Mana Echoes - Season 2, Episode 2

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
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Greetings, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of Mana Echoes!

In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about Planeswalk—

...what is this?!

It seems our regular programming has been… interrupted.
We’re breaking the signal to bring you an important and thrilling topic: Holiday Events!

Wait—how does a forum post even get affected by static?!

Well, glad you asked! As you might have noticed, there’s a strange phenomenon currently unfolding in the game, seemingly connected to the endless halls of Duskmourn.

This is just the beginning—the tip of the iceberg—for the special, server-wide events we first mentioned during the second episode of Mana Echoes.

This Week’s Episode: Holiday Events

Let’s talk about one of our favorite topics—holiday events, starting with Halloween!

As we’ve discussed before, we believe that special dates deserve events that go beyond everyday gameplay. They should offer fresh ways for players to experience Magic: Puzzle Quest and celebrate together.

This year’s Halloween event marks the beginning of a new approach to how we design seasonal experiences. We’re learning from the past while bringing a new creative vision to life.

Our New Approach to Holiday Events

Here’s what you can expect from this year’s—and future—holiday celebrations:

  • Unique Stories for Each Event
    Our new Story Mode is the foundation of this evolution—many of these tales will come to life there and spread through other areas of the game.

  • Distinct Rewards Beyond the Usual
    Exceptional events deserve exceptional rewards. Think of it as discovering rare loot after delving into every shadowy room in the corner of a dungeon. These events will feature prizes that differ from standard gameplay.

  • Seasonal Events Throughout the Year
    Traditionally, most seasonal content had appeared near the end of the year (Halloween and Holiversary). Moving forward, we plan to bring themed experiences to more dates across the calendar—so you’ll have something special to look forward to year-round.
    We’ll share more details about these upcoming events closer to their in-game releases.

Halloween 2025: The Terrors of Duskmourn

This year’s Halloween event takes place within Duskmourn—a plane-wide haunted house consumed by the influence of the demon Valgavoth.

Players will explore Duskmourn through a themed Story Mode, uncovering its chilling mysteries as Valgavoth’s presence grows stronger.
An unexplained phenomenon is spreading through the event’s special mode, challenging players to brave haunted rooms, complete themed quests, and earn unique rewards—all while working together to stop Valgavoth’s rise.

New Feature: Foil Cards Debut

This Halloween marks the introduction of Foil cards to Magic: Puzzle Quest!

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Players who complete at least twenty quests during Halloween week will receive a Foil Ghalta as a reward.

At launch, Foil cards will only be available through special activities.
They cannot be crafted or obtained from packs—so don’t miss your chance to earn them during the event!

Additional Foil cards can also be earned by:

  • Completing the themed Halloween Story Mode
  • Reaching a certain score in the Mysterious Event that is active throughout this week

And here’s a community challenge:
If enough players participate in the event, we’ll be able to push back the strange phenomenon affecting Duskmourn—and unlock a fourth Foil card for everyone involved!
(Stay tuned for updates and progress posts during the event.)

Bonus: Deck Slot Sale

No tricks here—just treats!
A Deck Slot Sale will run from Wednesday, October 29, through Wednesday, November 5, at 15:00 UTC.

The Halloween Story Mode, quests, and activities will also remain active until November 5 at 15:00 UTC, so be sure to complete all objectives before the deadline to claim every reward.

A bloodstained note on Story Mode Quests

We’ve received your feedback regarding quests that are tied to specific activities—such as completing actions in Story Mode—and we’d like to share a few words about it.

The original intent behind these quests was to encourage players to explore areas that have recently been updated or revamped, like the new Story Mode. This same philosophy was also applied to quests connected to the Halloween activities.

After reviewing both your feedback and our completion metrics, we recognize that this design can be improved. Starting with the next upcoming update, the Story Mode activity-specific quests will be rotated out of the current quest pool.

For future updates, we’ll design new quests that give players more freedom to complete objectives across a wider variety of game modes.

We appreciate everyone who shared their thoughts with us—your input continues to help shape Magic: Puzzle Quest for the better.

That’s a Wrap for This Week’s Mana Echoes!

We hope you enjoy this new approach to celebrating holidays and special occasions in Magic: Puzzle Quest.

What do you think of Foil cards?
Are there any specific ones you’d love to see in the future?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below—and we’ll see you in the next episode…
(assuming the static doesn’t consume us first.) :eyes:

Summer refreshments: Presenting the Summer Celebration Pack!
Mana Echoes - Season 2, Episode 3
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Holy cow, a Deck Slot Sale!

faints dead away

Cheers guys :slight_smile:

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Thank you guys for the recent changes:

  • Lorwyn 5 event remix (though I havent played the updated version yet)
  • New Story mode giving superpack
  • Log in rewards full and upgraded
  • Changing the Story quests (would be ok at the start of the week)
  • New walker or now a foil card for weekly reward.

But mostly finally giving Janosik his deck slot sale! Now all we need is more deckslots for runes :)))

It is really appreciated when you guys listen to our feedback and act upon it.

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Excellent changes! Looking forward to the new stuff :slight_smile:

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What are the foils for ? We shouldn’t have same cards as duplicates, like alternative art.

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Loads of great new ideas, thanks WebCore! Thanks for listening re the Story mode quests too :smiley:
I like the foil cards, it’s a fun idea. I’d love to see them full length like the full art cards!

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One problem with how the foils have been implemented is that when scrolling through cards in the deckbuilder or collection tab, you frequently pick a card up and wiggle it around when you just want to scroll past them. I find this happens every 4 or 5 scrolls. It affects me particularly when I’m looking through cards to see which ones I have partially mastered.

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Finding this really quite intrusive when searching through cards.

Here’s a thought: why do all the nonfoil cards need to wiggle around at all?

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I’m not a big fan of the foils. It adds literally nothing, just an extra shiny layer over the art and even that shiny layer is minimally visible at best.

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I don’t mind the subtle shimmer displayed in the tiled card menu.

But I’m sure it is disappointing for the devs to waste so much time coding animations that people resent. I’m not sure why they don’t seem to understand that we prefer function (like well thought out challenges) over form (like obtrusive and unskippable animations).

Even the “new & improved” Lorwyn 5 event completely misses the mark—there’s nothing fun about being forced to play with decks built by people who lack understanding of the game itself. Getting glimpses of the dev-version of things (like the insane mana bonuses on Oko) helps explain why they are so out-of-touch and reinforces the idea that the game they imagine for the end users is basically unplayable.