Magic the Gathering Arena

[spectre]

And, to be fair, mill hasn't been a thing for quite some time, so it's refreshing to see people reminded that the library count also matters.

Wow I never knew the decks got harder as you progressed through the Standard Event!

I think it's one of the few formats where they don't do any MMR shenanigans, so you get matched with guys simply with the same number of wins.
So, games 6 and 7 should be with top of the food chain vs. the rest of the queue.
Doesn't mean that much, I've seen beginner mistakes and people conceding post mulligan cause it's still Bo1 and everyone can get mana screwed or simply lucky,
but you can draw some conclusions from examining the meta. A bad deck won't make it that far, not matter how lucky.

Sometimes you can't really tell though. 6 months back it wasn't uncommon to play all 7 games vs. mono red in the event.

I think people overstate how much skill really matters in this game, especially in constructed and doubly in BO1. Yes, it takes some time to get to the point where you're making correct plays but once you and your opponents are at that level the most important decider of wins is basically who draws better and matchup. That's why when you look at win rates for "top" players they typically float around 60%, whereas in other games where rng doesn't play a large part top players have more like 90% win rates.

Well, everyone can be a rockstar in constructed once the Top8 results are in. There's still the part about picking the right deck and sideboard for the meta, especially an unknown one.
No argument for me when it comes to Bo1. Even a world champion can succumb to a nublet with a cavalcade deck with a nutty draw and on the play. Unfortunately, Bo1 favors such linear strategies,
which are super easy to sideboard against.

I played card games where skill mattered much more. The lcg stuff like Android Netrunner and Warhammer Conquest felt really good
because a seasoned player with a starter deck could play a fair game with a nublet with a tournament winning decklist.

I do wonder if banning oko will open up the meta or if we'll just start seeing a bunch of fires decks. It's nice to only play unranked and draft, so I never need to see this crap.

Yeah, draft always feels like a breath of fresh air, although Throne Draft really rubs me the wrong way for some reason. M20 felt much better, I also liked Ravnica, War of the Spark felt meh.
It's pretty much 'wankers galore and abusing proliferate.

Without Oko, I think Fires is the runner up for being the next top dog, which I think gives us yet another meta of control vs. aggro with no midrange.
I think the Oko package needs one fewer piece to stay fair - just pull the plug on Hydroid Krasis, Nissa or Gilded Goose and it'll be much less opressive.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[anvi]

I think fires will be top too. It is just so hard to beat such powerful cards coming at you so constantly. And even when I get established with an Ugin and a big creature or something, they will just Fae for a Casualties of War and kill my PW, my creature, my Doom Foretold, and my Castle land :/

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Yeah, draft always feels like a breath of fresh air, although Throne Draft really rubs me the wrong way for some reason. M20 felt much better, I also liked Ravnica, War of the Spark felt meh.
It's pretty much 'wankers galore and abusing proliferate.

Yeah Eld draft is pretty boring. I think a big part of the problem is that 3 or 4 toughness creatures are super common and block almost everything, so lots of games just end up being a really long board stall. The whole food thing makes this even worse.

RNA was sooooo amazingly good and M20 was a lot of fun, but holy shit no set has pissed me off as much as WAR. That set was like an endless stream of annoying bullshit to deal with every game.

its not just about archetype being strong. In arena drafts are against bots, we have strong archetype that everyone can just force. Suddenly once you start playing against real people everyone got quite same deck which is insane as far as drafts go.
Also boring, everyone is playing same thing. That alone is enough for me to despise such experience and why I hate boring meta, whatever it is.
Now the fact that archetype is one of the most annoying is just extra

Yeah I think it'd help a lot if secret keepers had 3 health instead of 4. 4 is just way too hard to break through, it'll basically stick all game. Plus blue is just really good in this format, since it auto-wins vs the draw-two archetype and is really strong vs the slower green or black decks. Its only weakness is go-wide aggro but that deck is tough to draft.

I still think that bot drafting is the way to go, they just need to get people who understand the game to program them. I'd hate to have a system where you pod draft with randoms then get matched against people outside your pod.

 

[spectre]

I think fires will be top too. It is just so hard to beat such powerful cards coming at you so constantly. And even when I get established with an Ugin and a big creature or something, they will just Fae for a Casualties of War and kill my PW, my creature, my Doom Foretold, and my Castle land :/

fires should be easy to beat with dimir no?

Or the UBR fires variant. It's a bit like the UGB Oko stuff with Vraska and Ass Trophy, pretty much designed to beat the mirror.
Flash is the natural enemy of fires decks. Unless they force through a Teferi (which isn't impossible, but takes time), there's no guarantee anything with cmc>3 resolves, and fires is all about abusing expensive stuff.
The deck doesn't really do anything before turn three apart from dropping a faerie to block with, and Nightpack Ambusher pretty much walks over it. The only danger is losing too many things to a clarion or a chandra.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[anvi]

I think fires will be top too. It is just so hard to beat such powerful cards coming at you so constantly. And even when I get established with an Ugin and a big creature or something, they will just Fae for a Casualties of War and kill my PW, my creature, my Doom Foretold, and my Castle land :/

fires should be easy to beat with dimir no?

Not sure about easy because you need to remove potentially 4 chandra, 4 bolas, and 4 sarkhan, all coming pretty consistently thanks to fae of wishes. My deck can more or less kill a permanent each turn so if I can get established before the PWs come out, then I win. But if he gets his bolas out on turn 5 and I haven't got some permanents to sac, then I am done for.

 

[anvi]

What do you guys make of this deck?

Spoiler

Deck
3 Leyline of Anticipation (M20) 64
2 Mass Manipulation (RNA) 42
3 Wilderness Reclamation (RNA) 149
2 Fae of Wishes (ELD) 44
3 Growth Spiral (RNA) 178
1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell (ELD) 147
4 Ionize (GRN) 179
2 Flame Sweep (M20) 139
2 Expansion // Explosion (GRN) 224
2 Chandra's Pyrohelix (WAR) 120
3 Opt (ELD) 59
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun (GRN) 192
3 Negate (M20) 69
1 Midnight Clock (ELD) 54
2 Circuitous Route (GRN) 125
1 Once Upon a Time (ELD) 169
1 Thousand-Year Storm (GRN) 207
1 Drawn from Dreams (M20) 56
1 Clear the Mind (RNA) 34

Sideboard
1 Flame Sweep (M20) 139
2 Midnight Clock (ELD) 54
1 Leyline of Anticipation (M20) 64
1 Wilderness Reclamation (RNA) 149
2 Expansion // Explosion (GRN) 224
1 Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer (M20) 68
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries (WAR) 54
1 Cavalier of Gales (M20) 52
1 Agent of Treachery (M20) 43
1 Mass Manipulation (RNA) 42
1 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger (M20) 199

8 Mountain (ELD) 265
10 Island (ELD) 257
6 Forest (ELD) 269

Forget about the lands. Basically Wilderness Reclamation untaps all your lands at end of turn to give you a huge chunk of mana at once, and those decks are quite easy to beat. But this version has Leyline of Anticipation which lets you play any spell like an instant. So when you untap all your lands for 20+ mana, you can use it on sorceries like Mass Manipulation to steal everything they have on the board. The Midnight Clock was basically a finisher, untap your lands a few times for 20+ mana at the end of your turn, and put all the required counters on the Clock and you get to draw a whole new hand.

Also Torbran + Niv was a pretty good combo. Every spell and card draw lets Niv do 1 damage to any target, and with Torbran in play that is 3 damage to any target. And with a bunch of card draw you can do a lot of damage fast. If you used the clock at that point it would be 21 damage. This deck killed me recently mostly because it counterspelled all my most important things. I think it got lucky but maybe it is just really damn strong...?

 

[spectre]

I think you're going to be disappointed with the winrate on UGR Reclamation.
I played a streak of GR aggro yesterday, seems like the deck's becoming quite popular. I'm not seeing how this deck stands up to the sequence: Pelt Collector, Paradise Druid, Questing Beast. On the play, you can interrupt it with
Flame Sweep (though at 2x), and on the draw you're pretty much fug'd untill you can ramp and Expand the Flame Sweep.
Bottom line: your boardwipes are pretty shit (not a lot you can to in this color combination) and you rely on them a lot to live through the aggro matchup.

Then there's the case of what to do about a resolved Teferi and/or Narset. Given how crippling they are, I don't think three Negates will be enough to hold. Personally, I wouldn't try this deck without eight early counterspells
(a mix of Negates, Mystical Disputes, Quenches).

In Bo3 you can put a lot of this shit in the sideboard, whereas in Bo1 it's down to getting lucky and drawing the right shit for the current matchup.

Then there's the case of win condition. Parun + Torban is cute, but very slow (and let's just admit you're not drawing them both in one game with anything close to consistency).
What you want here is Ral, Storm Conduit (three should be enough, you want to see one of those in the game, but not necessarily two). This way, you might manage a pretty consistent one-shot kill on turn six with Ral, Explosion and a Reclamation
(depends on how much did you ramp, if the opponent was liberally paying life for shocklands, and if you managed to Ionize something in the meantime).

Specifically regarding the list above, a lot of the things make no sense for me:
First one is the single Agent of Treachery in the sideboard together with Cavalier (Granted only fetches non-creatures, which is a bit of a bummer, cause fetching Parun and Torban this way looks much more consistent than drawing two singles).
Sure, you can wish for Vivien, then use it to wish for creatures, but that's jumping through a lot of hoops (and you don't have enough creatures to meaningfully utilize Vivien).

Second, 2x Expansion // Explosion in the sideboard, the card does a lot for this deck being both a win condition and utility, and therefore deserves to be at least 3x.

Third, the ramp is very inconsistent. Circuitious Route is fine (especially when expanded), though it may force you to run way more basic lands and gates than you might like.
Growth Spiral needs 26 lands to ramp consistently and early, unless you want to fire it blind and hope to draw a land. Those 3x Opts might actually be detrimental to the deck's operation
I'd swap them out for a fourth spiral and two more lands.

I'd go with something like this instead.
Overall, it's packed pretty tight for Bo1, Bo3 might give you more breathing room. I'm also not entirely sure if the Fae package is worth it, but the plan is to have grazers and fae as early blockers to deter aggro long enough
to get to the winning part. Early counterspells might help here as well.

3x Arboreal Grazer
3x Growth Spiral
3x Fae of Wishes
2x Circuitious Route
3x Reclamation
2x Ral
3x Expansion // Assplosion
3x Quench
2x Negate
2x Mystical Dispute
2x Ionize
2x Chemister's Insight
1x Midnight Clock
3x Flame Sweep
26 Lands

/SB/
1 Chemister's Insight
1 Ral
1 Expansion
1 Midnight Clock
1 Circuitious Route
1 Reclamation
1 Naturalize
1 Flame Sweep

 

[anvi]

Thanks it looks fun but I think I'll skip it, I don't like decks that need luck when I can make something that is pretty solid in most cases. Gonna try Scruffy's agent deck. I just wanna get 1 or 2 more wildcards for it.

 

[spectre]

The combo is a bit tedious, especially when more than one Reclamation is involved. You need to remember to put a stop at the end step, wait for the triggers, then click all the lands manually.
You'll probably fuck it up the first time, so practice on Sparky until you get it right. I tend to concede in the middle of the tapping because some guys take ages to do all this. Much more obnoxious than people learning to cat bake.

Yeesh, I kinda want the card styles, but sitting through the momir slot machine idiocy + oko flavor feels like a big waste of time. Not to mention, there's quite a hefty entry fee involved.

 

[anvi]

Yea I like being able to nuke someone for 50 damage but tapping it all is a pain. I had a deck with Reclamation but I didn't know about the Leyline combo. It doesn't seem worth wildcards though, no board wipes is a big thing for me because my current deck has 5 really good ones, I would miss that. Also the combo is awesome with Mass Manipulation but it needs more. Some decks don't have creatures of PWs so mass manip would be useless against that.

 

[spectre]

You need 6 mana to get good value on Ass Manipulation, with 8+ being good enough to justify the card. Nissa ramp can achieve that quite easily and is immediately good to go.
This deck also needs to devote extra slots on a mediocre card to make that happen.

I used to have good fun with a WUG Reclamation deck at one point pre-rotation, not sure if it's worth sleeving up, but this color combo gives you excellent boardwipes and Teferi to play them at instant speed.
The core is the same, you're basically trading Ral and Expansion // Explosion for win conditions that are slightly slower (Realm Cloaked Giant, Dawn of Hope) and versatile white point removal. If you have Hydroid Krasis, I'd use those as well.
If not, you can tuck in one or two Agents cause they're in color, play well with ramp and Teferi.

 

[anvi]

Yeah I'm gonna make an agent deck next, I like the idea that it can steal lands if you already killed/stole everything else. I just need some more wildcards :/ I may buy the big bundle, so many decks I'd like to try and I can only dream about them for now.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

So, it's official, they will be working towards implementing Pioneer in MTGA and a friends list is coming in the next update.
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/61565

More details on unfucking historic here:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-historic-rollout-2019-11-13

There will be Bo3 ranked mode, events and tournaments, cards will be coming in bundles of 20, craftable with wildcards or buyable with 3400 gems for the whole shebang which doesn't strike me as a particularly great deal.

Next batch gives us, among others, a Hypnotic Spectre and Phyrexian Arena and Tendrils of Corruption, so lukaszek should be glad.

 

[anvi]

I love the Phy Arena and Tendrils.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Oh jesus

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

first off, what in the fuck is this deck?

maybe I'm missing something, but in my mind right now, there's no way in fuck hell shit frozen hell that this will EVER work unless your opp draws lands for 20 turns in a row. It worries me that the people deciding which cards will be added brew absolute shit decks like this.

someone explain to me how this deck ever survives past turn 5?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[spectre]

It's obviously designed to be somewhere between the current standard and historic. You can tell by the mana base - in a format where you have checklands and shocklands and temples, why on earth would you still have 6 basic lands?
Similarly, Guild Globe serves no purpose and could be replaced by more efficient artifacts, perhaps upping the count on Glass Casket, or getting a Teferi on Board, or just getting big teferi, because it's fucking historic.
They didn't want to steal Phyrexian Arena's Thunder, that's all. Though they at least could put Settle the Wreckage there and go easier on the manabase. I miss this card.

 

[anvi]

How is pioneer different to normal?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

HISTORIC ELFBALL, IT'S ON

 

[anvi]

I paid to win :/ I feel bad giving them money but it feels great to make decks that are super strong and win 80% of the time, even homebrews I've been trying lots of things but now I need to settle on one strong deck to get the most wins in standard event. Gonna hoard a lot of gold and then start drafting regularly. Fires seems really good but maybe a bit fragile. A few discards can really screw it up, and my doom foretold deck used to remove the fires enchant easy. I might settle on that Illharg Boar deck. I got owned so hard by it a few times. Today the boar was bringing his Agent out every time it attacked and he kept stealing my PWs and lands. I ended up on 2 land :/ I exiled the boar twice but exile doesn't work on it. Seems like a really tough deck.