Magic The Gathering

[JAG]

You gain wildcards by opening packs of cards (packs obtained in any way but drafting). You have a chance to get them in any pack, but you are guaranteed to get at least one mythic wildcard every 24 packs, 1 rare wildcard every 6 packs, and I don’t recall the other percentages. You also get ‘vault progress’ when you obtain a 5th or more duplicate of a card. Unlocking the vault obtains you a few more wildcards, but it takes a ton of duplicates to open it, so I’m only mentioning it for completeness.

[tyketime]

Be sure to use your Wildcards "wisely". The advice I was given was to play on Arena for awhile to get used to the interface, game, etc. Then start to do some drafts (if interested). I'm planning to do a few this weekend since Guilds of Ravnica just started back up in the Quick Draft format.

Only then should you consider using the Wildcards as you start to build a deck to play with in Constructed. You can then use the wildcards to fill in any gaps, or to select the Mythic/Rare that the rest of your cards can support.

[Warhammer]

Got it, much better explained than they did in the game. Thanks!

[tyketime]

So I went 3-3 in my first GRN quick draft (these are best-of-one matches instead of the competitive drafts where it's best-of-three). I wasn't really happy with my green-white Selesnya deck. I was able to flood the board with LOTS of creatures but not very many spells. So I won when I could overwhelm my opponent, but lost to decks with good removal.

And that brings me to my first key learning. I need to remember B(Bombs), R(Removal), E(Evasion), A(Aggro), & D(Dregs) in that order! I fell in love with my Bombs & Aggro and completely forgot removal & evasion until too late in the draft.

Afterwards, I watched a couple of videos where some suggest taking the best card for the first 4-5 cards, and then start making picks to support your cards. I committed too quickly and went down the rabbit hole.

But 3 wins is not too bad a start.

One footnote - I still have a long way to go to understand all of the rules and mechanics. I picked up a Demotion thinking this could be a nice way to stop my opponents card abilities. Alas, there are several types of abilities and each one is decidedly different (and treated as such). I played it on an opponents creature, and yet they were able to still use the cards ability.



Demotion stops "Activated Abilities", which I found out afterwards are:

-Activated abilities include any abilities that require some sort of cost, and always include a colon. For example, the card Royal Assassin has an activated ability that reads: "Tap: Destroy target tapped creature."

It's one of the three main types of abilities: Activated, Triggered, and Static.

Examples of Static abilities include Shroud, First Strike, and Flying.

Triggered abilities require a specific event to occur. For example, the card Verdant Force has a triggered ability that says "At the beginning of each upkeep, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token onto the battlefield." Other triggered abilities include some keywords like Morbid, which grants a bonus only if a creature died during its casting turn.

So... don't be afraid to look up the card text to make sure you understand exactly how a card mechanic works. I know I'll pay closer attention in my next draft.

[JAG]

I also did my first draft this weekend and ended up going with a R-W Boros deck. I tried looking for ratings of cards to make sure I wasn't picking ones that were totally horrid and I thought I put together a deck that had some synergies with mentoring and such, but it didn't work out as well as I had hoped, other than one game where I got the kind of draws I was looking for (the other game I won because the other person got mana-screwed). I couldn't really find any cards that would classify as 'bombs', which hurt.

[JAG]

dola

I would add it was pretty fun and I'm looking forward to drafting again though. Also, I was hurt in all my losses by not having a 2-drop available. I think I needed to have more in my deck.

[tyketime]

If you haven't used it yet, you can enter "PlayRavnica" into the Redeem Code space to get 3 free packs.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by tyketime

If you haven't used it yet, you can enter "PlayRavnica" into the Redeem Code space to get 3 free packs.

Thanks!

[chesapeake]

Had a 5-3 quickdraft yesterday, which is a vast improvement over the DOM drafts I did over the last couple of weeks. I couldn't get a good grip on those. I got some good early Boros picks yesterday--P1P1 Tajic, P1P3 Boros Champ and got a P1P7 legionnaire--and got enough removal to make it work.



I made the same mistake identified earlier with Demotion. I thought it would work on an irritating little Whispering Snitch but its damage effect is not an activated ability. Still, it got it out of the way as a blocker against my 2/2, so it wasn't a total loss.

[Thomkal]

Direct Challenge is Live

[Izulde]

A couple things:

Activated Ability: Requires you to tap, use mana, sacrifice, etc. It requires you taking some sort of action

Triggered Ability: Is triggered by some event happening (usually Enter the Battlefield, but others apply).

Re: Boros in Guilds draft. You're going to be an Aggro deck, building off the Mentor ability, so you need to be focused on that as much as possible, with some removal/evasion support.

[Toddzilla]

OK, we need names, then...

Toddzilla3000#36905

[chesapeake]

I'm Chesapeake#49033

I followed up the decent Boros draft with a steaming pile of a WUBRG deck. Started out Dimir and had some good spells, but realized midway through P2 I hadn't picked up even a Watcher in the Mist to try and close the deal. Got a Glaive and Chamber Sentry in the last pack to go with 3 Gateway Plazas. I was hoping that with surveil and plenty of card draw that I'd be able to get the Glaive and gates in play to power up my weak defensive creatures to get some damage in. I got the Glaive out only once in four games. Not a good deck.

[Fidatelo]

I had an interesting draft last night. Started out looking like Izzet, flipped to Boros, then hit a Niv-Mizzet and flipped back to Izzet. With all my blue/red I was only able to get 39/40 cards, so threw in an 18th land just to hit 40. Then proceeded to have some of the funnest games ever, trading punches with folks, coming from behind, winning multiple games where I would have lost the following turn. Started 5-0. Then proceeded to get swept out, two games lost to not enough mana, which seemed ironic given the 18th land.

Finished at 5-3, my best draft result so far. So much fun.

[Sublime 2]

Been playing about a week. Just unlocked the rest of the pre-con decks Friday.

I've only ever dabbled with Magic a couple times, and also had a few runs with Hearthstone. So I get some of the mechanics, but still pretty new to it all.

Having my best success with BW vampire deck. I've stayed away from using most of my wildcards after reading this thread, but used a few early on.

I'll track down my username for match play tomorrow. Keep any tips/tricks coming!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Toddzilla]

Usernames, people...

[Draft Dodger]

DDC#70894

[Thomkal]

My family is here through Thanksgivng, so I have had no time for Magic. Blue Dragon when I'm back on.

[JAG]

JAG#86389

[Sublime 2]

jpronh#02200

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Toddzilla]

I am so over playing against Merfolk decks and or Dimir Control decks.

As soon as I see a merfolk or Dimir Spybug hit the table, I can't concede fast enough.

Enough of that bullshit already.

Also, is slowplaying a thing? Sometimes when I'm at an advantage, my opponent will wait until their timer almost runs out to make a move EVERY SINGLE MOVE. So it takes 5 minutes to get through a turn. Just quit already.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

Also, is slowplaying a thing? Sometimes when I'm at an advantage, my opponent will wait until their timer almost runs out to make a move EVERY SINGLE MOVE. So it takes 5 minutes to get through a turn. Just quit already.

I hate to say that this is the main reason I pretty much stick to Eternal when it comes to online play, despite the fact that MTG is obviously a much more slick, evolved game. PvP games simply take too long for me to enjoy, even if I don't think someone is slow playing me, which I think a fair number of players do. Eternal will allow me to play PvE AND it's much more generous with card rewards, so I can literally squeeze in four games of Eternal in the time it would take me to play one game of MTG and it mihgt work out to 10x the rewards.

[Ironhead]

I have been running an aggro Boros deck in BO1 Constructed that I pieced together after some GRN drafts. It is good enough to average around a 50% win rate. The real upside with an aggro deck is that matches tend to be decided pretty quickly one way or the other with the average BO1 match length being somewhere around 5 minutes. If you are approaching the MTGA economy as a free to play service then it seems like getting as many matches in as possible will help accelerate collection building.

I could definitely piece together a "better" deck but I generally hate deck listing and following the meta. I have never played Singleton but it seems up my alley. Is Singleton only going to be a rotating event in MTGA or is there any intent to have it be more of a consistently available mode?

[chesapeake]

Currently, the plan is for singleton to just be a rotating option.

[JAG]

I believe I hit the one month mark of playing today. My tracker says I have played about 200 or so games (less more recently with the holidays and such). The mono blue deck I run more than others has been something like a 56% win rate. I don’t have a ton of wildcards (maybe 3 rare + mythic, 5-6 common + uncommon) as I’ve been using funds to play draft and BO1 constructed, but I’ve accumulated some cool cards through that process. Sitting on about 16k gold and 2700 gems (from drafting and the starter package, which is the extent of what I purchased). Out of the four drafts, I went 2-3 twice, 4-3 once, and 5-3 or 6-3 the other time.

In ranked I’m up to Bronze 2. I usually use rank to play something different than the mono blue for fun. Right now I’m tinkering with the saproling sporling starter deck and adding some of my gains (2 Vivien Reids, 2 twilight prophets, etc...). It frequently doesn’t work but it’s pretty fun when you have a crazy huge indestructible army with vigilance. I also enjoy ranked to see other types of decks I haven’t seen. Someone crushed me this morning with an awesome RG deck (can’t say if it’s really great or just drew a great combo of stuff) that had a red 1/3 card that did 1 damage to all creatures when a dinosaur was played and had a bunch of dinosaurs with enrage effects, including life gain when a dinosaur was played and bringing in a 5/5 dinosaur token when taking damage (which chained for even more dinosaurs coming out and more life gain). On the final turn, they were at something like 63 life and about 7-8 dinosaurs of 5/5 or better.

[Sublime 2]

I HATE Teferi!

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by JAG

In ranked I’m up to Bronze 2. I usually use rank to play something different than the mono blue for fun. Right now I’m tinkering with the saproling sporling starter deck

I've got a golgari saprioling deck that dominates, lmk if you want info

Also, ranking is very broken, so don't worry about it. Concede to your hearts content. Merfolk Mistbinder? CONCEDE. Dimir Spy? CONCEDE. Disinformation Campaign? CONCEDE CONCEDE CONCEDE. Don't waste your time with these morons.

[chesapeake]

I'd love to see your decklist if you want to share. I have a weakness for tribal decks.



Been getting crushed at drafting lately, so decided to spend a bunch of wild cards to make a golgari explorer/carnage tyrant deck similar to those played at the recent GP. Still learning how to drive it, so the win rate is not particularly good. I did have a satisfying win last night against a white angels deck. I started with 5 lands, find//finality and one small merfolk. I blocked the ground and let him fill the battlefield and empty his hand before lowering the boom on him and wiping the board with the finality half of the card. The opponent conceded with 30 life left. I love it when a plan comes together.

[Toddzilla]

Settle-ing a dozen attacking Merfolk is so satisfying...

Anyway, here is the list - ignore the wonky lands, I use whatever I got...

2 Vraska, Relic Seeker (XLN) 232
2 Path of Discovery (RIX) 142
4 Tendershoot Dryad (RIX) 147
4 Evolving Wilds (RIX) 186
5 Swamp (DAR) 261
1 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
4 Sporecrown Thallid (DAR) 181
4 Yavimaya Sapherd (DAR) 189
4 Spore Swarm (DAR) 180
10 Forest (DAR) 269
4 Song of Freyalise (DAR) 179
4 Saproling Migration (DAR) 178
3 Fungal Infection (DAR) 94
3 Vicious Offering (DAR) 110
2 Foul Orchard (M19) 251
2 Poison-Tip Archer (M19) 220
2 Overgrown Tomb (GRN) 253
Sideboard:
3 Dead Weight (GRN) 67
3 Duress (M19) 94
3 Cast Down (DAR) 81
3 Gruesome Fate (RIX) 75
3 Murder (M19) 110

Freya is the superstar

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by JAG

I believe I hit the one month mark of playing today. My tracker says I have played about 200 or so games (less more recently with the holidays and such).

Do you mind me asking what tracker you use? I've identified a couple of them, but haven't downloaded any yet.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by tyketime

Do you mind me asking what tracker you use? I've identified a couple of them, but haven't downloaded any yet.

I believe it is MTG:A Tracker, but I can confirm later. I tried installing the Arena Pro one but that didn’t work. The cool thing about this one is it lets me play back over my drafts so I can see what decisions I made at each step, but it also tracks your win-loss record by deck which is cool. I don’t think it tracks cards as they enter your collection which is one feature that would be nice.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by Sublime 2

I HATE Teferi!

++, fuck that guy

[chesapeake]

Originally Posted by JAG

I believe it is MTG:A Tracker, but I can confirm later. I tried installing the Arena Pro one but that didn’t work. The cool thing about this one is it lets me play back over my drafts so I can see what decisions I made at each step, but it also tracks your win-loss record by deck which is cool. I don’t think it tracks cards as they enter your collection which is one feature that would be nice.

I also use the MTGA tracker and apparently have the same problem as you do with the MTG Arena Pro tracker not working. Glad to know it is not just me!

[chesapeake]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

Settle-ing a dozen attacking Merfolk is so satisfying...

Anyway, here is the list - ignore the wonky lands, I use whatever I got...

2 Vraska, Relic Seeker (XLN) 232
2 Path of Discovery (RIX) 142
4 Tendershoot Dryad (RIX) 147
4 Evolving Wilds (RIX) 186
5 Swamp (DAR) 261
1 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
4 Sporecrown Thallid (DAR) 181
4 Yavimaya Sapherd (DAR) 189
4 Spore Swarm (DAR) 180
10 Forest (DAR) 269
4 Song of Freyalise (DAR) 179
4 Saproling Migration (DAR) 178
3 Fungal Infection (DAR) 94
3 Vicious Offering (DAR) 110
2 Foul Orchard (M19) 251
2 Poison-Tip Archer (M19) 220
2 Overgrown Tomb (GRN) 253
Sideboard:
3 Dead Weight (GRN) 67
3 Duress (M19) 94
3 Cast Down (DAR) 81
3 Gruesome Fate (RIX) 75
3 Murder (M19) 110

Freya is the superstar

Thanks for posting. A combo of Tendershoot Dryad pumping out saprolings and Song of Freyalise making them indestructible does sound pretty brutal.

[JAG]

My mono blue had not been on a hot streak (deck is tough to get to work if you don’t draw and can protect curious obsessions), so considering I had accumulated some good Golgari cards, I decided to spend some wildcards and make a midrange deck. I looked at some suggestions of things to slow down aggro decks since I personally see a ton of mono red, blue, and white in the BO1 constructed. So far so good, 4-3, 4-3, and 7-2 and a very fun deck to play.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by chesapeake

I'd love to see your decklist if you want to share. I have a weakness for tribal decks.



Been getting crushed at drafting lately, so decided to spend a bunch of wild cards to make a golgari explorer/carnage tyrant deck similar to those played at the recent GP. Still learning how to drive it, so the win rate is not particularly good. I did have a satisfying win last night against a white angels deck. I started with 5 lands, find//finality and one small merfolk. I blocked the ground and let him fill the battlefield and empty his hand before lowering the boom on him and wiping the board with the finality half of the card. The opponent conceded with 30 life left. I love it when a plan comes together.

I guess we took similar paths to a golgari deck. I’ve definitely made some mistakes but also pulled out some fun ones. One guy had me down to 3 when I connected with a find/finality and was able to eventually take him down from 30 life. Another was vs a mono white deck where the person practically emptied their hand only to lose them all to golden demise.

[Thomkal]

Arena gets in on the GameAwards fun-type those two words on their store page, then click Redeem A Code to get the ESports starter kit, of which I have no clue, but hey its free.


Edit; Apparently you get the following 25 cards:


You get 25 cards to use in your decks: 1x Cleansing Nova 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger 1x Risk Factor 1x Search for Azcanta 1x Vraska’s Contempt 4x Conclave Tribunal 4x The Eldest Reborn 4x Lava Coil 4x Merfolk Branchwalker 4x Sinister Sabotage

[Sublime 2]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Arena gets in on the GameAwards fun-type those two words on their store page, then click Redeem A Code to get the ESports starter kit, of which I have no clue, but hey its free.


Edit; Apparently you get the following 25 cards:


You get 25 cards to use in your decks: 1x Cleansing Nova 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger 1x Risk Factor 1x Search for Azcanta 1x Vraska’s Contempt 4x Conclave Tribunal 4x The Eldest Reborn 4x Lava Coil 4x Merfolk Branchwalker 4x Sinister Sabotage

Cool thanks!

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Arena gets in on the GameAwards fun-type those two words on their store page, then click Redeem A Code to get the ESports starter kit, of which I have no clue, but hey its free.


Edit; Apparently you get the following 25 cards:


You get 25 cards to use in your decks: 1x Cleansing Nova 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger 1x Risk Factor 1x Search for Azcanta 1x Vraska’s Contempt 4x Conclave Tribunal 4x The Eldest Reborn 4x Lava Coil 4x Merfolk Branchwalker 4x Sinister Sabotage

Definitely some very usable cards in this pack!

Edit - In fact, this gave me 8 uncommon that I needed to craft my first deck. I now have enough wildcards to complete the rest of it.

[chesapeake]

Thanks for the tip, Thomkal.

[tyketime]

Did they remove Standard Constructive from the play queue? I don't see it currently available. And I checked the Events page - no longer listed. Hmmm. For some reason I thought this would be a perpetual game mode.

Edit - Nevermind. Although it doesn't show up separately on the Events page, if you click the button, you see a list of game modes, including Constructed.

[Fidatelo]

I watched this video and made most* of the deck: MTG Arena - Upgrading Wrath of Mages - YouTube

It's super fun to play, offers a similar pace to mono-red but with some more interesting decision making.

* I'm missing 2 Opt, 2 Adeliz, and 1 Wizard's Lightning, plus a bunch of the good dual lands. But I've replaced them with 2 Firemind's Research, 1 Risk Factor, 1 Wee Dragonauts, 1 League Guildmage, and the 'tapland' duals and it seems to still work pretty well.

[Ironhead]

I have been enjoying the Dominaria drafts more than the Ravnica drafts. The format is slower with lots of good options for removal and more varied deckbuilding options. I will be sad when it rotates out again on Dec 22nd.

[Fidatelo]

Yeah the DOM drafts are leagues better than GRN or M19.

[Toddzilla]

The latest patch is out, we got new game modes, updated UI, and a quicker pace it seems.

[tyketime]

Heads up once Ravnica Allegiance hits Magic Arena next week (Jan 17):

And to celebrate the launch of Ravnica Allegiance, we're offering a (non-unique) code to everyone that redeems for three in-game Ravnica Allegiance packs. Enter "PlayAllegiance " in the code-redemption field located in the MTG Arena store to get yours!

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by tyketime

Heads up once Ravnica Allegiance hits Magic Arena next week (Jan 17):

Just a reminder that it is now out, and don't forget to get your free packs

[chesapeake]

Anyone get in some sealed deck play since RNA came out? I only played a couple. I had a Gruul deck that probably should have gotten 6-7 wins finish with 4 and a 1-2 win Rakdos deck finish with 3, all on Arena-BO1. The pool for the latter deck was really hard to build. My best rares were in Izzet colors, which don't really mix easily in this format. I've got enough gems for 2 more sealed deck events, which I hope to play later this week.



What early impressions do people have? Seems like all 5 guilds are playable in this format, which is an improvement over GRN, but it is a lot more reliant on gold cards and rares.

[Fidatelo]

Curious if anyone here hit a high rank last season in Arena?

I was Gold/Gold, and will probably never get higher as I am basically a 45% player on the ladder even using Mono Blue Tempo.

I'm starting to get a bit better at draft maybe, I've been listening to some podcasts and a guy at work has coached me a bit. Still no 7-win runs for me yet, though. Someday!

[CleBrownsfan]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

Curious if anyone here hit a high rank last season in Arena?

I was Gold/Gold, and will probably never get higher as I am basically a 45% player on the ladder even using Mono Blue Tempo.

I'm starting to get a bit better at draft maybe, I've been listening to some podcasts and a guy at work has coached me a bit. Still no 7-win runs for me yet, though. Someday!

I hit Mythic in limited but I am probably a lot more hardcore magic player than most people here. There was a stretch where I was completing a draft and 7-9 rounds of games in a night.