Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

Inject this straight into my veins pls. Dwarf tribal playing an aggressive mid range strategy to gather Treasure tokens and then spend them for massive legendary artifacts and dragons is the most flavorfull shit ever.

That is some nice flavor. Cool that squats may get some love since they've been pretty underrepresented in MTG as a whole for being so common in fantasy. They aren't a meme to the same degree as kobolds (Though I saw they got a few cards in Commander Legends) but still up there a bit. Only problem I guess is that if there are enough cheap dwarves that they become viable, Magda will shit out a whole hell of a lot of treasure which could get abusive. Good for trivializing the cost on that card draw saga even if you ignore having dragons and artifacts in your deck.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

They chose to make Valkyries into Angels. A bit questionable from a flavor perspective, but I love the change. I wasn't able to play proper angle tribal since Dominaria.

Also dwarfs get mecha? Wtf

Viking gods are not immortal, sweet flavor win.

Havn't been this excited for a set since Eldraine. I will listen to Varg exclusively while playing this set.

 

[anvi]

Pretty cool. Wish that valkyrie thing didn't say angels :/ It could have been like Grave Pact which woulda been fun against all these aggro decks. Looks like some interesting new cards though.

 

[Thac0]

Pretty cool. Wish that valkyrie thing didn't say angels :/ It could have been like Grave Pact which woulda been fun against all these aggro decks. Looks like some interesting new cards though.

It is certainly a bit questionable from a cultural aspect, since the Christians genocided and converted the Norse where they could.
But this is a card game so rule of cool.


From a gameplay perspective I love it, since

this babe slots directly into BW valkyries in Historic, and she is one of those cards I always try to include because I like the design.

 

[anvi]

Pretty cool. Wish that valkyrie thing didn't say angels :/ It could have been like Grave Pact which woulda been fun against all these aggro decks. Looks like some interesting new cards though.

It is certainly a bit questionable from a cultural aspect, since the Christians genocided and converted the Norse where they could.
But this is a card game so rule of cool.


From a gameplay perspective I love it, since

this babe slots directly into BW valkyries in Historic, and she is one of those cards I always try to include because I like the design.

Tied to Angels doesn't seem so bad with stuff like that. Might be a chance to actually use my Baneslayer.

 

[zerotol]

really lost a lot of intrest in MTG with this lockdown.

If you can't play with friends IRL from time to time, it gets boring.

 

[Gyor]

I only really got into it this year, so I've only played it on arena this year.

Shit loads of free cards, not counting physical cards I bought that had arena codes. I guess those are kind of free in that I really payed for the physical cards and got the arena codes as a bonus. I have a shit ton of cards I don't use LMFAO. I mostly just tweak a couple of decks, outside of slapping together a deck for special events now then. My mono white historic peasant deck worked amazing tonight.

 

[Gyor]

Magda looks great as a commander for Brawl, buffs Dwarves, creatures treasure, which in addition to it's regular uses you can spend five on to summon a Dragon or Artifact from your library. She dovetails well with Artifacts, Dragons, Dwarves, and sources of Treasure.

 

[Gyor]

What Standard legal sources in red or colourless for Treasure Tokens? I know of exactly one right now, the Dragon Gadrak, are there any others?

 

[spectre]

What Standard legal sources in red or colourless for Treasure Tokens? I know of exactly one right now, the Dragon Gadrak, are there any others?

Yeah, he's the only guy in Standard. There was a handful of cards before last rotation (Smothering Tithe being among of the interesting ones), but Treasure was an Ixalan mechanic, so obviously you'll have more luck in historic - including Lannery Storm.

 

[Gyor]

What Standard legal sources in red or colourless for Treasure Tokens? I know of exactly one right now, the Dragon Gadrak, are there any others?

Yeah, he's the only guy in Standard. There was a handful of cards before last rotation (Smothering Tithe being among of the interesting ones), but Treasure was an Ixalan mechanic, so obviously you'll have more luck in historic - including Lannery Storm.

Hopefully Kaldeim will have other sources of treasure.

 

[spectre]

Seems like the standard shakeup event is up, and the devs are handling it as expected.

The banned list for the event is nowhere to be found, used to be a nice and tidy list in the client, but why would we get that.
It's also not on the WotC webiste it links to.

The list appears to be this:

Spoiler

1 Felidar Retreat (ZNR) 16
1 Brazen Borrower (ELD) 39
1 Cauldron Familiar (JMP) 216
1 Bonecrusher Giant (ELD) 115
1 Fires of Invention (ELD) 125
1 Embercleave (ELD) 120
1 Gilded Goose (ELD) 160
1 Lotus Cobra (ZNR) 193
1 Once Upon a Time (ELD) 169
1 Scute Swarm (ZNR) 203
1 Questing Beast (ELD) 171
1 Soaring Thought-Thief (ZNR) 236
1 Escape to the Wilds (ELD) 189
1 Winota, Joiner of Forces (IKO) 216
1 Zenith Flare (IKO) 217
1 Oko, Thief of Crowns (ELD) 197
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath (THB) 229
1 Omnath, Locus of Creation (ZNR) 232
1 Lucky Clover (ELD) 226
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (M21) 1

So, uh, no Ruin Crab? Way to go folks. Well, those of you who had hoped to get some respite from mill can go and fuck themselves apparently.

Second thing, the event rewards tooltip says you'll be getting "sleeve, pet or avatar, yet people are getting card styles for draft chaff".

Way to go team.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Second thing, the event rewards tooltip says you'll be getting "sleeve, pet or avatar, yet people are getting card styles for draft chaff".

Way to go team.

Got a Temple of Mystery style. Would've preferred a sleeve but at least it's not draft chaff I guess.

 

[spectre]

Quickest event I've ever gotten into. Played island, ruin crab, the other guy conceded.
Didn't really want to go with it, but they rolled me an UB 750 shekel quest for today.
Well, at least I got a Necromentia style out of it. Not terrible, not great.

my standard shakeup experience is bouncy bouncy yorions... just like in regular queues. I think this is old ban list?

Yeah, someone also forgot to pull Doom Foretold while shaking up the standard. Oops.
But yeah, Felidar Retreat was simply more important.

 

[Scruffy]

They chose to make Valkyries into Angels. A bit questionable from a flavor perspective

meh, valkyries are much cooler than angels imo, they should have made them a new race, angels are just lame, both "our world" angels and "magic world" angels

 

[Axioms]

They chose to make Valkyries into Angels. A bit questionable from a flavor perspective

meh, valkyries are much cooler than angels imo, they should have made them a new race, angels are just lame, both "our world" angels and "magic world" angels

Yeah but they wanted to have synergy for tribal without making 100000 valks.

 

[coldcrow]

So, I played magic pretty extensively through 4th-9th edition and now got a little bit hooked on MTGA.
But wtf, it's like life is everywhere. In black or white, it seems that every relevant creature has lifelink AND even aditional abilities or good stats. In general creatures are pushed so hard, it seems pretty futile to not use a creature heavy deck.
In any case MTGA seems like a fun client, ofc heavy on the "addictive-pls spend money" side of things.

 

[spectre]

Yea, the approach to creatures has changed dramatically through the years. To the point when you see a Serendib Effret (I think they added them Jumpstart), it now feels rather meh.
Standard have always been creature heavy, though it's still possible to go creatureless or creature-light in historic.

Best thing about this platform is that it's rather easy to get cards. This cuts both ways, because it means now every schmuck can get a top tier deck after a few weeks of playing.
If you're not horrible playing this game, it's takes some grinding, but it's quite possible to keep up with standard and get all the playable stuff form new expansions.
Throwing some money can give you a bit of a boost to get things going, but isn't required, unless you want to get stuff immediately after release.

Check if you got all the freebies:
https://mtgazone.com/mtg-arena-codes/

 

[Thac0]

Yep. They have tons of ashkenazi schemes running to alleviate you from your shekels, like events which cost gold but only reward cosmetics and Cube/Tournament events which terrible return rates for average win rates.

But if you clutch to your pot of gold the game is incredibly generous. First win of the Day + Quest of the day is 750+ gold and some xp which returns gold and packs. That is more than a pack per day before draft rewardsand stuff like season rewards start kicking in.
I do not really get why the economy of this game is called greedy, I have literally played dozens of online CCGs and MTGA is the most consistently generous one if you know what you are doing.

That and magic just being an elegantly designed game is the reason this is the only one I am still playing.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I do not really get why the economy of this game is called greedy, I have literally played dozens of online CCGs and MTGA is the most consistently generous one if you know what you are doing.

I think it's 'cause there's no easy/decent way to exchange cash for wildcards. Going from 0 to top tier deck that runs 40 rares and 10 mythics and 10 uncommons is an absolute motherfucker, particularly in historic. Playing standard and gradually getting pieces for historic stuff you're interested in isn't shabby at all though. It's also nearly impossible to reach a complete MTGA collection which isn't unreasonable given they're rolling out older sets into historic, but the fact remains. There's also the fact that the "Vault" mechanic is pretty user unfriendly and you can't do anything with your 50 alternate printings of shock from 15 different sets even though you have a full playset of each.

Actually out of curiosity I'm gonna roughly compare how many commons it takes to get enough dust for a legendary in Hearthstone VS opening the vault and getting a mythic wildcard in MTGA. 1,600 dust to craft a legendary, you earn 5 dust per common to scrap, 320 common cards for a legendary in Hearthstone. MTGA vault takes 1,000 points to open and each common is worth 1 point, so 1,000 commons for a mythic (And two rares and 3 uncommons). Hearthstone packs are also 5 cards (1 guaranteed rare (Essentially uncommon in MTGA) or better, rest random) while MTGA non-draft packs are 5 common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare or better. So ignoring that Hearthstone packs have more swinging value (Most common and shittiest being 1 rare 4 common, but you could get multiple legendaries, multiple epics, etc) the typical Hearthstone pack would move the needle around 8 commons (Rares dust for 20, and since I'm comparing tearing packs down into the rarest card type let's say you're only pulling the worst Hearthstone packs and you have all the rares) while the typical MTGA pack would move the needle 11 commons (Uncommons being worth 3 vault points, also ignoring MTGA packs that give common and uncommon wildcards). In both games you earn roughly a pack a day (Technically you can get two packs a day from Hearthstone, but you have to poopsock daily wins for it so I'm disregarding it) so it would take about 40 days/packs of breaking down Hearthstone packs to craft the rarest card of your choice, while in MTGA it would take 91 days/packs to open a vault. And remember the Hearthstone rate is at the absolute worst, if you have freakishly and ungodly bad luck and you crack 40 packs without pulling anything better than the bare minimum and never once opening any foils. Also worth remembering that a Hearthstone legendary is more "Impactful" than a MTGA mythic, since most (All?) Hearthstone legendaries are singletons for a deck, while a mythic can go up to 4 in a deck.

Not trying to bitch too hard since I'm largely in the "MTGA's alright" camp too, but they still could unfuck the economy more.

 

[Ranselknulf]

So, I played magic pretty extensively through 4th-9th edition and now got a little bit hooked on MTGA.
But wtf, it's like life is everywhere. In black or white, it seems that every relevant creature has lifelink AND even aditional abilities or good stats. In general creatures are pushed so hard, it seems pretty futile to not use a creature heavy deck.
In any case MTGA seems like a fun client, ofc heavy on the "addictive-pls spend money" side of things.

Agreed, the latest set rotation made standard even more creature heavy than before imo.

In fact, I see people who play decks that ONLY have creatures in them. Literally no instants, sorceries, etc.

How do I know this? I keep a couple maddening cacophony's in my deck for funsies, and I like to browse the defeated players library when the game is over.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I do not really get why the economy of this game is called greedy, I have literally played dozens of online CCGs and MTGA is the most consistently generous one if you know what you are doing.

I think it's 'cause there's no easy/decent way to exchange cash for wildcards. Going from 0 to top tier deck that runs 40 rares and 10 mythics and 10 uncommons is an absolute motherfucker, particularly in historic. Playing standard and gradually getting pieces for historic stuff you're interested in isn't shabby at all though. It's also nearly impossible to reach a complete MTGA collection which isn't unreasonable given they're rolling out older sets into historic, but the fact remains. There's also the fact that the "Vault" mechanic is pretty user unfriendly and you can't do anything with your 50 alternate printings of shock from 15 different sets even though you have a full playset of each.

This is the strategy I've p. much been using. I mean I could pay a buttload of money to get into historic, but I'd rather just play standard and collect free packs. Although, I do drop money on the game every once in a while, I can usually farm the gems needed to get the season pass.

As for the vault thing, I've unlocked the vault a few times, the strategy I used when I first started out was pick the most recent set release, and spam all the coins I earned on buying boosters for that set. Also, the packs I got for the starter set (I think it was the $20 one, i forget)

Now, if I need wild cards, I just buy a pack from that set, otherwise I buy random historic packs or latest set rotation packs as needed.

TL/DR - You only have to fully complete one set to have as many wild cards as you want. If you already have 4 rares for a set, and you get another rare on a booster pack opener, it defaults to a wild card.

 

[Thac0]

I do not really get why the economy of this game is called greedy, I have literally played dozens of online CCGs and MTGA is the most consistently generous one if you know what you are doing.

I think it's 'cause there's no easy/decent way to exchange cash for wildcards. Going from 0 to top tier deck that runs 40 rares and 10 mythics and 10 uncommons is an absolute motherfucker, particularly in historic. Playing standard and gradually getting pieces for historic stuff you're interested in isn't shabby at all though. It's also nearly impossible to reach a complete MTGA collection which isn't unreasonable given they're rolling out older sets into historic, but the fact remains. There's also the fact that the "Vault" mechanic is pretty user unfriendly and you can't do anything with your 50 alternate printings of shock from 15 different sets even though you have a full playset of each.

Actually out of curiosity I'm gonna roughly compare how many commons it takes to get enough dust for a legendary in Hearthstone VS opening the vault and getting a mythic wildcard in MTGA. 1,600 dust to craft a legendary, you earn 5 dust per common to scrap, 320 common cards for a legendary in Hearthstone. MTGA vault takes 1,000 points to open and each common is worth 1 point, so 1,000 commons for a mythic (And two rares and 3 uncommons). Hearthstone packs are also 5 cards (1 guaranteed rare (Essentially uncommon in MTGA) or better, rest random) while MTGA non-draft packs are 5 common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare or better. So ignoring that Hearthstone packs have more swinging value (Most common and shittiest being 1 rare 4 common, but you could get multiple legendaries, multiple epics, etc) the typical Hearthstone pack would move the needle around 8 commons (Rares dust for 20, and since I'm comparing tearing packs down into the rarest card type let's say you're only pulling the worst Hearthstone packs and you have all the rares) while the typical MTGA pack would move the needle 11 commons (Uncommons being worth 3 vault points, also ignoring MTGA packs that give common and uncommon wildcards). In both games you earn roughly a pack a day (Technically you can get two packs a day from Hearthstone, but you have to poopsock daily wins for it so I'm disregarding it) so it would take about 40 days/packs of breaking down Hearthstone packs to craft the rarest card of your choice, while in MTGA it would take 91 days/packs to open a vault. And remember the Hearthstone rate is at the absolute worst, if you have freakishly and ungodly bad luck and you crack 40 packs without pulling anything better than the bare minimum and never once opening any foils. Also worth remembering that a Hearthstone legendary is more "Impactful" than a MTGA mythic, since most (All?) Hearthstone legendaries are singletons for a deck, while a mythic can go up to 4 in a deck.

Not trying to bitch too hard since I'm largely in the "MTGA's alright" camp too, but they still could unfuck the economy more.

But the vault is not the main way you gain wildcards, not even close to it. You get the bulk of your wildcards for free from opening packs. The vault is a legacy system that they could patch out without too much change.

That the vault alone compares to dusting is testament to how greedy Blizzards system is. And I havn't played HS in a while, but you didn't get 2 packs per day. You got 50 gold from one quest and 5 gold from your three wins the quest took.

Also HS Legendaries used to be much more must haves. Dr Boom is the most notorious example. In MTGA rares are more important than mythics. And you get much more of them than you get epics in HS.

If you get into the details Hearthstone is ridicously greedy. The equivalent for an MTGA rare is an epic. HS packs only give your their rares, equal to uncommons.

Basically you get 1/6 of the crafting currency for an epic card for the first 24 packs you buy, then you get 1/6 of the currency for a legendary for the next 6, rinse and repeat. You can't use the wildcards from one for the other, unlike HS.

So MTGA packs gift you 66 dust per pack, as crafting an epic card would cost 400, as long as you are ticking up the rare WC wheel, they gift you 266 dust when you are ticking up the mythic wheel. And that is on top of a new (bad) copy protection where you also get some gems for duplicates.

A HS pack, if you dust all its content (Which is easily 75% of the packs you open) gives you 100 dust. But that is purely in crafting value, you are not guaranteed an epic per pack. And you get significantly less dust if you do not dust epics and legendaries you get. Dusting only rares and commons the dust you gain drops to 50 from the commons and uncommons.

So the Wildcard system alone is pretty equal to the dust system from HS when it comes to aquiring specific cards. Add ontop of that the more generous season rewards and the entirety of the vault system then MTGA is much more generous than HS.