Magic the Gathering Arena

[Jason Liang]

Also, all those lawmages bindings and sky tethers, do they not interfere with haphazard bombardment? The fewer targets on the board, the better.

When Haphazard Bombardment enters the battlefield, choose four nonenchantment permanents you don't control and put an aim counter on each of them.
At the beginning of your end step, if two or more permanents you don't control have an aim counter on them, destroy one of those permanents at random.

I do like the exile/ pacifism effects synergy with Clear the Mind, so that the opponent gets mostly land back into their library.

I think Treasure Map is still the best artifact accelerant for this strategy though. Thran will bin the Treasure Cove but you only get 4 lands back anyway. Treasure tokens also help you reach 9 mana for Thran + Clear the Mind faster.

Haphazard Bombardment is a cool card and doesn't suffer from diminishing returns either (in fact more the better), but too bad about the 6cc.

 

[spectre]

I gotta stop read the fucking cards sometimes. For some reason I got this shit backwards and thought that targeting is done at random and you pick what gets destroyed.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jason Liang]

reading is overrated

I'm doing a project with board games in my world history class semester. Watching Chinese students try to play Twilight Struggle or even Concordia was painful.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

man I kinda alternate between constructed events and draft but god damn in constructed events I only ever see 5 decks. I know every fucking card in each deck the moment they play their first land.

Gets really boring playing against one of the same 5 decks each game

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

turn 1: stormtamer
turn 2: unblockable merfolk + curious obsession
turn 3: tempest djinn

holding: spell pierce x2

every fucking game

I feel like I'm playing vs a computer

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

doing things like putting down immortal sun vs esper control is fucking hilarious though, because you can look up their netdeck and realize they have no fucking answer to that card

 

[Jason Liang]

Yeah blue tempo is oppressing this meta right now unfortunately

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

It's just so frustrating there are so many fun ways to combine cards and build decks but the overwhelming majority of the player base only cares about winning so they all copy the top 5 tournament decks.

Every game feels like I'm rolling a 5 sided die. Will I be playing against:

RDW
U
Esper control
Izzet drakes
or white weenie?

Gets so fucking old. I wanna see variety, creativity, but every damn game I know their entire decklist based on the first land they place

 

[Jason Liang]

that's the curse of standard, its fun for about 3 weeks, gets stale and then you're waiting for the next expansion to shake things up again

 

[new fucking guy]

Eh, every time I hit up constructed event I see something wild like hero brews or saprolings on 6-1. Feel like all the tryhards have moved to ranked.
Can't wait for the standard+. Eternal formats have their own brand of cancerous t1 decklists that won't go away, but brews get infinitely more viable as time goes on.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Finally got my Dimir pile into what feels like an acceptable state. I actually can win games with it now. Still probably not GOOD but it's the best state the deck's been in.

The whisper agents are surprisingly useful. Every time I've toyed around with not running them the deck's felt worse for it. Having flash is nice since you can keep mana open to counter, then if you don't need to you can drop a chump and get some draw control and potentially bounce a campaign, and against aggro they're a slight bit of additional removal. Games typically go in an almost mono-blue fashion of trying to have at least one body on the board and protecting it (Unless you have more bodies in hand) with counters and removal and hand hate and nibbling your opponent to 0. The doom whisperers are pretty handy on the high end since against control decks you usually stand a decent chance of having run out their removal/counters with hand hate and threats like thieves, and if they resolve you can almost always surveil with impunity since they aren't going after your life and you can always get the perfect draw. The one duress I waffle on a lot. It's a good card but kind of a shit later game draw depending on the situation, while thot erasure is still a surveil trigger worse case scenario. I've considered putting in a dream eater in place of it to get a bit more top end but the whisperers and eldest reborn have been keeping me covered in the late game so I think dream eater would just slow me down. Though another cast down/craving would be solid too, or a carnarium. Still, even as-is just made out of shit I had I've been happy with it. Been mostly winning and taken out RDW and esper and mono blue and grixis so it's the perfect unstoppable deck that can do no wrong.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

looks super solid dude. I feel like jamming another disinformation campaign in there would be nice just to make sure it ends up drawing cuz it's so good

Just got 7 in traditional for the first time woo!

I think if you fit gateway colossus in your deck it makes it really hard to lose. Gate decks in general seem OP as fuck in this

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I waffled a lot on a third campaign but I ended up cutting it since while it's nice to have one campaign fairly early on it feels awkward if you've got 2 or 3 floating around in your hand at 4-5 mana. 2 felt decent to me because early campaigns seem worse than later campaigns. Erasure/counter seems more critical early on since your opponent can chuck land/slow shit/remove they don't think they need if you slam down a campaign, but a counter or erasure can remove more immediate shit to keep you safe until the later game when eldest reborn and such can help get you over the hump. That's the theory at least. After sharing that deck with a buddy he informed me that apparently this Dimir deck/dude got into top 100 mythic which is pretty interesting. https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/kb4U9nzWT

And congrats on the 7 wins!

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

The problem with whisperers is the puny body. The respectable 6/6 of the Doom Whisperer means aggro isn't going through it anytime soon (and aggro is arguably the worst matchup for this deck).

I would vote for a third Campaign (cutting a Whisper Agent referable, cool that you like them, but they're still the weakest of the bunch). Or drop one land, Discovery and Surveil should let you keep up with the mana drops.
You really want to draw into your card advantage engines since it is still a control-ish deck.

When it comes to counterspells, when I did my time with this deck, I found out that it often flows better when you rely on a mix of Essence Scatters / Negates / Disdainful strokes (the actual ratio is up to you but 2/2/2 seems ok to start with).
Since you often have perfect hand information, durex/thought erasure full cavity search let's you decide which cards stay in hand, so you can use such specialized counters. The one mana cost makes all the difference,
because you get to erase and still be able to counter at turn 4.

 

[Jason Liang]

For once I disagree with spectre! I think Disinformation Campaign is shit and should be cut

But I agree trade 2 Sinister Sabotage for cheaper counterspells. Dimir has too few good 2cc plays and so much glut at 3cc and 4cc. I like Quench better than Essence Scatter, would run 4 Quench, 1-2 Negate, 1-2 Disdainful Stroke in BO1

If you want to have a chance at all against aggro, you have to have more than 2X Ritual of Soot - I would add Cry of the Carnarium or similar

I'm on the fence about Thief of Sanity - actually I think they are too risky but if you're going to run them you should add some way to protect them like Dive Downs/ Spell Pierce or at least up the Durex count to a full set and even Divests so that you aren't blindly playing Thieves of Sanity into removal. Divest is a pretty good complement to counterspells since there are plenty of creatures where pre-emptive discard is superior to removal or counterspells.

I'd play Hostage Takers in Dimir

Sadly adding white makes this decktype so much better. Deputy of Detention is bonkers, etc...

 

[spectre]

There's one problem with 4x quench in this type of deck, it doesn't win too quickly, and once you have the opponent in topdeck mode, they tend to have enough mana for (2) not to matter. The rest of your cards, dicard mostly, doesn't do anything anymore, and disinformation
becomes suboptimal, I think I'd rather toy around with Syncopate, which still lets you keep your counterspell privileges at turn 2 and has more range (though it isn't great either). Obviously, in Bo3 you can give yourself 4 of everything and mix and match as needed.

I would agree that Disinformation campaign isn't the best, but the only real alternative here is the 4x Chemister's Insight and 2x Search for Azcanta package, perhaps Tezzeret or Karn as a permanent draw engines.
Disinformation Campaign is a tiny bit better with 2 cmc counterspells because you can still disinform and keep a counter up at turn 5.



I gotta say, I really like drafting this season (probably has to do with the fact that I just did three consecutive 7 win runs, which tends to never happen to me). You usually get good enough mana base to comfortably do three colors,
the removal feels like it's in a pretty good place, abd there's plenty of instant speed interaction. I tend to gravitate towards BWR which has all the right kind of synergy. One time I drafted 4x Rubble Reading and boy was there much butthurt during that run.

 

[Jason Liang]

Having Quenches to cast on t2-t4 > Quench being a dead draw late and besides that's why you have Surveil, to NOT draw late Quenches. Synocopate is as good most of the time, but for me Quench makes more sense as if you're going to keep 2 mana up you're better off with Quench, if you're going to keep 3+ mana up you're better off with Sinister Sabotage... I wouldn't lose sleep choosing one over the other, and I prefer both to Essence Scatter.

With Dimir you've got to survive early, and then close out and not durdle. While Doom Whisperer isn't that impessive on paper, is actually one of Dimir's top options since it can close games out fast enough.

 

[Jason Liang]

u/ r Treasures ~
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/yes-it-is-izzet-treasures-standard-stream-highlights

Creatures (6)
3 Captain Lannery Storm
3 Sailor of Means
Planeswalkers (7)
4 Karn, Scion of Urza
3 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
Spells (16)
4 Lava Coil
4 Quench
4 Spell Swindle
4 Expansion // Explosion
Artifacts (4)
4 Treasure Map
Enchantments (3)
3 Storm the Vault
Lands (24)
8 Island
8 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls

Sideboard (15)
2 Banefire
3 Fountain of Renewal
3 Negate
3 Fiery Cannonade
2 Mass Manipulation
2 River's Rebuke

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

dream eater in place of it to get a bit more top end but the whisperers and eldest reborn have been keeping me covered in the late game so I think dream eater would just slow me down.

i find dream eaters more useful than whisperers. If you already have them, try swapping 2 for 2 whisperers and i bet you wouldnt look back.
Flash + permanent return make a huge difference. Usually whisperer is dropped quickly so its a tie 4 surveil vs life scroll.

I do have them so I'll probably give it a try, but like spectre mentioned I do recall a few instances where doom whisperers' thick ass was relevant. Being able to flash out a dream eater could be useful too since that avoids the "Oh god I want to play a body so I can get a clock on my opponent but I want mana open for counters" problem some.

I did end up cutting one whisper agent and the single duress for 2 fungal infection though, after seeing it in the netdeck and thinking about it. Not completely sold even though getting 2 for 1 against aggro (Especially white weenies) is delicious, but it's another dead card against midrange/control while duress at least is generally useful against everything except green stompy and occasionally golgari/wet golgari. May work on beating the sideboard into better shape and playing BO3 rather than BO1, then infection's way more comfortable.

And no white, Jason! If I added white then I'd be going into esper control territory which is just unforgivable. Dimir jank is slow and relatively controlling but at least the plan isn't to make your opponent draw his 60 card deck one card at a time! I also don't mind the thieves being killed all that much. If they stick, great, if not then they eat some removal that could hit doom whisperers and also give a relatively decent target if eldest reborn resolves and ticks 3 and there aren't planeswalkers or anything available. I also agree on spectre again on quench in this deck, I already have enough stuff to try to dodge with surveils (Removal against control decks, non-removal against aggro, land if I'm already comfortable, etc) that even though it'd be good early on it'd be almost dead later. I do agree a carnarium would be good but I haven't got any and my wildcards are nearly wiped out so I'm just living with it. I do really like soot (Seems to nail nearly everything meta currently) at least.

Edit: First stab at a sideboard is 4x duress (Good for control), 1x fungal infection (Mainboarding two but a third for aggro, especially since I don't have carnarium), 2x disdainful stroke (Good for control again), 2x quench (Does seem much more desirable sideboard, primarily for aggro), 2x murder (Not super pleased with it but it does let me nail legendary fatties for more midrangey stuff), 3x notion rain (Can never see myself playing it mainboard because life's too precious against aggro, but sideboard seems great for control and possibly tolerable for midrange. Even then might not be worth it since I'm playing 4 discovery mainboard), 1x unmoored ego (Only got one but it's nice for sideboarding to knock out Teferi or whatever)
Was mostly leaning toward sideboarding against control/midrange since so many of my mainboard cards are shitty against them in general.

Edit 2: Well first BO3 game with that sideboard was against gates and it went great. First match was a little awkward but soot knocked out rams before they could get too ornery and then counters/whisperer to win even though his hand was going berserk with double summit. Second match was a complete steamroll after sideboarding and removing the anti-aggro shit.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Trying to make a zombini theme deck with Liliana cuz she's hot and I like necromancy but I'm running into issues. Here's what I've got so far:

Spoiler

2 Gutterbones (RNA) 76
2 Bankrupt in Blood (RNA) 62
4 Diregraf Ghoul (M19) 92
3 Priest of Forgotten Gods (RNA) 83
2 Death Baron (M19) 90
2 Reassembling Skeleton (M19) 116
3 Liliana, Untouched by Death (M19) 106
4 Thought Erasure (GRN) 206
4 Discovery // Dispersal (GRN) 223
2 Josu Vess, Lich Knight (DAR) 95
3 Disinformation Campaign (GRN) 167
2 Open the Graves (M19) 112
3 Arisen Gorgon (M19) 292

12 Swamp (RIX) 194
5 Island (RIX) 193
4 Dimir Guildgate (GRN) 246
2 Watery Grave (GRN) 259
1 Drowned Catacomb (XLN) 253

I really really like the idea of sacrificing my creatures w/ priest, triggering open the graves, then summoning them back with liliana. Also gutterbones and reassembling work wonders with priest. I almost want 4x gutterbones and reassembling but I don't have wildcards to craft any more

It was black white at first but I kept getting shit draws so I decided to switch to black blue for surveil. I think Josu is pretty shit in this deck, just isn't really working so I think I'll replace him with something.. I like disinformation but I'm thinking that card needs to go too. Midnight reaper would be good I think but I only have one of those.

IDK guys any ideas? Wanna make this work

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'd think you'd wanna go mono-black for that. Surveil's nice, but Liliana works on binning cards anyway and lets you play zombies from your graveyard, so maybe stitcher suppliers, more death barons, etc. Cabal strongholds would help massively with mono black make Josu Vess pop off more too. Lotleth giant would probably fit too, especially if you're running stitcher's suppliers. You wouldn't be running golgari undergrowth memes (Although honestly green would be stronger to lean toward rather than blue since you could get molderhulks/glowspore/findbroker) but he's a big-ass zombie that can give you some reach when you're binning a lot of your library. Mausoleum secrets would be another beneficial mono-black card if you bin a lot of creatures since that's one of precious few tutors. Same with final parting, though it's way more expensive and thus less desirable. Yawgmoth's vile offering may be tolerable too, expensive but it lets you bring a Liliana out of your graveyard (Or different planeswalker from your opponent's graveyard, or creature if there's something really juicy) and remove something. Though the cabal strongholds could potentially make some of those expensive-ass cards more viable as well if you're going mono black.

Definitely sounds fun to dick around with, though I guess a lot of the "Bin all your cards bro" stuff isn't exactly the same as sacrificing creatures a bunch with priest/bankrupt/etc. Although gutterbones/reassembling still slightly benefit from being binned too.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Yeah mono black is probably better, all of those cards seem good and I actually have copies so it's a bonus. The deck I'm currently running literally can't win unless it just stomps before turn 4 but I'm going for more mid to late game instead of early aggro.

After losing like 5 games in a row with that deck I decided to force a clear the mind draft in limited and hollllly shit this deck kicks ass

Spoiler

lol @ this thought collapse war