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Magic the Gathering Arena

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Thac0

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
If I'm currently using the new player prebuilt decks is it better to play unranked to grind out dailies without being completely obliterated? I heard the MMR takes into consideration your deck strength so you would theoretically face other players using those same decks for a more even playing field.

Or is it better to go into ranked?

I say grind ranked until the gold rank.
https://aetherhub.com/Article/MTG-Arena-ranking-system-and-how-it-works
The jump from silver to gold rewards is the biggest in the system, +1 pack +500 gold per season.
If you dont care for that play unranked, the deck strength algorithm is pretty strong. It has one really annoying flaw tho, since a mirror version of your deck has exactly the same or nearly the same deck strength you will play a lot of mirrors. You could take the most hipster shit like Simic Ascendancy into the play queue and you would face the one other guy on the planet playing Ascendancy.
 

spectre

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I haven't touched "Play" in a very long time, but from what I remember, there is a grace period for new players where you should be matched with other new accounts mostly for a number of games (50?).
After that, the matchmaker kicks in, taking into account your deck strength and MMR. Which means, theoretically you should be matched with other starter decks if you bring your own starter deck,
but if you win too much, your MMR gets too high and you get matched vs. better stuff. Perhaps you could manipulate this by conceding a bunch of games in a row if you're feeling like it.

Ranked will be nothing but netdecks and tryhards after a certain point, but you should play at least a few games until you get... as far as you feel like. Gold should be easily achievable.
Platinum needs a working deck, but is still easy cause you get 2 pips for each win. The point here is to be eligible for end-of-season rewards, and you should play some ranked drafts for the same reason.

Since your starting collection is most likely shit, keep an eye out for events like singleton, artisan or standard shakeup where you can try and compete with what you have.
Here's a list of budget stuff to get you going.
https://mtgazone.com/mtg-arena-budget-standard-decks/
You need at least a few of decent decks to give you wins, so you can earn those daily rewards without too much fuss.
Up to you to set the threshold that works for you, going for 15 wins every day is a good way to burn yourself out.
A lot of folks go for 10 wins, but the diminishing returns start after four.
 

Snorkack

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thanks for the tips, my men! Poor man's Dimir Flash it is. Only 2 rare and a couple uncommon wildcards away.
Is it worth jumping into Limited? Or is it a surefire way for a noob to waste his precious gold?
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Yeah, I've been primarily playing with the Mono Black starter deck since it seemed somewhat decent and I liked it has a vampire theme going on, the one drop vampire with deathtouch and the flying one which buffs each time you lifelink have been doing some admirable work for me so far against other beginner decks. Is there any way to hasten the process of unlocking the dual colored decks or do I have to wait for the reset timer each day?

Also which boosters are best value for someone looking to play Black or Green based decks? I've also been thinking of B/W.
 

spectre

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thanks for the tips, my men! Poor man's Dimir Flash it is. Only 2 rare and a couple uncommon wildcards away.
Is it worth jumping into Limited? Or is it a surefire way for a noob to waste his precious gold?
I think it's actually a pretty good environment for a noob. The field should be level, cause it doesn't care about your collection.
It's also a very good way to get the feel of an expansion, you'll be playing with shit you'll probably never going to see in constructed.
Not to mention, it's quite rewarding when you can just get gems and buy mastery passes this way.

You keep all the cards you pick, so it's down to whether the baseline rewards are acceptable to you as opposed to just buying packs:
45 cards you picked, including 3-4 rares, a handful of gems and a pack.
IMO it's roughly equivalent to what you'd otherwise get from 5000 shekels.
Buying packs is only better if you want wildcards and specific cards, if you can manage at least 1-2 wins, I'd stick with the quick drafts.
Premium drafts have a better reward structure once you get the hang of it and feel you can pull ~4 wins, leave those for later.

You have all the time in the world to do the bot draft, so feel free to consult your picks with some online guide.
Check some videos of people drafting to get an idea what a good draft deck might look like.
Stuff you wouldn't touch in constructed can be very powerful, and on the contrary, shit you'd kill for in constructed can be merely meh in draft.
You can also get a white friend and consult your final list with them for adjustments. Sometimes you can shuffle 3-4 cards around and unfuck it.
It takes time to get it right, what I did was put away shekels for 2+ draft tickets. This way if I royally fuck up my picks, or see some bomb plays to copy, I can immediately try and improve my game.
This approach also helps when you get easily distracted by the oooh shiny rare, this way you can spend one draft ticket cherry picking the good stuff, then try to actually draft a working deck on the next go.

I still suck in draft, by the way, I never went above gold rank and Bo3 drafts are fucking juden sciencemajik for me, but it's good enough to keep me free to play and 99% complete on pretty much all the sets.

Also which boosters are best value for someone looking to play Black or Green based decks? I've also been thinking of B/W.
I'd wait a bit for M21 to drop, looks like it's got some black stuff that looks cool.
Normally, I'd suggest looking into the Ravnica expansions, as there's a lot of two-color support there, but these things will soon be falling out of standard (assuming you care about this).
There is a bit of support for going mono black in Throne of Eldraine, but good stuff is pretty much littered all over the place. You should be fine by buying into whatever expansion
(or better still, read above about trying not to succ in limited and try doing that). Otherwise, just play the game and see what people are playing to give you some idea about what works.
 
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Thac0

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
thanks for the tips, my men! Poor man's Dimir Flash it is. Only 2 rare and a couple uncommon wildcards away.
Is it worth jumping into Limited? Or is it a surefire way for a noob to waste his precious gold?

I started spamming limited immediatly and never regretted it. While you lose monies compared to buying packs in the beginning you get better at the format and your wins even out quickly. Also it lets you control which uncommons and rares you get to a degree, which isnt to be understated. Dont play the draft modes which are only three games, those rip you off when your winrate is bad. Also try to stick to the 5000 gold modes, the 20000 ones are more risk reward. Drafting with humans is more fun tho.

Using a limited tier guide makes it a lot easier. Also deckbuilding is not as binary as Hearthstone Arena so it doesnt make the game boring, I highly recommend one. The best one used to be the limited review by Luis Scott Vargas but that is behind a paywall now.
Next best F2P alternative is https://mtgazone.com/ikoria-lair-of-behemoths-limited-tier-list/ in my experience, just open their respective list for the colours you want to play in that draft https://mtgazone.com/ikoria-lair-of-behemoths-limited-set-review-black/ and keep them open to double check. Mtgazone gives you the opinions of two players to cross reference but both are worse than LSV at the game.


Also which boosters are best value for someone looking to play Black or Green based decks? I've also been thinking of B/W.

If you dont care about rotation Guilds of Ravnica has the Golgari guild, and many important Green/Black cards. If you want to be rotation proof Throne of Eldraine has many of the best green and black cards recently printed.

Edit: ninjad by 2 minutes by spectre . We pretty much say the same stuff lol.
 

spectre

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You can also get a white friend
dont listen to spectre, you are fine without white in your life
Look man, we need to sit down and actually talk this one through.
You need a white friend in your life, otherwise you're not assembling any IKEA furniture. It's in the booklet, it's the law.
instructions.jpg
 
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Thac0

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
trying to wrap my head around this
Teferis-Tutelage-M21-265.webp


I predict it to bring easy wins in limited

In standard if you put song of creation you will mill your opponent in 2 rounds i guess.
Will it work with gitrog lich combo in historic? Im not clear if draw as trigger still happens or not

I dont think it goes anywhere, milling your opponent is almost always a terrible idea, as cards in the graveyard are more valuable than cards in the library for most decks.
Even if you hardcast this t3 and it survives to t4, how many cards can you realistically draw in standard in a turn? 10? thats merely a third of what you need to mill for the win.
If your T3 tutelage and T4 song thats two turns you spent doing absolutely nothing for hopefully a t5 win. Standard is currently a t4 format.
If this could hit yourself it might be sweet with Oracle of Thassa.
 

Jason Liang

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Jace's Erasure was the same thing at 2 cmc and it was never competitive.

Jace%2527s%2BErasure%2B%255BM12%255D.jpg


Btw, back to the Vampires thing, how about Adanto Vanguard with Mutate? I saw some combo decks with Famished Paladin as well.

Adanto%2BVanguard%2B%255BXLN%255D.jpg
Famished%2BPaladin%2B%255BRIX%255D.jpg


Although, my favorite vampire combo involves a card that isn't in Arena yet, I think. If they ever release Burning Vegeance:
Oathsworn%2BVampire%2B%255BRIX%255D.jpg
Burning%2BVengeance%2B%255BC19%255D.jpg


Hm. Looks like you can also use Bontu's Monument, whenever they bring back Amonkhet:
Bontu%2527s%2BMonument%2B%255BAKH%255D.jpg
 
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Thac0

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
L8B8nhUvqMjdZHBzoxCRRC-650-80.png


what the fuck

T3 Shock + Skewer the critics + Heroes of Might and Magic Fire Elemental seems like a good turn. Might straight up be good enough to end up as a creature in modern oops all Lightning Bolt decks.
 
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new fucking guy

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Pathfinder: Wrath
homm3 fire elemental is straight up ridiculous. If you asked every red mage in the world to design a creature, I don't think anyone would be so brave to make this
 
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Nice, a strictly better (For 1 vs 1 THE ONLY FORMATS THAT MATTER FUCK YOU COMMANDER) Psychic Corrosion. Still probably not enough to get mill memes tolerable in standard since everything's way too powerful and every deck has turn 3 lethal but I much prefer milling-on-draw than milling-on-blue-spell like the tentacle rape one.
 
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L8B8nhUvqMjdZHBzoxCRRC-650-80.png


what the fuck

T3 Shock + Light up the Stage + Heroes of Might and Magic Fire Elemental seems like a good turn. Might straight up be good enough to end up as a creature in modern oops all Lightning Bolt decks.
wat. You'd Shock for 2, which would make incinerator cost 4 mana. It's good but it's not 1 mana trample 6/6 double all burn on turn 3-good. Edit: In standard. If you have lightning bolts of course then you do pop it out on turn 3. Edit 2: And I guess you could turn 1 fire lizard, turn 2 double fire lizard, turn 3 shock and swing with the team to get out incinerator.
 

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