Magic the Gathering Arena

[Dawkinsfan69]

btw where are the FUCKING pony sleeves?!?!?!?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Nah I think they're gonna have free brawl in like a week anyway. I'm literally never going to use any of the cards that you earn in the brawl event. Also I'm obligated to say: fuck momir and fuck cascade

Faerie formation and thorn mammoth both seem brawl-playable to me at least, but you are right that brawl will be free in about a week. But it's also going to be a single day every week, whereas this event lets you go on a brawl-orgy.

Also for what it's worth I haven't seen a single Oko yet. Opponents have been Vraska, Judith, and that Selesnya 2 drop chick I forget the name of. The 2/2 for 2 that shits out a token every time she's tapped.
Edit: Though speaking of Judith, whoo boy that was a fucking close one. As expected it was a really aggressive Rakdos deck and I managed to stabilize on 2 fucking life and start jerking myself off with walkers to sneak out a win. I forgot to put a flame sweep in my Izzet deck and I'm going to amend that shit immediately.

Edit 2: And very next game my opponent is Oko with a keep-7 hand with once upon a time in it and a turn 1 grazer for ramp. BRB killing myself

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Decided to try Selesnya myself, seems pretty fucking strong. Here's what I ended up slopping together and it's beating people up significantly harder than Izzet was:

Spoiler

Commander
1 Emmara, Soul of the Accord (GRN) 168

Deck
8 Plains (ANA) 61
9 Forest (ANA) 65
1 Faeburrow Elder (ELD) 190
1 Knight of Autumn (GRN) 183
1 Blossoming Sands (M20) 243
1 Selesnya Guildgate (GRN) 255
1 Temple Garden (GRN) 258
1 Pledge of Unity (WAR) 210
1 Ledev Champion (GRN) 186
1 Ajani, the Greathearted (WAR) 184
1 Huatli's Raptor (WAR) 200
1 Ironroot Warlord (M20) 209
1 Flower // Flourish (GRN) 226
1 March of the Multitudes (GRN) 188
1 Trostani Discordant (GRN) 208
1 Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves (WAR) 224
1 Castle Ardenvale (ELD) 238
1 Giant Killer (ELD) 14
1 Charming Prince (ELD) 8
1 The Great Henge (ELD) 161
1 Hero of Precinct One (RNA) 11
1 Raise the Alarm (M20) 34
1 Tithe Taker (RNA) 27
1 Gideon Blackblade (WAR) 13
1 Prison Realm (WAR) 26
1 Conclave Tribunal (GRN) 6
1 Divine Visitation (GRN) 10
1 God-Eternal Oketra (WAR) 16
1 Venerated Loxodon (GRN) 30
1 Finale of Glory (WAR) 12
1 Castle Garenbrig (ELD) 240
1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World (WAR) 169
1 Once Upon a Time (ELD) 169
1 Return to Nature (ELD) 173
1 Lovestruck Beast (ELD) 165
1 Thrashing Brontodon (M20) 197
1 Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig (ELD) 185
1 Shifting Ceratops (M20) 194
1 Nightpack Ambusher (M20) 185
1 Questing Beast (ELD) 171
1 Biogenic Ooze (RNA) 122
1 Command Tower (ELD) 333
1 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244
1 Arcane Signet (ELD) 331

Not too sure about some of the cards in there, but seems to be a decent mix of early aggression and late game bombs. Almost got fucked by someone playing Grumgully proliferate but I resolved a great henge and was able to claw my way back out.

 

[new fucking guy]

Guess I'll post my selesnya list for comparison

Spoiler

Commander
1 Trostani Discordant (GRN) 208

Deck
6 Plains (ANA) 56
1 Finale of Devastation (WAR) 160
1 Emmara, Soul of the Accord (GRN) 168
1 Temple Garden (GRN) 258
1 Selesnya Guildgate (GRN) 256
1 Blossoming Sands (M20) 243
1 Flower // Flourish (GRN) 226
1 Assure // Assemble (GRN) 221
1 Knight of Autumn (GRN) 183
1 Ironroot Warlord (M20) 209
1 Pledge of Unity (WAR) 210
1 Conclave Cavalier (GRN) 161
1 Oakhame Ranger (ELD) 212
1 March of the Multitudes (GRN) 188
1 Shepherd of the Flock (ELD) 28
1 Conclave Tribunal (GRN) 6
1 Venerated Loxodon (GRN) 30
1 Sprouting Renewal (GRN) 145
1 Castle Ardenvale (ELD) 238
1 Raise the Alarm (M20) 34
1 Divine Visitation (GRN) 10
1 Harmonious Archon (ELD) 17
1 Gilded Goose (ELD) 160
1 Woodland Champion (M20) 205
1 Lovestruck Beast (ELD) 165
1 Nightpack Ambusher (M20) 185
1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World (WAR) 169
1 Arcane Signet (ELD) 331
1 Unbreakable Formation (RNA) 29
1 Apostle of Purifying Light (M20) 6
9 Forest (ANA) 60
1 Charming Prince (ELD) 8
1 Angel of Vitality (M20) 4
1 Tithe Taker (RNA) 27
1 Prison Realm (WAR) 26
1 Once Upon a Time (ELD) 169
1 Ugin, the Ineffable (WAR) 2
1 Justiciar's Portal (RNA) 13
1 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244
1 Command Tower (ELD) 333
1 Mobilized District (WAR) 249
1 Evolving Wilds (M20) 246
1 Elvish Reclaimer (M20) 169
1 Heraldic Banner (ELD) 222
1 Arboreal Grazer (WAR) 149
1 Impervious Greatwurm (GRN) 273

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Damned Registrations]

how does etrata work in brawl?

You have the option of putting her back in your deck or into your commander slot.

 

[anvi]

I got to Platinum in ranked now, I was surprised how even gold tier 1 was full of people who make mistakes and bad decisions and rage quit at the first sign of trouble. The last game that got me to platinum, the guy used that 5 mana Spark Harvest which can kill a creature or planeswalker. He used it to kill my crappy 2/2 creature token which was all I had in play, and he had 20 life... Next turn I played a Liliana Dreadhorde General and he rage quit. If only he saved his Spark Harvest...

I am enjoying rising through the ranks though with my better control deck now that I have some good cards. I would prefer to play the Standard Event because it generates gold but it is more competitive, people have better decks and play better. My Cavalcade deck wins about 2-3 times on average which is not great. I wanted to make my new deck strong enough to win more on average in that mode, because it is a lot more fun to play. But it only wins the same and yet takes 100x longer for each match. My plan is to keep playing ranked for fun, but work on making my Cavalcade deck better for the Standard Event. If I can get a few Chandra and a few Torbran, I think I would win about 5 times on average which would be great for gold. Even though it is boring as hell to play... But it is fast so I can win 5 matches in that event in about 15 minutes and make a lot of gold.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah I hit gold tier 1 last night and the last guy I fought kept blocking my 4/4 trample with a 1/1 fairy. He even did it when I was attacking a planeswalker and it didn't make enough of a difference to keep it alive. And the guy's decks was FULL of fancy custom art cards. I dunno, maybe he's a moron and bought them all. After losing then winning a round (actually won because he played that blue artifact that continually draws you more cards and he decked himself)., he only had 4 minutes left for the last one and wasted a minute of that sideboarding, like another 40 seconds considering mulligan and conceded pretty quickly. I can only assume he got that high by playing a ton of matches and using a pretty good netdeck.

I don't like how modern MTG is designed so that a lot of the best decks basically build themselves. It's been like this ever since they introduced the tribes mechanic back in onslaught I'd say, and it's gotten even worse since then. This guy's izzet deck was the perfect example of that. Just throw in every card that does a thing when you draw a second card each turn, and a bunch of cheap card draw. Of course, the deck will be shit unless you are using 4 copies of the rares and mythic rares that work with those mechanics. There's no need for these kinds of obvious synergies to exist. Discovering good card synergies is part of the fun of building a deck.

Also did another draft yesterday, that was miserable. First pick in both my second and first packs ended up being heavy green cards, but I was trying to put together a white/black deck and it turned out terribly. In retrospect I could have put together a great mono green questing deck, which I didn't think would be possible when I started because that's such a narrow niche.

Edit: I'm enjoying the Bo3 matches a lot more. Knowing what deck you're facing, even if you don't have anything decent to sideboard in, lets you play around it much better if you've got a flexible deck and understand the game well. Also smooths out losses due to mana flood/screw.

 

[spectre]

Most people with any skill who had anything to prove by ranking up have already ground their way out of gold, so you shouldn't be expecting too much. It's mostly about being persistent with your deck of choice. Platinum feels basically like Gold +, it used to be better, but ever since they introduce those cosmetic rewards for rare cards everyone just wants to grind it out.

I don't like how modern MTG is designed so that a lot of the best decks basically build themselves. It's been like this ever since they introduced the tribes mechanic back in onslaught I'd say, and it's gotten even worse since then. This guy's izzet deck was the perfect example of that. Just throw in every card that does a thing when you draw a second card each turn, and a bunch of cheap card draw. Of course, the deck will be shit unless you are using 4 copies of the rares and mythic rares that work with those mechanics. There's no need for these kinds of obvious synergies to exist. Discovering good card synergies is part of the fun of building a deck.

I don't think the "draw second card" theme deck will ever take off as top tier, but it's nice for novice deckbuilders so they can work towards these things.
I would agree, the new sets have this "modular" feel because some cards just work together and it makes sense to put in the whole package, say Goose + Oko + Wolf.
And if the particular set of cards is any good, you'll see it all over the place (do I keep it UG, or is UWG better, maybe UBG for Yarok?). This way you still need to do some deckbuilding legwork.
While the UG Flash felt a bit like it was designed by committee, it took me a bit to identify the optimal set of pieces.
From what I meet (and usually beat) in the field, it seems like getting there is a process.
And then you have stuff like the Kethis Combo, Golos Fields and WUB Doom which used synergies from all over the cardpool.

My Cavalcade deck wins about 2-3 times on average which is not great. I wanted to make my new deck strong enough to win more on average in that mode, because it is a lot more fun to play. But it only wins the same and yet takes 100x longer for each match. My plan is to keep playing ranked for fun, but work on making my Cavalcade deck better for the Standard Event. If I can get a few Chandra and a few Torbran, I think I would win about 5 times on average which would be great for gold. Even though it is boring as hell to play... But it is fast so I can win 5 matches in that event in about 15 minutes and make a lot of gold.

I wouldn't throw too many wildcards at the mono red deck. It's very good as a nublet starter deck when you feel like you'd like to start doing some winning for a change. I think it works best as a sleeper deck, when everyone kinda forgets that it's a thing, and you can dust it off and get a few easy kills.
If you want a more involved aggro plan, I'd try mono black instead, because it lets you explore a variety of strategies and even try to play the midrange game. Or GR, because Questing Beast and Embercleave is bonkers and you can use stuff like Thrashing Brontodontist to have a bit of game vs. the meta's control decks.
I recently managed to climb a few ranks with the long forgotten Feather aggro. It's not too flashy, because it didn't really get anything nice in the last expansion (though Once upon a Time is an easy include). Not sure if I'd recommend it now because it's a bit lacking in the department of interacting with permanents.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I dumped 3 rare wildcards on witch's vengeance today, seems like an amazing card, 3 mana for what can easily be a one sided board wipe against tribe decks. It's also hilarious against Nissa when they've got a bunch of 3/3 lands out. I'm tempted to get a few more Thrash as well, now that I've realized it can also target walkers. It's not very good at that with my weenie deathtouch guys though, I'd need to shift towards fatties.

If anyone wants to show me how much my deck is actually complete garbage my ID is Stormlock#18182, fight me nerds.

 

[spectre]

Knights don't seem to get any traction. Elementals are a has-been. Not saying you dun goof'd, I was using both in my reanimator, with the split is 3x Ritual of Soot, 2x Vengeance, but I moved more towards Soot + Massacre Girl since.
Would it kill the fuckers to make it a fucking -4/-4? At least it would do a number on the fucking Qwesting Beast.

It's a decent card for Bo3, so it should serve you.

Thrash is cool but if you need 'wanker removal for black/green, Murderous Rider is better rare craft imo. And if you want to go GR, Domri's Amubush is uncommon.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I've got paradise druids in there now so I can occasionally use the offcolour sides of the split cards, but I don't think I'd want to splash in a straight up GR. I did forget about murderous rider, that card would be decent even without the creature attached. My thinking with thrash is that I could use it to replace some of my existing removal though, rider would be more awkward to work in. Rider is probably the better craft though, I can leave it in the sideboard for walker heavy decks.

I haven't seen many decks totally focused on tribes (maybe birds? And it didn't seem very good) but most decks seem to have at least 12 of some particular tribe or generate tokens just because of theme and sharing mechanics, so it's easy to get a 2 for 1. It's mostly a good fit because it patches the biggest hole my deck has at this point- decks that can crank out too many creatures for my single target shit to keep up, mana wise.

 

[MajorMace]

I'm getting back into magic, praise MTGA for its economic model, they apparently gave me free decks and a few packs from the last extension (I think).
Anyway, I used to play a black green beetle-lady + poison-tip archer based on undergrowth, a few cards are out of standard and the whole rest will be soon, as it's from ravnica first set.

Need to find my new purpose among cards from the last extension. Right now i'm interested in how to utilise this blue legendary creature who allows to play artifacts from the graveyard.
Went for the obvious clock + mirror +that book which mulls the opponent & draws, tried to mix it with red (especially that adventure sorcery which destroys an artifact, so I can reset the mirror).

Something funny happened when I added the clover neutral artifact to my deck, one game out of two, people immediately quit when I play it.

What gives ?

Additional info : I'm 100% casual, know little about competitive magic and meta, just like to find stupid combos by myself and feel miserable when it completely fails.

PS : what a game.

Here's what I have so far : https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mindblown-4/?cb=1572026574

 

[Damned Registrations]

Something funny happened when I added the clover neutral artifact to my deck, one game out of two, people immediately quit when I play it.

Look up the innkeeper card, and all the cards with 'adventure'.

Started playing Brawl, 5:1 so far. Apparently green stompy works really well.

 

[MajorMace]

Wait, does the innkeeper effect triggers twice with the clover ?
this game man

 

[spectre]

I've got paradise druids in there now so I can occasionally use the offcolour sides of the split cards, but I don't think I'd want to splash in a straight up GR. I did forget about murderous rider, that card would be decent even without the creature attached. My thinking with thrash is that I could use it to replace some of my existing removal though, rider would be more awkward to work in. Rider is probably the better craft though, I can leave it in the sideboard for walker heavy decks.

I haven't seen many decks totally focused on tribes (maybe birds? And it didn't seem very good) but most decks seem to have at least 12 of some particular tribe or generate tokens just because of theme and sharing mechanics, so it's easy to get a 2 for 1. It's mostly a good fit because it patches the biggest hole my deck has at this point- decks that can crank out too many creatures for my single target shit to keep up, mana wise.

Well, good thing is you can often do a 2 for 1 with that card and even 1 for one isn't terrible. My biggest gripe with it is that it doesn't touch questing beast, which is everywhere, but then again, neither does Ritual of Soot.
Hence, I accept murderous rider as a necessary evil.

I'm getting back into magic, praise MTGA for its economic model, they apparently gave me free decks and a few packs from the last extension (I think).
Anyway, I used to play a black green beetle-lady + poison-tip archer based on undergrowth, a few cards are out of standard and the whole rest will be soon, as it's from ravnica first set.

Those cards are still in the game, you need to make a "historic" deck with rotated cards and use it in the play mode (if you use cards outside standard, it'll match you with other similar decks). That mode of playing a bit hidden and not well supported,
but here's hoping they'll pull their head out of their ass.

Anyways, start by typing in all the freebie codes and see if you get anything nice:
https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-promo-codes/

Wait, does the innkeeper effect triggers twice with the clover ?
this game man

No, but you can get two cards back with order of midnight, then play it to draw an extra card. Or put 8 cards into the graveyard with Mehrvolk Secretkeeper. It tends to add up very quickly.

 

[MajorMace]

put 8 cards into the graveyard with Mehrvolk Secretkeeper.

Yeah I usually couple the clover with secretkeeper & run away together.
On top of controlling the opponent, who usually starts to yell at his monitor I assume, it's a flat 16 cards in the graveyard. Which is more than enough to be followed by a ragequit in my bracket.
Which happens once in a while actually.

Most of my games I try to survive aggro decks though.

Thank you very much for the tip about Historic, I had a lot of cards from Ixalan/19 and couldn't retrieve those sets.

 

[anvi]

I just won 6 games in a row on standard event with a homebrew deck. Ethereal Absolution is fun against cavalcade decks, all the crappy little 1/1 creatures enter the board and die instantly. I even beat some control decks including the Oko deck which usually terrifies me.

I don't like how modern MTG is designed so that a lot of the best decks basically build themselves. It's been like this ever since they introduced the tribes mechanic back in onslaught I'd say, and it's gotten even worse since then.

THIS! So much! The first time I sort of quit MTG was when they added the "Allies". It was so shit, you just play 20 creatures and each of them become 8/8 and give each other one flying, hexproof, trample, first strike, etc. You don't need to even think to play a deck like that, just throw out the ally creatures and it automatically makes them super strong. Kithkin was similar, and Merfolk, and there were others. And since then there are more and more. :/

Also did another draft yesterday, that was miserable.

I gave up on drafting for a while because of some terrible games :/ I will try again soon but the difference between drafting with 5k gold and just spending it on 5 decks doesn't seem much. The draft probably gets more if you win some but I like opening as many decks as I can to push the wildcard circle along. But I wanna do more drafts anyway, better rewards and nothing but bo1 gets stale.

My Cavalcade deck wins about 2-3 times on average which is not great. I wanted to make my new deck strong enough to win more on average in that mode, because it is a lot more fun to play. But it only wins the same and yet takes 100x longer for each match. My plan is to keep playing ranked for fun, but work on making my Cavalcade deck better for the Standard Event. If I can get a few Chandra and a few Torbran, I think I would win about 5 times on average which would be great for gold. Even though it is boring as hell to play... But it is fast so I can win 5 matches in that event in about 15 minutes and make a lot of gold.

I wouldn't throw too many wildcards at the mono red deck.

Thanks, and I agree, I haven't played it for a week or so because I bought a bunch of gems and bought a bunch of uber cards. Pay to win... for the win. I have a control deck which is kinda fascinating to play and it is pretty strong so I've mostly been playing that. But I there was something to be said for winning lots of matches in under 2 minutes. I would play it more if I had more of the key red rares but I spent all my wildcards on other more interesting decks so cavalcade is kinda no more, unless I get lucky and loot some Torbran/Chandra.

I'd try mono black instead, because it lets you explore a variety of strategies and even try to play the midrange game. Or GR, because Questing Beast and Embercleave is bonkers and you can use stuff like Thrashing Brontodontist to have a bit of game vs. the meta's control decks.
I recently managed to climb a few ranks with the long forgotten Feather aggro. It's not too flashy, because it didn't really get anything nice in the last expansion (though Once upon a Time is an easy include). Not sure if I'd recommend it now because it's a bit lacking in the department of interacting with permanents.

Yeah the other aggro decks are FAR more interesting to play. I don't usually play green at all but I got some really good cards in the decks I opened so I might make a GB aggro deck. That Embercleave deck is brutal, I played against that a few times. There is a green creature that is about 4/4 and hasted and it comes back from the GY every time you gain life. So you can play lands that give +1 and some lifegain spells/creatures and that thing keeps coming back. I'd like to make a deck out of that. But I will probably focus on making a netdeck. A good fast aggro deck to grind standard event is my next goal.

After that I want to duplicate my control deck and then turn it into a Fae of Wishes deck. I have 4 of them and I saw a deck which used them to pull out endless perfect solutions... I love the idea of answering anything in play, and I like the challenge of making it work cuz it is mana expensive.

 

[anvi]

Here's what I have so far : https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mindblown-4/?cb=1572026574

I think people quit because there are some really tough clover decks. I played a guy who had 3 clovers out and every card hit me like a train, I died in no time. Your deck is more interesting though. If I had that artifact retriever I would be desperate to add black and have Wishclaw Talisman. 1 mana to draw any card from your deck into your hand, then use the shieldbreaker to kill it so the opponent cant use it. And then bring it back later. I also love Bolas's Citadel, I've seen people end the game with that. They just play their whole hand in 1 turn, lose a lot of life but win within a turn. Also Sphinx of the Guildpact is a pretty nice. You would probably be best to just stay with blue and red though, more reliable. Could have Embercleave in there.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I would be desperate to add black and have Wishclaw Talisman. 1 mana to draw any card from your deck into your hand, then use the shieldbreaker to kill it so the opponent cant use it.

I opened all those promo code packs today and got 1 mana pseudo tutor that puts the card on top of your deck, for opponent too. Of course, if you can mill your opponent in the same turn... seems like potential there.

 

[MajorMace]

It was so shit, you just play 20 creatures and each of them become 8/8 and give each other one flying, hexproof, trample, first strike, etc

Fucking slivoids.

ps : Thx for the advice anvi, I'll look into a blue black variation of my deck, bolas's citadel sounds pretty fun.

 

[you know what time it is]

Made a mono green Yorvo deck specifically to wreck Oko with a bunch of +1 counters cards. Never actually got to play against one, but still went 5-1 with only loss being against Izzet, because I'm retarded and forgot that it's singleton (let goblin electromancer live against a tapped opponent on t2).

 

[anvi]

Game is so laggy since that last update :/ "Contacting the server" message after every game, every land I play freezes the game for a moment while it calculates something... etc

 

[anvi]

Fuck I wasted 1000 gold today on Standard Event with my control deck. Three games in a row against red Torbran decks. All of them got to go first...

Turn 1: scorch spitter
Turn 2: another scorch spitter and some other creature
Turn 3: Some other creatures
Turn 4 they attack with Torbran and kill me for about 25 damage.

I am still on turn 3 so 3 lands, I can kill 1 creature.

 

[anvi]

The game royally fucks me in the ass too because if I play my anti-aggro deck.... I get nothing but control decks that fuck me. And if I play my control deck, I get 3 red rush decks that beat me in 3 turns.

Edit: I tweaked my control deck to be faster and just won 6 games in a row in Standard Event Then I lost to a really strong R/W aggro deck that I've never seen before.