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

dadjumper · Feb 7, 2019

Well, after all the hype around here I went ahead and bought the ultra-budget gates deck. My first time buying a whole deck as singles outright. Looking forward to messing around with that with my friend next week.

P.S. A whole lot of this thread sure is Arena, huh? I guess it would be counter to discussion to segregate Arena talk to its OT, but sure feels weird bouncing between the two threads and getting basically the same conversations

onpoint · Feb 7, 2019

I would complain about all the Arena talk if I still played paper, or hell, if I played much at all. But it's where magic is heading

Boogiepop · Feb 8, 2019

So... this commander seems like the kind of thing that could have some interesting combos and synergy, but glancing at the sample deck it seems the person just used it to enable bird tribal as a thing instead which seems... odd. Got plenty of other options I'm looking at anyway, but yeah...

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/commander-derevi-empyrial-tactician-65917#paper

Ashodin · Feb 8, 2019

dadjumper said:
Well, after all the hype around here I went ahead and bought the ultra-budget gates deck. My first time buying a whole deck as singles outright. Looking forward to messing around with that with my friend next week.

P.S. A whole lot of this thread sure is Arena, huh? I guess it would be counter to discussion to segregate Arena talk to its OT, but sure feels weird bouncing between the two threads and getting basically the same conversations

I blame AG because he talks about Arena a lot.

Imperfected · Feb 8, 2019

I mean the same conversations happen in Arena and paper Magic threads because they're the same game if you play Standard.

It's not like people didn't talk about MTGO in here before, it was just proportionately less because proportionately fewer people play MTGO.

Angry Grimace · Feb 8, 2019

Ashodin said:
I blame AG because he talks about Arena a lot.

I mean it's Magic

onpoint · Feb 8, 2019

On second thought I think it's fine and kind of redundant that there's an Arena thread on the gaming side.

It's a heavily played and streamed video game now, so, I dunno. Maybe there should be one thread and it should JUST be on the gaming side.

Or don't listen to me because I'm not a mod haha

aidan · Feb 8, 2019

Hands up if you've played more games of paper Magic in the past six months than games on Arena.

onpoint · Feb 8, 2019

aidan said:
Hands up if you've played more games of paper Magic in the past six months than games on Arena.

Me, I have played exactly zero Arena games total.

I suspect I will be in the vast minority.

Boogiepop · Feb 8, 2019

So, I'm guessing Lyra is going to drop in price heavily once she's out of standard, yeah? Because I'm considering some sort of angel commander deck, but I could probably deal with the hit of her not being in it for a bit in order to save some money...

On a related note: Checklands are rotating out, but are pretty evergreen in use. Any point to waiting on those, or are they probably going to maintain their value?

dadjumper · Feb 8, 2019

aidan said:
Hands up if you've played more games of paper Magic in the past six months than games on Arena.

Maybe about the same amount?? Having just got into the game in the last 6 months I'm very hyped on paper so

Ashodin · Feb 8, 2019

Boogiepop said:
So, I'm guessing Lyra is going to drop in price heavily once she's out of standard, yeah? Because I'm considering some sort of angel commander deck, but I could probably deal with the hit of her not being in it for a bit in order to save some money...

On a related note: Checklands are rotating out, but are pretty evergreen in use. Any point to waiting on those, or are they probably going to maintain their value?

EDH wants baneslayers

Check out this crazy game I just had

RW Exalted vs. Bant Tokens

This is game 2, he sideboarded in ALL removal, basically had to play the waiting game of topdeck mode, where he topdecked Shalai, Trostani, History after History, Baffling End x4, Conclave, all just to stop me and Exaltation, where the last topdeck he did was Lyra and I tribunal'd it away for good. Literally held at 1 with the timer and then gave up peacefully.

It was an amazing battle

BabyMurloc · Feb 8, 2019

ZealousD said:
Are you honestly surprised that jank brews can't get over 50% winrates?

More like the part where burn gets 70% at the same time. Pushed cards are getting too much. Or maybe they always were, and it's just Arena giving everyone the volume of games where it becomes evident.

dadjumper said:
P.S. A whole lot of this thread sure is Arena, huh? I guess it would be counter to discussion to segregate Arena talk to its OT, but sure feels weird bouncing between the two threads and getting basically the same conversations

I didn't know that thread was still alive.

Justin · Feb 8, 2019

aidan said:
Hands up if you've played more games of paper Magic in the past six months than games on Arena.

Me! I haven't played since it moved to open beta. I think the social part of magic is a big part of my enjoyment and it's obviously missin from Arena.

Zerokku · Feb 8, 2019

aidan said:
Hands up if you've played more games of paper Magic in the past six months than games on Arena.

*Raises hand*

I basically only use Arena to test out my janky-as-fuck ideas to see if they're remotely playable/competitive before I bother building them in paper magic.

Justin · Feb 8, 2019

Hasbro earnings are out for Q4. The gaming revision took a beating and was down 22% but Magic and D&D were up for the quarter and the year so everything else must be dragging them down. We won't get exact numbers for MTG but they specifically called out Magic revenues as helping offset Hasbro's increases in spending in 2018 so they must be doing pretty good. So just as expected, WOTC is one of the only entities that is currently profitable while the rest of Hasbro is a dumpster fire.

aidan · Feb 8, 2019

Just in case anyone was still under the false impression that paper magic had any place in the pro magic scene going forward.

We've had a name change! This account is still the place for competitive Magic content, including the Magic Pro League and Mythic Championship series. Can't wait to see you all for #2019MC1 at #MTGCleveland in two weeks on http://twitch.tv/magic !

Deleted member 733 · Feb 8, 2019

It's interesting to see times changing after I finally get into Magic for the first time. It doesn't affect me since I'm almost exclusively a digital player, but I wonder how the two sides will coexist going forwards.

f0rk · Feb 8, 2019

That's so dumb lol

Firemind · Feb 8, 2019

Blizzard said:
It's interesting to see times changing after I finally get into Magic for the first time. It doesn't affect me since I'm almost exclusively a digital player, but I wonder how the two sides will coexist going forwards.

It'll widen the gap of the kitchen table players even further. Pro players will probably be forced to go digital or quit.

Imperfected · Feb 8, 2019

Boogiepop said:
So, I'm guessing Lyra is going to drop in price heavily once she's out of standard, yeah? Because I'm considering some sort of angel commander deck, but I could probably deal with the hit of her not being in it for a bit in order to save some money...

On a related note: Checklands are rotating out, but are pretty evergreen in use. Any point to waiting on those, or are they probably going to maintain their value?

Lyra will drop, yeah. She doesn't have much of a home anywhere else.

Checklands have been printed a billion times and will continue to be printed back into Standard, barring something massively unforeseen. Their price might fluctuate very slightly on rotation, but probably not enough to be worth the time you're going to spend watching the price tracker. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Carthago Delenda Est · Feb 8, 2019

Boogiepop said:
So... this commander seems like the kind of thing that could have some interesting combos and synergy, but glancing at the sample deck it seems the person just used it to enable bird tribal as a thing instead which seems... odd. Got plenty of other options I'm looking at anyway, but yeah...

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/commander-derevi-empyrial-tactician-65917#paper

The commander used to be among the best years ago. People just ran hardcore stax with her untapping and avoidance of the commander tax to break the symmetry. She's pretty hated at most tables still for that.

BabyMurloc · Feb 9, 2019

I think WotC should've made more effort to become an esport before announcing that name change. Currently Arena has no infrastructure to support pro-level tournaments and there is no schedule for any competitive content on their other platforms.

edit: I can already imagine the coders given a month or two to implement that functionality, poor bastards.

Schreckstoff · Feb 9, 2019

I mean they probably came up with duo standard since they weren't gonna be ready with bo3 direct challenges in time

Deranged Hermit · Feb 9, 2019

BabyMurloc said:
I think WotC should've made more effort to become an esport before announcing that name change. Currently Arena has no infrastructure to support pro-level tournaments and there is no schedule for any competitive content on their other platforms.

edit: I can already imagine the coders given a month or two to implement that functionality, poor bastards.

One of the reasons they greenlit Arena in the first place was because they wanted it to be an esports platform. I'm pretty sure they've already got tournament functionality up and running.

Kirblar · Feb 9, 2019

Deranged Hermit said:
One of the reasons they greenlit Arena in the first place was because they wanted it to be an esports platform. I'm pretty sure they've already got tournament functionality up and running.

Narrator: "They don't."

Ashodin · Feb 9, 2019

standard showdown was good to me:

Imperfected · Feb 9, 2019

I'm kind of enjoying Legion Warboss + Priest of Forgotten Gods + Judith, even if it doesn't really cleanly answer all the stupid Wilderness Reclamation and Teferi Control decks running wild or even mono-red for that matter.

Ashodin · Feb 9, 2019

Imperfected Here's my Mardu Hero list:

https://deckbox.org/sets/2250927

It's pretty damn fun. Heroic is just such a beating.

QFNS · Feb 9, 2019

Been watching the SCG Tour stream today and a player has proxies for Nexus of Fate in his deck. Is that allowed? I would figure that they'd require you to actually have the cards to use them.

Ashodin · Feb 9, 2019

QFNS said:
Been watching the SCG Tour stream today and a player has proxies for Nexus of Fate in his deck. Is that allowed? I would figure that they'd require you to actually have the cards to use them.

Yes, because nexus is only in foil

Justin · Feb 9, 2019

QFNS said:
Been watching the SCG Tour stream today and a player has proxies for Nexus of Fate in his deck. Is that allowed? I would figure that they'd require you to actually have the cards to use them.

You have to present the actual cards to the head judge and they make the proxy for you.

SigmasonicX · Feb 10, 2019

circulo-dorado asked: Is the black enchantment removal hypothetical a "this is really just a fancy but it's something we think about from time to time" or is it more "we have had serious discussions about this and are curious what player reactions would be?"
It's something we've talked seriously about.

February 09, 2019

captainnv asked: I rather like Black's willingness to use dangerous enchantments (Demonic Pact, Triskaidekaphobia) without easy answers if things go wrong.
Any black enchantment removal probably wouldn't destroy its own enchantments.

February 09, 2019

For context, MaRo mentioned I think a week ago that R&D has been discussing whether enchantment destruction should be in a third color, and black has been the most likely candidate.

Imperfected · Feb 10, 2019

Ashodin said:
Imperfected Here's my Mardu Hero list:

https://deckbox.org/sets/2250927

It's pretty damn fun. Heroic is just such a beating.

I pulled out of Mardu into just straight Rakdos because I'd rather have the speed to sometimes roll over the Reclamation combo and Tefire control decks than have the midrange to slug it out with Krasus. It's one of those deals where given the choice, I'll take fast games over the format's slow decks over winning a roughly equal number of mid-length games against the fair decks and dying of old age fighting the durdles.

Probably the reason mono-red's over-represented on Arena. Better to live fast and die young than win consistently with a deck that takes an hour to cross the finish line.

Ashodin · Feb 10, 2019

Mortify hits the reclamation though.

Deleted member 2809 · Feb 10, 2019

Beat trash deck
They T6 absolution
Good stuff.

SigmasonicX · Feb 10, 2019

This Drive to Work podcast about direct damage mentions that they consider black dealing damage to players (instead of making them lose life) a failure, around 11:20. It added too much text to common black effects, players didn't like it, and it make black spells feel too similar to red spells. He isn't sure when they stopped using this, so it's possible we'll see more of these cards in War of the Spark. That is to say, instead of cards like

We'll get this cards like these again

(Just talking ability, not card power)

Angry Grimace · Feb 10, 2019

Sultai Krasis wins an awful lot in BO3 for me. Arena players are kinda clueless on sideboarding. If you have a specific plan for deck types you can just own everyone. I don't think I have literally ever lost to a Teferi deck in BO3 with it.

Mono Blue and Gates are dicey as fuck though.

dohdeaux · Feb 10, 2019

Just got back into magic after selling all my cards 25 years ago -_- Friend made me a deck for Christmas and it sucked me right back in. I'm a strictly paper magic player as I'm a console pleb so I'm with the paper players!!! :) I got excited and bought 3 Mythic Edition Ravnica so now I'm just sitting on two looking silly. But I do love the fancy foils and mythic cards now. So many cards to catch up on, feeling overwhelmed at times.

Edit: spelling error

Orb · Feb 10, 2019

Does anyone know if the Commander precon decks include a normal-sized version of the commander card as well as the oversized version?

Justin · Feb 10, 2019

Orb said:
Does anyone know if the Commander precon decks include a normal-sized version of the commander card as well as the oversized version?

Yes, they include the normal sized card.

Boogiepop · Feb 11, 2019

Welp, finally pulled the trigger and sold my old Bayou and Tropical Island plus 1 Teferi to fund some commander stuff... and then went more than a little overboard buying extra stuff, but whatever, it's my rare splurging on Magic. Going from just having the modified Cat commander precon to adding on Angels and Merfolk, plus Karametra and Sigarda Heron's Grace (aka human tribal, mostly). Planning on grabbing a few bits and bobs with rotation still, though (Resplendent Angel and Lyra Dawnbringer, plus Jadelight Ranger which I imagine will especially drop in price), plus that's likely when I'll go ahead and build Dino commander.

Also, went kinda crazy and just grabbed all the angels and merfolk that I liked the look of and/or figured would be useful. Which fortunately, the ones I was mainly just buying for art were largely pretty cheap. But yeah, net question is... any particularly good options for binders or whatever for my cards I'm not actively using? I especially remember when I was a kid, I had trouble with the pages always having the damn cards slide out really easily...

IceMarker · Feb 11, 2019

What appears to be a really awesome QoL patch for Arena is coming on Valentine's Day!

Serule · Feb 11, 2019

Arena format rotation is annoying. IMO they should always have a queue for each major format. I like playing sealed, and it's not always available. I had gold to burn this weekend and wanted to spend it on ranked draft and I couldn't find it. Maybe I just missed it, but that's a different issue - the way events are presented is kind of crummy, the two standard / advanced tabs seem pretty random.

Deleted member 733 · Feb 11, 2019

Serule said:
Arena format rotation is annoying. IMO they should always have a queue for each major format. I like playing sealed, and it's not always available. I had gold to burn this weekend and wanted to spend it on ranked draft and I couldn't find it. Maybe I just missed it, but that's a different issue - the way events are presented is kind of crummy, the two standard / advanced tabs seem pretty random.

Yeah ranked draft had been up. The best way is to click advanced, then click play. You'll see a list of all formats.

Serule · Feb 11, 2019

Blizzard said:
Yeah ranked draft had been up. The best way is to click advanced, then click play. You'll see a list of all formats.

Thanks for tip. For whatever reason I was thinking clicking "play" always was ranked constructed.

The Adder · Feb 11, 2019

SigmasonicX said:
This Drive to Work podcast about direct damage mentions that they consider black dealing damage to players (instead of making them lose life) a failure, around 11:20. It added too much text to common black effects, players didn't like it, and it make black spells feel too similar to red spells. He isn't sure when they stopped using this, so it's possible we'll see more of these cards in War of the Spark. That is to say, instead of cards like

We'll get this cards like these again

(Just talking ability, not card power)

Great!

In other news, I love this deck so much. Need suggestions for what to board in against control. I've currently got two Detection Towers in the board to beat out Hexproof, but curious what else I should add.

White
4 Ajani's Welcome
4 Healer's Hawk
4 Leonin Vanguard
4 Adanto Vanguard
4 Ajani's Pridemate
2 Dawn of Hope

Black
2 Font of Agonies
3 Nightmare's Thirst
2 Arguel's Blood Fast

Orzhov
2 Consecrate // Consume
2 Revival // Revenge
4 Mortify Artifact
3 Fountain of Renewal

Land
7 Plains
6 Swamp
3 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel

Angry Grimace · Feb 11, 2019

Serule said:
Arena format rotation is annoying. IMO they should always have a queue for each major format. I like playing sealed, and it's not always available. I had gold to burn this weekend and wanted to spend it on ranked draft and I couldn't find it. Maybe I just missed it, but that's a different issue - the way events are presented is kind of crummy, the two standard / advanced tabs seem pretty random.

The way Arena lists things actually sucks. They do a really poor job of explaining what the formats actually are and what they do.

f0rk · Feb 11, 2019

Wizards continuing to support European magic by overlapping a gp/PT with a prerelease. Thanks all

Bigkrev · Feb 11, 2019

New Survey, focusing on how much you spend on various products, where you buy them, your favorite formats, etc
https://t.co/l3pKrvrPWB
Funny, Alpha Investments is one of the 9 content creators they have as an option for "what Podcasts/Livestreams/Youtubers do you watch"

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

Neon Deity Games

One Winged Slayer

Neon Deity Games

Neon Deity Games

One Winged Slayer

One Winged Slayer

One Winged Slayer

One Winged Slayer

One Winged Slayer

User requested account closure