untapped.gg has the best UI in game but no deck record tracking yet, mtga pro tracker has a good collection tracker but I can't get it to pull my records correctly.
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Magic: The Gathering |OT| Core Set 2020 - Red Head Wins
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Untapped for in-game and drafting combined with MTG Arena Tools for their tracking.
Best possible combination imo.
Arena Tools (I think it's this one based on the logo) is the only program I've used that didn't fail to log games. The others I tried would log most but not all, and there was no rhyme or reason to when it'd fail.
Untapped never misses either regarding sideboarding.
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Worth checking out not just for MaRo, but also for how they brought on a Make a Wish recipient.
It yells at you (at least it did a few months ago when I tried) if any other program tries to use the logs because MTGA Pro wants to open them in exclusive mode. The chatter on Reddit seemed to be that the developer just wanted you to only use their program. It just rubbed me the wrong way. And at least when I was using it, most of the decks were Bo1 focused (eg no sideboard). I like the MTG Arena Tools has the community deck browsing built into the app and seems to have more Bo3 tilt.
A few weeks ago I asked for some feedback in deciding between drafting Core 2020 or Modern Horizons for a get-together with some non-drafting friends here's the results:
I decided to go with Modern Horizons, which ended up being everyone's preference. We only had six people draft, one friend dropped out earlier yesterday and we couldn't get other people committed in time for a full eight person draft pod. This allowed us to go nuts and draft six packs to open the full box. If you've never drafted that many packs with that few people (we have a few times) I suggest giving it a go sometime. You have tons of time to land on a deck, tons of packs to make a consistent deck, and, well, cracking packs is tons of fun.
When the dust settled from the draft I ended up with what seemed to be a good four color snow deck with a touch of blink added in. I was really strong with snow permanents, all but four of my lands were on color snow lands, all but four of my non-land permanents were snow as well (two Springbloom Druids to help fix my mana since I was in four colors, a Soulherder and a Genesis for recursion) everything else was snow related aside from two Settle Beyond Reality for removal/blink.
Since we had opened so many packs I could have also built a RG lands in the graveyard deck too, which looked like it could have been decent. I had a few Geomancer's Gambits, two Ruination Rioters, the two Springbloom Druids as well as Murasa Behemoths and Winding Ways. I would have depended on Mother Bears and Trumpeting Herds to round out my creatures a bit though.
I only played against two matches but won each game, which was a nice consolation for not getting any sweet, sweet value...or even any cards I can use in commander decks. I think I can add Nature's Chant to my jank Ramos deck, Springbloom Druid and Geomancer's Gambit to my Mina and Denn deck...and uh, Reprobation to my Karametra deck?...thats it, seriously.
Everyone had a good time, and most everyone else pulled some sort of value. We had a Force of Negation, Urza, two Swords of Sinew and Steel as well as a bunch of the rare lands. Seriously though, the most expensive card I opened was Ice-Fang Coatl, and the most expensive card I saw during the draft was a foil Fallen Shinobi...
I kept my expectations in check for pulling value and everything, so I wasn't disappointed. I always go into these kinds of gatherings just looking forward to cracking packs with friends and seeing what kind of junk we can toss together. Card value or winning is just icing on the cake. I really like the format and would definitely do it again, even under the same conditions.
I decided to go with Modern Horizons, which ended up being everyone's preference. We only had six people draft, one friend dropped out earlier yesterday and we couldn't get other people committed in time for a full eight person draft pod. This allowed us to go nuts and draft six packs to open the full box. If you've never drafted that many packs with that few people (we have a few times) I suggest giving it a go sometime. You have tons of time to land on a deck, tons of packs to make a consistent deck, and, well, cracking packs is tons of fun.
For the first two packs I wasn't really settled on what was open or what I wanted to build. My pack one pick one was Ice-Fang Coatl, which I wouldn't have usually snagged, but there was literally nothing else good in the pack, no removal, and all of the other creatures would have been as big of a commitment to an archetype, so why no take the highest impact card? Snow felt open for the first two packs, so I did grab a bunch of early picks for it, but then I got a late Munitions Expert and was seeing tons of black and red cards still...so I started to move into that deck. But then I was getting tons of stuff like Ruination Rioters, Geomancer's Gambit, and other creatures that go in that deck. I literally had three-four cards left in pack two and all of the cards were for the RG lands deck...so I got some picks for that.
This was my personal fear for my draft experience, that I'd be several packs in and not committed to a deck because signals were all over the place. To make it worse I wasn't even opening value (spoiler: Ice-Fang Coatl remained the most expensive card I opened/drafted).
Going into pack three I had to commit. We had all agreed to start by drafting four packs, which meant if I landed on a deck with two packs I should still squeak out a reasonable deck. Since signals had been all over the place I had still been picking up some snow pieces here and there, so I decided to go all in. I was going to be the snow deck, it felt pretty open and at worst I would get half of the good snow stuff from two packs if someone else made the same call I did.
But...then we opened pack three and started passing the cards around the table. Settle Beyond Reality...Settle Beyond Reality...Soulherder...a second Man-o'-War to go with an earlier pick, Irregular Cohort? I already had some other random picks for blink and I'd been leaning blue from attempting the snow deck..."Blink it is!" I thought to myself. I'd been seeing the occasional Ephemerate and other cards for the deck and already had snagged a few other cards to go in. I also could not shake that red and black (aside from Ninjas) were open, I was still seeing super late Geomancer's Gambits, I was able to snag two Springbloom Druids, all the creatures that care about lands in the graveyard kept making the rounds and being easy late picks...
If you are feeling whiplash you should. Six packs and six people will have this effect on your draft; you see too many cards and there are too few people to close in nicely to different archetypes. I think I vacillated more than other people did partly because I knew the different archetypes more than most at the table and was miss-reading signals that weren't actual signals, but I also wasn't opening hugely committing cards. No one was really in snow, so my late picks in each pack were snow cards. Snow lands, Rime Tenders, a late pick Conifer Wurm, Frostwallas all over the place and early/mid picks ended up being speculative for other decks. The second half of pack three, and all of packs four through six consisted of me finally sticking to Snow as my deck. I able to snag a late On Thin Ice, Dead of Winter and even ended up with a Marit Lage's Slumber.
This was my personal fear for my draft experience, that I'd be several packs in and not committed to a deck because signals were all over the place. To make it worse I wasn't even opening value (spoiler: Ice-Fang Coatl remained the most expensive card I opened/drafted).
Going into pack three I had to commit. We had all agreed to start by drafting four packs, which meant if I landed on a deck with two packs I should still squeak out a reasonable deck. Since signals had been all over the place I had still been picking up some snow pieces here and there, so I decided to go all in. I was going to be the snow deck, it felt pretty open and at worst I would get half of the good snow stuff from two packs if someone else made the same call I did.
But...then we opened pack three and started passing the cards around the table. Settle Beyond Reality...Settle Beyond Reality...Soulherder...a second Man-o'-War to go with an earlier pick, Irregular Cohort? I already had some other random picks for blink and I'd been leaning blue from attempting the snow deck..."Blink it is!" I thought to myself. I'd been seeing the occasional Ephemerate and other cards for the deck and already had snagged a few other cards to go in. I also could not shake that red and black (aside from Ninjas) were open, I was still seeing super late Geomancer's Gambits, I was able to snag two Springbloom Druids, all the creatures that care about lands in the graveyard kept making the rounds and being easy late picks...
If you are feeling whiplash you should. Six packs and six people will have this effect on your draft; you see too many cards and there are too few people to close in nicely to different archetypes. I think I vacillated more than other people did partly because I knew the different archetypes more than most at the table and was miss-reading signals that weren't actual signals, but I also wasn't opening hugely committing cards. No one was really in snow, so my late picks in each pack were snow cards. Snow lands, Rime Tenders, a late pick Conifer Wurm, Frostwallas all over the place and early/mid picks ended up being speculative for other decks. The second half of pack three, and all of packs four through six consisted of me finally sticking to Snow as my deck. I able to snag a late On Thin Ice, Dead of Winter and even ended up with a Marit Lage's Slumber.
When the dust settled from the draft I ended up with what seemed to be a good four color snow deck with a touch of blink added in. I was really strong with snow permanents, all but four of my lands were on color snow lands, all but four of my non-land permanents were snow as well (two Springbloom Druids to help fix my mana since I was in four colors, a Soulherder and a Genesis for recursion) everything else was snow related aside from two Settle Beyond Reality for removal/blink.
Since we had opened so many packs I could have also built a RG lands in the graveyard deck too, which looked like it could have been decent. I had a few Geomancer's Gambits, two Ruination Rioters, the two Springbloom Druids as well as Murasa Behemoths and Winding Ways. I would have depended on Mother Bears and Trumpeting Herds to round out my creatures a bit though.
I only played against two matches but won each game, which was a nice consolation for not getting any sweet, sweet value...or even any cards I can use in commander decks. I think I can add Nature's Chant to my jank Ramos deck, Springbloom Druid and Geomancer's Gambit to my Mina and Denn deck...and uh, Reprobation to my Karametra deck?...thats it, seriously.
I won match one, game one because my opponent misread the board and left themselves open to me attacking in with a lethal Conifer Wurm (activated twice for +18/+18). Game two was closer but I muscled out the win with Dead of Winter clearing out early board development and making way for an Abominable Treefolk, landing as an easy 6/6 trample and only growing from there, which was great. My opponent for match two was playing the blue/red draw cards deck, and I had no flyers aside form Ice-Fang Coatl, so I was not looking forward to the match up. I had watched them swinging in with two Thundering Djinns in their previous match and that had me worried. Frostwallas really don't match up well against flyers. The ace up my sleeve for game one ended up being Iceberg Cancrix. I landed it on turn two, and was landing snow permanents once or twice per turn, milling out an easy four to six cards easily. Being the card draw deck my opponent was only helping me out. The most back breaking turn ended up being a combination of Springbloom Druid coming in and dropping two snow lands, playing a Frostwalla and then Soulhearder blinking one of my snow permanents. No damage ended up being dealt that game, my opponent swung in with a beefed up Oneirophage and I flashed in Ice-Fang Coatl milling out their final cards. I really wish I had been clever enough to snag a few more Cancrix during the draft, milling out my opponent was a pressure point each time the little crab landed, having a second or more out would have been absurd. My final match was another close one where my opponent built up a good early board presence, and quickly knocked my life total to 5. I top-decked Dead of Winter and cleared out their board and they were never able to stabilize and Abominable Treefolk closed out the win for me.
Everyone had a good time, and most everyone else pulled some sort of value. We had a Force of Negation, Urza, two Swords of Sinew and Steel as well as a bunch of the rare lands. Seriously though, the most expensive card I opened was Ice-Fang Coatl, and the most expensive card I saw during the draft was a foil Fallen Shinobi...
I kept my expectations in check for pulling value and everything, so I wasn't disappointed. I always go into these kinds of gatherings just looking forward to cracking packs with friends and seeing what kind of junk we can toss together. Card value or winning is just icing on the cake. I really like the format and would definitely do it again, even under the same conditions.
I mean, I drafted Scale Up for the value. I was hurting!
Again, I had tons of fun, and would love to draft the format again.
I feel you! I took a pick 9 Mox Tantalite for value because it wheeled haha I lost only one game all night but someone else went home with a Force of Negation so who is the real winner
I always prefer redrafting rares with premium priced sets.
Do you redraft based off of standings at the end of the night?
We are not organized enough to have actual standings, and people often leave partway through. Even aside form the logistics behind it, I don't believe we'd have many people in support of redrafting the rares. People want to keep what they open. Sure, for me I would have ended up happy, but my buddy that opened the Force of Negation would have left in a substantially worse mood.
It sounds like your group is on the casual side but I definitely don't want to keep the rares I draft. If you're playing to win it isn't fun to draft green-white, open an expensive blue card in pack 3 and then have to decide whether you draft a potentially worse deck to keep the valuable card or stick with something you'll actually play. Redrafting the rares lets you focus entirely on making the best deck you can.
I also like the idea of the best players taking home the best cards at the end of the draft. Otherwise it feels a little like you're holding a small-scale lottery that also has a card game attached to it, particularly with premium sets. If I open a valuable card I'm not going to play it isn't exciting, it's a reminder that different aspects of the game are often at odds with each other.
Rare redrafting should only be done between friends when you don't or can't have an additional prize.
Rare redrafting sucks and is pretty scummy in the context of, say, a game store running events.
Rare redrafting sucks and is pretty scummy in the context of, say, a game store running events.
i kinda like the concept of common/uncommon redrafting so people don't take stuff like petitioners/rat colony if you're trying to actually draft those decks
but it's not worth it from a logistics standpoint
but it's not worth it from a logistics standpoint
Do you gain extra XP if you buy the Mastery Pass on MTG Arena?
The Fortnite battle pass did that to incentive you to buy it.
Also as a F2P player right now, my XP is capped at a weekly limit, if I buy the Mastery Pass does that uncap it?
The Fortnite battle pass did that to incentive you to buy it.
Also as a F2P player right now, my XP is capped at a weekly limit, if I buy the Mastery Pass does that uncap it?
Yikes, does it make sense to buy the Mastery Pass if you are coming in late to the season? Would you even be able to get to the highest level?
At what point do you break even?
Someone calculated this before.
I mean, we did a draft of 6 packs with 6 people, that should tell you all you need to know about how "competitive" we were feeling. Though I would like to point out that the foil Fallen Shinobi I passed had been passed by several other people, so we don't just snag the rates and then pass the packs. The same is true with the On Thin Ice, Dead of Winter and Marit Lage's Slumbers I got passed (admidetly they are not money cards). Those cards went by several people before they landed on my lap. And those are just the rares I'm remembering now. All I'm saying is that while we do skew casual, especially in a casual setting with no prize support, we still do strike some sort of balance of building a good deck vs. taking the rare cards.
As a group we do mix it up from time to time, adding in prize support, doing full on "phantom" drafts, sealed events, all sorts of stuff. All that aside, the idea of rare drafting to reward the best player isn't something I'd want to suggest because I'm likely the guy that would benefit the least, and because I'm of the opinion that the group would just want to do prize packs, and would chip in more to make that happen rather than rare draft. People want to take the sweet loot they open home.
Also, with 6 packs each individual pick counts way less, so opening an explosive off color rare is usually never going to throw you off.
No point in buying the pass at all until the very end anyway. Unless you absolutely need those rewards asap, there's no benefit to buying in early. All rewards from the paid track for your level would be awarded once you buy in. Wait until the end, see what kind of rewards you would be getting from your level and make the call then.
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doctorstarky asked: Theoretically, would a Santa Claus inspired card fit in Eldraine?
No.
July 26, 2019
arandomstringofcharacters asked: Is the Wizard of Oz fairy-tale-adjacent enough to inspire a card or two in Eldraine?
We stuck to actual fairy tales. There was so much to work with we didn't need adjacent material.
July 26, 2019
No.
July 26, 2019
arandomstringofcharacters asked: Is the Wizard of Oz fairy-tale-adjacent enough to inspire a card or two in Eldraine?
We stuck to actual fairy tales. There was so much to work with we didn't need adjacent material.
July 26, 2019
Hogaak with the highest conversion rate of any of the big decks. Something is going down. Hopefully Looting!
It just goes to show how broken mana reduction mechanics are. I'll admit that Hogaak didn't immediately strike me as a super powerful card, but I really should have known better.
I feel dumb because I immediately texted my friend to say Hogaak would be good in Modern... but didn't preorder a playset.
Yes, please!
I mean, it's much worse than Mox Opal and that's never on the banning block!
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Looting enables so many different decks. Banning it may kill a bunch of unfair garbage, but it also kills a bunch of balanced decks. That's not to say they shouldn't do it, but it's definitely a nuanced decision.
They're not banning Hogaak 2 months after it's printed, that would be admitting PD don't know wtf they're doing and the jury is still out on that one.
Though today I found myself rooting for the Tron player vs Hogaak so something is definitely wrong.
Though today I found myself rooting for the Tron player vs Hogaak so something is definitely wrong.
What does it kill? It certainly slows things down, but I don't know what it outright kills that I wouldn't already want dead.
From what ive seen in coverage/playing against it a good amount on mtgo, Looting isn't even the strongest start for Hogaak i'd argue. Stitcher's Supplier is the bigger problem, especially with a Carrion Feeder.
People were main decking it at the Mythic Championship and it still had the highest win percentage in the field. By near Eldrazi Winter margins. The deck is an issue.
Phoenix, Mardu, Hollow One
That's what Nature's Claim and Assassin's Trophy are for.
Exactly. It doesn't help that green is the color that best hoses enchants and artifacts, which are the most common and effective ways to exile graveyards or prevent stuff in them from working. Stuff like Phoenix has it much more difficult since UR can only rely on counterspells so a leyline on turn 0 means you're SOL.
Yeah, there was one match they stopped in on briefly, I think it was during sideboarding for the feature match or something, Emma Handy v. one of her teammates playing a 75 card Hogaak mirror. Pre-game effects: Emma has two Leylines of the Void, her teammate has one. I forgot who went first, but on the teammate's T1 Emma Force of Vigor's away his Leyline then proceeds to 'Gaak him into oblivion.
Seems like something will need to go. Sure, Faithless Looting is really good in the deck, but all of the mill cards do essentially the same thing for them. So with FLooting as the only ban you maybe slow down the 12+ recursive power board states to be inconsistent on T2 (probably down to a good Stitcher's Supplier mill) but pretty consistent on T3 with all of the other 2cmc graveyard fillers. I guess that's potentially an acceptable power level for Modern, but it kills a ton of decks at the same power level in the process. If they ban Hogaak, they can kill the problem deck and preserve all of the other Looting decks. If they're not going to ban a card that they're still printing, then maybe Looting plus Vengevine is a good enough ban - you can play the deck, but you only get one big payoff creature and a bunch of dorks. But that has the same problems with banning just Looting while also signalling "yeah, this graveyard bullshit is a problem, but we're going to leave this other graveyard bullshit alone because we're still trying to sell it to you." It seems hard to justify a Vengevine ban without also killing Hogaak and Arclight Phoenix, especially since everyone can tell that Hogaak is what broke Vengevine.
Seems like something will need to go. Sure, Faithless Looting is really good in the deck, but all of the mill cards do essentially the same thing for them. So with FLooting as the only ban you maybe slow down the 12+ recursive power board states to be inconsistent on T2 (probably down to a good Stitcher's Supplier mill) but pretty consistent on T3 with all of the other 2cmc graveyard fillers. I guess that's potentially an acceptable power level for Modern, but it kills a ton of decks at the same power level in the process. If they ban Hogaak, they can kill the problem deck and preserve all of the other Looting decks. If they're not going to ban a card that they're still printing, then maybe Looting plus Vengevine is a good enough ban - you can play the deck, but you only get one big payoff creature and a bunch of dorks. But that has the same problems with banning just Looting while also signalling "yeah, this graveyard bullshit is a problem, but we're going to leave this other graveyard bullshit alone because we're still trying to sell it to you." It seems hard to justify a Vengevine ban without also killing Hogaak and Arclight Phoenix, especially since everyone can tell that Hogaak is what broke Vengevine.
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Haven't gotten one of MaRo's articles where he roleplays the colors of Magic in a while. Oh, that's a thing he does if you weren't aware.
Commander previews start this weekend.
I'm cool with it killing those decks except for Mardu. I hate Phoenix and generally despise engine based graveyard strategies.
Being honest, I'm happy to see WOTC finally facing the dilemma of banning the actually problematic card breaking the format (instead of tip-toeing around the issue) no matter what rarity, aftermarket price or whether it's currently on sold packs, since the other option is banning 3-4 redundant pieces that just put half your library in the graveyard one way or another and could as well be replaced by probably another half a dozen cards that do something similar.
The outcome of this will tell us a lot about their priorities regarding the health of the Modern format.
I mean it's not like Phoenix wasn't regularly 20% of metagames. Deck was plenty problematic before Hogaak, albeit more easily hated.
They start Thursday even! Do they usually do the face cards first?
I think most people agree that looting (along with other stuff) needs to go away as of yesterday but as TAFAE said, WOTC ended up cornering themselves in a position where banning looting now (but not Hogaak) will just send the message that they'd rather break several archetypes (some of them even fair) than throw a deserved banhammer on a chase rare/mythic from a set currently being sold. This is really a popcorn.gif moment.
Judge Academy
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