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Magic the Gathering Arena

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
Oh you mean with real cards not in arena? Thats why I was confused what you mean.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,419
lukaszek is referring to people "mana weaving" their shuffles irl. I used to see it a lot back in the day, you put a land and two non-lands together, then shuffle. Usually the shuffle is insufficient (otherwise the weave would do nothing) and results in a predictable pattern.
It is considered an offence on tournaments these days, and is a very common reason why people tend to go all wtf over the shuffler (not just arena, saw the same in magic duels)

Clumps of land are expected to form after a random shuffle, even if you're running 18 lands (because of the sheer amount), so you need to deal with this. If you see an aberrant number of non-games, especially alternating between mana screw and mana flood,
it usually means you didn't give yourself enough mana. Better to have one too many than one too few. Be sure to give yourself some draw/scry.

This article discusses the maths behind it:
https://www.channelfireball.com/art...you-need-to-consistently-hit-your-land-drops/
specifically, you want the tl;dr in "Results" table and see what % look comfortable for your deck. From my experience, the arena shuffler provides very similar results.

For an even more tl;dr,
26 lands is for control decks that need a land every turn and have good draw to break floods. You can go down to 24-25 if you use opts, birth of melepetis, etc.
Other than this, the 25 lands setup suggested by the deckbuilder is a trap cause it gives you significant flood chance.
24 is good for decks like UG flash, where you need to reliably go to three and four lands.
22 seems to be a good baseline for two color aggro. I even run it in mono red, because you have plenty of shit to use that mana for (most notably, the castle). Don't go 22 lands with three colors, that's asking for trouble.
Below 22 is good for decks that can operate well on measly 1-2 mana, rarely going to 4 lands. Usually monocolored stuff can pull this off.

The only two decks that could consistently pull off 18-20 lands on Arena was pre-rotation mono red, which was basically filled with Ghitu Lavarunners, Light up the Stages and Wizard's Lightning. The other was mono blue tempo,
which had a full set of shocks and draws cards immediately on turn 2 with curious obsession. You are usually content with 1-2 lands in your hand cause that's all the deck needs, and rely entirely on card draw to get to land number three, which is usually your most expensive shit.

Usually, when I go above 22 lands and I am not using three colors, I would use some utility lands - Mobilized District, Blast Zone, etc., so that not all of the land clumps will be useless.

From practice, if you see you're getting an abnormal land distribution in your starter hand, just mulligan it away. E.g. you're playing a 26 land deck and got two lands to work with,
I would expect the trend to continue and you might miss your third and fourth land drops.
I would typically mull it away, unless I have a scryland. Birth of Melepetis or some draw to dig deeper.
Similarly, when you're on aggro and you see a four land starter, don't assume you now "deserve" to get a streak of all non-lands. Most likely there will be more flooding.

You should reasonably expect 10% of your games to have some sort of mana issues, and it's by design. If you're seeing it more frequently, you may have gotten an unlucky streak, or you dun fuk'd on your lands.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,419
Get an automatic card shuffler.
I agree, it's the second biggest turn-off when playing irl, right after the smell. Thankfully, we have the technology to avoid both.

I was looking into this Heliod's Festival thing, these morons should really start asking themselves one question - does the shitty emblem we thought up accellerate mono red to new levels of stupidity? If so, maybe reflect that in the ban list so that it won't be 90% of the games.
Still, it was nearly fun going - Plains, Ulgix Conjurant, Stonecoil Serpent, Chamber Sentry, Gingerbrute, Veneric Loxodont if one could be bothered to build a special deck for it.
 

Uncreation

Savant
Joined
Jul 14, 2017
Messages
352
I think they're relying more on Ghost Quarter than on the goblin to keep it in check. But yeah, i'm not sure about this.
 

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
There may be enough board wipes in historic at this point to just make a board-wipe-every-turn deck

But yeah I'm not a fan of the whole "just use half of your sideboard for land destruction!" thing..

Field would be cool if it was literally any other card type beside land.. really it should have been an "enchant target land" card
 

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
you know, there's something nice about playing historic and not getting any rewards from it. Been running into all sorts of decks that do totally different things.

Also I miss Ixalan because fucking dinosaurs are cool as hell!

I guarantee the moment historic starts getting rewards will be the moment all of those decks die and everyone plays either some totally busted mono red or insane control
 

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
Prison deck MUCH better in historic!

o7ASuVV.jpg


Also what's better than Dovin's bouncy titty bar?

7GozRGF.jpg


Teferi's Bouncy titty bar!
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Can you erasure permanents already in play? I haven't played the card yet, and I wasn't sure if you could only erasure spells on the stack or if you could smack down stuff that had resolved too.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Can you erasure permanents already in play? I haven't played the card yet, and I wasn't sure if you could only erasure spells on the stack or if you could smack down stuff that had resolved too.

only spells on the stack, not resolved stuff unfortunately :(
Bummer. Guess it makes sense because otherwise it WOULD just be a straight upgrade on Ixalan's binding, but now it's more like a super-counterspell.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
God bless that retarded archon of sun's grace carrying my fat ass to a 7-1 draft and getting my gems comfortably full for the Ikoria mastery pass. Though I probably should draft more just because I haven't been feeling constructed much lately. Was playing Izzet drakes again even though it's not good at the moment (And hasn't been for a while) just because I still like how the deck feels.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,419
Some of the cards you'll be getting are white... which I believe answers your question.

Personally, I'm fine just plucking things I need with wildcards. I had enough common and uncommon wcs to get everything. When it comes to the rares, I only have no use for stuff like Huyobashi Second Rite, Kinsbale Cavalier, Darksteel Reactor or Captain Sisay (and if that changes, I don't thing you need a full set). Similarly, who needs a ful set of Platinum Angels? With 30 rare wildcards, you should get everything you want.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,690
deterministic system > RNG
 
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