Fix your matchmaking algorithm.

You have to know it's broken. You HAVE to know that 'working as designed' doesn't mean it work; it means it's doing what it's told to do. Looking at the number of posts here, on the reddit forum, in your own forums from people who are frustrated with the game because you cannot actually get a fair and balanced match. I know what first level support will say to this ticket - I work in software development so I understand how it works. Your level one guys will close out this case because there's a document on your knowledgebase that indicates that matchmaking is fine. Level 1 guy - you gotta do better than that. Players can't find good games, not because Magic stopped being fun, but because it's being decided by the matchmaking algorithm what your opponent will be. You can't just play against a random opponent; the game decides before the game begins who is going to win.
Do better.

It's obvious that some players are being targeted, algorithmically in some fashion, to experience deeply unfair "coin flips" to determine who goes first. The commentary and analytics on this go back 3 years at this point. It's not a bug. It's deliberate.

Matchmaking is garbage, ranked matches garbage. This game is currently broken and you guys have ruined Magic. Fix matchmaking, and create algorithms based not only on player win/loss, but deck composition.

Regain confidence by a publication about the shuffler in MTGA :
- Is it fully random ? ==> if not, do it
- Are PNJ players used ? ==> if yes, stop it
- Is the matchmaking in ranked game fully random ? ==> if not, do it (only parameter : the rank)

And choose about MTGO/MTGA. It's ridiculous to have two digital products for the same game : quality suffers !

And, last but not least, MTG is MTG, not hearthstone or pokemon or ... ! Never forget it !!!!

PS : I stopped buying your products (around 2000$ a year) because I'm not a patsy !

Is there any way we could sue magic the gathering as a community since we are paying real life currency

GET RID OF YOUR ALGORITHIM FOR RANKED IT IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE WORST POS I'VE EVER SEEN MAKES THE GAME COMPLETELY UNENJOYABLE

This is insane. I create a new deck. I win 2 games with it and then your algorithm figures out the hands that can beat mine and suddenly I go into 4 matches in a row with decks I could NEVER beat. They are perfectly suited to not only oppose my deck but not even give me a chance to win. These are decks I've never seen before in a year and a half of playing Arena. But this happens anytime I create a new deck. Suddenly I'm facing opposing decks that are perfectly suited to beat me, decks I've never faced with any of my previous decks.

I want an option to play an honest to god random match! Not to be matched up against decks your algorithm has identified as being able to beat me.

To be clear, I don't care if I lose. What I care about is it being a fair match. If I walk into any in-person match there isn't a 3rd party reviewing both our decks and then deciding who can play who, which is what Arena does. You pre-determine who is going to win and the worst part is you are completely shady about it. I see from many other posts we all know you're doing it with these algorithms but you don't make new players aware.

I enjoy playing MTGA but my God it feels rigged some times. I lose a few matchs in a row and then when I change decks its seems to put me up aganst decks that a designed to either nullify and undermine the mechanic I have chosen or happens to play at the speeds that put my deck at a disavantage in termes of play speed. I switch it up again and boom puts me up aganst a deck that is clearly designed to undermine the new deck I have chosen.

I will never pay money to play this game for as long as the matchmaking stays the way it is. Obviously pairing me up against decks that are designed to win against whatever I'm playing is so stupid that I am barely hanging on to free play at the moment and I feel like even then, I shouldn't waste resources in game. I go up against 20 lifegain decks in a row but then I put a few cards in that stop lifegain and never see one. I agree with every other player on these board. STOP RIGGING MATCHES AND USE A RANDOM PAIRINGS GENERATOR. Simple as far as I'm concerned: you dont fix this and I refuse to give you money.

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?

I've been keeping track, the number of less the 2% chance floods is like 10%, which is statistically highly improbable. Driving me mad. 10 out of 14 when there are 17 in a 40 card deck? Please. Shuffler is NOT fine.

Absolutely can confirm this! I made a flash/rouge Deck (no NETDECK or some other ********, 100% just played by me) and played like 30 games with it ONLY!!!!!!!!!! getting Mono Green or White as opponents. Every time! In the freeplayqueue!

This is so bad and ruins absolutely any diversity and fun you could maybe have, but the matchmaking makes the game as a whole kind of unplayable. Even the fact that the "freeplayqueue" is literally the same as the ranked queue just for loosers who dont want to "compete".

My suggestion: Give us a individually Banlist with like 10 Cards beeing able to be banned in freeplay for like 1 Week - you will not face them. So it would be actually able to build some Decks that are not forced by your (really bad) matchmaking system to play the same (Netdecked) 5 standartised, repetitive Decks over and over again

The matchmaking in standard ranked and in normal play is literally trash!!!
Recently it became very difficult to proceed in career...it looks like the opponents are chosen based on the deck I want to play.
Where is the randomness (aka fairness)?? Please hire some statisticians for task/piece of code which requires statistical way of thinking.

I'd like to add to this:

You guys have NO problem managing deck strength matchmaking in limited play (often favoring same color pairs, it seems - and this is having watched A LOT of MTGA limited play)

Why is it so tough to AT LEAST match the gimme decks against other free decks???

I've changed NOT A SINGLE CARD, and yet I'm matched in "PLAY" mode against actual constructed decks often. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I can easily go look up a list of current meta decks, so I expect you can too. Why not cross-reference these decks and match them against each other in play mode? I could find better matchups playing in bronze ranked play than I can in what should be a casual mode.

And sure, you're always going to have people who are selfish and just want their quick daily wins bringing T1 decks into a casual setting. But you could shut that down in a hurry if you matched them against each other, and clearly there is an existing deck strength matchmaking system in the code.

I've said it over and over but if you don't create a casual arena for Magic fans, you're going to lose out on a LOT of new players and older casual players alike (and, more importantly, clearly, on the MONEY they would be spending).

Plus, it's extremely frustrating. And why, you ask, don't I just make T1 decks and do the same thing? Because I don't want to be that Ahole. And why not play ranked then? I don't always want to play that sort of Magic. Any time, I could take a good deck into bronze ranked play (or silver, or gold, ranked doesn't really get competitive until plat or maybe diamond rank) and win 80+% of games but that's not always FUN.

This is gross. It also seems illegal since if one can win crystals (ie have monetary value), by not disclosing that the algorithms are not random, people are misled about their chances of winning.

I am 100% about this and was about to post my own. I spent over 4 hours today just trying to get daily wins due to bad algorithms and bad luck. I want to feel I can play because I want to; because it is fun. This is NOT fun. Paper is fun. This is torture. It is all win-oriented at the cost of fun. If you play for fun you will lose over and over which makes no progress towards daily allotments. Even when I play meta decks, it isn't fun as algorithms make bad match ups, mirror matches which get boring, etc. At least if the losses counted as half a win or something, it would make it more reasonable to play for fun and not care so much about winning all the time.

also drawing half the lands in a deck does not help either xD

Matchmaking is super broken. I win 3 times and suddenly i play 12 times against the same decks(minion of the mighty) and keep losing on turn 3 which is ridiculous. This has to be fixed. matchmaking should be random and not made to force losses so we should buy packs. if this keeps up people will just leave the game...

1. Please merge this idea with the number of other "matchmaking" product suggestions. It's bigger than it appears here.

2. Save me from this white/green life gain meta deck ****.

I agree- at least admit that it isn't 50:50