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Magic the Gathering: Arena |OT| Tapped Out of Witty Titles
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
If you have the gems and don't absolutely hate limited, give Sealed a try. I find it a nice change of pace. The floor for rewards is pretty high. Its 2K gems (aka 10 packs) to take part, and you get 6 limited-sized packs (so 15 instead of 8 cards, still just 1 rare though) to play with, and even going 0-3 gets you another 200 gems plus 3 packs, so its close to breaking even except you lost out on one rare wildcard (since you don't open 6 packs).
I'm saving my gems to potentially grab the mastery pass though. Still the LevelUp code and the PlayM20 code let me open 5 M20 packs today, and I got some nice cards. The red Cavalier and the new Vivien (who would be amazing in my Spark Double deck) + a rare wildcard.I also got a sacred Foundry from ICR, so an amazing upgrade to my cardpool.
First sealed was awful, had really bad packs.... but my second sealed was tremendous.
[Nightpack Ambusher] with [Season of Growth] for free board pressure and to scry all lands to the bottom.
[Pulse of Murasa] (and [Unsummon]) to protect [Nightpack Ambusher].
[Leyline of Abundance] to win board stalemate and once for insane ramp (starting hand) with [Leafkin Druid]: 8 mana on turn 5 and activate [Leyline of Abundance].
I only had three semi hard removals with [Sleep Paralysis] and [Rabid Bite] which cost me my only loss.
[Shifting Ceratops] does surprise some flyers... day 1 luck.
[Nightpack Ambusher] with [Season of Growth] for free board pressure and to scry all lands to the bottom.
[Pulse of Murasa] (and [Unsummon]) to protect [Nightpack Ambusher].
[Leyline of Abundance] to win board stalemate and once for insane ramp (starting hand) with [Leafkin Druid]: 8 mana on turn 5 and activate [Leyline of Abundance].
I only had three semi hard removals with [Sleep Paralysis] and [Rabid Bite] which cost me my only loss.
[Shifting Ceratops] does surprise some flyers... day 1 luck.
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i haven't been keeping up with magic news this week, been too busy; i see a lot of complaining about the season pass. is it worth the gems or no? better off spending the gems on sealed/draft still, or are people overreacting? kinda makes my head hurt trying to calculate the advantages of this pass vs playing sealed/draft at a....slightly below average rate lol. and the bonus one that costs 2k gems more....like i have no idea if that's awful, or worth the purchase if i bother buying the pass. any opinions or good analysis out there?
there's no downside to waiting and purchasing it later in the season, you still get everything you would've earned, right? no xp bonus multiplier or anything that would be lost if you hesitated?
there's no downside to waiting and purchasing it later in the season, you still get everything you would've earned, right? no xp bonus multiplier or anything that would be lost if you hesitated?
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Nah, you can hold off on purchasing the pass now if you wanna see how quickly you level up. If you buy it a month from now it'll backfill any rewards you would have gotten. There's no XP buff, but you can buy the super ultra special awesome pass that also gives you 10 levels off the bat.
The question of worth is gonna be subjective, and a lot of it seems to be coming down to how often you are logging in. If you were one of the folks that might usually play once or twice on the weekends just to crank out your 15 weekly wins, there's a good chance you're gonna see fewer rewards due to the way XP is capped. But if you're someone that clears out your quests every three days like clockwork, you're more likely to progress further down the mastery rewards.
Heck uncommon chandra just kicked my face in at sealed. Dude managed to pull baby chandra, her regulator, and a slew of elementals from their packs. Must be nice when your sealed deck builds itself, lol.
After contacting support, they told me that they are currently rolling them out to everyone that had our issue. I received my packs ~12 hours ago.
Yeah I got it eventually too, just took a lot longer than usual.
Most Deathwhirler decks were RG Warrior tribal builds utilizing Unclaimed Territory to cast Chainwhirler realiably.
thanks man, i don't have the time to max out or anything nowadays but i do usually log in and get at least 1 win a day and always clear my quests, so the cheap one seems like itll be worth it, but might as well wait until i stack up to a decent amount of rewards like you said. still kind of a headache thinking about the +10 level add on but itd be easier to compare later once i have an idea where i'll land. seems like the 2/3 wins of the day give very little exp anyway, so just doing the quests, i'm guessing i won't have any issues getting to 60 at least, and if i buy the cheap pass i could probably perpetually just buy that with my gems instead of coughing up $. i have no idea what's good in this new set, which is kind of a good thing, it's letting me sit on my 50k gold until the gold draft for 20 comes out so i can grab some more gems to store for the following seasons anyway
or
I assume you want Status, since only 1CMC.
Corpse Knight and Celebrant are now my new power couple. When their child Gutterbones swings in its hilarious. I love creating damned if you do damned if you don't interactions.
I finally feel like got a real Orzhov deck to have fun with. I like taxing decks that chip away before the op knows they're slowly going to be in a bad board state. Its definitely not a competitive deck but when I can pull of that losing state before the op realizes it, I achieved my goal. Like yes, go shock or strike my celebrant or corpse knight. Revival/Revenge brings them back. Sorin brings them back. Its too good with 3 or less CMC decks I tend to build. Knight of the Ebon Legion has been doing wonders because the problem with weenies you can get into stale mates where while they aren't attacking you because you have deathtouchers and celebrants and stuff but Ebon makes it so you're doing less durdling and more attacking. Every time you can get a hit in it makes it even more inevitable for that alpha strike that makes it where the op dies blocking or not blocking your creatures.
I'm trying out command the dreadhorde as a late game finisher but really I'd just be well using bontu and/or oketra.
For ladder I'm going to be that guy and go vamps while its still in standard. After rotation probably go back to midrange orzhov with my bontu/oketra shenanigans. I don't like playing WW and Monored, and I got super bored of Superfriends decks. Vamps seems explosive and quick enough for me to climb up past gold quickly.
Though my "fun" deck is Esper Celebrant loaded with mirror images, spark doubles, and I need to get Quasiduplicates. When you have 4+ Celebrants on the board, things get out of control. Yes it dies to carnarium but man, its fun dropping celebrants like crazy.
I finally feel like got a real Orzhov deck to have fun with. I like taxing decks that chip away before the op knows they're slowly going to be in a bad board state. Its definitely not a competitive deck but when I can pull of that losing state before the op realizes it, I achieved my goal. Like yes, go shock or strike my celebrant or corpse knight. Revival/Revenge brings them back. Sorin brings them back. Its too good with 3 or less CMC decks I tend to build. Knight of the Ebon Legion has been doing wonders because the problem with weenies you can get into stale mates where while they aren't attacking you because you have deathtouchers and celebrants and stuff but Ebon makes it so you're doing less durdling and more attacking. Every time you can get a hit in it makes it even more inevitable for that alpha strike that makes it where the op dies blocking or not blocking your creatures.
I'm trying out command the dreadhorde as a late game finisher but really I'd just be well using bontu and/or oketra.
For ladder I'm going to be that guy and go vamps while its still in standard. After rotation probably go back to midrange orzhov with my bontu/oketra shenanigans. I don't like playing WW and Monored, and I got super bored of Superfriends decks. Vamps seems explosive and quick enough for me to climb up past gold quickly.
Though my "fun" deck is Esper Celebrant loaded with mirror images, spark doubles, and I need to get Quasiduplicates. When you have 4+ Celebrants on the board, things get out of control. Yes it dies to carnarium but man, its fun dropping celebrants like crazy.
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Yeah I've been playing Vampires a lot too, but I'm acutely aware that my deck is still 80% Ixalan. Hopefully the existence of M20 Sorin implies that standard Vampire tribal will continue to be a vague possibility post-rotation.
Post rotation I don't know how well Vamps will do. Way too many key ones are going to be gone. With 2020 Sorin what are you going to cheat into play besides Haunt of Hightower? All the other vampires cost three and anything over 3 is poopy besides Haunt. I mean heck his creature that tutors for him costs 5. The vamplord costs 4. There's no token makers to go wide.
Everyone keeps telling me that innistrad is not gonna be the next set, and we just had vampires crazy in ixlan, but I dunno. Between all these werewolf references in WAR and 2020, sorin, celebrant, Ebon, I can see either this next set or the next one either going back to innistrad or having some Werewolf Vs Vampires theme.
That's what I mean, I'm hoping M20 Sorin isn't going to exist in a relative vampire-vacuum because it would be a bit of a waste if he did. I don't necessarily see the next set being vamp-heavy but who knows about the sets beyond that? I'm assuming Innistrad and Ixalan aren't going to be the only setting with vampires but on the other hand there's no guarantee standard vampire tribal will be a thing all the time.
Sometimes they print cards with synergy just to power them up for a short period. They also printed that Dino.
I think the rumors of the next set being fairy tale land are most promising.
I managed to put together an actually workable Temur Elementals deck in sealed and, yeah, my big lesson is that if I'm ever against it, I'm shocking that Reef ASAP. The snowball potential if you get it down on turn 3 is crazy.
(Still only went 4-3 though...)
(Still only went 4-3 though...)
You're right. Printing Arlinn and Nightpack Alpha were last ditch efforts to shore up the flagging Werewolf deck in Standard.
Sarcasm aside. You make a good point. The vampires could very well be nothing and dead as a deck. Or will have one last hurrah for a viable standard deck until rotation.
Still out on werewolves. A fairy tale like set could make them fit though.
First win each day gets you 100xp, the next two give 50xp each. Completing daily quests get you 800 xp each. Each level is 1000xp. You get a booster pack every other level. Those are the important details.
You also get mastery orbs occassionally, which let you choose from free card styles. You can buy a "Mastery Pass" to get bonus rewards (the lower track) from leveling if you so desire. The mastery pass bonuses are retroactive, so you can wait until the end of the season to buy it and you'll immediately get all of the awards you've missed from the levels you passed.
Basically, the only thing that's really changed is the weekly rewards. Previously, you would get 3 packs for getting 15 wins over the course of a week. That part has been replaced by the Mastery system.
There are 100 levels total to gain. 1,000 xp = 1 level. Every 2 levels you will get a pack as a reward (up until level 72). You primarily gain levels by completing quests, which reward 800xp each, in addition to the normal gold rewards they would give before. You can also get 200xp for your first 3 wins each day (100xp for win 1, 50xp for win 2 & 3). So if you're getting 3 wins and completing one quest a day, you can get a level a day.
You will also gain 5 mastery orbs using the free mastery system at lvls 9, 19, 39, 49, 59. These are used to buy into the mastery tree to unlock some card styles.
The mastery pass, which you buy with 3400 gems (about 20 USD), gives you *extra* rewards for every level up through 100. And when you first buy the mastery pass you'll get the kitty, Chandra avatar, and Chandra sleeve. If you manage to grind out the entire 100 levels of the mastery pass, you'll get:
- 20 booster packs (x5 GRN, x5 RNA, x5 WAR, x5 M20)
- 2000 Gems
- 5000 Gold
- 20 Card Styles
- 25 Set Mastery Orbs (to use for styles on the mastery tree)
- 10 Mythic Rare ICRs
- 5 Planeswalker cards from the m30 planeswalker decks
- updrades for your kitty to uncommon and Rare
- 1 super duper fancy Chandra sleeve
Buying the super duper expensive mastery pass just does the same thing as the regular pass but you start with 10 extra levels.
You can buy these passes at any time and you will be retroactively rewarded anything for levels you've already earned.
Events (weekend momir, singleton, pauper, etc) will also give additional xp, but I don't think we have any hard numbers on those yet (wizards said at least 15 levels for doing these events).
If all you care about is maximizing gold (to draft or buy packs) nothing much changed. You still want to re-roll your 500gp quests to 750 and get at least 4 wins a day. If you used to log in once a week to grind out 15 wins for packs, then unfortunately you lose out because you'd only be able to get a max of 2600xp in a day (3 quests and 3 wins), which would get you 1 pack from the mastery system. You'll need to do at least 3 days a week to get enough quests and wins to get six levels and break even with the old weekly rewards. And if you don't get the mastery pass, you only need to worry about hitting level 72 to get all the packs.
I'm doing a wait and see on the paid mastery stuff. If I can somehow reach level 100 (doubtful as I don't play daily) with bonus xp and such, I may buy it to get the stuff retroactively. Honestly I feel better going with the preorder for the 50 packs for new sets and then free to playing to fill out my stuff. Usually it nets me enough wildcards to build the 3 to 4 decks I want to play in a season. I'm a shitty rogue builder and don't really play the meta. I don't have aspirations to reach mythic and comfortable floating between gold and platinum on the ladders. Also I love drafting so I don't have a gotta catch em all. But. I can see spending some of my gems on the mastery stuff if I get 100 or close enough. Spending 20 bucks in gems to get back approximately five times as much "value" well.. seems like value to me.
Yeah I think the Mastery pass is best used as a "wait and see" thing rather than up front. Just before it expires you can judge for yourself whether the retroactive rewards are worth what you're paying in.
the hard part for me is figuring out the extra levels. kind of seems over the top expensive, but maybe i need to look again and see if the rewards near the top get better than the ones below. otherwise i'll probably just crack and buy the cheap one cause quests are the main source of XP, wins 2/3 for the day make a fairly minimal effect on things, i think, missing 20 days of wins 2/3 loses you one level in the end, right? really the daily quests are all that matters and i always knock those out
Just started getting into Arena and looks like I picked a good time to start right at the start of the battlepass. I've been playing every day so far so I'm hoping to reach level 100. I'm glad it's not too reliant on wins because I'm not great but 3 wins a day I can manage.
Five days of wins is a level. So 20 days is four levels. People have mathed it out and you can't miss very many at all.
Welcome! Let us know if you have any questions =).
Ranked Draft is weird in that I want to do well, but not too well. Its a great way for me to turn gold into gems when I do well, but going up too fast means I start playing harder and harder opposition, so all my future drafts suffer XD. I just want a good collection so I can build weird decks
That was annoying. I played against someone that had all of the Chandra planeswalkers within a few turns of each other. It was impossible to deal with unless I had a way to remove multiple planeswalkers at once.
Hey thanks for the welcome. I'm new to Arena but not to Magic been playing off and on since the early 90s. Real life kinda made me not have any local sources to play anymore and Arena is great for getting my fix.
With all the Superfriends I've been running into, The Elderspell has been a useful addition to my black sideboards.
Correct, chainwhirler will be rotating out of standard when the next expansion releases. You'll be able to use it in the new historic queue, direct matches, and special events that use the historic format.
Izzy answered this well, but just for even more clarity on how rotation will be handled on MTGArena: https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029675492-Rotation-Guide
Ah thanks, I'll get 2 of them then and just keep an eye out for these historic events.
I really should try elementals too while I am at it.
i was talking about wins 2/3 of the day. getting 1 win a day is p much guaranteed for me. but if i'm busy getting to 3 can be annoying if i don't want to rely on some poisonous rdw or something. so i was kinda saying as long as i get 1 win a day i won't be missing out on too much, i think. my math was off, it'd be missing out on one level per 10 days of missing wins 2/3? not much considering i def always clear my quests, usually try to crack 1 win if i'm busy since it has by far the greatest rewards
can you upgrade to the +10 levels mastery pass if you buy the original first? if that is an option i'd buy the cheap one rn no issues. otherwise just kinda curious where i fall later on...seems like they'll make up for the xp with these codes and events though, esp with all the backlash there's been, wotc seems pretty good at reacting to arena mobs so far
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I wasn't sure if you would be able to get the +10 levels later so I bought the +10 up front. I'm level 19 right now and been playing out at least 3 wins a day and usually at least 5 to get a icr. Really enjoying the game a lot.
Absolutely devastating elemental sealed deck. I'm 7-1 (had to quit a game I would definitely have won as my only loss). Only one game was even close. Kid Chandra is absolutely devastating.
Easily the best sealed or draft deck I've ever had.
Easily the best sealed or draft deck I've ever had.
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