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How long before we can call Arena Magic-in-name-only? Before or after they stop bothering with the actual card game?

Every other format has cards that are only available or only playable in that format. I don't see a problem with Digital Historic joining that group. It's not like Un-cards or Commander precons broke the game.

Not to mention Magic already did this once. It's called the Astral set, and I don't think those cards cheapened the old Microprose game...

This has a lot to do with restraint. As long as they don't make Arena unrecognizable from paper Magic, then it shouldn't be a big problem. It will admittedly feel weird, however, if the Digital Historic format deviates considerably from Historic.

I like Perpetually- it's the kind of feature that can fit well into a card game digitally while not changing the feel of the game.

Seek is something that I'm a bit more wary of, though that's more for deckbuilding to eliminate the random aspect of Seek rather than Seek itself.

Conjure is the one I'm hesitant with, because rng was something Hearthstone was heavily criticized over.

One concern that I have is, would there be the rules for them written out fully, in order to know exactly their working? Having read some things about Hearthstone (although I didn't play, I know some people who do), it seems to be more difficult to understand than Magic: the Gathering due to some rules being less clear, more confusing, some cards having text differently describing than their actual effect, etc. When making up a game, you should write the rules, so that you can read so that you will know how to play this game.

Conjure doesn't seem to be anything to do with RNG? It seems to be generally used to make one specific card, like the guy who conjures a Stormfront Pegasus into your hand when he attacks (Wingsteed Trainer, that's the bunny). Shoreline Scout turns a card into a Tropical Island, Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv makes a Shivan Dragon... it's just Tome of the Infinite that does weird RNG things, and that's the fault of that one design rather than the conjure word.

The Astral set has nothing to do with Magic. That was a digital RPG that happened to use the Magic rules for its deckbuilding component.

Conjure is pretty similar to Garth, except for the part where tokens can get shuffled into your deck and not go poof.

Un-sets are garbage for a similar reason - they don't actually work under the core rules.

The Astral set is heavily relying on randomization as the feature of digital card games that it applies to its designs. The other one is "big lists" (similar to what the spellbook seems to be) and "hidden information".

Conjure is problematic if you cannot look up the card that is conjured, which might be a problem with the "spellbook".

Perpetual changes and conjur of a well-defined card, and also seek are okay applications of digital, though there are some worrisome design among the cards. E. g. anything that mimics Urza, Academy Headmaster should be silver-bordered even in digital IMO.

In positive responses, I am happy that conjure now finally provides a mechanic that makes the cardnames matter set finally feasible.

Cardnames-matter is even harder in digital; because each player will see the cards with their own local language.

I expect that the cardnames in the rules text and the cardnames next to the mana cost will match in all languages (at least in digital - in the past there have been issues with multiple translations to a single English cardname in paper), so I don't see a problem with that.

A card name is just the primary key of the effective text of the cards (for database objects) (except for some Un-cards, but those can be ignored), and is one of the characteristics of an object (normally the same as the primary key, but not necessarily). Of course when the text is translated, everything will need to be translated to the way those words are written in the other language (card names, types, subtypes, colors, etc).

I think that the lists (for spell books or whatever they are) ought to be part of the Oracle texts (there are two cases where they are part of the Comprehensive Rules). The printed text can abbreviate them by giving the name, if the entire list will not fit.

Even if there are issues to to bad translation, that shouldn't change the meaning, but it does make it confusing and so should be avoided.

It's fine for "Card with this specific name" - we already have that mechanic permitted. (Helm of Kaldra)

But you can't do anything that un sets did with it. Nothing with length, or vowels. Even "Number of words in the name" varies.

Yes. But that's not something influenced by conjure at all. Before conjure it was already correct that Helm of Kaldra stuff worked in black-border, but all that other stuff works only in silver-border.

What I mean is that the stuff that works in black-border could become more viableas a cardest's theme with conjure since you can increase the as-fan of cardnames with it in a way that is more open than tokens alone - some entirelynew design space being any zone other than the battlefield.