Magic the Gathering Arena

[Dawkinsfan69]

Is this expensive to keep up with?

If you win 4 games a day you'll get enough free currency to buy one or two packs every day and then you get another free pack every 2 days for completing the daily quests. So that's like 130 free packs every set and if you open 200 packs of a set you basically have a full playset of all the cards. Like cow said if you're good at drafting you can get more value from that.

I'd say it's between free and not expensive to keep up but it can be expensive to catch up. If you start now for example you'll probably want some cards from GRN, RNA, and WAR sets + the current M2020.

 

[anvi]

Wow thanks that sounds great.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Finally got into this but I dunno, my feelings are mixed. I don't think it's that much more convenient than MTGO (in certain aspects it is not) and it's certainly more expensive than that. I guess you can grind right here but it's not like that wasn't available in MTGO (before it was murdered for the sake of this) and Arena is much more restrictive in a way you're playing it out. I mean, it MTGO you needed 60-65% winrate to stay infinite while doing drafts only. Here you need 75-80. While former is realistic (even though it's champion-level), the latter is simply impossible. And, at the end of the day, traditional draft here still costs 15 bucks. Actually, because Russia has 20% tax on online purchases nowadays, it's more like 18 bucks for 2-2.5 hours of playtime - fuck that.

I mean, I sorta get the appeal of this and the reason of popularity - to a certain degree, MtG's gameplay aspect is much weaker than its "Gathering" aspect. It's much more about slow assembly of the deck (which this does provide rather well) than the actual joy of playing that deck. To a certain degree, it's like a longer Slay the Spire (or Shandalar if anyone remembers this) and the lack of this is what doomed both Gwent and Artifact, in my opinion. Gwent gave itself away way too easily and Artifact was too much about just purchasing stuff directly.

Anyways, recorded my first MTGA draft, didn't do too bad - 5-1. Assembled a sturdy GW with 2 Season of Growth (I'm amazing how pros are calling this one shit - it's won me a lot of the games and it's doing as much in another draft I'm going through right now, 3-0 there currently), 1 Ironroot Warlord (chief reason to go selesnya - he's bonkers), Hanged Executioner (was amazingly useful against two different 8/7 hydras I've met - probably the only way of ending them without fighting) and Sephara (didn't have enough accel for her, though, but she still saved my hide more than once). Had zero removal (lol) but people seem to be shit at playing around Feral Invocation so I've just pumped my way through their ranks.

Overall, the skill level seems to be pretty low although that's also why I'm playing right now - I wanna squeeze as much as possible out of that beginner pack and the best way to do it is new set's release. I've spent a bit of time preparing and playtesting (it's not even much work as I've thoroughly enjoyed that) and they're probably playing fresh. So it's like clubbing baby seals. Well, fuck baby seals.

 

[Scruffy]

Finally got into this but I dunno, my feelings are mixed. I don't think it's that much more convenient than MTGO (in certain aspects it is not) and it's certainly more expensive than that. I guess you can grind right here but it's not like that wasn't available in MTGO (before it was murdered for the sake of this) and Arena is much more restrictive in a way you're playing it out. I mean, it MTGO you needed 60-65% winrate to stay infinite while doing drafts only. Here you need 75-80. While former is realistic (even though it's champion-level), the latter is simply impossible. And, at the end of the day, traditional draft here still costs 15 bucks. Actually, because Russia has 20% tax on online purchases nowadays, it's more like 18 bucks for 2-2.5 hours of playtime - fuck that.

I mean, I sorta get the appeal of this and the reason of popularity - to a certain degree, MtG's gameplay aspect is much weaker than its "Gathering" aspect. It's much more about slow assembly of the deck (which this does provide rather well) than the actual joy of playing that deck. To a certain degree, it's like a longer Slay the Spire (or Shandalar if anyone remembers this) and the lack of this is what doomed both Gwent and Artifact, in my opinion. Gwent gave itself away way too easily and Artifact was too much about just purchasing stuff directly.

Anyways, recorded my first MTGA draft, didn't do too bad - 5-1. Assembled a sturdy GW with 2 Season of Growth (I'm amazing how pros are calling this one shit - it's won me a lot of the games and it's doing as much in another draft I'm going through right now, 3-0 there currently), 1 Ironroot Warlord (chief reason to go selesnya - he's bonkers), Hanged Executioner (was amazingly useful against two different 8/7 hydras I've met - probably the only way of ending them without fighting) and Sephara (didn't have enough accel for her, though, but she still saved my hide more than once). Had zero removal (lol) but people seem to be shit at playing around Feral Invocation so I've just pumped my way through their ranks.

Overall, the skill level seems to be pretty low although that's also why I'm playing right now - I wanna squeeze as much as possible out of that beginner pack and the best way to do it is new set's release. I've spent a bit of time preparing and playtesting (it's not even much work as I've thoroughly enjoyed that) and they're probably playing fresh. So it's like clubbing baby seals. Well, fuck baby seals.

i haven't played mtgo in half a decade, but back then there was no "grinding", you either spent actual money or you couldn't do anything, has that changed?

 

[Pope Amole II]

i haven't played mtgo in half a decade, but back then there was no "grinding", you either spent actual money or you couldn't do anything, has that changed?

Ofc there was grinding. There was no F2P but, as long as you've played well, you could've recouped those investments as everything you had was convertible - either via selling tix or (if you're from KWA) redemption process. I've put $150 back in the 2010 into my account and that was the last time I was spending money there, playing & returning much more after that point.

Obviously it wasn't for everyone but with MTGA there's not even a possibility of getting some money out.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Season of Growth (I'm amazing how pros are calling this one shit - it's won me a lot of the games and it's doing as much in another draft I'm going through right now, 3-0 there currently),

Pros seem to be full of shit a lot of the time, unless I'm missing something and they're on a whole different level. I don't understand how someone could look at season of growth and think that it's useless. I find that lots of cards they rate low work out great.

Been grinding constructed event with this dovin bounce deck. Rule of law is officially my #2 favorite mtg card behind clear the mind!



3feri is my 3rd favorite just because it freaks people the fuck out whenever it resolves. It's hilarious how many games I've won because aggro decks choose to attack 3feri instead of my face or more important cards, especially when their decks aren't built to interact with my turn in this first place. Sometimes people literally concede the moment it resolves lol.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Done another draft, another 5-1. Had a UGr deck without much bombs but with 2 Reefs, 1x Pattern Matcher and a Season of Strength. Lots of other elementals too. So I've just flooded the board over and over and over again and then Overran (whatever that 5 mana +2/+2 is) for the victory. Reefer decks are not fair, lol.

Also tested Lotus Field in limited - raredrafted it as I mb will want to muck around it in casual constructed, have 2 already but no white or blue combo pieces. It's so-so. It's a fixing but there's no combo with it and tapping for 3 of the same color at once is real clunky. Unless I had a combo piece, I wouldn't bother with it, I think.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...tal/developer-update-core-set-2020-2019-07-10

Seems like a fine change. Penalizes people less for missing individual days and the total XP you can earn over a week is a little higher than it was previously. Between that, the codes they've put out, and this upcoming event it should be fine to reach level 100.

 

[Jason Liang]

3 packs/ week ---> 6000 xp/ week
15*250 xp = 3750 xp
2250 xp/ 500 xp per quest = 4.5 quests/ week

It's a little more extra work than before, since before you could get your 3 packs all at once signing in once a week, now you have to clear your quests twice a week to get most of your three packs. i

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

http://freekeys.opsgaming.fr/jv/magic_arena

Can snag a code for the Chandra M20 planeswalker deck here.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

what is this french trickery

You do the captcha and type in whatever for email and get a code for the deck!

Also picked up the mastery pass since it looks like hitting level 100 should be pretty attainable given my daily fucking around with the game. Makes more sense to wait and get it when I'm guaranteed level 100, but the drip-feed of goodies is nice.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

oui

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

That hateful Simic mill deck I posted a few days back is working pretty well against the 90% risen reef decks I get matched against. Just let basically all their reefs and elementals resolve, holding back sabotage to stop that legendary elemental that can direct damage, and then mill the absolute shit out of them after they've already drawn half their deck by turn 5. I did change the deck a little to stick in a couple copies of Tamiyo (Useful to try to get wilderness rec online if you aren't drawing it, can help bring back an important counter/fog, etc) replacing some of the Jace's Triumphs. She's PROBABLY better than triumph even though she doesn't synergize as well with Psychic Corrosion, but she is also helpful in the situations where your opponent either runs Jace or steals one of your Jaces, so you can shift gears to self-milling.

I also saw that WotC says they ARE going to give all existing players the new M20 starter decks, but they're having "Difficulty" so the new players don't get double dipped so we should expect it around rotation. Which in reality means "Craft a full playset of knight of the ebin legion you pieces of shit, you aren't getting your free copy until we're already in the next set". Kind of a pain in the ass.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

not even opening any packs until I get most rares from draft tbh so w/e

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jason Liang]

really? Can't say there are too many hot rares in M2020 off the top of my head, besides the Leylines.

EDIT: And the dinos.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

rule of law is the best m2020 card fight me

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Alright new deck: Dovin Taps some ASS

 

[spectre]

really? Can't say there are too many hot rares in M2020 off the top of my head, besides the Leylines.

EDIT: And the dinos.

With the rare lands, they aren't really necessary before rotation hits, that's good because we have some leeway with the WCs
I am liking the Field of the Dead with Scapeshift combo, shenanigans are supposedly possible with Lotus Field under Blood Sun, but I don't have the wildcards to burn for this.

From other stuff, I am a big fan of Nightpack Ambusher, Legion's End is pretty cool to have 1-2 of, and so is the tutor.

If you're into tribals in general, there's Icon of Ancestry, along with a creature for each of the new tribals - an elemental, a vampire, a dino and a shade.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Changed the deck around a bit and added in jace as basically an easier wincon than just deploying a bunch of thopters. Once it's running verity circle draws so many cards that self mill is pretty easy to achieve.

Bonus: Teferi flash-Sleep on their turn is busted! Basically it taps all their creatures and keeps them tapped for that turn + the next turn. If you have a few verity circles up it's gonna draw a dickload of cards too. Taking this to ranked and seeing where it lands :/

Unsure about absorb; it's been basically a dead draw because this deck taps so much mana each turn I never have any excess. Maybe I'll cut those and add in a single dovin's veto to counter any shenanigans that try to mess with my jace.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG