The recent “economy stream” had a range of topics, including the possibility of a “dusting” system in which existing cards are exchanged for a resource to then craft new cards. In the end they were against the idea of card destruction from the early stages of Arena’s development.
Unfortunately for WotC, this philosophy ignores a major aspect of the Arena economy which is what happens to the 5th copies of cards once they’re opened in a pack. For all intents and purposes, these cards are in fact “dusted” in that they do not enter within your collection and are replaced with resources, either 20 / 40 gems for rares / mythics respectively, or a fraction of a percent of “vault progress” for commons and uncommons. In fact, the only difference between this and a regular dusting system is that Arena’s is automatic.
“It’s pretty easy to read between the lines,” user XxAlchemySuxxX told us in chat the other day. “Basically, they realize that with their system players would have hundreds of copies of uncommons and commons in their collection if they didn’t automatically remove them. Rather they’re dusting your cards for you behind the scenes into a hidden resource at an unknown rate.”
We reached out for clarification on the conflicting statements.
In response, WotC announced today that the cards opened in packs and replaced with gems or vault progress are not in fact destroyed, but sent to live out their days on a farm upstate.
When we asked if players could go visit their cards, we were told that it would be too hard for the cards to say goodbye again, and it’s best for them if we let them live with the memory of only having to say goodbye one time.