Magic: The Gathering Arena is the most popular way to play Magic: The Gathering online. Ever since its beta debut in 2017, the platform has expanded the digital side of the hobby, gathering players from all over the world. And with the latest update, you’ll be able to report some of those players too.
As announced on Aug. 17, MTG Arena has introduced in-game player reporting. Users will now be able to report other players for different reasons, including inactivity, hate speech, inappropriate usernames, verbal abuse, and spamming. The report function is accessible from the options menu, the challenge lobby, and the friends list. Once submitted, the reports will be handled by GGWP, a moderation platform used across the gaming industry, with which Wizards of the Coast has partnered. GGWP advertises itself as “AI-powered moderation for games,” but the post from the Arena team specifies that “No reports will be actioned on automatically. Every one will be evaluated and actioned on by a person.”
Currently, MTG Arena‘s social functions are quite limited. Chat is only available between friends and the interactions between players are minimal. The only toxic behavior that’s common in-game is known as “roping,” which happens when one player realizes the game is lost and, rather than concede or pass the turn, lets the timer run out, making their opponent waste time. Players have complained about this for a long time, and until now, there were no meaningful ways to report it outside of submitting a request to the Wizards of the Coast’s support site, but action was rarely taken.
However, the announcement by the MTG Arena team specifies that the platform’s social capabilities will continue to expand, meaning that players could soon have more ways to interact with each other. The reporting function will be in its trial phase, with the MTG Arena team collecting feedback about the feature, so hopefully players will not abuse this new tool.
