Magic: The Gathering C/D

(And no this is not intended for magic the gathering players, you’re cool w/ me)

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 13, 2021

Ok SO, I finally got MtG Arena working on a device (it was my dj laptop, since all the portable devices in the house are too old be supported, and even that was after a battery of Windows updates that me feel like installing a game in the '90s).

It's really fun so far, so nice to have all the phases and rules automated & set in stone. I'm almost done with the Color Challenge (so far I've won my matches against other humans with starter decks, although somehow I also got matched with a couple people who clearly had 'real' decks and it was just savage). I'd like to keep playing for fun (so I doubt I'll get in deep enough to compete against people with crazy meta decks), and I'm also never going to spend any actual money on this game. Advice???

Should I just keep playing matches and slowly upgrading my starter deck of choice? The draft formats are a little confusing, and all seem to cost some amount of in-game currency...I've never played draft before, but it seems like it could be fun since everyone is theoretically starting out on equal footing, right?

some promo codes for free packs here, some might have expired but most of them should still be working: https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-codes/#MTG_Arena_Booster_Pack_Codes
every new set will also have a code like this for 3 free packs

just try to complete your daily quests (the ones that give 500/750 gold + 500 xp) as much as you're able and willing to play. also try to clear the first 15 wins per week as those give 250 xp each. if you do both of those things you'll accumulate a decent amount of free packs from the xp.

you can save up your gold for drafts or just spend it on packs if you don't like drafting. if you're an inexperienced player you should expect to get wrecked in draft until you improve, but you still get to keep the cards you drafted even if you don't win additional prizes so it's never a waste of gold.

also, sit on all the rare and mythic rare wild cards you get, they're the most valuable resource and you'll need a lot of them if you ever decide you want to build a more competitive deck.

Nice, Jordan! I also decided early on I'm not gonna put money into the game. If you stick to mostly Draft like I do, that's fine. When I don't have enough gold for Draft, I will jump into Arena once every three days and complete the three quests that have accumulated. I find it a bit of a grind tbh but usually the quests overlap and if they don't you can cycle one of them per day. I can finish three quests in 20-30 minutes and it's a means to my end of playing Draft without putting money into the game

As a new player, definitely start with Quick Draft. The main difference is Quick Draft you are drafting against AIs instead of real players, but you play twice as much for the same price as Premier, and thus open twice as many cards. Once you are good enough to break even or better, the prize structures make both queues about the same in terms of expected value, but you still get to play twice as much with Quick Draft

cider is right, Draft is very tough for a new player. There are many guides out there for general draft tips. If Sealed is available as a format, you might have more luck there - it's similar but takes a little less skill imo

Thanks guys!

I wouldn't say I'm a new player, I started playing in the '90s when Antiquities came out and stopped around Ice Age, then my wife & I started playing for fun in the last few years with old cards and some Duel Decks. So while I'm sure I'm not great, I'm definitely comfortable with playing the game. But I've never drafted before and I'm sure that has its own strategies. I wish there was a free AI draft version (no gold) where you didn't keep the cards, just for practice.

Ah gotcha. There are some sites like draftsim where you can do a draft for free but you don't end up playing with the deck so might not be what you're looking for

I still remember the days of Netdraft. What a shitshow that was. Troll around mIRC for a half hour in order to find 8 drafters, only to have one of them troll the draft by refusing to pick the 45th card, thereby crashing it for everyone. Good times!!

the "how we finally made Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar" story is pretty funny

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/horizons-part-1-2021-06-07

I've been slowly modding the starter mono decks, but then the 'Stomp, Stomp' R/G deck showed up in my inventory and it seems pretty good! Just got a few wins with it. Guess I'll just keep messing around with the normal play matches, I've got enough gold now to try a draft but I'm scared to blow it all (also it seems like it could take a long time to play, and I usually only have like 1/2 an hour?).

I also don't know if I should work toward a certain deck, or if I should just take the cards that come my way and let that shape the deck. I played against a black lifelink + deathtouch deck that was pretty brutal and seemed to be based on relatively common cards.

the starter 2-color decks are a lot stronger than the 1-color decks, i think it gives you 1 a day once you finish the color challenge until you have all 10

lol, I thought looking stuff up on Youtube would be helpful, but listening to people talk about MtG is largely terrible (and long-winded)

xp oh nice!

Started my first quick draft yesterday, I didn't know that you draft against a bot but play against humans, that's cool though. I was relieved to see that you don't need to play all the games in the same session - so far I lost one, but also won one!

I was a bit confused at the step where you modify your deck before playing, I took out a few lands of a certain color and wasn't sure how to get them back, also didn't know if I had to remove more from the deck (since it said "54/40" cards or something), but it seems to be workable. Sort of overwhelming reading all those new-to-me cards, but it's nice playing against someone who also doesn't have a finely tuned deck.

you can add basic lands by hitting the land icon in the deckbuilder ui, they're in there

40 cards is the minimum deck size for draft and generally you want to stick to that as it means you draw your best cards more often. 23 creatures/spells and 17 lands is the optimal ratio.

I haven’t played since junior high, when Tempest came out, but picked up an old Portal starter set on eBay to see if I can convince my partner to play a game for nostalgia's sake. (I’m a little too intimidated by all that’s changed, and my lack of skills, to play strangers online).

Found a fan-made single player program called Forge that lets you set parameters like only cards/rules before a certain edition; maybe I’ll try and recreate all those InQuest magazine decks and pretend its 1997 again.

Oooh and you can edit your deck inbetween draft matches, I see :)

Aaand I promptly lost the next two, badly. I think my deck was way too big, I just couldn't decide between a bunch of seemingly decent cards.

But then I won the next two regular games, after adding a few of the new cards into the Stomp Stomp deck. The last one was pretty exciting, eked out a win with Radha Heart of Keld + Unleash Fury (double power) + trample token, so she was something like 28/14.

Sorry for blogging!

no matter how good it feels, going above the minimum deck size is always a risky proposition

especially in draft where your best cards are way better than your average cards

I had a hard time differentiating, idk if I just didn't get any killer cards in my packs, or I was too focused on making a reasonable balanced/color-limited deck rather than being too tempted by flashy cards.

Oh well, something to keep in mind for the next time I get 5000 gp.

I think I have all the free decks now. I hit a wall with the ones I was using, kept running up against the same swarm-type decks where they would end up with literally 100+ little insects, or a ton of medium-sized creatures through crazy synergy. But I'm having good luck with this black/white 'Life Skills' deck.

Also tried another draft, where this time I didn't try to build a coherent deck or stick to colors, just picked the best cards and tried to keep it closer to 40 cards. I lost 3 in a row, but they were all extremely close (like had the other play down to 1 life).

Basically now I feel like I have a ton of cards to choose from and lots of wildcards (still haven't used any), and would like to actually make my own deck that's competitive, but have no idea what that deck would be yet.

generally in draft you want to stick to 2 color decks unless the set you're drafting explicitly supports more. otherwise you lose too many games to not drawing the right lands at the right time

I think I kept it to 3

While I know that not having the ability to message players is absolutely key to the game's enjoyability, every now and then I wish I could let someone know that I had only a ridiculous amount of mana in my hand, or to ask what's in their cool deck (played against one that was very similar to the Life Skills one I've been messing with, except with a bunch of fun 'food' cards).

It's kind of fun to try and communicate using the limited number of phrases they give you in-game, kinda like Dark Souls gestures. Although most people don't seem to want to engage...I can usually tell it will be a more fun game if they answer back my initial "hello!".

heh, yes it is. i try to return hellos.

also (as i've mentioned here previously), it's a pet peeve of mine when opponents (ab)use the "good game" emote at the end of a game that's been one-sided in their favor the whole time. if i'm feeling spiteful i'll put them on mute and finish it out as slowly as possible.

Ha, I'll try and keep that in mind. I've been using it in two scenarios:

-as a courtesy before the final blow, whether I'm winning or conceding

-in the middle when it's actually a good game and might go either way, like if they come back from a deficit or there's a lot of cool stuff going on

I use "Nice!" a lot for the second situation Jordan, although sometimes I worry people might think I'm being sarcastic or bitter.

Ha, I do that too, I try to keep it super positive.

I started playing ranked instead of the normal player queue, it's fun so far. Made it to silver and I'm curious at what point my deck is going to hit a wall against crazy meta decks. So far the only deck I wasn't able to counter was a mill deck, where it didn't matter that I had 40 life, I just wasn't able to kill them before my deck ran out.

Unfortunately, some players see a "good game" from a winning position like bragging, even if the game is locked up. I pretty much don't use emotes except to return "Hello" and "gg" if the opponent actually uses it to concede (but I wonder if most of the time they concede so quickly they don't see my response). Magic Online has full chat and I occasionally miss discussing a good game with my opponent, but I'd also be just as likely to run into annoying players

I also play Rocket League which has full chat enabled by default and yeesh, it's toxic. limiting it to only emotes makes the experience 10 times better

you can get to platinum rank with nearly any deck with enough games, since below that you gain 2 ticks for a win and only lose 1 for a loss so you only need to win at >33% rather than >50%

Ever since I hit gold I've won very few matches, although they certainly have been interesting, lol. I played against a Shrine deck that was pretty cool -- 0 creatures, tri-color lands, just a bunch of Shrines that had crazy effects multiplied by the number of shrines (so all of my creature-control cards, most of which are key for the life gain aspect, were useless).

Slowly scrabbling up (and sometimes down) the Gold ranks, had to redeem some wildcards for a little bit of extra firepower. It's very satisfying when one of those cards actually comes in handy and turns into a win.

Seeing some crazy decks, the most ominous ones are those that don't do anything for many turns except play cards to draw more cards and take out your cards, then set up some insane elder god combo for the win.

Also when someone has so many synergies that you spend what feels like 5 minutes a turn just clicking resolve on their triggers, well, it's just demoralizing.

Yeah I got no patience for that stuff. As I mentioned, I only play Constructed to earn gold but I also only play aggro decks to minimize the amount of time I play (also, a lot of quests are creature-centric). Once you get to the "stacks of triggers" part of the match, I've usually already lost and I just concede

now that Strixhaven is winding down I just wanna give a shoutout to Crackle with Power, a card which has won me an insane number of games in Sealed lately, including several where I cast it for 2 and used Rootha to just hit my opponent for 20 in one turn. It is a fantastically dumb card in limited, it reminds me of the days where you basically had to play around a single bomb rare the entire match.

So what happens with Strixhaven now? It's still in Standard for awhile, but now drafts & rewards will be based around the next expansion? Still getting the hang of all this.

when the new set comes out, most of the events and rewards will switch to it, yeah. strixhaven cards will still be in standard until fall 2022 and the set might still occasionally pop up in the rotation for quick draft

finished at Diamond 1, stayed on the grind to the end. now building unspeakably bad jank with which to assault the new seasons

What's the general strategy for dealing with control decks, if you don't have counterspells? Get counterspells? Aside from ridiculous meta decks, this is probably where I run into the most trouble. My deck has decent counters against creatures and enchantments, but when every single card I play gets wiped off the board, well, there's not much to do.

I do feel like my life gain/life drain deck is kinda slow and missing draw cards, maybe that's it (not being able to replace what gets eliminated and having an empty hand)? Games end up being very long, I often end up with a massive life lead but not being able to seal the deal, and then they eventually get their setup to click and it's all over.

be aggressive, have a backup spell to play after their counter, don't overextend into board sweepers

life gain is useless against control decks so unfortunately you're playing from a disadvantage there with your particular deck.

but yeah counterspells can't play catchup, they can only maintain parity, so playing vs control the idea is to get ahead on the board early, which then creates windows to play more stuff as they have to use their mana to deal with your board rather than holding it up for counters.

Thanks. I re-tuned my deck slightly (got rid of some cards that weren't proving routinely useful -- Silversmote Ghouls, Hallowed Priests), and added four of these little Soulmenders (with the idea of speed + more ways to gain life and trigger other cards), and started winning again! Could be coincidence but I like the idea that there's hope without going stacking a bunch of rares.

I'm still at 65 cards, but I don't know what to cut at this point, I'm still terrible at that.

xp heh fair enough, thanks!

(although now that I think about it, the Hallowed Priests would be more useful now with the Soulmenders -- maybe I should just start getting rid of some of my bigger creatures?)

silversmote ghoul is actually the sort of card you want vs control as they can't easily get rid of it

It keeps coming back from the graveyard, but my problem was that it comes back tapped, so rarely ended up being useful for attacking or blocking. It's nice to sacrifice and draw a card occasionally, but a bit unwieldy just for that?

get down to 60 cards!

If I post my deck here will y'all tell me what to cut? :)

Yeah do it!

Ok, I've been tweaking it a lot even today, but here's the current state:

1 Baneslayer Angel (M21) 6
3 Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose (M21) 127
1 Temple of Silence (M21) 255
4 Scoured Barrens (M21) 250
8 Plains (M21) 260
7 Swamp (M21) 266
1 Speaker of the Heavens (M21) 38
1 Impassioned Orator (ANB) 10
4 Indulging Patrician (M21) 219
1 Gingerbrute (JMP) 466
1 Clackbridge Troll (ELD) 84
3 Griffin Aerie (M21) 22
2 Faith's Fetters (M21) 17
3 Revitalize (M21) 31
2 Bake into a Pie (ELD) 76
1 Erebos's Intervention (THB) 94
1 Shadowspear (THB) 236
2 Light of Hope (IKO) 20
2 Zof Consumption (ZNR) 132
2 Unexpected Fangs (IKO) 102
1 Plains (ELD) 250
1 Malakir Rebirth (ZNR) 111
2 Nighthawk Scavenger (ZNR) 115
1 Heliod's Intervention (THB) 19
1 Revenge of Ravens (ELD) 104
1 Cleric of Life's Bond (ZNR) 222
1 Mazemind Tome (M21) 232
1 Environmental Sciences (STX) 1
3 Soulmender (M20) 37
2 Alseid of Life's Bounty (THB) 1

Maybe lose Clackbridge Troll? It's a fun stunt card, but I rarely do any damage with it -- usually it's just a magnet for unsummon/murder cards, so the most I can hope for is a few life + a draw.

I've tilted it to smaller creatures recently so it feels faster out of the gate, but I'm ending up with a midgame where my hand is gone and I'm just hoping to draw something useful. Are there b/w cards that let me draw when I gain life or do damage?