Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

bots seem to avoid picking omnath... yay wildcards!

I mean it does stand to reason, he's absolute hot liquid shit for limited. But if you're raredrafting then he's a godsend.

first time i paid(pre release 50 packs) and likely last time. Im very unhappy with wotc recently, to me those are signs of dying game.

I'm pretty leery on 'em too. Paper feels like it's worse off than digital, but they've been nibbling away at Arena. Or rather, Arena's been LARGELY the same but the addition of historic-specific cards makes it much harder to keep up. If it was just standard then it'd not too bad, but Pioneer Masters and Kaladesh coming up soon are going to be a bit costly. Gut feeling is use a bit of gold for standard, save wildcards entirely for historic, and then maaaaaaaybe open a little bit of historic-only sets. Although honestly with the power level of new shit being so high it's probably safer just to use wildcards on oddball important stuff like CoCo and Thoughtseize. Still want to have 50k gold around for the next historic anthology though.

Yeah Wotc is becoming exponentially more jewish by the hour. I havn't payed for anything in this game since Eldraine or so, maybe Theros, but I still complemented quitting Arena to not even give them my time anymore.
Problem is there isn't too much competition.

They completely revamped Gwent into shit, Hearthstone is a joke, Duelist is dead, Spellweaver is almost dead, Elder Scrolls Legends is dead (I believe), Artifact is currently reincarnating, Runeterra has soulless megacorp devs aswell, Hex is shutting down.

ESL I think is technically still around but not being worked on, so it's BASICALLY dead. Runeterra is run by a soulless megacorp but (So far) is pretty generous on free to play and (Last time I played, which has been a few months since even though I had a decent time with it I realized historic was more enjoyable than standard) has/had decent deck variety. And lord knows on Artifact, I liked Artifact and it felt like it had the most consistently tight games of any other card game and a lot of points to potentially turn a match around, but it was also a tiring/draining game to play since it rewarded paying close attention to it so much. I've been in the Artifact 2.0 beta for ages but I haven't bothered playing it since I don't feel like investing the time to learn to play it while the cards are still actively being overhauled in a major way. And like you said, Gwent was completely lobotomized.

Which all that is to say, yeah MTGA is still the best option. And now that historic's had a few standard rotations and had some cards printed just for it, it's different enough from standard that I can ignore 24/7 Omnath. Although I've been playing jank in unranked since Zendikar hit so I don't know if historic's an Omnath shitshow or not.

 

[spectre]

Which all that is to say, yeah MTGA is still the best option. And now that historic's had a few standard rotations and had some cards printed just for it, it's different enough from standard that I can ignore 24/7 Omnath. Although I've been playing jank in unranked since Zendikar hit so I don't know if historic's an Omnath shitshow or not.

From my experience, not really. Pre-zendikar I played a lot of Bo3 it was mostly ramp vs. goblins vs. various breeds of BR and GBR food (these are different decks of course, but I tend to file them under one thing as a good chunk of the list is the same,
the biggest distinction being does it run cat+oven or no). Post rotation, I'm mostly seeing goblins and BR arcanist in Bo1 platinum. I've seen people attempt Rogues, but that quickly fell short. It just doesn't compete imo. Same could be said for Omnath,
unlike standard, the removal is pretty good, and a deck with very little interaction will soon find itself on the receiving end of a 20/21 unblockable, lifelinking Kor Spiritdancer. I played one game like this, we went off with all the shit, Terror of the Teats,
Cobra, triggered Omnath a few times raising the life total to 16, even went through with an Escape. Once he was done (and it took some fucking time), I swung for 14 with two All that Glitters, topped off with a Kalimera's Blessing.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Which all that is to say, yeah MTGA is still the best option. And now that historic's had a few standard rotations and had some cards printed just for it, it's different enough from standard that I can ignore 24/7 Omnath. Although I've been playing jank in unranked since Zendikar hit so I don't know if historic's an Omnath shitshow or not.

From my experience, not really. Pre-zendikar I played a lot of Bo3 it was mostly ramp vs. goblins vs. various breeds of BR and GBR food (these are different decks of course, but I tend to file them under one thing as a good chunk of the list is the same,
the biggest distinction being does it run cat+oven or no). Post rotation, I'm mostly seeing goblins and BR arcanist in Bo1 platinum. I've seen people attempt Rogues, but that quickly fell short. It just doesn't compete imo. Same could be said for Omnath,
unlike standard, the removal is pretty good, and a deck with very little interaction will soon find itself on the receiving end of a 20/21 unblockable, lifelinking Kor Spiritdancer. I played one game like this, we went off with all the shit, Terror of the Teats,
Cobra, triggered Omnath a few times raising the life total to 16, even went through with an Escape. Once he was done (and it took some fucking time), I swung for 14 with two All that Glitters, topped off with a Kalimera's Blessing.

That's good to hear. Always been a bit surprised that the historic enchantments decks pick spiritdancers over going the bogles route with paradise druids with vigilance. Although when I've run into them they often run the 1cmc protection dog and the blessing and everything, so they've got some protection. It's probably more consistent occasionally having unprotected spirit dancers just because it's easier to keep your hand full and draw into protection rather than running the specific draw cards like... Uh... That 2cmc enchant and that 3cmc amazon chick from Theros. Haven't played the historic version of that deck yet myself.

Edit: Also picked up a few Forsaken Monuments so far. Really going to have to play some mono-colorless in historic. Though I'll probably dip into blue for thopter dorks because may as well leverage that +2/+2 for colorless creatures.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

zendikar is quite crazy with amount of cool stuff... and i still miss a bunch. Maybe at this point popping dat gold on packs is the way? It would give me moar wild cards and Ill keep drawing nice things

Gold to straight up buy packs might be better if historic's your main jam, yeah. Playing quick drafts is the best for getting standard cards since even a worst case scenario on raredrafting you'll get 4 guaranteed rares (3 draft packs and 1 guaranteed sealed pack) for your 5,000 gold, and it's extremely likely that you'll pick up AT LEAST a single extra rare during the draft, and you have a small chance of getting two sealed packs at the end of it. But for wildcards, the vault progression you get from limited doesn't seem near enough to make up for cracking packs. Not only for the extra wildcard every 6 packs, but because you can open wildcards from sealed packs unlike in draft. Just depends on what you're shooting for, limited feeling better for getting standard cards and pack cracking better for wildcards (Which arguably means historic, since outright opening what you want in oversized sets like Armoanhpieh remastered and presumably Kaladesh remastered would be difficult).

Historic is quite F2P-unfriendly though. Feels like the only reason we can semi-comfortably play it is because we're grandfathered in from playing Arena for so long, and even so it's hard to keep up. In fact, I don't really keep up. I still haven't cracked any Amoawgmpih packs except the few times they've been a daily deal in the store, I just wildcard stuff when it's either common/uncommon (Since those are still basically free) or if it feels like it's absolutely 100% going to be a major staple like CoCo and Thoughtseize. I still haven't crafted a playset of Torment of Hailfire even though playing a mono-black ramp deck with mana rocks and Hailfire sounds like silly fun, just 'cause I don't want to blow the 4 rares on a silly deck. Kind of the disadvantage of Arena, though. On the plus side, all cards have a flat value by rarity. On the down side, all cards have a flat value by rarity. Easy to get those tier 1 decks but makes playing fun jank that looks appealing really painful.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

i actually did that for my black lotus devotion. Was very underwhelming when in the end i was just better of dropping merchant on board. Might be fun in more artifact focused, maybe with new monument and such

I've fiddled with some lotus devotion mono black in standard for abyss/underworld and it's alright, but hailfire I was thinking something more along the lines of this. Just going all-in on ramping and then casting it/Ugin. Super linear and dumb deck but I enjoy playing decks like that sometimes, fun to have some where it basically boils down to "Can you kill me before I slam down my cards". The colorless mana rock ramp seems relatively decent now with those myrs and hedron archives and shit. Especially because hedron archives and mind stones can be cracked to draw you cards so your ramp also functions as a way to dig for your hailfire.


Would be nice if WotC just makes mini-commander on Arena, brawl rules except it uses historic cards rather than standard. Don't even worry about multiplayer, leave it at 60 card decks, just scrap standard-only brawl. I'd probably play that a little more myself, though I don't care enough to track people down specifically for it. Though fuck, just realized standard-brawl's probably more tolerable post-rotation since that killed 5 color Niv. Niv decks in brawl drove me goddamn insane.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Played some mono-colorless. First match was against esper control in historic. Despite resolving T5feri and countering around 10 spells he smashed concede when I had infinite mana and cards with Karn and mystic forge. He even exiled my Ulamog before I could swing with him but getting his shit pushed in by those 2cmc robots and mobilized districts all getting +2/+2 was too much for him. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Wew. Thought mono red was going to give me the business. Fortunately he went face, let me go ham in one turn by playing the monument and then going from 2 life with no board to 7 life with a pair of 4/4 blockers and a platinum angel in hand to protect my ass next turn unless he could do 7 damage from hand. Planeswalkers are disgusting but it feels a little less shameful being colorless. I probably should trim an Ulamog (Or two) and keep them more relegated to wishboarding to fit in a smidge more aggro protection. Especially if I'm being stupid and playing BO1 just because I'm fucking around. Forsaken Monument's good eats.

its a bit easier than that. You just got channel where you shout 'lfg', you get invite in arena quickly and play few games together

Still dangerously close to socializing. Especially because it involves D*scord.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

godzilla mechaweapon pixels would fit your deck more

Had to look that up, hangarback walker? Wew. No kidding, assuming that shows up in Kaladesh remastered (Which is fairly likely since they did the fancy cards for Amorakrph) that'd probably be great. Big fat mana sink for all that doubled mana, and if it dies without being exiled then a billion 3/3 flying tokens hit the board.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

meant crystal giant flavor

Oh! Eh, I'm not all that big on the Godzilla art. Honestly I'd run all-vanilla if I didn't have to manually change cards individually, which I'm too lazy to do. Stained glass Ugin's there due to laziness rather than liking it more than the normal art. Plus the crystal giant's just tossed in there as filler and extra protection. Especially while playing the deck in BO1. If I was in BO3 I'd probably cut them in favor of more cages to try to stop big dick goblins from running wild but I've only got a single cage so it's Karn-bait unless I feel like blowing some wildcards. And honestly as a wishboard card it's probably too slow to stop goblins anyway.

 

[Thac0]

Aaaaaah.

Played 6-0 with some strong GW Landfall in Premier Draft.

Then I get one game radical mana flood without drawing any landfall payoffs. Second game entire game at two lands.

Now I start the last game at 6-2. Wish me luck. Also fuck the land system.

Edit: EZ perfect mana, had Turntimber cleric out T4 on the play.
Payoffs came late but I could push old fashioned lethal through aggro alone.

 

[Pope Amole II]

6-3 UG quickie:

Spoiler

A rather unorthodox build since it relies much less on the kicker and much more on the overall landfall & tempo. I guess relic amulet too - with all the drawing it got charged turbo-fast and actually won me a couple of games on its own. The overall card quality is quite mediocre, outside of lolmage domination (which dominates even without much enablers) and Scutes (who have not done the job even once). But, somehow, it carried. Could've been 7-2 but in the final one I totally forgot about the Gnarlid Colony's aura - could've Scaled my Baloth for the lethal.


BW 6-3 (keep in mind that if I'm 6-0 or 6-1 I concede until I have 6-2 and then play the finals, this one could've been 7-1 as I've conceded a killer hand):

Spoiler

Just a ton of good cards. Overflowing removal, bombs, recursion. Kicked Nullpriest of Oblivion into Blood Beckoning into kicked Nullpriest of Oblivion is not a pretty sight. The highlight was playing a Demon's Disciple versus opposing Relic Robber - I just sacked that painful artifact and he sacked his Robber, effectively 2-for-1'ning himself without even suspecting anything. Maul is superfun too, especially when most of platinum & diamond opponents forget that it also gives first strike.

7-2 GW landfall, propelling me into diamonds:

Spoiler

This was crazily fun, the biggest combo of the deck being Felidar Retreat + Iridescent Hornbeetle. You see, as feared as it is, without constructed support Scute Swarm multiplies rather slowly - 1-2-4-8 and we're already at 9 lands. This combo, however, goes more like 4-8-16. And instead of getting modest 1/1, everything grows into 2/2 and 3/3 quickly. With several ways of mass pumping them, actually. Unfortunately, my fun was mostly cut short by opponents' conceding after the first spawning. And, even without retreat, Hornbeetle felt much more at home here than in the supposedly native BG builds - it's much easier to consistently produce counters in white. Banneret was another all-star here - his pumps mattered a lot, especially as the deck was built around letting tons of land out. Cobra, on the other hand, has been only in one game where I never saw a third land anyways. I've stolen one game, though - my opp totally forgot that that 2 mana black removal (with life loss equaling the cmc) can deal with enchantments too.

 

[spectre]

lukaszek and everyone fucked in the ass by zębikar quick draft.

Hello everyone,

With Zendikar Rising Quick Draft now available for players, many of you have noticed that this event is not a part of our full-art basic land promotion alongside other Zendikar Rising limited events. While this was always our intended design and the promotion is not advertised in-game on the Zendikar Rising Quick Draft event page, we could have done a better job communicating this disparity in our game related updates (namely the September State of the Game and 1.12.00 patch notes).

Since this has led to a fair amount of confusion and frustration for our players, we’re going to be doing a couple of things to hopefully help rectify the situation:

• First and foremost, all players can use the code ZendikarLands to receive up to three* full-art basic lands from Zendikar Rising (limit 1 per account). No event entry or pack purchase required.
  • *Same rules as the event promotion, including duplicate protection; this code only redeems for ZNR full-art basic lands, so if you’ve already collected all 15 you can still redeem the code, but you won’t receive supplementary rewards. If you’ve collected 14, you’ll receive one, 13 you’ll receive two, etc.
• We will be updating both the patch notes and September State of the Game shortly to further clarify which events will reward the full-art lands.
• While the event promotion is only available until October 15, the ZendikarLands code will be redeemable until the release of Kaldheim on MTG Arena.

We apologize for the misunderstanding and we’ll make sure we do a better job disclosing what in-game promotions are available where in the future. As a final note, please do not contact support requesting a Zendikar Rising Quick Drafts refund or additional rewards because you did not receive a promotional full-art land upon entry, as this is “working as intended” and isn’t considered part of our refund policy.

What a conicidence, was down to the last three.

 

[zerotol]

6-3 UG quickie:

Spoiler

A rather unorthodox build since it relies much less on the kicker and much more on the overall landfall & tempo. I guess relic amulet too - with all the drawing it got charged turbo-fast and actually won me a couple of games on its own. The overall card quality is quite mediocre, outside of lolmage domination (which dominates even without much enablers) and Scutes (who have not done the job even once). But, somehow, it carried. Could've been 7-2 but in the final one I totally forgot about the Gnarlid Colony's aura - could've Scaled my Baloth for the lethal.


BW 6-3 (keep in mind that if I'm 6-0 or 6-1 I concede until I have 6-2 and then play the finals, this one could've been 7-1 as I've conceded a killer hand):

Spoiler

Just a ton of good cards. Overflowing removal, bombs, recursion. Kicked Nullpriest of Oblivion into Blood Beckoning into kicked Nullpriest of Oblivion is not a pretty sight. The highlight was playing a Demon's Disciple versus opposing Relic Robber - I just sacked that painful artifact and he sacked his Robber, effectively 2-for-1'ning himself without even suspecting anything. Maul is superfun too, especially when most of platinum & diamond opponents forget that it also gives first strike.

7-2 GW landfall, propelling me into diamonds:

Spoiler

This was crazily fun, the biggest combo of the deck being Felidar Retreat + Iridescent Hornbeetle. You see, as feared as it is, without constructed support Scute Swarm multiplies rather slowly - 1-2-4-8 and we're already at 9 lands. This combo, however, goes more like 4-8-16. And instead of getting modest 1/1, everything grows into 2/2 and 3/3 quickly. With several ways of mass pumping them, actually. Unfortunately, my fun was mostly cut short by opponents' conceding after the first spawning. And, even without retreat, Hornbeetle felt much more at home here than in the supposedly native BG builds - it's much easier to consistently produce counters in white. Banneret was another all-star here - his pumps mattered a lot, especially as the deck was built around letting tons of land out. Cobra, on the other hand, has been only in one game where I never saw a third land anyways. I've stolen one game, though - my opp totally forgot that that 2 mana black removal (with life loss equaling the cmc) can deal with enchantments too.

I just feel like your decks are stupidly good, a normal paper draft should not give these many good playables.

The B/W i thought was OK, but then i see 3 (???!!) deadly alliances.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Here's the mono-colorless I've been playing, after a bit more tweaking. Entirely in BO1 since it's become my favorite "Sit down for quick fun" deck. Can be difficult to recover against hard aggro but not impossible, a monument coming online can give a ton of life gain. Changes I'd make if I owned the cards would be 4 Ineffable Ugin rather than 3 because his tokens and cost reduction get shit done, possibly more Grafdigger's Cage in the main (But since I've only got one, into the wishboard it goes) to help against gobbos, maybe more Spirit Dragon (Inclined to say maybe not, ramping with the mana rocks is a little spotty and even with 3 monuments he isn't the be-all end-all. And the Karns are a good payoff for infinite mana too, as is the forge), and that might be about it. Even then my heart isn't really set on it, but dropping a spyglass for another Ineffable would be the cleanest and easiest tweak. Actually a lot of fun getting matched against aggro, had a mono red burn deck concede against platinum angel earlier. Still wasn't really out of the woods since I didn't have a monument out, figured he could just burn the angel and then clonk me on the head but he just wasn't feeling it. More ratchet bombs may not be bad either, but since a lot of aggressive sweeping tends to be done at 2cmc and most of the mana rocks are 2cmc I'm a bit leery.

Spoiler

Deck
4 Mind Stone (WTH) 153
1 Ratchet Bomb (SOM) 196
4 Blast Zone (WAR) 244
4 Guardian Idol (JMP) 467
1 Sorcerous Spyglass (ELD) 233
4 Karn, the Great Creator (WAR) 1
3 Ugin, the Ineffable (WAR) 2
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (M21) 1
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (BFZ) 15
3 Forsaken Monument (ZNR) 244
4 Hedron Archive (JMP) 468
4 Interplanar Beacon (WAR) 247
1 Buried Ruin (JMP) 491
4 Cryptic Caves (M20) 244
4 Radiant Fountain (M21) 248
4 Mobilized District (WAR) 249
2 Labyrinth of Skophos (THB) 243
1 Reliquary Tower (M19) 254
2 Crystalline Giant (IKO) 234
1 Mystic Forge (M20) 233
1 Platinum Angel (M10) 218
4 Stonecoil Serpent (ELD) 235

Sideboard
1 Shadowspear (THB) 236
1 Grafdigger's Cage (M20) 227
1 Soul-Guide Lantern (THB) 237
1 Sorcerous Spyglass (ELD) 233
2 Ratchet Bomb (SOM) 196
2 Mystic Forge (M20) 233
1 God-Pharaoh's Statue (WAR) 238
1 Platinum Angel (M10) 218
1 Akroma's Memorial (M13) 200
1 Arcane Encyclopedia (M19) 227
1 Meteor Golem (M19) 241
1 Meteor Golem (M20) 232
1 Meteor Golem (JMP) 474

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

Actually a lot of fun getting matched against aggro, had a mono red burn deck concede against platinum angel earlier. Still wasn't really out of the woods since I didn't have a monument out, figured he could just burn the angel and then clonk me on the head but he just wasn't feeling it. More ratchet bombs may not be bad either, but since a lot of aggressive sweeping tends to be done at 2cmc and most of the mana rocks are 2cmc I'm a bit leery.

Yeah, platinum angel is basically your play vs. goblins and aggro. I've tried to fix that matchup with Ratchet Bombs, but as you can see they're too slow; in practice, they work mostly vs. tokens and 1 cmc. What you may be looking for here is Navigator's Compass, cause interacting early is not something you can do with mono brown. That burst of life (preferably popping a radiant fountain along the way) is preferable to Fountain of Reneval, cause what you want is that crucial turn to stabilize with monument and platinum.

I think you overdid it with meteor golems in the side, you won't be realistically casting more than one. Also, Grafdigger is perfectly maindeckable vs. goblins and all breeds of Lurrus.

One trick I saw was to use Golos (side or main, your call) for a single Cascading Cataracts, which lets you start playing the topdeck pretty much next turn.

 

[Pope Amole II]

I just feel like your decks are stupidly good, a normal paper draft should not give these many good playables.

The B/W i thought was OK, but then i see 3 (???!!) deadly alliances.

Well, that's how quick drafting is in MTGA. Especially when you know your way around the bots - they're very eager to settle in 2 colors so it's kinda easy to predict what will flow in pack 2. Humans are much peskier in this sense as it's pointless to send signals and whatnot - often you feel like everyone else is just random picking.

 

[Akratus]

Jesus fucking christ they're making Walking Dead cards and decided not to do a Harry Potter crossover because JKR is transphobic? Is that right? Holy shit this is peak clownworld hahahaaa

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Yeah, platinum angel is basically your play vs. goblins and aggro. I've tried to fix that matchup with Ratchet Bombs, but as you can see they're too slow; in practice, they work mostly vs. tokens and 1 cmc. What you may be looking for here is Navigator's Compass, cause interacting early is not something you can do with mono brown. That burst of life (preferably popping a radiant fountain along the way) is preferable to Fountain of Reneval, cause what you want is that crucial turn to stabilize with monument and platinum.

I think you overdid it with meteor golems in the side, you won't be realistically casting more than one. Also, Grafdigger is perfectly maindeckable vs. goblins and all breeds of Lurrus.

One trick I saw was to use Golos (side or main, your call) for a single Cascading Cataracts, which lets you start playing the topdeck pretty much next turn.

I'm not too sure about Navigator's Compass. Playing it basically as a Healing Salve and nothing else (Since playing artifacts for the sake of playing artifacts isn't too great for the deck. There's extra potential life with a monument out and Karn could whip it into a crap blocker) but that doesn't feel like it'd be worth the cost of a card in itself. Shitty blockers could potentially turn into a shitty clock if they resolve against control, while the compass would just be a dead draw. Those are the wrong fountains, too. Fountain of Renewal is the 1 life gain a turn artifact, but I'm running of 4 these lands which essentially have zero downside being in the deck:

Spoiler

The meteor golems are overdone, but that was more of a "Can't think of anything else to put in here right now, but meteor golem's always useful" move. If I had a Lithoform Engine I'd probably have one in there as a wishboard option. And you mentioning Golos is really good. I completely goddamn forgot about Golos. I may play a few in the main just as additional blockers and source of ramp even without Cataracts simply because the deck wants to ramp anyway, and being able to pull out a specific land as the situation calls for it could be useful. Probably worth crafting a Cataracts for, though.