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Magic: the Gathering |OT| Ravnica Allegiance - These 5 Lands Will SHOCK You!
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Rakdos always preys on many of the durdly slow decks. Without the appropriate early defenses, they often lose too fast to stabilize.
in RNA rakdos to me was a great midrange deck better than aggro, Blade Juggler is pure gas and a lot of the spectacle enablers get better the longer games go.
I don't like it as a midrange deck tbh. It has great tools for midrange (Get The Point, Cry of the Carnarium, Gates Ablaze if you have gates, splashed orzhov, + other removal), but it... just doesn't seem to be effective enough. You get a lot of free wins curving out 1 drop, 2 drop haste, 3 drop 3/2 draw a card, etc. You don't get a lot of free wins lining up deathtouchers vs 3/3 flyers or "okay we trade, but I get a 1/1 flyer."
orzhov enforcer is absolutely fantastic if that's the card you're talking about against green based decks that want to get primarily through on the ground so it's either a huge roadblock or almost unblockable.
the aggro version of rakdos is just very hit or miss you don't go tall well so if you're against another creature deck or against 1 or 2 ill gotten inheritance you're easily just SOL.
the aggro version of rakdos is just very hit or miss you don't go tall well so if you're against another creature deck or against 1 or 2 ill gotten inheritance you're easily just SOL.
Yeah, you may have had different experiences than I've had. Just haven't had much luck going that route even though I prefer "lot of removal midrange" as an archetype lol. Deathtouch does body Gruul for sure (and some builds of Simic). Doesn't do as well vs Orzhov and Azorious (the power houses of the format).
I wasn't necessarily talking about Orzhov Enforcer, but I will agree the card is fantastic. I like it much more in Orzhov though. Plus Rakdos' creatures aren't too conducive to blocking. You're often fighting with Orzhov over the deathtouch creatures and the ones you aren't fighting over are like 1/3 Menace.
Biggest pro tip for this format is just to open Ethereal Absolution. I've been fortunate enough to open the (basically) unbeatable card in my last two IRL drafts and surprisingly (lol) didn't lose a single game.
I wasn't necessarily talking about Orzhov Enforcer, but I will agree the card is fantastic. I like it much more in Orzhov though. Plus Rakdos' creatures aren't too conducive to blocking. You're often fighting with Orzhov over the deathtouch creatures and the ones you aren't fighting over are like 1/3 Menace.
Biggest pro tip for this format is just to open Ethereal Absolution. I've been fortunate enough to open the (basically) unbeatable card in my last two IRL drafts and surprisingly (lol) didn't lose a single game.
Is it cool to ask questions about Arena here?
I downloaded it about a week ago and am loving it for the most part. I have a long history with MtG but haven't had anyone to play with in years. I've been waiting for awhile to try Arena, I have a Mac and kept hoping they'd port it but I finally just got it on my wife's PC.
I'm mostly curious how commonly re-printed cards work with rotation. Say Banefire is reprinted in Core 2020, can I continue to use my 2019 copies after that set rotates out? I assume it will work the same way as it does at tournaments and stuff, but I've only ever been to one store event. Can you use like an old version of Opt in a Standard deck if you prefer the old art, or just don't want to re-collect a card you already own?
I downloaded it about a week ago and am loving it for the most part. I have a long history with MtG but haven't had anyone to play with in years. I've been waiting for awhile to try Arena, I have a Mac and kept hoping they'd port it but I finally just got it on my wife's PC.
I'm mostly curious how commonly re-printed cards work with rotation. Say Banefire is reprinted in Core 2020, can I continue to use my 2019 copies after that set rotates out? I assume it will work the same way as it does at tournaments and stuff, but I've only ever been to one store event. Can you use like an old version of Opt in a Standard deck if you prefer the old art, or just don't want to re-collect a card you already own?
I don't think this has really come up in Arena yet given the previous rotation of cards out of standard coincided with their last account wipe before the move to open beta where those cards were made unavailable altogether but I can't imagine it would be any different from the paper rules where as long as a card is legal in the format you're playing you can use any printing (well, "printing") of it
Cool, thanks! I assume there'd be a major backlash if they deviated from the paper rules with this. But I wasn't sure because I noticed there's already some cards that have been reprinted in sets that are in Arena. For example Duress is in both Ixalan and 2019.
Yeah, it's a fair question.
Like I said, it's more of a "we don't really have a solid official answer or any precedent yet, but you would think they will stick to the paper rules..." because like you said there'd be a fair bit of backlash if they went against that kind of engrained idea but I suppose there's the chance they could get greedy
Considering there are already promo versions that technically are not in a standard set I think it is fairly save to assume Arena will work just like paper.
The bigger question is will there be any duplicate protection for reprints. So far that doesn't matter because for Commons and Uncommens nobody cares. Even individual rare reprints will not really hurt but what happens with the first rare land cycle reprint? Collecting 20 completely useless rares in a set if you already have all 5 playsets would be annoying. However, I assume this will be quite some years off anyways.
The bigger question is will there be any duplicate protection for reprints. So far that doesn't matter because for Commons and Uncommens nobody cares. Even individual rare reprints will not really hurt but what happens with the first rare land cycle reprint? Collecting 20 completely useless rares in a set if you already have all 5 playsets would be annoying. However, I assume this will be quite some years off anyways.
You'd definitely hope they'd stick to the paper rules on this. I spent a lot of time just to get a set of shocklands and would really be upset if those cards just get rotated out never to be used in standard again. I doubt they'll have duplicate protection, but I'd be fine with that.
OP
OP
Storm Scale: Kaladesh and Amonkhet
Mark Rosewater
Mark uses his Storm Scale to rate the mechanics from Kaladesh and Amonkhet blocks to see which stand a good chance of returning.
* Energy was very popular in initial polling, though MaRo suspects that went down as Standard went on. It's difficult to balance, though, placing it at 6.
* Colorless vehicles are hard to balance, so they'll experiment more with colored ones, in addition to other general colored artifacts.
* Aftermath was popular, but it's very hard to design (since you want to be able to get a benefit for casting both halves the same turn) and people didn't like the frame.
* Embalm was popular, but the Egyptian flavor means it's probably Amonkhet only. Eternalize was unpopular.
* Exert was popular and is likely to return.
* Afflict was meant to be reused in War of the Spark, but both the meh reaction and how set design worked out meant that didn't happen.
Mark Rosewater
Mark uses his Storm Scale to rate the mechanics from Kaladesh and Amonkhet blocks to see which stand a good chance of returning.
* Energy was very popular in initial polling, though MaRo suspects that went down as Standard went on. It's difficult to balance, though, placing it at 6.
* Colorless vehicles are hard to balance, so they'll experiment more with colored ones, in addition to other general colored artifacts.
* Aftermath was popular, but it's very hard to design (since you want to be able to get a benefit for casting both halves the same turn) and people didn't like the frame.
* Embalm was popular, but the Egyptian flavor means it's probably Amonkhet only. Eternalize was unpopular.
* Exert was popular and is likely to return.
* Afflict was meant to be reused in War of the Spark, but both the meh reaction and how set design worked out meant that didn't happen.
I wasn't really a fan of Amonkhet when it was coming out... but in retrospect I have a lot of fondness for the weird stuff like Aftermath and Eternalize. Not surprised they were unpopular, though.
I wish we got more -1/-1 counter sets. Fingers crossed we go to New Phyrexia soon.
I wish we got more -1/-1 counter sets. Fingers crossed we go to New Phyrexia soon.
I've been out of the game for awhile but unless things have changed isn't this inevitable? The check lands from Ixalan will rotate out this fall, why would the Ravnica lands be different?
They'll rotate as normal but people are talking about when they inevitably reprint the shocklands, possibly in return to return to return to ravnica or whatever in 4+ years. My assumption is it will totally be legal to field your old shocklands again just like in paper, but that you won't get duplicate protection from the new ones even if the art is the same, as that's how it works now for cards that have been reprinted within the same standard rotation already like luminous bonds. We just don't know for sure yet because it hasn't been mentioned specifically from any official sources.
I probably shouldn't have used 'rotate' here because of the specific meaning it has. I wasn't meaning that they would continue to be used when their set rotates out, but that when a new set has those same staples, the old cards would be usable in standard again. Nobody wants to buy a set of shocks, or checks, or whatever each time they come back into standard.
There's no precedent for Wizards disallowing older versions of Standard legal cards to be used. It won't be any different with Arena. As we've already seen, however, with cards like Colossal Dreadmaw or Opt, there won't be duplicate protection against cracking different printings of the the same card.
Ah, I see, thanks. I was more concerned with stuff that may be reprinted this year, not years down the road, but makes sense.
For sure. I've held off on crafting the shocklands for that reason, I don't want to blow a bunch of wildcards on something that I may not use before it rotates. I've seen people say they crafted playsets of every shock land and that seems crazy to me.
Shocklands won't rotate for a year and a half. Unless you're playing mono-colored decks, every deck gets significantly better when you have them.
I understand how good they are, but I don't feel like spending wildcards on them when I'm not guaranteed to use any given specific land in that year and a half. Like if I craft four Temple Gardens and then never find a Selesnya deck I want to play before the lands rotate it will feel like a waste regardless of how much better they are than just playing basics. Seems wiser to me to hold off until I want them for a specific deck instead of crafting them all just for the sake of having them.
You should definitely only craft cards when you want to play them. There's no reason to have cards in Arena that you're not going to play (unlike paper Magic, where you might speculate on price.)
Totally agree. But I've seen people online say that they went out of their way to craft playsets of all the rare lands.
Those people are fools. I crafted four breeding pools (to use). Three weeks later I got two in a single draft. I'm okay with that but imagine if I had crafted them and not used them? Definitely only craft what you need. I think surely that goes without saying for most.
They're applying bad logic brought over from the paper game where price is tied to supply and demand. There's no reason within Arena's economy to craft a card before you need it—with the rare exception of the full-art Planeswalkers that were available briefly for crafting when open beta began.
What exactly happens when you draft rares and mythics you already own? I've seen a lot of talk about "the Vault," which apparently fills up as you collect duplicates and gives you a bunch of wildcards when it's full. I'm not sure if this was a closed beta feature that was removed or something but there hasn't been any mention of it whatsoever in the game that I've seen. Maybe I missed the tutorial or something, but there also doesn't seem to be any mention of it in a menu. I suppose it could happen entirely in the background but it seems odd you can't check in on your progress.
It's a little weird how there's some pretty big things that aren't explained in-game.
Ah, I was wondering about the alternate arts, I've seen the planeswalkers in the crafting menu, and there's also stuff like the full-art Ghalta that I believe was a gift for attending a pre-release (I briefly got my wife into MtG around Ixalan but we didn't end up attending any events).
You shouldn't craft them before opening any packs but the shocklands you have largely decide which meta decks you can play. That's what makes the WC system so problematic and forces one to make choices on how to gimp their deck.
Getting the shocklands immediately makes sense if you know you're going to use them. If you're someone who like to brew and/or play a lot of different decks it makes sense to focus on the mana base. The difference between a bad mana base makes a huge difference for the consistency of a deck and with brews you're already worried about consistency, because you need to keep up with the meta-decks.
If you're just osmeone who likes to build one or two decks and play it for the rest of the season there's no reason to craft the mana base until you're sure you need it.
If you're just osmeone who likes to build one or two decks and play it for the rest of the season there's no reason to craft the mana base until you're sure you need it.
Duplicate uncommons and commons add to the vault; once the vault is full you can open it for 1 mythic wild card, 2 rare wild cards and some uncommon wild cards. Duplicate rares and mythics will get you 20 gems and 40 gems respectively. Both things are explained briefly on loading screens, but depending on how quickly you find a match it's easy to never see them.
I totally understand the rationale for why they're not adding it, but I really wish you could "dust" cards like in Hearthstone. I'm running a Gates deck right now and there's way more uncommon cards I need than rares and no mythics I feel like I need to have. I'm sure this has been said to death but it's really annoying knowing that I could buy the cardboard versions of everything I need for like $5, but in Arena I need to either sell out far more than that for packs or very slowly accumulate enough wildcards.
You get so many common and uncommon wild cards that I don't know how people can run out. I suppose if you're using your gold primarily on events and not packs you won't get them as fast. Maybe they should add uncommon wild cards to the ICRs.
You get what, one uncommon wildcard for every six packs you open? Which is roughly a week's worth of coins? So a month of grinding for a playset of a single card.
Of course add in whatever wildcards you happen to open in packs but in my experience that's not too often, I'm not sure if the odds have been made public but I'd guess somewhere between 1:5 and 1:10, definitely not enough to make a significant difference.
First off, Pogo is my favorite comic strip ever, so good choice.
Second off, I've spent $5 grand total on the game and now have 20 common, 30 uncommon, 1 rare, and 3 mythic rare wildcards. And I've probably crafted a LOT of stuff in that time. Rares are usually the ones you want and are hard to come by. It's definitely doable if you buy packs with coins and just do 5+ wins a day. I even went through a phase or two where I drafted as much as I could, which doesn't even give you wildcards except in the pack rewards.
First off, Pogo is my favorite comic strip ever, so good choice.
Second off, I've spent $5 grand total on the game plus one draft code from an event and now have 20 common, 30 uncommon, 1 rare, and 3 mythic rare wildcards. And I've probably crafted a LOT of stuff in that time. Rares are usually the ones you want and are hard to come by. It's definitely doable if you buy packs with coins and just do 5+ wins a day. I even went through a phase or two where I drafted as much as I could, which doesn't even give you wildcards except in the pack rewards.
I did get a sealed code for free from someone, I think. And I've opened the vault twice now.
Why are Maria and Eduardo not part of the talent team for the mythic event? And why day9 of all people...
Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing the new format in action, it sounds pretty flawed but I'll give it a chance.
Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing the new format in action, it sounds pretty flawed but I'll give it a chance.
Nice! I rarely meet people who know about Pogo. It's always confused me why, it absolutely deserves to be remembered alongside other newspaper comics like Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes (at least, it's also my favorite comic in part because it's much more thoughtful than either of those) but for whatever reason it seems relatively forgotten.
Back on topic, I definitely get that you can get stuff over time, and if I stick with the game for awhile (I'm curious how long you've been playing) I'm sure I'll look back and be amused I ever worried about wildcards... but having only played it for a week it's still annoying and frustrating that there's a bunch of cards that would be cheap to buy in paper that are out of my reach in Arena.
And again, I totally get it. Paper cards and Arena cards are directly comparable, there's reason why Arena's economy works the way it does and why paper cards are priced the way they are, etc. It just sucks that it's hard for me to find games in person, but if I played paper I could have access to whatever card I want, while in Arena I can play whatever I want but am stuck either grinding away or shelling out for packs to chance upon those cards. Not really any solution, just annoying is all.
Which paper products come with Arena codes? I'm rarely able to make time to go to events but I might pick up some Planeswalker decks to play with my wife if they come with some gems or packs or whatever for Arena. On the other hand if you just get an unlock code for the cards that come in the deck I'd probably just pass.
IIRC every pack of Pokemon cards comes with a code that gives you a pack on that game's online service, hopefully Magic reaches that point eventually where paper and Arena feel connected enough that you don't have to think about spending money on one or other.
The odds of opening an uncommon wild card from a pack are 1 in 4, plus you get one every 6th pack from the tracker. Assuming you do all your dailies and get your 15 wins per week, you should get about 10 packs per week, which works out to about 4~5 uncommon wild cards per week.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/promotions/drop-rates
All your dailies includes getting 4 wins per day I assume since 7 dailies are at most 5250 gold.
I'll try to end the derail here, but it's probably because it was heavily focused on events of the time. I started reading is as a kid, and each time I would reread it growing older I felt like I appreciated more depth -- but despite that, I still don't know all the political nuance of the era.
Oh wow, I wouldn't have guessed the odds of finding a wildcard were that high based on experience. Still sucks to have to wait a week to get a playset of cards that I'm sure there are piles of at any LGS. And again, I get that paper and Arena are different and don't mean to complain too much, Arena is free after all. Just a little frustrating that uncommons are the cards I need most right now, which would never happen in paper.
I mean piles as in I'm sure they have plenty of stock of uncommon from recent sets. I'm confident I could walk into most game stores and they'd have at least a few copies of Guild Summit and Circuitous Route they'd be willing to sell me for a buck or whatever. I understand you can't waltz into a store and find free discarded copies of any uncommon you want.
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