So we're finally into Week 5 of the Chronicles on MTG Arena. What did you think of the events?
These are my own personal thoughts.
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir
Out of all of the parts so far, I feel that Momir was the most fair. Not necessarily the least annoying but I felt it was the most fair in terms of deck construction (or lack thereof). Once you figure out the mathematics behind what card(s) are likely to be cast at each CMC, the game becomes far more enjoyable to play. I'll concede that not everyone liked the sheer randomness involved with Mommir. I genuinely felt sad for my opponent who kept casting for 9 CMC and getting only Zacama, Primal Calamity into play every time. It took me a little while to figure out how things really worked. Once I reached the final goal and got my dailies I just kept conceding every round afterwards to boost other players. I tried to play until my opponent or I went down to about 10 life then conceding to give them their other dailies but too many conceded before that happened.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper
Until this came out on Arena, I never really played Pauper. Apparently, I tried a Magic Format that used only commons and uncommons (peasant I think?) but I wasn't much of a fan of it so I figured pauper was just more of the same. I confess I actually like this format and might build a proper pauper deck. There are some pretty surprisingly powerful cards in the format. I eventually settled on nice WB with Ill-Gotten Inheritance and Epicure of Blood as the jewels.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton
I thought this format was the most annoying until week 5. All because of two cards, Rat Colony and Persistent Petitioners. Those decks are just outright annoying (sorry fans). When I built my singleton, I gambled that a lot of people would play these two decks and built a WB deck with every single removal spell I could shove in there. Then I did a rare thing and pushed the deck size to 75. The gamble paid off when the first game was against Petitioners. Despite milling every chance he got, my removal eventually exhausted his deck and he conceded. That's what most of the Colony or Petitioners players did, concede when too many of their key cards were removed. I estimate about one out of three opponents I faced off against was playing one of these decks. I find these two cards against the spirit of the format and annoying to play against. Every other deck I played against was actually an enjoyable experience.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters
This format is just... borderline awful. Nearly every game just dragged for at least 30-40 minutes because each player was always guaranteed at least one creature at every turn, always. One opponent had a 60/60 zombie on the field but wouldn't do anything with it. It was just constant chump blocking back and forth or just sitting there and seeing who can accrue a larger army. I finally settled on a WG deck with reasonable board wipes, land ramp, counter ramp and evasion.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica
I didn't want to play this one though becauseI have a limited Ravnica block Arena collection to build from. I experimented with several iterations of a WB, WRB, and UG with really low win rate until I finally settled on a WR deck that was somewhat playable. I eventually eeked out enough wins but it was not an enjoyable experience. This format felt too much like a chore. Thanks for all the fish Wizards. At least my most satisfying win was against a Petitioners deck that managed to get 4 Petitioners on the field. Opponent milled me down to 26 cards and he was down to 5 life when I top-decked Inescapable Blaze. The most hilarious was when someone thought it was a good idea to play Cry of the CarnariumFind // Finality with enough Footlight Fiends and devils on my side for the kill.
Momir: Adding planeswalkers to your deck made for some interesting lines of play (as well as making Demonlord Belzenlok not an instant loss) but ultimately momir is by design 90% luck and 10% skill. As long as you go into it with that in mind you should do okay.
Pauper: THIS on the other hand I think is a true skill tester because the format is shockingly wide open. (The petitioners ban was very welcome and likely contributed to that) You had UR Drakes with Burning Prophet, Spellgorger Weird and most of the normal Drakes toys; you had WB decks with Ill-Gotten Inheritance and Epicure of Blood with enough incedental lifegain to grind people out; you had mono green stompy with Thundering Ceratok to join Siege Wurm and Wrecking Beast; you had the Rat Colony deck but everyone was ready for it so you had to branch out beyond 20 swamp 40 rat; you had my favored deck in RW tokens that went super wide with Martyr of Dusk and Sworn Companions and getting kills with things like Burn Bright and Cosmotronic Wave. And I'm sure there were more. Love this format every time it comes around.
Singleton: This, on the other hand, was a slog. In a format designed to reduce consistency, obviously the two best decks in the format are the ones that have nothing but consistency. I ended up on a sultai pile whose first goal was to tutor up Unmoored Ego however I could, and eventually try to win with Command the Dreadhorde. In practice I never found any tutors and it just sucked.
Counters: After the first day I realized that you just need to play things with trample or evasion so their little tokens can't bog you down. Drakes or mono blue probably would have been great here if you had it made, ignore their blockers and go to the dome.
Block Constructed: This format is...a thing. All I'm going to say is there's a reason it hasn't been seen at a pro-level event since Journey into Nyx and leave it there. Also if you got the damage triggers off a Cry of the Carnarium that's a bug and probably should be reported to wizards - if the fiends and devils get exiled by cry they never died, so their effects shouldn't trigger.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Also if you got the damage triggers off a Cry of the Carnarium that's a bug and probably should be reported to wizards - if the fiends and devils get exiled by cry they never died, so their effects shouldn't trigger.
Oops! I realized remembered the wrong card, opponent played Find // Finality. I posted that at like 1AM so I must’ve been brain tired. I corrected the original post.
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir - Once I realize I had to make a 3 drop or lose to whatever 4 mana planeswalker my opponent had it was an enjoyable experience. It always sucks in Momir when you are blown out by RNG but its a risk you take playing the format.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper - It was pauper, I played mono red and it was over fast enough that I didn't get bored of playing.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton - I had wanted to play a stupid Practitioners or Rat colony deck but again fell to mono-red just to get it over with.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters - I have to say this was the most fun by far. I played a lot of decks trying to find one that really worked. I tried control with Dovin Baan locking down their dreadhorde, I tried superfriends to take advantage of the proliferate, and was WG counters deck for the same reason. I settled on my BG Citadel deck that took advantage of the effect but largely did its own thing.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica - I tried my gate deck that I built because of budget. It worked and didn't work. Without gates ablaze it was a very uphill battle that wasn't enjoyable. I ended with a simic ramp deck that felt awful but won fast thanks to Nissa.
Out of all of Arena's unique formats, these don't rate as the worst. But Omniscience Draft was by far the best. I think I hated the Cascade format the most.
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir - Once I realize I had to make a 3 drop or lose to whatever 4 mana planeswalker my opponent had it was an enjoyable experience. It always sucks in Momir when you are blown out by RNG but its a risk you take playing the format.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper - It was pauper, I played mono red and it was over fast enough that I didn't get bored of playing.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton - I had wanted to play a stupid Practitioners or Rat colony deck but again fell to mono-red just to get it over with.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters - I have to say this was the most fun by far. I played a lot of decks trying to find one that really worked. I tried control with Dovin Baan locking down their dreadhorde, I tried superfriends to take advantage of the proliferate, and was WG counters deck for the same reason. I settled on my BG Citadel deck that took advantage of the effect but largely did its own thing.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica - I tried my gate deck that I built because of budget. It worked and didn't work. Without gates ablaze it was a very uphill battle that wasn't enjoyable. I ended with a simic ramp deck that felt awful but won fast thanks to Nissa.
Out of all of Arena's unique formats, these don't rate as the worst. But Omniscience Draft was by far the best. I think I hated the Cascade format the most.
I'll echo that Omniscience draft is hands-down my favorite variant format on Arena and I will gladly pay full price for it every time it comes up. You couldn't really make it work in paper - it only really works because the bots don't take the variant rules into account when drafting so everyone just has these broken decks throwing haymakers back and forth.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir - Once I realize I had to make a 3 drop or lose to whatever 4 mana planeswalker my opponent had it was an enjoyable experience. It always sucks in Momir when you are blown out by RNG but its a risk you take playing the format.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper - It was pauper, I played mono red and it was over fast enough that I didn't get bored of playing.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton - I had wanted to play a stupid Practitioners or Rat colony deck but again fell to mono-red just to get it over with.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters - I have to say this was the most fun by far. I played a lot of decks trying to find one that really worked. I tried control with Dovin Baan locking down their dreadhorde, I tried superfriends to take advantage of the proliferate, and was WG counters deck for the same reason. I settled on my BG Citadel deck that took advantage of the effect but largely did its own thing.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica - I tried my gate deck that I built because of budget. It worked and didn't work. Without gates ablaze it was a very uphill battle that wasn't enjoyable. I ended with a simic ramp deck that felt awful but won fast thanks to Nissa.
Out of all of Arena's unique formats, these don't rate as the worst. But Omniscience Draft was by far the best. I think I hated the Cascade format the most.
I'll echo that Omniscience draft is hands-down my favorite variant format on Arena and I will gladly pay full price for it every time it comes up. You couldn't really make it work in paper - it only really works because the bots don't take the variant rules into account when drafting so everyone just has these broken decks throwing haymakers back and forth.
I never had a match where we threw haymakers at each other. It was almost always Draw my whole deck and kill you turn one. The combo of Final Parting and Garna, the Bloodflame was crazily broken. With a Cabal Paladin as the actual way to kill; this format reminded me of Vintage.
I didn't care much for any of those formats apart from the last: Ravnica Block event.
It was a refreshing change from the current stale standard on the play queue dominated by red rush and esper control.
Pauper was... Eh... Nice, I guess as was singleton.
I personally hate momir, but at least this time the entry was free.
The proliferate format was just absurd.
LOVED Pauper and Singleton. They were a refreshing change of pace and being relatively new I had lots of cards I could use and try out and didn't feel like I was just outclassed every match because of my card selection. Even the Ravnica block event wasn't too bad...I thought my deck was bit janky, but it was ok and I didn't hate playing it. Counters and Momir were stupid and felt gimmicky; they were basically a game of chance....I only played them to complete them and didn't enjoy them much.
Yeah the only one that really annoyed me was the first one.
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir = Mana-screw. I hated this one A LOT. I may have ended up scooping to mana-screw for at least 20 games in a row here.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper. This one was fun, tho it took me a while to find a deck that was competitive.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton.
I actually found this one to be a lot of fun. I just played the most powerful Sultai stuff I could and killed it pretty quick.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters.
I played a RUG deck, mostly Gruul style Riot creatures with a blue splash and ended up sweeping it 10-0. I may have gotten lucky tho by the sound of it. I think playing Wrath's may have been the way to go.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica = Play a GATES deck. It was easy. Dominated, even without Gates Ablaze.
Overall I liked the events. Some new challenge is always good.
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These are my own personal thoughts.
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir
Out of all of the parts so far, I feel that Momir was the most fair. Not necessarily the least annoying but I felt it was the most fair in terms of deck construction (or lack thereof). Once you figure out the mathematics behind what card(s) are likely to be cast at each CMC, the game becomes far more enjoyable to play. I'll concede that not everyone liked the sheer randomness involved with Mommir. I genuinely felt sad for my opponent who kept casting for 9 CMC and getting only Zacama, Primal Calamity into play every time. It took me a little while to figure out how things really worked. Once I reached the final goal and got my dailies I just kept conceding every round afterwards to boost other players. I tried to play until my opponent or I went down to about 10 life then conceding to give them their other dailies but too many conceded before that happened.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper
Until this came out on Arena, I never really played Pauper. Apparently, I tried a Magic Format that used only commons and uncommons (peasant I think?) but I wasn't much of a fan of it so I figured pauper was just more of the same. I confess I actually like this format and might build a proper pauper deck. There are some pretty surprisingly powerful cards in the format. I eventually settled on nice WB with Ill-Gotten Inheritance and Epicure of Blood as the jewels.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton
I thought this format was the most annoying until week 5. All because of two cards, Rat Colony and Persistent Petitioners. Those decks are just outright annoying (sorry fans). When I built my singleton, I gambled that a lot of people would play these two decks and built a WB deck with every single removal spell I could shove in there. Then I did a rare thing and pushed the deck size to 75. The gamble paid off when the first game was against Petitioners. Despite milling every chance he got, my removal eventually exhausted his deck and he conceded. That's what most of the Colony or Petitioners players did, concede when too many of their key cards were removed. I estimate about one out of three opponents I faced off against was playing one of these decks. I find these two cards against the spirit of the format and annoying to play against. Every other deck I played against was actually an enjoyable experience.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters
This format is just... borderline awful. Nearly every game just dragged for at least 30-40 minutes because each player was always guaranteed at least one creature at every turn, always. One opponent had a 60/60 zombie on the field but wouldn't do anything with it. It was just constant chump blocking back and forth or just sitting there and seeing who can accrue a larger army. I finally settled on a WG deck with reasonable board wipes, land ramp, counter ramp and evasion.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica
I didn't want to play this one though becauseI have a limited Ravnica block Arena collection to build from. I experimented with several iterations of a WB, WRB, and UG with really low win rate until I finally settled on a WR deck that was somewhat playable. I eventually eeked out enough wins but it was not an enjoyable experience. This format felt too much like a chore. Thanks for all the fish Wizards. At least my most satisfying win was against a Petitioners deck that managed to get 4 Petitioners on the field. Opponent milled me down to 26 cards and he was down to 5 life when I top-decked Inescapable Blaze. The most hilarious was when someone thought it was a good idea to play
Cry of the CarnariumFind // Finality with enough Footlight Fiends and devils on my side for the kill.Momir: Adding planeswalkers to your deck made for some interesting lines of play (as well as making Demonlord Belzenlok not an instant loss) but ultimately momir is by design 90% luck and 10% skill. As long as you go into it with that in mind you should do okay.
Pauper: THIS on the other hand I think is a true skill tester because the format is shockingly wide open. (The petitioners ban was very welcome and likely contributed to that) You had UR Drakes with Burning Prophet, Spellgorger Weird and most of the normal Drakes toys; you had WB decks with Ill-Gotten Inheritance and Epicure of Blood with enough incedental lifegain to grind people out; you had mono green stompy with Thundering Ceratok to join Siege Wurm and Wrecking Beast; you had the Rat Colony deck but everyone was ready for it so you had to branch out beyond 20 swamp 40 rat; you had my favored deck in RW tokens that went super wide with Martyr of Dusk and Sworn Companions and getting kills with things like Burn Bright and Cosmotronic Wave. And I'm sure there were more. Love this format every time it comes around.
Singleton: This, on the other hand, was a slog. In a format designed to reduce consistency, obviously the two best decks in the format are the ones that have nothing but consistency. I ended up on a sultai pile whose first goal was to tutor up Unmoored Ego however I could, and eventually try to win with Command the Dreadhorde. In practice I never found any tutors and it just sucked.
Counters: After the first day I realized that you just need to play things with trample or evasion so their little tokens can't bog you down. Drakes or mono blue probably would have been great here if you had it made, ignore their blockers and go to the dome.
Block Constructed: This format is...a thing. All I'm going to say is there's a reason it hasn't been seen at a pro-level event since Journey into Nyx and leave it there. Also if you got the damage triggers off a Cry of the Carnarium that's a bug and probably should be reported to wizards - if the fiends and devils get exiled by cry they never died, so their effects shouldn't trigger.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
"If you don't hit your adversaries wile they're down, they might get up again." --Whipkeeper
"Victory favors neither the righteous nor the wicked. It favors the prepared." -- Lay of the Land
Oops! I realized remembered the wrong card, opponent played Find // Finality. I posted that at like 1AM so I must’ve been brain tired. I corrected the original post.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper - It was pauper, I played mono red and it was over fast enough that I didn't get bored of playing.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton - I had wanted to play a stupid Practitioners or Rat colony deck but again fell to mono-red just to get it over with.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters - I have to say this was the most fun by far. I played a lot of decks trying to find one that really worked. I tried control with Dovin Baan locking down their dreadhorde, I tried superfriends to take advantage of the proliferate, and was WG counters deck for the same reason. I settled on my BG Citadel deck that took advantage of the effect but largely did its own thing.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica - I tried my gate deck that I built because of budget. It worked and didn't work. Without gates ablaze it was a very uphill battle that wasn't enjoyable. I ended with a simic ramp deck that felt awful but won fast thanks to Nissa.
Out of all of Arena's unique formats, these don't rate as the worst. But Omniscience Draft was by far the best. I think I hated the Cascade format the most.
I'll echo that Omniscience draft is hands-down my favorite variant format on Arena and I will gladly pay full price for it every time it comes up. You couldn't really make it work in paper - it only really works because the bots don't take the variant rules into account when drafting so everyone just has these broken decks throwing haymakers back and forth.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
It was a refreshing change from the current stale standard on the play queue dominated by red rush and esper control.
Pauper was... Eh... Nice, I guess as was singleton.
I personally hate momir, but at least this time the entry was free.
The proliferate format was just absurd.
Part I: Ravnica at War - Momir = Mana-screw. I hated this one A LOT. I may have ended up scooping to mana-screw for at least 20 games in a row here.
Part II: No Escape - Pauper. This one was fun, tho it took me a while to find a deck that was competitive.
Part III: Storm the Citadel - Singleton.
I actually found this one to be a lot of fun. I just played the most powerful Sultai stuff I could and killed it pretty quick.
Part IV: Commence the Endgame - Counters.
I played a RUG deck, mostly Gruul style Riot creatures with a blue splash and ended up sweeping it 10-0. I may have gotten lucky tho by the sound of it. I think playing Wrath's may have been the way to go.
Part V: Gideons Sacrifice - Ravnica = Play a GATES deck. It was easy. Dominated, even without Gates Ablaze.
Overall I liked the events. Some new challenge is always good.