Magic the Gathering Arena

[Multi-headed Cow]

EDIT: You'll never guess what I was matched against in the very next game.

Holy hell, that's unfortunate. I barely even see Narset after rotation now, hitting her back to back is terrible.

 

[spectre]

EDIT: You'll never guess what I was matched against in the very next game.

Holy hell, that's unfortunate. I barely even see Narset after rotation now, hitting her back to back is terrible.

Might depend on the time of day. There's been a fucking barrage of WUR and GBU control with Fires of Invention when I was playing. As though someone won something with this shit.


I really like the Cauldron Kitteh + Witches Oven shenanigans. I've seen it used in a mono black deck, but I think it's most fun in a BR shell.
You can even call it Lakdos Intolerance, because you're pretty much killing people with Food in a barrage of 1dmg triggers.

6 Mountain (ANA) 64
8 Swamp (ANA) 63
4 Blood Crypt (RNA) 245
4 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244
4 Cauldron Familiar (ELD) 81
4 Witch's Oven (ELD) 237
4 Dreadhorde Butcher (WAR) 194
4 Mayhem Devil (WAR) 204
3 Judith, the Scourge Diva (RNA) 185
3 Skewer the Critics (RNA) 115
3 Angrath's Rampage (WAR) 185
4 Light Up the Stage (RNA) 107
2 Stormfist Crusader (ELD) 203
2 Theater of Horrors (RNA) 213
3 Footlight Fiend (RNA) 216
2 Heartfire (WAR) 131

In case you're not seeing this, you can recurr Cauldron Familiar pretty much ad infinitum with the Witch's Oven.
Rest of the deck serves to add additional damage to the trigger - Mayhem Devil adds two +1 damage, one on oven sac, another on food sac and is a champ in this deck, triggering off things like Fabled Passage and Angrath's Rampage. If cavalcade decks are giving you trouble (I haven't seen one in days) this is good shit.

You can also to a typical aggro finish when the opponent doesn't won't find the answer to an early Dreadhorde Butcher.

The cards below Light up the Stage are on watch. So far it performs quite all right, even the Stormfist Crusader. On the one hand, it's got that red flag of giving cards to the opponent, on the other, he's such a wonderful Spectacle Enabler. And you can usually put the drawn cards to use much faster. Theater of Horrors is just more draw, also great with Stormfist Crusader. Footlight Fiends could pretty much be Gutterbones and Heartfire is when you need that finishing touch or drop a green fatty. With the whole shebang on board, the deck has surprising reach with its damage output.
Not to mention, the whole Cauldron Familiar Engine is pretty much uncounterable and can fizzle a lot of removal, which is nice vs. certain decks.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Might depend on the time of day. There's been a fucking barrage of WUR and GBU control with Fires of Invention when I was playing. As though someone won something with this shit.

I'll have to dick around with a Fires of Invention deck at some point, but since they're (Understandably) walker heavy I've been opting out just 'cause.

For one comment on your oven-cat deck though, wouldn't Ayayayayayayayayayaya work well in there too? Similar to Judith, giving you additional cat-baking pings and healing. Though I suppose your deck is too aggressive for Ayayayayaya, and she's just leaning more heavily on the cat-memes. Plus Judith and mayhem devil are better additional triggers for the cat since they can target creatures/walker rather than just face.

 

[spectre]

As you can see, I actually shaved one Judith to lower the curve a bit. Ayaya would strain the mana a bit too much, cause I would need 20 black mana sources, and I rely quite a bit on Light up the Stage and Dreadhorde Butchers so it has to be split as it is.
She is fine in the mono black version, tho. I think some yewtuber took it to Mythic. I'd try it, but I'm 10-ish rare wildcards short.

Come to think of it, cat baking works pretty much in everything that is black and has a remote interest in the food token or a free sac outlet.
Pretty cool for something that only took eight uncommons. I could use it in GB, probably even GBU with Golden Goose mana fixing.
People are already yammering how broken Oko is. I think I'll be building something like this once I get bored with the BR version.
Haven't played too many games with it, but thus far it was either a win or I get flooded and don't get any card draw. Even if it's not that great in the long run,
it's the aggro I wanted, a decent upgrade from vanilla BR.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

Don't forget to Claim the Firstborn and then bake them, then offer it to the opponent with Tempting Witch at some point. I'll totally be doing this once ELD ranked limited becomes a thing.
Poking eyes out was just a start. Gotta say, whoever designed the flavor for this expansion has an interesting set of fetishes.

 

[Angelo85]

I tried a version of the Kitty Deck and it's pretty good. Thanks for posting it!
I didn't have enough Rare Wildcards to craft the whole list so I traded some

Dreadhorde Butcher
Judith, the Scourge Diva
Theater of Horrors

for

Chandra's Spitfire
Bloodthirsty Aerialist

That has proven to be quite effective as well so far.
Do you have any tips for a good card draw substitute to use instead of Theatre of Horrors? I put in some Foreboding Fruit in the meantime.

/e:

Don't forget to Claim the Firstborn and then bake them

Interesting Combo! Didn't even think of that possibility

 

[Jason Liang]

I wouldn't sweat Theater of Horrors, its mostly a filler card. Even before rotation I had trouble justifying it in my Rakdos pirates.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

Do you have any tips for a good card draw substitute to use instead of Theatre of Horrors? I put in some Foreboding Fruit in the meantime.

Don't craft it if you don't have it. I just happened to have two Stormfist Crusaders and wasn't sure if it's worth a craft. Whatever gets you gas when you run out or thins the deck to give you the cards faster is fine, so fruit is okay.
Looking back at it, Chandra Flame Artisans might probably be an even better fit to give you something definite to end the game(and is usable in all sorts of mono red aggro), but I wanted something new that also works with Stormfists and Cats.

If your substitutions work out well, that's great. Personally, I'd up the count on footlight fiends and plug the holes with Bladebrands to thin the deck and drop green fatties with a single damage.

I wouldn't sweat Theater of Horrors, its mostly a filler card. Even before rotation I had trouble justifying it in my Rakdos pirates.

Pirates is not a natural fit for this card. You need reliable spectacle triggers every and cat-oven + crusader does provide that.

 

[Jason Liang]

Nah. Theater of Horrors actually did a lot of work in Pirates. First being Pirates had a low curve with no mana sinks so free draws fills that gap. Second being able to dome for the last few points of damage on a stalled board (often due to land flooding) is helpful - pirates often needed some help getting in the last few points in. Third, the ping enables Spectacle for your other spells, and also let's you interact/ pick off planeswalkers.

The problem with Theater was that in Pirates it was behind both Judith and Ruin Raider. Ruin Raider was superior in being a) a creature that beats and triggers raid and spectacle b) a pirate for synergy and casting with Unclaimed Territory c) drawing the card immediately (assuming you could trigger Raid). And Jubitch is Jubitch like Iron Man is Iron Man. Theater had the problems of inconsistently dropping down (due to the hard black mana in its cc, Drill Bit also had this weakness) and adding nothing to your nut draw t4/t5 kills. It was still worth running until Orzhov/ Esper came in and maindecked Mortify. That tipped it far too negatively.

 

[anvi]

Silver Tier 1, making some progress :D It is getting tough though now, I win a few, lose a few. I am probably down to about 60% wins now. Almost every deck is the same netdeck, gates or red rush, and one or two others. I can beat some of them easy, but the red burn/rush is hard to handle. My deck was supposed to be able to beat exactly that, but in reality it relies on decent draws or I die. Gates I won once or twice but mostly they own me One of them discarded a lot of stuff and then brought stuff from the graveyard and I won by exiling stuff from his graveyard. But all the other gates decks have basically just ramped mana constantly while pumping out every increasing creatures and drawing unlimited cards... Hard to handle with my deck. The deck that fucks me the most though is the one which has a land that says "spawn a 2/2 zombie if you have 7 different lands and you play a land". I kill the first several zombies and then I die. I can't kill the land so I am pretty fucked.

My observation is that nobody runs sideboard cards so if you have artifacts and enchants, they usually survive all game. Only a few people have a few mortify or something. I think my next deck might exploit that situation. But the most brutal deck I played had a PW that turned his lands into 3/3 creatures, then another PW that exiled 4 cards from my library each turn. I kept killing his land creatures, but he kept getting more, had a third PW that brought previous dead cards back from the GY.... and he kept using proliferate to make the PW that exiles my library keep going every turn. I probably could have won if he didn't have at least 3 of all three PWs... Rich bastard.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

just build some netdeck and use it to grind to ranked gold for seasonal rewards, then play fun decks in unranked.

ranked is for esports people who like playing the same 3 preconstructed decks over and over

 

[anvi]

Yeah seems so :/ I need to find a netdeck that uses white or black. I don't have much else. I really want to punish them with an ego deck now that I know most of the decks.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

well there's no rush, the seasonal rewards aren't that great it's just easy to get to gold quickly if you have cards to build a netdeck.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Getting really pissed with my Eldraine pack luck. Missing some really good shit like murderous riders (Only have 1) yet I have 4 white castle, 3 midnight clock, 3 piper of swarm, 4 Ayayaya, 4 clackbridge troll, 4 fervent champion, 3 red dwarf, 4 Yorvo, 4 doom foretold, 4 escape to the wilds. Fucking kill me, Jesus H Christ.



Edit: Although a nice thing I noticed about the new mastery track is that they've got rewards on the free track a whole hell of a lot longer, running out at 92 rather than in the 70s. And over 100 (Presumably for end of set grinding event) has some ICRs and gold and shit so even though the last big payoff is at 100, if you keep at it you can scoop up some mythic and rare ICRs. Even though they seem less forthcoming with mastery level codes this time.

 

[anvi]

Yeah the sensible option seems to be making a fast net deck as your first deck to grind remaining cards. I just couldn't find a netdeck I liked and the better ones I didn't have any of the cards :/ But I just made Gold rank 4 with my gimpy control deck anyway :D Once I stop progressing I will find a net deck that uses some of the rares and PWs I bought.

 

[Pope Amole II]

So I've decided to give myself a little holiday and have been playing Eldraine release drafts non-stop. Today was the last day of that. Started with 5.5k gems, finished with 4.3k or so, played 16 drafts or so in 3 days. Expected to do more but the format is really slow, games take ridiculous amount of time (I dunno how it will get played IRL, btw, probably 1-0's and ties everywhere), so you can't do much fast. Had 7 5-1, 1 5-0, 1 4-2, 1 3-2, 2 1-2, rest are 2-2. Been raredrafting as hell too - I now have 25% of the rares and 16% of mythics. And there's 82 packs waiting to get opened so that's what, another 12% mythics and 25% rares? Damn, I'm good.

Overall, don't like the format, though. All this food shit got stale uber-fast. The worst was yesterday during my GB halberd 5-0 - had to grind through, I dunno, 70 life in total to finally finish the opp. Feels like fighting constantly respawning mobs and that's not fun at all.

I also hate mill as it's such a random mechanic. It's not even strong, I've dropped mb 2 games to being milled out. But it's just annoying when they do that mill 4, hit 4 non-lands, then you draw a land. Then rinse & repeat. It just adds even more RNG to the game that already suffers from being too much RNG. Ofc, you can get screwed either way, but it's the instantaneous obviousness of mill that adds great insult to the injury. Just like the life gain, it's just an unpleasant, unfun mechanic.

Also, the control builds in this meta are cancer. Like, they're potent, but they're making the slow experience ever slower. My first foray into UB made me seriously consider that "Resign" option once I've hit that 3-0 threshold. Because sure, you kill all their creatures, and then you recur your stuff so you kill your creatures again, and then you dig for your wincons, and eventually you seal up the game. But that takes so much bloody time, especially in Bo3. And, ofc, control vs control being the worst nightmare of them all. Pretty much an hour of slog through which not a lot happens.

I'm very glad I'm half-done with this set because being done with it couldn't come soon enough.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Getting really pissed with my Eldraine pack luck. Missing some really good shit like murderous riders (Only have 1) yet I have 4 white castle, 3 midnight clock, 3 piper of swarm, 4 Ayayaya, 4 clackbridge troll, 4 fervent champion, 3 red dwarf, 4 Yorvo, 4 doom foretold, 4 escape to the wilds. Fucking kill me, Jesus H Christ

Oof I hate getting a bunch of 4x of rares, makes draft value drop so hard. That's why I basically hoard packs until opening them nearly completes the playset.

I'm in a sealed run and damn this set is really grindy. The creature power level seems so low compared to other sets. For example if you have a 3 toughness creature it blocks so much shit and removal seems easy to get.

One complaint is that Garruk doesn't make sense in this set, basically if he resolves it's an auto win. Kinda wish they would ban these obviously broken "oh yeah you got lucky and opened the i-win card" planeswalkers from limited

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

I also hate mill as it's such a random mechanic. It's not even strong, I've dropped mb 2 games to being milled out. But it's just annoying when they do that mill 4, hit 4 non-lands, then you draw a land. Then rinse & repeat. It just adds even more RNG to the game that already suffers from being too much RNG. Ofc, you can get screwed either way, but it's the instantaneous obviousness of mill that adds great insult to the injury. Just like the life gain, it's just an unpleasant, unfun mechanic.

Yeah I was thinking about this, seems weird that they decided to make mill a serious archetype. Mill isn't really fun to play and it sure as hell is awful to play against, but since this set is so slow I think it can actually be quite strong. Maybe next set will feature land destruction archetype..

I think I'll stick to BO1 drafts here lol, I really don't have the ability to dedicate a potential 2 hours to one BO3 match because of how strong control is

 

[anvi]

In standard you used to be able to ruin any mill deck with one card (Emrakuul or Kozilek). The thing I miss the most are the cards that destroy all enchants or artifacts. There used to be Austere Command and I just missed out on playing with a similar card which just rotated, I guess it was lucky I didn't buy it.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Son of a bitch. Catbread killed my gates deck earlier. Thought I had him for sure, but he had an absolutely rocking draw. Went something like cat, oven, mayhem devil, mayhem devil, Judith, Tibalt, second oven after I stole his first oven. Even with board wipes and Golos and agent of treachery (And some healing from plazas before Tibalt resolved) I just couldn't keep up with that nonsense after every answer I played. I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, CATBREAD!

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

yall ready for these new card sleeves?

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/...athering-my-little-pony-crossover-promos-mtg/

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

which pony will u be fucking playing with?