would become an eSport. People following Magic streams or Arena competitions online will in all likelihood have an interest in the real competitive Magic scene and the Pro Tour (whatever it will look like at that point), thus the Pro Tour coverage will see a lot more viewers.The situation would be that Wizards has millions of players playing their game, Arena, and as these players see the best players in the game they want to compete against those players. What do you tell your players?

“It’s cool that you like our product, but if you want to compete against the best players in the world, you have to qualify through this inferior product (MTGO) first.” Is that really what is going to happen? Doesn’t it seem much more likely that when Arena is successful and players ask for a way to qualify for the Pro Tour through Arena that Wizards will deliver? If that happens, Magic Online loses one of the two legs it stands on. The End of Magic OnlineContrary from what you might expect from the section title I would like to end on a more positive note. I believe that Arena will bring the end of Magic Online within the next couple of years, but that end doesn’t have to be a disaster for everybody involved with Magic Online. With some foresight and a little effort Wizards could create a redemption process that allows for transfer of cards on Magic Online to Arena.There would be a few things that Wizards would have to work out.

For example, there would probably be cards that exist on Magic Online, but not yet on Arena. What do you do with these? I think solutions should exist for most of the problems that would come up, but of course that is easy to say when you are not the one responsible for coming up with solutions that don’t break the system. On the other hand, if Arena is so successful that its player base is at least an order of magnitude larger than Magic Online’s ever was, it seems unlikely that a redemption from MTGO to Arena done slightly wrong could break Arena.I have no crystal ball.

I don’t know if Magic Online will really die within the next couple of years, and if so, whether Wizards will find a solution. What I wanted to point out is:. If Wizards respects their long-time, faithful customers, then they will find a way to create demand for the cards on the dying platform.

This new demand could reward players who stick to Magic Online until the end instead of punishing them with a total loss of their investment.SummaryThe three main points to take away are:. Magic Online cards are constantly losing value and will continue to do so if Wizards doesn’t change the way Treasure Chests work. I believe Arena is a severe threat to Magic Online’s existence in several ways. As players move to Arena, card prices on Magic Online will drop, and they drop faster than they normally would because of Treasure Chests alone. Wizards can choose not to make this development a disasters for players still involved in Magic Online, but they can also choose not to care.Please keep in mind that this is a contribution to topics that I think need discussing, namely the problems caused by Treasure Chests and the impact of Arena on Magic Online. This is my interpretation of the facts.

When it comes to the history of MTGO, what you read is a mixture of what I remember and some gaps filled in with various sources. If something I said turns out to be wrong, be it a “fact” or conclusion, then this is not because I have any intention of misleading you. I put this together to the best of my knowledge and if you think something is wrong and have a source for it, please provide it in the comment section. Thanks!.At the same time, Wizards announced a much shorter redemption period. Bot owners were furious, but I don’t think this is the reason for the loss of collection value in the last two years. Redemption affects only Standard legal sets after all, and most of the MTGO complete set value comes from non-Standard legal sets.

Editor’s Note: This article originally misidentified “nonrotating formats” as “Eternal formats.”.

Magic: The Gathering Arena is an fantastic digital, free-to-play collectible card game with real-time strategy elements. This game is the digital adaption of the Magic: The Gathering (MTG) card game.

You'll play as a wizard who can summon creatures, cast spells, and attack your opponents using a deck of cards. Build yo ur deck and fight it out with other players using your strategy and creativity. Test your skills and play with friends or battle it out on tournaments with other players from around the world! So, you're into a crucial moment in a game against your friends. Your only chance of getting ahead is to make that one good shot. You're in position, ready to attack, and is on the perfect line of sight; then there was a sudden frame freeze. The next thing you know, you have been killed and your team has lost the game.

We know, this can be a great big bummer. If you're experiencing this, you might want to do something about your lag. For all of our sakes!;)Lags are a noticeable delay between the action of the players and the reaction of the server.

A lot of gamers have this problem, especially withMagic: The Gathering Arena. Here are simple tips on how you can get rid of lag in Magic: The Gathering Arena.First, check the system requirements of the game. Your PC may be inadequate to perform the processing power that Magic: The Gathering Arena needs. If your computer does not meet the requirements listed on the game's system requirements, you should upgrade your computer to the specifications mentioned therein.You may also opt to downgrade the system requirements by reducing the resolution and graphics quality in-game.

You can decrease the resolution and graphics rendering by tweaking the game settings in the options menu. Try to experiment with different graphics options, like reducing screen resolution, render quality, lower texture resolution, etc.Remember - multitasking is bad! If you were a professional football player, would you try to stream Netflix while you played? Probably not.

Focus is a good thing. Consider shutting down all programs and devices that are consuming your bandwidth, because you need to dedicate all of that to your online gaming. Wired connections are also more preferable than wireless connections because they are faster and more stable.Try turning off your software updates whenever you start playing online. Although you need to keep your computer up-to-date, there is nothing wrong with turning off software updates for a moment. Mid-game software updates could sabotage your bandwidth and will likely cause lag in your game. Turn these updates off ASAP, and you will surely see a positive difference.If none of these work, we have one more solution in store for you.

At WTFast, we are dedicated to creating software that significantly improves your network performance.WTFast optimizes your connection by reducing the number of hops between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena game server. This will substantially reduce unnecessary lag in online games.We support thousands of games and over 60,000 combinations of GPN proxy servers to handle your connection across 190 countries. WTFast will make sure that your game data reaches the server in the most effective manner possible. Jitter is the sudden deviation that you get in your ping whenever you are playing online games. For example, your average ping might be 45ms. But with jitter, that 45ms might spike to 90ms or even 300ms for a short time, before going back down to your average ping. These sudden spikes in ping may throw off your game, causing you to miss that game-winning moment in games like Magic: The Gathering Arena.

A simple thing like jitter can cause you to lose a game, making your gaming skill completely irrelevant.How can you fix jitter? The main cause of jitter is the difference in the average latency time of your packets. So, you can fix your jitter by lowering your latency and more.

To resolve this, you should strongly consider using a wired internet connection if you’re not already. This is highly advisable when you are into online gaming rather than using a wireless connection. A wired connection will prevent fluctuations and lost packets which can significantly improve and lower your latency.Next is to use a high-speed internet connection. Lower internet speed may cause jitter or latency flux, especially when you're sharing it with other people or other devices. You may try and switch to fiber connections, or even just upgrade your connection and increase your bandwidth. Doing so can transform your gaming into smooth, no-jitter gameplay.Another step is to use a powerful router. Your router is the heart of your internet connection, so you’ll want to invest in the best here.

Maybe your router has been there for ages, and it's not working well for your needs anymore. Look for a powerful router that is fit for your gaming needs.

Do some research and check reviews to verify the quality of the router. Make sure that the bandwidth capacity is high enough to handle the traffic your household produces.We suggest finding a router with WTFast built-in. This way, your router can handle all the complexity of finding the best route across the thousands and thousands of potential different connection routes available in WTFast. Our friends at ASUS offer dedicated gaming routers with WTFast built-in, giving you peace of mind for gaming without headache.If you're still experiencing jitter and aren’t ready to upgrade your router, you can boost your game by simply using gaming software that offers the network optimisation solution for you. That software is WTFast! WTFast uses a custom business-grade network infrastructure that is perfect for your gaming needs. Our optimization services will provide you with a more reliable and responsive connection which can help you reduce jitter and improve your network stability.

Many people fixate on ping time when they're gaming, zoning in on speed and that magic ping number. Plenty of gamers look at their ping time like a 'scorecard' for their connection. However, many gamers underestimate the importance of their connection stability. Stability is a less sexy thing to focus on than speed – imagine test-driving a Porsche to assess its 'stability'. It's not quite as fun as testing the speed, is it?Sexy or not, stability is just as important, and in many cases more essential than your raw speed metrics. Imagine driving a Porsche at 200 miles per hour on a busy highway, when your speedometer instantly drops down to 10 miles per hour! How do you think that would pan out for you as the driver of that sports car?

Sure, the car's speed is essential, but it's also equally, and often MORE critical for the vehicle to maintain a.consistent. speed. Your internet connection is like a car – it needs to perform consistently and reliably.You can reduce the number of ping spikes in Magic: The Gathering Arena in several ways.The first step to improving your connection stability may seem like an obvious one, but it's important to check this first – make sure you are using a wired internet connection. When you are using a wireless connection, you will often lose data packets, causing interruptions to your experience. Sure, simple applications are built to be fault-tolerant and auto-reconnect after a dropped connection, but games are different. A missed move in a game will always be a missed move in a game.Next, close any applications or file transfers that may be eating up your bandwidth.

When you're gaming, you don't want your computer to prioritize something like your Dropbox file transfers over your game connection. Close as many programs as you can to ensure an extra speed and performance boost.

Not only will your computer perform a little better without having a bunch of apps using up its RAM, but you’ll reduce the risk of your internet bandwidth getting used up accidentally.For a full list of applications running on your computer, you can use Task Manager on Windows or Activity Monitor on MacOS. Imagine that your internet speed is a bit like driving a car. Now imagine that your car only shows you an average of your speed, not your actual speed at any given moment. What if you are driving faster than the speed limit, but your car only shows your 'average' speed? Do you think you will get a speeding ticket if your dashboard says you're under the speed limit, but you are traveling faster than the speed limit?In-game ping meters tend to work similarly, showing you a snapshot or an average of your overall session. These in-game ping meters are useful for getting an approximate idea of your internet latency, but they are only a rough measurement tool and do not allow you to fix your connection.WTFast is a true networking diagnostic and improvement application. With WTFast, you get real-time statistics on your connection to Magic: The Gathering Arena, which changes every time a packet is sent to and from the server!

Wtfast gives you detailed and nuanced stats on your Magic: The Gathering Arena session. This way you can see where your connection is going, and how it's impacting your performance.

Rubberbanding in online games like Magic: The Gathering Arena is caused by different factors. You might think this is because of your network connection or your ISP - although this can be true, that is not always the case.Rubberbanding can also be caused by improper installation of the game or if your game has corrupted files. Having old drivers installed in your PC (specifically for your graphics card and/or network adapter) can also be one of the causes.If you are connected through a WiFi connection instead of a wired connection, chances are you may likely to experience a rubberbanding problem. Another potential rubberbanding cause is a poor internet connection. It’s always worth having a conversation with your ISP to see if they offer a dedicated gaming bundle, especially if they offer WTFast as a built-in value bundle.

Ask your ISP if they bundle WTFast with their gaming package.So how can you fix this rubberbanding problem with Magic: The Gathering Arena? Here is a simple guide to do this. First, take note that we will only show you general fixes for this problem. It may have a little or a significant impact to you depending on different factors or variables. However, these fixes have been proven to work for different players, so we can say that they are worth trying.As mentioned in a previous tip, rubberbanding can be a result of improper installation of the game.

You may want to try reinstalling your game, along with any external gaming launcher (like Steam), to see if your problem is fixed. Other than that, you may want to update the drivers of your graphics card and network adapter to see if there will be any major differences to your gaming experience.Try to switch to a wired connection instead of a wireless one. You can do this by using an ethernet cable and connect it to your router.

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This will eliminate packet loss which is one of the major causes of rubberbanding.If the same problem still occurs, you should definitely consider using a network enhancement program. WTFast has customized and private network connections which drive your traffic more directly to the game server which optimizes connection for much stronger stability and faster ping times. Supporting over 72 billion potential combinations of game, game server region, country, and proxy routes, you'll definitely find a combination that is suitable for you. With the help of WTFast, you'll be able to focus on your game without any rubberbanding interruptions.

Ping is a regular occurrence in online games. Basically, ping is the amount of time (usually measured in milliseconds) your machine and a game server takes to communicate with each other.

With that said higher pings mean lag for any online game that you play. Ping enhancers help lower your ping by improving the communication of your machine and the game server.wtfast is the world’s leading ping enhancer software, that gives you a much smoother and faster gaming experience. Wtfast works by redirecting your gaming traffic to a private connection. Instead of only being stuck with your default internet path between your device and the game server, wtfast gives you thousands and thousands of possible different connections to explore and test-drive.

Wtfast establishes a private connection between you and the gaming server, which acts as a 'fast lane”, allowing you to transfer data much more rapidly. Wtfast can significantly lower ping spikes, lags, jitters, and lost packet data which will result in better gameplay and more wins!

Ping is a measurement of the reaction time of your internet connection.Your ping time measures how long it takes for data packets to get from your device to the Magic: The Gathering Arena server. Ping measures the time it takes to make a round trip time between your computer and the Magic: The Gathering Arena server, and it is typically measured in milliseconds. A fast ping time means you have a more responsive connection for latency-sensitive apps like online games.Ping was initially a term used in active sonar technology, and it described the time it took for a sound to be sent and received between sender and target.

In the animal kingdom, bats use a similar method called echolocation which uses high-frequency sounds to help the bat determine how close it is to a destination, even in total darkness.On the internet, determining your Magic: The Gathering Arena ping time can be a bit trickier. Internet connections are not typically direct – there are multiple 'hops' between the sender and the target.

Much like bats, we're often flying blind on the internet, unaware of the latency of the next 'hop.' When calculating your overall ping time, it's important to factor in each 'hop' along the route.When your Magic: The Gathering Arena connection is laggy, it's usually due to a poor connection between 2 or more points.

For example, your computer may be the Sender, and the Magic: The Gathering Arena server may be your Target, but there could be other mystery hops along the way causing issues. Latency is a term that is commonly used in online gaming. Latency (in an online gaming context) refers to the average total time that it takes for your computer to send data to the gaming server.Latency is measured in milliseconds, and a second is composed of 1000 milliseconds. On the other hand, your game response time is the time it takes for the data and the corresponding event to reach the game server and then back to your computer.Basically, your response time is 2x the latency which means, if you lower your latency by 250ms, you'll also reduce your game response time by 500ms, which is half a second.If you lower your latency by 500ms, you'll also lower your game response time by 1000ms, which corresponds to a second, and so on. The lower your latency, the faster the data will be delivered to the game server and the quicker for the data to return to your computer.A low latency connection time will have a significant improvement in your gameplay, especially on fast-paced games like Magic: The Gathering Arena where you need to execute an action quickly.WTFast helps in reducing your latency, as well as protecting you from lag spikes and high ping times. We have dedicated servers across 190 different countries which will reduce the number of hops needed to transfer between different servers.

By using WTFast, you have more chances of lowering your latency and achieving a much better gaming experience. Imagine playing Magic: The Gathering Arena, and you are about to make a critical move that requires the quickest reflexes. You're all ready. Your little brother runs up and shoves you out of your chair. Unsurprisingly, you miss your critical move entirely! Not only do you lose the match, but now you're pissed off with your little brother.A ping spike is like having your brother shove you out of your chair right as you're about to make that move in Magic: The Gathering Arena.

A ping spike is what happens when your lag jumps suddenly, like when you go from a stable 10ms ping time to an unstable 300ms response. These drastic ping spikes are your enemy when it comes to online games and latency-sensitive applications where real-time interaction is expected.When your ping spikes suddenly, it almost always results in a missed move in games like first-person shooters, MOBAs, or fighting games.

The more responsive and 'twitchy' the game mechanic, the more critical it is to make sure your connection is both fast AND smooth. Think of a traceroute as an 'audit trail' for your Magic: The Gathering Arena connection. Your data is usually routed through several servers between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena servers. A traceroute helps you measure and visualize the route your traffic takes, showing you each gateway or 'hop' along the way.For your connection to Magic: The Gathering Arena, your data packets will usually travel across multiple 'hops' to get from your computer to the server.

Your data will often change hands across various networks to get from Point A (your device) to Point B (the game server).A traceroute measures your data packets as they're set from your computer across all the various 'hops' between Point A and Point B. When you use a traceroute, your connection history is recorded as 'round-trip time.' A traceroute shows you a list of each of the points your connection hits as it travels between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena server. WTFast calculates an average ping time between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena server, across each of the hops.While we do our best to calculate every hop along the route, there are some 'hop points' that are behind firewalls or obfuscated (i.e., hidden from us) which make measuring the ping time to and from that location a bit trickier.By calculating the difference between the total ping time between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena server, we can calculate an approximate time between obfuscated hop points, but it can be slightly less accurate than the non-obfuscated points. The terms 'high ping' and 'low ping' are commonly used in online gaming. You may already know that ping is the network latency between a gaming client and the game server.

Ping is measured in milliseconds where 1000 milliseconds is equivalent to 1 second. For gamers, low ping times are our best friend, because a low ping equates to low latency. This means there are fewer chances for lags and delays to happen. Contrary to a high ping which causes a significant amount of lag.

Having a ping higher than 100ms can already produce a severe amount of lag.If you often experience pings that go higher than 100ms, chances are high that you suffer from ping spikes and jitter. This can be incredibly frustrating especially for an online gamer like you who plays Magic: The Gathering Arena. You might be wondering why your ping is so high in Magic: The Gathering Arena? Here are the possible reasons why.Your distance to the game server - the distance between your location and the game server has a big impact on the amount of delay you're experiencing. The further you are located from the game server, the higher ping you’ll have.

Keep in mind that game servers are usually named by their geographic location, so you must check on that one.Wireless connections - connecting to the internet via a wireless connection will make you prone to interference. This will certainly result in increased latency, packet loss, jitter, and all sorts of other network-related performance issues.

All of these could contribute to increasing your ping and slowing down your game.Running programs on the background - all applications that are running on the background while you are playing could contribute strain to your network and computer in varying degrees. This could significantly affect your computer's performance, especially if the program is consuming a lot of bandwidth. Be wary of streaming applications and downloads happening on your computer as this will increase latency between your computer and the game servers.Other devices are connected to your network - not only running applications but other connected devices to your network could eat up your bandwidth as well. Devices such as other computers, consoles, smartphones, tablets, and others could consume your network's resources. This could also result in a higher ping on your part, which will dramatically affect your gameplay.Your ISP - the problem might also be lying on your ISP. Maybe your internet service provider does not route traffic optimally for gaming which is possible on a lot of internet service providers. Many of our ISP friends provide dedicated gaming packages with wtfast included in the bundle, which gives you a stronger connection and all the power of wtfast’s dedicated network boosting service, too!You're not using a dedicated gaming software - using a gaming VPN like wtfast will improve your gaming performance by regulating and reducing your ping.

Instead of just connecting to the 'normal' server connection, wtfast will create a custom connection which will eliminate the number of hops needed for you to reach the server. The quicker you get to the server, the faster your game will be! To better understand the path your internet traffic takes to get from your device to the Magic: The Gathering Arena server, you'll want to use a traceroute. In WTFast, we show you a map that traces the estimated route your data packets are taking to get from you to the Magic: The Gathering Arena server.A standard traceroute is much less visual, showing you a text-based list of 'hops', along with the latency between each point. The latency between each point in the traceroute is measured using the ping time between two points.

First off, you've come to the right place. We're anti-lag here at WTFast!Secondly, keep in mind that 'lag' is a general term and could apply to both slow down (e.g., frames per second/FPS), or reduced responsiveness during gameplay. For clarity, we're going to focus less on graphical lag and more on your network latency and performance.At WTFast, we make software to help you boost your network performance for latency-sensitive programs like Magic: The Gathering Arena. We can help improve your network latency! Rubberbanding is one of the major problems most gamers encounter when playing online games.

This is extremely annoying, especially with Magic: The Gathering Arena and online games with fast-paced ‘twitch’ mechanics. Rubberbanding is a term used to describe a player's random or jerky movement in a multiplayer game when they're experiencing high latency. This often occurs in FPS or similar games that have a large number of people per multiplayer server. It is mostly seen in MMOs - a large number of players means there are more cases of rubber banding; either the server is overloaded, or players have high ping.When rubberbanding happens, a player appears to be thrown backward from the start of the action after they executed that certain action.

It feels like being caught in a rubberband - players get thrown back after moving forward, making it look like your character teleported or warped from one place to another.This rubberbanding problem is extremely frustrating, especially when you are in a crucial stage of the game.You’re hiding from your enemy and just about ready to shoot. Then for just a couple of seconds, you suddenly appear in front of the enemy and BAM! You're the one who gets shot and killed instead. This is the rubberband effect in action.Your action may also appear differently to other players.

While you see it as a rubberbanding effect, other players may see your character as idle or motionless, which is commonly seen on players who are experiencing heavy lag. Rubberbanding is confusing for you and your opponents, and it definitely takes the fun out of the game. You might already know about checking your ping and latency to improve your gaming experience. But there is one more factor that has a significant effect on the smooth gameplay you're supposed to have - and that is jitter.What is jitter? Jitter is an average of the change in ping over time or how your latency score fluctuates.

It is the variation in latency, and it's a problem because it makes the experience unpredictable. Average internet users commonly ignore it, but to online gamers, especially the ones who are playing multiplayer shooter games, this problem is a big deal.Jitter (or more accurately, latency fluctuation/flux), shows itself during games like Magic: The Gathering Arena through choppy gameplay. You're running around, and suddenly the world freezes.

Once it unfreezes, everything has changed, as if time had stood still for you and then got caught up suddenly. Even if this just happened half a second, you'll probably notice this stuttery gameplay. Jitter causes the latency to change rapidly, for example from 10ms to 80ms and back. In such a situation, it's tough for game servers to provide a fair environment for all players, which can be very frustrating.

WTFast is a utility that helps redirect your internet traffic from the 'regular' internet to a private connection. Think of WTFast a bit like a 'fast lane,' where there are fewer cars on the road or fewer planes in the sky. For instance, private airlines fly higher in the air than standard commercial airline routes. Operating in less busy airspace allows private airlines to fly faster than the usual commercial lines, often allowing business people to get to their destinations more quickly.There are multiple hops between your home internet connection and the Magic: The Gathering Arena server. WTFast allows you to reduce the number of hops to get much closer to your game server. When you use WTFast, you can select a Proxy Server that sends your traffic directly to the game server instead of leaving your connection up to chance.Standard internet traffic routing wasn't intended for low-latency gaming, like playing Magic: The Gathering Arena with fast ping times. Instead, it was designed to handle large quantities of data shuttling between places in the most cost-effective way possible.

Bandwidth is expensive, especially when you're streaming Netflix in 4K. And since video streaming is such a popular activity on the internet, internet service providers have to optimize for the most popular uses of their services.Decreasing the number of hops between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena game server can help, as well as routing your traffic through quieter and less populated proxy paths (what we call our 'GPN Nodes'.)We support thousands of games and over 60,000 combinations of GPN proxy servers to handle your connection across 190 countries. There are over 72 billion potential combinations of game, game server region, country, and proxy routes that we handle. If one path using WTFast doesn't work for you, consider trying different server route.

We know how hard it is to fight the never-ending battle between you and lag, ping spikes, and more.Just like what a lot of gamers say - the lower the ping, the better your gaming experience. So first and foremost, you need to know what a ping is and how does it affect your Magic: The Gathering Arena gameplay.A ping is the response time between two computers. When it comes to online gaming, a ping shows the response time between the client and the game server.Ping time is measured in milliseconds, and tell you how long a packet data takes to travel back and forth from the client and the game server.

Simply put, whenever a gamer connects to an online game, a reduced ping becomes a gamer’s best friend.On the contrary, a high ping becomes a gamer's worst enemy. Your ping time can literally be the difference between winning and losing.So how can you reduce your Magic: The Gathering Arena ping? Before connecting to Magic: The Gathering Arena, make sure to check your ping beforehand.Using the WTFast Ping Test is one of the best methods to do so. Pings that are less than 100ms are ideal for online gamers.

However, pings higher than 150ms will start to show lag. Even if you have the best gaming rig in town, that won't help in reducing your ping unless you have a very strong internet connection. And surprisingly enough, sometimes even a strong internet connection isn’t the solution to your ping problems.Reducing your ping can be done in several ways. First is to make sure that you use a wired internet connection. Using a wireless connection may result in a lot of ping problems, which is why a wired connection is the best option when it comes to online gaming.You should also consider using your local servers or the servers that are closest to your location. This can dramatically reduce your ping as it will allow better communication between the gaming server to your PC.Next is to close all running applications running in the background.

This will prevent your computer from multitasking. Having many running applications will consume your computer's memory and will affect the overall performance of your gameplay. Moreover, you should close all software that demands bandwidth, as it leeches all your bandwidth and will give you a terrible amount of delays and high ping times. You should also consider disabling your software updates before you start playing, as updates tend to consume a lot of bandwidth.

You may just turn your updates back on after playing.If you are using a wireless connection, make sure to reduce the number of devices that are connected to the WiFi. If it's possible, disconnect all other connected devices on your local network so that you're the only one consuming the bandwidth. If not, the next best thing is to connect your PC to the router through an ethernet cable.Routers and modems tend to work non-stop which results to congested data registry. You should try restarting your router to refresh your connection and potentially lower your ping. If your router has been around since the stone age, you might want to consider buying a newer replacement. Replacing your router will noticeably affect your Internet connection speed, strength, and consistency.

Furthermore, your ping will also likely be lower when you install a new router.You can also dramatically reduce your ping by using a dedicated gaming software. WTFast can lower your ping by reducing the number of hops it takes to get to your gaming server. By decreasing the number of hops between you and the Magic: The Gathering Arena game server, you'll surely see a significant reduction with your ping and have a much, much better online gaming experience! The advantage of WTFast is that you aren’t limited to a single internet connection between you and the game router.

Instead, WTFast gives you thousands and thousands of potential alternative routes between you and the game server, giving you a multitude of options and choices for improving your connection! With such a powerful utility, we encourage our users to experiment with different connection routes to find the path that’s best for them and their favorite game. Gamers often see the letters “ms” beside a number or a series of numbers in games like in Magic: The Gathering Arena. For those of you who don’t know, “ms” is the abbreviation for milliseconds. It is the unit of measurement used in ping.

Take note that 1000ms are equal to one second.So why does it matter in your game? In playing Magic: The Gathering Arena, what you’re aiming for is a low ms count.

Having a low ms count means you have a lower ping. Which means, if you see 250ms, this is exactly how long it takes for your data packets to reach that server. The higher the number, the longer it takes for you to transfer data and the more 'laggy' it will feel to you. So, the lower the millisecond ('ms') count, the better.

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