Magic the Gathering Arena

[Thac0]

maybe if we get games played instead of daily wins we will see weird decks in general queue. Its too similar to ranked right now

Card game devs are usually scittish around this, since it leads to people conceding first second for fast games. However there are a million ways to circumvent that, easiest of all by just counting games that either ended normally, or that your opponent conceded for dailies.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

ooof had one of those multi-game losing streaks yesterday where opponents nut drew perfect answers to everything while half the time I had to mulligan zero-land starting hands (deck has 28 lands btw LOL) and all the other bad luck shit that drives me nuts. and this was in BO3! literally rage uninstalled and computer almost went out the window haha break time see yall next month

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

NUFFLE BE PRAISED, finally got the millman. I mean ideally I'd like a playset, but at least I got one and the cool island.

Only other pack I kinda want to get at least a single of now is Basri, just 'cause I've got all the other M21 bling-lands and I like how they look on Arena. Since land gets postage-stamped I'm not as keen on fullarts, and even art I enjoy doesn't stand out as much as the bling borders. If I manage to bag a Basri I may call it quits/good enough on Jumpstart, but otherwise I'll keep trucking for a while.

Edit: And then second Jumpstart run of the day and I got mill a second time, hot damn. Still not sure he'll be worth it in historic since running creatures outside of chumps like wall/fishchick is just asking to enable my opponent's removal, but still. Mill is peak MTG performance.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Is the upcoming Amonkghdtdyfdet remastered thing going to have proper boosters and stuff or is it going to be some Jumpstart limited time thingy?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I am defeated by Pirates/Walls. Still haven't gotten a single win with it, so clearly this is the end of my Jumpstart spending since I'll never be able to escape from a bunch of so-so creatures without evasion and a bunch of defenders.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

7-0 Dominaria Premier Draft with literally the most jank shit possible. 3 Colours, two legendary spells with 3 legendary creatures.

Deck

Spoiler

This should not have worked at all, half of those win conditions are like tier3-4 on limited tierlists. I have a new favourite card, absolutely unplayable in all formats but its hype as fuck.

The lore behind it is amazing, art and flavour is absolutely on point and the flavourtext is one of the best modern WOTC has ever been written. Won two games with it with the biggest smile on my face.
This is Gerrard, Captain of the magic spaceship the weatherlight, killing Urza, literally the strongest mage in existance and his friend, on the command Yawgmoth, Urzas enemy turned into a dark god and one of the most potent beings in the entire Magic lore. Gerrard gets his Wife Hanna ressurected for the murder, but it is merely a soulless copy under Yawgmoths control. As such Yawgmoth wins on both ends of the trade.
Centuries ago, a mad god offered a simple trade

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

It's such a slamdunk if it goes off. Might work with 4 copies of a 2 mana legendary, Naban Dean of Iteration was what made the card kick in all of my games.
I just wonder if anyone would ever play it in contructed over The Eldest Reborn. Gives you even more cardadvantage in a single card, although it can be stopped, but needs zero enablers and will never brick your hand when playing against hard control.
I have thought about Esper maybe, Tef3ri can be surpsingly sticky and him being on the board enables legendary sorceries.

 

[Alphard]

So is there a beginner guide to how spend in game money and wich packs to buy for a beginner? is this like YO and hearthstone and you can't obtain all cards as f2p unless you grind 24/24?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Supposedly we're gonna get more info on Anhkagmaoph remastered on the 6th, so THURSDAY-THURSDAY-THURSDAY. No idea if they'll detail what the pricing will be but since that's just a week from launch I'd fucking hope.

I am defeated by Pirates/Walls. Still haven't gotten a single win with it, so clearly this is the end of my Jumpstart spending since I'll never be able to escape from a bunch of so-so creatures without evasion and a bunch of defenders.

hah, it reminds me of my archeology wizards with scarecrone and riptide laboratory. Deck couldnt do SHIT. I think id wish for pirates at a time, at least they got fliers. Just wait for someone to get mana screwed like I did

I did eventually get through, but that one took the cake for most painful Jumpstart run. Oddly enough it was the walls that stole a couple wins, one game getting beats in with a couple 4/4s with the enchantment, and then another game dropping the fatass giant and my opponent thankfully didn't have an answer. Pirate fliers always just ate removal sadly. Current deck waiting to be played tomorrow (Since I'm playing about two Jumpstart runs a day now, GOLD RESERVES DWINDLING) has a riptide wizard pack in it so hopefully it doesn't end up really painful. Minotaur/wizards. COULD get ugly.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

So is there a beginner guide to how spend in game money and wich packs to buy for a beginner? is this like YO and hearthstone and you can't obtain all cards as f2p unless you grind 24/24?

Don't know of a handy guide, but by and large you should be buying packs/drafting for the sets that aren't going to rotate in a few months. Which is to say Throne of Eldraine, Theros, Ikoria, and M21. You won't be able to obtain all the cards unless you git gud at drafting and play a lot of draft, but you should be able to keep up with standard decently enough and have a few viable decks once you get enough wildcards stashed away. You're probably shit out of luck on historic unless WotC changes how that functions and makes historic cards dramatically cheaper somehow.

Worst thing for a new player right now is I'm not sure if there are any standard competitive decks that have really low rare/mythic counts. You used to be able to play shit like mono blue tempo and even (To a degree) RDW, but now I think mono green's the aggro beater and it's heavy on rares and mythics. Maybe meowschwitz.

 

[Thac0]

So is there a beginner guide to how spend in game money and wich packs to buy for a beginner? is this like YO and hearthstone and you can't obtain all cards as f2p unless you grind 24/24?

Some rough guidelines:

1. Never use gems for packs.
2. Do not try to aquire cards which arent from standard sets at first
3. Try to only get cards from Edraine, Theros, Ikoria, Core 21 and later sets, those stay legal until end of 21.
4. Play Draft/Sealed whenever you have the gold/gems for it and feel like it, highly efficient for both currencies and fun. Also its your only way to aquire gems as a F2P by buying into draft with gold.
5. If playing Draft/Sealed use a guide at first and play events with a low entry cost for lower risks
6. The mastery pass is usually worth it to get when a new expansion drops. It costs a hefty amount of gems but if you complete it you get a lot of stuff. Do not buy it when you cant complete it.
7. Never play events which cost something and only reward cosmetics unless you want those. Always play events which cost nothing
8. Your main income are your daily quest which stack up to three quests. You can reroll 500g quests for 750g quests if you want.
9. Rare Wildcards are your most valuable commodity, hord them like a dragon. Common and uncommon wildcards are chuff, spend them like you are Mansa Musa. Mythic Wildcards are somewhere in between.
10. The beginner pack in the store has incredible value.
11. Get to gold in both Historic and standard once for each months season. This will reward you with a nice amount of extra boosters and can be achieved even with atrocious decks just by grinding

Now some tips just to have more fun and not get burned out
1. Play Jumpstart for fun, you can get fair and fun games for a low price, but many of the cards arent standard legal. Alternatively only play Jumpstart and disregard all other advice.
2. Play Brawl as a very random, but also very beginnerfriendly format. Decks are less hardcore and you can only play 1 copy of each card at most, making decks rather cheap.
3. Play the causal queue over the ranked queue. Enemy decks will be much weaker

As for how greedy this game is, it is pretty chill. Having complete standard collections just by F2P gameplay is rather easy, having full historc collections means you need to optimise and no-life the game, but it isnt impossible either. Going "infinite" or pseudo-infinite in the arena like gamemodes is much easier in this game compared to Hearthstone and the payouts are stupid good, but even apart from that the game gives you enough packs.

 

[spectre]

So is there a beginner guide to how spend in game money and wich packs to buy for a beginner? is this like YO and hearthstone and you can't obtain all cards as f2p unless you grind 24/24?

Keeping up with the new releases as f2p is doable. If you focus and don't spend your resources on unimportant shit, you should be able to get your hands on the majority of competitive decks out there. Perhaps even all of them.
You won't get all the cards, but there's a lot of crap out there as well as a lot of reprints. So you don't really want or need to have everything.
The historic cardpool is getting bigger and bigger, which makes it difficult to catch up with even if you pay money, but a lot of it is crap due to the noticeable power creep.

There are probably guides out there on yewtube, but the gist of it is as follows - you don't have to grind it every day, it's very easy to get burned out on this game if you do.
Pick a pace you're comfortable with - you will be getting up to three daily quests, it's okay to let them accumulate and try to get the ones that are worth 750 geld (no biggie if you don't).
First win of the day also awards you witn 250 gold, then takes a sharp dive.
At the bare minimum, you should be fine logging in every three days to clear the daily quests and weekly quests, this way you're not losing much.
The most optimal approach is probably logging in eveyr day and play to 1-4 wins, you hit diminishing returns afterwards.
Of course, that would be the long term grind. As long as you're enjoying yourself, nothing bad about playing to 15 wins to get all the stuff you can for each day.

Next step is how to spend them shekels. Basically, you an buy packs directly, play draft (premier draft of quick draft), play Jumpstart, enter events.
Take your time and pick the path that works the best for you. There are plenty of analyses out there, though it all boils to one thing what kind of winrate can you reasonably achieve.
Your first objective is to get a semi-decent budget deck together, then work your way towards top tier decks. For optimal results, you want to play some constructed and some drafts.
By playing drafts, you can earn the in-game premium currency, which should let you buy a Mastery Pass, which is one of the few things worth buying.
See below for a more detailed breakdown:

Jumpstart - not sure how long this one's going to be avaiable, but it's rather good value for beginners. You get a nice chunk of cards, more than just by buying boosters,
the catch is, some will not be playable in standard. Then you can play with other guys with jumpstart cards to earn two more rares. it's a nice way to build you collection for both standard and historic
and gives you a level playing field (everyone plays with the same cards, collection size doesn't matter). Your winrate also doesn't matter in this mode.

Drafts - drafts take a different kind of skill than constructed, but can be very rewarding, like I said, it's a way to earn premium currency, but you will also keep all the cards you picked to build your deck,
so it will build your collection rather nicely. As above, your collection doesn't matter because you only play with the cards you draft. Quick drafts are good for practice, if you're not sure if you can pull any wins at all.
You should try Premier Drafts if you're comfortable with the mode and can get some wins, preferably more than 50% win rate. Leave Traditional Draft to limited specialists.
It's possible to earn more rewards than the entry cost, which is obviously nice (but don't count on it happening all the time). If you're really good, you can build your collection rearlly fast this way.

Buying packs - most straightforward way of building your collection. You will get the most wildcards this way which you can spend to get any card of a given rarity. This is the best way to spend gold if you have a clear idea about what cards you want,
but you'll probably be getting more bang for your buck by playing drafts from this set. This option is attractive if you suck at drafts and want to build towards a competitive deck.
As to the question, which packs to buy, there's no good answer cause it all boils down to one thing - what you want to play. As a new player, you should probably focus on the latest expansion set, but every expansion has useful stuff
which you will want to get at some point.

Events - if you look at the reward structure, you will see that events let you earn additional gold once you've hit the maximum number of wins each day. It's a bit of a pipe dream, because just breaking even in this mode can be challenging,
even for experienced players with good decks. However, it can be worthwhile if you're able to get a 50% winrate. You will get three uncommons from each run, which is bad if you went 0:3 and had to pay 500 gold for them,
but isn't terrible if you only lose 100 - 200 gold for that run and your collection is small enough for the three uncommons to matter.

So, to sum it up, for earning gold I would login every day and play for 4 wins (which is where the diminishing returns start), less than that if I'm feeling burned out. Don't be hasty to spend your gold. It's okay to let it accumulate.
You won't feel much of a difference by blowing 2k, so might as well save for, say, two or three quick drafts.
Try ranking up in constructed in limited, go as high as convenient (you should be able to achieve gold in both modes with no problems even as a beginner, platinum is no biggie
for folks that know what they're doing). You want to play both modes to get the end of the season rewards.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Alphard]

Thank you all guys. If i decide to install the game i will ask here for further advice

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Dude's a bit of a pain to listen to, but mono black vampires feat. DJ Vito. Definitely a different take than what I was going for, doing the infinite combo (Maybe that got fixed? Haven't watched the whole thing so I haven't even seen the combo go off yet) route but backing it up with a bit more standard vampire-shell. Rejiggered a bit to get that great 2 drop vamp in and get shenanigans with silversmote and Sorin (Which works with Vito too, pretty cool) and just in general looks like a lot of fun. I really need to craft 3 more Sorins. And then 1 or 2 Exquisite Blood, forget how many I've pulled in Jumpstart. Avoiding vampire packs since I've maxed on Vito but I think I only got Blood and the mythic vamp once each.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

For the record you can also use Epicure of Blood for Exquisite Blood's infinity combo.

A good budget option if you really want to try it (Epicure is a common) but lack the rare wildcards. It also may be able to sneak itself in since most people want to kill Vito ASAP.

 

[Twizman]

Can I just wait until a deck appears that I'm all in on and buy a ton of packs to get there? Or is this similar to hearthstone where best to start gradual grind over time. Very interested in historic.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

holy shit
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/august-8-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement

Standard
Wilderness Reclamation is banned.
Growth Spiral is banned.
Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.
Cauldron Familiar is banned.

Historic
Wilderness Reclamation is suspended.
Teferi, Time Raveler is suspended.

Brawl
Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.

maybe my cyclone deck will be more playable now (probably not). still pretty pissed about mayhem devil not being banned, and the sack deck not getting any sort of restriction in historic even though it's possibly the strongest deck there (and has all standard cards)