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Magic the Gathering: Arena |OT| Tapped Out of Witty Titles
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
It's actually the worst Magic I've ever played in 25 years. Whoever gets a double strike or whatever other value creature first just wins. It only took about an hour to get all my wins, but it was, again, the LEAST fun I've had playing magic in a quarter century.
Helped to just concede if i didn't have first draw. Didn't feel bad cause its giving the opponent wins and its not wasting either of our time. Lucked out and got fliers on turn 1 with most wins. That Belzenlok mill out was a happy accident lol. Felt bad for opponent though.
Yep. it's like, yeah maybe you draw a bomb that brings you back if you're behind, but it's far more likely that just whoever gets the first creature with any relevant ability just wins.
Finished Momir, was pretty random, but went something like 5-3?
Maybe I got lucky, but both me and my opponents got bombs and misses. Funniest game was when I got Turn 1 Vilis and thought the game was probably over, only to have it get immediately killed by my opponents White Cavalier . Another good game was when I was pretty behind on board and managed to roll the vampire that gains +1/+1 every time an enemy creature gets damaged. Opponent should just have swing with their fliers to force me to trade it away, but they decide to roll the dice on more creatures and got the one that pings all creatures for 1. Now I have a 10/10 and they can't get through the air anymore.
As far as I can tell strat-wise
Maybe I got lucky, but both me and my opponents got bombs and misses. Funniest game was when I got Turn 1 Vilis and thought the game was probably over, only to have it get immediately killed by my opponents White Cavalier . Another good game was when I was pretty behind on board and managed to roll the vampire that gains +1/+1 every time an enemy creature gets damaged. Opponent should just have swing with their fliers to force me to trade it away, but they decide to roll the dice on more creatures and got the one that pings all creatures for 1. Now I have a 10/10 and they can't get through the air anymore.
As far as I can tell strat-wise
- Being on the draw is better for the extra card
- Stick to 2 lands even if you fall a little behind tempo wise, since it helps you come back later
- Use good blocks to get good trades (e.g 4/4 vs 2x 3/3s means you effectively traded the 4/4 with your 3/3)
- Being aggressive can force your opponent to trade their good creatures with your vanilla ones or eat enough damage to make their life total at risk.
Omniscience is pretty coinflippy too - mostly because every deck has to play some number of crappy cards and sometimes that's just what you draw. But when you understand how the format works, you end up drafting some really crazy decks. One thing I liked about this Omniscience format was the presence of Bone to Ash, which is a way to get some disruption and card advantage on the draw. I won a lot of games by stacking up Sage's Row Denizens.
I'm glad that I'm actually getting pretty consistent results in draft now that I'm dedicating all my gold towards it. Still steering clear of Eldraine draft for the time being but WAR and GRN have been pretty good to me.
ELD is a super fun draft format, the issue is just how many mill decks you'll see specifically on arena which fucks it up :/
Yeah I really enjoyed it for prerelease and sealed (more so than WAR anyway), but after 2 consecutive ranked drafts where I lost 0-3 to mill decks I decided to do the other sets.
One nice bonus of reducing the amount I draft is that I can just live in bronze tier and get free wins. Pretty sure the rank system is having the opposite of the intended effect - it lets me smurf in every single draft because I don't do them enough to even hit gold rank.
If you're going to matchmake by rank to give novice players a chance, then it doesn't make sense to reset rank once a month.
If you're going to matchmake by rank to give novice players a chance, then it doesn't make sense to reset rank once a month.
I find that ranked draft only loosely matches me by rank. When I was still in bronze this season it had no issue putting me up against silver and gold players. I assumed the primary matchmaking thing for draft was win-loss ratio.
Everyone plays a land every turn and then after 10 turns you flip a coin and heads wins.
There, at least with this one you can usually tell who is gonna win sooner than that.
IIRC it does match based on current record then by rank, so if you're 6-0 it'll try to find a 6-0 drafter that's close to your rank, plus all the hidden MMR stuff.
Well I'm at Silver 4 and just got knocked out of GRN draft by a Platinum 2 so I can confirm that it's very loose tonight.
That said I'm not convinced rank in draft is as big a thing as it is in constructed anyway.
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If showcase Murderous Rider wasn't so dang fly I would have never bothered with Oko's madness. Admittedly, Oko's madness is marginally better than regular momir. And for all its nonsense I could clear through this one in less than half an hour.
I know there's a trend for corps to try and lean in, joke around, and play it up when there's something with a lot of attention, even if it's bad. But this was way off. We just had the elkiest possible mythic championship over the weekend and everyone's just waiting for Oko to get the ban on the 18th. I know they probably scheduled this like a few months back but I feel you could have tried to swap one of the other events and set it after an Oko ban and frame it like "oko's revenge" and it then it could have been cute.
I know there's a trend for corps to try and lean in, joke around, and play it up when there's something with a lot of attention, even if it's bad. But this was way off. We just had the elkiest possible mythic championship over the weekend and everyone's just waiting for Oko to get the ban on the 18th. I know they probably scheduled this like a few months back but I feel you could have tried to swap one of the other events and set it after an Oko ban and frame it like "oko's revenge" and it then it could have been cute.
It's definitely on the tasteless side when the card is still not banned. At least as much as a card game can be without referencing actual problems in the world.
Imagine if EA had made like a "LOOTBOX BONANZA" event making fun of how shitty lootboxes were in Battlefront 2 before removing them.
Imagine if EA had made like a "LOOTBOX BONANZA" event making fun of how shitty lootboxes were in Battlefront 2 before removing them.
State of the Game - November 2019: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-game-november-2019-11-13
more at the link
On November 21st, they are putting out Historic Anthology 1- 20 cards that are legal only in Historic. You can buy a playset for 3,400 gems, or you can craft cards with Rare wildcards at a 1:1 rate. It's important to note that even though it's 7 Commons, 4 Uncommons and 9 Rares, they all need to be crafted as if they are Rares
- Serra Ascendant
- Soul Warden
- Kinsblade Cavalier
- Treasure Hunt
- Distant Melody
- Cryptbreaker
- Hypnotic Specter
- Phyrexian Arena
- Tendrels of Corruption
- Kiln Fiend
- Goblin Matron
- Hidetsgu's Second Rite
- Elvish Visonary
- Fauna Shaman
- Imperious Perfect
- Burning-Tree Emissary
- Captian Sisay
- Ornithopter
- Mind Stone
- Phyrexian Reactor
Oh those are some fun cards. But Historic is still dumb and ill thought out.
Happy to hear they're working towards Pioneer down the road. Not happy to hear they're "remastering" sets. That sounds like a terrible idea. If it's just getting rid of bulk creatures, sure. Anything else would be wrong.
Happy to hear they're working towards Pioneer down the road. Not happy to hear they're "remastering" sets. That sounds like a terrible idea. If it's just getting rid of bulk creatures, sure. Anything else would be wrong.
While it wouldn't surprise me, I have to see source, because I do not see this stated anywhere.
There are SOME interesting cards there designed to push decks like Elves, UR Spells, White Lifegain, but there are some awful cards on that list, Like Hidetsu's Second Rite (even though it actually saw standard play back in it's era, Magic is a different game now), Darksteel Reactor, and Captian Sisay (she's great for commander but has no place in a 60 card constructed deck).
Good to see they're working toward Pioneer after all. Remastered old sets that include cards seeing play and not chaff would be a good way to handle this.
Looks like lifegain is back in the menu boys!
I *really* needed them to acknowledge Pioneer as a goal, even a far off one. I'm still gonna give them some side eye about those wildcard costs, but this makes me feel better.
Seriously though imma have a pseudo soul sisters out ASAP.
I *really* needed them to acknowledge Pioneer as a goal, even a far off one. I'm still gonna give them some side eye about those wildcard costs, but this makes me feel better.
Seriously though imma have a pseudo soul sisters out ASAP.
She's a 4 mana repeatable tutor for a combo deck. Kethis is gonna rule over this format til a ban happens.
I do not understand why they are releasing Historic cards that are not also Pioneer legal when they now claim to want to eventually get Pioneer into Arena. Like, spend your development resources wisely. Choose lower power cards if you want but it's a great opportunity to work towards Pioneer. It will likely take them years to develop the Pioneer cards but once they do they're going to have two eternal formats competing for the same player base. I think ideally you have Historic in the short term and slowly it transforms into Pioneer.
I feel ya. I was hyped to come home and jam some brawl but I got whomped today. Something like 2-10. Everyone had answers today, it was gross. Only wins I got were people not understanding how Tajic works.
Anyone else using MTGAhelper? That site has turned to crud since they started the account system. I keep losing all my data everytime I login. Re-uploading my collection each day is a chore but now I don't keep any match history past the last day. It's nuts.
Anyone else using MTGAhelper? That site has turned to crud since they started the account system. I keep losing all my data everytime I login. Re-uploading my collection each day is a chore but now I don't keep any match history past the last day. It's nuts.
Not really a fan of the approach to Historic (and recent MTG design in general). The list of 20 cards is fine and actually looks rather fun to build around, but its way too obvious (build decks around this!) Same with the recent sets, theres a bunch of pushed cards that says Build around Me! (or worse, use me in all decks that run these colours) and draft fodder.
The worst part is that its not even close in terms of how they are costed. Compare Murderous Rider to Bake into a Pie / Lost Legion (since all 3 are in Eldraine). At least make it a lot closer in terms of power level, so there are at least occasions to use the other cards. Mana leak vs Cancel is a choice based on what your deck wants to do, Counterspell vs Cancel is not, but that's still ok since the 2 belong to different eras with different power levels. When you start seeing Counterspell vs Cancel differences in Standard, we have big problems with power creep
The worst part is that its not even close in terms of how they are costed. Compare Murderous Rider to Bake into a Pie / Lost Legion (since all 3 are in Eldraine). At least make it a lot closer in terms of power level, so there are at least occasions to use the other cards. Mana leak vs Cancel is a choice based on what your deck wants to do, Counterspell vs Cancel is not, but that's still ok since the 2 belong to different eras with different power levels. When you start seeing Counterspell vs Cancel differences in Standard, we have big problems with power creep
It's amazing how different draft formats play so differently on Arena. Eldraine is a reasonably good format, but the experience with bots is sub-par and pretty much everybody agrees that drafting it on Arena is not a good experience. But Guilds of Ravnica is up for Ranked right now as well, and that feels reasonably good actually. I'm vastly preferring that draft experience to Eldraine, even though I think Eldraine is a better format overall.
I mean, you understand that Magic LARGELY prints commons for limited, right? It's a game with thousands of cards, and multiple formats. Bake into a Pie and Lost Legion are literally a first pick and a totally playable card, respectively, in drafts.
This is not a problem. You're basically asking them to print less cards. Magic has proper limited formats to support.
It's funny because I often see people trot out like Hearthstone as an example of 'oh there's no strictly better cards' or the like, but that's a pretty irrelevant metric when in something like Hearthstone you still only have a few meta decks, and even if 'hey we won't print a 4 mana 5/5 when there's a 4 mana 4/5' is true, that's meaningless in the face of the 4 mana 4/5 not being playable anyway. At the end of the day only X number of cards per 'meta' will be viable at any given time, Magic leverages that well by making a lot of the chaff that would just be thrown in the bin actually be important to other formats. The evolution from 1994 style 'buy packs and just make a deck with what you have' to now when we have legitimate formats that all work with the same pool of cards is pretty amazing honestly. I'm not saying every card has a real use still, but if you printed a hearthstone set with 269 cards like throne, a WHOLE LOT more of them would be completely useless regardless of format.
commons are mostly for limited and rares are mostly for constructed, but there's no reason it has to be that way. The power delta between common and rare could be much lower and still have a good game.
Not wihtout altering everything else. Bake into a pie is already an incredible card in limited. Murderous Rider is literally a bomb. If you push BITP closer to the rider, you don't 'right' some balance issue, you just make black the defacto choice in the format. The two cards have VERY little to do with one another. Therefore their power level relative to each other doesn't actually matter a whole lot.
In some formats lightning bolt is not a big deal, in others Shock is fucking amazing. It's all about everything surrounding the cards. In throne as is both cards are good, so what's the issue? Why not complain about something like blow your house down instead? A card that has no place ANYWHERE.
That would not be the result though. Again, see Hearthstone, where the costing is super rigid. There are still only so many decks that are meta at any time, and so many cards each deck can have in them. Standard CAN NOT support even 200 different cards in high tier decks, let alone 200 per set.
My opinion is that right now due to the pushing of rares and mythics (numbers-wise) Constructed and Limited have really diverged a lot, and its resulting in not very fun games of Magic in Constructed (at least for me personally).
In Limited, you have a couple of bombs, some removal, plus other playables (ie decently costed creatures). The problem is how bomby the bombs are. Something like Murderous Rider is not too bad, it gets you a lead, but it doesn't really win games just by itself. But in WAR limited, you have stuff like the God-Eternals, Nissa, Ugin, Liliana, who almost certainly win the game if unchecked, AND need specific kinds of removal to deal with them (i.e doesn't suffer from "Dies to Doom Blade", at least not permanently). And for Eldraine, you get stuff like Oko. Basically stuff that says, if you leave me on board for more than 2 turns, you are pretty much going to lose. That's not particularly fun, but at least you don't seem them too often because of rarity.
In Constructed, since you have access to all the cards, right now you can just stuff a deck full of bombs. All the best bombs right now are both game-winning threats + removal/card-advantage/break the game in some other way + demand a very specific answer (Counter/ kill a Krasis, they still drew cards and stabilized, etc), and unlike in the past where they are costed at 5-6 mana so you only fit a few as a curve topper, they now go all the way down to 3 mana. The pure answers haven't kept up. You are nearly always behind in tempo, and no real way to catch up. When every single threat can potentially kill you by themselves, mass removal is less of an issue. And any efficient late-game engine will just be played by the other deck (since most of the good ones don't rely too much on synergy)
For me, I prefer Constructed to be more about synergy between all the cards, not individual card power-level. And yes, I know there is a Food synergy in the Food decks right now, but its mostly a bonus. You can pretty much toss anything into the Oko + Nissa + Krasis shell and it will work.
I started playing Magic a long time ago (since Mirrodin block), so to me power was always more about deck synergy. You could probably build a passable affinity deck (before ravager came along) with just commons and uncommons. Gates / Adventures are examples of more recent decks I'll like to see more of (though common and uncommon adventures are mostly way overcosted). For more build arounds, stuff like Wilderness Reclamation can spawn off tons of viable decks. They all have key cards where most of the power in the deck comes from and you can attack. But once you make individually strong cards that are stronger than synergies, and also can't be profitably attacked, you are going to have problems if there's a critical mass of them in a colour pair.
But basically I think they should push synergies a bit more and spread out the power to commons and uncommons, and flatten the power curve. Game winning threats shouldn't be dropped down as early as turn 2-3, more like 5-6. Maybe 4 if you ramp, but at least have a window where you can punish people for ramping. Also, pushing power to commons and uncommons makes limited more fun in that a properly drafted archetype has a better change of winning against mediocre decks with crazy bombs.
An article with a slighty different take, but also one I agree with.
https://boltbird.com/p/the-illusion-of-interaction-and-how-it-destroys-choice
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