When Magic: The Gathering Arena's Closed Beta Begins

Wizards of the Coast have announced that the closed beta for Magic: The Gathering Arena is fast approaching, and a select number of gamers will be able to participate in said beta, following on the game's recent series of closed alpha tests, starting December 4th.

According to the Wizards website post, the developers will begin closed beta testing the game on December 4th. Over the course of the next few weeks leading up to the closed beta test, the developers will be prepping the client, improving on core aspects of the game, and implementing some of the feedback they received from gamers during the closed alpha test.

When December rolls around, the team will begin sending out invites to select gamers who have registered to participate in the closed beta test for Magic: The Gathering Arena.

Now, if you have already participated in the game's closed alpha test, you will be invited back to participate in the closed beta test. This is likely so that players who experienced certain things during the alpha will be able to compare those changes to what's been added, tweaked, or modified during the closed beta.

Starting December 4th the first wave of invitees will begin piling into the game in order to check it out. During the CBT it will be active each day of the week, apart from maintenance, downtime or when server issues occur. This is slightly different from the alpha tests that took place over the weekends only.

The team wants to start small even though the studio is opening up more days to play the beta for Magic: The Gathering Arena. From there it's a measure of slowly bringing in more gamers into the fold as the beta test expands. Eventually, the idea is that if all goes well the Wizards of the Coast will open up access to the closed beta in January to those without priority access.

As for the CBT itself... it will launch with the Constructed match types and only the Ixalan cards. There will be more cards and more features unlocked throughout the beta tests leading into January. However, we don't know what the features or other cards will be until further announcements are made.

Now, if you do manage to get into the beta, you won't be able to share any of your experiences with the general public at large, otherwise your beta access will be revoked. There are some strict non-disclosure agreements that will need to be signed if you are selected. The NDAs prohibit the sharing of screenshots, videos, images, or footage of the game in any way. There is also going to be a strict limitation on blogging, forum posts and articles published about the game.

Magic: The Gathering Arena is set up to be a new deckbuilding, card combat game to compete with the likes of Hearthstone, Shadowverse and CD Projekt's Gwent. Some gamers are curious how much this will separate itself from previous Magic: The Gathering outings or what will make it worthwhile compared to other CCGs, but the Magic name carries a lot of brand weight with it, so I doubt the Wizards of the Coast will have to do much to stand out from the crowd... once the game is done with the closed beta phase, of course.