I am confused because the last 3 games that I have been given both players were auto joined in immediately. Not sure if I missed an update or something, can someone fill me in on what's going on?

the newest one with bomb card included this:

No more lobby for Ladders and Tournaments

It’s no longer necessary to click Join Game for ladder or tournament games unless you must choose a color. Games where all player’s colors (or alternate colors) are available will just skip the lobby completely.

Ah thank you Hennns :) not sure I like this

yea im not a fan either. i know it speeds things up but sometimes i need to finish other games before diving into a new one.

It only speeds up the game by the equivalent of a turn, not sure how needed this really is

I don't like this :(

Yeah, sometimes those extra few days are needed. It helps you out if you are gone for a weekend and don't want to use a vacation, or can't (don't have any or template does not allow them). I personally would rather see this changed back.

Ditto ^^

I need that extra time during RT Ladder games

There was some discussion on this here: https://www.warlight.net/Forum/90255-force-join-games?Offset=0

I have to say though, after playing with this for awhile, the auto join is actually very nice. Honestly I think it's a change for the better, and speeds up tournaments a lot. Imagine for example a 32 player tournament (3 day boot), one player always wait for the force join. Lets say he wins every game, so it becomes 4 games total. Skipping lobby now makes this tournament finish (3*4) 12 days quicker, assuming he was the slowest player. Keep in mind, that with more players, DE, longer boot etc. it saves much more time.

RT ladder (and tournaments) is the only place where I'd find this debateable, though overall the time saved outweighs the downsides; After all you should be ready to play them when you join, and if not you can just leave. Tournaments you cannot leave ofc, but this update will shorten down the time you'e to wait for other games.

I don't like auto join, it sucks. I want to join when I'm ready and not just get thrown into games with no warning.

Hate it.

I don't even look at my tournament settings, because all I see is a black screen when I go there. Does this mean I'm missing games that I'm in?