"[4] In December 2021, Wizards of the Coast entered into a "long-term" licensing agreement to transfer development, operations, and publishing of Magic Online to Daybreak Games.

Each game is hosted by the Magic Online servers, which apply a rules engine to enforce proper play.

[6] Players can set up or join casual games of their choice for free in several rooms within the Constructed Open Play area.

[10] LLS initially approached Wizards of the Coast with an offer to create an online version of Magic: The Gathering.

LLS then created a tech demo to prove to WotC that an online collectible card game could work.

[10] WotC was sufficiently convinced and contracted LLS to develop the service, which was then known as Magic Online with Digital Objects (MODO).

Initially, the idea of charging for virtual goods, as opposed to a subscription model with unlimited access, was greeted with skepticism.

Though they praised the "groundbreaking" work LLS had done, they opted to terminate their contract with them and bring the development in-house to be able to focus on the direction needed to improve the client for a global audience.

The game went into no-pay mode while temporary beta servers were opened to allow players to practice playing in for-pay formats.

[10] As a concession for these issues, Wizards planned to throw "Chuck's Virtual Party," a weekend of free tournaments after the problems settled down.

[13] Others, however, point to certain intractabilities in later maintenance that suggest that Leaping Lizard had not delivered a very extensible program that, by nature, was too monolithic and hard to improve.

They decided to maintain version 2.0 in the background but to start a new development team to rebuild Magic Online from the ground up.

[14] Magic Online version 3, in addition to supporting a much larger player base through multiple servers, was also to feature an updated interface and expanded in-game guidance.

[10] Initial reactions to the Version 3 were critical of the new user interface layout, and players found the server structure was not as stable as expected.

Kibler took to social media to complain and suggest other players delete Magic Online from their computers, which caused the average cost of Magic Online digital cards to fall 11% in one day and prompted WotC to move quicker with the transition to Version 4.

[4] However, a policy of shortening this delay (to about two weeks) was instituted to allow professional players (who often use "Magic Online" for testing) to prepare for Pro Tour events (which usually happen two weeks after the release of a new set) and to "increase cohesion" between paper and online Magic.

[20] For cards released before Mirage, special MTGO-exclusive compilation sets called Masters Editions were created.

Exceptions are usually made to create enjoyable Masters Edition limited environments or to make specifically illustrated cards available online.

The Power Nine were released in a set called "Vintage Masters", along with tournament-worthy cards featured in Conspiracy, which was available in a limited period in June 2014.

[28] The client software for Magic Online may be downloaded for free from Wizards of the Coast's website, but to play the game, it is necessary to register an account.

Technically any transfer of cards in the game is not considered a "sale" because, for legal reasons, the digital objects are not actually owned by the collector, but rather Wizards of the Coast themselves.

Wizards has currently shown "benign neglect" of players buying and selling digital objects for (legal) currency on the secondary market.

Due to the ease of trading away unwanted or extra cards, transaction costs on Magic Online are very low.

Magic Online has accumulated a secondary market composed of automated traders, which have become the most common way to obtain cards.

These traders, known as "bots", are accounts running programs designed to trade cards at variable prices and qualities.

Lastly, some bots are designed to help advertise competing sellers' prices and give users a general sense of the values of cards they have.

For those not so lucky, or those needing tickets, they can sell singles from their opened packs to help defray the costs of the next draft.

This short supply, combined with rising demand as Magic Online's user base grew and the server became more stable, helped spike some early cards' prices.

Chase cards from these early sets demand much higher prices than their paper counterparts; popular rares sell on eBay for 5 to 10 times as much as the physical version, and even commons can command a premium.

[34] The winner will additionally receive an invitation to the next Magic Online Championship, as well as Platinum Level in the Pro Players Club for a specific period (roughly a year).