Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

cavalcade of calamity deck

gave it to my friend as i had a feeling he might like it. For few hours he was facing almost exclusively decks with mass board wipes xD

Yup, those blow you out pretty fucking hard. You can still recover from them (Draws from keld, frenzy, holding a siege commander or goblin gathering in hand to poop out more gobbos) but it's an uphill struggle at that point. The worst of course is chainwhirler, if your opponent drops a chainwhirler that's usually game (Although even then it's not like you flat out can't beat RDW).

I've been waffling over if I like this version with more mana and more of a top end or if I'd prefer dropping the mana way down and cutting the frenzies and siege commanders. Going faster may work better in BO1 (Because of the double first hand draw bullshit) although having a longer gameplan may work better in BO3. That said, I just played a BO1 game with the full complement of land and siege commanders against golgari explore and just got lethal because I had a skirk prospector and a siege commander on the board and sacrificed all my goblins for something like 8-10 damage when he played finality to try to wipe them all out so the shock in my hand was lethal on my turn. Even if the timer had to pop out and hiss at me since it takes a while clicking all those goblins to murder them.

 

[Jason Liang]

Speaking of which, I played a game yesterday, cast Kitesail and saw my opponent had 2X Kaya's Wrath, 1X Rain of Soot and 1X Mortify. Still won that game! His first four lands were checklands, and I had a Judith, got him down to 3 life on turn 4, he suicided when he wrathed.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

alright as much as I love my netdeck hate deck, they need to figure out some way to get people to play decks outside the top 4 tournament winners. I love the possibilities and interactions that this game offers but when every fucking match is vs one of 4 decks it's so boring

I get that there's always a meta with top decks but it's worse in this game than any other game I've ever played. It's way too easy to build one of these decks and they occupy every mode from unranked to ranked to events ugh fuck this

the fact that running 4x unmoored ego is actually strong is crazy

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jason Liang]

how come this is non legendary uncommon?

This card's gotten a bit of hype but it needs to combo with a sacrifice outlet to do its thing. It's not more powerful than Slimefoot, who is only 3cc and can generate its own tokens.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jason Liang]

Slimefoot

who is legendary and narrow critter type driven. White color got quite a token generation recently too

Still, Slimefoot's effect has been available in the environment for a long while and has not been used competitively. Hence it makes this effect safe to print.

 

[new fucking guy]

Still, Slimefoot's effect has been available in the environment for a long while and has not been used competitively.

Yeah, because saprolings suck
Celebrant's very good. He doesn't really combo with anything right now, but he adds an unique quality to your board, and it's a very desirable one too. There's bound to be some kind of grindy WB token list with him, as well as a Mardu Hero list because Heroic Reinforcements will be bonkers in this shell. Whether they're competitive is a matter of meta and new cards we haven't seen yet.

 

[Jason Liang]

Still, Slimefoot's effect has been available in the environment for a long while and has not been used competitively.

Yeah, because saprolings suck
Celebrant's very good. He doesn't really combo with anything right now, but he adds an unique quality to your board, and it's a very desirable one too. There's bound to be some kind of grindy WB token list with him, as well as a Mardu Hero list because Heroic Reinforcements will be bonkers in this shell. Whether they're competitive is a matter of meta and new cards we haven't seen yet.

Midnight Reaper is a similar if not even more powerful effect and he's had trouble staying in competitive decklists (certainly not played in current Golgari/ Sultai lists anymore).

Ping effects are definitely not what Mardu Heroes needs.

 

[new fucking guy]

Celebrant isn't a ping effect, it's a sign that says "cast a boardwipe and you take 5, don't remove me and you can't wipe for the rest of the game". You'll have to convince me that this isn't what mardu needs, cause I think it's pure gas.
Reaper is a very different effect, it doesn't actually do anything until you play the cards drawn. Sultai dropped him because krasis is a thing now, and it was the only meta list that could leverage him. Also note that it's definitely not an aristocrats piece unless the format allows crazy recursion - what good is card draw if you're just drawing 1 mana 2/1s?

 

[Jason Liang]

Mardu needs more useful 1cc hybrid mana noncreature spells like Integrity/ Intervention

Even if you zap them for 5, if Mardu gets board wiped it might as well scoop

 

[new fucking guy]

I have no idea why you'd need that in what's basically a highly synergistic creature deck. What's your reasoning?
Not playing a deck because board wipes exist is a long proven fallacy. It's even more silly in this case, where you can play stuff like celebrant, judy, new sorin and ajani, dreadhorde butchers and formations off the sideboard, maybe legions landing, and if you want you can make half your stuff survive anything short of cry of the carnarium by running hunted witness and friends.
I think celebrant is what enables the deck to function at all. Right now it's just a cool idea that went 5-0 on modo right after set release, never to be heard about again. What the deck really needs is more potential for nut draws. Stuff like hero into judy into heroic reinforcements. Or maybe just more generally powerfull things to be doing and finishers like, again, the reinforcements. Whoever figures out how to get that without playing just a really wacky white weenie list gets the best mardu deck.

 

[Jason Liang]

I have no idea why you'd need that in what's basically a highly synergistic creature deck. What's your reasoning?
Not playing a deck because board wipes exist is a long proven fallacy. It's even more silly in this case, where you can play stuff like celebrant, judy, new sorin and ajani, dreadhorde butchers and formations off the sideboard, maybe legions landing, and if you want you can make half your stuff survive anything short of cry of the carnarium by running hunted witness and friends.
I think celebrant is what enables the deck to function at all. Right now it's just a cool idea that went 5-0 on modo right after set release, never to be heard about again. What the deck really needs is more potential for nut draws. Stuff like hero into judy into heroic reinforcements. Or maybe just more generally powerfull things to be doing and finishers like, again, the reinforcements. Whoever figures out how to get that without playing just a really wacky white weenie list gets the best mardu deck.

The problem is that the Mardu heroes deck has a glut of options at 3cc but scarce options at 1cc. It's not just about curving correctly, it's about maximizing the value you are getting out of Hero. What Mardu needs is not more creatures or ways to create creatures - that's what Hero is for. What the deck needs is utility and better board control. Celebrant does not provide either utility or board control. The deck needs ways to find, protect and recur Hero and/or Heroic Reinforcements.

 

[new fucking guy]

In this case we have very different ideas about what a mardu hero deck looks like. If your plan is to just put out bodies with hero and grind value, then indeed you'll want more utility spells and not celebrant. However, why even do that in mardu of all things? You won't be able to outgrind anything in meta right now. There are few cards in colors that support this, the deck is doomed from the start. Just build abzan hero instead.
In an aggresive shell, abundance of great 1 and 2 drops let you fully leverage Judy, and Celebrant turns into real pressure and provides redundance. Hero lets you grind out decks faster than you while you're casting your garbage top decks like footlight fiend, but if he's just three bodies for 2 mana that's good too. He's not really a centerpiece, it's just that his opportunity cost is close to nothing.

 

[Jason Liang]

In this case we have very different ideas about what a mardu hero deck looks like. If your plan is to just put out bodies with hero and grind value, then indeed you'll want more utility spells and not celebrant. However, why even do that in mardu of all things? You won't be able to outgrind anything in meta right now. There are few cards in colors that support this, the deck is doomed from the start. Just build abzan hero instead.
In an aggresive shell, abundance of great 1 and 2 drops let you fully leverage Judy, and Celebrant turns into real pressure and provides redundance. Hero lets you grind out decks faster than you while you're casting your garbage top decks like footlight fiend, but if he's just three bodies for 2 mana that's good too. He's not really a centerpiece, it's just that his opportunity cost is close to nothing.

Mardu has a pretty critical design flaw. It's an aggro deck that is trying to dip three colors. When you are aggro, less lands and less colors is more optimal. Hero does not play well for pure aggro since Hero incentivizes you to play multicolor spells which are by nature multiple colors and higher casting cost. Hybrid mana spells help with this problem but the selection isn't great. Hero is by nature never going to be as consistent or effective as a monocolor aggro deck.

 

[new fucking guy]

I disagree that it's an aggro deck. You don't have to be aggro to play the beatdown most of the time, you just need to be faster than opp. Current "Gruul Aggro" isn't really aggro, it's a midrange deck, but it plays like red aggro most of the time. Mardu can do the same. Again, that's where metagame is important. All I'm saying is the power level is up there.

Hero does not play well for pure aggro since Hero incentivizes you to play multicolor spells which are by nature multiple colors and higher casting cost.

Just don't play the expensive ones.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

God damn it. I don't want my opponent to have multiple Teferi on the board, and then can untap the 4 land they used to cast this spell in the first place, and it's a creature so it avoids negate!

 

[Jason Liang]

never liked before glowspore shamans and underrealm lich but... they are growing on me

:makes you think:

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[new fucking guy]

looking at spoilers, arent zombies becoming sort of slivers hivemind?

all the cool new lords only care about zombie tokens, so not really

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Scruffy]

looking at spoilers, arent zombies becoming sort of slivers hivemind?

all the cool new lords only care about zombie tokens, so not really

but there are plenty of ways to get tokens. Its more like zombie shepherds leading zombie hivemind mass


slight change of topic: anyone got undergrowth deck that works? Sort of death being part of experience and not being to annoyed with table clearing spells. Saw a bunch, tried myself but they do not work too well in the end

sultai aggro and midrange kinda do that but what you want really is the usual golgari midrange

 

[new fucking guy]

slight change of topic: anyone got undergrowth deck that works? Sort of death being part of experience and not being to annoyed with table clearing spells. Saw a bunch, tried myself but they do not work too well in the end

does pauper count? https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1720858
also reposting my bitchin 80% winrate singleton deck since that's on the menu this week https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1660647