Magic the Gathering Arena

[Ranselknulf]

someone please explain cabal strongholds to me. The way I see it, requires 5th turn (4 swamps and stronghold) to break even. Whats the deal? whats the magical interaction to be excited about?

It used to be pretty gud when standard was a tad slower, and there was a viable monoblack deck around. It was used to make a lot of mana to temporarily pump a dread shade, or just resolve a fat walking Ballista. Occasionally it was used to kicker a Josu Vess, Lich Knight aswell.
The deck revolved around very strong removal in a meta where you were less likely to be 2v1 from a Krasis cast trigger or similar bullshit. The Stronghold just sacrifices extremely little (the difference between a B and a C is menial when 90% of your lands produce B) to occasionally win the game with a card you want to be running anyway. Same reason green plays castle Garenbrig as a 3x in Stompy.

I've seen monoblack decks doing this lately.

or if you want a black / white deck this with heliods intervention and "revenge"

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Chromatic mono-black was a half-assed thing for a while too. Get nearly infinite mana with strongholds and swamps, run Chromatic Lantern in your maindeck, then have a wishboard full of big expensive shit in any color and pull it out with Mastermind's Acquisition. Easier to get infinite mana now with simic colors and Fae of Wishes though, with ramp and mana boosting crap, so going the mono black route's kind of just straight worse. Especially in historic where some of the biggest bombs of Ulamog and Eugene are colorless anyway.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

150 gems free in the store today, or 500 for 1750 gold when you want to convert currencies!

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

in arena we got 3 blocks implemented right now. Now we get botched ankhmunamun block, lets make it 4. Forget about counting weird cases like anthologies, excluded jumpstart cards etc. Here comes my question:
How many blocks are actually missing to equalize historic and pioneer?

24 Expansions are missing. The abandoned the block structure along the way, so it's like 5-6 blocks.
Ravnica
Theros
Tarkir

--- switch to smaller two expansion blocks ---

Zendikar
Innistrad
Kaladesh

We do have however a lot of cards in the Historic anthology infusions which are not Pioneer legal and can only be played in Modern, so it will never be truly equalised.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

4th elves pack with Allosaurus Shepherd. Still no Basri packs. So help me god WotC you're going into the book of grudges.

(On the bright side at least I've picked up 3 copies of millman)

Edit: Got a third Tinybones though. I guess the rampage is called off for now. FOR NOW.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

"Oh I don't want to do this 750 gold daily for red/blue."

gets the same daily, only it's 500 gold

"No wait."

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

had a look at cards sampled from game files and I cant say im impressed.

honestly Im excited only about thoughtseize and torment of hellfire. Rest is meh unless Im missiing something(I mean not rly free counterspell is cool)

That + how they seem to be excluding quick draft event from that one + how this set is big + exclusion of usual limited get-a-lot-of-cards offer might mean Ill just go for wildcards

Wh*te
Approach of the second sun makes hard control more fun to face and play, because they actually get a playable card that wins the game.
The 3 mana gideon used to be pretty strong.
Solemnity is used in some cheese, you can do an infinite combo with Luminous Broodmoth and a free sac outlet.
If Wrath of God becomes historic legal that will make a splash.

BIG DICK GREEN
Hornet Queen is ridiculous
Prowling Serpopard is good for the sideboard of stompy
Maybe Rhonas?

Blue
Supreme Will

Red
Abrade is modern playable
Glorybringer used to be good
Hazoret is incredible
Soul Scar Mage

You are on point with Black, not too much good stuff imo

Golden and colourless
Locust and Scarab God
UG Nissa
Hollow One maybe, kinda needs stronger looting cards. Used to be one of the best decks in modern with Faithless Looting
God Pharaohs gift was a meme deck

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

don't sleep on hour of promise, manglehorn, combat celebrant, perilous vault and other niche stuff. set's full of good cards

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

how this set is big

That's the worst part in my mind. Assuming they're charging premium draft prices to play it in limited (Which is likely) and it's normal 1k gold per pack if you just want to crack packs, the set feels large enough that you'd be better served just saving gold for Zendikar and using wildcards on this. And probably Pioneer Masters in a few months. Then again I'm being an idiot and blowing tons of gold on Jumpstart so I dunno. I'm actually debating calling it quits on Jumpstart even though not getting that bling Plains chaps my ass, but pack selection's getting a little more awkward now.

 

[Thac0]

Has anyone tried to brew with the infinite spider combo already? I have been winning to many games recently and need to tank my winrate.
https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/combo-infinite/assure--assemble-sporeweb-weaver-terror-of-the-peaks

I am not even sure what colours I want to be in, assure means I can play it in Gruul or any 3 colour pair that has RG. Temur doesn't look too bad. Naya seems to be the standard choice with the 1/1 doggo as an alternative indestructible choice. Jund could include a few copies of Grim Tutor. I am somewhat tempted as the combo is usually game winning.

I think I have to build it more as a midrange deck with an alternative combo win, since the combo is 8-9 mana over multiple turns and quite easy to disrupt. I don't think there are any viable Naya or Jund shells atm tho, and it doesn't mesh that well with Temur or Gruul in my experience.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

thing is, with 2k fee and how packed jumpstart is with gimmick enablers, its hard to pass on that one already. You are likely to get at least 1 fun card

Yup, that's why I've been hemorrhaging gold to it. Does make me twitch a little bit just because I usually burn my gold on packs, which means I've been sacrificing a ton of wildcards in favor of Jumpstart, buuuuuuuut Jumpstart's also fun to play so I dunno.

Been playing a little bit of actual standard now too, tried an Izzet mill netdeck (Because fuck the police, I love mill and I love Izzet) and even though that's quite cool I was getting my ass kicked non-stop. Was hitting nothing but max-aggro red or counter-tribal blue/Azorius opponents. Then I did some generic sultai ramp and whiffed on drawing land in a 28 land deck many times and decided maybe I shouldn't be playing Magic today. Did tweak the mill deck to have a bit more aggro protection but even that doesn't help much against the 3cmc red dude that poops out tokens on death unless you have the exile blaster for 'em. It is fun to play though. I liked Psychic Corrosion more than Drowned Secrets anyway, and Tutelage is straight up better than Corrosion (In 1 vs 1).

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

awww yissss, finally got my liliana!

Congrats! Hopefully I'll get that luck soon and get A GODDAMN BASRI PACK SWEAR TO FUCKING CHRIST WOTC THAT GAP IN MY LAND ART WILL NOT STAND

you know what else will be funny? If they release ankhmunamun and besides other issues, they dont give 3 packs code

I'll actually be surprised if they give us a code. With a giant set like that 3 packs should be absolutely nothing but I still figure they're going to stiff us.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Huh. Some surprising spice in the "Generic-ass Arena only cards" that showed up with the new decks, Mardu Outrider. 1BB for a 5/5 and as an additional casting cost discard a card. That actually sounds really fucking playable for reanimator decks and black aggro. Soulhunter Rakshasa and Nightmare for swamp tribal, too, but those aren't nearly as interesting.

something weird with new decks and awarded(or not) cards. Can I check my collection somehow in meaningful way?

Looks like how it worked last rotation where they don't give you copies of cards you already owned, but you get copies of cards you didn't. So if you had even a single copy of Brazen Borrower for example, you won't get another one with the precon. But if you had 0 borrowers then you'd now have 1 in your collection.

Edit: Interestingly enough, Scryfall is showing some cards that don't appear in Arena (Like Goblin Grenade, GIVE ME GOBLIN GRENADE) but isn't showing other new cards, like Mardu Outrider.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Looks like how it worked last rotation where they don't give you copies of cards you already owned, but you get copies of cards you didn't. So if you had even a single copy of Brazen Borrower for example, you won't get another one with the precon. But if you had 0 borrowers then you'd now have 1 in your collection.

i know, but then I recall all the cards being from proper sets, now they are not. And that set is not filterable. That leaves me confused how I can easily browse those

in other news, someone in here please tell me how greedy players are in ankhmunamun premier drafts. My will is weak

Nah, they always had some weird cards like that. It's just previously it was a handful of cards, and now all the mono decks are that Arena-only printing for some dumb reason. Even worse since I have no idea as to the legality of the cards, like will those cards always be standard legal? Not terribly important, but who knows.

You also can view the cards, you just have to text-search within Arena because WotC gonna WotC. In the search box, type "e:anb" without quotes to see the cards. You can also type "e:ana" to see the previous Arena-only cards.