MTG Arena Performance Issues Reportedly Get Worse After July Update
New patches are meant to release as a way to fix old bugs and add new features to the game. Magic: The Gathering Arena got its latest major update, dubbed patch 0.17, yesterday on July 25. The massive update brought with it a new limited time event that will stick around for a while, store changes, and some bug fixes as always. However, it also brought with it a host of new MTG Arena performance issues.
While we had hoped for additional improvement, complete fixes to the MTG Arena performance issues that have been cropping up for quite some time are few and far between. The only exception to this is the elemental pet problem, which seems to be fixed for now. However, on the other hand, this update has brought with it more bugs than there were previously.
New MTG Arena Performance Issues Detailed
Players have begun posting about their newfound MTG Arena performance issues on Reddit. The worst of these is the fact that some players aren’t even able to install the game and its new update, rendering it unplayable for those who aren’t able to. But even if you are able to get into the game, there are some new MTG Arena performance issues possibly waiting for you.
If you’re running into issues installing the game and it’s new update you can learn how to fix the bug quickly and easily by clicking here.
For instance, there are some users who are reporting that they aren’t able to play their land cards during matches. A user reported on Reddit that clicking and dragging the land wasn’t possible at all. The card wouldn’t show up highlighted so there was no way for them to drag and put it on the field.
Since there was no solution to this problem, the user was forced to concede the match and restart the game. Thankfully for them, this wasn’t in a ranked match and the user notes that they “would have been furious” if that had happened in ranked. Other users chimed in with similar issues.
For some players, it is impossible to play lands in a match without restarting the game entirely. In addition, another user experienced the land card issue along with some other MTG Arena performance issues like having the attack button be invisible and, therefore, unable to be used.
That same Reddit user noted that, for some players, it takes longer to restart the game than just letting your turn go and losing the match. But even still, the bugs that are affecting players don’t stop there since the most recent update dropped. Another Reddit user in the same thread noted a different and even worse problem.
For them, they tried conceding the match they were in after dealing with some of the aforementioned bugs but were met with yet another issue. Just as they tried to give up the match, a message popped up that said the “game could not process the request” and it froze up for them.
This resulted in even more issues as just the simple task of trying to give up a match and start over wasn’t even doable. The Reddit thread continues on with more users reporting issues visually, problems with stacking cards, and more. While there were problems in the game prior to the update, it seems as if the issues have only gotten worse.
This is especially awful for players as it means that they are even more likely to lose matches than with the issues that were previously in the game before the update dropped. This could mean losing ranks in the ranked mode unfairly when you don’t even get the chance to try and beat the opponent.
As such, until these issues are fixed, we do highly recommend that you stay away from the ranked mode as much as possible. We know that you want to increase your rank this season as quickly as you can but it‘s not worth the risk of losing ranks because of a bug.
Elemental Cat Bug Fixed
The only issue that looks to be mostly fixed with the July 25 patch 0.17 is the pet spamming problem. Players were having issues with nefarious opponents spam clicking the new elemental cat pet that was introduced with the release of the Mastery Pass alongside the recent Magic Core Set 2020 expansion.
The cat is the first pet for players to own in the game and it chills with you on the field while you are in matches. It acts as a new addition to the towers and other features on the field that you can click on while you wait and will give you a nice reaction. For the pet, that reaction to clicking is changing colors.
What makes the elemental cat really fun to look at is that spam clicking it over and over will make it quickly change colors like in a rainbow of sorts. The problem with this, though, is that doing so began to create performance issues for players on the opposing side who are forced to also experience the effects.
This resulted in lag and disconnects for opponents. Once some players caught onto the possibilities of this, they began forcing lag and disconnects on their opponents to get some easy wins. Wizards of the Coast, thankfully, got wind of this quickly and began banning those who took advantage of the bug.
Unfortunately, along the way, there were some potentially innocent players who merely liked the effects of the cat who were banned when they weren’t trying to force a win. With the release of this update, though, Wizards of the Coast has released a possible fix for this massive problem.
When you have the elemental cat on your field, you can no longer spam click like before. That’s because the color change animation won’t trigger for it until the previous animation is completely finished. In addition, the animation will not show up for the opponent if they mute the emotes of the person they are playing.
What You Can Do to Fix These Issues
While this does fix a rather annoying and troublesome issue, the update has come at the cost of introducing some new game-breaking problems that are affecting users around the world. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about most of these issues besides restarting the game client when affected.
The other thing that we recommend you do, though, is head to the support page for the game right here. There, you will want to submit a ticket for the issue(s) that is afflicting you so that Wizards of the Coast is aware of it. If enough players post about the same problems, it increases the chances of a hot fix soon. Be sure to stay tuned here for any news about solutions or fixes in the future.
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