Noob question here, but I am not sure why many tell newISH players to save 5000 gold and draft instead of buying packs. For 5000 you get 5 packs while draft you get 3. Hmm?
Draft packs are more valuable, seeing as they contain more cards (15 instead of 8) and also a possibility of "value drafting" for additional rares. In addition, you also get at least 1 booster pack as a reward after a draft, even if you lose every game.
In my opinion, and most people I've talked to, 3 draft pack + 1 normal booster as a minimum is better value than 5 normal boosters. It only gets better if you're able to win, of course.
Strong disagree. Buying packs are more valuable because wildcards are more valuable. Wildcards let you choose the cards you need to complete a good deck. Drafting is spending 5000 gold to try and get lucky with 3 random rare cards. Many times the choices are not worth the money. Buying packs nets you 5 random rare cards with the potential of wildcards.
If there's a card that shouldn't exist and sums up the "press X to win the game" extreme pushing of recent Magic cards it's Banefire. Man oh man is that card an absolute joke. It's like some guys 10 year old got to design a card and said "cant I just automatically win the game with a card?"
Banefire? Are you and I thinking of the same card? The one that costs 20R to "win the game outright"?
Because that's not a viable win condition without an infinite mana combo.
Huh? It's like the backbone of every red burn deck. Why would you need infinite mana for an unblockable, uncounterable direct burn damage where 1 mana = 1 damage. Can have four in a deck. I have an arena deck that is literally like 45 mountains and 4 banefires, fight with fires and lightening bolts and it's got like a 65% win rate. it's a deck of 3 cards and it wins reliably.
No Teferi's fine. He's a bit pushed sure, but generally fine. I think the "untap two mana" part of his +1 shouldn't exist, as it allows players to always have a counter ready even when they tap out on a turn, but, meh, hes still able to be taken down. If there's a card that shouldn't exist and sums up the "press X to win the game" extreme pushing of recent Magic cards it's Banefire. Man oh man is that card an absolute joke. It's like some guys 10 year old got to design a card and said "cant I just automatically win the game with a card?"
Exceeepppppppt, it happens constantly in at least 3 out of 5 games I play. And others have reported the same thing.
Then prove it. You're the one making the outlandish accusations here, not me. Either you're the unluckiest player in the world of Arena, or you're lying to generate a reaction and getting whiny when you don't get it.
If you think it's so easy to show that the shuffler is broken, then SHOW us, don't just say it. Take a camera and set it up aimed at your computer screen and run through some matches of arena and - with no way to know it's being recorded - show us that the game is consistently giving you rigged hands with 3 and 4 copies of the same card. Provide some of your own video evidence that it's more than a random happenstance that just comes along, and I'll gladly change my tune.
Until then, I'm going to keep relying on math.
What math are you relying on? the one that says it's normal to have something with a .0000007677% chance of happening, happen 50% of the time? Maybe if YOU do all the work, Wizards will shower you with the hugs and kisses you desire from them.
[quote from="Algernone25 »" If you don't want to open it, it's 0.0071775% - or 7.17 instances out of every 100,000. Let's assume that a quarter million games are played each day - a number that honestly I think is really low, but it proves the point - that 18 games EVERY DAY are going to have someone draw all 4 copies of a card in their opener. You having one of the 18 is nothing notable.
[/quote]
Exceeepppppppt, it happens constantly in at least 3 out of 5 games I play. And others have reported the same thing.
Holy ***** this permeates every single game mode and makes Arena (along with other issues) an unplayable mess. For those not tuned in, this is an issue that has been brought up by several others, wherein the great "random" shuffler will often deal you out the same cards (usually low cost ones) so frequently as to approach infinitesimal odds of probability. For example if I have 4 Shocks in my deck, I will often be dealt those 4 shocks one after the other early in the game. I've been keeping track of this with my decks. It happens ALL the time. Not just 1 out of 20 matches or something. I played three games in a row and saw either three or all four of my Cast Downs in the first 5 turns. I just finished a Draft game and my opponent had four Frenzied Rages cast within the first four tuns. Just finished another game where my opponent had four Essence Scatters in turns 2-5. This game is just so busted, I cant fathom how Wizards could let this happen. Either its intentional but they dont want to admit it, or its the result of terrible development and they dont want to acknowledge it. Either way there has been no word from them on the issue, and the official forum white knights claim it's all imaginary. Test it yourselves. I had been saving screenshots of graveyards that were just repeats of the same four cards in a row, but it got pointless after a while.
Christ, even the Bo3 mode is nothing but mirror matches now. I cant with this game. I'm done with it. Jesus only Wizards could **** up something as simple as putting Magic Online in 2018
I've been playing 60 card paper Magic for quite a few years now. I'm telling you something doesn't add up with Arena's randomization system. Yes, improper shuffling can be a thing as mentioned right above this post. I've watched multiple videos on different shuffling techniques and how to reliably check to see if they are random before. I know how to shuffle. In fact the way I group cards prior to shuffling (each copy of every card lined up next to it in converted cmc in order) in paper Magic would guarantee that more copies of the same card are EVEN MORE LIKELY to put those cards together compared to a truly mathematical randomization.
FYI I am entering actual gameplay data into a hypogeometric calculator to provide you with % data points.
I noticed that something was obviously wrong with MTG arena's shuffling/randomization pattern well before watching the video (I'm not taking about the best of 2 hands for lands in ladder games part which is actually explained in the tips.) You don't even need to watch the video to gain an understanding. Just start using a hypogeometric calculator with gameplay results and you'll see...
I was posting about this earlier just on my own observation, not having seen your video, and am in agreement. I have like 8 or 9 screenshots of graveyards that are like nothing but 4 Shocks or 4 Cast Downs. There's a lot of patterns that dont seem to indicate randomness.
This seems fine to me: Seal Away gets destroyed before its etb ability resolve, so the 6/6 remains where it is, and remains attacking.
Hmm, so you guys are likely correct, but that seems like a confusing distinction then since that doesn't apply to all permanents. Like if I were to cast a Ravenous Chupacabra and opponent Murders it, my creature's effect still resolves so it still destroys a creature on their side. Why can an enchantment's effect be countered but a creature's not?
Did your opponent destroy Seal Away when it entered the battlefield and you were choosing the Molderhulk? Seal Away has to enter and then choose a target, and your opponent in response with the target on the stack blew it up.
Is that right? Wouldnt that be "countering" a spell, which Brontodon doesn't have? Or can you really destroy an enchantment as it's cast before it resolves?
This happened in Arena, and seems to be wrong in my estimation but I may be mistaken.
1. Opponent attacks with three creatures (Jadelight Ranger, Thrashing Brontodon and Mudderhulk {the 6/6 G/B GoR guy, I think that's it's name})
2. I cast a Seal Away on the 6/6
3. Opponent sacrifices Brontodon to destroy the Seal Away
4. 6/6 guy reenters combat tapped and attacking and deals damage
Now in my understanding the way it works is Seal Away takes that creature and exiles it. If it gets destroyed the creature reenters the battlefield as if it was resummoned. Therefore it should not be still attacking. Am I wrong?
I haven't bothered getting into it because I don't feel like dealing with the hand and match making manipulation. It feels like a lot of this was done to prevent a badly designed set from bombing the game, but it's mostly causing people to play the same matches over and over. Not to mention the free play mode hand draw throws off the land count one needs to run the deck in tournaments.
For a brand new game, in beta, in a hugely competitive market, the developers really seem to have just dropped the ball and are dooming it to failure already. The lack of fixes and updates and improvements and just the general lack of even communication is a pretty big turn off. The official message boards are flooded with post after post about the matchmaking and the shuffling and the missing wildcard issue and have been for months. What does Wizards do in the latest update which was like 3 months in the making? Give a way to challenge someone else (not a friends list though) and add advertisements. These are the critical months for this game if it wants a future and no one in charge seems to care.
The game has been in open beta for 2 months now (It launched September 24) and while there are definitely some sticking points I'm genuinely curious what you expected from them.
Matchmaking: In the free play ladder the general idea is understood, Arena appears to measure deck strength in terms of Rares/Mythics/Wildcards Used to create pairings. As it so happens, most decks are pretty set in their Mythic/Rare/Uncommon/Common requirements, and in general wildcard use is generally being spent on lands, DOM and IXN cards that are uncommon to come by without whaling. So it really stands to reason that if you're going to play a specific deck that you're often going to be in the mirror or against one other deck very frequently - they're the ones with the deck closest to yours. The easiest way to avoid this is avoid the ladder queues unless you just want cheap and dirty pickup games to get the last few spells for a quest or something.
Shuffling: Absolutely there are annoying runouts and mana floods. But honestly what do you want, a guarantee that the game will further rig draws so you won't see 4 or 5 lands in a row? As we saw from Luis Scott Vargas at the Pro Tour, mana flood can happen in paper as easily as it can happen in Arena. And with tens of thousands of games being played every day, the probability of any remote event is going to approach certainty over that many trials. (Law of Large Numbers)
Math says you're going to see this stuff happen. It's not Arena deliberately rigging it.
Friend List: I'm still not entirely sure why people want this or what it would accomplish. It's not like there's some kind of chat function in Arena, and I find it unlikely that people would want to do Direct Challenges with people they don't already have some means of coordination with. The dual connection system is easiest effective way of making sure both players are free to play and willing to play - imagine how flooded with requests streamers would be if that wasn't the case! Could they add a dropdown menu of recent challenges for easy rematches? Sure, but that should hardly be a dealbreaker.
Advertisements: It's easy to forget that a large majority of the target market is nowhere near as enfranchised with the game as someone like me who's been playing for 11 years. Poaching players from Hearthstone and Eternal and Shadowverse is nice and all (judging by previous posts of yours I assume you're coming from HS) but in order to keep those players, Wizards need to show them that there's so much more to magic than just this one program. Advertising is the most cost-effective way to do that, and it's not even that obnoxious for a player who isn't interested.
So yeah. I'm curious what you expect from them with these complaints. Sure there's a few bugs. Sure there's kinks to be worked out. That's why it's called Open Beta, they're using all of this to see what needs to be changed - and even if they've recognized these problems you argue about, it's not like there's a button they can press to fix all of it overnight. Code, especially GOOD code, takes a lot of time and testing. With the spaghetti that MTGO runs on, I can appreciate Arena taking its time to get things right - Better IMO to wait 6 weeks for Direct Challenge and have it work right, than to get it 2 weeks into OB and have it be completely unusable.
And it's been in closed beta for months and months before open beta.
Also saying if you dont like rigged matchmaking avoid the ladder and only play the pay to play modes is moronic. How about just dont rig the matchmaking and find matches based on rank. Wow! I solved it. Just match on rank like literally every other game of this genre does. Holy cow mind blowing.
As for the rest of your post, not really interested in reading it. It looks like the same crap the Wizards fan boys post on the official fourms. If you honestly think Arena is in a great place right now I dont know what to say, you either have low expectations or some bizarre love affair with Wizards that means you cant view them critically.
I haven't bothered getting into it because I don't feel like dealing with the hand and match making manipulation. It feels like a lot of this was done to prevent a badly designed set from bombing the game, but it's mostly causing people to play the same matches over and over. Not to mention the free play mode hand draw throws off the land count one needs to run the deck in tournaments.
For a brand new game, in beta, in a hugely competitive market, the developers really seem to have just dropped the ball and are dooming it to failure already. The lack of fixes and updates and improvements and just the general lack of even communication is a pretty big turn off. The official message boards are flooded with post after post about the matchmaking and the shuffling and the missing wildcard issue and have been for months. What does Wizards do in the latest update which was like 3 months in the making? Give a way to challenge someone else (not a friends list though) and add advertisements. These are the critical months for this game if it wants a future and no one in charge seems to care.
IMO the matchmaking makes Arena virtually unplayable. The way certain decks re paired off in Bo1 means you may spend all your WCs to build a deck, only to have it stuck in like an eternal limbo of very specific matches. Which means no matter how objectively "good" your deck is, you may find it doing badly because it doesnt play well against your limbo opponents. I built an experimental frenzy mono red deck and it is fun and strong, in the paid constructed it does really well, but playing Bo1 quick play it only matches up with other mono red decks, Boros aggro decks and Arclight Phoenix decks. None of which are really great to play against with it. So I don't use it much, even though I'd like to because I just dropped a ton of WCs (long, grindy, hard work to obtain) making it.
Strong disagree. Buying packs are more valuable because wildcards are more valuable. Wildcards let you choose the cards you need to complete a good deck. Drafting is spending 5000 gold to try and get lucky with 3 random rare cards. Many times the choices are not worth the money. Buying packs nets you 5 random rare cards with the potential of wildcards.
Huh? It's like the backbone of every red burn deck. Why would you need infinite mana for an unblockable, uncounterable direct burn damage where 1 mana = 1 damage. Can have four in a deck. I have an arena deck that is literally like 45 mountains and 4 banefires, fight with fires and lightening bolts and it's got like a 65% win rate. it's a deck of 3 cards and it wins reliably.
What math are you relying on? the one that says it's normal to have something with a .0000007677% chance of happening, happen 50% of the time? Maybe if YOU do all the work, Wizards will shower you with the hugs and kisses you desire from them.
https://youtu.be/vdJv2CY6H7Y?t=630
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Exceeepppppppt, it happens constantly in at least 3 out of 5 games I play. And others have reported the same thing.
I was posting about this earlier just on my own observation, not having seen your video, and am in agreement. I have like 8 or 9 screenshots of graveyards that are like nothing but 4 Shocks or 4 Cast Downs. There's a lot of patterns that dont seem to indicate randomness.
Hmm, so you guys are likely correct, but that seems like a confusing distinction then since that doesn't apply to all permanents. Like if I were to cast a Ravenous Chupacabra and opponent Murders it, my creature's effect still resolves so it still destroys a creature on their side. Why can an enchantment's effect be countered but a creature's not?
Is that right? Wouldnt that be "countering" a spell, which Brontodon doesn't have? Or can you really destroy an enchantment as it's cast before it resolves?
1. Opponent attacks with three creatures (Jadelight Ranger, Thrashing Brontodon and Mudderhulk {the 6/6 G/B GoR guy, I think that's it's name})
2. I cast a Seal Away on the 6/6
3. Opponent sacrifices Brontodon to destroy the Seal Away
4. 6/6 guy reenters combat tapped and attacking and deals damage
Now in my understanding the way it works is Seal Away takes that creature and exiles it. If it gets destroyed the creature reenters the battlefield as if it was resummoned. Therefore it should not be still attacking. Am I wrong?
And it's been in closed beta for months and months before open beta.
Also saying if you dont like rigged matchmaking avoid the ladder and only play the pay to play modes is moronic. How about just dont rig the matchmaking and find matches based on rank. Wow! I solved it. Just match on rank like literally every other game of this genre does. Holy cow mind blowing.
As for the rest of your post, not really interested in reading it. It looks like the same crap the Wizards fan boys post on the official fourms. If you honestly think Arena is in a great place right now I dont know what to say, you either have low expectations or some bizarre love affair with Wizards that means you cant view them critically.
For a brand new game, in beta, in a hugely competitive market, the developers really seem to have just dropped the ball and are dooming it to failure already. The lack of fixes and updates and improvements and just the general lack of even communication is a pretty big turn off. The official message boards are flooded with post after post about the matchmaking and the shuffling and the missing wildcard issue and have been for months. What does Wizards do in the latest update which was like 3 months in the making? Give a way to challenge someone else (not a friends list though) and add advertisements. These are the critical months for this game if it wants a future and no one in charge seems to care.