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Magic: The Gathering Arena Finally Adds The New Friends List Feature But There Are Some Issues


The December 12 update of Magic; The Gathering Arena is bringing some exciting new changes to the free-to-play game, including deckbuilder updates, Historic events, the controversial Brawlidays event, Theros Beyond Death bundles, bug fixes, and the new friends list feature.

The new Friend List feature will let you send friend requests to other MTG Arena users, and you can have up to 200 friends in the game. You can challenge anyone online in your Friends List, and this feature will make it easier for you to begin a game with your friends. There's also an option to reject friend requests and block an unlimited amount of players.

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Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Sending Friend Requests
Players can have up to 200 total Friends across outgoing and accepted requests
You can enter the display name (including the #####) or the email address associated with your friends' MTG Arena account to send them an invite.
Entering a player's email address sends an in-game friend invite, not an actual email. Players will need to log onto MTG Arena to accept your request.
Sending Requests Simultaneously:
If two players mutually send friend requests to each other using their usernames, they are automatically added to each other's Friend lists.
If two players mutually send friend requests with one using sending an email request and another using sending a username request, users are not automatically added to each other's Friend lists.
Friends requests never expire.
Accepting Friend Requests
You receive in-game notifications when you receive a new Friend request.
You can set your client to block incoming friend by navigating to Options > Account > and checking the "Block Incoming Friend Requests" box.
Rejecting Friends
If you reject a request, the other player is not notified - they just see that they still have an outgoing request.
Rejecting a friend request does clear it from your list of pending requests.
Blocking Friends
You can Block an unlimited number of players
Only the first 50 blocked players are displayed in-client.
Using Your Friends List
The Friends List is accessible on the bottom right of the screen, by click the person-shaped icon.
Once you're logged in and through downloading/unpacking assets, you appear online to your Friends.
You can Challenge online friends on your Friends List
You can have up to one outgoing challenge. This challenge is canceled if you log off or transition to looking for a match (either through matchmaking or by accepting another challenge).
The initiator of a challenge sets the parameters of a challenge (e.g. Best of 1 vs Best of 3, etc.).

The official MTG Arena forums pointed out some technical issues that the developers are aware of. Here are the known issues, according to the update highlights:

> If two friends challenge each other simultaneously, you may be come stuck in a state where you both see an outgoing challenge, and are waiting on a response.
Workaround: You should be able to cancel out of the challenge, and have only one friend initiate a challenge request.
> If you receive a challenge while you already have a play blade open, and you change the parameters of the challenge before accepting (e.g. your friend challenges you to Standard, and you wish to play Brawl), your friend may end up in a locked state.
Workaround: If you wish to change the parameters of an incoming challenge, please cancel out of the challenge before changing parameters on the play blade.

Although not perfect, it's good that Magic Arena finally has a Friends List feature. Hopefully, they will upgrade it soon with chat and other useful social features.

Are you excited to use the Friends List feature on Magic Arena?

Related: MTG Reveals 2 New Theros Beyond Death Artworks

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