Match making, the shuffler, opening hands, the list goes on. This entire game is nothing more than a rigged and played out cash grab. Matchmaker only shows you decks that out curve, counter, or mirror your deck. Hands are rigged from the jump with "smoothing and optimization". BO1 and BO3 both have the same issues. The amount of times your opponent or you have 4/4 of a card by turn 4 or 5. Maybe the fact that the game keeps all players close to that 50% win rate.

This game is a sad excuse for real MTG. during Covid time it could be ignored so that I could still play magic. Now this game is a stain on the community and probably drives away more people than it attracts. The game is rigged, grindy, and flat out isnt fun. Added bonus the community is terrible and the economy is non existent. If you want to enjoy magic uninstall MTGA and go buy paper cards. If you want to stay on the hasbro train and buy digital cards you dont own to play them in a pretty looking rigged ****** proof format than MTGA is for you.

20+ years playing MTG and I have always loved it. MTGA convinced me to sell my cards and step away from the hobby all together.

Matchmaking is so BROKING! I won't say anymore because everyone already has stated what needs to be said. This is absurd and absolutely unenjoyable. Please fix the fixed matchmaking. It is so rigged it hurts....

GAME IS RIGGED BS.

Matchmaking is really broken or everyone I play against is playing the same decks. I'm being matched up against all the free casting decks that I have very little chance of actually playing never mind winning the game. It's just easier to concede and go to the next game. Bur loe and behold I'm matched up with the same deck yet again. For example: I'm playing a Heliod lifegain deck in Historic Brawl (which I've started so many times trying to overcome the ****** decks I come up against). I've played 604 games with my current deck with a 39% win rate. Out of all those games someone has conceded to me 38 times at draw. I've conceded 291 times. 291 time, really!!! That's 54.5%, well over half my games not played at all; and it's only going up because I'm being matched against the same decks ALL THE TIME! See my Untapped.gg screenshot attached.

And it looks like I'm not the only 1 that's facing this problem.

The game is unplayable for me at the moment, because I'm trying to play ranked with 'go wide' creature decks and so the matchmaker decides that 90% of my opponents should maindeck 4 Meathook Massacres. There is no way that this is a true representation of the actual meta game, just check any stat tracking website, it's clearly not true. I should see far more mono-white decks than mono-black. Can you at least explain why you think this is a good idea?

our decks are most of the time matched against few very similar or identical types of decks and we can't do anything about it. there are so many other types of decks / strategies out there that we'll never be able to play against with certain decks, because the matchmaking doesn't allow it. it's not like the matched decks were the only ones that would create a "balanced" match and every other constellation would be unfair, we all know that.
it's more like the game matches you with something that couters your deck and it all comes down to drawing luck. where's the fun in that?
this only leads to more people following the meta and ultimately to most people playing the same decks / strategies.

it would be great to have a card filter option before playing a match, where you will not be matched against decks that contain the selected card(s).

vote for it here: https://feedback.wizards.com/forums/918667-mtg-arena-bugs-product-suggestions/suggestions/44071368-card-filter-option-for-unranked-matchmaking

I agree, the programmers say that everything is fine, but we are the players and playing we realize that something is wrong, it is a very poor algorithm, badly done, it is ridiculous that many online card games work and do not have any geniuses as programmers ... it's shameful.

Agree! So lame how they try to match it up to make it fun for everyone (low level players)

Great strategy for company to make money because you have lots more people who don't know anybetter to play. Really ****** because it's rigged. I have always said mtgo is like simulation and arena is like arcade version. Like NBA live versus NBA jam!

basically this.
play with g/w ramp --> get all sorts of control or removal decks matched.
play with u/w control --> get all sorts of fast ramp/control decks matched.
they don't even try to hide it.

had a conversation over email with wotc support about letting us have technical insight how matchmaking and shuffling algorithms work. got as a reply:

"I assure you that our algorithms, including matchmaking, the shuffler, coin flips, and others, have been tested at length and are working as intended. All players are on the same playing field using the exact same rules."
i answered with some more detailed questions and received a standard "Your feedback about MTG Arena is very valuable to us" blah blah reply. pathetic!

this is aggressive ignorance.

It's hard to understand why the matchmaking is rigged. In bo3 ranked I match with nothing but dimir rogues every time. Again and again amd again and again and again this really made me crazy.

I aö not exeggerating. Almost 8 of each 10 games I match with dimir rogues when I play dimir control. If I reconfigure my deck agaimt rogues than I start to match nothing but gruul agggro. This is just top mıch anoing. It really sucks to play mirror matches again anad again. Please fix this ridiculous problem. I understand that by favoring aggro decks you make happy low skill players and this is a good commercial strategy but just know that you **** on this game.

The matchmaking in drafts is either trying to make you lose on purpose or seriously flawed. If I proceed to start a draft having Bronze tier, being matched with gold or even platinum tier players shows how something isn't working as it would in a fair, playable, enjoyable gameplay.

Here I report the details of the event, attaching images of the particularly mismatched opponents :

Event : Quick Draft Core 2021 , accessed paying 5000 gold fee on date 2021-01-15
Matches log :
1st match : Bronze opponent, resulting in win, score 1-0
2nd match : Bronze opponent, resulting in win, score 2-0
3rd match : Bronze opponent, resulting in win, score 3-0
4th match : Platinum opponent, resulting in win, score 4-0
5th match : Gold opponent, resulting in loss, score 4-1
6th match : Silver opponent, resulting in win, score 5-1
7th match : Silver opponent, resulting in loss, score 5-2
8th match : Silver opponent, resulting in win, score 6-2
9th match : Silver opponent, resulting in win, score 7-2

Since I started the event at the lowest bronze tier, i ended it in bronze tier 1. Therefore, most of the matchmakings here listed were far away from being balanced with my tier.

Please, revise your algorithms.

Play mill deck - 9/10 times get matched against either Lurrus or Kroxa deck
Play rogue deck - 9/10 times get matched against rogue deck

Atm I'm playing control deck without any outliners (no winning through milling, no rogues in deck) and it's refreshing to be actually matched against different decks. Use any other deck an it's hilarious how repetetive the games become.

absoultley unfair matching. i have mathmatically proved it. please stop the unfair matchmaking.
wizards doesnt allow its emplyees to be unfair. why do that to paying customers?

We need just a real random in play queue. I play control, i get matched agains only control, i switch to aggro, i get only aggro oppenent. I want different match-up. I'm fed up of this.

In current season, I played 307 games, of those 170 on the draw, 33 more games than on the play, more than 10% bias in favor of draw. This is beyond the reasonable standard distribution and shows bias in the matchmaking algorithm.