Here’s How to Disable MTGA Emotes

Last updated on August 15, 2023

Tangled Florahedron | Illustration by Randy Vargas

Cosmetics are a fundamental part of MTGA, which relates to cards or lands and other customizable features like sleeves or emotes. Today I want to discuss the latter and how you can turn them on and off at will.

Let ‘s get  started!

How to Disable Emotes in MTGA

If you’re looking to disable emotes in the game and you don't know how, here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Open the “Adjust Options” menu in the top right.

2. Click “Gameplay” at the top of the Options menu that appears.

3. Select the “Disable Emotes” checkbox.

Why Would You Disable Emotes?

While emotes are colorful, hilarious, and one way to spend time waiting on your opponent's play, there are a few reasons why someone might want to disable them.

In my personal experience, I’ve wanted to be a “gamer” since I got my hands on a semi-decent phone that could support the games I like. Most of these are real-time based, meaning that you’re playing and interacting with your opponents as if you were face to face.

Some have a built-in way to chat with your opponents, others don’t, but ” emotes ” are available to send while you’re playing. Since its a game in real-time, emotions play a significant role in the result of your match, and there are some players that spam emotes to get on their opponent’s nerves and make them play poorly.

That might seem a little extreme, but how many times have you gotten depressed by an opponent saying “Good Game” before killing you? How do you feel when you’re taking your time to make a decision and your opponent starts spamming “Your Go”? Those are just examples of simple words that can place you in a “tilt” mindset, affecting your upcoming plays and decisions if you encounter them repeatedly.

Of course, I’m only putting as an example the emotes that are only words, but what do you think about these?

Disclaimer: No Sparky feelings were hurt in the above footage.

The “Sleepy Hedron” emote is a cute one that your opponents can misinterpret if they think you’re calling them boring. It can also be abused if you want to annoy them by implying that they are, in fact, annoying.

In contrast, the “Crying Hedron” is the most infamous, as it's often abused when the opposing side is making a bad play or getting caught off guard. Their opponents spam this emote to inflict additional moral damage.

To Focus on the Game

Regardless of who’s sending the emotes you have to consider the time involved in these actions. You could end up losing the perception of what's happening in the game wasting time sending emotes.

This is relevant because you don't know if the game will end up in a timer competition and all of that time spamming emotes could end up spelling your doom.

To Avoid Tilting

Every player thinks and feels differently, but your mood can change very quickly with the wrong emote at the wrong time if you happen to be very emotional, like me.

To Avoid Sending Mixed Signals

I once made a mistake and sent “Oops” against an opponent who happened to be a streamer. Then I sent it a couple more times because they either caught me off guard or it was just a bad play on my end.

I eventually won the match and went back to the VOD to see what happened on their end during the game. As it turns out they thought I was mocking them. So obviously my emotes weren’t well received, and the message they got wasn’t the one I was trying to communicate.

Players May Find them Annoying

This is self-explanatory. Some players just don't like seeing emotes from their opponents because some can be very annoying.

Bluffing Plays

This is very situational, but it usually happens when someone sends “Good Game.” This implies that the game is going to end on the next attack. As it turns out, the one who sent the emote happened to have a combat trick and won the game.

The lesson here? Turn off your emotes, and don't trust your opponents.

To Prevent Yourself from Getting Spammed

You may turn off emotes just to prevent yourself from getting irritated if your opponents start spamming emotes. But, again, some players want to get on your nerves no matter what, and the easiest way for them to do so is to send multiple of the same emotes in sequence.

Wrap Up

Hedron Fields of Agadeem | Illustration by Vincent Proce

Arena has some exciting features, and emotes are one of them without a doubt. While I always disable emotes there are some very cool ones, like the ones based on memes (Jaya and Ajani, Teferi, Spirited Companion, etc.) That makes me want to buy them and enable the feature, but I tend to tilt very quickly, so I avoid them.

What has your experience been with MTGA emotes? Have you ever had your opponent try to bug you with them, or do you only have good experiences? Let me know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord. And don’t forget to download Arena Tutor for your games. It might not help with emote spam, but it can definitely improve your game and avoid strategy-based tilt.

Thank you all for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one!