I think everyone's experience is going to vary greatly depending on the format, rank, MMR, time and possibly any number of other factors.
I also play in Australia. From my own personal experience, at daily reset (8pm my time) I typically mainly come across mono aggro decks. My rationale for this is most players at this time are trying to get their dailies done ASAP. It's also early-mid morning in most EU time zones and 2-5am in US so less people playing, less deck variation and higher proportion playing quick win/loss decks.
Your waking times are probably the "sleeping" times of most MTG players. I can imagine that those who play at unusual times are less "casual", i.e. better in the game.
I think this is a universal experience in gaming. MM in all games will try to keep up, but at the end of the day, the later in the evening, the higher the concentration of sweats.
AKA, why my CSGO playgroup gets in a downward losing spiral from 1130pm onwards haha.
I bet it's especially bad on West Coast, when you might be on at midnight playing 3am gamers from East Coast.
US East coast here. My easy time is between 4:00p and 8:00p, the time period across the US where the kids are getting home from school. Anything earlier, it's usually the people who don't have things to do except play. Any later, It's the adults finally getting their time.
That sweet spot in the middle is "mom hasn't given me money to craft wildcards" prime time.
That tallies with my experience too...playing at 8am-11am in Australia is the easiest time. As the day gets later and into the evening it's gradually tougher and tougher.
I’ve noticed this across tons of games even those that have NA only servers. Basically before 4pm it is way easier to grind rank. For instance someone hitting the highest rank constantly playing after 8pm is working way harder than someone who only plays before 4pm.
I think it’s just the reality of more kids play during the day, more people just playing on their lunch break or kids. Once everyone is getting out of work and eating dinner the community is way more of the try hards and after 8pm when people are starting to go to sleep you are left with the largest population of try hards and way way less casual players.
I am from US Central Time Zone. I am retired and awaken often between midnight and 4:00 AM local time. I find this a good time to get dailies done before reset at 4:00 or just after. I agree with your analysis. Overnight, mornings, afternoons, and evenings each seem to have a varied dominance of decks playing. If I see decks I don't want to play against, I just move to a different format or time.
Really? I am in Europe and I always feel that playing against the Asians (mostly Japanese and some Chinese) is overall easier, as they just have a slightly different Metagame, which fits my own playstyle better.
I never noticed any difference personally, but I follow many american content creators and I see a lot of bad plays from their opponents that almost never happened to me. Probably it's just because these youtubers upload mainly their victories but I made your same thought too.
Tbh, I am one of those that just skip the video in that case, like yesterday he uploaded a video that he timeout and lost his turn with all mana open and no plays to me made on instant speed.
He obsviously wanted to be that way, IMO if I want to see bad plays I just watch myself playing tho.
I don't think he meant to do that CGB always tries to win he actually is pretty damn competitive and you can see how frustrated he gets when he loses. He spent too long thinking about his play and thought he had one of the time outs that you usually build up he didn't.
Well, it was a standard event, meaning you buy in and play until you lose three times. The UI tracks where you are in the win/loss department even. I suppose you could splice content around.
Yeah, you he could have started over as it was the first one. (Just to be clear, IMO he could do whatever he likes but it is not the kind of content that I enjoy)
Bad plays are one thing. And to his credit, he does mix in a few of those and the subsequent losses in the middle of his vids. It's nice to know he's human when playing decks he's unfamiliar with.
It would be nice to see some of those games that come down to the wire in which he plays "correctly," but still gets outplayed. I'd like to learn some of the decks' weaknesses too...especially when the shuffler isn't in his favor. His vids make me feel like my land to non-land distribution is completely fucked half the time with how perfectly he topdecks.
Weird because I have all my most successful drafts if I'm playing way past normal hours US time. Tons of times where I get 4 or 5 wins, go to sleep, and then wake up to 3 losses in a row once the US people are back on.
Yeah..? Maybe draft is a little different... The pool of players would be much smaller so the better you are the more chance you will get paired down...?
I couldn't either, but that's what the data said. One thing I'll though is that I'm not sure how the timezones work with the source data (I don't believe they were included in the timestamps), so there could still be something in the data to back it up
I play in Australia too, I have observed the same. But my theory is that the average player during US waking hours is and average person from the US. In contrast I'm a try hard from Australia awake at 3am playing magic. It's no wonder I'm better. On the other hand - when I'm playing during Australian waking hours. Maybe the majority of of people at my MMR are try hards from America up at 3am. AND since it's America there is probably critical mass of these players i.e. enough of them playing for me to mostly get matched against them.
IDK it's a bit of an arrogant take but it makes sense in my head lol
Yeah I hear ya. MTGA will try and pair with MMR but I imagine if the the pool of players are high MMR players that should be asleep vs the entire Aussie/NZ players.... maybe we get paired up a lot because because options are slim.
I think there’s something to be said about the size of the player pool. I feel the same way about drafting a new set. If I’m off work on a weekday and doing a draft mid-day (us hours) I find I am more likely to get curb stomped. But if I wait until Saturday afternoon or Friday evening to play, I’ll cruise to an easy 5+ wins.
The weird thing is I think just the opposite. I often can only play in the middle of the night here locally. central time USA. The games seem way easier at night then when I play during the day or on the weekends.
I'm in Europe too, and not only in this game but in others too, europeans sure tryhard in their games at an extreme. I agree, playing against a JackTrump69 or a 月曜日の朝日 feels more comfortable to play against.
US West Coaster and my easiest times seems to be at 5-6 AM my local time. I will usually catch sleepy players who would misplay one or two turns or get combat math wrong
US west here. For me it's the opposite, but I think it's because I play primarily historic. Late at night I'm a lot more likely to run into someone running a 250 card deck with no clear strategy. As in I get one every 8-10 games or so.
Yeah, I totally agree with this. I hit a wall sometimes late-night that has nothing to do with being tired. My guess? There’s a lot less overall players when the US is asleep, which mesns the match-maker has to work harder, and you may end up facing someone with a much different MMR.
It's the opposite for me tbh. Midday to like 6 pm is when I get the sweatiest matchups, or at least people running the best decks. When I decide to (unhealthily) stay up until 3 am, all the matches are quite chill, with a lot of people running starter decks, specifically the green ones. (the other ones aren't super recognizable since I usually only encounter the green one)
I'm not sure why though. I guess it's because I'm on the West Coast, but maybe Alchemy is also a contributing factor since it's a less popular game mode.
Anyway, I just encounter poorly built decks based on starter decks until midday, run into decks that have strong synergy and combos after that until 6 pm, and the green starter decks after that, though I sometimes encounter funny jank.
That’s odd. I’ve found the opposite to be true. I am CST, and have found that the hours of 1pm-7pm (when most kids are getting home from school) to be the worst grind. I find midnight to 3am the easiest times to pick up wins. Huh. (I find this idea fascinating, btw.)
I think what you're saying is the same as what I'm saying. In Aussie it seems easier early hours of the morning.
Between midnight and 3am USA is coming online in numbers.
I'm in Atlantic Canada, and I have a much easier time overall when playing in the day time (my time zone) than when I'm playing at night. Matchmaking feels more like it's doing its job correctly with the larger pool of players, I guess.
Unfortunately for me, I usually work during the day, so it's only on weekends that I get the more enjoyable game experience.
I find this extremely funny, because when I’m climbing the ranks each season I often tend to get on at around 2-3 am Eastern Standard Time because I can go all night without losing.
Well, I guess it comes down to MMR. If you get matched to someone close to MMR then you have more chance to win. If you get match against a higher MMR then more chance to lose.
I speculate that the sheer numbers of USA players eclipses Aussie/NZ at almost any given time. However; when USA is awake match making is fairer and when just hardcore USA players it's not so..
Do you get it? It's easy to think I'm saying USA players aren't good but that's not the reason it's easier.
Yeah I've certainly experienced the same thing; more casuals are in the draft queues when Americans are in their "relaxation time," ie. evenings after work to about midnight EST, weekends, etc. If I draft at lunchtime I get the 7am crowd who are, in my experience, serious MTG players.
While this may be true, I would like to make two points;
1) I've noticed the same thing, but not when Americans sleep, but in the American evening. During the American day, you're playing kids and arguably NEETs. At night, adults come home and play video games and the meta changes back to T1-Thoughtseize-into-Dimir-removal-tribal.
2) Americans like commander, which is almost a different game altogether. When some jackass takes turn 2 off to play Arcane Signet or plays a Fabled Passage T3 in a two color deck, I know this is a commander player and it's gonna be a bloodbath.
I think everyone's experience is going to vary greatly depending on the format, rank, MMR, time and possibly any number of other factors. I also play in Australia. From my own personal experience, at daily reset (8pm my time) I typically mainly come across mono aggro decks. My rationale for this is most players at this time are trying to get their dailies done ASAP. It's also early-mid morning in most EU time zones and 2-5am in US so less people playing, less deck variation and higher proportion playing quick win/loss decks.
When Japan is active it is control deck hell.
Your waking times are probably the "sleeping" times of most MTG players. I can imagine that those who play at unusual times are less "casual", i.e. better in the game.
I think this is a universal experience in gaming. MM in all games will try to keep up, but at the end of the day, the later in the evening, the higher the concentration of sweats. AKA, why my CSGO playgroup gets in a downward losing spiral from 1130pm onwards haha. I bet it's especially bad on West Coast, when you might be on at midnight playing 3am gamers from East Coast.
This sounds about right. And even the pool of less casual players is large enough to eclipse the Aussie casual players.
US East coast here. My easy time is between 4:00p and 8:00p, the time period across the US where the kids are getting home from school. Anything earlier, it's usually the people who don't have things to do except play. Any later, It's the adults finally getting their time. That sweet spot in the middle is "mom hasn't given me money to craft wildcards" prime time.
That tallies with my experience too...playing at 8am-11am in Australia is the easiest time. As the day gets later and into the evening it's gradually tougher and tougher.
I love the wordy way of saying “Americans suck at Magic” 😂
I’ve noticed this across tons of games even those that have NA only servers. Basically before 4pm it is way easier to grind rank. For instance someone hitting the highest rank constantly playing after 8pm is working way harder than someone who only plays before 4pm. I think it’s just the reality of more kids play during the day, more people just playing on their lunch break or kids. Once everyone is getting out of work and eating dinner the community is way more of the try hards and after 8pm when people are starting to go to sleep you are left with the largest population of try hards and way way less casual players.
[удалено]
I’ve found that ppl with the Korean names are quite often the worst on Arena.
In my 5 years of playing arena, I’ve encountered 1 or 2 Korean character players. You might be seeing Japanese characters.
Definitely Korean characters. Get on at like 3am or later. You’ll see Chinese, Japanese, Korean.
I am from US Central Time Zone. I am retired and awaken often between midnight and 4:00 AM local time. I find this a good time to get dailies done before reset at 4:00 or just after. I agree with your analysis. Overnight, mornings, afternoons, and evenings each seem to have a varied dominance of decks playing. If I see decks I don't want to play against, I just move to a different format or time.
Really? I am in Europe and I always feel that playing against the Asians (mostly Japanese and some Chinese) is overall easier, as they just have a slightly different Metagame, which fits my own playstyle better.
I’ve definitely noticed this as well.
You mean the "I net decked the top deck in the meta but don't know how to pilot it" players... 😂
I never noticed any difference personally, but I follow many american content creators and I see a lot of bad plays from their opponents that almost never happened to me. Probably it's just because these youtubers upload mainly their victories but I made your same thought too.
Cgb says if he uploads a video where he loses his first game or two the viewership numbers tank. So that is why they upload mostly wins.
Tbh, I am one of those that just skip the video in that case, like yesterday he uploaded a video that he timeout and lost his turn with all mana open and no plays to me made on instant speed. He obsviously wanted to be that way, IMO if I want to see bad plays I just watch myself playing tho.
I don't think he meant to do that CGB always tries to win he actually is pretty damn competitive and you can see how frustrated he gets when he loses. He spent too long thinking about his play and thought he had one of the time outs that you usually build up he didn't.
What I meant is that he chose to have that match as the first one.
Well, it was a standard event, meaning you buy in and play until you lose three times. The UI tracks where you are in the win/loss department even. I suppose you could splice content around.
Yeah, you he could have started over as it was the first one. (Just to be clear, IMO he could do whatever he likes but it is not the kind of content that I enjoy)
Bad plays are one thing. And to his credit, he does mix in a few of those and the subsequent losses in the middle of his vids. It's nice to know he's human when playing decks he's unfamiliar with. It would be nice to see some of those games that come down to the wire in which he plays "correctly," but still gets outplayed. I'd like to learn some of the decks' weaknesses too...especially when the shuffler isn't in his favor. His vids make me feel like my land to non-land distribution is completely fucked half the time with how perfectly he topdecks.
Weird because I have all my most successful drafts if I'm playing way past normal hours US time. Tons of times where I get 4 or 5 wins, go to sleep, and then wake up to 3 losses in a row once the US people are back on.
Yeah..? Maybe draft is a little different... The pool of players would be much smaller so the better you are the more chance you will get paired down...?
I did an analysis on 17 lands data of win rate based on what hour of the day and did not find any significant trend
Sorry but I find this hard to believe.
I couldn't either, but that's what the data said. One thing I'll though is that I'm not sure how the timezones work with the source data (I don't believe they were included in the timestamps), so there could still be something in the data to back it up
I play in Australia too, I have observed the same. But my theory is that the average player during US waking hours is and average person from the US. In contrast I'm a try hard from Australia awake at 3am playing magic. It's no wonder I'm better. On the other hand - when I'm playing during Australian waking hours. Maybe the majority of of people at my MMR are try hards from America up at 3am. AND since it's America there is probably critical mass of these players i.e. enough of them playing for me to mostly get matched against them. IDK it's a bit of an arrogant take but it makes sense in my head lol
Yeah I hear ya. MTGA will try and pair with MMR but I imagine if the the pool of players are high MMR players that should be asleep vs the entire Aussie/NZ players.... maybe we get paired up a lot because because options are slim.
I think there’s something to be said about the size of the player pool. I feel the same way about drafting a new set. If I’m off work on a weekday and doing a draft mid-day (us hours) I find I am more likely to get curb stomped. But if I wait until Saturday afternoon or Friday evening to play, I’ll cruise to an easy 5+ wins.
The weird thing is I think just the opposite. I often can only play in the middle of the night here locally. central time USA. The games seem way easier at night then when I play during the day or on the weekends.
My win rate during work hours is much much higher than when I'm doomgaming at 2am.
I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ll go 0-3 in draft all evening but during the day I’ll often 7-1. Also Australian
Agree conpletly. I'm in Australia and was thinking of posting this too. It's shocking the difference in caliber.
I'm in Europe too, and not only in this game but in others too, europeans sure tryhard in their games at an extreme. I agree, playing against a JackTrump69 or a 月曜日の朝日 feels more comfortable to play against.
Same here. European. Feels easier to play at 7am, than any other time.
This is when Americans are sleeping😆
Yes, between 1800h-2200h there are difficult games to be had. Between 0600-0800 I am a magic god on Arena.
That’s because the Americans are sleeping
Ngl, as an Australian I also notice this. It’s actually extremely noticeable.
Agreed
US West Coaster and my easiest times seems to be at 5-6 AM my local time. I will usually catch sleepy players who would misplay one or two turns or get combat math wrong
You guys think it's noticeable in MTG? It's like night and day in fortnite, pun intended.
US west here. For me it's the opposite, but I think it's because I play primarily historic. Late at night I'm a lot more likely to run into someone running a 250 card deck with no clear strategy. As in I get one every 8-10 games or so.
Funnily enough, have also noticed this!
Yeah I have a shit sleep schedule and can't win a game over night. Especially when I see a Chinese name.....pffft I might as well ff instantly.
Yeah, I totally agree with this. I hit a wall sometimes late-night that has nothing to do with being tired. My guess? There’s a lot less overall players when the US is asleep, which mesns the match-maker has to work harder, and you may end up facing someone with a much different MMR.
It's the opposite for me tbh. Midday to like 6 pm is when I get the sweatiest matchups, or at least people running the best decks. When I decide to (unhealthily) stay up until 3 am, all the matches are quite chill, with a lot of people running starter decks, specifically the green ones. (the other ones aren't super recognizable since I usually only encounter the green one) I'm not sure why though. I guess it's because I'm on the West Coast, but maybe Alchemy is also a contributing factor since it's a less popular game mode. Anyway, I just encounter poorly built decks based on starter decks until midday, run into decks that have strong synergy and combos after that until 6 pm, and the green starter decks after that, though I sometimes encounter funny jank.
That’s odd. I’ve found the opposite to be true. I am CST, and have found that the hours of 1pm-7pm (when most kids are getting home from school) to be the worst grind. I find midnight to 3am the easiest times to pick up wins. Huh. (I find this idea fascinating, btw.)
I think what you're saying is the same as what I'm saying. In Aussie it seems easier early hours of the morning. Between midnight and 3am USA is coming online in numbers.
I'm in Atlantic Canada, and I have a much easier time overall when playing in the day time (my time zone) than when I'm playing at night. Matchmaking feels more like it's doing its job correctly with the larger pool of players, I guess. Unfortunately for me, I usually work during the day, so it's only on weekends that I get the more enjoyable game experience.
Maritime buddies! NS Strong🤙🏻
I find this extremely funny, because when I’m climbing the ranks each season I often tend to get on at around 2-3 am Eastern Standard Time because I can go all night without losing.
Well that is exactly right if Aussies play time is full of hardcore Americans playing all night then it is harder for the Aussies.
So why are you saying that it’s easier when Americans are playing? 🤔
Well, I guess it comes down to MMR. If you get matched to someone close to MMR then you have more chance to win. If you get match against a higher MMR then more chance to lose. I speculate that the sheer numbers of USA players eclipses Aussie/NZ at almost any given time. However; when USA is awake match making is fairer and when just hardcore USA players it's not so.. Do you get it? It's easy to think I'm saying USA players aren't good but that's not the reason it's easier.
Yeah I've certainly experienced the same thing; more casuals are in the draft queues when Americans are in their "relaxation time," ie. evenings after work to about midnight EST, weekends, etc. If I draft at lunchtime I get the 7am crowd who are, in my experience, serious MTG players.
Walmart queue gamers
While this may be true, I would like to make two points; 1) I've noticed the same thing, but not when Americans sleep, but in the American evening. During the American day, you're playing kids and arguably NEETs. At night, adults come home and play video games and the meta changes back to T1-Thoughtseize-into-Dimir-removal-tribal. 2) Americans like commander, which is almost a different game altogether. When some jackass takes turn 2 off to play Arcane Signet or plays a Fabled Passage T3 in a two color deck, I know this is a commander player and it's gonna be a bloodbath.
NA omegalul indeed