Magic the Gathering: Arena |OT| Tapped Out of Witty Titles

[Volimar]

At least it'll be easier to spot the whales now, with their fully "foiled" tier 1 decks.

On another note, what are our thoughts on the progression tree for new players? I like that it's skippable but not that you still have to play to get the other precons (if you do skip) like the current system. Though I guess it won't affect anyone in this thread since we're presumably all past that. I wonder what we'll get retroactively.

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I think it's neat, but I'm very low brained when it comes to filling trees and progress bars as long as it's not overdone. I'd have to see more, but presumably it's not just for people new to Arena but to Magic itself so that and the practice may help lower the barrier of entry.

 

[Yeef]

Post from Wizards' employees on the forums point to the Mastery Tree rewarding cosmetics and say that people who skip it will just get those cosmetics. There will also be a free event where you can get a style for Skewer the Critics (1 or more wins) and Chemsiter's insight (5 wins).

 

[Deleted member 29682]

I think it's neat, but I'm very low brained when it comes to filling trees and progress bars as long as it's not overdone. I'd have to see more, but presumably it's not just for people new to Arena but to Magic itself so that and the practice may help lower the barrier of entry.

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I assume it's meant to extend the tutorial, but in more of a "learn by doing" sense. I guess it also helps some of the strengths/weakness of different colour combinations and hopefully set out what the goals of different deck archetypes are. Given that it's optional, I can't say it isn't an improvement on the current system.

I think new players are going to be more keen on completing the tree using the new practice mode, so how effective the new NPE is going to be in teaching the game will likely depend on what that is going to be like. I'm kind of wary since they didn't go at all into practice mode, though I suppose we only have to wait a week to find out for ourselves.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

Oh yes this is the update I've been waiting for! Ready to foil every card in my pet decks.

Azcanta better be animated on both sides.

 

[BlackJace]

Christ on a bike. Though pretty, the cosmetics are fuckin expensive.

 

[TheAndyMan]

Is there a thread for new MTG players? I bought my cards about 2 weeks ago, but didn't have enough till this week to play.

 

[Yeef]

Is there a thread for new MTG players? I bought my cards about 2 weeks ago, but didn't have enough till this week to play.

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Either thread is fine for new players (this one, or the MTG OT).

 

[Boogiepop]

I'm happy this has finally arrived. Not especially because I'm going to go all in on it personally (I'll probably just grab a thing here or there when the mood especially strikes me, at least until I REALLY start maxing out actual card collection stuff), but more because it makes me more confident they won't screw up the rather nice and generous economy we seem to have right now that's been treating me super well (IE I have like all the cards I actually have any intention of playing right now, as well as like IIRC 31 rare and 10 mythic wildcards sitting around, and just short of opening the vault again in a few more packs. That said, my quest to a truly complete collection may take a bit longer just because I think I underestimated just how much Ixalan I was missing, but I've been steadily chipping away and we still have some time before WAR, anyway.)

 

[Deranged Hermit]

Everything in this update looks great, except for the lack of a Deranged Hermit avatar. The prices are a bit much but I don't think it will stop anyone from getting the sexy version of their pet cards. I also have to hand it to the art team, this first style and all the new cosmetic elements look very slick. Maybe it's just the years of having to look at MTGO but I'm consistently impressed by the production value WotC has put into Arena.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

Is there a thread for new MTG players? I bought my cards about 2 weeks ago, but didn't have enough till this week to play.

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There's plenty of newer players here, ask/share away.

 

[Yeef]

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/b3fzaa/cosmetic_in_arena/ej04ti1/?context=1000

You can bring any arena standard legal deck to a practice match, and Sparky will join with one of the five monocolor starter decks.
We feel this strikes the right balance between giving new players the ability to learn Magic in a low-stress environment, while providing more veteran players a place to "goldfish" (friendly-glowing-guidefish?) their newer decks before taking them into matches against real players. #wotc_staff

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[Deleted member 29682]

Are their pictures of any of the Card Styles outside of Sulfur Falls and Llanowar Elves?

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Here's another shown off for Guttersnipe.

 

[Bigkrev]

He didn't actually submit this deck, but this Dredge deck looks spicy

 

[fuzzyset]

Yeah, I just saw that and had a real "oh damn" moment realizing that Arclights don't even force you to run red sources.

Regarding the tutorial / Mastery, I definitely think it's a good move. I was familiar with Magic going in, and even I was shocked at how barebones the tutorial was. Hopefully the tree can really convey why color pie and mana makes Magic such an interesting game. So many folks see mana as a pure negative outdated design element when it's probably a huge reason MTG has survived 25years.

Also, hopefully the Mastery tree stuff leads to puzzles/single player content outside of a tutorial.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/b3fzaa/cosmetic_in_arena/ej04ti1/?context=1000

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I'm assuming "any arena standard legal deck" means "any arena standard legal deck you can make"? Would love to be able to test designs before committing to WCs.

 

[BlackJace]

Duels had a really sweet single-player campaign that I felt was a great representation of the Duels games as a whole. I wouldn't be opposed to shelling out money/gems for an Arena expansion of sorts that gives you a single-player quest line.

 

[Ultron]

The Arena Boys where they play something close to that Dredge deck was very fun. (Also it's just a delightful series in general.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RGKt5rJDH0

 

[Deleted member 733]

This is a lengthy read but quite interesting, analyzing around a million Arena games to check the shuffler:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/b21u3n/i_analyzed_shuffling_in_a_million_games/

The long story short appears to be, and please correct me if I'm misrepresenting (I think all this is for stuff that SHOULD be random, not for the mana-fixer modes):

* If you're playing draft or sealed, keeping 1-2 lands means you're more likely to be mana screwed. Keeping 4+ lands means you're more likely to be mana flooded.
* If you're playing constructed, the above may also be true, maybe not as bad?
* If you take a mulligan, your deck appears completely random for the rest of the game, with no weird land distribution.
* There are suspicious results about drawing multiple copies of the same card, but not enough data / analysis was available to fully reach a conclusion.


They're asking for anything they may have missed, and they're planning further analysis. They have one possible theory about a flawed implementation of part of the shuffler algorithm pulling cards from a deck portion that it should not.

 

[SonicXtreme]

i never play gate decks bc i find them so annoying, but what are the good budget cards to put in a gate deck? besides all the ones that come up in search with gate, i'm guessing leaning toward blue counters and stuff is the way for me to go but what other no brainer big bombs are needed to build a big gate boy deck?

 

[Sande]

Why haven't I done events before? Free cards and free gold? Yes please.

 

[Volimar]

Duels had a really sweet single-player campaign that I felt was a great representation of the Duels games as a whole. I wouldn't be opposed to shelling out money/gems for an Arena expansion of sorts that gives you a single-player quest line.

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Yeah mission DLC would probably be a good return on investment.

 

[Orb]

They are doing a lot more of these special illustrations than I expected

 

[SubvertedTrope]

I just saw Sol Ring sleeves, everything can be a sleeve! Elspeth when...

 

[Arkanim94]

I just saw Sol Ring sleeves, everything can be a sleeve! Elspeth when...

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return to theros next year.

 

[BlackJace]

Yeah mission DLC would probably be a good return on investment.

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The possibilities are endless, really. Like in the Duels games, it would give players an opportunity to try out cards that aren't usable in Arena.

• Have a mission take us to the sewers of Ravnica, we get attacked by a legion of rats (vs. Rat Colony deck)
• We reach the Undercity proper, fight off some Erstwhile (vs. Erstwhile deck)
• Some angels see us as a threat, we gotta survive a angelic assault for X turns (vs. Angel deck)
• Sphinx riddles in a sky city

It makes me giddy to think of all the cool shit that Arena could cook up for single-player. I like what Hearthstone has done to that degree.

 

[SigmasonicX]

New mobile card game, Valor's Reach, announced. Named after the setting of Battlebond.

Wizards has never supported the side mobile games from other developers well, so I expect this to drop off the map in a month.

 

[jon bones]

holy crap new update looks AMAZING

 

[Phoenix944]

Hey!
So I played the game for a couple of week now and I'd like to build a vampire deck. Is it considered good in ranked ? So far I didn't see a lot (I'm only silver 2) but it looks fun to play so I'd like to give it a shot. However I don't have most of the good vampire cards so I would have to use most of my jokers, that's why I'm scared to jump in :p

 

[Deleted member 29293]

No, BW Vampires is far from a tier 1 deck. However, if you like playing it more than mono red or mono blue you might as well go with the more fun deck.

 

[Carthago Delenda Est]

Hey!
So I played the game for a couple of week now and I'd like to build a vampire deck. Is it considered good in ranked ? So far I didn't see a lot (I'm only silver 2) but it looks fun to play so I'd like to give it a shot. However I don't have most of the good vampire cards so I would have to use most of my jokers, that's why I'm scared to jump in :p

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You probably wouldn't do well, but if you have fun playing it that's what counts. Try it out. At worst you have a few bad games.

 

[Phoenix944]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going tout burn a few joker to try it out then!
Maybe i should wait the next extension but i guess it'll still be usable once it's out.

 

[jon bones]

yeah play what you like - i am running a red/white boros jank deck and i love it

 

[Deleted member 733]

I hit platinum 4 best-of-1! I'm not sure I even got to gold in the past, so I'm very happy to make platinum. I don't know if I will try next month since it takes so long though.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

I hit platinum 4 best-of-1! I'm not sure I even got to gold in the past, so I'm very happy to make platinum. I don't know if I will try next month since it takes so long though.

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Congrats! I say just play for fun and ignore the ranks cause the rewards are pretty much placeholders for now. What deck did you end up using, did you still have trouble with Esper?

 

[Deleted member 733]

Congrats! I say just play for fun and ignore the ranks cause the rewards are pretty much placeholders for now. What deck did you end up using, did you still have trouble with Esper?

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It felt random because the time of day or sheer luck would dictate what you ran into. One day or time it's almost nothing but mono red opponents, another almost nothing but izzet drakes, etc. The last couple days I ran into hardly any Teferis so I was okay.

I used mono red wizard / spells, mono blue from that championship deck (except I finally gave up and took Jace out instead of trying to force some use out of me pulling that card), and a green/red deck based one posted here recently. I think I briefly tried a green/blue/red deck but didn't have much luck.

I can only imagine how long it would have taken if I used a deck that took 15+ minutes per match, since I played probably an hour daily on average and it still took weeks.

 

[Deleted member 9100]

It felt random because the time of day or sheer luck would dictate what you ran into. One day or time it's almost nothing but mono red opponents, another almost nothing but izzet drakes, etc. The last couple days I ran into hardly any Teferis so I was okay.

I used mono red wizard / spells, mono blue from that championship deck (except I finally gave up and took Jace out instead of trying to force some use out of me pulling that card), and a green/red deck based one posted here recently. I think I briefly tried a green/blue/red deck but didn't have much luck.

I can only imagine how long it would have taken if I used a deck that took 15+ minutes per match, since I played probably an hour daily on average and it still took weeks.

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Mind sharing a link to the decklists? I play monoblue and monored for the same reason as you (they're fast). I've been looking for the most optimized version though.

 

[Deleted member 733]

Mind sharing a link to the decklists? I play monoblue and monored for the same reason as you (they're fast). I've been looking for the most optimized version though.

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I don't know if mine are the most optimized. Blue I used almost exactly what was in the championship deck. This should be it: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1676360#paper

Red is just the 100% normal red deck if I recall correctly, no experimental frenzy, no phoenix, use the steam minion + risk factor + light up the stage.

 

[Deleted member 9100]

I don't know if mine are the most optimized. Blue I used almost exactly what was in the championship deck. This should be it: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1676360#paper

Red is just the 100% normal red deck if I recall correctly, no experimental frenzy, no phoenix, use the steam minion + risk factor + light up the stage.

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Thanks for sharing. Yeah it's tough to find the most "optimized" for bo1. I wish there was something similar to what hsreplay is for hearthstone for magic arena.

All the best resources are good best of 3 decks, but best of 1 is very different.

 

[Volimar]

When you play your Firebrand first turn and the opponent auto-concedes. I've been there friend. I've been there.

 

[Phoenix944]

Ooh boy, I'm getting rekt with my Black/White vampire deck :')
Still, it's pretty fun to play when I get the right cards at the start.

I'm going to try the Blue/Red deck with the drakons next.

 

[jon bones]

Ooh boy, I'm getting rekt with my Black/White vampire deck :')
Still, it's pretty fun to play when I get the right cards at the start.

I'm going to try the Blue/Red deck with the drakons next.

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post your vampire decklist!

 

[Deleted member 29682]

BW vamps seems to be present at a wide variety of ranks. It's not tier 1, but there's a lot of variety in how you build the deck that can potentially carry you reasonably far.

 

[Phoenix944]

post your vampire decklist!

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Here :

1 Paladin of the Bloodstained (XLN) 25
1 Sanctum Seeker (XLN) 120
3 Bishop's Soldier (XLN) 6
3 Call to the Feast (XLN) 219
1 Glorifier of Dusk (XLN) 12
9 Plains (RIX) 192
9 Swamp (RIX) 194
4 Ajani's Pridemate (M19) 5
2 Ajani's Welcome (M19) 6
1 Epicure of Blood (M19) 95
3 Murder (M19) 110
1 Vampire Sovereign (M19) 125
4 Forsaken Sanctuary (M19) 250
3 Isolated Chapel (DAR) 241
1 Martyr of Dusk (RIX) 14
1 On Serra's Wings (DAR) 28
1 Champion of Dusk (RIX) 64
4 Legion Lieutenant (RIX) 163
1 Luminous Bonds (RIX) 12
1 Sadistic Skymarcher (RIX) 85
1 Twilight Prophet (RIX) 88
3 Skymarch Bloodletter (XLN) 124
1 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129
2 Inspiring Cleric (XLN) 16
2 Moment of Triumph (RIX) 15

1 Paladin of Atonement (RIX) 16
1 Diamond Mare (M19) 231
1 Twilight Panther (RNA) 28
1 Skymarch Bloodletter (XLN) 124


I'm still trying to tweak it with what I have at the moment

 

[Carthago Delenda Est]

Thanks for sharing. Yeah it's tough to find the most "optimized" for bo1. I wish there was something similar to what hsreplay is for hearthstone for magic arena.

All the best resources are good best of 3 decks, but best of 1 is very different.

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BO1 is different but if you learn how to sideboard for your deck, you can customize it pretty well. You basically just balance an optimized deck with specific hate pieces that you'll get the most use out of. For instance, in Temur Reclamation I'd run two main deck Biogenic Ooze in most metas.

There's no such thing as an optimized BO1 because it changes on a daily basis depending on the meta. It's a bit of a gamble. That's why I run BO3.

 

[Deleted member 733]

A friend said this kept happening to them but I'd never seen it trigger.

And then tonight, I got thought erase'd, which is quite typical. Their options were:
A) kraul harpooner
B) nullhide ferox
C) carnage tyrant

Guess which one they chose! (It was complete with a shame concede immediately afterwards.)

As a bonus, this was in platinum.

 

[Deleted member 9100]

A friend said this kept happening to them but I'd never seen it trigger.

And then tonight, I got thought erase'd, which is quite typical. Their options were:
A) kraul harpooner
B) nullhide ferox
C) carnage tyrant

Guess which one they chose! (It was complete with a shame concede immediately afterwards.)

As a bonus, this was in platinum.

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It's interesting cause I see constant misplays like this that I assume my opponents have run into before.

My favorite deck right now is mono blue. Every now and again I play against mono white and they play adanto vanguard. They attack with it and I play mefolk trickerster and play it on adanto vanguard. They pay the 4 life to make adanto vanguard indestructible without realizing merfolk trickster cancels that and they paid 4 life for nothing.

I would understand if I was playing a niche card that didn't see much play, but mono blue is one of the most popular decks. This can't be the first time they've seen this. But I see it happen constantly.

 

[Arkanim94]

It's interesting cause I see constant misplays like this that I assume my opponents have run into before.

My favorite deck right now is mono blue. Every now and again I play against mono white and they play adanto vanguard. They attack with it and I play mefolk trickerster and play it on adanto vanguard. They pay the 4 life to make adanto vanguard indestructible without realizing merfolk trickster cancels that and they paid 4 life for nothing.

I would understand if I was playing a niche card that didn't see much play, but mono blue is one of the most popular decks. This can't be the first time they've seen this. But I see it happen constantly.

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The funny thing is, before indestructible got turned into a keyword, they would have been right.

 

[Orb]

A friend said this kept happening to them but I'd never seen it trigger.

And then tonight, I got thought erase'd, which is quite typical. Their options were:
A) kraul harpooner
B) nullhide ferox
C) carnage tyrant

Guess which one they chose! (It was complete with a shame concede immediately afterwards.)

As a bonus, this was in platinum.

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I will admit that I've done this. D:

That's a mistake I'll never make again.

 

[Deleted member 733]

I will admit that I've done this. D:

That's a mistake I'll never make again.

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Today with another platinum opponent:

* I have a 1/1 wizard flyer.
* Opponent plays harpooner to kill the flyer.
* I play dive down to make it hexproof and higher HP.
* Opponent plays "until end of turn" attack boost on the harpooner...only to realize nothing happens because yo, hexproof.
* Opponent immediately surrenders.

This was right at the start of the game so I don't think it was just them giving up...

 

[Sande]

Played against someone who would rather go face for 1 than finish off my Vraska Golgari Queen. Not sure the math works out there buddy. I see why they were playing RDW.

 

[BlackJace]

One thing you have going for you when playing against RDW is predictability, that's for sure.