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Magic the Gathering Arena

RuySan

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begdraft token resulted in my packing 10 rares/mythics and going 7-2. Feels good. Likely due to facing other begdrafters as serious players left bronze long time ago.

I guess this set can only bring fun to limited? Lots of cool/interesting interactions but try that in constructed and you will cry. In limited though experience is nice since there are not that many bombs, sweepers, rather card interactions. And you can go pretty big and unstoppable with just commons/uncommons.
Learnt to fear izzet players. Dunno their cards really and they always play something big and win out of nowhere
Also having good results with begdrafting but my strategy is always the same. Just don't play draft for a while before a new set just to go down in ranks.

As for this set, I feel it's over designed, which is an issue in general with modern magic, but kaldheim surprisingly felt more like a classic set. This one is probably the worst in that regard. Limited is designed with specific color pairings and strategies in mind, and that annoys me.
 

Ranselknulf

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Seasons going ok for me, I'm trying to avoid hitting mythic because I'm playing a 5 color retard deck right now, and I enjoy longer games with weird interactions.

Mythic is all about streamlined killing and having some actual strategy.

My strategy is just "no strategy" let people blow their powerful cards removing some aspect of my weird card interactions, but I usually have some other equally bizarre thing waiting.

The strixhaven release didn't really provide much for improvements to my deck, but I have splashed a few of the new removals and planeswalker cards in my deck.

I did get one of these though.

3b6be019-29b9-4c81-9899-aefeaf9cc977.jpg


It's the first card that I'm actually tempted to spend wildcards on. I'm thinking of replacing my Ondu Inversion's with the card above. It's one cmc less to cast. (I miss planar cleanse)

Image.ashx



I'm thinking about just saving up my gold and buying the historic anthology once I have enough.
 

Ranselknulf

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I'm thinking about just saving up my gold and buying the historic anthology once I have enough.
my strategy with gold is to maximize number of cards. As such anthology is worth it even if you dont like cards provided

I had like 30,000 gold saved up, but for whatever reason they removed the ability to buy the historic anthology with gold the previous set release. Then I spent that gold on boosters in a booster pack / cosmetic card spree.

Now it appears to be back, and the new cards don't look overwhelming great to me like the previous two sets, so I'll save up and get it. I've done little looking around at historic, and I have a lot of cards actually, since my strategy the past year was to buy a random "historic" pack every third pack that i purchased.
 

Jason Liang

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It's the first card that I'm actually tempted to spend wildcards on. I'm thinking of replacing my Ondu Inversion's with the card above. It's one cmc less to cast.
:hmmm:

Also, gold is for drafting. Gems are for mastery passes/ historic bundles.

Not sure I really want to pick up the historic bundle though. The only card I'm currently interested in are two copies of Inspiring Statuary.
 

Ranselknulf

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It's the first card that I'm actually tempted to spend wildcards on. I'm thinking of replacing my Ondu Inversion's with the card above. It's one cmc less to cast.
:hmmm:

Also, gold is for drafting. Gems are for mastery passes/ historic bundles.

Not sure I really want to pick up the historic bundle though. The only card I'm currently interested in are two copies of Inspiring Statuary.

I haven't tried any drafting yet, ones I've looked at are like 20000 gold buy in.

As for the one cmc difference, I've had many losses where it came down to the one cmc and the ondu inversion in hand.

I like to repeatedly board wipe then play my good cards. I have more board wipes in my 250 deck than anybody should reasonably have.
 

Ranselknulf

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Good god, just got done with a game that took 45 minutes to complete.

He spammed those "outlaw merriments" and I had a couple big stompy creatures with lifelink.

I wasn't getting any enchantment removal or trample buffs, and he wasn't getting much of the right removals when needed.

He played a 90 card deck and I had my 250 card autism

He got down to 10 cards in his deck before I finally beat him. I didn't mill him a single time either. It was just straight trading token spawns and other shit the entire time.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
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I haven't tried any drafting yet, ones I've looked at are like 20000 gold buy in.
starting may there will be new set quick draft for 5k gold. In 1st round bots are usually quite generous, its believed that its due to being trained on premier draft data. Whatever the reason they are that generous only on 1st round, so go heavy on 2 weeks it will be live.

Last time you would normally get 5/6 rares when begdrafting. Now with mystical archive added in, that number is expected to be higher

EDIT: good even if you were to lose badly. Dump enough gold and you will reach plat even if you keep losing. Obviously not the case if you are trying to max number of wildcards.
Anyway if you are into maxing number of cards, with quickdrafts being baseline, you should not buy 'discounted' packs in store if they cost more than 800 gold
 
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Ranselknulf

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I'll have to read up on the logic of bed drafting in a couple weeks. I got a half dozen draft tokens to burn through. They seem to accumulate over time for some reason.

Just got this from a random pack.

Seems legit.

Image.ashx


I got to say this also, its fun winning games with shadow spear + a 225/225 creature from the "body of research" spell.

Always makes green stompy decks quit. Like "how dare this retard white/black deck cast a random 225/225 trample and lifelink creature"

I haven't met anybody who could stop it with creatures.
 
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I'll have to read up on the logic of bed drafting in a couple weeks.
The quick summary is even absolute worst conditions (You get a single rare/mythic from your first pick each pack and all subsequent passes are picked clean) you're guaranteed a single unopened booster as a prize as well. So the worst case scenario puts you at 4 rares/mythics for 5,000g, while if you just bought packs you would be at (Roughly) 6 due to wild card progress from cracking packs. Worst case scenario rarely comes to pass though and you typically get far more rares/mythics during the draft, potentially get additional sealed packs, and get gems from the runs too.

Wildcards are obviously better if you've got a really diverse pool of cards you want to pick up (Not to mention just straight up opening wildcards in sealed packs, unlike in draft), but when it comes to snagging cards in a new standard set you get a lot more mileage out of your gold even if you're drafting bad decks and just snagging rares. Really boils down to if you play standard or not, because if you ONLY play historic I could definitely see cracking packs being a better use of gold. It's also fairly worth it even if you dislike playing draft since you'll still scoop up a good pile of cards, get your pack of winnings, and have a 20% chance of getting an additional pack in your winnings. Immediately abandoning drafts just kills your gem rewards but if you don't like it/don't feel like it it's still pretty good just in terms of cards.
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
If you're a decent enough player and you're below platinum it pays off to begdraft. You'll still win some games while amassing huge amounts of rares. This is more relevant in premier/traditional, since real players pass more rares than bots. I'll always do this when a set is released. By the time I get to platinum I have to change strategy and draft to win.
 
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John Keel

Savant
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
694
Cool little infinite turn deck of my creation

Vraska + Mystic sanctuary = lolz

Obviously not t1, but very solid and fun nonetheless

xtFhX5F.png
 

Jason Liang

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I've gotten my Paradoxical Outcome to an acceptable state. Weirdly not running as many Mystical Archive shenanigans as I was expecting (I ended up cutting Weather the Storm:/) although I reckon that I will eventually replace Metallic Rebukes with more copies of Memory Lapse, just because of how prevalent ramp is in the format.

mtga-2021-035.jpg


I've seen some terrible Historic PO streams on youtube too:/
 

Jason Liang

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mtga-2021-036.jpg


Nice match vs. Sultai Ultimatum. I ended my combo turn at exactly 50 life, and the only card in my hand was a Metallic Rebuke. So I had to wait for him to cast a spell to gain 1 life from casting Rebuke before I could nuke him. Although in hindsight I probably could have countered my own spell to win on my turn.
 

John Keel

Savant
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
694
I've gotten my Paradoxical Outcome to an acceptable state. Weirdly not running as many Mystical Archive shenanigans as I was expecting (I ended up cutting Weather the Storm:/) although I reckon that I will eventually replace Metallic Rebukes with more copies of Memory Lapse, just because of how prevalent ramp is in the format.

mtga-2021-035.jpg


I've seen some terrible Historic PO streams on youtube too:/

No Mystic Forge ?
Inventors' Fair ?

Wouldnt Bolas's Citadel be a great enabler for this kind of deck ?
You also have quite a bit of stuff to sac for phyrexian tower to ramp it up!


I kinda of hate how statuary is a non-bo with artifacts, it's so awkward, requires arts to enable it but can't cast arts with it, shit design imo

edit: no grafdigger's cage or weathered runestone in an artifact B01 centric deck is kinda sad
 

Jason Liang

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No Mystic Forge ?
Inventors' Fair ?

Wouldnt Bolas's Citadel be a great enabler for this kind of deck ?
You also have quite a bit of stuff to sac for phyrexian tower to ramp it up!


I kinda of hate how statuary is a non-bo with artifacts, it's so awkward, requires arts to enable it but can't cast arts with it, shit design imo

edit: no grafdigger's cage or weathered runestone in an artifact B01 centric deck is kinda sad
I have cage in the Karn board but the slots are too tight for it in the main, although Tormod's can generally stop a lot of shenanigans.
Citadel + Aetherflux Reservoir is ofc a cool combo but Citadel doesn't have synergy with PO. I've seen Mystic Forge in some PO sideboards but it's probably too expensive to main. PO doesn't need to cast from the top of the library because it can cast enough from hand to win. It's more an engine than a combo deck. You don't need to vomit out your entire library, the style and thrill of the deck is just having enough oomph to get the win. Expensive artifacts, that can't be improvised, just don't fit what the deck wants to do.
I am a little meh on Inventor's Fair, which I have experience running in PO back in the Arena beta. It was already a little too slow back then and Historic now is a lot faster than the environment back then. If I did run a colorless land (which would mean cutting Whirs) I would play Blasting Zone or Zhalfirin Void ahead of Inventor's Fair. I just don't think Inventor's Fair is worth including or wildcarding.

PO works with lots of cheap permanents, preferably 0-1 cost, but no more than 3 cost. It also works well with cheap planeswalkers (like Narset) and cheap enchantments, although enchantments can't improvise. Creatures just die these days, I will probably have to cut Sai as well.
- Instant and sorcery slots are tight.
- You need a cheap secondary card draw spell, (other than PO), which doesn't need set-up. In the beta this was Reverse Engineering, which strangely isn't currently in Arena, but Thirst for Knowledge works just as well if not better.
- You also need some countermagic/ interaction, so Memory Lapses and, for now, Brazen Borrower. I've seen Commit // Memory here, and both sides are useful, but I've found Commit is too slow and expensive.
- Whir is very, very good.

For the permanents-
0 cc- Basically just Tormod's Crypt, Ornithopter and Mox. Metalwork Colossus *can* be 0cc with some setup.
1 cc- There's some ok options but they are too often dead without PO or Inspired Statuary. Emry probably counts as 1cc here.
2 cc- The best options are Glass Casket, Mind Stone, Prophetic Prism and Silent Dart. Casket is removal on enters play, and the last two draw cards. Mind Stone is kind of strange. It's a ramping mana rock, and that's helpful, but the point of the deck is to be playing with moxes, not mana rocks. They can also draw engine with Emry, but I don't expect Emry to survive to get that going. Still, since they make actual mana (and not just improvise), they are pseudo 1cc. The Puzzleknots used to be good choices but I think they've been outclassed by Glass Casket.
3 cc- Not sure anything beats planeswalkers here. I've tried Mavinda here too but she takes too much setup.
4 cc- More planeswalkers, namely the two Karns.

Inspiring Statuary helping to cast your spells and planeswalkers is more than enough to justify 3 cmc. Still, sucks when it gets hit with removal:/
 

Jason Liang

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mtga-2021-037.jpg

Winning the old-fashioned way.

mtga-2021-038.jpg

A strange match vs Tendrils. He was locked under the Cage, and I was hovering around 40 life and kept drawing lands. I was also locked under the Cage but I realized I could use Saheeli to turn Cage into a 2nd Reservoir on my turn. However, I figured he had a Weather the Storm so I had to play around that and he also had a ton of food tokens in play. I finally drew my 4th Paradoxical with 6 cards left in my deck. I crawled to 54, activated Reservoir, he ate all his Food and cast Weather the Storm and ended up at 47 life. I could have probably gained another 50 to finish him off had he gone over 50, but it was close.


Also, I figured out that nearly all the spells I wanted to counter were blue, so the correct counterspell turns out to be Mystical Dispute.

v 1.1:
mtga-2021-039.jpg
 
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Shitposter
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guys i miss war of the spark standard so much
  • pre-eldraine: none of the 20+ stupid busted cards from that set
  • ixalan was in standard: DINOSAUR decks in standard
  • ixalan was in standard: PIRATE decks in standard
  • fuckton of planeswalkers, which were effective but not OP
  • based ravnica x ixalan x dominaria setting
  • control was actually viable as a deck
  • flavor was just cool as hell all around
so sad that this only lasted for a few months and then eldraine and theros literally came in and shit all over everything for the next 2 years
they should have a permanent ixalan -> WOTS standard block queue
 

Ranselknulf

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I played a lot of War of the Spark cards while it was standard.

Loved the Bolas Citadel, God Eternal Oketra cards.

I played a retard planeswalker deck.
 

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