MTG Arena Zone State of the Website – February 2021 Update

Hello our valued visitors! We trust that you are all well. Time has flown by in a blink of an eye and we are already half way through February of the new year. We have always wanted to communicate what changes are undergoing on the website for a while, but other things got in the way and they have been few and far between. This year, we want to do better.

From now on, every month we will be letting you know what changes we’ve made to MTG Arena Zone (and maybe other related news on our network of websites) each month. The reasons why we want to make a separate post for this is as follows:

1. So that you know what’s changing or have changed already and our communication is transparent.
2. Our number one goal is to improve everyday, and we feel that we have strayed from this mission for a while. This will allow us to reflect and be more motivated.
3. We want to be accountable for everything we do, and check back on our progress. This should also help us put our head down and get to work, with deadlines in mind.

There has always been things going on in the background, but we don’t want to make excuses moving forward! Without further ado, here’s what’s being done for February.

Website Performance

This month our main focus will be on tuning the website performance and ultimately faster speed. As a consequence, we may need to cut down on some of the clutter we’ve built up over the past two years until we come up with better methods in the coming months. If you experience any issues during this transition, please let us know – even better, we’d also like to know if things improve for you!

For now, this includes changes to our membership, card tooltip and commenting systems which we will outline in more detail in their separate sections below.

Membership

Until now, we allowed members to register for the website but it served no other purpose other than letting you comment on our content. We will eventually work towards a better system for members to socialize and share their profile and content (such as decks) and work across our network of websites so you do not have to register again. This also means an option to remove all advertisements from the website as we did previously for Premium members.

For those that created an account, you may have received an email that we have permanently removed your existing record from the website. We want to start fresh again when we are ready with our new system. For the existing Premium members, your account have been transferred so you can still log in (use the link here) and enjoy the website ad-free until your subscription time runs out – and hopefully by then our new system would be ready! Thank you everybody for your understanding.

Disqus Commenting

We love it when our users comment on our articles and decks and share their thoughts. Unfortunately, the comment engagement rates have gone down significantly since the beginning and we want to see it return! We will be trialling Disqus as the commenting system and see how that pans out. It is already used across many websites and you may have an existing account with them. Otherwise, it’s easy to sign up via one of the social networks also. Let us know what you think below.

Card Tooltips

Another consequence of the website clean-up is that we had to replace the existing card tooltip system. This will hopefully speed up the website significantly as it won’t have to scan every page for thousands of cards to parse. Currently, you will find that tooltips will work as usual for decks, but for existing articles you will find them missing. We apologize for the inconvenience – for articles going forward you will find card tooltips again where appropriate.

Some examples of the new tooltip system you will find:

• Narfi
• Fynn
• Svella

[cdb_card name=”arni”][cdb_card name=”magda”]

On a related note, we will also be working on the new spoiler section of the website and have it ready for Strixhaven preview season. Stay tuned!

Content Organization

Over this month we want to work on a better system for you to navigate your way around our content – articles, guides, decks, metagame, cards, spoilers, tier lists, news…. There’s a lot to cover in Magic: The Gathering!

You may have also noticed that DoggertQBones, Drifter and Sorquixe has been hard at work producing the content on this website and getting feedback on what you would like to see would also help us tremendously going forward.

We would love to know your thoughts on anything regarding our content direction, so please let us know in the comments below as we work on this in more detail!

RuneterraCCG.com Deck Database and Builder

We're happy to share that RuneterraCCG now has a deck database and a deck builder!

Our goal is to create and maintain a curated and diverse deck collection, to which every community member can contribute.

More features to come, all feedback appreciated! pic.twitter.com/hz3naomMtv

— RuneterraCCG.com (@runeterraccg) February 11, 2021

RuneterraCCG.com is one of our network of websites that focuses on Legends of Runeterra – another type of digital card game based on the League of Legends IP. It got ahead itself and recently introduced its own deck database and deck builder! Similar to MTG Arena Zone, it will be posting the latest top tier decks, combined with high quality guides from expert players. If you need a change in pace or a bit of a break, then we definitely recommend you check it out. We’ve also written a guide for MTG Arena players recently, so if you are interested have a read below!

https://mtgazone.com/legends-of-runeterra-an-introduction-for-magic-players/

On a related note, our own one for MTG Arena will hopefully come some time this year. Sorry for the delay – we just want to make sure it’s perfect!

Wrapping Up

That’s all for now, and we’ll be checking back in March as promised and our goal is to have engaged with you, the visitors, during this time and finding out what we can do better. Of course, you can contact us through email via the contact form here or even chat to us directly on our Discord server if you have any feedback regarding the website (but not the game itself, you have to contact Wizards of the Coast for those kind of stuff).

Thank you for your support!