Magic the Gathering Arena

[spectre]

Yeah, the whole eldrazi stint was an attempt to add another "colorless color" and was obviously Lovercraft inspired.
I would love them to just codethe whole Innstrad block in.

No worries, a few of those

And your artifacts will no longer be puny.

Full list of stuff coming in the anthology.

• Honden of Cleansing Fire
• Momentary Blink
• Tempered Steel
• Timely Reinforcements
• Body Double
• Honden of Seeing Winds
• Silent Departure
• Swan Song
• Chainer’s Edict
• Gempalm Polluter
• Honden of Night’s Reach
• Phyrexian Obliterator
• Unburial Rites
• Devil’s Play
• Gempalm Incinerator
• Honden of Infinite Rage
• Tectonic Reformation
• Enchantress’s Presence
• Honden of Life’s Web
• Krosan Tusker
• Roar of the Wurm
• Mirari’s Wake
• Akroma’s Memorial
• Ratchet Bomb
• Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• Ancient Ziggurat
• Maze’s End

I'm really happy about Ratchet Bomb for obvious zombie problems. Being able to flip people the bird with Swan Song is also nice. Not sure why they're giving us Hondens, was this shit even constructed-playable back in the day?
I thought the idea behind curated sets was to filter shit like this.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Izzet Spelltempo is good budget fun in standard as well. I really like Merchants Ominous Izzet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jvHv2pw9k&t=1705s) -4 Ominous Seas -2 Raking Claws +4 Ionise +2 Spellgorger Weird and change the Cathartic Reunion to Thrill of Possibility for an explosively potent deck that can just blitz some of the Keruga/Yorion crap out before they can do anything.

Thanks a bunch for linking that! Tried it out and it's actually quite a lot of fun. I burnt wildcards (Commons and uncommons at least) to get the Ikoria cards for it and it's a hoot. Basically always end up liking Izzet decks the most and that's a fun combination of tearing through cards, removal, and trying to line up a sneaky lethal with the double strike on a a drake. The krakens tend to fall into a third possible way out but that is quite fun. Just have to not commit sudoku when I come up against another fucking fires of invention deck.

And your artifacts will no longer be puny.

But... But Spectre. You just offered a wh*te card to Luka.

 

[Thac0]

Izzet Spelltempo is good budget fun in standard as well. I really like Merchants Ominous Izzet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jvHv2pw9k&t=1705s) -4 Ominous Seas -2 Raking Claws +4 Ionise +2 Spellgorger Weird and change the Cathartic Reunion to Thrill of Possibility for an explosively potent deck that can just blitz some of the Keruga/Yorion crap out before they can do anything.

Thanks a bunch for linking that! Tried it out and it's actually quite a lot of fun. I burnt wildcards (Commons and uncommons at least) to get the Ikoria cards for it and it's a hoot. Basically always end up liking Izzet decks the most and that's a fun combination of tearing through cards, removal, and trying to line up a sneaky lethal with the double strike on a a drake. The krakens tend to fall into a third possible way out but that is quite fun. Just have to not commit sudoku when I come up against another fucking fires of invention deck.

And your artifacts will no longer be puny.

But... But Spectre. You just offered a wh*te card to Luka.

Fires Matchup is super binary, either you counterspell their first Fires and they die on the next turn, or you dont and they kill you. The deck probably wants stuff like Quench for that, I use Ionize currently. I dont get the Kraken inclusion aswell, I personally cut it imediatly. I really hope they ban Yorion. While there are a few cool decks with him he makes Fires way too good by bouncing it and Lukka for devastating value turns.

 

[spectre]

But... But Spectre. You just offered a wh*te card to Luka.

Holy shit man, you're right. I wasn't really thinking.

Spoiler

It's okay to be white

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

Not sure why they're giving us Hondens, was this shit even constructed-playable back in the day?
I thought the idea behind curated sets was to filter shit like this.

people are saying it's for cube

also fuck yeah gempalm incinerator! it's basically legacy goblins minus vial now.

 

[Akratus]

The concept artist totally drew a crystal dick here, right? It's not just me? He's gotta be fucking with us.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

anyway im confused about Mystic Subdual. It appears to work on equipment and auras too?

rules for gets/has/loses wordings are weird

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

I tried to make sense of the way mtg rules handle "loses all abilities" once, made me do a system shutdown when they started blurting out shit like timestamps and layers.
Here's an article, if you're feeling adventurous.

https://cantrip.ru/en/mtg-cards/Turn-to-Frog.shtml

 

[Thac0]

I have been experimenting with Fiend Artisan, since I drew a lot of them and graveyard stuff is always cool. So far he seems to go really well with Umori since almost all graveyard synergies are on creatures anyway.
This is what I currently have, it can be really explosive but it still has games where it jsut cant go off the ground.

Companion:
1x Umori the Collector

Win Conditions:
4x Fiend Artisan
3x Lotleth Giant
1x Izoni, Thousand Eyes

Enablers:
4x Glowspore Shaman
4x Gorging Vulture
4x Skull Prophet
2x Excavation Mole

Removal:
4x Murderous Rider
3x Cavalier of Night

Value:
4x Acolyte of Affliction
1x Izoni Thousand Eyed

Lands:
2x Castle Locthwain
6x Swamp
6x Forest
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Temple of Malady
4x Fabled Passage

Cards I am experimenting with which arent in currently:
Embodiment of Agonies
Eye Collector
Thrashing Brontodon
Order of Midnight
Mire Triton
Nightmare Shepherd

Any ideas on how to make this jank pile stronger?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

these "enablers" are really bad, if you want to push fiend artisan you'd probably have more luck making sure his activations are powerful rather than getting him to respectable stats

 

[spectre]

Lolicon giant I would use as a single, backup victory plan, not really a part of the main strategy. Self mill in black feels rather weak, tbh, and if you want to do that, you're better off in blue which has both faster mill and a win condition.
I think it's easy to identify the key pieces and pull your strategy apart (all of them being creatures, which means they die extra quickly).
You want your fiends alive an well, and to make it happen I'd use discard and recursion, Blood For Bones for example is great value, especially with cavaliers and plaguecrafters,
obviously that leaves you without Umori, but you really want recursion to get the most out of BG.

Creature based discard, otoh, is a bit easier to come by and should help you pick apart all the obscene ramp decks. Pilfering imp is unfortunately rather slow, but it's the only durex you're getting with umori,
Burglar rats are nice fodder for all kinds of sac effects, possible to use them in split with fenlurkers (you should be able to pull off BB on curve).
Then there's also Kroxa and all the different combos it enables (sac in response to sac trigger, also the infamous Lazav combo), if you want to branch off into a different color combination.
You shouldn't feel married to green, in my opinion, the dual mana on Fiends and Umori doesn't force you in any way, and in the current meta green is pretty much about ramping.

 

[Thac0]

I tried this in historic, and while Stitchers is a way better yard filler than everything else in my deck the power level of all other decks also rises too much to compete. Maybe if I try a weird mashup with my functioning lands graveyard deck, Knight of the reliquary is pretty strong.

Lolicon Giant is the only way this pile of garbage wins at the moment, when he comes down t5-7 he bonks people for 15 damage. Noone expects that. Its like a more shitty version of the cycling deck finisher.

I will try to shift this to UB, looking over the list the deck doesnt gain much from green at all and the blue graveyard fillers are much stronger.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

I will try to shift this to UB, looking over the list the deck doesnt gain much from green at all and the blue graveyard fillers are much stronger.

but is not creature... did you consider going tricolor and using titans nest? It doesnt rely on critters in graveyard. Havent seen such deck yet, will do at some point once im done petting sharks

Not a fan of Sultai in general, but I will absolutely try to make it worth with Deaths Oasis in Abzan. That card mills the yard really quickly and gives card advantage to boot. Also as soon as I no longer have to satisfy the Slime condition I can play Mythos of Nethroi for some actual quality removal.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

If you mutate with flash you should be able to right? Mutate is just the same speed as the card. So field the shitty Vivien, Champion of the Wilds and off you go!

 

[Thac0]

Then i switched to my platinium deck, turns up i was just destined to lose no matter what

Is that a Platinum Angel deck? Is there even any support for something like that in Historic?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG