MTG Salvation

Quote from Hermes_ »

when did cryo join the staff...again....

This last week shortly after I stepped down. There was only a gap of something like 3-5 days between me processing out and his return.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Quote from Hermes_ »

when did cryo join the staff...again....

This last week shortly after I stepped down. There was only a gap of something like 3-5 days between me processing out and his return.

and then you'll switch back? lol

I happened to mention that I was stepping down in a slack lounge he was in and he put in his application. I had nothing to do with it and last time they came to me and asked me to come back lol.

Quote from Hermes_ »

and then you'll switch back? lol

Presumably.

Quote from bobthefunny »

We've set up automated alerts so that as soon as one steps down, the other is messaged to put in an application.

We're hoping to circumvent that manual process and have the system put in the application on their behalf, but the technology isn't there yet.

When the forum becomes self-aware we will all be out of jobs here. And I'll probably be rightfully banned.

Quote from cryogen »

So yesterday while I was at the liquor store in saw an Iron Maiden beer called The Trooper. Anyone tried it? Is it any good?

It's like their latest albums. Not going to surprise you but it tastes like beer.

MTG Arena is so addictive.Gonna stop until I reach diamond on constructed.

Arena has forced me to realize that I'm just bad at standard. I need them to throw Brawl in there so that I can go back to pretending I know what I'm doing with deck building.

Quote from Airithne »

Arena has forced me to realize that I'm just bad at standard. I need them to throw Brawl in there so that I can go back to pretending I know what I'm doing with deck building.

It would be sweet if they added brawl but the complexity of adding a multiplayer format like that seems really intense. Its possible if they ever wanted to change brawl to 1v1 or support it like that in arena I think its maybe something they could implement but the potential of 3+ players in arena seems like a LOT of a step up to accomplish. If they ever did though I suppose they could potentially implement 2hg and commander as well but..... I kind of suspect that they wont do this because I don't know that its really something that would pay for itself to do that.

I thought they were only going to do real formats.

Being bad at standard doesn't mean you don't understand deckbuilding. Being good at standard means requires complete knowledge of the specific deck you are playing and how to optimally play it, knowing the metagame so you can recognize what an opponent is doing and know how best to counter/respond to it and being really good at sideboarding. It's a very specific set of skills, and it does not carry over very much into formats like EDH, draft, sealed or cube.

Personally, I find playing standard about as interesting as watching plants grow. This is one reason why I don't care at all about Arena.

Quote from JWK »

Being bad at standard doesn't mean you don't understand deckbuilding. Being good at standard means requires complete knowledge of the specific deck you are playing and how to optimally play it, knowing the metagame so you can recognize what an opponent is doing and know how best to counter/respond to it and being really good at sideboarding. It's a very specific set of skills, and it does not carry over very much into formats like EDH, draft, sealed or cube.

Personally, I find playing standard about as interesting as watching plants grow. This is one reason why I don't care at all about Arena.

I agree that there are very different skill sets and knowledge bases required for different formats. Figuring this out is the fast track for the cutthroat spikes and the filthy casuals to understand each other. There's just a divide in mentalities between what I think of as Magic players and what I think of as Format players. I am a Magic player, I enjoy Magic, I think I'm pretty good at it. I think I stand a solid chance against any other player in any arbitrary format. But I can't expect to win reliably against a dedicated Standard player in Standard, because I'm not a Standard player, or Legacy, or Modern, or even EDH. There's nothing wrong with that on either side. There are plenty of players like myself who want Magic without a metagame, and there are plenty of players who get the most joy out of the metagame, and if they interact, they just have to be ok with the fact that someone is going to have an advantage even though nobody did anything wrong. That's ok, and being an underdog can be fun.

The only time I really feel the need to judge the Format players is spoiler seasons. People who hyper-focus on specific formats just have a really poor track record with card evaluation, even within their preferred format. And especially with the Commander precons. Commander players are terrible at understanding the power and value of those decks and the cards they print for us. Anyone who's played a deck without dumping $500 on singles first recognizes they make really strong cards, and anyone who's played a different format's precon recognizes they're the best value of any product Wizards has ever sold, but every release has naysayers complaining it isn't 99 format staples and the broken commander they made up at 3 AM with their buddies.

Well I bought into Arena myself yesterday. I was kind of against it but given there will be a new non rotating format next rotation that will be arena playable (what everyone has been saying at least) I want the ability to be able to play it more frequently than the sparse FNM that I have been getting of late.

I bought wayyyyyyy too many packs with real money and built GW angels. It felt like every freaking card was a mythic so I burned up a LOT of my starting investment in the game to spin that deck up. On the flip side, I have a sweet deck now and I went 5/0 on my first games lol. Granted, I am still bronze so I am sure that will go away soon enough.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Well I bought into Arena myself yesterday. I was kind of against it but given there will be a new non rotating format next rotation that will be arena playable (what everyone has been saying at least) I want the ability to be able to play it more frequently than the sparse FNM that I have been getting of late.

I bought wayyyyyyy too many packs with real money and built GW angels. It felt like every freaking card was a mythic so I burned up a LOT of my starting investment in the game to spin that deck up. On the flip side, I have a sweet deck now and I went 5/0 on my first games lol. Granted, I am still bronze so I am sure that will go away soon enough.

I thought Arena was free?

Quote from cryogen »

I thought Arena was free?

It is, having cards / good decks is not. Its the difference between showing up at a LGS and them handing you one of those starter decks they give to noobs that has like two trash rares and someone playing a constructed deck. Starting up arena they give you some free stuff but none of it resembles constructed magic.

Quote from JWK »

Being bad at standard doesn't mean you don't understand deckbuilding. Being good at standard means requires complete knowledge of the specific deck you are playing and how to optimally play it, knowing the metagame so you can recognize what an opponent is doing and know how best to counter/respond to it and being really good at sideboarding. It's a very specific set of skills, and it does not carry over very much into formats like EDH, draft, sealed or cube.

Personally, I find playing standard about as interesting as watching plants grow. This is one reason why I don't care at all about Arena.

It's more that I'm poor at evaluating cards in a limited pool format as well as constructing around cards from sets I have previously not paid attention to (other than the like 1% of cards I wanted for EDH). Threat evaluation, tempo, and strategies are completely foreign to me, so I am bad at standard.

As far as deck building goes, it's a combination of not knowing cards (or how to deal with 4 ofs) and the fact that I'm actually just bad in general, but EDH is varied enough that I can pretend I'm good.

Quote from Airithne »

It's more that I'm poor at evaluating cards in a limited pool format as well as constructing around cards from sets I have previously not paid attention to (other than the like 1% of cards I wanted for EDH). Threat evaluation, tempo, and strategies are completely foreign to me, so I am bad at standard.

As far as deck building goes, it's a combination of not knowing cards (or how to deal with 4 ofs) and the fact that I'm actually just bad in general, but EDH is varied enough that I can pretend I'm good.

If you aren't accustomed to playing limited, standard, or modern it probably is a big change of pace. Its generally speaking easiest to watch some good players who know what they are doing to get started with a deck and figuring out what works before trying to innovate when it comes to constructed magic. Twitch / youtube is your friend.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

It is, having cards / good decks is not. Its the difference between showing up at a LGS and them handing you one of those starter decks they give to noobs that has like two trash rares and someone playing a constructed deck. Starting up arena they give you some free stuff but none of it resembles constructed magic.

So it's free except you have to pay to play. Got it.

Quote from cryogen »

So it's free except you have to pay to play. Got it.

It also does have elements where you play the game and get an in game currency where you can buy packs with that. They also try to shelter the new players from those who have big collections but I am not sure how well that works since I immediately bought product. I think they take into account what your collection looks like to some degree because I wasn't playing against Craw Wurms from the get go.

I played a fair amount of standard before moving on. The skills you pick are in some ways transferable.

As someone who has only spent five bucks on the welcome package, my personal experience that Arena is very much playable without having to spend lots of money. The matchmaking algorithms take into account the strength of your deck, so you start out by playing against other people with precons or budget decks, and the in-game currency and card rewards for playing help you to quickly expand your collection and build actually competitive decks. I was pleasantly surprised how fluently and plain fun the progression goes. Also, the starter decks you get are considerably better than paper starter decks that are handed out in stores, because they include a fair amount of tournament staples such as Settle the Wreckage, Rekindling Phoenix or Carnage Tyrant.

Quote from CasualCalamity1 »

As someone who has only spent five bucks on the welcome package, my personal experience that Arena is very much playable without having to spend lots of money. The matchmaking algorithms take into account the strength of your deck, so you start out by playing against other people with precons or budget decks, and the in-game currency and card rewards for playing help you to quickly expand your collection and build actually competitive decks. I was pleasantly surprised how fluently and plain fun the progression goes. Also, the starter decks you get are considerably better than paper starter decks that are handed out in stores, because they include a fair amount of tournament staples such as Settle the Wreckage, Rekindling Phoenix or Carnage Tyrant.

Speaking of..... I wonder what they will do at rotation. Obviously they should update what they give away to new users to make it standard legal but I wonder if existing users will get free cards once those rotate. I would be a little annoyed if they gave me non standard legal cards to get started playing stnadard lol.

If an upcoming set doesn't do DNA for it's three letters I will be sadden since the next set is RNA....

Happy new year to everyone!

I picked my first ultimate masters booster pack yesterday and I pulled Dark Depths. That's sweet, even though I have the FtV version already but it is super annoying not to put the Marit Lage token in the same booster. WHY the **** not? My OCD was tilting red.

Quote from vandertroll »

Happy new year to everyone!

I picked my first ultimate masters booster pack yesterday and I pulled Dark Depths. That's sweet, even though I have the FtV version already but it is super annoying not to put the Marit Lage token in the same booster. WHY the **** not? My OCD was tilting red.

I bought a box and the card I was most excited to get was literally the single Marit Liege token I opened.