Would it be possible to set the kind of games you like and have the game matching algorithm take that into account?

First, I prefer playing games that we are evenly matched but I can understand that this is difficult to determine by however you are matching opponents.

Second, I suspect that the game is tweaking cards that are pulled from my deck. I may be wrong but I’ve had way too many games where I get a land after land or get only zero or one lands after pulling 8-10 cards. I suspect this is for play balanced reasons which I’m sympathetic to but, it’s really frustrating to play against. It’s hard to determine if my deck is bad or the card pull algorithm is messing with me again.

My proposal is to ask folks what kind of games they want to play, how long they are willing to wait for that kind of game and you do your magic behind the scenes to determine balance.

I suspect you would be able to give players more satisfying games and would help manage their expectations about what they will be playing against. FYI, I would also give an option to allow players to opt back into your current algorithm from the ‘Waiting for a game’ screen if they are percieve they are waiting too long for a game from their point of view.