Magic the Gathering Arena

[spectre]

Castle Ardenvale is a no-brainer in this. Just bringing it up cause I haven't seen it on the list.
I'f you're looking for playable ways to make tokens, Kykar, Wind Fury fits the colors and I've seen people using Finale of Glory as a wincondition in white control.
Since then, it might have been made obsolete by Dream Trawler, but the funny thing is it lets you get the DV effect without the enchantment out.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I've seen people using Finale of Glory as a wincondition in white control

Specifically you want to do that with 3feri because it's almost impossible for your opponent to answer/deal with/survive if you cast it on his end step. Assuming you either have the angel token enchantment out or at least 12 mana so you can pop a big glory. The sphinx really does override it though since it's just better across the board. More playable early-on (The one exception is doing an early glory for 2 or 3 just for emergency blockers against aggro, but that 2cmc saga from Theros has you covered there), life gain to keep you from being killed by burn, hard to remove, and gives you card draw. It's just obscene.

Still haven't really been making any decks lately myself though. Playing too much other stuff and Theros didn't really light a fire under my ass. Still having fun playing but there haven't been many cards that make me obsess over them. Mostly been playing mono black beatdown, Rakdos discard, bogles, and Azorius control the last few days. And Rakdos discard's been a disappointment thus far.

Edit: Although if I had more copies of Thassa I'd probably play a Simic ramp/agent of treachery/flicker deck just because that sounds like some fun asshole gameplay. Could play it with existing flicker cards but resolving agent with Thassa out is essentially just GG and it's hard to beat that level of dickishness.

 

[anvi]

I've got 4 agents but I couldn't get ramp to work very well. It wins sometimes, but counter decks ruin it, especially if they have Teferi which a lot do. And some aggro decks too. Weenie decks at least you have a chance to block stuff with your Risen Reef or whatever. But any aggro deck with bigger creatures or embercleave just walk all over me. Once you get Nissa out, it is game over. But you have to be able to defend her for at least 1 turn, so it needs about 6 mana for that which was only 1 away from just playing the Agent to begin with.

But I need to keep tweaking and trying because it does have potential to be super strong. I've been beaten by it lots of times... I think Nissa is the key. One deck I played also had a mythic creature which makes lands give 3x the mana which was stupidly strong. Within a couple of turns he had filled the board with massive creatures. And even when I kept board wiping him, he played Jace and on the same turn played Krasis with 60 mana, milled himself and won.

 

[spectre]

It is a tier 1 deck, out there together with UC control and mono red.
Problem with UG ramp is you don't really have a lot of options to interact at CMC 2-3, and no boardwipes. Therefore, mono red shits on you until you preside heavily against it.
You can try ramping with Arboreal Grazers, cause it gives you a somewhat durable blocker, throw a Lovestruck Beast as a 5/5 roadblock, bounce shit with Brazen Borrower for an extra turn.
Not sure if Root Snares are worth it, cause a giant shits on that and it doesn't really affect the board otherwise, but at least it's a budget option, in the same vein as that enchant land that gives 3 mana.
You should probably use Uro if you have those, probably the only way to sorta stabilize the game in these colors other than throwing a big ass Krasis, though you need to untap with nissa for this.

 

[anvi]

Uro would be nice. But everyone is playing red bastard decks with embercleaves, hard work at the best of times, but especially for UG. Maybe if I could splash another color in there for board wipes or something.

I love this version but I only have 1 Vivien :/
https://deckstats.net/decks/92927/1528924-ug-ramp/en

 

[spectre]

I dunno man, looks like one of those silly decks that are all over the place but share a good chunk with a good list and are sometimes successful because of it.
It's a bit like a Reclamation forsed itself on UG Ramp.
Biggest problem is you rely on Reclamation (which should be a 4x given how important it is) and Vivien to make the magic happen, otherwise it's nothing special.
Nyxbloom Ancient is a typical win-more, and I would just go four Nissas, because it's simply a better card. Nylea also doesn't seem to do a lot in this deck.
I think I'd rather use Thassa and keep bouncing them risen reefs.

If you want to cast critters with flash, I'd say stock up on Nightpack Ambushers. It'll still be good even if there's a magic negro on the board to ruin your day (and you don't have a lot to use vs. a resolved 'wanker).
On the other hand Uro wants bunch of cheap instants to escape sooner which also aren't there.

 

[anvi]

The version I would most want is the one that uses the green Finale spell. That is fucking insane. I lose every time I come up against it. They play a bunch of little creatures like Paradise Druid and Risen Reefs and whatever, maybe some land creatures with Nissa, and then the Finale pumps them all huge because they have so much mana to put into it. And if End-Raze Forerunners pops out too it is overkill. I end up -50 when I'm dead. The thing I hate about Nissa is that if I am injured when that comes out, I am pretty much screwed. Because if I board wipe all the creatures, he can still use Nissa to attack me next turn with a new 3/3. And if I kill Nissa, I don't have have enough mana left to board wipe all the creatures. Tough deck :/ Especially with Shifting cyclops and QB which are annoying because they are like "deal with this NOW or you are in trouble". So you deal with them and then Nissa comes out once you are spent.

I can't really make these decks though because I lack too many of the key cards. But I had some success last night with the Finale deck, instead of Finale I put in agents, and instead of the mythic creature that gives 3x mana on each land, I used leyline. I just loaded it up with mana creatures. With Nissa or Leyline I can play Agent early and then Quasiduplicate next turn is GG. I won 4 in a row and even beat a rdw. I should really start working towards a better version.

 

[anvi]

I got owned by some interesting decks today.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

I got owned by fires decks 4 games in a row, all of which magically dropped clarion followed by fires followed by OTK haste army on curve

Fun!!

 

[anvi]

I lost 11 games and won 4

The interesting decks were:
Plays Teferi, then spams out 3 Questing Beasts in 3 turns which I can't counter because of his teferi and I can't even nuke them with an instant. I have to let them hit me, and then board wipe after. He also has Dream Trawler in there... Miraculously I manage to board wipe everything before I die. Then I finally get to play something (I think a PW), and he uses Elspeth Conquers Death on it, which brings back his Questing Best for yet another attack :/ He also had Nissa so was attacking me with lands too at the same time and the Teferi really shut me down. Harsh

The other deck seemed genius but then I saw it twice so it must be a new net deck. He plays lots of Gilded Goose early which fills the board with food, and a few Druids for mana too. This lets him play Bolas's Citadel on about turn 4 or 5! Then he drains his own life to play a bunch of Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Dread Presence. The Dryads let him play multiple lands, and the Dread Presences (he had 2 in play) each do 2 damage to me and give him 2 life when a land enters. Cuz of 2 in play that was 4 damage to me and 4 health to him. The health lets him top up so the Citadel basically has no downside at all. But the Dryads also make lands "all types", so he pops out a fetch land like Fabled and it does 4 damage to me, then he sacs it and brings out some other land and that's another 4 damage to me. Then plays another land because of the Dryad, and that's another 4 damage. He then played Arboreal Grazer to play another land from his hand, and I think he maybe even played Circuitous Route. Basically he did about 18 damage to me in one turn, and it was still early in the game. I was still on 3 or 4 lands and hardly played anything. I actually had a chance to counter his Citadel which could have won me the game, but I chose to play a tapped land instead. I wasn't expecting such brutality so early. That was on turn 2 or 3 and I was dead next turn.

The other one I tried to make and couldn't get it to work very well but he must have got a good draw against me because he totally molested me in no time. It is Red/Black. He plays some little red creatures to get some loyalty, maybe Dreadhorde Butcher which is a dangerous 2 mana creature. Angrath's Rampage on anything I played. Then plays Anax Hardened in the Forge which is a legendary creature which creates token creatures when it dies. He used Saheeli PW to pump out some little 1/1 thopters, and then makes it a copy of the Anax which sacs them both because of the legendary, but pumps out like 4 tokens in one go. He could also just play multiple Anax's for the same thing. He keeps playing Bankrupt in Blood to sac 2 of these tokens and draws 3 cards from it so he had a full hand the entire game. He also kept bringing the Anax back, maybe with Order of Midnight or Omen of the Dead. Or Aid the Fallen, I can't remember, but it kept coming back. I don't think he even had a Cavalcade, he just kept attacking with the tokens and whooped me. But the facepalm cringe for me was when he played Allure of the Unknown which puts 6 cards into his hand, but lets me play one of them for free. So I stole his Anax which seemed logical.... But he used Act of Treason to steal it from me, and it triggered legendary with his own Anax so he got another 4 tokens Sounds janky but it was really brutal. I am gonna try to make it work again. I had to guess some stuff and I am missing a lot of the cards, but one thing that seemed uber in my version was Spark Harvest. You sac one of your tokens and it lets you kill any creature or PW for 1 mana.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[anvi]

What happened, you spent all your gold or won that in some event or something?

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

at last, my torment is over

you didn't like the draft format? I thought this one was like a billion times better than eld

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

too much in limited time. Additionally I had to rush it as they were ending it quickly.
At some point i felt i might miss out so started rushing it instead of enjoying.

yea I feel that, shame they're not keeping this format permanently available

 

[anvi]

Ahh cool, congrats. I kinda gave up on drafts. I didn't really enjoy it but I also like the idea of just buying cards because not only is it faster, but it wont give you a card you already have.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Uncreation]

Anybody watching the world championship? Some really good matches so far. The standard meta is very balanced so far with almost an even 25% split for each archetype, only Glogowski is being a hypster and playing the only Jund sacrifice.

 

[Akratus]

I got to Platinum tier 2 with this Rakdos aggro sac deck:

Spoiler

King Crimson
3 Evolving Wilds (M20) 246
2 Priest of Forgotten Gods (RNA) 83
1 Spawn of Mayhem (RNA) 85
4 Bloodfell Caves (M20) 242
4 Plaguecrafter (GRN) 82
2 Midnight Reaper (GRN) 77
1 Blood Crypt (RNA) 245
1 Judith, the Scourge Diva (RNA) 185
1 Bedevil (RNA) 157
4 Dreadhorde Butcher (WAR) 194
1 Angrath's Rampage (WAR) 185
1 Witch's Cottage (ELD) 249
2 Carnival // Carnage (RNA) 222
2 Chandra, Acolyte of Flame (M20) 126
7 Mountain (WAR) 261
4 Footlight Fiend (RNA) 216
6 Swamp (ELD) 258
4 Mayhem Devil (WAR) 204
1 God-Eternal Bontu (WAR) 92
3 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
2 Thrill of Possibility (THB) 159
2 Fireblade Artist (RNA) 172
2 Grim Initiate (WAR) 130

But I feel it could be tuned up still, any tips? I'd like four of Angrath's Rampage but I don't have any uncommon wildcards atm.

 

[new fucking guy]

G3 of Glogowski vs Nassif draft match was something else.

Spoiler

I think kanister drew all 16 of his lands.

Otherwise day 1 of worlds was a blast. Looking forward to seeing kaniki today!

 

[spectre]

I got to Platinum tier 2 with this Rakdos aggro sac deck:
[snip]
But I feel it could be tuned up still, any tips? I'd like four of Angrath's Rampage but I don't have any uncommon wildcards atm.

Looks a lot like a cat/oven combo deck without the combo.
You would need to throw a lot of rares at this deck to notice a significant upgrade. Knight of the Ebon Legion (you should have one from a starter iirc), Gutterbones, Rotting Regisaurs, Fervent Champions,
Embercleave. Embercleave on Regisaur usually ends the game.

Dreadhorde Butchers used to be quite good, but after Eldraine I feel like a lot of decks will just have a blocker at the ready before he really starts rolling.
I'd give Carnival // Carnage a long, hard look. It used to be very good when Llanowar Elves were still in standard, and theoretically there are still good targets for it,
but you should probably decide if you need burn or dicard in this slot.
Stormfist Crusader is the card to get for your 2 mana slot. He's a great enabler for spectacle, letting you use Drill Bits (get those if you're planning to use a sideboard, but they are easily maindeckable)
and Light Up the Stage (I'd get those instead of the Thrill of Possibility).

You probably won't be able to trigger Witch's Cottage reliably until you get more blood crypts, so no sense in crapping up your mana like this. Obviously, you want red and black castle, but that's more rares to throw at the deck.
If you like the aggro route, I'd prioritize getting Gutterbones, Ebola Legions and Stormfist. Especially Gutterbones lets you dick around more with sac effects.

 

[anvi]

I got to Platinum tier 2 with this Rakdos aggro sac deck:
[snip]
But I feel it could be tuned up still, any tips? I'd like four of Angrath's Rampage but I don't have any uncommon wildcards atm.

Embercleave on Regisaur usually ends the game.

Most OP combo ever.

 

[new fucking guy]

At this point you're just talking about rakdos knights from previous standard.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG