Last updated on January 16, 2025
Prosperous Pirates – Illustration by Josh Hass
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has responded to ongoing delays with prize shipments from its Arena Direct program, which allows players to compete in online tournaments for real-world Magic: The Gathering prizes. When asked by Draftsim, WotC's MTG Arena team highlighted improvements made since previous issues while acknowledging new, unexpected setbacks.
If this story feels familiar, that’s because it is. Back in August, Draftsim reported on similar delays, which led to frustration among winners of their Modern Horizons 3 Arena Direct event.
At the time, David Finseth, Senior Manager of Digital Product at Wizards of the Coast, told Draftsim that WotC had run out of product due to the event's popularity surpassing their expectations.
“We understand players are rightfully frustrated,” Finseth said back in August. “We are working to get them their prizes as soon as possible.”
But despite WotC's assurances in August that their logistical hurdles were being addressed, delays and communication issues appear to persist: Players are now reporting that prizes for Arena Direct's Foundations offering, which took place last November, still haven't arrived. What’s worse, both WotC’s customer support and its partners haven't been as responsive to players online.
Official Response from WotC
Bruvac the Grandiloquent – Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak
WotC replied yesterday to Draftsim's request for comments, describing the delays as part of the challenges of launching a new initiative. “Arena Direct is a new program that we’re continuing to build from the ground up, and we’ve certainly encountered some growing pains,” WotC said.
WotC acknowledged that initial Arena Direct events saw error rates as high as 10%, from outdated player info to logistical fulfillment challenges in various parts of the world.
This rate was unacceptably high, which led the MTG Arena team to pause the program temporarily for improvements. Yet in spite of said improvements, new problems cropped up. For the Foundations events, WotC's issue rate dropped by 50%, but they did find a new issue where some orders were placed and not shipped.
“We’ve increased the size of the team managing these events, we’ve improved the tools we have, both internally and with our partners, and we added more information in the game to help players,” WotC replied when asked by Draftsim about what were they doing to ensure that future Directs don't encounter this same issue. “As mentioned, there was a new issue where a player would receive a confirmation, but the order was not shipped when we expected. We are now working with our partner to get players their shipments and correct the underlying issue so this doesn’t happen again.”
Community Frustration
The Magic: The Gathering community remains frustrated, with delays compounded by poor communication from both WotC and its third-party partner, Scalefast. The delays have sparked outrage across social media, with players feeling ignored by WotC and its partners.
“I reached out to Wizards customer support yesterday asking if they had an estimate on when they would ship and they sidestepped the question and just referred me to the Arena Direct FAQ page instead,” noted u/dogflicker on Reddit about their Foundations prize.
At the time of writing, Arena Direct's FAQ has a rather unwelcoming banner…
Source: Arena Direct FAQ page
… letting customers know that delays are to be expected.
“I messaged them a bunch since I made my order almost a month ago,” confirmed u/bgv19. “They haven’t responded, and it’s been 5 days since I last messaged them.”
High-profile competitor and 2017 Player of the Year Luis Salvatto, who won nine booster boxes during the MH3 event and ordered his winnings on August 9th, received his prizes four months later…
… and only after he took to X and finally got direct help from Scott Larabee, who works for Wizards running their Premier Tournament Programs. As Salvatto told Draftsim back in August, his high-profile status likely helped resolve his issue, a privilege many regular players do not have.
“In the end,” Salvatto said, “I think that if you keep quiet they don't care at all.”
But now it seems that even a lot of not keeping quiet is not enough.
“It's getting ridiculous by now, I tried contacting them via several methods, always the same no-response,” vented u/MaterialConference75. “Awful again from Wizards, such a massive company and can't get things right almost ever.”
Not So Fast
In their answer to Draftsim, WotC's Arena team does not explicitly mention which specific partner they are working with, but the “Arena Direct Fulfilment and Shipping Schedule” FAQ article makes it pretty clear its Scalefast.
As that article describes the process, “Wizards of the Coast will email verified players an order link that will allow them to place an order on the Scalefast store to claim their prize. After placing an order, it will take 2-3 days for the order to be shipped from the warehouse. Delivery times vary depending based [sic] on location.“
As clearly seen in that page, Scalefast's store should have opened on December 12th, and orders shipped 2-3 days after as per the page's own schedule.
A quick search on Twitter/X reveals that things may not be moving quite as fast…
… and that it's not only Arena Direct, but also Secret Lair deliverables that are failing to show up in time…
… with nobody extending customers the courtesy of a reply.
Implications for Future Events
The Battle of Bywater – Illustration by Tomas Duchek
WotC has promised improvements, including expanding its team, enhancing logistical tools, and increasing communication efforts… but will they be enough to regain players' goodwill?
“Scalefast hasn't even responded to my inquiry regarding the order,” complains u/bgv19. “Won't be playing these events again until it's totally fixed. By the time I get these boxes the new set will be out and these will be harder to move.”
Duskmourn‘s Arena Direct, scheduled for January 24-27, will test whether or not WotC's corrective efforts are too little too late.
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1 Comment
And we’re ~2.5 weeks removed from the Bloomburrow event. I’ve received one email on January 9th that said I won and would receive a follow up email later that week. Radio silence so far. I can’t believe they’re running another one in a little over a week given they haven’t even begun to process the previous results.
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