Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

that moment when opponent muligans like crazy and you got duress in your opening hand

The moment when your opponent goes first and your hand disruption and counters are all on 2 mana.

Spoiler

And then he lands on another copy of Trickery and smashes concede

 

[Jason Liang]

I'm 4-1 vs that dumb combo. Seems like a bad meme.

 

[lukaszek]

I'm 4-1 vs that dumb combo. Seems like a bad meme.

its meh but... it does appear to allow for ultra fast daily wins farm. As such its going to be always present.
Which isnt good, it encourages game of no interactions.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'm 4-1 vs that dumb combo. Seems like a bad meme.

its meh but... it does appear to allow for ultra fast daily wins farm. As such its going to be always present.
Which isnt good, it encourages game of no interactions.

Quickly grinding out games is absolutely why I'm tempted to craft it myself. For days when I don't feel like playing MTG, just smashing my face against Tibalt for 5-10 minutes until I auto-win is probably the fastest and least painful way of doing it. Unfortunately if it was just a matter of crafting the counters I'd probably go for it, but then I'd eat up mythics since I'm short on ultimatums, rainbow bridges, sphinxes, and big-ass snakes. Only things I'm loaded on are Ugin and inexplicably Kiora Bests the Sea God since I pulled 4 of those and have never really had a good reason to play them.

 

[lukaszek]

I'm 4-1 vs that dumb combo. Seems like a bad meme.

its meh but... it does appear to allow for ultra fast daily wins farm. As such its going to be always present.
Which isnt good, it encourages game of no interactions.

Quickly grinding out games is absolutely why I'm tempted to craft it myself. For days when I don't feel like playing MTG, just smashing my face against Tibalt for 5-10 minutes until I auto-win is probably the fastest and least painful way of doing it. Unfortunately if it was just a matter of crafting the counters I'd probably go for it, but then I'd eat up mythics since I'm short on ultimatums, rainbow bridges, sphinxes, and big-ass snakes. Only things I'm loaded on are Ugin and inexplicably Kiora Bests the Sea God since I pulled 4 of those and have never really had a good reason to play them.

if you go for version with only mountains and single payof, then you get paired with starter decks... Yeah, no wildcards.
Can also go historic for ulamog and disappear enemy lands

 

[Jason Liang]

So I figured out that the deck I want to play for Standard is Pyre of Party Members (very thematic of Darkest Dungeon). The issue right now is the manabase. I'm thinking Sultai (UBG), I wonder if going snow would be too greedy? Since the Snow creatures are fairly decent for Party. Not sure which Party payoff cards to include. I'm thinking heavier into black and blue and lighter into green. Is Spoils of Adventure really that bad?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I have to give MTGA credit, they FINALLY fucking improved the game's reconnect feature. My internet's super spotty and will briefly cut out for a few seconds here and there and MTGA was the only fucking card game that would make me fully restart the entire program to resume a match, everything else would just reconnect properly while the game was running. Looks like they fixed that in the Kaldheim patch so the game is finally on-par with every other card game in existence.

if you go for version with only mountains and single payof, then you get paired with starter decks... Yeah, no wildcards.
Can also go historic for ulamog and disappear enemy lands

Nice protips! Might do that then. Still on the fence since I strongly suspect that'll get passed a fair bit in draft so I wouldn't be surprised if it's easy to pick up during the first batch of botdrafts.

 

[Gyor]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/designing-black-is-magic-2021-02-04

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/introduction-black-is-magic-2021-02-04

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/black-is-magic-product-details-2021-02-04

So the new Secret Lair is Black is Magic.

Great art, but I'm glad that Angel isn't standard legal because can you imagine how broken she'd be with mirror shield on her? Hex Proof on everything!

 

[lukaszek]

what is this. What a click bait. Go away

 

[Thac0]

what is this. What a click bait. Go away

Secret Lair Black is Magic, first card is a white card.
Utter betrayal.

 

[Thac0]

So the new Secret Lair is Black is Magic.

Great art, but I'm glad that Angel isn't standard legal because can you imagine how broken she'd be with mirror shield on her? Hex Proof on everything!

Shalai is in Historic btw, one of my favourite cards from Dominaria era standard. She is not as powerfull as she looks, since she is a lightning rod for instant speed removal.
Makes a cool commander for Historic Brawl tho. Has Selesnya colour identity due to the activatebly effect, which means she is probably the best commander for GW control Shenanigans.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Well that was fun. Looked at this week's FNM and wasn't feeling enthused about standard singleton with a treasure token every turn, but then I decided fuck it and went 5 color shrines singleton and absolutely shit on both opponents I had which were mono red. Even sweeter than that, one of my ICRs was a crawling barrens which I've desperately been wanting.

PRAISE THE SHRINES

Spoiler

Deck
1 Sanctum of All (M21) 225
7 Plains (SLD) 101
2 Island (SLD) 102
6 Swamp (SLD) 105
5 Mountain (SLD) 106
1 Needleverge Pathway (ZNR) 263
1 Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest (M21) 203
1 Sanctum of Shattered Heights (M21) 157
1 Sanctum of Stone Fangs (M21) 120
1 Sanctum of Calm Waters (M21) 68
1 Sanctum of Tranquil Light (M21) 33
1 Idyllic Tutor (THB) 24
1 Grim Tutor (M21) 103
1 Opt (XLN) 65
1 Shatter the Sky (THB) 37
1 Omen of the Sea (THB) 58
1 Behold the Multiverse (KHM) 46
1 Bloodchief's Thirst (ZNR) 94
1 Eliminate (M21) 97
1 Heartless Act (IKO) 91
1 Murderous Rider (ELD) 97
1 Shadows' Verdict (ZNR) 124
1 Extinction Event (IKO) 88
1 Fire Prophecy (IKO) 116
1 Scorching Dragonfire (ELD) 139
1 Bonecrusher Giant (ELD) 115
1 Soul Sear (M21) 160
1 Charming Prince (ELD) 8
1 Glass Casket (ELD) 15
1 Banishing Light (THB) 4
1 The Birth of Meletis (THB) 5
1 Felidar Retreat (ZNR) 16
1 Emeria's Call (ZNR) 12
1 Clearwater Pathway (ZNR) 260
1 Riverglide Pathway (ZNR) 264
1 Brightclimb Pathway (ZNR) 259
1 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244
1 Saw It Coming (KHM) 76
1 Essence Scatter (IKO) 49
1 Negate (RIX) 44
1 Inscription of Insight (ZNR) 61
1 Thrill of Possibility (ELD) 146
1 Pharika's Libation (THB) 111
1 Soul Shatter (ZNR) 127

 

[lukaszek]

so I wonder if historic anthology is still on track. If it is its likely to be end of February, probably once viking quick draft ends. I wonder if it will still cost 25k gold. For previous anthologies I managed to starting with 0 gold and buying it before closure.
If memory serves me right it was hard summer with 2 standard sets being released, historic anthology, jumpstart and historic set? Might explain why my m21 coverage is so low.

I wonder if they will force us to spend gems by airing it along with jumpstart

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I think they mentioned the next anthology is coming fairly soon, didn't they? Although for some reason I had a brain fart and remembered them as 50,000 gold rather than 25k, so I'm a bit better situated than I thought. Your M21 coverage might be low because Jumpstart was released around the same time as M21 and had a fair few M21 cards in it, I know in my case I went hard on Jumpstart and spent almost no gold on M21 so that's why I've got some weird gaps there. IIRC you went fairly heavy on Jumpstart too so you might be in a similar boat.

And have they confirmed another Jumpstart set coming up? That'd be cool since I enjoyed playing it, enjoyed the Jumpstart-specific rare ICRs and the whole thing, though I spent way too much fucking gold on it.

 

[lukaszek]

And have they confirmed another Jumpstart set coming up? That'd be cool since I enjoyed playing it, enjoyed the Jumpstart-specific rare ICRs and the whole thing, though I spent way too much fucking gold on it.

they confirmed that it will come back, it will be exactly same though

 

[Jason Liang]

My Pirate list for Historic. It's pretty well tuned, and does well, although I suspect I'm not being matched against the top tier decks. My screencap skills are a little rusty. Had some great games today, and a turn 4 kill with Embercleave (T1 Daring Buccaneer, T2 Dire Fleet Captain, T3 Rigging Runner, T4 Embercleave). I might tweak it and add a Hoarder, a 2nd Hostage Taker, and probably Unlicensed Disintegration, but the next major iteration would be to sub out red entirely for blue, although the deck would miss Embercleave and Judy.

 

[lukaszek]

not a single horn?

 

[Jason Liang]

I think 3 cmc slots are already tight. If I did run more 3 cmc, I'd probably choose Pirate lord, Pirate boat, Disintegrations or Judy #2 ahead of Horn.
- The mana reduction *could* work in a slower deck with more 2 drops, perhaps a Jund version with Masked Vandals and more Daredevils.
-- Playing more 2 drops is good synergy with Pyre, and the mana reduction also helps with Pyre.
- The kinship card draw is frankly pretty weak, I'd rather have another Ruin Raider.
- Doesn't really improve the deck's matchups.

So it could be worth it? There's probably a slower, midrange Jund Pirates deck out there that also plays Karn, the Great Quartermaster with a bunch of Pirate booty in the sideboard, could be fun.

 

[lukaszek]

horn allows you to stand back o your feet after multiple board wipes

 

[Jason Liang]

horn allows you to stand back o your feet after multiple board wipes

If you get wiped and they have Teferi online, you aren't coming back. The deck controls the hand well enough now that it has Thoughtseizes, and Pyre lets you grow vertically rather than horizontally to minimize the damage of getting wiped, if you are worried about it. You can also Pyre into Judith and they might die to Wrath anyway. I have gotten wiped but only if the opponent top decks into their Wrath or Ugin. If losing to a top decked Wrath bothered me, I'd play blue for some light countermagic (some combination of Lofty Denial, Disdainful Stroke or Lookout's Dispersal). Or green for Heroic Intervention.

 

[lukaszek]

dont listen to reason. try it

 

[Gyor]

I'm now level 21 for Kaldheim. I just took out 5 4/4 Trolls tokens, a Golem and one other creature and took out the Player in one single turn tanks to Purphoros summoning Seige Dragon and a Pheonix while I had Torban already on the battle field. Seige Dragon dealt 4 damage to every none flying creature, wiping out all his creatures except a flying black red rogue who was tapped and then they all (plus my Taunting Basher) hit the Player all at once. A sweet victory. I've already got 200xp towards level 22. I have the mastery pass. It hasn't even been 2 weeks. I'm rocking Keldheim so far.

 

[Jason Liang]

So someone played Herald's Horn against me today!

He casted it and immediately conceded. Indeed the Sword is mightier than the Horn, at least for 3 cmc artifacts. Sorry lukaszek !

Some more pirate ass kicking today...

 

[Gyor]

Only 50xp to level 22, will have to wait for tomorrow.

 

[anvi]

This game has gone amazing since this latest set! Some of the combos are massive. Most games I play have HUGE wins for them or me. This new set is much stronger than it was.