Wizards defends cuts to Magic Arena’s Ikoria Mastery Pass, says previous sets were “unintentionally more generous”

Some fans of Magic: The Gathering Arena became upset this week when details about the newest expansion’s Mastery Pass were released and showed a decrease in value. Wizards of the Coast is defending this decision in part by admitting that previous sets were “unintentionally more generous.”

A full analysis of the Mastery Pass for this new set, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, was recently posted on Reddit. It shows that, on average, a 20-percent reduction in length corresponds to a 15-percent reduction in card packs and a 39-percent reduction in gem rewards.

The game’s developer was quick to respond. “[The reduction] is intentional, due to the set duration being a lot shorter,” WotC said. “Theros was unintentionally more generous (we meant to give players a Ranked Draft token, instead they received a Traditional Draft, and we rolled with it). Regardless, we intend to keep the average rewards per day in Mastery Pass comparable to Eldraine and Core Set.”

MTG fans were quick to jump on the comment, particularly the fact that the cost of the Mastery Pass remains unchanged. One fan even created a particularly well-made spoiler parody.

Regardless of whether you plan to buy the Mastery Pass, Ikoria‘s spoiler season is well underway and the set is due for release on Arena on April 16.