MTG Salvation

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-beta-august-29-2019?fbclid=IwAR0f9Y58xKwHF2sD1qE1VeqYThCvrUTIolztaB_YJlRemn-p-zrbwZ4gV6w

What deck do you want to play?
I've liked my trusty gruul midrange so far.

Note they will be adding "new" cards that aren't currently standard legal to the format.

From what I've learned searching the forums, this looks like a cluster____. I'm very confused as to why the staff decided to build a new website when this one works perfectly well. So was it the owner of the MTGSalvation site who decided to close it? Cryogen made a post about the staff wanting to buy the site and keep it open, then they couldn't, then someone else could? I barely heard any whispers about this just a couple of days ago.

Anyway, that's really beside the point. I completely agree that the new site seems unnecessary. There are years of history and countless hours spent developing all of the amazing content already available on this site. I went to mtgnexus.com and there was basically nothing going on in the standard forum at all. The only reason I heard about/considered nexus was because a couple of my favorite members have been saying they will transition to the new site. However, all the great content/answers/ideas that have come from them are on THIS site.

I think the new website will just dilute out some of the great content that used to be added here. Personally, I don't want to make 2 accounts in order to post things/check in on things. My internet is slow as a snail and adding on extra accounts, especially for a site with very few people/threads on it just doesn't seem appealing. Also, this site has a deck builder, but the other doesn't?

It just seems that salvation is superior in every way right now. At the same time, I'm confused and sad as to why the staff started this new site. I want to hang out with all usual friends that used to be found here. I want to remain loyal to the people who started this amazing site. At the same time, salvation still seems better to me.

I wish this site would close, or the new one just be shut down and fold the staff back here in their old jobs. If this site was good enough to keep open and running, why was there a need to start another one?

I went 7-2 in the BO1 constructed event on Arena. I lost to, W/B Aristocrats! LOL. They were running Cruel Celebrant which impressed me much more than I though it would. I'm going to test out some celebrants in my list now. I've also been winning lots of games on the ranked ladder.

I was running this:

Quote from lugger »

Yeah, I mean it's not good. But it is something.

I'm building a giant growth, samut's sprint scapeshift deck now

I was beginning to brew around Evolution Sage when I had initially misread the card as "when it etbs proliferate." I liked the card when I thought of it this way, but needing to hit a land drop to enable it makes it bad in my opinion. That means it becomes a turn-4 essentially play, where you'll end up with an extra mana and nothing to do with it. Then you played a 3/2 on turn 4 that's dependent on other creatures being out that already have counters on them... People can respond to the trigger in order to play a shock/lightning strike before the counter goes on a creature, before it gets out of reach. We're talking about getting 1 or 2 counters at most the turn it comes down. If you're set up well with creatures then play this turn 3 and hope... You're opponent will figure something out to hamper you plans before that land comes down turn 4. A 3/2 on it's own is a bad creature for 3 mana creature in standard, and it can't buff its self at all.

I think the landfall part of this card is too clunky for our deck.

Ghalta seems like it could be pretty good alongside Domri, Anarch of Bolas as well. If you have 3 creatures out then play domri, you just reduced Ghalta's cost by 3, AND you have an extra mana to throw at it's casting cost too. I can see times where you could potentially finagle domri as a "free spell" you play the turn you cast Ghalta.

I'm not really salty about the Giant Growth and other feedback. Sometimes you just want a card to work so badly you overlook the other stuff. I just miss casting growth...

I'm also back to the "draw 4 copies of the same cards after only seeing 10 cards out of the deck" bullcrap.

Here's all of my rare lands currently collected that I "spent $65" on. Keep in mind I'm basically guaranteed to open at least 1 more, maybe 2 or 3 just based on the amount of gold I have available for drafting. I also have a couple of wildcards available should I want to spend them on lands. Vault opening coming within the next few drafts.

Nice part is, I'll have all of these cards 2+ years from now after the eternal arena format is released. While you don't make money back from selling the cards, you do keep all of the best cards you've ever opened. This has actually been crucial for me in brewing even in standard. I switch back and forth between using cards, or entire decks at times according to the meta.

So you've gone from "Arena costs the same" to "Arena can be cheaper sometimes."

That is some progress. When I think of this question I'm thinking about it from a perspective of "Your average MTG player" most of the time.
Your average MTG player can't continuously build rogue/budget standard decks and expect to have a decent chance of winning Magic.

When you say "If the deck is over a certain price it becomes cheaper." Well, that price is lower then the cost of your average standard deck, so...

Also, you CAN build a deck by playing limited over and over again on Arena. You CAN'T do that in paper. Arena is MUCH cheaper to play limited, hopefully people won't try to argue that point.

Given that you can build a deck by playing limited in Arena, but not in paper, Arena is the cheaper of the formats. Just play limited, which is awesome and something I love doing anyway, until I've saved up enough resources to build a deck. Can't do that in paper.

I really wonder how much time and $ you lose reselling MTG cards. Most card shops take 50% of the price of the card. That's not at all economical, and is WAY more expensive then getting more wildcards on Arena. Do you resell on TCG player? Okay so now you're paying their fees, plus shipping, plus all the time spent packaging and taking to post office et. By the time you do all that, you could have just drafted on MTG Arena, got some new cards and earn more gold. Which would you rather spend your time doing?

I've built paper Magic decks, and have tried to resell cards before to build another. It is a losing prospect to be sure.

Don't forget all the hidden costs of paper Magic: Gas to go to store or friends house to play, $5 entry to FNM, sleeves for deck, playmat et. also tax on MTG products, which I don't pay on Arena. That's an automatic 8.25% savings anytime I purchase something on Arena vs. a card in real-life.

Oh, have y'all forgotten about how incredibly overpriced cards are when a set is first released? You think misspending a rare wildcard is bad? Try buying a single copy of Vraska, Golgari Queen when Guilds released. $26 dollars. Now Allegiance is out and you think "Man, I don't really like playing B/G, or the meta has shifted away from it. I'll sell my card back, that's what everyone says I can do." The store offers you $2.50 for the card because it is now only worth $5. Sure did save a bunch of $ by playing paper didn't ya?

If people were actually honest with themselves about the card reselling experience, I don't think they'd tout it as such a big deal. It's actually a TERRIBLE VALUE to resell your cards THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE TIME, when it comes to standard.

I've been building 2 relatively distinct Gruul decks on MTG Arena, one for "Traditional" and one for "Best of one." I'm posting my "best of one" because it's more distinct than the lists found here. Despite it being made for best of one, I'm beginning to think it may have legs in best of 3 too. I have yet to test it for best of 3 however.

The difference in philosophy here is that this deck is more aggro/burn focused. It tries to get as much damage through asap. The ability to get in with many cheap, haste and large creatures, followed up by 1-3 burn spells nets us wins early as turn 4. Now that I'm up to 4x Lightning Strike and 4x Skewer the critics, I'm often winning games by burning opponents out at the end, killing them a turn (or 2) earlier than usual.



The reason this deck is slaying it on single match ranked games on Arena is because it thoroughly beats mono-red aggro, or any aggro for that manner. It also beats many midrange/control decks in the single match system. It also beats the mirror match up if they're playing Rhythym of the Wilds (thought I have little data for this.)

Whether or not this deck can make it's way into best of 3 matches, it has some lessons to teach there too. Light up the stage is a good card for us. We can often get damage through and it can be fine to play for 3 late game. It may be a 1 of, or sideboard card in traditional matches, but this card deserves consideration. With our haste creatures and burn spells, saving this in hand until you're out of cards and have a good amount of mana can give us the reach to close out the game a turn early.

I think the biggest thing this deck teaches is that we want our removal spells to also be direct damage to the player. This is not only important for surprise wins, but it's our only defense against planeswalkers (besides our giant creatures.) While Lava Coil can kill some big things and exile pesky creatures that may try to return, our deck wants direct damage. If built right, the speed is there to go under control. (I beat turbo fog and also Hydroid Krasis decks with this build.)

As much as I love Lava coil, I noticed that I was winning a good number of games with Lightning Strike even when it was my only direct burn spell. Just find lines to get in early damage with creatures and put the final nail of the coffin in with burn. I started playing around with subbing out some coils for skewer the critics and/or Shocks with good results. After taking the plunge and removing all coils from the main deck, adding in 4 skewer and a bit more haste with Zhur-taa goblin, the deck is incredible. (In the single game matched system at least.)

Anyway, just wanted to point out that lava coil is probably more of a sideboard card or 1-2 copies mb at most. Run 4x Lightning Strike at least and add at least 1-2 skewer the critic, though I'm quite happy with 4. The ability to kill Teferi's with direct damage is more important to this deck's win rate then dealing 4 damage to a creature. On curve, we have the biggest creatures in the format. With this in mind, we actually don't need too much removal for creatures, especially if we are on the play. At this point I'd say about half the burn spells I draw go right to the face (at the end of the game of course.) That's a luxury I have now that all of my removal is direct damage.

I think Rhythym of the wilds is a bit overrated. It's amazing, don't get me wrong! However I'm very confident the deck does not want 4 of these mb. 4 copies may be justified with some split between mb and sideboard. Thing is, we have an amazing 3 drop that is good to play on turn 3. Also 4 copies of Rhythym means less room for direct damage or another creature. I don't care that these riot triggers stack, you are not going to want to have 2 of these in a game. The tempo loss of playing 2 of these is far too great for a midrange deck that has the potential to be on the aggro side while still maintaining a good card advantage to fight late game/control. Basically, 4 Rhythyms means you're cutting a necessary removal spell, or playing too few creatures. Honestly, this card makes us lose to mono-red most of the time. Taking a turn off from playing creatures means we can't profitably block and kill their creatures which leads to death. Also, I would argue that it's better to play Gruul spellbreaker on turn 3 than Rhythym in many situations. We will lose to control if we don't get damage in fast enough and consistent enough.

While Galta is very flashy, I believe this is a fun-of at most. The set up to get a haste Ghalta is far too steep, and also very swingy. Think of it this way, if you have creatures on the board that can attack in with, you're in a good position. If someone just boardwiped you and you're staring at a giant cost for Ghalta, it's a dead card even if you have Rhythym on the board. What about those times you draw Ghalta and don't have Rhythym? They just Vraska's Contempt it, boardwipe, or save a settle the wreckage to get rid of your bomb when it can finally attack. As you can see, this card is pretty inconsistent. I prefer Carnarge Tyrant for my top end (in tradiontal match ups) as it can't be countered whether or not you have rhythm out, and always has hexproof. Also you can play it for 6 mana even if they just boardwiped you, a luxury ghalta doesn't have.

Skarrgan Hellkite is the bees knees. I may spend a rare mythic wild to go up to my 3rd copy soon. Wouldn't be surprised if I want a 4th eventually, at least for sideboard. Although I love the Demanding Dragon suggestion too! Since I own one, that will be my 3rd copy of skarrgan for now. This card should be a beast against non-creature based control decks if backed up by burn.

Now that we are talking more about the "free" side of the economy I must point out: They have recently changed their system so that you will acquire all the rare cards you need more quickly. So, if you have 4 copies of a rare/mythic card and you would open one in your pack, it automatically becomes another rare/mythic you don't have. This system was only recently enacted, so we'll see how this changes things. However, it should obviously change things for the better as you will fill out your collection much faster. It becomes a snowball effect, which I saw on my own account during Guilds of Ravnica before this change even happened. I have already opened the vault once and I'm currently 50.4% through to my second vault opening. I expect to reopen the vault in the next month or less without spending any more.

Wizards literally keeps giving out MORE, not less rewards. Not sure if y'all are following the news, but they make their rewards system better basically every month. It's ridiculous how good it is.

To put in perspective, I must have at least $500 worth of cards if they were paper. I would not be surprised if this number were actually closer to $1,000, perhaps more. That would be a fun experiment to run. I have spent about $65 dollars to DRAFT, like I normally do in paper, only with all of the rewards this translates to hundreds upon hundreds of dollars worth of paper card equivalents. How can you complain about that?

Also, good ol' Johnny and his dad are going to be stoked, especially with someone showing them the way. Johnny's dad "You mean you can draft on this thing for free just because you play games on it? That will save me a lot of $" Johnny "Now I can play Magic even though I don't know anyone who does and the people at the card shop are too good."

I feel they have already knocked it out of the park with Arena, and it's still in Beta. All complaints must be taken with a grain of salt as they literally are fixing these complaints every update. Should only get better from here!

As you activate Demonmail Hauberk's equip ability, you can target any "creature you control", even if you don't own it and even if it's the creature that Demonmail Hauberk is attached to, and you can sacrifice that creature or any other creature you control to pay for the ability (C.R. 109.5, 115.1c, 702.6a, 701.17a) — when activating an ability, you choose targets before you pay costs (C.R. 602.2b, 601.2c, 601.2h). See also this thread.

Note that the rule numbers I cite are from the most recent version of the comprehensive rules at the time of this writing.

EDIT (May 10): One rule was renumbered with Dominaria.
EDIT (Dec. 31): Add rule citation.
EDIT (Apr. 20, 2021): One rule was renumbered in the meantime.

My last post was botched so i just straight up deleted it. Not sure what happened there. So here is my attempt at a response.

I think we should have seen a massive red flag very early on when the idea of 13-land decks were tossed around for Arena. Specifically 13-land Red Aggro. I think a 13-land Blue Mono exists as well. 1 land in your opening hand is 83.7%. Two in opening hand is 47.6% and three drops down 16.6%

Conversely, <DELETED>

Personally, I find it absurd that things have gone so far as to make 13-land Red a very nearly viable deck.

I removed the individual's name and deck because I cannot tolerate her tirades any more. Her insistence on using Magic as a political platform should never be allowed WotC.

Quote from JaishivaJai »

I'm talking about the fox/cat thatappears to the right while playing the game. I checked profile and didn't see a way to turn it off. Can you screen shot it?

Ok, I misunderstood. The pet on the Right is your opponent's pet and you can't turn it off. The pet on the left is your pet and you can turn it off. I believe you can mute the opponent's pet by muting their emotes.

Quote from SardoNespa »

Quote from SavannahLion »

Interesting logic they're using to justify requiring two wildcards to craft Historic-only cards there.

I agree. Odd logic. We newcomers already have problems dealing with opponents with 4 of every card from every previous or current release. Why add to the old-timer's advantage, where they can use their wilds for new releases while us newbies need to spend twice as much just to compete in Historic?

Personally, that logic would be more the reason to avoid historic matches entirely.

I think you hit the nail on the head. The entire Arena monetization is lame. It's crappy enough that there is a forced disparity between the stupidly lucky and/or wealthy and those that need to manage their quids since the only reliable way to get specific cards is to spend wild cards and the only way to get wild cards is by opening packs and the only reliable way to get packs is by spending cash. By my rough estimates, around $800 a year on Arena.

Admittedly, packs for paper cards can hit stratospheric costs. There is no mechanism that alleviates duplicate cards. So it's very possible to open 20 copies Befuddle and not a single Chandra.

But the big difference with Arena is a paper player can offset costs by selling valuable unwanted cards and/or control spending by buying only singles. Doing so drastically lowers the cost of decks to be on par with Arena. Another huge difference is rotating cards can continue to be used or further sold off to recoup additional costs. None of which is possible with Arena.

I'm not trying to argue that paper is cheaper. What I'm trying to illustrate is that paper is an easier pill to swallow since players know they can continue to earn value from their money. Something that WotC seems to have zero interest in doing with Arena.

Let's be honest, If WotC can figure out how to charge us $75/month under the guise of a subscription and still charge us for packs and cards, I imagine they would.

This is still a problem. The code they use to randomize the deck HAS to be bad. I just played 10 games and got stuck on 2 lands or 2 non-lands in 9 of the games. 40 card deck, 17 lands. Seeing 14 cards and the ratio being 12:2 or 2:12. This ***** is just unreal. Uninstalling the game and sticking to paper.

I'd wait a couple of days before making any decisions based on the 2 wildcards per card ratio. I'm willing to bet that it won't go live as announced.
The MTGA team seems to have a tendency to include one change in any major update that is just a giant middle finger towards their players, watch the *****storm for a bit and then backpedal on it. No idea if they simply want to test what they can get away with, try to take focus off of other changes or just intend to collect low hanging fruits in terms of "see? we listen to your complaints", but it has become a bit of a pattern.

For them adding about 15 cards from older sets every 3 months, it seems like a nice way to expand the format without the overhead of implementing whole sets of which 95% won't see play anyway. They just need to be carefull with the specific choices.

I'll never play Arena because I've seen plenty of evidence suggesting it's simply not random.

How hard is it to program a random card shuffler? Surely they could figure it out with all their big bucks.

Only an independent, comprehensive statistical survey saying that the shuffler is actually random could convince me. If you can't shuffle the decks, you can't play Magic.

Indeed, Thought Sponge could have similar-ish use like Toothy, Imaginary Friend.

Thought Sponge was just spoiled....This seems like an insta add for Marchesa, would assume it instantly fills your hand mid to late game if played correctly...

This morning, I have run into SEVERAL opponents with, for example, within the first few rounds:

4x Dreadhorde Butchers or 4x Tefaris or 4x Scorch Spitters.

Seriously, the odds are astronomical.

Get it together MTG Arena!!! Fix your Randomizer!!!