Magic the Gathering: Arena
- Thread starter richleader
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I looked at pre-releases tonight and two stores said it's their last one, ever.
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Watching Standard has been rough with the lands combo everywhere, especially since you can see some jerk on tabletop making a young opponent trust that they're not cheating any with the mana/fetches/shuffles. Maybe that deck is on its last legs with the new release but it's still not fun.
View: https://youtu.be/g7C0EXt_EbU?t=468
Otowara for lethal? The thing that makes me hate Kethis so much in Historic is their access to 4x of those and 4x Boseiju because it's just obnoxious how they have "free" answers to any answers you bring in.
View: https://youtu.be/g7C0EXt_EbU?t=468
Otowara for lethal? The thing that makes me hate Kethis so much in Historic is their access to 4x of those and 4x Boseiju because it's just obnoxious how they have "free" answers to any answers you bring in.
Pretty sure Rest In Peace coming back to Standard is going to be the death-knell for it. It's definitely not surviving rotation though since the SNC sac fetches are absolutely required for it to work.
Who can play it main deck besides enchantress though? Real magic is Bo1 now. It's occasionally fun to watch those dimir "I delete your deck one card at a time" meta-counters though.
Somehow I won the Green Devotion mirror today. And then I somehow beat Hammertime with Vampire Bombardment. They must have had the worst draws ever.
Somehow I won the Green Devotion mirror today. And then I somehow beat Hammertime with Vampire Bombardment. They must have had the worst draws ever.
I tried this out:
It's more aggro than I like: I enjoy the non-lurrus ones a bit more, especially with Akal Pakal, since I like drawing cards. But having 4/2 ornithopters that you didn't even want to feed into foundry was a bit cool.
I beat Auras who had a bad draw in game 2 (they had to mulligan for creatures and then I sniped both off with counterspells) and a goblins player who couldn't pick one mountain art so I didn't feel bad beating them, although neither win was super meaningful -- other than I finally got into Diamond for the month.
This is the less aggo version of affinity I had been occasionally playing (although Vampires/Green Devotion/Auras have been my mainstays for daily color quests):
It's more aggro than I like: I enjoy the non-lurrus ones a bit more, especially with Akal Pakal, since I like drawing cards. But having 4/2 ornithopters that you didn't even want to feed into foundry was a bit cool.
I beat Auras who had a bad draw in game 2 (they had to mulligan for creatures and then I sniped both off with counterspells) and a goblins player who couldn't pick one mountain art so I didn't feel bad beating them, although neither win was super meaningful -- other than I finally got into Diamond for the month.
This is the less aggo version of affinity I had been occasionally playing (although Vampires/Green Devotion/Auras have been my mainstays for daily color quests):
6-1 with that Affinity deck: only loss was to a fairly antiquated build of Squirrel Combo. One of the nice thing about playing Auras, on the other hand, is that it's a Hushbringer deck (so you can punk out stuff like that and Humans), although I guess Doorkeeper Thrull might be better in the current meta.
Only opened one pack of the new set and it had a Path to Exile in it. I suspect Timeless is going to be miserable today if you're not willing to spend like 20 mythic wilds on day one...
Had mostly red quests after reset so I jumped into Historic Vampires and played against a Danish streamer on Green Devotion who grew increasingly ropey the worse things got for them -- or the better things got for them, even, until things got really bad for them after taking a one-lander in game 3. Maybe they were emoting constantly to themselves, who knows, but it gave me time to see that they have an entire Twitter account dedicated to their Magic exploits. You'd think someone like that would always be on their best behavior in-client as to not have people go "ah, that dudebro with the 'punch me' face wearing the karn shirt? he's miserable to play Magic against" but maybe not.
Only opened one pack of the new set and it had a Path to Exile in it. I suspect Timeless is going to be miserable today if you're not willing to spend like 20 mythic wilds on day one...
Had mostly red quests after reset so I jumped into Historic Vampires and played against a Danish streamer on Green Devotion who grew increasingly ropey the worse things got for them -- or the better things got for them, even, until things got really bad for them after taking a one-lander in game 3. Maybe they were emoting constantly to themselves, who knows, but it gave me time to see that they have an entire Twitter account dedicated to their Magic exploits. You'd think someone like that would always be on their best behavior in-client as to not have people go "ah, that dudebro with the 'punch me' face wearing the karn shirt? he's miserable to play Magic against" but maybe not.
View: https://youtu.be/7FRanUnNcWI?t=337
maybe the timeless format might start looking more like we thought it would initially with 1-drop creatures + 1-drop disruption rather than people just slamming big stuff turn after turn. OTOH, if I played this deck I'd be forever unlucky.
*I'm glad Forsaken Miner is an uncommon. They keep trying to make those 2/1 creatures relevant in constructed by making them rare but they never end up working and it ends up just being a drain on people's wildcards. I saw someone using them in a goblin bombardment deck with token generators but it just feels worse than the vampire one because that can just randomly cheese people out by having Sorin+Ripper in their opening hand.
*So it's going to be really hard for three year standard to ever have bad mana, eh? I didn't read spoilers so I didn't realize these lands were back. It's nice to already have a full playset of something. OTOH, is three/four color good stuff always on the table now, even after rotations?
*The art plagiarism thing: A pose + hairstyle + idea of a staircase doesn't completely sell me on it being drastically over the line. It crosses the line from merely being "inspired by" to being copied on some level, but that level isn't plagiarism to the level of theft, imho. Changing the motif from sci-fi to fantasy, recontextualizing it with an additional protagonist, and it's all original painting: The prior artist should get to say "nyah nyah, I caught you, check out my work please, internet people" and ride the attention from that, but I don't think the guilty party should be fired for taking a shortcut on a $1000 commission, if in fact they even did.
*So it's going to be really hard for three year standard to ever have bad mana, eh? I didn't read spoilers so I didn't realize these lands were back. It's nice to already have a full playset of something. OTOH, is three/four color good stuff always on the table now, even after rotations?
*The art plagiarism thing: A pose + hairstyle + idea of a staircase doesn't completely sell me on it being drastically over the line. It crosses the line from merely being "inspired by" to being copied on some level, but that level isn't plagiarism to the level of theft, imho. Changing the motif from sci-fi to fantasy, recontextualizing it with an additional protagonist, and it's all original painting: The prior artist should get to say "nyah nyah, I caught you, check out my work please, internet people" and ride the attention from that, but I don't think the guilty party should be fired for taking a shortcut on a $1000 commission, if in fact they even did.
I have been a bad Arena player by not maximizing my returns on dailies. Finally played the Jump-In event and played Gruul. It was fun but its a mistake for the crime lands to not be the common duals in the format. At least if you have OTJ packs and no DMU packs (and you will only have both for this 4 month period as DMU will rotate out of Alchemy/JumpIn in a few months).
View: https://youtu.be/9cmxiAggO50?t=977
Three steps ahead to copy a mana rock while countering spells seems pretty good...
Had three dailies piled up. Played UW Artifacts vs. Hammertime. Fine. Played Vampire Bombardment against some dick called "Blade" who is always on UW Control and just wants to waste people's time before they go to bed. Lost to a lucky series of topdecks in game 3. Feh. Something in Gandalf has to go because of the captive audience problem inherent with dailies/rank. Too many losers left in the client driving normal people out. How many new players does this game get?
I know I should quit this game, I have nothing positive to say about it, but my daily OCD for quests is inescapable...
* I hate the fact that there are three sets out now, between the base and big score and breaking news. I'm not willing to spend wildcards on anything at this point but it's like jeeze
* I went like 1-4 this morning. I can stand losses. I can't stand losses to Those People. Oh, great, another player from a certain place in Europe where they alt-tab and only come back right before their rope runs out just to show that they can. Oh, another player from a certain part of Asia where they're always on full control. Oh, another player on UW Control who identifies as the Tauren Shaman they created 20 years ago across all social media who plays all four Teferis against me. I requeue to try to get my second win only to be matched vs. that same player and I immediately concede. So -4 pips just to Shaman Dweeb.
* I hate the fact that there are three sets out now, between the base and big score and breaking news. I'm not willing to spend wildcards on anything at this point but it's like jeeze
* I went like 1-4 this morning. I can stand losses. I can't stand losses to Those People. Oh, great, another player from a certain place in Europe where they alt-tab and only come back right before their rope runs out just to show that they can. Oh, another player from a certain part of Asia where they're always on full control. Oh, another player on UW Control who identifies as the Tauren Shaman they created 20 years ago across all social media who plays all four Teferis against me. I requeue to try to get my second win only to be matched vs. that same player and I immediately concede. So -4 pips just to Shaman Dweeb.
Ah, suddenly Prismatic Vista, a card that you can't really open, is everywhere. -4 mythics! "See, we're just responding to all the comments about 'hah, look I have more mythic wildcards than rares! fixed!"
I said "screw it, I'm gonna be the bad guy and play UW control..."
Immediately I'm matched vs. someone whose handle is the Japanese word for penis because this is a game by Hasbro for children. This is my karma:
They're on Jeskai Control (4x Snapcaster build) with lots of surveil lands + creature lands because they can get away with anything they want, evidently. I'm not favored in this and the sideboard of the list I stole doesn't get much better vs. them for game 2.
Somehow, just being patient and cycling Calims was enough of a distraction that I eventually won a counter-war while we both have 12 lands, stuck a Teferi while having my 1 copy of Dovin's Veto to counter their Tef, and they assumed my deck was better than it was and conceded BOTH games on the spot.
The list I stole has 2x Blessed Alliance in the sideboard and it's kinda good vs. Wizards.
Immediately I'm matched vs. someone whose handle is the Japanese word for penis because this is a game by Hasbro for children. This is my karma:
They're on Jeskai Control (4x Snapcaster build) with lots of surveil lands + creature lands because they can get away with anything they want, evidently. I'm not favored in this and the sideboard of the list I stole doesn't get much better vs. them for game 2.
Somehow, just being patient and cycling Calims was enough of a distraction that I eventually won a counter-war while we both have 12 lands, stuck a Teferi while having my 1 copy of Dovin's Veto to counter their Tef, and they assumed my deck was better than it was and conceded BOTH games on the spot.
The list I stole has 2x Blessed Alliance in the sideboard and it's kinda good vs. Wizards.
Into Mythic. Final boss was an archaic build of Historic Rakdos. If you have room in your deck to bring in Pithing Needle vs. UW Control your deck is probably built wrong. Also, everyone who immediately crafted 4x Surgical Extraction is probably wrong.
Opened a pack for funzies and got a Mana Drain. Felt good. Then I thought about the cards I'm missing now and that being in that position despite being a long term player with probably 5K rares on the client means that it'll be a tough sell for any new player even thinking about starting the game.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGUycn1S7Cc
More turn 4 standard combo kills is what the format needed! Granted, dies to Shock, but can you afford to hold up mana vs. a combo deck playing Wraths in Bo1?
Opened a pack for funzies and got a Mana Drain. Felt good. Then I thought about the cards I'm missing now and that being in that position despite being a long term player with probably 5K rares on the client means that it'll be a tough sell for any new player even thinking about starting the game.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGUycn1S7Cc
More turn 4 standard combo kills is what the format needed! Granted, dies to Shock, but can you afford to hold up mana vs. a combo deck playing Wraths in Bo1?
Cowboy Bebop x Magic: The Gathering Collaboration • MTG Arena Zone
Exclusive MTG Cowboy Bebop playmats, sleeves, and cards will be available in Japan.
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Is a thing.
Wizards with Surgical Extraction. If you get to recast it with Arcanist you were probably winning that game anyway, imho... Two copies of Show-Off is what seems to be popular. (Now a $30 rare in paper!)
Skipped WNM: didn't want to spend wildcards to play a pointless event that would give me gems.
View: https://youtu.be/iIvpVgvxSCI?t=1242
Watching one player go to rope with one land and then the time stamped player who wouldn't concede to a hard-lock because they were lonely or something and spending 30 minutes with a rando on the internet was their only social interaction for the day was something they couldn't give up -- doesn't make me like Arena more...
View: https://youtu.be/iIvpVgvxSCI?t=1242
Watching one player go to rope with one land and then the time stamped player who wouldn't concede to a hard-lock because they were lonely or something and spending 30 minutes with a rando on the internet was their only social interaction for the day was something they couldn't give up -- doesn't make me like Arena more...
The addition of fetch lands, mana drain, and a few other uber powerful reprints into Historic has kind of ruined the format for me. Turn 1 is fetch into surveil land and it seems to take like a full minute. I hate it.
I was bored so I crafted some Stoneforge Mystics:
It's... ok. It's really mana intensive (especially leaning on Snapcaster to claw back tempo) so you need to hit all your land drops by cycling Reprieves and Calims which requires things to go exactly to plan. Which can happen vs. meta decks but then it decided I needed to be matched vs. Merfolk with islandwalk and whatnot.
I think I have a 35% win rate with it which is... not... good. At all. I did win the mirror (going first and just dropping a Stoneforge on turn 2 will do that) vs. someone with "I have a twitter account just for my Arena profile because "they'll do unspeakable things for card advantage." But that's just the fact that Arena has scared all semi neurotypical people away from wanting to play Magic.
As fun as fetching Assimilation Aegis is to take out a Dreadhorde Arcanist just to turn one of your own creatures into Fragment Realities on a stick is fun, you're pretty powerless vs. a lot of decks that go wide (people might be bored of Yawgmoth but it's still probably the best deck) or are good at finding Cavern of Souls.
It's... ok. It's really mana intensive (especially leaning on Snapcaster to claw back tempo) so you need to hit all your land drops by cycling Reprieves and Calims which requires things to go exactly to plan. Which can happen vs. meta decks but then it decided I needed to be matched vs. Merfolk with islandwalk and whatnot.
I think I have a 35% win rate with it which is... not... good. At all. I did win the mirror (going first and just dropping a Stoneforge on turn 2 will do that) vs. someone with "I have a twitter account just for my Arena profile because "they'll do unspeakable things for card advantage." But that's just the fact that Arena has scared all semi neurotypical people away from wanting to play Magic.
As fun as fetching Assimilation Aegis is to take out a Dreadhorde Arcanist just to turn one of your own creatures into Fragment Realities on a stick is fun, you're pretty powerless vs. a lot of decks that go wide (people might be bored of Yawgmoth but it's still probably the best deck) or are good at finding Cavern of Souls.
It took me a minute to realize you meant Historic Brawl. I haven't really felt much of an impact from fetches (other than, somehow, my 4-color Aragorn deck seems to be even more color screwed than before) but I also haven't played much since OTJ released.
Huh, that's an interesting way to use Stoneforge. It actually looks a bit like a control deck I might enjoy playing a bit.
Did my first draft just to get the free pack for being on the ranked scoreboard today. Had jeskai goodstuff that could draw cards by doing nothing on a turn or by double spelling. Lost my first game to Sultai that hit me with Crackle of Power out of nowhere (treasures) and I hated the format already. How was I to know to play around that?
Won the next four games then lost the two after that once I was matched up with identical decks to mine that got to go first (which is key for profiting off of that Jem bird) and since I was playing early morning EST, opponents all had the "my grandfather was on the Axis team" luck that those folks usually have.
I will say that you get to pick up some late mythics of questionable use in this format doing premiere drafts, though, given the draft pack quality being better than store packs, so there's more fun stuff to go around the table. :/ Feh on that score.
Won the next four games then lost the two after that once I was matched up with identical decks to mine that got to go first (which is key for profiting off of that Jem bird) and since I was playing early morning EST, opponents all had the "my grandfather was on the Axis team" luck that those folks usually have.
I will say that you get to pick up some late mythics of questionable use in this format doing premiere drafts, though, given the draft pack quality being better than store packs, so there's more fun stuff to go around the table. :/ Feh on that score.
I'm sick of Wizards in Historic: it's not really any better than before, just having two new cards that may or may not be better (the new fetch land and show off), only it's drawing a crowd of really annoying people who didn't play Wizards before. I guess it's better than Tempted by the Ring Wizards lists that were just goddamn awful though.
Are you me? That's the same reason I hit it up last night. I had a really solid Temur deck that should have been able to put up at least 3 wins but I went 0-3. Every turn opponents had exactly the perfect answer to each play I made. It was just absurd how perfectly they could hit each of my plays with the minimum necessary to take it out and still have an answer and board presence for the next one. I've done really well in Limited at the LGS the past couple of weeks but this was just a bodying.
I assume Slickshot is one that people are trying out? I just don't see it as playable. Two-drops are the point where that deck is already the most stressed because do you play Balmor and attack for 0 or 1 that turn? Do you set up for Arcanist and attack for 0 or 1 and risk getting Arcanist removed? Do you play Symmetry Sage and go for a burn + Prowess damage turn or Reckless Rage?
Slickshot just makes that even harder and less consistent. While it might be able to do more at the end of the game to try and close it out, generally, my opinion is you have to get the opponent to sub-10 and aim for burn to finish the job against heavy removal. That's part of why I hate the LTR wizard card for draw and damage because 1) you're paying 3 mana for the effect which means you have to be drawing more lands to keep playing the spells you just drew (which you don't want to do beyond 4) and 2) because the damage doesn't go face in a deck that needs face damage to finish the game often.
Slickshot is mostly good just for game 2 where the Wizards player will typically go "on control" because that's what ALL players do in Bo3 which is why they play Bo3 but they just do nothing until they get to 6-8 lands and then they'll go all in. So it's pretty good vs. me when I'm playing Auras or something like that since even if I have a phase-out spell and a counterspell, they'll just sit there waiting and I'm probably dead on the crack back because of Slickshot.
But if you're always playing aggressively to the point where Flame of Arnor is a bad card, you're probably not playing the deck the way it should be in the current meta, imho, which is very much about tempo and testing. An EOT Flame for just draw two is fine, especially since if you're forcing your opponents to respond turn after turn, eventually you'll get an Arcanist that can flash back the Flame and that's what puts you over the top and clinches the game.
Managed to knock someone out of the top 250 right before closing today. I waffled on whether I should just concede the match to rank them into it or hit them hard for playing gates...
First match after reset was my vampires vs. UW Control because someone was a misery machine. I ended up winning. They had a 44 after their name which I'm assuming really stands for 88 because why doubt an Arena player is actually a nazi?
But if you're always playing aggressively to the point where Flame of Arnor is a bad card, you're probably not playing the deck the way it should be in the current meta, imho, which is very much about tempo and testing. An EOT Flame for just draw two is fine, especially since if you're forcing your opponents to respond turn after turn, eventually you'll get an Arcanist that can flash back the Flame and that's what puts you over the top and clinches the game.
Managed to knock someone out of the top 250 right before closing today. I waffled on whether I should just concede the match to rank them into it or hit them hard for playing gates...
First match after reset was my vampires vs. UW Control because someone was a misery machine. I ended up winning. They had a 44 after their name which I'm assuming really stands for 88 because why doubt an Arena player is actually a nazi?
WNM: made a rakdos deck filled with rares/mythics, premium removal, vampires and board wipes. Had a hard time hitting land drops but it was fine and better than what anyone else was doing. When building the deck, looking at my collection, it's kind of amazing how many times I hit gems for rewards given the gaps in my standard collection: can't do dinosaurs since I only have one copy of pugnacious hammerskull, or XYZ because I only have two copies of THAT, etc. and etc.
So the only options are really two color good stuff or trying to download some uncommon set-thematic list that tries to go crazy off of Explore or Scry or something.
There was a time when right before rotation I'd be finishing off sets, 4x copies of everything, off of the back of mastery pass packs -- I kinda timed it down to an art as to not over-open. But now that there are infinite sets, supplemental products, bonus cards you can't open until you've finished 4x (say, all the banned cards in Strixhaven's bonus sheet), and my general malaise at WOTC and Arena in general, it's just something that's not fun anymore, especially since they added those stupid collection wheels in their profile to attempt to push even higher levels of FOMO. It kinda backfired spectacularly though because even for people who are highly invested in the game can no longer have ALL the cards unless they're getting paid to play and the people who get paid the most to play have free accounts when it matters, anyway.
So the only options are really two color good stuff or trying to download some uncommon set-thematic list that tries to go crazy off of Explore or Scry or something.
There was a time when right before rotation I'd be finishing off sets, 4x copies of everything, off of the back of mastery pass packs -- I kinda timed it down to an art as to not over-open. But now that there are infinite sets, supplemental products, bonus cards you can't open until you've finished 4x (say, all the banned cards in Strixhaven's bonus sheet), and my general malaise at WOTC and Arena in general, it's just something that's not fun anymore, especially since they added those stupid collection wheels in their profile to attempt to push even higher levels of FOMO. It kinda backfired spectacularly though because even for people who are highly invested in the game can no longer have ALL the cards unless they're getting paid to play and the people who get paid the most to play have free accounts when it matters, anyway.
View: https://youtu.be/-JVsP6Xk5y0?t=1025
watching that opponent tap and untap and tap mana was everything I hate about this game. Nice job, weeb! (not that Sonio is always fun to watch, either, going to rope a lot in many videos.)
I've already played against UW Control in historic twice this month and we're one day in. I beat gandalfs 4-1 but they still have fun wasting my time and the way the ladder is set up rewards their psychographic.
I grabbed a Wizards list that didn't require that new mythic fetchland (I don't think the deck needs it, anyway, especially since you have so many utility lands):
Won the mirror and a few other games with it. I had a 40 land quest today, hop into a Bo3 vs. Harari on mono green devotion and they enchant a forest, I play my 1-drop, and then they evidently don't draw land two and concede.
I wait through sideboarding. They time out during their mulligan and yet they don't explode. I make my mulligan decision. I wait through a rope until they explode. I had spent 18 seconds playing Magic. They had spent 4:00 of game clock plus 2:00 of sideboarding.
So despite being in Arena "action" for six and a half minutes, I only got to 1 out of the 40 lands played for my quest.
Fun, right?!
And yet, if my opponent had dug up that second land, played a turn 3 Karn and fetched up a jar of Land Destruction, they would have happily wasted my entire breakfast time slowly winning as slowly as possible.
I've never played a game that legitimized bad actors the way Arena does. Thanks Harari, you're a gem!
Won the mirror and a few other games with it. I had a 40 land quest today, hop into a Bo3 vs. Harari on mono green devotion and they enchant a forest, I play my 1-drop, and then they evidently don't draw land two and concede.
I wait through sideboarding. They time out during their mulligan and yet they don't explode. I make my mulligan decision. I wait through a rope until they explode. I had spent 18 seconds playing Magic. They had spent 4:00 of game clock plus 2:00 of sideboarding.
So despite being in Arena "action" for six and a half minutes, I only got to 1 out of the 40 lands played for my quest.
Fun, right?!
And yet, if my opponent had dug up that second land, played a turn 3 Karn and fetched up a jar of Land Destruction, they would have happily wasted my entire breakfast time slowly winning as slowly as possible.
I've never played a game that legitimized bad actors the way Arena does. Thanks Harari, you're a gem!
I think there should be a speed queue. 30 seconds to make your mull decision. 30 seconds for sideboarding. 20 second fuse. Timing out is sudden death, no auto-passing phase.
Ran into this 5 color Jodah list: I didn't know Satoru was a card but basically you cast Unearth on Jarsyl who re-casts Unearth to get Crucias who EOT fetches Jodah. With Satoru drawing cards the whole time. My Wizards' removal was good enough in game 2 but I couldn't keep up with the auto-reanimation chain in games 1 + 3. I'm not sure if it's good -- but most decks aren't really fighting the graveyard right now, especially not efficiently (taking turn 2 off to play Hearse is rough) -- and my opponent was giving off major "imma make Mythic in two days because I don't do anything but play Arena" vibes.
Half my opponents are midway through Diamond rank already. Arena isn't for normal people with lives. Or at least Bo3 isn't. I guess hammering away with mono red in Standard BO1 to collect dailies is something normal-enough people can do.
View: https://youtu.be/eDbwojS-_FE?t=988
"shitforbrains" is a valid username...
On a lark, I did some reading on how the modern horizons cards are going to rejig an entire format:
ChannelFireball: For The Best Card Game Content
Every once and a while I think about getting my legacy decks into shape (MUD/Reanimator/Turbo Depths/Pox) but between random mythics and chase cards from horizons sets, it's just too much money for a vanity project.
Lost two ranks today. Lost the Wizards mirror in game 3 to someone who made terrible deckbuilding decisions (tempted cards, sideboarded into multiple copies of The One Ring + Surgical Extractions). Had a terrible opening hand in the next Wizards mirror and auto-conceded during sideboarding because I didn't want to be there anymore. Came back to Arena an hour later determined to get a win with UW Control and faced the luckiest Green Devotion player, ever. Then I switched to Vampires and lost to UW Control as piloted by a freaking Italian and it went to a lucky topdeck by them (they only had one card that could deal with Den of the Bugbear) when they were at 4 life in game 3.
Arena is misery. And yet here I am...
Arena is misery. And yet here I am...
Second draft: first picked the instant speed wrath, which won two games on its own (one vs. Terror of the Peaks), followed by the GW Steed. Green was completely cut, with blue and red wide open, but I mythic drafted an Omenpaths and decided to go for greed.
Blue and red stayed open, but the original player on Izzet was in line to take all the good stuff and no one ever moved in on the garbage that was left. I'm partial to bot-drafts because the humans will often decide that one color simply isn't playable in a format and just avoid it on principal while others are rare drafting while others will never take an off color rare just to prove how mentally superior they are in their perspicacity and if the numbers of psychographics add up disproportionately, it'll completely tank the draft and that's what happened here. And unlike in real life, when your opponents draft poorly, you don't come out ahead since you're matched vs. people outside the pod.
At any rate, lost my first game, won the next six, and then got paired vs. people two entire ranks ahead of me with perfect decks. 6-3. Still hate limited. Wish I never met Doge With Knife for the second time. We get it, you know one meme, you're not so fun to be around that we appreciate you going to rope every turn!
Blue and red stayed open, but the original player on Izzet was in line to take all the good stuff and no one ever moved in on the garbage that was left. I'm partial to bot-drafts because the humans will often decide that one color simply isn't playable in a format and just avoid it on principal while others are rare drafting while others will never take an off color rare just to prove how mentally superior they are in their perspicacity and if the numbers of psychographics add up disproportionately, it'll completely tank the draft and that's what happened here. And unlike in real life, when your opponents draft poorly, you don't come out ahead since you're matched vs. people outside the pod.
At any rate, lost my first game, won the next six, and then got paired vs. people two entire ranks ahead of me with perfect decks. 6-3. Still hate limited. Wish I never met Doge With Knife for the second time. We get it, you know one meme, you're not so fun to be around that we appreciate you going to rope every turn!
No heroes here:
View: https://youtu.be/Gj98ESyTbOs?t=387
I like how the greedlord control player has maindeck Stonebrain to target this deck but opponent's Wordsoul's Rage is safely hidden in the sideboard. They must know they're 0% to win this but they stick it out because Control players are SMART. Meanwhile, Rest in Peace was supposed to destroy this deck when 95% of Magic games are played without sideboards now. (not real math)
mtgazone.com
OTOH, how fun is three year rotation when Raffine will always have perfect mana?
View: https://youtu.be/Gj98ESyTbOs?t=387
I like how the greedlord control player has maindeck Stonebrain to target this deck but opponent's Wordsoul's Rage is safely hidden in the sideboard. They must know they're 0% to win this but they stick it out because Control players are SMART. Meanwhile, Rest in Peace was supposed to destroy this deck when 95% of Magic games are played without sideboards now. (not real math)
Best Bo3 Standard Decks: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Meta Report - April 23, 2024 • MTG Arena Zone
Discover with Bohe the impact of recent weeks on MTG Standard's Meta. The most popular archetypes are not always the ones that win the most. Prepare for your next tornament or ranked queue and get to know in depth what the end of April bring to us!
mtgazone.com
OTOH, how fun is three year rotation when Raffine will always have perfect mana?
I didn't realize there were a bunch of mythic commanders in the mastery pass. I mean, not the first time they did that. But what if one of them happened to be good like Korvald was back in the day? "Spend your wilds now on something you'll get free in a couple weeks just to be competitive?!"
I got blown out in a draft by someone playing that mythic Force of Will type green card where you can destroy two enchantments; who maindecks a card like that? Who plays around someone doing something so terrible as to maindeck something like that? At any rate, I was 99% to win a game and then they exile a card when they're tapped out and unprison two blockers.
Making limited more chaotic with infinite bonus sheets doesn't help to convince me that it's not just a roulette wheel that you spin a bunch of times and take an average before pairing people with similar averages together in a bonus round though.
I got blown out in a draft by someone playing that mythic Force of Will type green card where you can destroy two enchantments; who maindecks a card like that? Who plays around someone doing something so terrible as to maindeck something like that? At any rate, I was 99% to win a game and then they exile a card when they're tapped out and unprison two blockers.
Making limited more chaotic with infinite bonus sheets doesn't help to convince me that it's not just a roulette wheel that you spin a bunch of times and take an average before pairing people with similar averages together in a bonus round though.
They're putting the face commanders from every other set or so into Arena. I think it's a decision they make as long as the design doesn't do anything super Commander specific. That said, they're also so inconsistent about it and it ticks me off because I want Duskana on Arena so I can get my bears (but not Bears) deck to about 80% of my paper version. Now that Kudo is coming with MH3 I really want Duskana for Naya bears (and this time they can be not Bears and Bears) since Ayula just missed the cut in my current version of the deck. Ayula and Kudo will end up going in the paper version now.
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Not sure if this is a bug or if there's something I'm missing from the Heist rules but Jace Reawakened doesn't appear to have the "Can't cast on your first, second or third turns of the game" rider when it's Heisted from an opponent's library. This was definitely turn 2 of the game and a previous opponent had done the same to me earlier. So, uhh, yeah. Jace Reawakened is a pretty garbage card overall but when you can play it on turn 2 in an otherwise very controlling deck it's not nearly as bad.
Did Naya for WNM: deck was fine, I conceded two games to brain plaqued opponents though. I don't have time.
I'm also down to the rank floor of Platinum despite being a win or two away from Diamond at one point. I just don't have time for the wastrels playing Bo3 these days. If you're going to make it miserable for me, take the free win and move upward. If I have time to google your handle during the freaking mulligan phase to find out your nationality or other personal info based on your cardkingdom or pornhub account sharing the same name, I don't have time for you.
I'm also down to the rank floor of Platinum despite being a win or two away from Diamond at one point. I just don't have time for the wastrels playing Bo3 these days. If you're going to make it miserable for me, take the free win and move upward. If I have time to google your handle during the freaking mulligan phase to find out your nationality or other personal info based on your cardkingdom or pornhub account sharing the same name, I don't have time for you.
Ok, this one bothered me
4:3 should have been 5:3 but I got out valued on one loss, hard screwed the next and then MFer had Solitary Defiance two Double Downs and all of the Outlaws to trigger it. It was, basically, a constructed deck in terms of having all of the pieces needed. Defiance was even on curve and with the 1/3 deathtoucher that I just couldn't deal with to get in for chip damage while seeking 2 nonlands. Even with all that benefit I was this close to getting the win on Outlaw triggers and general stall tactics until they dropped a Deepmuck Desperado which was going to mill me 9 of my 12 cards. Le sigh.
4:3 should have been 5:3 but I got out valued on one loss, hard screwed the next and then MFer had Solitary Defiance two Double Downs and all of the Outlaws to trigger it. It was, basically, a constructed deck in terms of having all of the pieces needed. Defiance was even on curve and with the 1/3 deathtoucher that I just couldn't deal with to get in for chip damage while seeking 2 nonlands. Even with all that benefit I was this close to getting the win on Outlaw triggers and general stall tactics until they dropped a Deepmuck Desperado which was going to mill me 9 of my 12 cards. Le sigh.