The issue with this is you need to be able to constantly go infinite on drafts (6 wins minimum to turn a profit) and it's really become a pain. There's an objectively best deck in the format in Dimir Surveil, but if you don't get passed the cards to make it (Disinformation campaign being the lynchpin) then your deck will lose to whoever did. If you have any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them, but every time I've played dimir I got paid, and every time I haven't the deck just loses to lockdown control.
I just haven't had that experience. In fact, quite the opposite. I think one thing to point out is that on the casual drafts, there is no sideboard. I understand that might be somewhat obvious. That said, the lack of sbing 100% effects the way I build my deck. Where I would probably never play a crushing canopy for example, main deck in the competitive format, I value it much higher in the "casual" format. I often play the green convoke, either get a 2/2 elf knight or blow up an enchant/artifact in gw and bg (if Im unlucky enough to have to play green lol).
I dont see UB housing me by any means on a regular basis. UR aggro beats DI on the regular for me, as does Boros. A trophy boros deck is extremely low to the ground: multiple hawks, stalwart, legionaire is how the deck should be built. You even get some debate from pros on playing the 4ww angel because of how slow she is and it how it doesnt fit into the ideology of what the deck wants to be doing. Low creatures, curve out, smash face, pray they arent MDing Meph Vapors.
All this taken into consideration, super aggressive aggro decks have been pretty successful for me in the casual format and I actually try to stay away from more control oriented strategies.
The first quest I had was a Merfolk deck and had some staples like Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, Jadelight Ranger, and Silvergill Adept. Using some Wildcards and the other free stuff, was able to make a good Merfolk deck. This was all day 1. Exporting my previous decks from the closed beta also helped. Just grind for the wild cards, go to events, and take the loss. Yea, I was annoyed at first, but that's pretty much the challenge.
EDIT: Not Viceroy, but yesterday I cracked Niv-Mizzet, Parun from ePack. Put him straight into the deck, he even managed to enter the battlefield in the next game, only to be Plummeted promptly...
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
Lack of balance or bad luck ?
I've played mtga quite a lot but i have been frustrated/disappointed...
I've seen a great lack of balancing i don't think it's just me because so many players surrender early on..if you build a deck with multi colors the system put you against a powerful deck(or players with 2 or 3 level above) in other cases you play against same deck as you build with same cards making the game is a question of luck, another point, when you grow your rank a little looks the system wanna let you fall with a impossible sequence of lands until you lose (even with 20 lands in deck).
I just keep playing because I'm a hardcore mtg fan and i hope the game gets better in future.
Many times I kept starting hand with two lands and a bunch of spells with "If third land comes in first three turns, I win.", and many times I didn't get third land. I never blame game shuffling algorithm or balancing for this though.
@mtghardcore, if you're speaking of ladder, its maybe the fastest to play, but there could be a variety of players, and probably the matching algorithm should be improved a bit. In ladder you can meet beginners with weak monocolored Arena preconstructed decks, some hilarious combos (Rat Colony + Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive...), or lock down (multiple Nexus of Fate + Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin.
Maybe better would be direct challenge or "real" play (Bo3 match, with sideboard)...
I found that ranking originally was a little weird. When I first started playing, after a couple of games as "Beginner" I was thrown against Tier decks (Teferi control, Mono Blue Djinn etc on a constant basis. Bit rough on a newer player rocking monocolored starter decks. I didn't get the Merfolk, Vampires etc decks for about 2 weeks.
Now if I play, not alot has changed except EVERY deck I come across is BLUE. It's either UR Drakes, Mono Blue Djinn, UW/Grixis control. Got kind of repetitive.
I'm almost F2P player, cuz i bought starter which is cheap and gives you a lot. Right now I have Jeskai Control, Izzet Drakes, Boros Weenie, Golgari Midrange and almost Mono R Aggro. This is maybe i was playing magic for 5 years and learned how to draft, and this is where I got all of my cards, for 5000 gold almost every time i play 3 drafts ( Rest from gems i get ). So, it's possible to get into game for free, it will take like two weeks more if you don't buy starter pack.
Many times I kept starting hand with two lands and a bunch of spells with "If third land comes in first three turns, I win.", and many times I didn't get third land. I never blame game shuffling algorithm or balancing for this though.
Well same here, I play only Jeskai Control on Ranked and keep two landers with success ( Platinum Rank right now ). High risk, high reward.
What I can NOT stand is the people who pause on EVERY card you play...even if they are tapped out and/or and you have one or TWO on the battlefield already..the "I'm reading the card" line doesn't cut it. You can read the one IN PLAY. What is worse is that when they have one in play..you can read your own one?
When RDW games go for half an hour, kind of gets a little dragged.
I'm just curious how someone catches up with this game if they enter at a later time. People playing right now have a big advantage over future players if some kind of arena modern starts up, as they can get packs specifically of the last two sets and have a chance at pulling the land cycles. If someone comes in late they are going to be spending wild cards all day on getting a sound mana base, which is a pretty ***** way to play a game like this.
I have absolutely no issue with having crappy main deck cards as long as everyone is on the same page with the lands, but this company and their blatant stupidity with putting a premium on playable resources is what gets my gears grinding. It's already a barely livable practice in paper: How the heck is someone going to get shocks online in MTGA once rotation hits? Use the same resources needed to get cards for standard to buy them? We're talking spending extra time just grinding rare wild cards to get at least two full cycles of rare dual lands, and there is no trading in of or out of a particular set of dual lands just to try other decks.
On top of which, they'd probably have to do this while getting the lands needed for whatever the current standard is, so that is basically four full cycles of dual lands, with the meta determining what current color pair to get first in standard in order to mega grind the rest of them. The only way I can see them making this work later is to just award them via promotional codes to reduce the number of wild cards needed.
What this equates to is a giant whipping stick on the players instead of presenting a nice juicy carrot. People are basically forced into playing because "if I don't play in this standard right now, I'm not going to be able to get the lands needed for standard plus". This leads to posts like this one where people may be stuck playing decks just for the sake of win rate instead of enjoyment, or getting hammered by those that are playing the decks known in the meta.
I mean, they know it's a problem given they gave a promo code at the game awards to give a free vraska's contempt and a bunch of other heavily played stuff. Unfortunately, I feel they are either ignorant, or living off of byzantine practices that do not work in an online world that is increasingly becoming more hostile to "gambling" in digital games.
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!
Thats actually why I'm playing as much Arena as I am. Get the appropriate staples while they are easy and free, build up Wild Cards, and wait for the non-rotational format.
Thats actually why I'm playing as much Arena as I am. Get the appropriate staples while they are easy and free, build up Wild Cards, and wait for the non-rotational format.
I tried getting into Arena and just decided it isn't for me. Force of Will basically gives people competitive level cards in the starters and then lets people build into whatever they want. MtG it's like wizards hates everyone and just makes them start with garbage, with no easy way to break further into the game. As I stated before, it feels like Wizards is just pushing the whipping stick as hard as it can, instead of pushing the carrot and making people happy.
Private Mod Note
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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!
This leads to posts like this one where people may be stuck playing decks just for the sake of win rate instead of enjoyment, or getting hammered by those that are playing the decks known in the meta.
+1 this. Players I know, myself included have sometimes stated they do this just to grind WCs whike getting hammered by Grixis and UW control.
Thats actually why I'm playing as much Arena as I am. Get the appropriate staples while they are easy and free, build up Wild Cards, and wait for the non-rotational format.
I tried getting into Arena and just decided it isn't for me. Force of Will basically gives people competitive level cards in the starters and then lets people build into whatever they want. MtG it's like wizards hates everyone and just makes them start with garbage, with no easy way to break further into the game. As I stated before, it feels like Wizards is just pushing the whipping stick as hard as it can, instead of pushing the carrot and making people happy.
Weird, because I just played for free, got rewarded the basic decks, then the double colour ones, kept going up against people at about the same level, kept on winning, did some drafts (for free) kept playing, etc, etc, I now have the full Drakes/Phoenix deck, plenty of other staples, and a bunch of Wild Cards if I wanted to go into something URx (Control, Grixis, whatever i guess) and all for nothing but a Free to Play game.
As a noob, it's like that every night. Wish there were more options for a crappy player like me than being fed to top 8 decks every game, haha. Oh well.
I think weather you fight high end decks or decks closer to your level depends on how many people closer to your level are trying to get into a game at the time you start one, vs. how many people with higher end decks are trying to start a game at that time. I suspect the timer prioritizes people who have waited the longest over if they are closer to your level of ranking and deck quality and whatnot, after it passes a certain number of seconds, so people with lower end decks can still get matched up against people with higher end decks if either of them have waited too long for a match to start. I suspect to get fairer matchups, they'd probably need to extend the timer, in that instance, for making it search for closer matchups longer before prioritizing just getting someone into a match.
I been playing 1month. At first it sucks cause of your card pool but you need to grind it out and build gold for drafts. Drafting and doing well will help build your pool. I spent about 50dollar and managed to have competitive decks for tier 1 play. Decks i have are mono blue fliers. Mono green. Golgari finality. Mono white. and 5color swamps which is good vs control and mid range decks(my janky verion). I also could build some other decks but there not my style of play. I would play mono blue flyers to start. Its a solid deck and u only need islands..
I just haven't had that experience. In fact, quite the opposite. I think one thing to point out is that on the casual drafts, there is no sideboard. I understand that might be somewhat obvious. That said, the lack of sbing 100% effects the way I build my deck. Where I would probably never play a crushing canopy for example, main deck in the competitive format, I value it much higher in the "casual" format. I often play the green convoke, either get a 2/2 elf knight or blow up an enchant/artifact in gw and bg (if Im unlucky enough to have to play green lol).
I dont see UB housing me by any means on a regular basis. UR aggro beats DI on the regular for me, as does Boros. A trophy boros deck is extremely low to the ground: multiple hawks, stalwart, legionaire is how the deck should be built. You even get some debate from pros on playing the 4ww angel because of how slow she is and it how it doesnt fit into the ideology of what the deck wants to be doing. Low creatures, curve out, smash face, pray they arent MDing Meph Vapors.
All this taken into consideration, super aggressive aggro decks have been pretty successful for me in the casual format and I actually try to stay away from more control oriented strategies.
UGMefolkGU
GElvesG
Casual
UBPirate ArtifactsBU
Last time 5 wins in (non competitive) constructed - lost only to "Ajani's everything" deck (Ajani's Pridemate + Ajani's Welcome + Ajani's Last Stand) and to a (definitely competitive) deck with promo Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Nexus of Fate, Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin and a bunch of surveilers who effectively locked me down.
Just playing for fun and waiting for Ral, Izzet Viceroy
EDIT: Not Viceroy, but yesterday I cracked Niv-Mizzet, Parun from ePack. Put him straight into the deck, he even managed to enter the battlefield in the next game, only to be Plummeted promptly...
But it was fun nonetheless.
-Stay Frosty
I've played mtga quite a lot but i have been frustrated/disappointed...
I've seen a great lack of balancing i don't think it's just me because so many players surrender early on..if you build a deck with multi colors the system put you against a powerful deck(or players with 2 or 3 level above) in other cases you play against same deck as you build with same cards making the game is a question of luck, another point, when you grow your rank a little looks the system wanna let you fall with a impossible sequence of lands until you lose (even with 20 lands in deck).
I just keep playing because I'm a hardcore mtg fan and i hope the game gets better in future.
Many times I kept starting hand with two lands and a bunch of spells with "If third land comes in first three turns, I win.", and many times I didn't get third land. I never blame game shuffling algorithm or balancing for this though.
@mtghardcore, if you're speaking of ladder, its maybe the fastest to play, but there could be a variety of players, and probably the matching algorithm should be improved a bit. In ladder you can meet beginners with weak monocolored Arena preconstructed decks, some hilarious combos (Rat Colony + Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive...), or lock down (multiple Nexus of Fate + Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin.
Maybe better would be direct challenge or "real" play (Bo3 match, with sideboard)...
Now if I play, not alot has changed except EVERY deck I come across is BLUE. It's either UR Drakes, Mono Blue Djinn, UW/Grixis control. Got kind of repetitive.
Well same here, I play only Jeskai Control on Ranked and keep two landers with success ( Platinum Rank right now ). High risk, high reward.
When RDW games go for half an hour, kind of gets a little dragged.
I have absolutely no issue with having crappy main deck cards as long as everyone is on the same page with the lands, but this company and their blatant stupidity with putting a premium on playable resources is what gets my gears grinding. It's already a barely livable practice in paper: How the heck is someone going to get shocks online in MTGA once rotation hits? Use the same resources needed to get cards for standard to buy them? We're talking spending extra time just grinding rare wild cards to get at least two full cycles of rare dual lands, and there is no trading in of or out of a particular set of dual lands just to try other decks.
On top of which, they'd probably have to do this while getting the lands needed for whatever the current standard is, so that is basically four full cycles of dual lands, with the meta determining what current color pair to get first in standard in order to mega grind the rest of them. The only way I can see them making this work later is to just award them via promotional codes to reduce the number of wild cards needed.
What this equates to is a giant whipping stick on the players instead of presenting a nice juicy carrot. People are basically forced into playing because "if I don't play in this standard right now, I'm not going to be able to get the lands needed for standard plus". This leads to posts like this one where people may be stuck playing decks just for the sake of win rate instead of enjoyment, or getting hammered by those that are playing the decks known in the meta.
I mean, they know it's a problem given they gave a promo code at the game awards to give a free vraska's contempt and a bunch of other heavily played stuff. Unfortunately, I feel they are either ignorant, or living off of byzantine practices that do not work in an online world that is increasingly becoming more hostile to "gambling" in digital games.
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!
Spirits
I tried getting into Arena and just decided it isn't for me. Force of Will basically gives people competitive level cards in the starters and then lets people build into whatever they want. MtG it's like wizards hates everyone and just makes them start with garbage, with no easy way to break further into the game. As I stated before, it feels like Wizards is just pushing the whipping stick as hard as it can, instead of pushing the carrot and making people happy.
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!
+1 this. Players I know, myself included have sometimes stated they do this just to grind WCs whike getting hammered by Grixis and UW control.
Weird, because I just played for free, got rewarded the basic decks, then the double colour ones, kept going up against people at about the same level, kept on winning, did some drafts (for free) kept playing, etc, etc, I now have the full Drakes/Phoenix deck, plenty of other staples, and a bunch of Wild Cards if I wanted to go into something URx (Control, Grixis, whatever i guess) and all for nothing but a Free to Play game.
Spirits
Wish I could say the same. As a noob I ALWAYS get put against top8 decks.
Spirits