Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

current state of client(i get nvidia driver crashes like 2 times per day)

I get/got that too, annoys the hell out of me since it's a MTGA-unique thing. I found shit got better when I set MTGA's graphical settings to low and ran it windowed though, for what it's worth. Used to get that every day, but with that change it might happen one or twice a month.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Christ. Just ended up with Devilish Teferi, and that Teferi pick is obscene. Since you've got limited deck size of 40 cards you just thunk down Tutelage and tastefully rape your opponent's deck since most of the other cards in there cause you to draw, and thus mill. The devilish side of things basically just got me some shitty blockers to help hold the line until Teferi comes online, then you just mill a billion cards. Fortunately my Devilish pack was the one with Brash Taunter, too. Zurzoth looks kinda shit, and the Sin Prodder/Hellrider double rare pack looks cool, but Brash Taunter's got high meme potential. Just a shame I don't have any copies of Star of Exctinction which is some prime gobbo-clobberin'. Guess I could try that in the all-cards historic FNM.

Edit: ALSO, I am upset at how many people are mono-colored in this. DOUBLE ALSO, I want to be mono colored on vampire so I can get Vito and Exquisite Blood together. That sounds like a good infinite combo time. Could be worth going Golgari just for ramp, plus green should have a little easy lifegain just to get the party started. Explore package and bullshit like Cultivate and the robot, maybe.

 

[Jacob]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but is this game a good intro to Magic the Gathering? I kinda prefer playing against real person, face-to-face, but I also woulld like to get familiar with the game before facing someone and isn't really willing to pay any money yet (Which is very most likely necessary when you want to play it with real cards)

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I want to be mono colored on vampire so I can get Vito and Exquisite Blood together. That sounds like a good infinite combo time.

As a heads up every time I get this off and the opponent has like 30 or more life the game ends in a draw for me. I don't know why or if it's a bug in the client.

 

[Thac0]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but is this game a good intro to Magic the Gathering? I kinda prefer playing against real person, face-to-face, but I also woulld like to get familiar with the game before facing someone and isn't really willing to pay any money yet (Which is very most likely necessary when you want to play it with real cards)

Currently very much yes.
They just added a new gameplay mode called Jumpstart that everyone here is raving about.
You play it by choosing between 3 starter decks and then by choosing between 3 again. Both are half the size of a limited deck and together make a good intro deck you play against other peoples Jumpstart decks as much as you like. It is very beginner friendly since you dont have to deckbuild at all and all decks are balanced against each other, while there is still a large amount of unique decks. From the 121 different possible card packs you can make 14600 unique decks, from the 46 themes there are 2116 different unique theme combinations.

Apart from that MTGA is overall a quite nice way to play MTG since it emulates the ruleset 1to1. There are some small nitpicks, like some very popular formats like pauper, 2HG and Commander missing, but its still the best way to play Magic online.
Next to a side like Cockatrice that is, where you can play magic with all cards available with your friends. Also the game is very feasable to play F2P while still getting every card released even retroactively in a few years, which is literally impossible in Hearthstone.

 

[spectre]

Yep, when it comes to the matter of pricing for the cardboard crack, MtGA is a rather decent proposition. You can build top tier decks without spending a dime after a bit of grind (as long as you know what you're doing).
Jumpstart is a nice mode of play and you should have good fun playing with the starter decks. Just don't expect to get any kind of decent single player experience. It's all PvP. For that you'd want the (largely obsolete) Magic Duels and maybe Shandalar.
There's very few social options, no chat, etc., which is a mixed blessing.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I want to be mono colored on vampire so I can get Vito and Exquisite Blood together. That sounds like a good infinite combo time.

As a heads up every time I get this off and the opponent has like 30 or more life the game ends in a draw for me. I don't know why or if it's a bug in the client.

Odd, I'd assume that would have to be a bug since nothing else is coming to mind for why that would be.

 

[Scruffy]

please convince me that double vision is a bad card and it's absolutely not worth blowing wildcards over

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

please convince me that double vision is a bad card and it's absolutely not worth blowing wildcards over

It's 5 mana and would give you most benefit if you're playing multiple colors, since just doubling up burn that late in a game probably isn't great. And even then it would give you the most benefit from draw cards or make your counterspells more annoying, so largely feels like it would be best paired with blue. I like it but that 4cmc Ral from War of the Spark is similar, one mana less, and has a little more utility in exchange for being arguably easier to remove and he's still difficult to slip into decks outside of singleton.

ghoulcaller gisa

She seems really cool. She sucked a giant bag of dicks the one time I've gotten her in Jumpstart so far, but I do kinda want to try a zombie deck with her in historic or something. Still pissed I didn't buy historic anthology 1 though since I'd have to use wildcards (Unless WotC puts it back in the shop) for Cryptbreaker and Phyrexian Arena. Really didn't think I'd be interested in playing historic.

 

[Thac0]

please convince me that double vision is a bad card and it's absolutely not worth blowing wildcards over

Its a 5 mana do nothing card. You need 6 mana the turn you play it to even gain a tiny benefit with it and you need to untap with it to actually get ahead.
Compare that to Wilderness Reclamation which comes down 1 turn earlier, immediatly refunds its own mana cost and straght up wins your the game by doubling all your mana all the time.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Core+Set+2021/Double+Vision#paper
The price development irl shows that the card turned out unplayable.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Multi-headed Cow oh and another piece of puzzle to support my theory of no purchasable boosters for ankhmunamun: we havent been yet offered to buy usual 50 packs for hard cash pre release promo

EDIT: this whole historic deal is quite fishy actually.
Just saw this vid https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/collecting-jumpstart-on-arena-techniques-problems-and-solutions
so apparently cash cow players got trouble obtaining cards lel.
member when they tried to have historic crafting 2 wc : 1 card? They are trying there some fishy things that they dont dare in standard

Good point on the lack of preorder. And then I looked at that video you linked and (Apparently) we also have a Pioneer Masters set coming to Arena at the end of 2020 as well. How in the good goddamn hell are we supposed to keep up with this virtual cardboard? I guess the answer is spend money, but I'm not too crazy about that option. Although again, when compared to paper and MTGO Arena's still way cheaper. As much as it chaps my ass.

On the topic of that video though, I must have the luck of the fucking devil with Jumpstart so far. I've done maybe 4-5 runs of it total and I've pulled a Chandra pack, a Teferi pack, and I just did one now and got both Liliana and unicorns which counts as another "Mythic packet". Kinda doubt the effectiveness of pairing Lili and unicorns but as always I'm rarepicking like a motherfucker. But then I got a Serra's Guardian from an ICR, which I now have Serra's Guardian in M19, M20, and Jumpstart, so you win some you lose some. Both opponents had "Mythic packets" too though, so I don't know if everyone's just resigning if they don't get something juicy or if he was especially unlucky.

ALSO, big dick goblin is indeed obscenely strong. I played some historic ranked earlier and goblins are now unstoppable rape machines since you just play skirks and that 2cmc Ixalan gobbo that makes a treasure to ramp your ass as fast as you can to da boss, then empty your entire deck and give it haste at once. Probably going to craft more of him if I don't get more gobbo packs on offer just so I can join the rape train before he's banned.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Spend more on Jumpstart, Luka. You know you want to keep Maro in donuts.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Anyone run into that Heroic Intervention/Sporeweb Weaver/Terror of the Peaks infinite life combo? Just encountered it while doing dailies and all I could think of was sitting there for as long as possible and what would happen to the world of MtGA as we know it if a Massacre Wurm came out.

 

[Thac0]

Anyone run into that Heroic Intervention/Sporeweb Weaver/Terror of the Peaks infinite life combo? Just encountered it while doing dailies and all I could think of was sitting there for as long as possible and what would happen to the world of MtGA as we know it if a Massacre Wurm came out.

Not yet, I assume the animations would take forever?

I would absolutely play that irl, seems like a cute finisher for a Naya Midrange deck. Both Terror and Sporeweb are constructed playable on their own. But IRL you can just say "I loop the combo 666 times and gain 666 life and spiders, your go". In arena you gotta click yourself to death.

 

[new fucking guy]

ALSO, big dick goblin is indeed obscenely strong. I played some historic ranked earlier and goblins are now unstoppable rape machines since you just play skirks and that 2cmc Ixalan gobbo that makes a treasure to ramp your ass as fast as you can to da boss, then empty your entire deck and give it haste at once. Probably going to craft more of him if I don't get more gobbo packs on offer just so I can join the rape train before he's banned.

I love that he's good, goblins have garbage matchup vs breach decks. literally free wins

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I love that he's good, goblins have garbage matchup vs breach decks. literally free wins

Kinda surprised to hear that, would've thought gobbos could get enough threats on to the board to krump something like that. Then again I think I've only bumped into a breach deck maybe once in historic so I sure as hell don't have a good sense of how powerful it is/the ins and outs of it in practice.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

Kinda surprised to hear that, would've thought gobbos could get enough threats on to the board to krump something like that. Then again I think I've only bumped into a breach deck maybe once in historic so I sure as hell don't have a good sense of how powerful it is/the ins and outs of it in practice.

threats don't matter, you either interact or die to song of creation on t4. I've died to t4 muxus or fizzle combo, pass into muxus a few times but other than that they can't win

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

UNMOORED EGO DECK IS BACK BABY

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NETDECKERS SUCK MY ASSSSSSS
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG