We’ve seen “battle passes” before. Billed as “season passes” of a sort (which are themselves more oriented toward a collection of meaty DLCs), battle passes are literally ways for publishers to monetize “seasons” of a competitive game.
So every few months in games like Fortnite, Dauntless, Rocket League, or Apex Legends, players can plunk down a lump sum of cash for a battle pass that allows them to earn extra premium rewards on their own track if they level up and actually play the game a ton. DOTA sort of started the scheme as the progenitor, but Fortnite popularized it: now it’s everywhere.
That growing list includes Magic: The Gathering Arena as of this week, and boy howdy did they get it wrong.
Source: Destructoid Magic: Arena adds a battle/season pass, gets it all wrong with daily XP caps