Magic the Gathering Arena

Ha! Self mill with verity circle is a riot!

 

This card's insane:



combined with all the cheap black removal it's broken

also shout out to the real champion:



get two of these motherfuckers on the board and it's game over

 

Today is a bad day to be making any judgments, though. I've done two 7-2 already but plenty of matches there were won due to people playing for the first times and not really understanding what went on. For example, I've had that 5/4 pro blue dino - in two matches people forgot that it can get reach, thus gifting me two of their flyers. In two matches they've forgot that I can paint anything blue with Scuttlemutt, thus gifting me two of their highly relevant creatures.

Heart-piercer is amazing but mostly due to Weaponsmith and his tendency to wheel. And bows themselves wheel too so that's a ton of power being gained for free. Wouldn't really play them without weaponsmith, though, at least not in the Bo1 draft.

Indenture is meh, zero initial impact. Blue and white and red will absolutely punish you for that shit.

 

Why? Cast it on enemy bomb before murdering/bone splintering their bomb dies and you get it w/ +1/+1


Yeah I wouldn't take it in an aggro deck but for control what's not to love?

 

That's the best case scenario. And there are lots of other scenarios like them having an evenly spread deck without specific bombs (just made another 7-1 with UB like that) or you having this aura and no Murder in sight. And it's pretty much a win more - if you're killing their bomb, you're probably winning anyways.

 

Been playing around with Risen Reef and yeah that card's pretty broken it prob should be banned. Typical turn 4 or 5 looks like this:

Yeah I don't think it would make sense to take the card unless you have a lot of removal but if you're in black you should have a lot of removal. I don't really agree that it's a 'win more' though, especially if you didn't happen to get many game ending creatures in your draft it can really turn the tables.

Also bow is fucking hilarious

 

O shit!

 

All the Throne of Eldraine art is pretty goddamn rocking. Apparently the "Brawl" format is coming to MTGA, too, but just 1v1.

 

fuck yea I'm looking forward to evil cookie tribal

 

I think I finally cobbled together a discard-reanimator build. The winrate looks quite even so far, but it's not a great deck to rank up with as the games aren't resolved very quickly.
Tried to do it pre-M20, but it felt like a bunch of important pieces were missing - Tomebound Lich really brings the deck together and Drakuseth is finally fucking something worth reanimating - evasion and kills people in two turns.
It's also quite epic when he sweeps an elemental, two man-lands and rips Nissa a new one all in one swing.

1 Swamp (M20) 271
1 Island (M20) 265
1 Dismal Backwater (M20) 245
4 Watery Grave (GRN) 259
4 Drowned Catacomb (XLN) 253
3 Overgrown Tomb (GRN) 253
2 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
2 Temple of Malady (M20) 254
3 Hinterland Harbor (DAR) 240
2 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246
2 Blast Zone (WAR) 244

Had to to to 61 for this shit to stop mana screwing me, but it finally started working. Ideally, the Temples of M'Lady would be changed to the UB version.
The green splash is obviously for Tamiyo, which alone is worth it and does great work in all kinds of situations. Added in Ass trophy later, because I felt I need
an all purpose response card, turns out it's just what the doctor has ordered.

Blast zones are doing Lord's work here. Imagine the looks on their face when they overload a Sailor with Curious Obsessions and it all goes poof on turn 4,
nothing they can do about it. The counters realistically should be set between 1-3, vs. Flash sometimes you need to go to 4.
At one time I went all the way up to 6 for a Liliana.

2 Assassin's Trophy (GRN) 152
2 Cry of the Carnarium (RNA) 70
2 Cast Down (DAR) 81
3 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84

The removal package is specc'd for the UG flash shit that I keep bumping into. It also shits on mono white unless they go really nutty.
With RDW it depends. I often finish these games on 3 life, which makes me think about jamming a Craving somewhere in there. Cast Down or Soot.

4 Thought Erasure (GRN) 206
3 Duress (M19) 94

No Durex, no fun. Use it to resolve a Tamiyo, then let them have a second serving as you prep to reanimate lifeless tissue.

3 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales (WAR) 220
4 Tomebound Lich (M20) 219
4 Chart a Course (XLN) 48

These make sure the stuff that should be in the graveyard is in the graveyard. Ideally, I'd want one more outlet, more ideally on a colored land.
At one point I ran a Davriel for this purpose
I will say it again, Tomeboung Lich really makes this shit come together. You can reanimate it in a pinch if you have an extra Bond or a Tamiyo to get it back,
letting you cycle two cards, or when it seems like +1 life can make a difference (very often it does).

4 Bond of Revival (WAR) 80
1 Final Parting (DAR) 93

Bond of Revival is the shit for reanimation today. Don't let any coprophag tell you otherwise.
Laugh at them as they diddle trading Blood for Bones.
I will tell you more about Final Parting when I start fucking drawing it, but before I put it in, it looked like the perfect missing piece of the puzzle.
At times I would spend half the game digging for something to reanimate (at one time I considered playing 5 targets), another game
none of my discard outlets come home.

2 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn (RIX) 30
2 Drakuseth, Maw of Flames (M20) 136

Drakuseth is obviously the hot shit here, yet sometimes he doesn't do Lord's work. You don't durex an unsummon (all your fault for not bringing any) and it all gets awkward.
Sometimes esper faggots wait for him with a T3feri'd wrath. That's where Zetalpa comes in. She is also vigilant which sometimes matters when haste damage can be expected.
Thinking about maybe splitting the slot with Chromium for the sweet hexproof+evasion, it's still a three turn clock, which doesn't feel super cool. A lifelinker would also be cool at times, but these are all sideboard considerations.
Might go all in with the Drakuseth, but I won't be throwing wildcards at this deck, so just let them come naturally.

 

with ranked m20 i finally earned gems for mastery... turns up mythic card reward is random mythic, not a wild card like i assumed.

SHould have spent that fortune on vraska avatar instead... well, ill get it soon anyway
also, you need to spend 5 orbs to get top mono in mastery tree, not 4 like I also wrongly assumed...

 

The mythics are not duplicate protected either, so I keep getting gems from them. Seems like the investment will be paying for itself faster than I thought.

Thankfully that shitty cat thing can be turned off. What a waste of resources that was. I've seen some virtual pet simulators back in the 90s with more flair than this.
And speaking of resources, because of lawl optimazashun? apparently playing with your kitty can make some potato computers on the other end of the cable sweat so hard they can't process the turn and run out of hourglasses.
Allegedly, a guy got banned for a few days for abusing this, but this could just be silly talk. I've never seen the opponents cat do anything, so maybe they just fixed it.

 

If u mute opponent it won't show their cat exploding and I have emotes disabled so I never see that shit. Anyway 20 gems for duplicates is pretty weak tbh should be at least 100

 

You get 20 gems for duplicate rares, duplicate mythics give you 40. Which is still too low to feel particularly good but it's marginally better.

Speaking of which, got an arclight phoenix from my mythic ICR today. I'm still so fucking tempted to make that "Standard dredge" deck. Here's a video of it in action, and even though it's not ridiculously powerful it just looks super fucking fun to play. Just would've been expensive to make for both the full playset of arclights and a billion rares I'd need to craft like the mission briefings and narcomoebas, since I whiffed on both when I was opening GRN packs unfortunately.

 

I played the full tits dredge version (wand of vertebrae, that thing which deals 3 damage for free, etc.) a month or so back. Didn't perform at all for me and I am still a bit mad about the rares I blew on Narcoamoebas and Drowned Secrets.
Maybe, just maybe, the addition of Jace would make it work, but I decided I don't have time for this shit.

The regular UR version based around Electromancers and Finales, with Kefnets and Drakes as backup wincons runs much more smoothly imo.

 

That's definitely a stronger deck, but it's less memey and weird since you aren't trying to mill yourself out or, alternatively, mill your opponent. The weird self-milling shit for creeping chill and narcomoebas (And the phoenixes) really tickles my fancy, I always really like that shit.

 

Same. It's fun to try something different than tapping creatures for 20 or killing fucking everything until you drop a planeswanker for concession. The problem at that time was it's only worth taking it to regular play, and with all the rares and mythics its packing, I was getting mostly tryhards rocking top tier decks and it took all the fun away from all the fun interactions the deck has.

 

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

Turn 5:


Turn 7:


Turn 8:


Turn 9:

 

HOLY SHIT BROS I just built the most degenerate deck!

4x Risen Reef + 4x Quasiduplicate + 4x Mirror Image + Finale of Devestation = play all lands in deck in about 6 turns then swing for big dick trample damage.

Fog spells keep them from doing anything until you swing.

 

this seem fun! I like that you went for nice ss with -100hp

Need to abuse it to help speed up reef ban

EDIT: although i think i like self mill win more
EDIT2: thought of yarok in that mix?

 

... but what happens if you dont draw risen reef

 

incubations should help

 

I'd definitely recommend a playset of shimmer of possibility in there, too. Similar to incubation for getting reefs, plus it can snag fogs/finales/whatever.

 

there might be some bug, ive just received 2x chandra flame fury from paid mastery. I wonder if its true for all 10x rewards

 

99% sure it's a visual bug. Check your stash, you should have 2 copies total. 1 from the planeswalker deck code and one from the reward. I've had that happen a few times too but only actually got one copy.