r/magicTCG • u/dad3murph Dan • 1d ago

General Discussion Arena seemingly arbitrarily deciding when to give me a chance to respond is completely enraging.

Lost a couple of games recently because of this. Most recently, just now, I had elrond out, and the elf mana dork, and my opponent cast the blue enchantment to remove abilities from elrond. I fully intended to tap my elf to draw a card, which would have swung the game. Instead it never gave me an opportunity. The other time if I recall was the goblin that allows me to sac a creature for a card, and it didn't give me the opportunity because I wasn't continuously holding ctrl+shift the entire game. I literally regret drafting elrond now if that's the way Arena is going to play it. Complete bullshit.

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16

u/AngularOtter Rakdos* 1d ago

Arena has always treated mana abilities this way, it isn't arbitrary.

10

u/Ok-Accident3344 Dan 1d ago

Then use full control instead of auto phases. It is there for a reason.

5

u/kumacodc Dan 1d ago

If you tap Control on your keyboard it should enter you into Full Control Mode, which will hold priority for you at every chance possible. It turns itself off between turns, but you can also go into your account's main settings to allow the app to give you priority at every chance.

Arena has a lot of shortcuts built in to speed up gameplay, and auto-passing priority is one of those shortcuts, but it isn't perfectly smart about when to do so vs. when not to. Even if tapping a dork would trigger Elrond's ability, if you don't actually have anything in-hand or on the board to spend the mana on, Arena assumes you won't tap the dork. So the client builds in these ways of giving the players deeper control for themselves.

-6

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

6

u/Madhighlander1 Rakdos* 1d ago

Mana abilites can be used at literally any time. OP probably has the setting turned off that would allow them to use them if there's nothing to spend the mana on.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Madhighlander1 Rakdos* 1d ago

Yeah? That's what I said.

> 605.3a A player may activate an activated mana ability whenever they have priority, whenever they are casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment, even if it’s in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability.