Magic the Gathering Arena

[spectre]

dont think it can be won without sideboard rly.

Obosh was tough for me, but I keep managing to overpower Lurrus rather consistently whenever I see it in standard event, though it's a fucking grind.
Turn 1 Goose is crucial here, or another early blocker. Interestingly, sometimes 0 power is preferable. You can see Lurrus from a mile away, so mulligan for it.
You need that early blocker for their early stuff, so it doesn't cost you too much life. If you manage to catch a weenie with Nightbonder early on, so much the better.
From then on, the plan is to get a double Ambusher or an Ambusher with Nissa on board and throw damage at them before they ping you to death.
This can take a lot of time, be sure the keep anything that multiplies their damage off the table. All kinds of fliers can help here, cause they can't block them and they help you get ahead in the race.
Remember though, they're all susceptible to Claim the Firstborn.
Again, Geese will be critical here cause at some point their EoT will look like this - make food, eat food, go.

So yeah, judging by this matchup alone, Cutthroat doesn't bring the money home and neither does Wildborn Preserver, unless you give them flying and swing massively.

 

[new fucking guy]

note how simic flash only reached tier1

no longer flash.

if it has the ambusher it's flash. that's the real build around.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Doktor Best]

I fucking hate limited in this expansion man. Mutate is such a swingy bomb fest its fucking disgusting.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I fucking hate limited in this expansion man. Mutate is such a swingy bomb fest its fucking disgusting.

Kinda hate constructed too. Feeling too powerful. Never realized how good we had it with 5feri esper control decks, now it feels like every card is a bomb and if your opponent keeps anything on the board it's immediately game over.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

I fucking hate limited in this expansion man. Mutate is such a swingy bomb fest its fucking disgusting.

mm draft has actually been really fun for the first few weeks, lots of variety up till now. this really isn't a bomb set lurrus is probably the strongest rare and even that card isn't too hard to deal with. I think you're overrating mutate, it has its benefits and drawbacks..

the real broken archetype in this draft is boros cycling, which people are just now catching on to. That deck is crazy strong and can be somewhat consistently forced since all of its core cards are common, with some nice extra things at uncommon (zenith flare can literally do 10-15 damage to face), and because of BO1 hand smoothing it can get away with running 12 or less lands and shut you out of the game by turn 4. Since people just realized this sometime this week, probably something like 40% of the decks you face in draft are some variant of boros cycling. I'm expecting bots to just pass the entire deck to everyone in bot drafts once they go live tomorrow, since it uses a lot of cards that bots don't seem to value at all (2/2, 2/3, common rarity creatures and 1 mana cycling cards of any color).

Unfortunately I think most people will be force drafting this deck so variety won't really exist much. Actually, the mutate deck is HORRIBLE against boros cycling since it's too slow and the one big mutate creature will just get tapped down every turn until you lose on turn 5. So really, the strategy right now is to either try to force the boros cycling deck OR, if you get passed REALLY good cards in other colors, try to build a deck that counters it.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

so bots don't seem to be passing snare tacticians and stingers which is good, hopefully people won't be getting SUPER broken cycling decks however here's what I just drafted

LOTS of 1 mana cyclers getting passed, way more than in human draft I think

note 11 lands, just feels unfair lol

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

this feels so dirty in draft

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

i dont see anything else rly

it's broken af WOTC needs to make snare tactician and zenith flare rares

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

i dont see anything else rly

it's broken af WOTC needs to make snare tactician and zenith flare rares

probably easier to make bots auto grab them

surprisingly I think they actually did program bots to auto grab them, I've done quick draft maybe 5 times and I almost never see the big cycling payoff cards. Actually it's easier to force draft a cycling deck in human draft that bot draft, which is hilarious considering how much people have been putting the blame on bot drafts for busted sets.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

Looks like you've really put the Nightbondage to work this time. Does it perform adequately even if you don't draw them?
I would ideally love one or two more pieces of ramp, but alas. That's all we're getting.
Nice tech with Mystic Subdual. I keep underrating this card when drafting.
Personally, the only thing I would change in that list without changing too much is add one, two Omen of the Sea for some card diddling.
I'm also not too hot on just two quenches. IMO, they work best in a full set, supplemented by Negates and Essence Scatters, depending on the current matchup.
With the amount of bounce you're running, I'd be tempted to run Ashiok's Erasure, but that shit depends rather heavily on having a Bondage out.

It seems that you want plenty of mutate targets. Perhaps amass could help you here? The zombie tokens are quite decent recipients since the counter carries over.
Callous Dismissal would be fucking perfect... if the dumb cunts had made it an instant. This leaves us with Dreadhorde Invasion, maybe Lazotep Plating?

Which gives me an idea to see if I can make the UR variant work. Mutating onto something like a Goblin Banneret doesn't sound terrible at all.

Sideboard wise, I think Grafdigger + Carnarium seems like an awful lot of slots spent just to kick Lurrus in the balls. I think I'd settle for a Leyline.
This also shuts down the cycling flares, though that may be a bit overkill cause you have counters for this shit.

I think I already suggested stonecoil serpent for the SB earlier, this shit is great to get mutated and protection screws with a surprising number of things.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

If you blink things that mutated, they get split on return. Shit stops being merged when it changes zones and when they go back, the game doesn't remember they were. Not sure about it being practical (apart from just getting more bodies). You'll get more mutate triggers if you put all the eggs in one basket and just counterspell everything that tries to hit it.

is there such thing as proper number of counterspells? The way I play - flash cloak is counterspell too. Sort of. My whole deck was first build to utilize slitherwisp to its fullest, now im zoning him out while rest mostly stays...
I have big trouble staying within 60

Well, the optimal number is always at least one counterspell more than they have shit that needs countering. Depends on what need to be countered and at what stage of the game. Early game, Magic Negro is the worst offender, and it seems you can handle that with negates and boarded in disputes. I'm just thinking if you need something unconditional in there for the times when quench loses its reach.

I mean this current decklist... clearly slitherwisp is on its way out. This leaves single black card in lol. Bat is sort of defining this deck but I am almost mono blue eh
Single slitherwisp does feel right though even if you can only play him when there is nothing important to do.

Could be possible to go tricolor just for the dirge bats, though it still needs 16 black mana sources, might as well keep one or two slitherwisps in. If you like how this plays with discard, maybe try minimal counterspells with Thought Erasures and Drown in the Loch.
Drown in the Loch also needs Durex, though.

actually carnarium is more of rare mono red thing, not playing bo2 much right now. If anything in my limited experience I was removing counterspells due to enemy bringing protection. It often feels like proper black when i bring those discards in

I'm rarely seeing mono red in bo1 these days, which means it should almost never happen in bo3.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

Platinum is the new Gold, though. You get 2 pips for each win up until then.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I may still be in silver and not climbing at all because of a complete lack of Ikoria cards, but by god I'm going to throw creatures at my opponent's face and screech tomorrow in pauper. Shame all the good red cantrips rotated out and MTGA pauper is inexplicably standard-only rather than historic.

Deck
4 Spellgorger Weird (WAR) 145
8 Island (IKO) 265
4 Thunder Drake (WAR) 73
9 Mountain (IKO) 271
4 Burning Prophet (WAR) 117
4 Opt (ELD) 59
4 Shock (M19) 156
4 Scorching Dragonfire (ELD) 139
4 Fling (ELD) 126
4 Radical Idea (GRN) 52
4 Omen of the Sea (THB) 58
1 Swiftwater Cliffs (M20) 252
4 Izzet Guildgate (GRN) 251
2 Thrill of Possibility (THB) 159

 

[Thac0]

Izzet Spelltempo is good budget fun in standard as well. I really like Merchants Ominous Izzet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jvHv2pw9k&t=1705s) -4 Ominous Seas -2 Raking Claws +4 Ionise +2 Spellgorger Weird and change the Cathartic Reunion to Thrill of Possibility for an explosively potent deck that can just blitz some of the Keruga/Yorion crap out before they can do anything.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG