Being a new player is brutal AF. I'm not a complete novice to card games, but I'm just trying to use the basic decks or a boring green/white "make some dudes and go sideways" and I'm getting _reamed_ in casual or whatever it is play mode. Opponents are poppin off within three to five turns and I'm stuck screwing around starved for draw, floating mana constantly, or just straight boned from the mulligan. I've played a good 20+ games and I just barely scraped the 5 win weekly. 3 of those wins were absolutely unsatisfying situations where some poor schlub on the other side just managed to get boned worse than me.
I tried out an Allegiance sealed and that was fun to build and see the new cards - but I just dont have the card knowledge to make something that'll go past 1 or 2 lucky wins.
Right now it feels like the only thing to do is log in and get the play 1 game reward and log off till tomorrow.
So a question to maybe try and learn something. Are those multi-color lands that enter tapped (not shock) bad? I really have squat for draw in my colors so they feel terrible unless it's the turn one drop. Is six too many or do you just stay basic unless you've got shocklands, are trying to three color, or you can tutor them out?
Also, if you've got a decent/cheap aggro deck that can be made from mostly starter cards I'd love to see it. I'm just trying to lower the time of each game so I can grind out enough gold and wildcards to put something decent together.
I tried out an Allegiance sealed and that was fun to build and see the new cards - but I just dont have the card knowledge to make something that'll go past 1 or 2 lucky wins.
Right now it feels like the only thing to do is log in and get the play 1 game reward and log off till tomorrow.
So a question to maybe try and learn something. Are those multi-color lands that enter tapped (not shock) bad? I really have squat for draw in my colors so they feel terrible unless it's the turn one drop. Is six too many or do you just stay basic unless you've got shocklands, are trying to three color, or you can tutor them out?
Also, if you've got a decent/cheap aggro deck that can be made from mostly starter cards I'd love to see it. I'm just trying to lower the time of each game so I can grind out enough gold and wildcards to put something decent together.
They're obviously much worse than the shocklands and other lands that can come into play ready, but if they're all you have, they're usable.
Unlock all the basic decks and play the white black deck. It can be a beast if played right.
Welcome to Magic! It can be a bit difficult when you're starting out and have very few cards, but if you stick with it your collection can grow fairly quickly. I agree with Kwigo that the BW deck is the best basic deck. I also recommend these 2 articles which will guide you from jank decks made with your starter collection to tier 1 decks:
https://www.dailyarena.net/2018/10/15/path-to-mono-blue-tempo/
https://www.dailyarena.net/2018/10/29/path-to-mono-red-aggro/
Choose one and go with it. Mono-red aggro is quite good for grinding rewards and quests as you will win or lose quickly and onto the next. You can find a solid, cheap updated final list here with a guide as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/ahilg0/standard_real_mono_red_burn/. You only need 4 rare wildcards (the Risk Factors) to make this.
One final tip, your daily "big" quest can either be 500g or 750g. If it's 500g re-roll it for a chance at 750g.
Yeah, you get a daily quest to unlock a new deck, and then on like...the 4th or 5 day/quest you unlock like 3-4 extra ones
What Breezy said. Also go to the Store in Arena and you'll see a "Redeem Code" bar in the upper right. Use the codes "PlayRavnica" (not sure if this still works) and "PlayAllegiance" there for 3 packs of each of those sets.
tbh when I'm playing a turns deck I don't mind finishing out the match and going infinite. I only really hated when the opponent would rope every action hoping I would concede.
A cheap and very fun deck to play is gates. Here's a video + decklist in the description.
LegenVd also has a "how to upgrade" video for each basic deck, but he uses a lot of mythics and rares for it.
EDIT: with the black/white starter deck you can easily get to something like this as well:
I play this with 4 of the enchantment that allows you to pay 2 every time you gain life to draw a card. Very powerful with Ajani's welcome, the one drop that becomes a 2/2 and you gain 1 life each time you have at least 3 creatures and 1 or 2 Ajani's pridemate on the board.
I don't have all the cards yet, but even so I managed to grab the attention of my GF yesterday who doesn't like MTG at all because of the two 23/23 Ajani's Pridemate on turn 5 :D
EDIT (for real this time): I meant to edit my post, not quote it u__u
So, you wanna get down to 40 cards from the 53 you have. If you stick with 17 lands, which you should, that means cutting 13 cards.
4 Easy Cuts: Root Snare x 2, Wall of Lost Thoughts, Wilderness Reclamation. They just don't do enough.
9 more to go. Facing reality, you should also cut all the white cards, except maybe for Depose/Deploy (which you don't need white to cast). The only one that's super good is Sphinx of New Prahv, and you aren't going to be casting that that often with 5 white sources. You have plenty of playable cards, so handicapping your mana base to play moderate playables like Vizkopa Vampire and Knight of Sorrows isn't really worth it. If you do this, you can also cut Azorius Locket, because you don't need the fixing and ramping isn't that needed. I'd probably keep an Azorius Guildgate in for randomly being able to cast Deploy, since that's pretty solid and you can always just cycle Depose away when you can't/
5 to go. I think the weakest cards after that are probably the Sagittar's Volley (which is a good sideboard card if you're playing best of 3), the two Humongulus, Coral Commando and... maybe one of the Growth Spirals?
Got a cool draft deck - first time drafting M19, so it's nice it's been working out so far. 4-0, but I'll play the rest tomorrow.
I really love Skyrider Patrol, it's so much incremental value. The wand is nice backup for threats I can't deal with or outgrind. Hydra is amazing too.
I'm a fairly new player too (about a week in), and have gotten all the starter decks. And based on my experiences playing all of them, their power levels really vary greatly. Amongst the ones I found to work really well out of the box are:
- Blue Green Merfolk. Probably the best of the starter decks. Lay down a few merfolk and just keep attacking. Use your spells to temporarily disable their large creatures that can block you. One good Sleep into an alpha strike can win you the game once the board is filled with creatures on both sides If you want to play aggro, you should play this.
- Red Green Ramp. Get some early mana down and then drop big dinosaurs and dragons.
- Green White Enchantments. I find the best way to win with this is to drop a couple of enchants on your early creature and ride it to victory. You either win fast or die if they have an answer. A slower approach also works, but against other starter decks all-inning works better since very few have an answer against a giant creature early.
- BW Vampires. All-rounded deck that can win in multiple ways. Lots of Life gain against aggro decks, lots of drain life against slower decks and the creatures are pretty decently sized too.
- Mono Black. Kind of a tier below, but its the best of the mono-coloured decks. Since the rest of the unlocks are random, I'm not sure if you have the above. Its slow, but you have some creature removal, and if you can stall past the early game, yoou can grind out people with getting your big dead creatures back from the graveyard
Code:
1 Doom Whisperer (GRN) 69
9 Swamp (RIX) 194
1 Demonlord Belzenlok (DAR) 86
1 Twilight Prophet (RIX) 88
1 Carnage Tyrant (XLN) 179
10 Forest (RIX) 196
1 Vivien Reid (M19) 208
4 Murder (M19) 110
2 Gravedigger (M19) 98
2 Ravenous Chupacabra (RIX) 82
1 Rise from the Grave (M19) 117
1 Gravewaker (M19) 293
2 Llanowar Elves (M19) 314
2 Llanowar Elves (DAR) 168
3 Elvish Rejuvenator (M19) 180
4 Druid of the Cowl (M19) 177
1 Pitiless Gorgon (GRN) 218
1 Tendershoot Dryad (RIX) 147
4 Golgari Guildgate (GRN) 248
1 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
1 Aggressive Mammoth (M19) 302
2 Ghalta, Primal Hunger (RIX) 130
1 Verdant Force (DAR) 187
1 Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma (M19) 186
1 Vigilant Baloth (M19) 206
1 Dire Fleet Poisoner (RIX) 68
1 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129EDIT: This is exported directly from Arena. I'm not sure if there is a way to sort it to be easier to read.
Lands that enter in play tapped are bad if you are an aggro deck that wants to curve out. They are servicable if you have tough mana requirements. Basically if you need 2 of one colour for a card, and 2 of another colour next turn, those lands help a lot. If you only need a single colour of mana, you may be able to get away with skipping them.
Thanks Kwigo and Draggyrider for the links and extra info.
Waiting out the extra day for a new deck was what I really needed. The red/white kitties and tokens preconstructed that I got today was right up my alley. I didn't realize they time-gated these other multi-color decks. Once I was out of the tutorial I kinda thought I was stuck with only the 5 basic mono decks and the occasional random multi-color reward. That's why I was banging my head against the wall.
I'll just take it slow and grind out the rest of these freebies over the next few days and we'll see what I cannetdeck brew from there :)
Waiting out the extra day for a new deck was what I really needed. The red/white kitties and tokens preconstructed that I got today was right up my alley. I didn't realize they time-gated these other multi-color decks. Once I was out of the tutorial I kinda thought I was stuck with only the 5 basic mono decks and the occasional random multi-color reward. That's why I was banging my head against the wall.
I'll just take it slow and grind out the rest of these freebies over the next few days and we'll see what I can
I'd be up for a tournament!
Thanks man, appreciate it. I was thinking the same, cut the whites, Root Snares, Humonguli, but didn't know what else.
Does anyone have any recommendations for good value 1-3 CMC cards for a Golgari mid range deck from either of the Ravnica sets?
I'd like to stick to the sets which have the longest shelf life so that rules out all the Explore stuff which I know is popular. Growth chamber Guardian seems nice, but I'm hesitant to drop 4 Rare Wildcards on it, how are people finding the crabs?
I'd like to stick to the sets which have the longest shelf life so that rules out all the Explore stuff which I know is popular. Growth chamber Guardian seems nice, but I'm hesitant to drop 4 Rare Wildcards on it, how are people finding the crabs?
The crabs are really good. Basically if you run green you either run the explore package or the crabs.
Thanks, I think I'll have to get some.
I'm also looking at Midnight reaper, but I've won games off the back of it burning my opponent lol.
How do people rate Reassembling Skeleton? I feel like it's always useful but I may be biased as it's my favorite card.
I'm also looking at Midnight reaper, but I've won games off the back of it burning my opponent lol.
How do people rate Reassembling Skeleton? I feel like it's always useful but I may be biased as it's my favorite card.
Man this client is such a huge piece of shit. What am I supposed to do now?
It wanted to update the client, just got stuck, I canceled the installation, suddenly the shortcut was gone and no launcher in the files either. The folder is still there with the data, but I can't uninstall it the usual way.
When I try to reinstall it tells me the folder is still there and there might be problems with future updates or uninstalls instead of just you know... swapping everything there is with new files like every other god damn reinstall. No shit you asshole client, I already got problems.
No fucking clue what to do now.
It wanted to update the client, just got stuck, I canceled the installation, suddenly the shortcut was gone and no launcher in the files either. The folder is still there with the data, but I can't uninstall it the usual way.
When I try to reinstall it tells me the folder is still there and there might be problems with future updates or uninstalls instead of just you know... swapping everything there is with new files like every other god damn reinstall. No shit you asshole client, I already got problems.
No fucking clue what to do now.
I had this happen also, I reinstalled it to the same folder despite that warning and it seemed fine. Though I had to manually create a shortcut for it after that happened.
So I just started up Arena again after not playing since the closed beta a looong time ago. I guess they killed our old accounts? I had to make a new one.
Were there any rewards for being in the closed beta that I would at all be interested in chasing up with support?
Were there any rewards for being in the closed beta that I would at all be interested in chasing up with support?
I think they kept old accounts, you just had to create a new password I believe? The open beta announcement says you'd just login with your old email and it'd walk you through updating. You definitely would want to get in there if you put any real money in, since you'd get those gems back. Also you get a full art Teferi, Ral, and Vraska.
There was a code that was emailed to beta testers that unlocked 3 premium artwork planeswalker cards. But those codes were specifically time-limited so I'm not sure they will honor it now. PlayRavnica and PlayAllegiance codes still work for 6 packs.
I tried resetting my password repeatedly and it never worked. If the rewards were time-limited I probably won't fuss with contacting support.
I did use the codes for the packs, which was nice.
I did use the codes for the packs, which was nice.
So the new mono red just plays light the stage instead of risk factor and some of these spectacle lightning bolts, everything else stays the same? I don't get how light the stage is so broken. Like if you draw land or something you can't pay for like frenzy early in the game it's useless no? In an optimal scenario it's draw two cards for 1 mana but it's not always optimal.
Yeah thanks, I just ignored it as well.
It's not a good card in constructed imo. You'd want to play this in a control deck since it's too expensive for everything else, but in a control deck you don't really care about the first two effects and the last one is on a better card with Dawn of Hope. Last effect is even worse than that because you need creatures to exile. If your opponent barely plays any creatures it's a dead effect on a 6 mana card.
What's a good deck to build around 4 of these? Think of getting some Afterlife cards for one thing.
This is a limited bomb but barely does anything in constructed.
With lands, the LUTS effect lasts until the end of your next turn, so you have two turns to play the lands. The trick is to not play a land until after you cast LUTS.
As for you exiling a card you can't cast, decks are designed to minimize that possibility. Besides, it isn't too different from just never drawing that card.
Is it though? Because if I would have not cast LUTS I would have drawn Frenzy by the next two turns max. And I think Frenzy is a more broken card than LUTS. But what do I know, it seems to work, since 80% of the shit I encounter is mono red lol.
As far as drafting is concerned, is it best to wait till the second pack before committing to colours? I think most of my drafts tend to go very poorly mostly because I pick a great card early on and end up trying to force it.
you should pay attention to what colors are being passed to you in pack 1 while still taking strong cards in many colors
but yes, it's okay to commit in pack 2. just be aware that the selection you get in pack 3 will be more like pack 1 than pack 2, so don't pay too much attention to what's available in pack 2
i don't think the bots change their colors or anything, so it'll probably be somewhat predictable. but arena doesn't have properly generated packs, so you can still get randomly screwed by the RNG
There was a deadline (Dec. 13) where the old account system was depreciated. Logging in anytime before them was all you needed to be migrated to the new system, but after that cutoff you needed to contact support to do so.
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/43473
Hurrah, completed that draft session. Finished 7-1. The last game was fun. Was against someone who drafted that mill enchantment plus tons of the -6/0 enchantment. Won with 10 cards left. Hope that guy went 7-2/7-3, they deserved it.
Probably will save my next batch of gold for Ravnica though, that taste of M19 was fine with me haha
Probably will save my next batch of gold for Ravnica though, that taste of M19 was fine with me haha
i haven't botherd crafting LUTS yet bc mono red has so many damn good cards i feel like the difference is minimal, risk factor is still insanely good, and keld is still nice for 1 or 2 copies imo
LUTS being 1 mana is better for both when you're stuck on 2 lands and also in comboing off with steam-kin and guttersnipe and experimental frenzy. There's also the times when risk factor's agency works against you, as in they have plenty of life to take the 4 and you are dry on cards or when you need to finish them off and they just give you the cards because you tapped out to cast it and they have return lethal or a huge heal when you pass, or if you have experimental frenzy out they'll give you the cards knowing you can't cast from hand anymore unless you take a whole turn off to sac frenzy while exiled cards don't count as being in your hand.
Probably still not a huge difference, like sub 3% of your win rate, but it just makes everything a little smoother.
Probably still not a huge difference, like sub 3% of your win rate, but it just makes everything a little smoother.
With so much burn in bo1 i've started playing bo3. Really like the Bant deck from the competitive list that came out on the 21st. Krosis is gud and I love playing the slime ooze, and the deck runs 4 of each! Bonus for slime's sweet sound effect, sounds like pooping.
wilderness reclamation is good in my G/W deck. Being able to pump out soldiers from dawn of hope every turn and/or convoke to my desire is fantastic.
wilderness reclamation should be banned tbh.
wilderness reclamation should be banned tbh.
Can you play Bo3 in ranked? Outside of the free Allegiance draft, I've never seen Bo3 in arena. Am I missing a setting or something?