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Magic the Gathering Arena

Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
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Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Anyone else really liking the meta right now? I have got a dozen standard decks which are fun to play and easily pull satisfying enough winrates in platin, the division I tend to durdle around in the most.

1. Mono Green
2. Izzet Faerie Drake
3. GW Fleecemane Midrange
4. Naya infinite combo (doggo+spider+dragon)
5. Dimir hard control
6. Jeskai no creatures
7. Boros Knights
8. Abzan Party
9. Abzan Food
10. Gruul Landfall
11. Big Red
12 Naya Enchantments
13. Orzhov Clerics

Before rotation and the last ban wave anything that was not tier 1 was garbage. Now I can easily body pretty much any deck with any jank shit as long as I outplay them and the RNG is on my site.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Those eurolands don't tickle my fancy much for land art, they're alright but not enough to get me to spend gold. But I have to say the classic border on land is tempting me like crazy. If they let me have old man land from like revised with white borders in Arena that'd be great. White bordered cards in general just to send people into fits. Full-art lands don't do much for me in Arena since they turn into postage stamps anyway, but since the stamps have the border I dig it.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
Those eurolands don't tickle my fancy much for land art, they're alright but not enough to get me to spend gold. But I have to say the classic border on land is tempting me like crazy. If they let me have old man land from like revised with white borders in Arena that'd be great. White bordered cards in general just to send people into fits. Full-art lands don't do much for me in Arena since they turn into postage stamps anyway, but since the stamps have the border I dig it.

I thought about getting them, but I'd have to get all three sets for maybe four lands that look all right. Biggest problem is they stand out like a sore thumb if you have any nonbasics. It just doesn't come together without more cards with old borders.
I was thinking about getting the black lotus thing instead, but having seen it in game, it looked like ass.

I'm ranking up in diamond with bo3 mono green food. Took me a while to tune it to get satisfactory results, but it plays rather well so far so I'm sharing this for all interested.
Might be mythic-worthy, not sure if I can be bothered to grind it out. All in all, depends on how much Yorion and which breed of Yorion is popular.
Can play decent game against Gruul, really effective against Croxa (and these two just might push Yorion out of the game), Rogues is also rather easy.

Deck
8 Forest (ZNR) 280
8 Forest (ZNR) 278
1 Bonders' Enclave (IKO) 245
4 Gilded Goose (ELD) 160
4 Tangled Florahedron (ZNR) 211
3 Wicked Wolf (ELD) 181
4 Gemrazer (IKO) 155
4 Trail of Crumbs (ELD) 179
2 Wolfwillow Haven (THB) 205
4 Castle Garenbrig (ELD) 240
4 Lovestruck Beast (ELD) 165
3 Scavenging Ooze (M21) 204
2 The Great Henge (ELD) 161
4 Feasting Troll King (ELD) 152
1 Garruk, Unleashed (M21) 183
2 Ram Through (IKO) 170
2 Kazandu Mammoth (ZNR) 189

Sideboard
1 Ram Through (IKO) 170
1 Wicked Wolf (ELD) 181
2 Wilt (IKO) 176
1 Scavenging Ooze (M21) 204
2 Witch's Oven (ELD) 237
3 Oakhame Adversary (ELD) 167
2 Garruk's Harbinger (M21) 185
2 Run Afoul (M21) 201
1 Chainweb Aracnir (THB) 167

The general objective is to ramp towards Feasting Troll King and Great Henge, if you can pull off it on turn four,
it's a really good position to be in, with one of the few clean answers being Elspeth Crawls out of the Ditch.
On-curve ramping towards castle is doable with Lovestruck Beast and Mammoth (you need to hit the landfall trigger with an untapped land for it).
Keep all starting hands that look like they let you pull this off.

An alternative line of play is setting up an early clock, this involves turn three Lovestruck Beast or mutating Gemrazer regardless of having valid targets to destroy.
This can be achieved turn two with Goose. It can be a bit of a gamble if you destroy nothing and eat a Hearless Act, but It's the only way for this deck to beat controlling decks.

Don't fuck with the mana, the forest count need to be like so, same goes for the Florahardons and Mammoths. I kept getting erratic starting hands before exactly this distribution.
What you can do is swap Enclave for a different utility land (manland is an okay swap), or swap a goose or florahardon for wolfwillow, if they keep getting bolted (this was the main reason for including them).
Gingerbread Cabin looked like a good fit at first, but you need more forests to make it happen.
The green boltland is something I've seen many streamers use, it's supposedly more flexible as a late-game draw, but in practice it fucks up Castle Garenbrig too much,
especially when you played florahardon or mammoth as your first land.

I was unimpressed with Florahardons at first, but the best thing about them is they give you a bunch of options -tapped land or ramp, cycle them for two with Great Henge,
make Lovestruck Beast stop jacking off and do work. Facing removal heavy decks like BR, you get to choose - attempt to ramp and make them use removal on a 1/1
instead of something relevant, like Ooze. It's even better once you've boarded in Witch's Oven, letting you fizzle Bonecrushers.

I'm running four Gemrazers cause there's always something to blow up (especially since people caught on Akroan War being good, but a lot of games are decided by who gets to keep their Great Henge).
It mutates rather nicely onto everything - goose if you need a flying beater, florahedron if you want to weaponize it, wicked wolf and ooze are great because they really like having trample, lovestruck and troll king feel
slightly iffy, but you should do it if there's stuff that need removing, or when having a blocker with reach is relevant.
Tokens by Garruk and Wolfwillow are marginal mutates, but also an option.

The go-to removals are Ram Throughs (used to run four, but I kept siding them out) and Wicked Wolves. I settled for those instead of fight because potential damage to face is always good in my books
(and this deck gets a lot of trample) and there's shit with deathtouch you want to blast from a distance. A case can be made for Inscription (because it's also instant speed) and Primal Might (because it lets you convert mana into power
even without valid targets). Charge of the Forever Beast is very unwieldy, but it's the only option if hitting 'wankers ever becomes relevant.

Garruk will probably become Great Henge or Vivien if I can fork the wildcard, so far he's not great, not terrible.

Actual Sideboarding:
1 Chainweb Aracnir (THB) 167 - this one's on probation. I had two when the ladder was nothing but rogues, ditched them when everyone switched to yorion,
then brought one back when rogues started to appear again.
2 Run Afoul (M21) 201 - a compromise pick. Still not bad vs. rogues, one game I took a really bad whooping courtesy of multiple Dream Trawlers
2 Garruk's Harbinger (M21) 185 - theoretically, these go in whenever there's a real possibility of black removal. I started with three, then gradually cut back
to the point where i'm thinking of removing them. They look like they do a lot, but in practice they often underperform.

Feel free to experiment with these 5 slots. Possible alternatives include: Rangers Guile - same role as Harbingers but can also stop ECD.
Souls Guide Lantern are always a choice if Oozes aren't enough to nom the whole graveyard. Heroic Intervention I'm skeptical about being
able to hold two mana open, but it can protect the Great Henge.
Other options to consider are more Henges, Vivien etc., I'm currently out of wildcards to craft them.
I'm still thinking if I can pull off Questing Beasts. Feels like I'd need at least three, and they'd work great in matchups where you need to play aggro.
The second part of the sideboard I am rather confident about.

1 Wicked Wolf (ELD) 181 - you bring this one (typically for a gemrazer) when you need to remove weenies AND dodge removal.
1 Ram Through (IKO) 170 - if it feels like four Wicked Wolves don't cut it, get this on board. I typically board wolves first even though they're slower cause they don't rely on having creatures on board.
2 Wilt (IKO) 176 - this could be Return to Nature, of course, depends which you prefer. I sometimes cycle it, even if it does feel counter intuitive to board in cards to cycle. Bring this in against Doom Foretolds,
Embercleaves, Great Henges and Trail of Crumbs
1 Scavenging Ooze (M21) 204 - obviously, for those matchups where the whole graveyard must be eaten, either yours (mill) or the opponent's (kroxa, ox)
2 Witch's Oven (ELD) 237 - these go in whenever there's loads of removal flying around and you're up for a grindy game, your creature may die, but you'll still outgrind them with Crumbs.
These also act as insurance for your Troll Kings so that they don't get exiled (by ECD or Ugin).
3 Oakhame Adversary (ELD) 167 - these replace the Oozen when munching graveyard doesn't feel like a productive thing to do. Typically the rare mirror match and Gruul, but also
the green-based Yorion.

Obviously, the important matter is what to board out. I sometimes shave one Trail of Crumbs if it feels like I won't have the time to grind it out (don't remove Crumbs if you're adding Ovens),
Ram Through also gets the axe rather often (when I expect my shit to get removed so I can't rely on it), Gemrazers go out when there are no valid targets, which doesn't happen too often.
Even then, I like to keep one or two around to give my stuff trample. I also sometimes cut Lovestrucks when it feels they could be easily disrupted with removal.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
How do you deal with all the fucking aggro? I tried it for a bit, but with very limited interaction, shit like UW auras and Goblins feels like plowing mud with your dick whenever you're on the play.
Blast zone and Ratchet Bombs can help, but the crap you want to blow up the most is very often 2-3cmc.
 

Scruffy

Ex-janitor
Patron
Joined
May 16, 2008
Messages
18,150
Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
How do you deal with all the fucking aggro? I tried it for a bit, but with very limited interaction, shit like UW auras and Goblins feels like plowing mud with your dick whenever you're on the play.
Blast zone and Ratchet Bombs can help, but the crap you want to blow up the most is very often 2-3cmc.
i went with red and spikefield, dragonfire, etc
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
:what:

Jesus, props for playing that in standard. Only reason it feels like it sorta works in historic is running a billion mana rocks to try to ramp into Ugin/Ulamog/platinum angel. I guess in standard you could use that skyclave pot for a potential big mana rock but 6 mana for 2 single mana sources is still not as juicy as hedron archive's 4 mana for a single source that taps for 2. And (Importantly) can be sacced for card draw once you've got monument and your mana's overflowing.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Brown can be fun in standard, because the meta is so unoptimised atm.

4x Serpent
4x Gingerbread
4x Crystalline

are a very strong aggro core for current standard environment.

I havn't taken the Monument pill myself, opting for a much more safe built with All That Glitters and Arcanist Owl for generic evasive artifact aggro.
 

Gyor

Savant
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Messages
735
I traded a dwarf and a couple of other spells like shock for fire over spill or whatever its called and Bonder's Enclave, another mono red DFC land, and Crawling Barrens (Enclave and Barrens give a use for mana when I have Fires of Invention up as well as helping to avoid mana shortages).

Maybe tonight I'll make lists of my Purphoros and Lurrus Brawl decks.
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,876
So i played a few rounds of Zendikar quick draft and i realized bots let me grab way fewer rares these days. Is it still the best method to build my collection or should i just pump my gold into packs (with average winrate of 3-4)? I enjoy drafting here and then but it gets tale pretty quick and i want to go back to my secret jank laboratory truth be told.

oh no, standard, i don't play historic (yet)

Life's too short to not play historic BO3. Well at least until they implement historic brawl then that will be fine too. BO3 will also solve your aggro problems to some extent since you can sideboard against the fotm aggro and it will be less prevalent because of this reason.
 

Ranselknulf

Arcane
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Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Messages
1,880,092
Location
Best America
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Did I miss the memo?

95% of the decks I've played today are mono colored. The few multicolor decks I've played are white/black, or red/green.

I guess all the other 4 or 5 color sperg decks like mine got destroyed.
 

Scruffy

Ex-janitor
Patron
Joined
May 16, 2008
Messages
18,150
Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
I've been toying around with this puppy and it works, kinda:

Deck
3 Forsaken Monument (ZNR) 244
4 Palladium Myr (M21) 234
3 Stonecoil Serpent (ELD) 235
3 Duress (M19) 94
5 Swamp (ZNR) 272
4 Bloodchief's Thirst (ZNR) 94
4 Agonizing Remorse (THB) 83
3 Grasp of Darkness (M21) 102
4 Bonders' Enclave (IKO) 245
4 Labyrinth of Skophos (THB) 243
4 Radiant Fountain (M21) 248
1 Crawling Barrens (ZNR) 262
3 Skyscanner (M21) 238
3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (M21) 1
3 Solemn Simulacrum (M21) 239
4 Mazemind Tome (M21) 232
3 Unknown Shores (THB) 249
2 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,595
At first glance,

7 discards looks a bit excessive (though I've seen a sudden resurgence of cuntrol in both ladders), could cost you games vs. aggro which I think may be the worse matchup.
If you want to tech vs. control, I'd use more Crawling Barrens.

While I loved Agonizing Remorse, I think it's a bit obsolete (and the double black can be problematic for your mana base).

Skyscanner looks a bit shite, I always consider those draft chaff that have no business in constructed, sure you don't want something more impactful in that slot? Mechagodzilla, heck even an Entrancing Lyre or Shambling Suit.


So, TryKaladesh works now. Fuck you. I don't want to try Kaladesh, already did plenty of trying in the beta. I want to PlayKaladesh.
There's also a land bundle in the store for 0 geld. Not sure what the fuck this one's about but I'm getting it before they change their mind.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
no one discussed another weak state of the game so ill bring this piece in
Next on our list of topics today—Historic Brawl! To start, we'll be holding a weeklong Historic Brawl Festival starting on November 20. Like our other Festival events, our Inventor's Fair Historic Brawl Festival will have a one-time entry fee (2,500 Gold or 500 Gems) and will allow you to play as many matches as you like for its duration, awarding card styles for your first three wins.

Before you pull out your Implements of Malice, we're also planning to hold another weeklong Historic Brawl event starting in early January, this time as a general play queue (just like the Brawl queue right now, so no entry fee and no additional rewards beyond quest and daily win progress).

We've made some incorrect assumptions about Brawl in the past, so yes, we are being careful with how we approach this. Ultimately, we want to see whether there is enough interest in both formats to support a healthy play environment simultaneously. Nobody wants to end up in a world where both Brawl and Historic Brawl suffer from long queue times and repeated mirror matches because we've split the player base in twain. However, we've also received a lot of feedback from players who really want to play Historic Brawl more often, so we're running these events to help test the waters and hopefully find a happy balance between the two.

We'll leave it up to player interest and behavior to help us make this decision.

in other words... they want first to see how many wildcards we burn when each new set is introduced to arena

God I hope they do not turn off Historic Brawl.
It is absolutely obvious what will happen, Historic Brawl completely butchers the queue for Standard Brawl, as in a Highlander type format more cards is pretty much objectively better. Otherwise with how large the playerbase is they can definitly support both formats.

Also can someone start sending angry letters to them about pauper? There are enough commons in the client by now to make some really spicy lists.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
I thought about getting them, but I'd have to get all three sets for maybe four lands that look all right. Biggest problem is they stand out like a sore thumb if you have any nonbasics. It just doesn't come together without more cards with old borders.
I was thinking about getting the black lotus thing instead, but having seen it in game, it looked like ass.

I got the Schwarzwald forest in pack 3 because you can see those types of mountain creeks a lot here in the landscape. They are so evocative of the Harz fairytales for me, love that land and havn't regret the hefty purchase yet.
Shame that they decided to split the lands so jewishly, I also really wanted the Netherland Windmill plains.
 

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