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Magic the Gathering Arena

Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
How do you even get the amount of gems needed for a draft without shelling out real cash?
People also talking about needing gold sinks and I'm lucky if I can scrape up 1000 G.
Aren't there supposed to be a few free events per day? Seems like everything is locked behind gems.

Guide a poor arena noob, please
You play the 5,000 gold drafts to earn gems. Best use of gems is to pick up the mastery pass if you can get all of it/most of it. If you're free to play and recently starting, your best bet is saving gold until you can do drafts of standard sets (Preferably ones that'll last through rotation, because after rotation in 2021 is when you'll be caught up) and snag rares. Then save your gems for a mastery pass if you play enough to unlock all of it (If you just started this late in this pass, it wouldn't be worth spending the gems most likely but you can decide for yourself later) since you get various packs/cards/gold/gems. Then ideally you sit on your sealed boosters until you've collected most of the rares of a set via drafting, then open your boosters because booster cracking has duplicate protection while draft boosters don't.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
Obviously, don't spend shekels on unimportant shit. Avoid the temptation of getting cosmetic shit and entering events that don't pay for themselves (unless you really, really want to, who am I to judge).
If you're starting out, the priority is to get as many useful cards as possible and obviously, quick and premier draft give you the most bang.
Buying boosters at 1k shekels a pop is inefficient, because dropping 5k on quick draft will give you more or less the same number of rares AND gems on top of it. Discounted boosters at the store are fine, so get those.
Start with the 5k quickies, upgrade to the 10k drafts if you feel confident you can win at least 50%. If you're only winning 0-2 games, stick with Quick drafts.
Watch some draft vids to coach yourself, if you don't draft that much, it's sometimes difficult to break habits from constructed. It's always a bit of a gamble, so I like to save up for more than one draft entry.

Take it slow, there's no get money quick scheme in this game. Your daily earnings are capped at something like 1500 geld, depending on which quest you rolled, so take your time re-rolling all the 500 ones.
There's really no point in going for 15 wins/day unless you're really having fun, otherwise you'll burn out quickly.
The only option to make more shekels in a day is by entering events, but that requires a top tier deck or a good feel for the meta (not to mention luck) to get anywhere.

Also, try not to blow the whole bank in one go. They sometimes give nice deals in the store (discounted draft entry token, gems for gold) and you'll be a sad panda if you miss those.
It's fine to just sit on a 20k or more before you decide where to invest it best.
 

Gyor

Savant
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Messages
735
How do you even get the amount of gems needed for a draft without shelling out real cash?
People also talking about needing gold sinks and I'm lucky if I can scrape up 1000 G.
Aren't there supposed to be a few free events per day? Seems like everything is locked behind gems.

Guide a poor arena noob, please

Do quests and win some stuff. Then get enough gold to join a draft, Theros quick draft is 5000 gold, you can get that much in a week roughly depending on how often you play. The more wins you get the in the draft, the more gems and packs you get.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
The "relax and have fun" bit is debatable. You need at least some degree of competitive approach to get anywhere with developing your collection at a reasonable pace.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,335
Dosen't affect most of you as it's commander only but Black Lotus is back

hdd33dm8u3w51.png


Internet's having a bit of a fit over this right now. It's also already $150.00 on some places.

I wonder if the Rules committee will ban anything from this commander legends set or they'll roll over for wotc. Because so far it's looking like that's a nope.

 
Joined
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Messages
2,323
Location
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Commander-only black lotus doesn't really seem like that big of a deal. Not saying it's bad by any means, but you're already playing sol rings and shit in commander so having a single lotus in 99 cards that can only be used on your commander doesn't sound outrageous. I guess with artifact recursion it could be nutty, but... Eh.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,335
Yeah I'm kinda getting bored of seeing Sol Rings and Arcane Signets in commander but I agree it's not like Jeweled lotus is going to make it any worse by adding another mana rock to the pool.

It's just I'm expecting more high powered chase cards in this set to be revealed as time goes on and the formats going to suffer some more for it.

Like opposition agent not saying its ban worthy but if more cards show up doing as much as it does for just three mana I don't think commander going to be in for a good time.

opposition-agent-44412-medium.jpg
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Like opposition agent not saying its ban worthy but if more cards show up doing as much as it does for just three mana I don't think commander going to be in for a good time.
Made-for-commander cards in general seem like a pretty terrible idea, but I'm also not a commander player so I could be mistaken. Buuuuuuuuut since commander is supposed to be the casual funsies format it feels like printing powerful shit specifically targeted towards it flies in the face of casual funsies Magic and powercreeps a format that while it technically has access to basically every card ever printed, is/was more for people putting together piles of cards they liked and smashing 'em together.

Opposition Agent looks like an aggressively unfun card though, Jesus. Not even entirely sure how to parse that. I guess if your opponent searches his library you flash the agent in, then since you control your opponent while he's searching his library you can spend all his open mana on casting all the instants you can in his deck, then pick what he ultimately picks for his initial search? And then if the agent remains on the board you just keep doing that if anyone else searches. I hope I'm understanding the card incorrectly because that's unreasonably obnoxious.
 

lobsterfrogman

Scholar
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
109
. I guess if your opponent searches his library you flash the agent in, then since you control your opponent while he's searching his library you can spend all his open mana on casting all the instants you can in his deck, then pick what he ultimately picks for his initial search?

You got it wrong. The "you control" clause means that you choose what he finds (and you can browse his deck). You can't cast any instants while controlling your opponent because he himself can't cast any instants - he won't receive priority until the searching action concludes. You just basically grab for yourself the cards he was searching for.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
Yeah, when it comes down to it, the card is mostly down to "opponent cannot search their library." With the added upside that symmetrical searches (Scheming Symmetry comes to mind) now become really good.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
. I guess if your opponent searches his library you flash the agent in, then since you control your opponent while he's searching his library you can spend all his open mana on casting all the instants you can in his deck, then pick what he ultimately picks for his initial search?

You got it wrong. The "you control" clause means that you choose what he finds (and you can browse his deck). You can't cast any instants while controlling your opponent because he himself can't cast any instants - he won't receive priority until the searching action concludes. You just basically grab for yourself the cards he was searching for.
That would be more reasonable. Still pretty obscene but not as bad as I feared, it's just the wording threw me for a loop since I was mistakenly looking at "Found cards" as basically whatever you wanted to look at while searching his library, but more realistically "Found cards" only refers to the cards actually being targeted/pulled out.

Even so, that's pretty dirty. Even just fucking up fetchlands since you steal the land yourself. I guess it's also an effect that can be avoided though, since if someone cracks a fetch, say, and then you cast the rogue and it resolves, someone should be able to bolt his ass before the fetch trigger activates on the stack. So even outside of counterspells you could cockblock it with instant speed removal right? Also makes it ever so marginally less bullshit than I was feeling at first glance.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
I missed that little bit where it's worded "play" instead of "cast", like Thief of Sanity, which means lands are usable.
Consistency in ability templating? We don't do that here.
 

Scruffy

Ex-janitor
Patron
Joined
May 16, 2008
Messages
18,150
Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
So, I'm 12-1 with this silly brew, it's fun to play and it rapes rogue mills:

Deck
4 Porcuparrot (IKO) 128
5 Mountain (ANB) 114
3 Hooded Blightfang (M21) 104
5 Swamp (ANB) 116
1 Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats (ZNR) 241
1 Call of the Death-Dweller (IKO) 78
4 Mire Triton (THB) 105
4 Foulmire Knight (ELD) 90
3 Grimdancer (IKO) 90
2 Nighthawk Scavenger (ZNR) 115
2 Insatiable Hemophage (IKO) 93
2 Dirge Bat (IKO) 84
1 Chittering Harvester (IKO) 80
3 Lurrus of the Dream-Den (IKO) 226
2 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241
4 Bloodfell Caves (M20) 242
4 Temple of Malice (THB) 247
4 Savai Triome (IKO) 253
4 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger (THB) 221
2 Necropanther (IKO) 196
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
I haven't played since late August, what is the current meta and does Ugin still live?
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
Oi, behave yourself weaver, or you're getting the chancla.

I think I saw Ugin once or twice ranking up to Diamond, but that was in Bo3. UB Rogues appears to be popular,
especially for pushing around lower ranks.
People who can't be bothered to play interaction throw hissy fits about it milling them.
It'is rather easy to tech against, so I've seen it a few times in Bo3, but nothing too obnoxious.

In the last week, the meta shifted between BR midrange, various breeds of Yorion (GW, WUB, UW) generating obscene value by bouncing lots of shit, GR adventures (currently the deck to beat in Bo3), BG adventures.
The only deck that sometimes plays Ugin is temur ramp, but it loses badly to rogues, so I only really saw it once.
 

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
I haven't played since late August, what is the current meta and does Ugin still live?
I don't see ugin often in plat, but I don't really play a ton so..
there's a lot of mono red, some GW counters deck with luminous aspirant(?) and that GW uncommon creature that doubles counters, rakdos with kroxa, lurrus shenanigans, mutate stacks..
actually there's quite the variety at least where I'm at in BO3

People who can't be bothered to play interaction throw hissy fits about it milling them.
It'is rather easy to tech against, so I've seen it a few times in Bo3, but nothing too obnoxious.

the problem with UB rogues is less the mill and more the 2 mana instant "counter anything OR kill any creature" and 4 mana instant speed "draw 4 cards" both of which are obviously busted and the deck wouldn't be nearly as strong without
both of which also just happen to be eldraine cards
#BanEldraine
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
The problem with UB rogues is less the mill and more the 2 mana instant "counter anything OR kill any creature" and 4 mana instant speed "draw 4 cards" both of which are obviously busted and the deck wouldn't be nearly as strong without
Just plop a Chainweb Aracnir and watch them fold. They can drown it in the loch all day and it'll keep coming back, killing a thought-thief in the process and removing shit from the graveyard to deny the 8-card bonus.
Without that, they're stuck with a bunch of shitty critters you can roflstomp with anything while you can bring something solid, like Croxa or Ox of Argonas. There's plenty of shit to do if you stop fixating over Eldraine and move on to Theros :)
Of course, the smart ones will play Cling to Dust so it's sometimes not that easy, but they're usually not that good with filling their own graveyard.
 

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