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Magic the Gathering Arena

anvi

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Aggro also seems so easy to break, most of the games I play against aggro, he shoots his load early with a board full of nibblers, I do a board wipe and his game is over. Sometimes they try to carry on, but their hand is gone so they are playing one little creature per turn which is easy to deal with. I noticed some of the better players hold creatures back in their hand on purpose, then keep attacking me with their 1 or 2 small creatures and they force me to use my board wipe on them, then out comes their second wave. The problem with aggro decks is a good draw lets them get me down to 2 life in 3 turns. Then even if I board wipe on turn 4, they kill me next turn with a Shock. It happens :/

But mostly I can handle aggro decks. That Flash deck though... If I see that green and blue lands come out, I know I am 95% likely to lose.
 

Jason Liang

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Vintage champs this year was two creature-based tempo decks beating down each other - Joe Brennan's BUG The Rock (basically) beating down with Tarmogoyfs vs Jeskai Dreadhorde Arcanist+Young Pyromancer Xerox). Overall Tarmogoyfs and Managorger Hydras ruled the field since decks that had to deal with Narset and couldn't deal with big green fatties. Veil of Summer meant green could replace red's Pyroblasts to fight blue, and Assassin's Trophy got to shine.


It's a mystery why a format full of broken cards like Vintage "self-corrects" much better than Standard.
 
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I was reborn in my tilt and salt as a Boros Knights spammer, it bodies flash so well, same with reclamation decks (flame sweep is annoying but fairly easy to play around). Didn't get to play against fires yet, but so far so good.

https://mtgarena.pro/decks/boros-knight-66f14 did a variation of this thing, with less loxodons and worthy knights, trading them for shocks and shieldbreakers (for some oven hate).
 

anvi

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I just got to Platinum 1 :) It is weird because I lost about 4 games in a row yesterday, and today I won about 10 games in a row. I still get owned in Standard Event though :p I am determined to come up with a deck for that eventually which will win 6 matches every time, but so far I've struggled. If I add plenty of anti aggro spells like Cry of the Carnarium, I do much better against all the Cavalcade decks, but I struggle against the control and Fires decks. And if I go more control-ish, I get rekt by all the aggro. It is tough to balance. But I am sure there are some decks that would be good at both. I just gotta figure it out. I think I am gonna make an aggro deck next, I don't like to play aggro but I think it is the best way to win consistently in that event.
 

spectre

Arcane
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Well, when it comes to standard event, I was no longer able to get past 4 wins with the WUR Fires from earlier. I decided to give it a bit more aggro, replacing planeswalker win conditions with Cavaliers of Flame, which felt slightly better, but it didn't budge.
A full-on cavalier build had similar results because the meta was pretty much all fires mirror, dance and some GR aggro. Would be perfect to bring UG Flash, but I ran into a deck validation error with this.

On the other hand, I was able to get 7 wins with the lukaszek-approved "dark" Fires UBR build, but that one was a one-off. It's quite effective vs. all the bullshit adventure builds and I ran into a lot of those.
Deck
2 Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God (WAR) 207
1 Mountain (ANA) 64
2 Swamp (ANA) 63
1 Island (ANA) 62
4 Narset, Parter of Veils (WAR) 61
4 Fires of Invention (ELD) 125
4 Thought Erasure (GRN) 206
3 Drawn from Dreams (M20) 56
3 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84
2 Cry of the Carnarium (RNA) 70
4 Angrath's Rampage (WAR) 185
1 Mobilized District (WAR) 249
1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno (M20) 127
2 Liliana, Dreadhorde General (WAR) 97
4 Fae of Wishes (ELD) 44
1 Ugin, the Ineffable (WAR) 2
2 Castle Vantress (ELD) 242
1 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241
4 Watery Grave (GRN) 259
4 Steam Vents (GRN) 257
4 Blood Crypt (RNA) 245
4 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244
3 Interplanar Beacon (WAR) 247

Sideboard
1 The Elderspell (WAR) 89
1 Sarkhan the Masterless (WAR) 143
1 Unmoored Ego (GRN) 212
1 Clear the Mind (RNA) 34
2 Casualties of War (WAR) 187
1 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales (WAR) 220
1 True Love's Kiss (ELD) 34
1 Planewide Celebration (WAR) 172
1 Kaya's Wrath (RNA) 187
1 Mass Manipulation (RNA) 42
1 Sorcerous Spyglass (XLN) 248
1 Ashiok, Dream Render (WAR) 228
1 Thought Distortion (M20) 117
1 Captive Audience (RNA) 160
It's pretty much the same deck as typical fires, with slightly weaker game vs. hyper aggressive shit, but can beat all the slower decks quite all right.
With the entire white component swapped out for black giving me a good bunch of cheaper removal.
Questing Beast is a legitimate concern, so if you see a lot of this, you may want more Murderous Riders, maybe even noxious grasps.

I'm also having a good time with esper control in Bo3. Met some Gruul and it was fucking brutal with Burning-Tree Emissaries.
Won a game earlier today vs. some mono white despite them resolving an ultimate on Ajani (the one which makes three cats at eot) and having a flipped Legion's Landing.
Forgot to take a screenshot, but he basically took all the plains with Settles, I finally managed to stabilize with two mobilized districts and white castle until Magic Negro Ultimate came through.

Deck
3 Teferi, Time Raveler (WAR) 221
4 Thought Erasure (GRN) 206
3 Dovin's Veto (WAR) 193
2 Search for Azcanta (XLN) 74
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria (DAR) 207
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria (DAR) GR6
3 Settle the Wreckage (XLN) 34
3 Narset, Parter of Veils (WAR) 61
2 Mobilized District (WAR) 249
2 Despark (WAR) 190
1 Kaya's Wrath (RNA) 187
2 Mortify (RNA) 192
3 Chemister's Insight (GRN) 32
4 Absorb (RNA) 151
1 Castle Ardenvale (ELD) 238
1 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241
3 Glacial Fortress (XLN) 255
4 Hallowed Fountain (RNA) 251
3 Isolated Chapel (DAR) 241
4 Godless Shrine (RNA) 248
2 Temple of Silence (M20) 256
4 Drowned Catacomb (XLN) 253
3 Watery Grave (GRN) 259
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper (RNA) 186

Sideboard
2 Legion's End (M20) 106
1 Kaya's Wrath (RNA) 187
3 Duress (M19) 94
4 History of Benalia (DAR) 21
2 Unmoored Ego (GRN) 212
2 The Elderspell (WAR) 89
1 Settle the Wreckage (XLN) 34
 

Jason Liang

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should just play WGR knights

it's too bad Unclaimed Territory left:(

How is Settle still legal? Is this Historic?
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,598
Yeah, obviously. Bo3 historic.

Standard Event update:
UBR Fires gave me an embarrassing 1:3 run today, followed by a 7:1 run with WUR fires. Swapping the winconditions for 3x Cavaliers of Flame has proven to be a good choice, because it kills much much faster.
Also proves there's no such thing as consistent performance in this event.
 
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anvi

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I made it to Diamond rank!! I am proud of myself because I've just been playing homebrews. I was actually surprised by how easy the netdecks crumble, even in Plat 1, people conceding on turn 2 after I Legion's End their creatures etc. It is also interesting to see a lot of net decks fall off. In all of Plat 1 there were zero cat decks, that seemed to stop about Plat 3 ish. Cavalcade stopped too. The majority of decks were the BG knights deck that uses the lucky clover to play the card that says "opponent loses life equal to number of knights you have". I also had some mill opponents which I usually lost to because they got me before I could break their routine. Also there were a lot of Feasting Troll King decks which are hard to beat. That guy + Wicked Wolf + Nissa is brutal. But basically I tweaked my decks after Plat 3 or 4 and it served me well for the different opponents.

I doubt I will be able to go higher than Diamond with my current decks though. At this point I am only winning about 51% of the time. It was enough to gradually reach this rank but I doubt I can go any higher. I am looking forward to trying some other decks now though.
 
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anvi

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Don't know if it is a big coincidence but the time of day makes a huge difference for me in ranked. If I play at one time each day I win 95%, and if I play at the other time I win about 30%. I can't wait to finish my new deck and start playing Standard Event and see if it is the same in there. Could be easy money!
 

anvi

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Lotus + Tales End is good. The only other trick I know is to use Kiora to untap your lotus. It costs 3 to cast her but you get it back with an untapped lotus and then next turn you get 6 mana from one land. I've never tried it though because I tend to have shitty luck so figured I would never get the Lotus at the start. I prefer to just use a full set of Opt to make sure I draw a land every turn, and then have some low mana cards to handle early game. I guess doing ramp would work just as well.
 

Jason Liang

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There's a couple of combos you can do with Lotus Field.

Lotus Field + Repudiate would work for Dimir.

Otherwise Lotus Field + Brought Back if you had W.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,598
Diddling around with lotus field looks interesting, though I agree, you're pretty much geared towards green if you want to do that consistently, and there is some potential in red with Irencrag Feat.
Lukaszek isn't goint to like this, but for the rest of the guys, brought back with smothering tithe looks like a decent engine to work towards something expensive, emergency powers maybe.

All in all, Historic has better options, imo, Treasure Map was always a good and versatile ramp, and for lotus field, Blood Sun looked like a nice option, but I couldn't be bothered to spend rare wcs on that one,
the window in which both cards were standard playable was way too small.

Don't know if it is a big coincidence but the time of day makes a huge difference for me in ranked. If I play at one time each day I win 95%, and if I play at the other time I win about 30%. I can't wait to finish my new deck and start playing Standard Event and see if it is the same in there. Could be easy money!
That totally happens, and seems true for all the online games out there. Haven't figured out a pattern yet, is it better when the USA is awake, or would I rather play vs. the chinese botnet.
I think I saw an influx of competitive players with good decks shortly after the daily and weekly quest reset.
 

anvi

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I keep getting my ass kicked by a mill deck which is BU and uses that creature that makes you discard 2 or 4 when it comes into play. And it has a full set of the 8 counterspells that have you discard 3 cards, as well as some other counters. And then it uses the Serpent late game to exile your GY and finish you off. It totally owns me because I can't cast a single spell with all those counters. But how does it handle aggro decks? It doesn't seem to have any removal or early answers. Seems like the typical Cavalcade/Vamps decks would just walk all over it.
 
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Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
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Jun 3, 2016
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inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
aite fuck this gay asss rng shitfest "game"
peplp say s hs = more rng yea my fuckikin ass
eat shit mtg

final ss:

0oRtX7d.png
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
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Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,876
aite fuck this gay asss rng shitfest "game"
peplp say s hs = more rng yea my fuckikin ass
eat shit mtg

final ss:

0oRtX7d.png

Das Salz.

But i feel you. Yesterday i came home from work i got manafucked 5 times in a row in ranked.

Last week i went 0-3 in a draft because again manafucked. I wasnt able to lay down more than 2 non mana cards in two of those games. And no it wasnt a dumbfuck greed deck, but a fairly moderate midrange deck with 15 lands and 2 gates.

So yeah magic is a bitch sometimes. Best is to take a pause and shake it off. Its a gamble skill hybrid game in the end.
 

anvi

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A horrible nagger voice in my head always tells me that "you make your own luck", but I really know it isn't true in MTG. You can have terrible draws and there is nothing you can do about it, and mulligan can only make matters worse. I really wish they would add the (I forgot the name) Mulligan rule as standard, which lets everyone get a free mulligan at the start of each game. So if your hand is bad you can mulligan and get a new set of 7 cards. Further mulligans start reducing the number. The only thing I liked about Heathstone was the auto mana each turn. I loved that, nobody gets land fucked. But it couldn't really work in MTG because of different colors.
 

anvi

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Does anyone know if the end of season reward is based on your current rank or the highest rank you achieved? I want to try some new decks but don't want to lose my rank if it will give me less rewards later.
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,876
Does anyone know if the end of season reward is based on your current rank or the highest rank you achieved? I want to try some new decks but don't want to lose my rank if it will give me less rewards later.

Rewards are based on your rank (gold platinum etc) not tier. As tier 4 - 0 stars is always the rank floor and you cannot go below that into a lower rank you can safely test your jank and gift other players some easy wins. Or you beat their ass with your jank which every mtg player should appreciate.
 

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