It’s been a busy, exciting, and Magical week. Hipsters and friends saw Carrie off before she heads out along the Oregon Trail. My Team Draft League team, PB&J, won our win-and-in to make the postseason. I also dusted off my Magic Online account.
I’ve nothing game-changing to discuss about Khans Limited or Modern, so let’s talk about MODO for a minute. I used to draft online twenty or so times a week (and stream it all). I don’t play online at all anymore. This weekend, I made time to play to pave the way for streaming. My return experience was… poor.
I drafted the Magic Online Legacy Cube thrice. Each draft, I was disconnected multiple times (despite my stable internet connection). Each draft, MODO crashed. Each draft, I missed several picks. In my most eventful draft, I experienced the following problems (in addition to the aforementioned):
- Inability to relog into Magic Online.
- Contents of my draft pool changing each time I logged back in.
- Inability to add cards to draft deck (they disappeared).
- Inability to submit draft deck (required several relogs to fix).
- When I was eventually able to submit a deck, MODO registered an empty deck (not a deck of all my cards and random basic lands, an empty deck). I lost game 1 because drawing my 7 card hand caused me to deck myself.
My experience was infuriating. I received a complete refund of my entry fees, but that didn’t diminish the joy of wrestling with a program that used to work for me (well, MODO V3 worked better than this, though certainly not perfectly). This shouldn’t have happened—my computer fits MODO’s specifications and my internet connection was stable. If this is how MODO is, it shouldn’t exist.
I bring this up not to complain (okay, I am complaining), but to engage with other Online players. Was my experience typical? Was this weekend just particularly bad for MODO? Should I invest any more time and money into Magic Online (and streaming)? What’re your opinions and experiences of the V4 client? What ought we to do?
I’m keeping it short and bittersweet this week. Thanksgiving’s coming up, Khans of Tarkir Limited still isn’t broken, and New York City’s PTQ is this Saturday. Hope you all have a lovely holiday and I’ll see you next week, when (hopefully) another friend of the site has made the Pro Tour.
As always, thanks for reading.
—Zachary Barash
Zachary Barash has been playing Magic on and off since 1994. He loves Limited and drafts every available format (including several that aren’t entirely meant to be drafted). He’s a proud Cube owner and improviser, creating entire musicals from scratch every week. Zach has an obsession with Indian food that borders on being unhealthy.