Same here the issue seems to be getting progressively worse like a few months ago it was only one gave every now and then but now I can’t challenge any of my friends at all

My brother and I are having the exact same issue. We are lucky if we get 1 match a day. I am new to this game and am enjoying it but it frustrating when we cannot direct connect so he can help me learn even more. After that we get the same disconnect issue and the match ends in a draw.

Been having this same issue.

My friend uses a mac and I use the windows client and steam.

When direct challenging a friend (60-card format), regardless of the challenge settings, it hangs on the a waiting for connection screen for one of us and the other has a normal loading screen. Ultimately, the person on the waiting for connection screen loses connection and it asks to reconnect or exit game.

I swapped to the steam client thinking this might have been an issue on my end since I was nearly always the person that loses connection but it did not resolve the issue. The issue exists regardless if we challenge each other via the friends list or the direct challenge button in the top right.

We've been playing each other regularly since April and it only recently (last couple of months) begin to consistently have connection issues like this. It's to the point where we simply cannot play each other as it just never connects where before it would normally be a short-term or semi-inconsistent issue.

Having this issue now. Friend and I cannot connect a game to play. It hangs up at connecting us, then time-outs one of and the other is met with a "Draw" after the other disconnects.

Steam Version 2023

same issue here it's embarrassing that it's been an issue for over 3 years.

If i uninstall and reinstall it sometimes work for a bit but then i have the same issues as this person. This is one of my son and I's favorite ways to spend time playing together but this is getting to be a permanent issue.

Having all the same problems as everyone else. I have been having them for several weeks when I go to play against a friend.

How many times does Wizards fail a friend match? Since the day I updated, I can't do friend matches again.

Was playing some games with my girlfriend when on our 4th or 5th game we suddenly couldn't connect. She'd be stuck in a loading loop with the screen saying connecting to server with the wheel and I was stuck in the waiting for opponent screen with the only way to exit that screen was to altf4. Can't believe this bug has been around for almost a year and still hasn't been fixed

Tried to challenge a friend in Explorer, tried all the usual suspects logging out then in, restarting computer, etc. We couldn't get either the friend duel to work or the direct challenge to work. It was fine on his end as he was able to join the game but I would sit in connecting to the server while they would join, eventually would get a message stating that it had failed to load the deck or something similar and would then later just boot me from the server. It had nothing to do with my network as a different account on the same network could challenge that same friend who was still at the same location fine. We also tried to use a different deck and even remade our decks and there was still no change. Please can this be fixed.

Direct Challenge is not functioning. What is the issue? Why can't my friend and I play?

It's happening now. My friend and I are trying and failing to connect in a direct match.

It's been weeks now, still cannot use Direct Challenge. I don't want to play the **** queue. I just want to play jank with Jamie.

Having same issue today with a friend I have played in direct challenges in the past. Regardless of how we go about issuing the challenge (tried friend list with each of us issuing challenge and direct challenge both). I've tried 3 different decks, exporting and importing deck I'm trying to use, and changing things around in the deck. What is really odd is it removed the Bo3 half of my sideboard from my Bo3 I was testing out

Galaxy S20s. Excellent connection. Challenging a friend, back and forth. It says it cannot load my deck even though it loaded it in this exact format earlier today, i think pre update. How many times can we say the servers need work before we all just quit this app, and you act so surprised. The rich get richer, and we all get their scraps, i guess.

Friendly Brawl matches are not starting. Friends have mentioned that they receive the challenge for Friend Challenges, but are unable to complete, saying Network Error and Unable to submit deck.

No known workarounds, tried both friend challenge and direct challenge with the same result. Friendly Brawl was chosen each time.

No issues before current update, either. Client should connect the decks as normal.

Netzwerkfehler bei den Direct Challenges, Kann selbst herausfordern und herausforderungen annehmen. Aber ins match rein gehen geht nicht. Deck kann nicht angemeldet werden man solle es später wieder versuchen.

Kann nicht durch Spielneustart gefixt werden oder durch Computer Neustart. Dies betrifft alle Modi!
Ich würde mich freuen wenn Sie das beheben könnten. Das tritt erst nach dem heutigen patch auf Version 2023.30.10 auf.

Same issue as others. Can't teach gf to play because the direct challenge either gives me a "failed to submit deck" error or one of us will load to the waiting for player screen just for the other to get stuck connecting to opponent and one person will load in after 60secs just to get insta-draw.

It is hard to get others interested in Magic if you cannot play them directly. I teach others to play and get interested in Magic but when we can't play. they lose interest. I would think this is a priority to growing the brand and introducing new people to MTG. You are losing a lot of money and players by not addressing the Direct Challenge bugs. The old Magic Online had no such bugs and was fun to play. The new Arena product needs investment.

Have the same issue with version 2023.28.0.4634.1015823

Can't play any direct challenges with the same issues reported above.

Bummer as this was the only feature I was interested in using today.