[loveiswork]

> Why does this happen?

A blend of anonymity, low self-soothing ability, human instinct to talk trash during competition, people tying identity to performance, skew towards younger people playing, etc.

> How and to what degree does it manifest?

How? Mostly through voice and chat systems in-game. Also through quitting the game, or blatantly "throwing" a match.

To what degree? From "You suck" to racial slurs to harm yourself. It's ubiquitous across competitive games -- you'll probably experience it every session.

> How do you avoid it?

The best way is to find a consistent group of folks to play with. Stay away from "random queue". Certain games you can turn off chat features, submit reports, etc. You can also just ignore it and accept it as part of the thing.

[tedunangst]

There's really very little one can do to be "toxic" in mtg arena, outside playing a control deck, which is clearly part of the game or they'd stop making counterspells. "Arena is toxic" means "I lost".

[wredcoll]

It's funny how biased against "playing to win" hacker news frequently is. On one article you'll have dozens of people arguing that a company is legally allowed to hurt people and therefor they should, then the next comment section everyone is complaining about losing in a game of mtg.

[tstrimple]

Only toxicity possible is roping which definitely gets annoying. WOTC should crack down on serial ropers. They certainly have the stats to be able to do this.