Known Issues

Active bugs, limitations, and planned work for Accessible Arena.

Active Bugs

Sphere Buy Button Announced Twice

The buy button for Spheres (mastery/cosmetics store) is announced twice when focused. Likely a duplicate element being picked up by the scan.

Steam Overlay Warning Shows With Overlay Disabled

The startup warning that flags the Steam overlay as conflicting with the mod’s Shift+Tab navigation appears even when the user has actually disabled the overlay (right-click MTGA → Properties → uncheck “Enable Steam Overlay while in-game”). Detection currently triggers on Steam-launched runs regardless of the overlay’s real state — it should check whether the overlay is actually enabled before warning.

Files: SteamOverlayBlocker.cs

Game Behavior (Not Fixable by Mod)

Steam Overlay Inaccessible to Screen Readers

The Steam overlay is not accessible to screen readers. This causes two problems for blind Steam users:

Shift+Tab conflict: Steam’s overlay hotkey (Shift+Tab) intercepts the mod’s backward navigation. Users must disable the overlay in Steam (right-click MTGA → Properties → uncheck “Enable Steam Overlay while in-game”) or rebind the overlay hotkey in Steam settings.
Real-money purchases require the overlay: Buying gems, bundles, or other real-money items opens a payment dialog inside the Steam overlay. With the overlay disabled, the purchase silently hangs. With the overlay enabled, the dialog is inaccessible. Either way, blind users need OCR or sighted assistance to complete real-money purchases on Steam.

Mitigations: The mod warns on startup if the overlay is active (Shift+Tab conflict), announces that “Change payment method” is managed through Steam, and shows a Critical-priority warning before any real-money purchase explaining the overlay limitation.

Files: SteamOverlayBlocker.cs, StoreNavigator.cs, AccessibleArenaMod.cs

Set Filter + Text Search Combination Returns Empty Results

Combining set filters (Advanced Filters) with a text search in the deck builder collection returns 0 results, even when matching cards exist. For example: searching “brand” finds Brandende Welle normally, but adding the Avatar set filter produces 0 results despite the card having the correct Avatar set code (TLA). Clearing the search shows Avatar cards; clearing the filter shows search results. The combination fails.

Root cause: The game’s internal card pool filtering logic does not correctly intersect set filter and text search criteria. Debug logging confirmed Brandende Welle has ExpansionCode='TLA' — identical to other Avatar cards that appear when only the set filter is active.

Why it can’t be fixed by the mod: The game returns an empty card pool to CardPoolHolder before the mod reads it. The mod accurately reports what the game provides (Search rescan pool: 0 -> 0).

Workaround: Use set filters or text search individually, not both at the same time.

Investigation: docs/investigations/card-filter-search-bug.md

Under Investigation

Codex “How to Play” Category Completeness

The “How to Play” category in the Codex of the Multiverse may be missing entries or have sections that don’t read fully. Needs a pass to verify all subsections are reachable and read correctly.

Monitoring

Monitor How Stacks and Entries Shift With Change of Selection or Tapped State

When HotHighlightNavigator delegates to BattlefieldNavigator for battlefield cards (via NavigateToSpecificCard), the position announced (“X von Y”) reflects the card’s position within its BattlefieldNavigator row (e.g., PlayerLands), not its position in the HotHighlightNavigator’s Tab order. This can cause confusing announcements — e.g., two consecutive Tab presses both announce “2 von 3” for different cards if one card was selected and the row re-scanned.

Root cause: Two navigation systems with different indices. HotHighlightNavigator owns the Tab order (sorted by ownership group), but BattlefieldNavigator announces the row position when focus delegates to it. After a card changes state (selected/deselected), the BattlefieldNavigator row may recount, shifting positions.

Observed in: Hastige Suche (Frantic Search) untap phase — selecting 3 lands from a mixed battlefield. Own cards correctly grouped before opponent cards, selection worked, but row position announcements were inconsistent.

Monitor for:

Whether the index mismatch causes actual navigation confusion (wrong card activated) vs. just confusing announcements
Effects with large numbers of selectable targets (5+) where the discrepancy becomes more noticeable
Whether a unified position announcement (from HotHighlightNavigator’s own index) would be clearer

Files: HotHighlightNavigator.cs (AnnounceCurrentItem — delegates to BattlefieldNavigator), BattlefieldNavigator.cs (NavigateToSpecificCard)

SelectGroup Browser Pile Selection (Fact or Fiction)

In the SelectGroup browser (e.g. Curator of Destinies / Fact or Fiction pile selection), Enter and Space now activate the focused pile button. Previously, Enter activated a face-down card instead of the pile button, and Space fell through to PromptButton_Primary (“Opponent’s Turn”), accidentally passing the turn.

Fix applied: Unified direct-choice early return in ClickConfirmButton handles SelectGroup, ChoiceList, and OptionalAction browsers identically — Space activates the focused button/card (same as Enter), or announces “No button selected” if nothing is focused. PromptButton fallbacks are excluded for all three browser types.

Files: BrowserNavigator.cs (ClickConfirmButton, ClickCancelButton, GetBrowserHintKey)

Reworked after a July 2026 user log showed the middle “rewards” phase reading as silent/unlabeled “Button” elements and the user getting stuck. Root cause: _endOfSeasonDisplayState read as OldRankDisplay for the entire sequence, so the rewards-reveal phase was routed through the rank-display path (which only reads a title) and never enumerated what was earned; the game also absorbs clicks during reveal animations (a “stuck counter”), so repeated presses appeared to do nothing.

Current behavior:

Phase is derived from active display objects (SeasonEndRankDisplay active → rank phase; inactive within a season context → rewards reveal), NOT from _endOfSeasonDisplayState. See DetermineSeasonPhase.
Rewards-reveal phase enumerates rewards via the standard path (DiscoverRewardElements → DiscoverRewardsFromControllerData fallback), with a guaranteed non-empty element so the screen always announces.
Season input is a dedicated single-action flow (HandleSeasonInput): Enter/Space = advance (via ClickBackgroundBlocker, announced “Continuing”); Enter during an active reveal announces “Revealing, please wait” (IsSeasonRevealBusy); Backspace re-reads the current screen; Left/Right browse items. The junk coin-hitbox buttons are no longer added on season screens.
Duplicate announcements suppressed by text (_lastSeasonAnnouncement), not element count.

Still to confirm at the next reset (monitor the log):

Old rank, rewards, and new-placement phases each announce once with correct content.
The rewards phase lists actual packs/cards earned (not just “Season Rewards”).
Advancing closes the final screen cleanly (no accidental matchmaking via “Play”).
The “Revealing, please wait” feedback fires instead of silent no-ops during animations.

Testable: next monthly season reset

Files: RewardPopupNavigator.cs (DetermineSeasonPhase, IsAnyRankDisplayActive, DiscoverSeasonRewardElements, HandleSeasonInput, AdvanceSeason, ClickBackgroundBlocker, IsSeasonRevealBusy, ForceRescan override)

Needs Testing

Not Reproducible Yet

Event-Specific Quests Show English Text

Event-specific quests (e.g. special event objectives) reportedly display English text instead of the user’s localized language. Standard daily/weekly quests are localized correctly. Exact reproduction steps unknown — needs a specific event with localized objectives to confirm.

Game Assets Loading Problem

Intermittent issue during game asset loading. Exact symptoms and reproduction steps unknown.

Planned Features

Upcoming

Display modified player properties (max hand size, extra turns, etc.)
Sylvan Library support — the card has a unique draw-then-choose UI that needs accessible navigation. Planned for when Strixhaven Remastered releases on Arena. Reference: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/dev-diary-sylvan-library

Polish

Battlefield row categorization for land creatures — effects that turn lands into creatures (e.g. Nissa animating lands) cause them to appear in the Lands row (A/Shift+A) instead of the Creatures row (B/Shift+B). Conversely, effects that turn non-land permanents into lands (e.g. certain commander abilities) may miscategorize them. The categorization logic needs to handle cards with multiple types (Creature Land) more intelligently, potentially prioritizing the creature type for combat relevance.
Cube and other draft event accessibility — make Cube drafts and similar special draft events fully accessible (pick screens, pack navigation, deck building within event).
Ctrl+key shortcuts for navigating opponent’s cards — additional Ctrl-modified zone shortcuts for quick opponent board access. Highly speculative; unlikely to be implemented unless requested by users.
Replace Tolk with Prism library — Tolk covers the major Western screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, Narrator) but lacks support for several Asian ones. A switch to Prism may be considered if Asian screen reader users request it. Two blockers remain: the official Prism .NET binding currently targets .NET 10, while this mod runs on .NET Framework 4.7.2; and the mod would need to be confirmed portable to macOS, which requires a contributor with access to a Mac (the maintainer does not have one).
Endure option dialogue must be improved — the Endure prompt (choose +1/+1 counters vs. token) needs clearer announcements and better keyboard flow so blind players can reliably pick the option they intend.
Confirmation guard for “cancel all blocks” — pressing Backspace during declare blockers to cancel all assigned blocks is easy to trigger accidentally and wipes the entire block assignment with no undo. Add a confirmation step (e.g. press twice, or announce a warning on first press) to prevent accidental skipping.