Magic the Gathering Arena

[spectre]

Historic would be a different story if we had Amkphtkpkt and Aerther Revolt, as it is, its two most powerful sets are M19 and Dominaria. Anthologies don't bring as much to the table, at best 4-5 cards are competitively useful in each bunch.
With WotC cranking up the power level, yeah, it's bound to feel a little tame.
Arclight Phoenix was one of the victims of this, compared to shit you can pull in Standard these days, getting a bunch of 3/2 flyers out doesn't feel as threatening as it used to.
Exile removal and bona fide graveyard hate is also a tad easier to come by. Though there were answer cards back then, it's used a lot more now because plenty of decks in standard use graveyard as a resource.

I would be inclined to believe that the most competitive types sit around in historic events, but I haven't played those in a while.
Let's not forget, it's also not that easy to get a decent enough collection to play historic. A lot of the useful stuff is rare or mythic.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

historic ladder feels pretty competitive to me, mostly gruul, nexus and uw control decks at plat

 

[anvi]

How is this game these days? I haven't played this set at all. Last I played it was all turn 3 red shit decks and that dream something that is forever hexproof and flying and drawing cards and gaining life.

 

[Jason Liang]

Hey, Booty Call is baaack

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Thac0]

How is this game these days? I haven't played this set at all. Last I played it was all turn 3 red shit decks and that dream something that is forever hexproof and flying and drawing cards and gaining life.

Power level has risen since that. Red deck wins is no longer as oppressive but still a metagame force. Dreamtrawler is still played but not T1.

Constructed is not very good atm, despite bans. I saw the results for a recent tournament where all top 8 decks were Temur Reclamation and Bant Ramp.

A new set is about to drop, which seems to be the best Core set ever judging from the spoilers. Ask again in a month for Standard.

 

[Jason Liang]

I'm not so impressed with this core set. Dls > Poor fetch, to begin with

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

14/14 mutated monstrosity and you topdeck a fucking swamp.

Not the Murderous Rider you spent multiple wildcards on, not even a Murder you keep there for a rainy day. A swamp.

How do you topdeck a fucking swamp when staring down an old god of antediluvian origins.

This game sucks.

I love it.

 

[anvi]

That's why you need a deck with 30 lands and 30 removals. It is the only way to have a nice time.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

A deck with 30 lands and 30 removals? I don't usually play Blue, but...

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

shrines seem cool but way too janky to work since they don't seem great unless you have a bunch on board but at the same time they're legendary so if you put a bunch in your deck you'll just flood out with useless copies of the same shrine

hmm they probably only really work in a looting deck but even that's questionable

the white black and blue ones will be really good in draft tho

 

[Thac0]

shrines seem cool but way too janky to work since they don't seem great unless you have a bunch on board but at the same time they're legendary so if you put a bunch in your deck you'll just flood out with useless copies of the same shrine

hmm they probably only really work in a looting deck but even that's questionable

the white black and blue ones will be really good in draft tho

The shrines come from Kamigawa, the weeb block from MTG. It came after the Mirrodin expansions which birthed one of the strongest decks of all time, affinity.
A bit like after the combo winter, where all designers were threatened to be fired if the next set was as overpowered which lead to the extremely weak rebel expansions, Kamigawa is an incredibly weak block after an incredibly strong block. Nothing from Kamigawa was really good compared to older cards, with the exception of Jitte, one of the strongest equipments of all time.
If I got that right shrines were marginally better than the rest of the garbage from that set and one of the few things that worked somewhat, but they were never overpowered or anything.
The new shrines look much stronger than the old ones, particularily that green turbomana shrine can lead to some nasty curves.

 

[Jason Liang]

Don't sell it short, there's some other good stuff in the block

 

[Thac0]

Don't sell it short, there's some other good stuff in the block

Its hyperbole in some way, but I am really excited to see the Hondens return. All hints to a Return to Kamigawa in the next 5 years, and the setting absolutely deserves a second chance.

 

[anvi]

A deck with 30 lands and 30 removals? I don't usually play Blue, but...

It actually kinda sucks but I used it as the basis of a lot of my decks and it got to high mythic with some tweaks. That was until the previous set which kinda ruined everything for me.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

I have missed how incredibly low powered this format was. People unironically resolving 2RR 3/4 vanilla creatures on curve and winning the game with 3UU 3/2 flying hexproof. Very nice change coming from Ikoria. Almost feels like an Ikoria Draft deck could kill an Ixalan block constructed deck.

It's so cool, I've only done 2 RIX drafts so far (just started 3rd) but so far I've seen VERY little removal (there's waterknot, a few red spells that do 3-4 damage, and a few black kill spells, and a white divine arrow type thing that costs 4) so most of my games have been dino-battle-arena where you try to squeeze out damage here and there and occasionally blow people out with little combat tricks. And this good boi is just so damn fun to play:

In other sets this card would be hot shit but in RIX he's actually really good lmao

I'm starting to get a feel for the format and so far I really like it. Anything's better than Ikoria cycling hell of course but dino battles are just straight up fun. Again merfolk seems really strong if they get the nuts deck but I think they tweaked the bots to pick up the bomb merfolk cards so it's very rare that I actually end up vs. a really good merfolk deck.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jason Liang]

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

holy shit

this is broken as hell in draft wow just tap their board on their turn and you have 2 full turns to swing all

easy 3-0 in trad draft will be grabbing 4 or 5 of these and some big creatures and just ending the game around T6

 

[Thac0]

You are too high on this. Yes it is good and most blue decks will want 2 copies but there was a strictly better version of this printed already and similar effects were present in draft before.

Its nice at common, but keep in mind its a reprint from M13. And I dont think it ever broke any limited formats.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

You are too high on this. Yes it is good and most blue decks will want 2 copies but there was a strictly better version of this printed already and similar effects were present in draft before.

We'll see, I really think it'll blow people out hard in a nice BR deck w/ spellgorger weirds or a BG deck with 4+ power creatures. 3 mana is so cheap to basically take 2 things out of the game for two whole turns and since it's common you'll be able to easily draft 4+ of them consistently.

Chilling grasp is uncommon so you can't rely on picking it up regularly, sleep is uncommon and it's only sorcery so it really only taps for one turn, ambush is expensive as hell and ikoria as a format is just broken as hell with the cycling deck (snare tact does the same thing for basically free), but I've even seen that card blow people out when hardcasted in a non-cycling deck matchup.

Frost Breath is cheap as hell to cast, common rarity so you'll be able to grab a bunch of them easily, breaks up board stalls. Assuming there isn't some totally busted archetype in M21 (*cough* ikoria *cough*) I think this is a super strong "build-your-deck-around" common

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

At last until casinos re-open I can fuel my degeneracy in another way.

1v1 Tavern Swindler only me, pussy.