Gotta protect against that digital Cheeto dust
Now that most of the hard work is done with Magic: Arena(read: every standard card from the paper version is in and works), the team is moving on to quality of life features as they gear up for the eventual full launch.
That includes cosmetics, which are coming in the form of card sleeves and styles. The former is just how it sounds: card backs to distinguish your deck are commonplace in digital card games, but with Magic‘s lengthy tabletop history, “sleeves” only makes logical sense. Styles are a bit different and are more akin to the moving picture art inHearthstone‘s gold cards. Similarly, Arena‘s new style cards will have aparallax effect. If you have one style unlocked for a particular card, it will unlock for all four copies in your collection (and do not count as a card itself, so give and take). More avatars (dino queen Huatli and and the pirate Minotaur Angrath are confirmed) are on the way.
Most importantly an expanded tutorial is in the works, as is a “Mastery Tree” for a greater sense of player progression. Thankfully you can skip most of the new player experience (NPE) if you already did it. Yep, all good changes! I think the first thing on my list is a better friend/social system though.
State of the Beta – March 2019 [Wizards of the Coast]