The weekend before last I attended the Khans of Tarkir Pro Tour in Honolulu, Hawaii, which as a life-long Magic player was an incredible experience by every measure. A lot of what I talked about with Wizards while I was there was under embargo, so instead of teasing what I was doing or why I was there, I figured I’d just wait until I can talk about everything. Let’s get on with the actual concrete news first, then we’ll wander down speculation alley before taking a turn down Pro Tour road.

Magic 2015 (Free) is getting an expansion titled “Garruk’s Revenge" on November 5th which Wizards is planning on launching simultaneously across the App Store, Steam, Android, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and the Amazon Kindle not long after. It’s an ambitious release, and features not only additional single player content but also 51 new unlockable cards to use in their own decks.

The way the expansion plays out is actually pretty clever, as you take on the role of Garruk, and play his deck. Magic historically has been a card game with a story told through the “flavor" of the cards and that’s certainly the case here as Garruk’s deck grows stronger with new cards that reflect what’s going on in the story. With each battle you win, you’ll get stronger cards from the Alara block, which hopefully doesn’t include Bloodbraid Elf.

Along with the expansion is an update to the entire payment structure of Magic 2015. As we mentioned when we made it our Game of the Week, the first time out Magic 2015 was a little more heavy on the IAP than previous iterations. So, in Magic 2014 (Free), you downloaded the game for free, paid for the initial unlock, and then could either just play through the game to get everything or unlock specific decks that’d speed up your progress in unlocking these cards. That’s how everyone assumed that Magic 2015 was going to work, then they discovered the $1.99 premium card packs which included cards which were only accessible through these IAP purchases.

Magic players were understandably miffed (potentially an understatement) regarding this turn of events, and I really think it had a lot to do with the messaging in the game not being very clear at all when it comes to what you were getting for the “Planeswalker Bundle." When you’re dropping that kind of cash on something (particularly on iOS) you expect to get everything… Not kinda-sorta get everything with these other IAP items you also need to buy if you really want everything.

Wizards has heard their fans “loud and clear" and are adjusting the game accordingly. Those “premium" boosters have such been renamed “Battle Boosters" which you earn by winning multiplayer matches. Everything in the game after the update hits will be unlockable just by playing. You’ll just need to beat some people online, which also serves as a clever way to get people looking for multiplayer matches again, as there’s real rewards for playing now beyond bragging rights.

Here’s how the rest of the pricing works:

Essentially, just like before you’ll be able to download the game and try it out for free. From there, $9.99 unlocks the rest of the game following your tiny taste. At this level, you’ll be able to get all the pre-expansion cards by playing. For another $4.99 you can get the Garruk’s Revenge expansion and the ability to unlock Alara cards. Then, as detailed in the above image, the $24.99 “Instant Collection" unlocks everything except all the expansion cards, with $4.99 buying you the full Alara collection if you don’t feel like just playing through the expansion content. Foil stickers are still there as a pseudo-consumable, but if you buy the collection bundle you’ll realistically have enough to turn every card into a foil if you wanted to.

So, if you want to unlock everything yourself, $15 will now get you access to all that through the game and the expansion. If you just downloaded the game and want it all now, that’ll set you back $45. The good news is this $45 purchase comes with no strings attached, everything in game is yours… The down side, is once you pay to unlock absolutely everything I’m not sure how much longevity the game will have when it comes to keeping your interest as the progression of slowly unlocking cards is a great carrot on a stick for continually coming back for more.

All in all, the expansion content I tried seemed really cool, and I’m really happy that Wizards came to their senses in regards to how they’re selling it. Hopefully this will be an important lesson moving forward in future games in the series.

Shifting gears, as someone who has been playing Magic since I was in 5th grade, games like Magic 2015 are great and all but what I’m truly longing for is a real Magic Online client for the iPad. It always feels like this is the elephant in the room whenever I talk to anyone from Wizards, and it’s only gotten worse as time goes on. With games like Hearthstone (Free) picking up serious steam, and Pokemon TCG Online (Free) both having “full" clients available on the App Store, the absence of Magic Online sticks out like a sore thumb to anyone serious about playing the game.

I’ve been asking them for years about this, and the answer is often the same, it’s something they’re “considering." For whatever reason, the non-answers about the state of Magic Online for iOS seemed more definite than before- Particularly when discussing how crazy it is that the digital version isn’t cross platform at all. The reasoning for why it isn’t out yet is always the same, and it’s hard to argue against. Magic is a very complicated game. If there was a “Release Magic Online for iPad!" button in the Wizards office, they would’ve pushed it by now.

Unfortunately, building a rules engine that can handle over 20 years of crazy card interaction (and future card interaction), an interface that makes sense for it all, and the stability/security required for MODO’s digital economy to remain intact is a hell of a development problem to solve. Am I reading between the lines of their non-answers? Sure, but with every release of a full card game ecosystem on the App Store, it feels more and more inevitable that Wizards is going to do something to soak up some of the market share of hardcore CCG fans who want something a bit more in depth than what Duels of the Planeswalkers provides. …Of course no one from Wizards will ever come out and say that, but…

The Pro Tour itself was awesome. The seriousness of my Magic playing largely depends on how much I’ve got going on in my life, recently I’ve been real busy with my house, but there was a time when I was playing in every competitive REL tournament I could, driving hours to do it, and being at an event like this was just a dream come true. It was amazing being in the same room as all the pro players you see on streams, read about on the various web sites, and things like that. During more “serious" parts of the tournament, like when the draft started, the level of concentration was incredible. The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. I felt bad even whispering.

Side events at a Pro Tour are predictably pretty awesome, and on day two I found myself drafting in the same pod as Magic legend Brian Kibler. The weird thing was, what you don’t really get a scope of when you watch these “main" events on Twitch is just how small they are. Locally, I’m used to tournaments getting larger and larger as the prize pool increases until you’re playing at the same event with thousands of players. Being at the top-end Magic tournament and there only being a couple hundred people in the room kind of felt like the first time you go to a NBA basketball game and realize how incredibly tiny the court is compared to how it looks on TV.

This oddly seemed like a wasted opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Pro Tour is great and if I wasn’t there I’d have been glued to my TV the whole weekend watching the stream but it feels like Wizards could make an event like this so much more if it wasn’t hidden away in Hawaii somewhere. If this same tournament, with the same players, and the same prize payout were held in Chicago, for instance, all my friends would go just to play in side events and be playing Magic in the same place as all their favorite players. Having the Grand Prix events I’ve been to feel like the “bigger" event compared to what essentially amounts to the Super Bowl of Magic is odd.

It doesn’t even need to be Chicago, as much as any easily accessible city. Keep in mind, this is what Riot has managed to accomplish with turning League of Legends into an event in the scope of four years:

It might not be a fair comparison, but, still. It’d be awesome to live in a world where something like that was a Magic event. I think a lot of what I’m feeling when it both comes to this and my hopes for a proper Magic Online client for iPad is coming to grips with the fact that Wizards just isn’t moving as quickly as everyone else is in the events and digital space. On one hand, it makes sense, their bread and butter is paper magic which has been just been doing better year after year for over two decades now. On the other, there’s got to be a point where you either get yourself up to speed or you get left behind.

As someone who absolutely loves Magic, with many great memories and long-lasting friendships because of the game, I’d hate to see it get steamrolled like the print newspaper in the face of the internet. I don’t get the impression that’s going to happen anytime soon, particularly with card sets selling better than ever, but it’s a hard feeling to shake thinking of the long term future of the game without a similarly strong full-featured cross-platform digital component.

Oh, and just as an added bonus, here’s a Beckett 9 graded Black Lotus I saw while I was there:

Update: Swapped out the pricing image in the article with the updated one, the “Instant Collection" is only going to be $24.99, not $29.99 as originally posted.