Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

Poor bastards, playing draft thinking they're safe from esper control.

 

[new fucking guy]

Yeah that deck looks disgusting. How did it score?

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Poor bastards, playing draft thinking they're safe from esper control.

Yeah that deck looks disgusting. How did it score?

It's 2-1 now, lost one game to mana screw vs aggro. Once stabilized, the deck takes forever to win because the win condition is either waiting for opponent to mill themselves or concede out of frustration. Hopefully I'll finish sometime this week

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-beta-march-2019-03-20

Who's ready to pay $10 for moviecards and card backs!?

 

[spectre]

I don't really give a damn about card backs, but practice mode means they might have worked some kind of a rudimentary AI into this.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I don't really give a damn about card backs, but practice mode means they might have worked some kind of a rudimentary AI into this.

It'd be nice if it was halfway decent like the Duels of the Planeswalkers games, but I'm betting it'll probably only play one or two decks poorly. On the bright side it'll be useful for quickly testing shit out, had to lasso and drag someone into a private game last night so I could test of rhythm of the wild would work for land with sylvan awakening. It didn't. The dream of playing a gates deck and ramping out a fuckton of land which suddenly turns into a swarm of angry 3/3s died young.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

finally cool game. UR treasures, thought guy is playing sort of deck that Jason Liang posted recently. One of those moments when you want to see as many cards as possible.

...aaaaaand he dropped thousand year storm! ...aaaaaand he immediatelly entered never ending casting phase, milling through his library to find that shock and finish me.

Im totally building something like it myself. Not something you can play too often as for some reason game forces you to manually get mana from those treasures. Also you must chose 10 targets for your shock

I've had that happen to me a few times, pretty funny when it resolves:

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-beta-march-2019-03-20

Who's ready to pay $10 for moviecards and card backs!?

These sleeves look good:

BUT I don't like the hearthstone style card backs that they showed in the video. I want nothing to do with that game.

Players who get one or more wins before two match losses will receive a card style for Skewer the Critics.

Oh great, the first special card skin they give out is for one of the most cancer card staples in one of the most cancer decks in standard

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

teferi avatar, azorius sleeve, first drop: mountain

 

[Plaguecrafter]

teferi avatar, azorius sleeve, first drop: mountain

Mind games from the beginning.

Then cast Shock in your face. To show dominance.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Oh no no no no no no

https://toucharcade.com/2019/03/22/valors-reach-announced/

Exclusive Reveal: ‘Valor’s Reach’ from Wizards of the Coast Brings the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Universe to Mobile in a Brand New Way

 

[Plaguecrafter]

Oh no no no no no no

https://toucharcade.com/2019/03/22/valors-reach-announced/

Exclusive Reveal: ‘Valor’s Reach’ from Wizards of the Coast Brings the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Universe to Mobile in a Brand New Way

Is this an out of season April Fools joke?

 

[spectre]

I kinda expected the phone version to look like ass, but they really outdid themselves here.
I mean, what's the thought process behind this? Make it look like Hearthstone so that other kids don't bet you up when they see you play it?

Anyways, I brushed off the good old Drakes/Arclight Phoenix deck and had a surprising amount of success in the current meta.
In the meantime, I've seen a growing number of GUR reclamation decks recently, probably due to some wanker youtuber streaming it or whatnot.

Since I've never really gotten round to playing reclamation before, I decided to give it a go.
A few iterations later, I'm really not sure what folks have been smoking. No lifegain and Fiery Cannonade being the only removal meant the deck
just folds to any RDW coming its way. Since I made the point of having a decent matchup with this shit no matter the deck I play, I decided
going Gates actually fixes a number of problems I've seen in the popular version.

4 Izzet Guildgate (GRN) 252
4 Gruul Guildgate (RNA) 250
4 Simic Guildgate (RNA) 258
1 Island (RNA) 261
3 Steam Vents (GRN) 257
1 Mountain (GRN) 263
4 Plaza of Harmony (RNA) 254
3 Gateway Plaza (GRN) 247

4 Gates Ablaze (RNA) 102
4 Ionize (GRN) 179
2 Wilderness Reclamation (RNA) 149
3 Niv-Mizzet, Parun (GRN) 192
3 Hydroid Krasis (RNA) 183
2 Shivan Fire (DAR) 142
2 Guild Summit (GRN) 41
2 Banefire (M19) 130
4 Growth Spiral (RNA) 178
3 Chemister's Insight (GRN) 32
3 Expansion // Explosion (GRN) 224
2 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
2 Opt (DAR) 60

Here's what I got at the moment. Still not sure if I actually need the Reclamation here (I'm a tad salty because I legit lost two games until I figured out how to work with this thing).
Standing all the lands after going all in with a big Krasis, Parun or Summit is really handy. Even better if people go out of their way trying to remove it because it's not nearly as essential as it looks.
Two on board let me threaten with burn by Explosion (though I am still wonky on the controls).
Same goes for Guild Summit, I have a gut feeling I should settle for either, but so far a 2:2 split works somehow.

I really like how the various interactions play out, following a Parun with a Krasis, a Summit or Expansion is a whole lot of pain. Going from 20 to zero in one turn isn't impossible.
Now it has it all - good mass burning, sufficient life gain, it does bad things to aggro, unless the draw is shitty.

The mana base is wonky, but not terrible. There was a bit of a balancing act going on, as new colors don't really bring that much to the table, and would force me to mana fix with Open the Gates
instead of opts. One more gate would be great, preferably one that brings something to the table other than feeding Gates Ablaze, but can't really afford four Plazas (and I'd play fewer if I could).

Peeing on things for X damage to show (electro)dominance sounded fun at first, but I was forced to abandon that plan, I really needed a reliable way to burn myself out of a number of pesky planeswankers,
magic negro among other things, but also vivien.

Took it to constructed today, managed to do a 7:0 and I have another run started that looks similarly promising (at 4 wins currently, lost 1 game to a last-year jeskai build).
Matchup vs. RDW and mono U looks fine, once you drop Parun it's bye bye baby, it also has solid game vs. control - a good bunch of the threats being uncounterable or semi-uncounterable, like the Krasis trigger.
They usually get careless with their life, spending it carelessly and enabling death by bananafire.
UGB and its mutations were crappy, but you can't have it all. It was one reason I insisted on planeswalker removal.

 

[Jason Liang]

I've played against the version that wins through Sylvan Awakening, it's pretty gud. Sylvan Awakening makes my Cannonade sad.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

New Draft combo deck: Unbreakable formation + mesmerizing benthid + arrester's admonition. Basically bounce benthid back to my hand a bunch of times to make a ton of 0/2 tokens then attack for big dmg. 2 Gate colossus helps w/ dmg

complete with 2x ctm and a bunch of draw to cycle the combo mwahaha

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

omfg guys I made this dumbass combo contructed deck w/ lumbering battlement cards I picked up from draft check it:

Spoiler

it's infinite loop of exiling/bringing shit back to the battlefield so I mill him to death in one turn w/ wall of lost thoughts

holy shit so funny

 

[spectre]

I keep misreading Mesmerising Benthid as Mesmerising Behind.
High Alert can give you more mileage out of the tokens.

I've played against the version that wins through Sylvan Awakening, it's pretty gud. Sylvan Awakening makes my Cannonade sad.

Yeah, the shell was made for Nexus of Fate before it was banned in Bo1, but it's pretty flexible and you can accommodate pretty much anything that feeds off massive mana, Biogenic Ooze works, so does Expansion+Fire With Fire.

I settled for Krasis + Parun because they go along well together. One is good for aggro, the other vs. control, one dies to Cast Down, the other doesn't.

So far I've lost one more game with it - white weenie seems to be the real killer if it does its pornographic opening on the play - three 2/1s followed by a Benalish Marshal, while I am still bumbling with the gates to get any kind of mana.
Two Aldente Vanguards can also be pretty sad, although it's pretty fun when they pay 16 life for two Gates Ablaze and then die by Banefire, so it's not like the deck has no game at all here.

 

[Jason Liang]

white weenie's been giving me problems as well. It's not Benalish Marshal but a T3 Elephant.

 

[new fucking guy]

Venerated Loxodon is pretty amazing. I've seen some WW lists with just loxodons, bunch of 1 mana flyers and 16 lands. Fun stuff.
I also tried him in modern with 0 mana creatures, it's very playable.

 

[spectre]

The problem I keep having Veneric Loxodon is you need to stop the beatdown for a turn (apart from Banalia tokens). It's usually fine versus mono red, where you're on the defensive and building up towards that 12 damage moneyshot.
Otherwise, slowing down and over-committing to the board invites bad things.

I was thinking on crafting a few more, but then Unbreakable Formation came and it works better for me.

white weenie's been giving me problems as well. It's not Benalish Marshal but a T3 Elephant.

Yeah, being on the draw vs. these things means need to be on-curve with the Gates Ablaze, which may or may not happen. Sometimes you can compensate by Expanding the Shivan Fire and hope that's enough for them to run out of steam.

Managed to burn a guy with Parun Draw damage today, he had Vivien's emblem and started dropping stuff like mad (including Hydrokrases which I had to chump with my Paruns). Shit was epic, but I forgot to take a screenshot in the heat of battle.

 

[new fucking guy]

I don't think he slows you down at all! You don't have to convoke with all of your dudes, and conveniently you wouldn't attack with 1/1s into blockers anyway. The power he brings to the table makes up for any inconveniences. Furthermore, he makes shitty boards of even just 2 tokens into huge threats, either baiting out the wraths without overcommiting or rebuilding your board after one.
Formation is obviously better in control matchups, but it's not nearly as powerfull as just having a 4/4 against the rest of the field.
That said, he starts being cumbersome in multiples, so I only run 2.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jason Liang]

lukaszek looks familiar...

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-azorius-pirates-standard

Creatures (17)
4 Siren Stormtamer

4 Departed Deckhand

3 Warkite Marauder

4 Dreamcaller Siren

2 Angel of Grace

Planeswalkers (5)
1 Dovin, Grand Arbiter

4 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Spells (13)
1 Chart a Course

2 Absorb

4 Lookout's Dispersal

2 Settle the Wreckage

4 Warrant // Warden

Lands (25)
1 Field of Ruin
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
6 Island
4 Memorial to Genius
6 Plains

Sideboard (15)
1 Entrancing Melody
1 Negate
1 Seal Away

1 Treasure Map
4 Deputy of Detention
1 Chemister's Insight
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Mass Manipulation
1 Settle the Wreckage

3 Lyra Dawnbringer