This has a 1/100 chance of happening if you drew no extra cards in either game (or a 1/10,000 chance of happening twice in a row). With thousands of games happening every minute, this kind of thing is going to happen to someone every few minutes on Arena.

You really need to do something about your matchmaking. I don't know if it's ignoring deck win rates, or if it's ignoring deck contents or if it doesn't care that certain decks are in the Top 8 list.

If you keep placing starter decks with a few funky cards against Top 8 control decks people will just leave the game

Fix it!

The weekly quests and daily rewards are both tied to getting wins. It is fundamental that wins are a common occurrence so players can grind their resources. With this in mind, a system needs to be in place that tracks player skill level and deck success rates with total matches played as part of the process. It’s endlessly frustrating losing 10 games in a row because your opponent has perfectly optimized and expensive decks, while your deck is cobbled together from whatever you can manage to own. The current “unbiased” system results in a “loss lockdown” where newer players constantly queue up, get destroyed by seasoned players and meta decks, and cannot gather resources to build their deck to counter the popular decks and expert players as a result, creating a cycle. Every match should be a dice roll, just like the cards you draw, but weighed dice in matchmaking are needed to prevent new blood from leaving due to the simple issue of “loss lock.”

I can't stand their matchmaking algorithm. I can understand it for casual play to protect newer players with weaker decks, but in events there should be no matchmaking at all--if you're deck is bad you'll get steamrolled, or if you build a deck specifically good against the current meta you will destroy everyone. This is how games are played at ACTUAL paper magic events. The person behind the counter at your FNM doesn't say "Oh it looks like you're playing Legacy Charbelcher, let me only match you up against other decks which have 4 copies of force of will, that way it's closer to a 50/50 game". This doesn't happen. If your built your deck around a meta with little/no counterspell then you get rewarded for deckbuilding and playing smart and you get to steamroll everyone, that's how it works. Instead, WOTC is deadset on everyone having a 50% winrate...why? If I win half my games and lose half my games no matter how I change my deck around, it's not fun. I understand why they do this, it's purely business from their perspective--rewards for events are only advantageous to the player when they win more than anywhere between 60%-70% of their matches. So if they build an algorithm where players are designed to win 50% of the time then the players will never build resources and will be forced to spend actual money on the game. They're not doing it to promote positive gameplay or whatever BS the WOTC employee is payed to say, they're doing it to force people to spend money, period.
I'll give an example this past week that really got to me. I had been playing monoblack devotion (not vampires, but phyrexian obliterator with gray merchant) in historic events with pretty good results, but noticed after a few too many wins I started getting matched up against jund sacrifice, zenith flair cycling decks, and dreadhorde arcanist decks, which had much better winrates against me. I adapted to this by maindecking 4 leyline of the voids and what do you know?...all the sudden I wasn't getting matched up against any of those decks at all. I played over 100 matches and played less than 10% of matches against jund and dreadhorde, and NO GAMES WHATSOEVER against zenith flair. The next day I decide to take out the leylines since I thought maybe the meta was moving away from graveyard shenanigans, but what do you know?...the very first match I play against without the leylines is against zenith flair! I just can't stand it, there's literally no point to adapting or building your deck at all. Just throw whatever together and whether your deck sucks or not you win 50% of the time. It's not fun at all.

We all know the shuffle algorithm is beyond messed up and if this continue to not be fixed wizards will lose more new players than gaining because new players wont be able to play the game because they literally cant play the game. I feel that if there was a shuffle button when prompted to shuffle your library it would give the players more control and actually make the shuffling aspect of the game more relevant. From what I have experienced, most of the times that i have sacrificed a land for a basic land or have searched my library for a land, about 90% of those times I draw a land on the next turn and even more after that. I have started games with really great hands, no tutors for lands and even less lands than the average and I get pockets of lands when I'm losing all my creatures and/or life and cant do anything because my opponent has everything they need. Or its the other way around and I have to mulligan a couple times and then its right back to all the lands. There has to be a way for this to be fixed

I am not sure about spending money but I would LOVE to know who would need to be bribed blackmailed or blown to have a fair and fun experience. out of 20 games I went first twice. I am flooded or hosed 90% of the time. My opponents get a nut draw at least 70% of the time or so. I am about ready to ragequit a game I have played and loved since alpha. No one expects to win all the time but losing all the time through a rigged system isn't fun for anyone. Even if your one the winning side, it isn't typical so much as a lucky game amongst tons of failures.

Hi, I’ve been playing for about a month, and it’s been a mostly positive experience. The only complaint I have is the opening hand, and the draws. It’s obvious that neither is random, which is really weird.
What I would like to know is this - what can I do to improve the quality of the game? Is there a dollar amount I should spend per month? Is there something in the game I need to do? I just want to have normal games vs. other players, but the absurd opening hands and constant mana flood are really ruining the experience. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.

Agreed, but dumb humans who are ignorant will always keep falling for these scams.

SHUFFLE THE CARDS PROPERLY. Give us a choice how to shuffle.

Recently it seems like the Arena "random" algorithm is out in left field ... taking it too far. People who actually play MTG physically pre-blend their deck spreading out creatures, colors & lands ... to reduce clumping. After getting 9 lands in a row ... game over. It didn't matter how I played ... the AI frustratingly decided the game. It would be nice to have couple options for a pre-shuffle pattern.

Matchmaking is now literally broken. Normally I get matched against against unwinable decks like any creature midrange deck vs sultai yorion. But now matchmaking doesn't work anymore at all. Guess you ran out of people playing a hard counter?

How about you fix your matchmaking and stop rigging people into unwinable matchups. "working as intended" my butt

The matchmaking and the algorithms are too much. I get no reward at all for taking sometimes hours to craft a deck. The second I get a few wins I'm pitted against a deck designed to beat me. I make adjustments, it happens again. This has turned me off to magic probably forever. Why should I even take the time. I was at a good 68% win ratio, then I lost literally 100s of games in a row. Went a period of time where every game my opponent drew 1st. That was over 50 games in a row. I can't take it. This game has me shaking in anger. I dint even want to be part of this community if this is what it's become. Farewell. I've been playing since 1996. 2021 is my final year. God job.

So my experience is that following a day when you won more than 50% of the games, the following day you cannot win. I also find that on the days I lose all the time I'm playing against decks that essentially auto-win, with perfect hands that cause you to lose at turn 2 or 3. I've also found that on the days I lose a lot I'm struggling for mana, yet the opponent never suffers this problem. I also find that on the days I lose the opponent always has the perfect answer to everything in hand, so if I play an enchantment deck they have a fist full of enchantment removal, if I play a creature deck they have to destroy and board wipe if I have anything else they have counters.

I've been playing magic for over 24 years and I know the game inside and out, the quality of my play doesn't fluctuate to such extremes, so yeah... Magic Arena is 100% rigged!

Let's talk about how rigged your pay to win game is. Let me go ahead and create a deck, find an opponent, play a game. This opponent will be the EXACT COUNTER to the deck I made. What the ****?! DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME, RIGGED = NO FUN, WASTE OF TIME.

Apparently, this issue, which was raised a long time ago, has still not been fixed. I just created a new fun and interesting Historic deck. It is nowhere near a tier 1 deck and that is the point. I have played two games so far in the Play queue. This is the one and only queue in Arena in which deck strength is supposedly evaluated for matchmaking. In game 1, my opponent was on the play and won on their turn 3 with the Neoform combo. In game 2, my opponent crushed me with the meta white-green Angel CoCo deck. How is this supposed to be fun?

Please fix the Play queue matchmaking algorithm so that your customers can actually have fun playing Arena. Either that or create a different queue for non-meta decks.

I have 70 lands in a deck of 170 cards and no lands coming in the five first rounds in 6 games in a row. You'll never fix the algorithm are you?

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!

MTG arena is HIGHLY rigged and every subreddit sucks your D***s defending your terrible company.

I stopped buying your cards and went full proxy back in 2015.

I recommend everyone go proxy and boycott WOTC for disrespecting there loyal customers

I also have this issue I have a 80% go 2nd rate. I have manually recorded this data. I am curious what to search within the logs to find the data though.

Game rigged 100% certified.
The game keep anoying patterns already identified in other posts.
Tier IV rigged games against antagonist decks calculated by the matching system. More than 1000 games played and recorded whit opponents start more than 750 games (75% of opponent start) it´s out of statistic distribution. Games riggeds giving no lands, no usefull cards or crucial opponets draws in 98% of games. I always play whit top tier tournament decks. The patterns are insane, indeed I can predict the opponent play whit 96% of accuracy!!! Last week when i puchase a boster box climbed to diamon whit no issues. Now with the same decks it´s total impossible. Too much "luck" for the opponent in more than 200 games. No matter the deck you play, rigged matching system takes you out

I agree. Honestly I quit ranked at this point.