Since the beginning of Magic: The Gathering Arena’s beta, Wizards of the Coast has been hard at work, improving Magic Arena’s UI and implementing various new features. At times, these features have focused on the game’s social aspect, with the somewhat-recently added friends list acting as a good example, and indeed the developer has now confirmed that yet another highly-requested social feature is on its way.

Specifically, Wizards of the Coast has just announced that direct message is finally coming to Magic: The Gathering Arena. This was confirmed in the March 2020 MTG: Arena State of the Game, which was issued on March 5, and it is indicated that direct messaging will be available in Magic Arena on Thursday, March 12.

As fans are sure to expect, messaging will allow players to communicate directly within Magic: The Gathering Arena, something that is not currently possible outside of using emotes, though there is one caveat: players will only be able to message someone who currently has them on their Magic Arena friends list. This means that players will not be able to randomly contact their opponents during a match, and presumably this limit has been set in an attempt to avoid in-game conflicts.

Additionally, Magic Arena’s direct messaging will allow players to set different designations for themselves, which will alter the feature’s functionality. For instance, players that want to send and receive messages, but do not want any notifications, can simply set their status to “busy.” Alternatively, a player can turn messaging off completely by going “offline,” allowing them to focus on their preferred Magic: The Gathering Arena format without interruption.

Direct messaging is not the only social feature addressed in MTGA’s March 2020 State of the Game, though, as Wizards of the Coast is also adding two new dynamic emotes. Namely, players will be able to respond to a “Nice!” emote with the new “Thanks!” emote, while an “Oops” emote will give fans access to “Sorry!” as a replay. These new dynamic emotes will be available next week, and while they are perhaps not as exciting as direct messaging, they will at least give emote-lovers more ways to express themselves.

Magic: The Gathering Arena is available now on PC, with a mobile release scheduled for 2020.

Source: Wizards of the Coast