Fatal Push was great to keep the RDW meta in check a bit. Torrential Gearhulk should never have been made int he first place. Now every other deck, even in the lower ranks, is made by people who don't want to play Magic, they want to fumigate, counter, play Teferi, and goldfish a win.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
This honestly might not replace MTGO for me until more formats are added. I'm not big on constructed formats, but from a gameplay perspective the appeal of this to me is the automation is without a doubt the best we've seen in a long while. Everything feels good (albeit takes some getting used to at first) and my first impressions are fine.
But honesty the five buck starter kit should be free to beta testers anyway. It'd at least be a better step in the right direction than the damn 5k gold and 2019 boosters we got instead for breaking the servers.
Though since the economy is completely busted right now I doubt it would change much. Digital has to be in some ways, more enticing than physical to actually make the big change for a lot of people. Otherwise it won't replace it in many other ways.
It's got potential, sure. But the fact that what we are seeing is in beta and not alpha kind of bothers me. This is probably going to be a very bittersweet launch for many actively following the game.
We've got all the streamers who got free packs saying the economy is fine, and everyone who got all the playsets of Mythics like Gearhulk saying everything is fine. Once they do the Open Beta wipe and everyone remembers exactly how terrible the economy is without the boatload of bandages and misdirection, the response will be exactly what it was several months ago.
The economy of MTGA is one of the harshest of any digital CCG. It won't attract any players from established brands, and the extreme P2W aspect of it means that anyone who wants to play Magic online might as well just play MTGO, it will be cheaper in the long run.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
The newest reward system for opening packs is both decent and predatory at the same time. Good for people getting daily quests done and earning gold, but also pushes people to buy packs which is meh. Doesn't really hurt. The gem system is the problem. Predatory period. The vault being hidden (indicating they're trying to get rid of it but don't know what to do about 5th copies of cards since they 'don't like' dusting)
Timer still busted. No changes.
Animations still take too long and don't work with timer.
Land still hops around even though they said they fixed it. They made it less egregious. That's it.
A lot of meta complaints aren't valid because that's not the Arena team's problem. That's Maro's problem. There's a lot of control because you don't need a bazillion rares to make it work. Counters are uncommon mostly and they GAVE OUT 2 complete (starter decks) control decks that were easily upgraded if you know anything. They made it cake to play control and win against their other trash starter decks. Also red is crazy right now and how do you get wins done fast? RDW get your gold and quit for the day. Rampant because red is ridiculous right now. Again, not Arena's fault.
Lots of sub par programming is disappointing. People willing to pay and play will be ok with it but the timer will make them mad. Sitting around waiting 2 min every turn for your opponent to be afk and play at the last second will make a lot of people mad. Every freaking turn. It's a built in exploit and they refuse to solve it patch after patch.
A while back when you joined people got 6? starter decks. They may have changed that and you earn 'starter decks' as rewards as you complete quests instead of right off. Pretty sure some mono colored decks are rewards from the new starting vs AI deal.
If you don't earn one look up UW control or UB control the lists are pretty standard. The problem now is they are manipulating match making for Bo1 and it suuuuuuuuuuuucks. You'll get rammed against the same kind of deck constantly and frequently that ends up being RDW.
It's like they're trying to make things worse.
A while back when you joined people got 6? starter decks. They may have changed that and you earn 'starter decks' as rewards as you complete quests instead of right off. Pretty sure some mono colored decks are rewards from the new starting vs AI deal.
If you don't earn one look up UW control or UB control the lists are pretty standard. The problem now is they are manipulating match making for Bo1 and it suuuuuuuuuuuucks. You'll get rammed against the same kind of deck constantly and frequently that ends up being RDW.
It's like they're trying to make things worse.
Well there aren't that many viable decks in standard, and that is the only format you really have to play, at this rate Arena is going to fail to the same thing that every other non MTGO thing has failed to. One freaking format.
I played a little bit of Arena and...I'm not really a fan. I built a Wildfire Eternal + Apex of Power build with a bunch of burn cards and Hazoret's Undying Fury. It's pretty strong, but the match-ups feel pretty cookie-cutter and are boring. I don't think it's easy enough to get more cards, and while I didn't have any issue dropping $5 for the "beginner's pack" just to get a leg up on deckbuilding, it just feels like a grindfest until you can get something playable. Arena feels like Hearthstone, which I didn't enjoy enough to keep playing. The drafting is fun but feels overpriced, and I'm not currently enjoying M19 drafts anyway since it's all "BG stompy wins". I'm sure that's partially an issue with the set, itself, but it detrimentally affects the enjoyability of the platform overall.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I refuse to bother with Bo3 because the timer is ridiculous. They are resisting the chess clock with passion but have ZERO fixes for ropers and animations not syncing properly with the timer. They lack vision.
I think Arena is just boring as hell. I dont have a huge problem with the UI - it takes some getting used to and they could certainly use more tutorial modes like how to work the stack and some of the more complicated interactions but it's much better than MTGO. The economy is pretty crappy, especially since they somehow made rare cards just as hard to get as epic-rare ones which is mindboggling stupid. Mostly though the game is just extremely boring to play. A lot of that is the fault of the standard meta - everyone and their mother playing one of the two types of decks, U/W control or R/B aggro. But even in the other game modes they offer (which, it's absurd they charge gold for something like "players have 40 health" when it should just be another free alternative mode) all you see is the same thing over and over. I can only stomach playing against blue control so may times before I start to question why I'm wasting so much of my free time watching some guy play with his solitaire netdeck. They need WAY more modes of play to mitigate the stagnant standard meta that permeates everything and those modes need to be free, not pay to play tournament structured events.
If you're playing Bo1 your matches are manipulated. They have a mystery 'rating' system for your deck and when you Q Bo1 you are matched against another deck 'rated' the same as yours. That's why you get mirror matches and see max 3 types of decks every single time you play. Yes boring as hell and not the way mtg is played. You brew and make your decks vs a meta and then play in that meta. Match manipulation COMPLETELY destroys the whole brewing part of MTG.
Bo3 is unplayable with no time limit and ropers wasting your time to get a free win.
They're hyper focused on monetization and nickel and dime strategies instead of putting out the best game in the best way possible.
Everything from sloppy UI to choppy animations and really poor prize allocation for events make Arena not worth it. Not even to play for free.
Which is sad because with more brain cells and common sense put into their development the money would just flow in.
Design at WotC isn't helping them much either. When you play a couple times a week 3-4 games you can say 'bad meta' and not think about it too much. But when you have the opportunity to play every day and many more games per day you realize how far off the reservation design has gotten and really how bad standard is for the past 3+ years. It's great that the abomination that is Kaladesh block is leaving but if they're going to keep making the same mistakes...
All they really had to do was allow trading and SELLING of cards in an auction house where they take a piece every trade and every sale and they'd be in micro transaction heaven. They could have many free play events and a few (well rewarded) pay to play events all with chess clocks and the game would just take off. But no, skinnerware pay model and crappy programming is what we get. Beware and don't waste your money here, move along.
There're always people willing to pay. Even for an incomplete game like Arena as people are spending money on it already.
For cards you don't get to own for trade or sale or dust.
They're going open beta this month and they STILL HAVE NO PLAN FOR 5th COPIES of cards. Astounding. That right there tells you the lack of foresight, money, and creativity pressing forward with Arena. It's not ready for open beta but they're going to push it out anyways because they've got people willing to spend money already and the game's not even done.
There're always people willing to pay. Even for an incomplete game like Arena as people are spending money on it already.
For cards you don't get to own for trade or sale or dust.
They're going open beta this month and they STILL HAVE NO PLAN FOR 5th COPIES of cards. Astounding. That right there tells you the lack of foresight, money, and creativity pressing forward with Arena. It's not ready for open beta but they're going to push it out anyways because they've got people willing to spend money already and the game's not even done.
Timmy's makin a game come pay him to play it.
What happened to the original way of treating 5th copies, wasn't this increasing the bar towards some reward lootbox or one of those wildcards?
I think overall it's very good for the early stages. Doesn't too buggy. The visuals are very good, particularly the animations. Gameplay is fast. There are a lot of things that need fine tuning like deckbuilding, matchmaking, and holding events/tournaments. But I think these are all things they are working on. I like it better than MTGO. MTGO is more like paper magic which is cool in a way but I play at my store for the paper experience. Arena feels more like a digital fast play version like Hearthstone. I'm a dad that has time once a week at best to play paper magic but with arena, I could eventually play a few games on break at work or while sitting on my couch. That's a plus.
FYI can anyone else confirm that they said that they are working on a non-rotating format for the game? I heard about this from several channels across twitch and youtube recently and if they are, that could explain why they brought back the two best land cycles outside of fetchlands, which I don't think we are ever seeing in this game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Yeah and it is released, you know what the meta didn't need? Fatal Push and Torrential Gearhulk.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
But honesty the five buck starter kit should be free to beta testers anyway. It'd at least be a better step in the right direction than the damn 5k gold and 2019 boosters we got instead for breaking the servers.
Though since the economy is completely busted right now I doubt it would change much. Digital has to be in some ways, more enticing than physical to actually make the big change for a lot of people. Otherwise it won't replace it in many other ways.
It's got potential, sure. But the fact that what we are seeing is in beta and not alpha kind of bothers me. This is probably going to be a very bittersweet launch for many actively following the game.
The economy of MTGA is one of the harshest of any digital CCG. It won't attract any players from established brands, and the extreme P2W aspect of it means that anyone who wants to play Magic online might as well just play MTGO, it will be cheaper in the long run.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Timer still busted. No changes.
Animations still take too long and don't work with timer.
Land still hops around even though they said they fixed it. They made it less egregious. That's it.
A lot of meta complaints aren't valid because that's not the Arena team's problem. That's Maro's problem. There's a lot of control because you don't need a bazillion rares to make it work. Counters are uncommon mostly and they GAVE OUT 2 complete (starter decks) control decks that were easily upgraded if you know anything. They made it cake to play control and win against their other trash starter decks. Also red is crazy right now and how do you get wins done fast? RDW get your gold and quit for the day. Rampant because red is ridiculous right now. Again, not Arena's fault.
Lots of sub par programming is disappointing. People willing to pay and play will be ok with it but the timer will make them mad. Sitting around waiting 2 min every turn for your opponent to be afk and play at the last second will make a lot of people mad. Every freaking turn. It's a built in exploit and they refuse to solve it patch after patch.
It could be so much more.
Getting back into Magic and just started playing Arena the other day. What are the easily upgraded control decks you're referring to?
I'd love to play Control and not a Red deck!
If you don't earn one look up UW control or UB control the lists are pretty standard. The problem now is they are manipulating match making for Bo1 and it suuuuuuuuuuuucks. You'll get rammed against the same kind of deck constantly and frequently that ends up being RDW.
It's like they're trying to make things worse.
Well there aren't that many viable decks in standard, and that is the only format you really have to play, at this rate Arena is going to fail to the same thing that every other non MTGO thing has failed to. One freaking format.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Bo3 is unplayable with no time limit and ropers wasting your time to get a free win.
They're hyper focused on monetization and nickel and dime strategies instead of putting out the best game in the best way possible.
Everything from sloppy UI to choppy animations and really poor prize allocation for events make Arena not worth it. Not even to play for free.
Which is sad because with more brain cells and common sense put into their development the money would just flow in.
Design at WotC isn't helping them much either. When you play a couple times a week 3-4 games you can say 'bad meta' and not think about it too much. But when you have the opportunity to play every day and many more games per day you realize how far off the reservation design has gotten and really how bad standard is for the past 3+ years. It's great that the abomination that is Kaladesh block is leaving but if they're going to keep making the same mistakes...
All they really had to do was allow trading and SELLING of cards in an auction house where they take a piece every trade and every sale and they'd be in micro transaction heaven. They could have many free play events and a few (well rewarded) pay to play events all with chess clocks and the game would just take off. But no, skinnerware pay model and crappy programming is what we get. Beware and don't waste your money here, move along.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
For cards you don't get to own for trade or sale or dust.
They're going open beta this month and they STILL HAVE NO PLAN FOR 5th COPIES of cards. Astounding. That right there tells you the lack of foresight, money, and creativity pressing forward with Arena. It's not ready for open beta but they're going to push it out anyways because they've got people willing to spend money already and the game's not even done.
Timmy's makin a game come pay him to play it.
Except I don't have a local game store, only a far away game store.
What happened to the original way of treating 5th copies, wasn't this increasing the bar towards some reward lootbox or one of those wildcards?
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
My Praise: Aesthetics and animations.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!