Magic: The Gathering Arena Running Host "Streamer Events," Hopes To Enable Friend Matches In November

Magic: The Gathering Arena is off to a good start, with 100 million matches played. Even though it's still in open beta, Wizards of the Coast has some big plans in mind, the first of which starts this weekend with a pair of "Streamer Events" highlighting a pair of popular streamers.

The idea of these events is that Wizards will pick a few select content creators to build an event around. Starting tomorrow, Oct. 26, it's Day[9] and his Insta-Ban and Gaby Spartz' Greedy Dominaria Draft in the spotlight. Day[9]'s deck concept is that a deck has to have zero instant spells, while Gaby's event is a standard draft format with a few extra rules -- namely that you can play two lands per turn and have nine cads in your hand, with no maximum hand size. Me, I'm waiting until Danny Trejo gets a turn.

On another note, there's the "top requested issue" of being able to challenge friends in Arena, which Wizards of the Coast is keenly aware of. It's coming in November and will be called Direct Challenge, though the steps outlined on the blog are a little detailed:

1. You and your friend open the Direct Challenge option.
2. You type in each other's username and five-digit code.
3. You hit "Battle."
4. You play a match against each other.

Not included is the part where you have to submit a blood sample and confirm your ID via face-recognition. We're sure they just forgot to mention them.