Magic: the Gathering |OT| Ravnica Allegiance - These 5 Lands Will SHOCK You!

[Steve Winwood]

Experimenting with the format is fine and it might well be fun. The communication is, as always, frustrating: sideboarding is a "huge barrier to entry" but a second deck isn't? This type of thing -- similar to the constant citation of bo1 stats without acknowledging that Arena is set up to push people into bo1 -- just makes players worry the decisions have already been made.

Also think having 24/64 players at a high-level event be arbitrarily chosen streamers is pretty silly.

 

[Orb]

I'm up for them trying new things, but I think their messaging is a bit weird. They are referencing two things: Arena Standard and Standard Duo. Are these the same thing?

Also I agree that the barrier to entry of making two competitive decks instead of 1 with a solid sideboard could be significant.

All in all, I am loving Arena after being someone who has played paper on and off since 1996. I have played more games of Magic digitally in the past month than I have for my whole life prior to that. If Arena is the new forerunner, I'll be sad for all the diehard paper players, but it's the game I love in a way that lets me play anytime, anywhere, and that's huge.

 

[darkside]

I'm a big fan of Duo Standard. Its a cool blend of bo1 and bo3.

 

[onpoint]

Two decks?

Get the hell out of here with that.

 

[aidan]

TFW the Hasbro suits join the Play Design team.

 

[voOsh]

LOL fuck off WotC. There is nothing wrong with regular bo3 sideboard standard. Also all the tier2 MTG pro's that didn't get invited must be salty AF right now.

 

[Bigkrev]

The invite list is a little weird- there are tons of full-time streamers that are also great at magic like Caleb and Hooglin that aren't on the invite list, and there are guys like LSV who i don't think has ever streamed Arena. At least there are no Cifka's or Kiblers like there were in the Silver Showcase

 

[aidan]

The invite list is a little weird- there are tons of full-time streamers that are also great at magic like Caleb and Hooglin that aren't on the invite list, and there are guys like LSV who i don't think has ever streamed Arena. At least there are no Cifka's or Kiblers like there were in the Silver Showcase

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Kibler regularly streams Arena and just hit mythic. He wouldn't be an out of place inclusion in this event.

 

[onpoint]

Suit 1: "Hey I just thought of something. You guys know how people who play 60 card decks at tournaments come with 15 extra cards?"

Suit 2: "Yeah, it's great that they have to get 15 more. More money for us."

Suit 1: "Well, what if I told you we could make it so they would spend as much on that 15 as they do on their original 60?"

Suit 2: "I'd say you're crazy!"

Suit 1: "We just require them to have TWO 60 card decks. They'll spend the money and our profits will go bananas!"

Suit 2: "By jove, you're a genius!"

 

[Orb]

Yes I'm sure that's exactly how it happened 🙄

 

[voOsh]

Kibler regularly streams Arena and just hit mythic. He wouldn't be an out of place inclusion in this event.

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Yeah Kibler would be fine. I could name dozens of streamers and MTG pros who deserve a spot more than Thijs who streams 100% Hearthstone and will not be competitive at this event.

 

[Deleted member 1041]

Is it because Kibler is in competitive Hearthstone that he wasnt invited out of spite? He was doing a competition for HS recently

 

[aidan]

I'm pleased to see so many women on the invite list.

 

[voOsh]

I read their linked article discussing the new format in detail and their argument for it is mainly because sideboarding is confusing and frustrating from new players. You know what will also be frustrating for new players WotC? Needing all the rare and mythic wildcards for 2 competitive decks. But you know that will make you more money which is all you have ever cared about. Fucking sad day for this game.

 

[SmokeMaxX]

There's also another reason people are grinding BO1 a ton. It's because that's literally how you get the game to be F2P. I have several garbage monocolor decks designed to do my quests as fast as possible so I can get on with my life.

 

[darkside]

I read their linked article discussing the new format in detail and their argument for it is mainly because sideboarding is confusing and frustrating from new players. You know what will also be frustrating for new players WotC? Needing all the rare and mythic wildcards for 2 competitive decks. But you know that will make you more money which is all you have ever cared about. Fucking sad day for this game.

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You can use the same deck twice... (or just play 2 different decks with the same mana base and staples and you're at like 40 shared cards). And this isn't designed for new players honestly. You can keep playing BO1 as much as you want right now.

I think Duo Standard is pretty neat and is a more competitive option than the traditional 60+15.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

LOL fuck off WotC. There is nothing wrong with regular bo3 sideboard standard.

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[Deleted member 29293]

The worst part about Wotc terrible decisions is always that they reasoning give you the fealing they have no idea what they are doing.

That said, if you go Bo1 don't allow a Sideboard for stupid Mastermind, at least follow through and just blank that mode for Bo1. So dumb.

 

[voOsh]

I think Duo Standard is pretty neat and is a more competitive option than the traditional 60+15.

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I don't see how this is possible. This format will favor non-interactive decks that pursue their own linear strategy. If you bring a deck with interaction and it's the wrong kind vs the random deck you're matched against the game is just over. For example, mono-red will surely be a high% of the field because the opponent's cards do not matter -- mono-red just does its own thing and hopes for its reliable draws. This is the right kind of deck to pick in a random vs random bo1 format. This means control decks will not be highly chosen because it performs poorly against aggro which will be a high % of the field. It seems like this format will polarize the meta into mono-red and the best deck vs mono-red.

 

[Kirblar]

The invite list is a little weird- there are tons of full-time streamers that are also great at magic like Caleb and Hooglin that aren't on the invite list, and there are guys like LSV who i don't think has ever streamed Arena. At least there are no Cifka's or Kiblers like there were in the Silver Showcase

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Well, here's the answer on Hoogland.

 

[onpoint]

Yes I'm sure that's exactly how it happened 🙄

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Oh stow the rolls eyes. If we can't have fun with it then what can we do

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Can't wait to see how many other ways Magic will try to mimic Hearthstone in the future:

New play-draw rules: both players draw first, but the second player starts the game with a Treasure in play.
Lands are now in a separate deck and players put the top card of their lands deck into play each turn.
All instants have been errata'd to sorceries.

 

[ZealousD]

Hearthstone doesn't have the history of sideboarding and their competitive formats have more decks and the option to ban opposing decks if your opponent has a deck that's a really bad matchup for you. I can easily see repetitive patterns in Duo Standard where everybody is just bringing the same two decks.

 

[i hate cheaters]

Design doesn't have the decades of iteration with Arena Standard as it does with tabletop's sideboarding version, so there will be some learnings as we go. Just in case something goes haywire, I'll mention here that we can maintain separate Banned Lists for the two versions of Standard, and MTG Arena will be able to enforce the proper list based on which mode you are enjoying. As always, we'll be carefully monitoring the metagame data to make sure the experience we're hoping for is actually the one you get.

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sideboarding provides much-needed safeguards against wotc's inability to balance the game properly
i hope they make extensive use of this banned list, but they probably won't

 

[SmokeMaxX]

You can use the same deck twice... (or just play 2 different decks with the same mana base and staples and you're at like 40 shared cards). And this isn't designed for new players honestly. You can keep playing BO1 as much as you want right now.

I think Duo Standard is pretty neat and is a more competitive option than the traditional 60+15.

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You CAN use the same deck twice- just like you CAN pick 60 random cards from a pile and enter a tournament with that. If we're talking about competitive play, I can't WAIT until everyone brings Nexus of Fate and Mono-Red and then just flips a coin to randomly pick the deck they want to use in Game 3.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

sideboarding provides much-needed safeguards against wotc's inability to balance the game properly
i hope they make extensive use of this banned list, but they probably won't

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Sideboarding isn't a safety valve for balance, at least not in standard. It's to account for the inherent rock-paper-scissors nature of metagames.

 

[i hate cheaters]

Sideboarding isn't a safety valve for balance, at least not in standard. It's to account for the inherent rock-paper-scissors nature of metagames.

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it's a safeguard against balance mistakes because it allows a greater amount of decks to have answers

negate and duress (and similar cards) have been the top sideboard cards in standard. you might not think much of them, but they work

 

[bunbun777]

They're also flipping a coin if it goes to 3 games to see who goes first.

 

[aidan]

Huh. Gaby just speculated on stream that she thinks CFB will be providing video coverage for GPs, but just can't talk about it yet. Given her connection to LSV (and his connect to CFB), that seems like a fair bet.

 

[Toxi]

Duo standard is just... Why? Like, I don't understand what purpose it has to experiment with this in Arena. People play Arena to play Magic, and paper Magic Bo3 is played with a sideboard.

It'd be one thing if this has improvements from a sideboard-based Bo3, but instead it has obvious flaws that can be easily exploited.

 

[Justin]

Huh. Gaby just speculated on stream that she thinks CFB will be providing video coverage for GPs, but just can't talk about it yet. Given her connection to LSV (and his connect to CFB), that seems like a fair bet.

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Yeah we've been taking about this the last few days on the discord that it's super obvious that CFB take over coverage as they already have a whip stable of writers and on screen personalities much like SCG.

 

[Justin]

Some stuff from the live stream that just finished

- the coverage budget has not been reduced it has in fact increased over 2018s.
- they are not ready to make an announcement about GP streams until all the details are set (it is totally getting handed over to CFB). They understand it is causing anxiety in the community but be assured it is also causing anxiety in the WOTC office!
- there will be a product announcement some time in February for fans of modern
- something resembling Masterpieces will be in a upcoming standard set. Sounds like they will most likely be alt art versions of cards in the set but they were pretty vague on the details
- splinter twin deserved to be banned!

 

[Deleted member 733]

It's great to see women being included. Amyzonian made it which I'm also happy about -- she had a fun stream in the last big streamer event, and she had an ingame event as well.

 

[Just Progress]

Damn. I just invested in paper Magic after having gotten back into the game due to Arena. A bit nervous that I made the wrong choice.

 

[Justin]

Damn. I just invested in paper Magic after having gotten back into the game due to Arena. A bit nervous that I made the wrong choice.

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Nah you made a good choice. There is nothing better than playing irl with a real person across the table from you.

 

[dadjumper]

Casual standard player here, any lurkers in this thread happen to live in Tokyo? It's a longshot but I'd like to make more magic-playing friends that are down for casual games.

 

[Kirblar]

"Arclight Phoenix is going to go down because U/R isn't playing it in Standard anymore" was a very smart observation from Chas. Watch that card- it should be dropping in price slowly because Pteramander straight up replaced it.

 

[Hero]

Well, here's the answer on Hoogland.

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Pikachu shocked face for Jeff.

 

[Kirblar]

At 12:30 PM EST I was #88.

I ended at #171.

Top 8 qualifiers are gonna be a shitshow lol

 

[Deleted member 9100]

After playing around with an RDW deck for a bit, I've switched back to mono blue.

Once the meta settles more I'll go in on an expensive deck. Anyone know a good site for Magic Arena decks? I know plenty of sites with good MTG decks, but there's a huge difference between good Best of 3 and best of 1 decks.

 

[Deleted member 733]

Nah you made a good choice. There is nothing better than playing irl with a real person across the table from you.

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With some local stores that's probably true, but after playing in real life for the Allegiance prerelease it definitely left a sour taste (one person playing a card wrong to win 2 games in one case, another person claiming they were a level 2 judge and giving an incorrect interpretation in another case per the thread), loud/rude people, etc. Plus, it was such a pain dealing with physical cards and mana and all that. I love and prefer the Arena experience instead of real life, though I may still do a midnight event every 3-6 months for the novelty.

 

[GLHFGodbless]

With some local stores that's probably true, but after playing in real life for the Allegiance prerelease it definitely left a sour taste (one person playing a card wrong to win 2 games in one case, another person claiming they were a level 2 judge and giving an incorrect interpretation in another case per the thread), loud/rude people, etc. Plus, it was such a pain dealing with physical cards and mana and all that. I love and prefer the Arena experience instead of real life, though I may still do a midnight event every 3-6 months for the novelty.

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Someone winning off of using a card wrong for 2 GAMES seems like it's on you as much as them. I'm assuming said implied level 2 judge was some rando and not the actual judge overseeing the event, so that was on you guys as well. Basing irl magic off a single prerelease is kind of strange, but to each there own. My last couple of prereleases have been awesome, and surprisingly not smelly.

 

[Deleted member 733]

Someone winning off of using a card wrong for 2 GAMES seems like it's on you as much as them. I'm assuming said implied level 2 judge was some rando and not the actual judge overseeing the event, so that was on you guys as well. Basing irl magic off a single prerelease is kind of strange, but to each there own. My last couple of prereleases have been awesome, and surprisingly not smelly.

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...?

The person using the card wrong for 2 games wasn't in my games.

The person claiming to be a level 2 judge was contradicted by me and two other people as far as we could tell with our knowledge of the rules. What do you mean that "it's on you guys"? We could disagree with someone being a dick but that doesn't somehow cancel that they were being a dick, which affects the experience.

 

[Deleted member 29293]

He means you should have called the actual judge of the event, that is what they are there for.

Don't let this scare you away from paper events, especially in pre-releases it will just always be the case that people play cards wrong, it's the first time they see them. In that sense it really is up to you (or your wife I believe in this case) to also carefully read every card including your opponents. If there is any doubt you should just call a judge. And in the end it will just happen.

E.g. I completely missed that a mono color spell targeted my Sphinx eventhough we shortly before discussed this. I am pretty sure my opponent simple forgot as well. Most of the time there are no ill intensions.

 

[i hate cheaters]

so what kind of performance are people looking at to finish top 8 on arena ladder?

is there a bunch of rating creep over time and then having a top 8 determined by whoever has the best win streak in the final few hours of the month?
or can someone just win streak in the middle of the month and then not play the rest of the month?

or is it based on some overall performance measurement and not the final streak (which means your rank shouldn't really change too much based on recent results)?

 

[Deranged Hermit]

I was surprised by how abruptly WotC is shifting the tournament scene to Arena but honestly I shouldn't be. I was watching Magic streams until about 1AM and when I quit MtG still had almost 6k viewers. On a random Thursday night. You would never see numbers like that before. Popular mainstay streamers haven't really been established yet and the tournament season hasn't started either. Not that Twitch is the be all end all of a games success but I can see the game living in the Top 15 most viewed list if it keeps growing like this. Paper Magic isn't going anywhere because it's easy money but I can see Arena driving most decisions from now on and maybe it should.

 

[Schreckstoff]

They invited motherfucking thijs, dude hasn't played a second of arena outside 1 sponsored stream as far as I can tell and legit doesn't understand the game yet. What a joke of an event, particularly w/ caleb being passed over.

I mean I hope thijs grinds and prepares adequately but his priority unlike w/ former HS pros like Sjow and Savjz is still Hearthstone.

 

[Firemind]

How nice of Wizards to hand out byes in their new pro tour setup.

 

[Deleted member 733]

He means you should have called the actual judge of the event, that is what they are there for.

Don't let this scare you away from paper events, especially in pre-releases it will just always be the case that people play cards wrong, it's the first time they see them. In that sense it really is up to you (or your wife I believe in this case) to also carefully read every card including your opponents. If there is any doubt you should just call a judge. And in the end it will just happen.

E.g. I completely missed that a mono color spell targeted my Sphinx eventhough we shortly before discussed this. I am pretty sure my opponent simple forgot as well. Most of the time there are no ill intensions.

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I understand, yet I still believe people shouldn't be rude, stand up and yell, act like a dick, etc.

That's my point: A variety of things happened. Even if I had won my games and none of them were affected by the behavior of various people, people were still acting a certain way, and that affects the experience.

In short, my experience is not solely based on whether I or my wife won games.

And yes, obviously (as I started off by saying) this is probably not true in some game stores. I'm happy for you if you have a good one. I'm merely observing people in my own local circle and not making a statement about the worldwide community.

 

[Deleted member 29293]

I completely understand and didn't mean to come across as overly protective, just wanted to comment on the more rules specific issues a prerelease brings.