Magic the Gathering Arena

[Gyor]

Magda, Goldvien Pick, and most of all Goldspan Dragon simply rock.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Magda is pretty cool. In my first draft now (And likely only one until the cheap drafts. Figured I'd use a token for a premium draft so I can get my welfare booster for limited before the month's out) and drafted some Rakdos with Magda. Just krumped a Selesnya jerk with multiple copies of that asshole dual color dude that pumps everything and shits out tokens as he plays land. Was able to smash in with exacties while I had 6 life left due to the +2/+0 from Demonic Gifts and because Magda was giving me infinite mana. Drafted a lot of Infernal Pets and I probably shouldn't have, fucking bastards almost never get pumped. Understandable because that's not really Rakdos' thing, but I had fuck-all boast cards come up so such is life. Guess if I had more copies of rune of speed or whatever that card's called it might be a little nicer. Initial impression for draft is reasonably fun though, haven't bumped into any archetypes that are terrible to play against. No turn 1 crabs or superfriends limited or anything.

 

[Thac0]

Fixing my last bug has reincarnated an old bug, my Nemesis the unityplayer.dll crash. I no longer have the energy to patch and tinker with this game.
I now play this on my old laptop, together with Wizardry and Gothic since those run better on older hardware lol.

Kaldheim Sealed is an amazing environment. Everyone is in 3 colours, all 10 colour combinations are viable depending on which bombs you open, games are very reactive with potent common and uncommon removal, no unfun cards at below mythic.
The only true bullshit game I had was against Kaya, and she is a mythic. I played 3 pods already, 2-3 (my laptop battery ran out lol) 5-3, 5-3. Now on my fourth run.

 

[Scruffy]

You know, I see a lot of people complaining about bugs, but I have to say I've never really had any problem since beta with a couple minor exceptions.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Finally stopped being lazy and checked on those rare cards in the mastery pass, and they are indeed "Special" cards but standard legal, so no worries about only cracking packs once the next set is released if you want to maximize your shit since those won't come out of packs anyway.

 

[Thac0]

The only true bullshit game I had was against Kaya, and she is a mythic. I played 3 pods already, 2-3 (my laptop battery ran out lol) 5-3, 5-3. Now on my fourth run.

Got fucked on that run 1-3 by a crash followed by 10 minutes of verifying files.
I had enough gems and decided to do a single last run, since I do not play to spend any money on this game until Historic Brawl becomes permanent.

I guess I had some Karma stored up, that deck was disgusting. So many potent combos.

 

[Gyor]

Finally stopped being lazy and checked on those rare cards in the mastery pass, and they are indeed "Special" cards but standard legal, so no worries about only cracking packs once the next set is released if you want to maximize your shit since those won't come out of packs anyway.

I'm already at level 12 on Mastery Pass and January isn't even over yet.

 

[coldcrow]

So UR-Giants in one form or another seems to be one of the major decks emerging from the new set.

I am still grinding along, my love for off-beat decks probably holding me back. (Also I should dive into limited at one point).

My latest jank deck for Standard with some success is:

4x Speaker of Heavens
4x Light of Hope
4x Charming Prince
4x Griffin Aerie
4x Luminarch Aspirant
4x Revitalize
4x Angel of Vitality
4x Skyclave Apparition
4x Angel of Destiny
20x Plains
4x Radiant Fountain

Straightforward Plan.

I suck at tweaking numbers, so I like to run 4x decks, except is glaringly obvious that you don't want 4x. If you guys have some input, I'd like that.

 

[Thac0]

So UR-Giants in one form or another seems to be one of the major decks emerging from the new set.

I am still grinding along, my love for off-beat decks probably holding me back. (Also I should dive into limited at one point).

My latest jank deck for Standard with some success is:

4x Speaker of Heavens
4x Light of Hope
4x Charming Prince
4x Griffin Aerie
4x Luminarch Aspirant
4x Revitalize
4x Angel of Vitality
4x Skyclave Apparition
4x Angel of Destiny
20x Plains
4x Radiant Fountain

Straightforward Plan.

I suck at tweaking numbers, so I like to run 4x decks, except is glaringly obvious that you don't want 4x. If you guys have some input, I'd like that.

I have done genuinly zero playtesting with the new set, but some general ideas for monoW from sets before:

Upgrades:
Run at least 2 copies of Castle Ardenvale and Emeria's call each over a few plains. That is as close to a straight upgrade for MonoW as it gets.
I am not big on 4x mainboard Skyclave, since sometimes you run out of targets or lose to a 4 mana+ cmc card you can't remove. I would replace at least one copy with Banishing Light.
Righteous Valkyrie is currently the strongest Angel in the game. And she fits into your Lifegain/Angels tempo gameplan. Run 4.

Strategy Changes:
I am not sure if Luminarch Aspirant does anything in your deck currently, besides comboing well with Speaker of Heavens. She is neither lifegain nor angel strategy, just beatdown.
If you want to make the deck slower into white midrange then Elspeth Conquers Death is a really sexy card.
If you go deeper into lifegain tribal then Heliod, Sun Crowned is a must have 4x for you.
2x Legion Angel in the mainboard and 2x Legion Angel in the sideboard is really good for angels. You can do 1x main 3x side aswell for BO1.

In general this seems to be three strategies at once, White Weenies / Angel Tribal / Lifegain. Since all of those strategies overlap somewhat it can work, but I suppose the deck will become stronger when you trim it down to 1 or 2 strategies.
Righteous Valkyrie should be the glue to make this work, as she is powered for constructed and boosts all three strategies at once.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I'm assuming fabled passage doesn't work with "basic snow lands"

Please tell me I'm wrong and I'll get rid of most of my regular "basic lands"

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'm assuming fabled passage doesn't work with "basic snow lands"

Please tell me I'm wrong and I'll get rid of most of my regular "basic lands"

Snow-covered lands work fine with Fabled Passage, Cultivate, anything that specifies basic land. They're 100% basic lands except they're also snow permanents and make snow mana.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I'm assuming fabled passage doesn't work with "basic snow lands"

Please tell me I'm wrong and I'll get rid of most of my regular "basic lands"

Snow-covered lands work fine with Fabled Passage, Cultivate, anything that specifies basic land. They're 100% basic lands except they're also snow permanents and make snow mana.

cool, thanks.

Here's something I just now noticed when skimming the planeswalkers.

It doesn't sound that good on the surface, but you have to consider the "trolling" aspects of it.

Like you put a ghost counter on some huge creature an opponent with a graveyard abuse deck plays.

I think the ultimate is a better ability that I gave it first credit for. At first impression it seems p. bleh

BUT, a lot of people have been playing "exile graveyard" cards lately, especially tormod's crypt, so with that ultimate ability, your legendary cards can basically never be removed from the game.

I think its the only "standard legal" card right now that lets you cast cards from your exiled pile.

I'm gonna start testing it out a bit.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

She's also just a 5 mana walker that can protect herself and/or work as some meaty removal with that -3, which is solid. The fact that her +1 protects AGAINST exile is pretty nice too. Dunno if she'll be all that amazing in standard just because Orzhov is fun but often doesn't feel that strong, but on her own she looks solid.

 

[Ranselknulf]

She's also just a 5 mana walker that can protect herself and/or work as some meaty removal with that -3, which is solid. The fact that her +1 protects AGAINST exile is pretty nice too. Dunno if she'll be all that amazing in standard just because Orzhov is fun but often doesn't feel that strong, but on her own she looks solid.

I just got her in a few games, and she seems p. solid, but I'm working my way up from the reset, still in platinum tier.

That bounce is nice, and the removal is p. cool.

I just think if you built a legendary deck around her, it'd p. much be the anti-exile strategy.

Haven't had a chance to test out the bounce with "murderous knight" yet, but if that bounces back to your hand, well that'd be sweet.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

That is a bit of a pickle. If the rider was exiled it'd just go to your hand, but if just killed I dunno if it'd go into your deck or your hand. Probably some rule or judgement somewhere determining if the earlier text or later text takes priority, since I assume Kaya's +1 would be considered later on the card than the "Goes to the bottom of your deck" part on the actual card. If they're triggers that go on the stack though, you'd think it'd end up in your hand since Kaya's +1 would trigger and then the card text would fizzle. If you get it to happen, post what it does!

 

[Ranselknulf]

That is a bit of a pickle. If the rider was exiled it'd just go to your hand, but if just killed I dunno if it'd go into your deck or your hand. Probably some rule or judgement somewhere determining if the earlier text or later text takes priority, since I assume Kaya's +1 would be considered later on the card than the "Goes to the bottom of your deck" part on the actual card. If they're triggers that go on the stack though, you'd think it'd end up in your hand since Kaya's +1 would trigger and then the card text would fizzle. If you get it to happen, post what it does!

Yah, I'll just keep trying until I get that particular combo and see what happens.

mtg rulings don't make sense some times ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[lukaszek]

are you guyz having fun with poison in standard? You likely need only few uncommon wildcards to finish what you already own. Im rolling with this lurrus shell:

Spoiler

Companion
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den (IKO) 226

Deck
4 Foulmire Knight (ELD) 90
7 Forest (SLD) 108
4 Typhoid Rats (ANB) 63
4 Moss Viper (THB) 179
8 Swamp (SLD) 105
4 Tajuru Blightblade (ZNR) 208
4 Eliminate (M21) 97
4 Fynn, the Fangbearer (KHM) 170
4 Ram Through (IKO) 170
2 Chevill, Bane of Monsters (IKO) 181
2 Fiend Artisan (IKO) 220
4 Call of the Death-Dweller (IKO) 78
2 Agadeem's Awakening (ZNR) 90
4 Temple of Malady (M20) 254
3 Zagoth Triome (IKO) 259

Sideboard
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den (IKO) 226

 

[anvi]

I only saw one poison deck and he scared me! But I won in the nick of time.

 

[anvi]

Just had another one, I won again, although I'm winning about 70%, just super slow. It got a lot harder with this new release. There is a new Fires deck with a similar card, freaking brutal. I really need to stop wasting all my wildcards on random ideas. I think the new Fires deck would be easy to disrupt though so it might not become popular.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I've only seen one or two poison decks so far, haven't lost to them though.

I use a lot of exile cards, so once you get rid of that one poison counter creature their decks basically have no tricks yet. It's like a fast aggro deck that has no defense against exiles.

The only way I could see it being viable is with lithoform engine to double the poison counters.

I don't know if double strike count's for double the poison counters either.

If double strike works though, then that would be the most viable path to victory. Turn two poison creature, turn three double strike and hope they don't have any removal spells.

Your only hope is really the other player drew a shit hand, otherwise you'll have to rely on some other strategy.

Are there poison creatures / spells other than that 2 cmc creature?

 

[Jason Liang]

So I've been grinding Historic with Pirates, been doing well. Looking over Kaldheim for upgrades, the card that pops out as a good mana sink is

Any thoughts? Being able to tutor up Freebooters seems decent. Also it would let me sneak some Unlicensed Disintegrations back into the deck, and I miss that card quite a bit. Any other card worth wildcarding?

 

[lukaszek]

Are there poison creatures / spells other than that 2 cmc creature?

you mean as lord type? Not rly.
If you expand and kick lurrus out - you get vraska and blightfang

Any other card worth wildcarding?

Did you play with heralds horn? Its amazing.
Im not big on pyre with pirates - tribe that dies easilly to any sweeper. Which means you wont have crap to sacc. Id rather run icon of ancestry in this slot.
However... tutoring is hella strong in brawl format, as such Ill likely add it to my beckett deck, possibly replace icon even. Didnt give it much thought yet.

Then there are some changelings, like bloodline pretender and that land: faceless haven. I cant see using land thing in brawl but it might be decent in dual color pirates

 

[Jason Liang]

+

+

+

+

 

[lukaszek]

that moment when opponent muligans like crazy and you got duress in your opening hand

 

[coldcrow]

In general this seems to be three strategies at once, White Weenies / Angel Tribal / Lifegain. Since all of those strategies overlap somewhat it can work, but I suppose the deck will become stronger when you trim it down to 1 or 2 strategies.
Righteous Valkyrie should be the glue to make this work, as she is powered for constructed and boosts all three strategies at once.

Indeed. I split the deck into two, one with luminarch and maul of the skyclaves and a Yorion board-control one.
Cosmos Elixir is kickass for both. Also I still love when the dream of T1 Speaker T2 attack, Radiant Fountain + Light of Hope happens.