Hey everyone! Long time Magic fan here - I think a HUGE weakness of Arena is that there are almost NO ways for me to onboard other people into the game or to maintain interest among friends. One of the reasons this game still exists in general is the social component of playing in paper which allows players to keep each other interested (and invested) in the game.

Here are some basic social functions that would give us ways to interact with friends and therefore maintain broader interest in the long term:

• Friend people you meet
  This is a basic way to let people start building that social component which can keep them coming back; why can't we make friends IN the game? Sometimes you play someone who is fun or you liked their play, why can't you choose to connect with them in any way? This makes the game feel empty and lonely.

• "Well played" / "Nice deck", other more expressive emotes
  It's insane that there's no way to commiserate with someone if they are having a rough draw. There's nothing you can really signal. If someone has a great deck you haven't seen, or makes a great play, why can't you complement them on it? It's so basic and I frequently wish I could have just this little extra bit of communication.

• Private player lobbies
  Why is the only functionality for private games a single 1v1 match that's not even observable? The fan made website to play Netrunner (a card game with a much smaller community) lets you make lobbies and have people join as spectators. There is no way to interact with a group of friends on Arena, not at all.

• Spectator Mode
  No brainer, and even beyond the social aspect of being able to involve more than one friend, this is just basic for the esports scene. It looks very unpolished to have at the official esports events a janky screenshare of the individual players (sometimes with issues too).

• Pod draft / sealed?
  This is huge! You could sell so many more packs if people could play limited formats in a social way (with friends). This would be such an easy way to get friends into the game / maintain hype over the course of a year. You underestimate how many non magic regulars would pay to draft once just for a fun game night.

• 2v2 / Two headed giant, etc.
  Again, any way you can add to the game for players like me to involve more than one friend would be amazing.

There's much more social functionality to desire from Arena, the important thing to remember is that this has a very real long term impact on the community of a game. I want to get friends involved and experience the game with them, but I right now I can't do pretty much anything to that effect.

In the words of Tom Cruise in some movie "Help me help you"

So this has been a problem for a while now with any infinite combos in arena, where, depending on the combo, you may be at risk of losing to the timer due to repeating the same action too many times and not triggering the game to see it as something that advances your game state.

With the recent addition of Mystical Archive cards from Strixhaven into Historic, we have an inherent issue with the card "Tainted Pact". When attempting to combo off with Tainted pact and Thassa's Oracle, a combo that simply could not have been overlooked when adding Pact into the format, we either have to click "Decline" endlessly, potentially misclicking "take action" for a game loss, or allow ourselves to time out so that the game will auto-decline every action after we run out of time leading to the Oracle trigger resolving for a win.

What's worse, is that this card could potentially result in a turn three win if you have both Pact and Thassa's Oracle in hand by playing Pact on the opponent's end step, leaving one card remaining in your library, and then untapping to cast Thassa's Oracle. The problem is, however, that if you attempt to do this you will need to click "decline" on each trigger up until the last card, where you click "take action" - the timer will not allow for this many "decline" triggers, and you instead lose the game since it times you out and you mill your entire deck.

Something needs to change here, and it should have been implemented before the card ever even hit the format. You released an almost unplayable card due to the limitations of the game client, and it needs to be corrected.

With the latest Ban/Restricted announcement (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-announcements-july-14-2021)

The card "Book of Exalted Deeds" will be banned in Standard 2022.
Per the announcement, "Note that wildcard grants are not used for bans in Standard 2022. The Book of Exalted Deeds can still be used in both Standard and Historic play on MTG Arena."

This does not make sense. There is a ranked queue for standard 2022 and Book of Exalted Deeds was a competitive deck. Many players used their extremely rare mythic wild cards to get copies of this card, which will now become useless.

This does not seem fair to players of the game, especially when there is already the precedent of refunding wildcards when cards are banned in competitive formats.

Currently Tainted Pact is card that is almost unusable on MTG Arena. When you exile a card with Tainted Pact a 2 second animation plays exiling the top card of your library and this counts towards your timer. This animation makes it impossible to resolve Tainted pact on your turn in your library has 45 cards or more. If your timer runs out the Arena client will auto resolve Tainted Pact and exile your entire deck. Your timer is even less on your opponents turn so If you attempt to resolve Tainted Pact on your opponents turn you can only do so if you have less then 25 cards in deck. The Tainted Pact issue on your turn could be solved if the animation doesn't play or they give you an extra 20 seconds to resolve Tainted Pact. The issue on the opponents turn would require even more time added but the card itself Tainted Pact is a instant which is absurd you can't use it as an instant.

1. Give us the steps to reproduce the bug:

Make sure there is a permanent in the graveyard. Cast "Claim the firstborn" on opponent's creature. Cast "Deadly Brew". Sacrifice the claimed creature.

1. Note which platform you’re using (PC, Mac, Android, or iOS)

PC

1. Enter the actual results you’re experiencing

You then do not get the option to bring a permanent back from the graveyard to your hand.

1. Enter the expected results of the feature

As I sacrificed a creature to "Deadly Brew" I should be allowed to bring a permanent from the graveyard to my hand. I double checked that a permanent was indeed available in the graveyard (in this case: a Woe Strider).

"Deadly Brew" works as intended when sacrificing you own yourself (either card or token).

1. If you found a workaround, please add workaround steps.

None found.