MtG Arena: Stupid Sexy Oko

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Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Mrenda posted:

You're right about the monetization. It's definitely all from the game aspect of it rather than from the SHOPPING EXPERIENCE - BUY BUY BUY! But I don't really get (big) adrenaline rushes playing the game, it feels slightly different to that. It's a kind of tension and awareness at a constant higher level rather than a rush. In Football Manager if I was holding out for a tight win I'd get a "rush." I also watch a bit of horse racing and if a significant bet had a chance of coming in (significant for me would be going �50 up) I'd get a rush. Magic isn't rushy, more it's a switched on state, a constant level of excitement. It causes an acuity of awareness that I'm sure is adrenaline it's just not quite a sudden rush of it.

I think what I was mostly trying to get across is that they've actually done a really good job with the presentation of it. Playing Magic in real life, the odd few times I do it, there's still excitement over wins, but in Arena there's the graphics and the audio. There's little touches like when the creatures do damage or when you counter a spell. It's a whooshing sound, or the crunch of an attack. It's quite visceral without being gory or graphic. Even choosing which cards you're using to block has an impressive level of nigh on tactile feedback to it. It's an extremely engaging experience. And it makes you want to engage with the entire aspect of the game more. Whether that's playing a match, opening a pack, getting gold and XP, building a deck (the worst part of the client) or spending money on something.

On the money side of it I don't feel like Arena is structured in a way where it's pushing you towards spending in a Pay-To-Win way, or in keeping elements of the game gated behind paywalls. It's not even particularly pushy about the ways you can spend money. It's not predatory in those ways. It is very good at making an enjoyable and enthralling experience where you want to give them money to experience more and do better. It's exciting and engrossing, and quite slick in a lot of ways. Whether the ways they've done all this are predatory�predatory in a more subtle way compared to a lot of freemium games�I think would take a psychologist who specialises in gaming, casino gaming, retail and addiction to figure out.* It's just this type of excitement/win/loss gaming is not something I've experienced much in my more sedentary play style, and it's something I've noticed because of that.

*I would guess if there's a predatory element to it it's not based on auld wans like me. Rather it's based on competitive people, especially younger people, who want to be the best magic player, and have the best deck, and need to win, and want to be at the higher tier of play. Just looking around at reddit, forums, youtube comments, etc. it's amazing how often I've seen people (whose writing reads like that of an idiot or young person) who are trying to calculate the most efficient way of doing everything. The game sort of encourages you to build the best deck (but not really) but they also want the most efficient way of getting the cards, and the most efficient way of climbing the ratings, and the most efficient way to spend money even if it only amounts to pennies in savings. None of them are talking about enjoying a play mode, or having fun with a deck. It's all about the best (most efficient, winningest) way to do something. I think combine that with an easy way to spend money in an always available 24/7 environment can cause problems, but it's nothing necessitated, or may even really encouraged, by the game.

Yeah, maybe adrenaline is the wrong word, it is definitely a weird tension state as well as general excitement. Hard to describe but I'm glad it's over now. I like being mellow.

I also agree that the presentation is top-notch and an underrated aspect. Sound and visual design are very hard, and getting it this satisfying can't have been easy. People joke a lot about Arena's stability issues and the lack of updates and budget and that there could be way more flashy effects when Mythics etb etc., but the very strong basis deserves a lot of appreciation regardless of those comparatively minor nitpicks.

Also agree on sucking the fun out of a game by trying to optimize it, however I think some degree of it is smart when you want to save money on a free to play game. For example, I'm mostly drafting because that is by far the most fun thing for me, and that does earn me a lot of Packs. If you know that you'll be drafting a lot and thus earning both cards from that + packs over a set's run, then it's more efficient to not open the packs immediately, because of Arena's duplicate protection - as in, if you happen to draft 4 copies of cards, then packs you open can't have a "fifth" rare in them and extra copies of the uncommons and commons go to your vault progress, which is free wild cards, which you really want. It's therefore slightly more efficient for collecting and wild card acquisition to not open the Packs immediately, and that's what I do.

However, that means you can only build decks with the current set's cards after the set is no longer current, so if you're into making decks and improving them incrementally, then you should open the packs immediately because it'll just be more fun for you. I think "what is it I actually want" should always take precedence over "what's slightly more efficient".

# ? Feb 3, 2023 10:46

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 15:23

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

I got an arena email and it had some dancing Phyrexian Mites so I clicked it and it took me to this 10 hour loop of dancing mites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcGKupbZCEo&hd=1

# ? Feb 3, 2023 11:01

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

# ? Feb 3, 2023 11:05

MrL_JaKiri: Sep 23, 2003; A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Least favourite? Brazen Borrower

# ? Feb 3, 2023 12:49

Retcon: Jun 23, 2010

Captain Invictus posted:

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

A huge rear end cat making a tiny 'meow' noise

# ? Feb 3, 2023 13:02

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Least favourite? Brazen Borrower

Most definitely

My favorite noise is the crunch any of my big bois make when they slam into my opponent

# ? Feb 3, 2023 13:21

Eight-Six: Oct 26, 2007

The increasing severity of crunches as creatures get larger and larger is a really nice touch

# ? Feb 3, 2023 13:47

rickiep00h: Aug 16, 2010; BATDANCE

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Least favourite? Brazen Borrower

Mine is the Decayed sound, but mostly because it is accompanied by the animation, which plays for every instance of it. Any more than one zombie and it feels interminably long.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 14:04

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

A Moose posted:

It's so annoying that you can't make an aggro brawl deck. Everything else is too strong. If you're playing a 1-drop, you lose because you can't aggro hard enough fast enough against 25 life and a guaranteed commander. and you need to pack so much removal because guess what, your opponent DOES have it, because it starts out in the command zone. They always have it. Their commander is going to do its thing and wreck you, because you don't have enough removal or counterspells because you wasted those slots on creatures that cost less than 3.

This format is hosed, it needs 2 more players to balance it out

also, while trying to test urza, prince of kroog, I've been matched up against 5 ruskos

What commanders are you using? I have lots of success with Domri, Anarch of Bolas and Raddic, Tal Zealot. Domri in particular just eats up Jodah decks, they're way too slow--per untapped I'm 33-9 against five-color in the last two sets with him.

And you're getting paired up with a lot of Ruskos because they're everywhere. All my brawl decks get paired against Rusko constantly.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 14:06

Lone Goat: Apr 16, 2003; When life gives you lemons, suplex those lemons.

Most of the streamers I watched yesterday during the ONE preview had the game volume down but every time they hovered over an Oil card there was a dripping animation. If there's a sound associated with that it's gonna be fun lol.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 14:11

A Moose: Oct 22, 2009

Judgy Fucker posted:

What commanders are you using? I have lots of success with Domri, Anarch of Bolas and Raddic, Tal Zealot. Domri in particular just eats up Jodah decks, they're way too slow--per untapped I'm 33-9 against five-color in the last two sets with him.

And you're getting paired up with a lot of Ruskos because they're everywhere. All my brawl decks get paired against Rusko constantly.

I was using Urza, Prince of Kroog to try to do a kind of Tempered Steel brawl deck. But it turns out, practically everything else is stronger than that. It can't work when your opponent also has a huge bomb that starts the game in their hand. Whatever they're doing is stronger than whatever I'm doing, so I can't win unless I can stop them from doing whatever their doing. But that would mean switching from an aggro deck to a control deck, because I'd have to add so many counterspells and pieces of removal, there wouldn't be room for 1-drops.

So then I went the other way. I had some quests to play blue and black stuff, so I made a deck to stop my opponent from doing their mid-range things and made a Kaito deck. Just drawing cards and tempoing them out with counters and removal. Straight to hellqueue. I had like 3 games in a row against esika ramp, and then 2 against golos, and 1 against nicol bolas. Turns out you can't just out-tempo Esika. If you counter the enchantment 4 times, they can still ramp enough to pay the commander tax, and blue/black has VERY few ways to remove the enchantment once it's in play and then you WILL lose. It was fun grinding out the Nicol Bolas decks though. Planeswalkers are much easier to deal with than enchantments. I also got to wreck a Baral deck by getting turn 1 thoughtsieze, turn 2 edicting their commander, and then realizing they had no way to counter or deal with a planeswalker, causing them to concede on turn 3.

With Rusko, I figure the kind of person that plays that deck is a sicko who actually likes 45 minute games where they won 30 minutes ago, so I just don't let them play their deck and just auto concede. I figure I probably should just make one and help run this poo poo into the ground though. Lets see how high we can get his winrate/play rate!

Brawl is kind of a stupid format. You have to kneecap your deck just enough that it can still win, but not matched against powerful or even hellqueue matchups. More thought goes into gaming the deck matching algorithm than your strategy because there are a whole bunch of powerful teir 1 non-hellqueue commanders like Liesa or Kethis or all the sultai/simic value piles that fair decks can't hang with, so you have to build your deck intentionally badly enough to try and dodge those matchups. I think the next Brawl deck I build will have an uncommon rakdos commander with very few rares, and see what my matchups look like then.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 15:22

Horace Kinch: Aug 15, 2007

Captain Invictus posted:

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

Negate

# ? Feb 3, 2023 15:43

Mrenda: Mar 14, 2012

A Moose posted:

I was using Urza, Prince of Kroog to try to do a kind of Tempered Steel brawl deck. But it turns out, practically everything else is stronger than that. It can't work when your opponent also has a huge bomb that starts the game in their hand. Whatever they're doing is stronger than whatever I'm doing, so I can't win unless I can stop them from doing whatever their doing. But that would mean switching from an aggro deck to a control deck, because I'd have to add so many counterspells and pieces of removal, there wouldn't be room for 1-drops.

So then I went the other way. I had some quests to play blue and black stuff, so I made a deck to stop my opponent from doing their mid-range things and made a Kaito deck. Just drawing cards and tempoing them out with counters and removal. Straight to hellqueue. I had like 3 games in a row against esika ramp, and then 2 against golos, and 1 against nicol bolas. Turns out you can't just out-tempo Esika. If you counter the enchantment 4 times, they can still ramp enough to pay the commander tax, and blue/black has VERY few ways to remove the enchantment once it's in play and then you WILL lose. It was fun grinding out the Nicol Bolas decks though. Planeswalkers are much easier to deal with than enchantments. I also got to wreck a Baral deck by getting turn 1 thoughtsieze, turn 2 edicting their commander, and then realizing they had no way to counter or deal with a planeswalker, causing them to concede on turn 3.

With Rusko, I figure the kind of person that plays that deck is a sicko who actually likes 45 minute games where they won 30 minutes ago, so I just don't let them play their deck and just auto concede. I figure I probably should just make one and help run this poo poo into the ground though. Lets see how high we can get his winrate/play rate!

Brawl is kind of a stupid format. You have to kneecap your deck just enough that it can still win, but not matched against powerful or even hellqueue matchups. More thought goes into gaming the deck matching algorithm than your strategy because there are a whole bunch of powerful teir 1 non-hellqueue commanders like Liesa or Kethis or all the sultai/simic value piles that fair decks can't hang with, so you have to build your deck intentionally badly enough to try and dodge those matchups. I think the next Brawl deck I build will have an uncommon rakdos commander with very few rares, and see what my matchups look like then.

I read all of this and it was beautiful.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 17:46

space uncle: Sep 17, 2006; "I don�t care if Biden beats Trump. I�m not offloading responsibility. If enough people feel similar to me, such as the large population of Muslim people in Dearborn, Michigan. Then he won�t"

A Moose posted:

Brawl is kind of a stupid format. You have to kneecap your deck just enough that it can still win, but not matched against powerful or even hellqueue matchups. More thought goes into gaming the deck matching algorithm than your strategy because there are a whole bunch of powerful teir 1 non-hellqueue commanders like Liesa or Kethis or all the sultai/simic value piles that fair decks can't hang with, so you have to build your deck intentionally badly enough to try and dodge those matchups. I think the next Brawl deck I build will have an uncommon rakdos commander with very few rares, and see what my matchups look like then.

I�ve been playing Balmor as an uncommon commander aggro deck. I win a lot of games but obviously with Izzet aggro there�s a huge amount of variance as you have to draw just the right card at the right time to win. Holding up counter spells vs. pushing damage is really tricky and I don�t always get it right.

Very fun deck though. I took the budget version online and added my favorite rares to make it less budget. Still stays out of hell queue. I can run over Rusko more often than not, but if they�re on the play with Dark Ritual then it�s always GG.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 17:47

A Moose: Oct 22, 2009

The thing I like about hell queue is that its a combination of "too strong" and "too annoying" so you you can take a strong deck in there and bully the poo poo out of annoying decks like Baral or Nicol Bolas. It's not so bad always losing to ramp when I can out tempo the boring control decks

weird that I haven't seen rusko in hell queue yet though. Its like Brawl has so many ways to deal with a stupid good commander like that. They could ban him. He's alchemy, they could rebalance him. That's the whole point of alchemy. They wouldn't have to offer wildcards or any sort of compensation or even apologize. They could hide him in the hellqueue so playing against him is a self-inflicted problem.

Or they could do none of that I guess. The 1 intern whose job it is to remember brawl exists must be doing something else.

I don't even know why I care so much, I pretty much just play historic brawl to do quests. Is there an EDHrec for historic brawl?

A Moose fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Feb 3, 2023

# ? Feb 3, 2023 18:15

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Captain Invictus posted:

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

HONK

It is a beautiful day in kenrith's castle and you are gilded goose

# ? Feb 3, 2023 19:59

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Did a NEO Premier because I'd never done one before

https://www.17lands.com/draft/6d5f9f40df0f4da5973610dbb83ded43

Not really happy with the results. I guess this is the most playable:

Green started super open then dried up

Most likely second color seemed blue (even though Simic is awful in NEO, if it's free I'll take it), but then that dried up too

Opened and got passed a bunch of black bombs, but in the end, still nothing

So, basically a double splash on a solid enough green base. Have to play some real stinkers* and it's not super consistent, but I'm sure I can steal some wins with the Toad dude and general BG lol value (which is powerful but actually not a playstyle I enjoy much, but who can say no to a Gloomshrieker).

Let's see!

*to be exact, I really don't want to play Jukai Trainee, Careful Cultivation, Favor of Jukai and especially Heir of the Ancient Fang, but what can you do

# ? Feb 3, 2023 20:00

Bugsy: Jul 15, 2004; I'm thumpin'. That's
why they call me
'Thumper'.; Slippery Tilde

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Least favourite? Brazen Borrower

Bolt hound pet zapping across the screen.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 20:17

Node: May 20, 2001; KICKED IN THE COOTER; Taco Defender

Captain Invictus posted:

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

Wurm creatures that make those haunting ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO groans. Those are creepy.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 20:38

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Simply Simon posted:

Did a NEO Premier because I'd never done one before

https://www.17lands.com/draft/6d5f9f40df0f4da5973610dbb83ded43

Sad 1-3. Yeah whatever, didn't expect too much of this deck unless I got to draw a great sequence of excellent cards and, well, that didn't happen.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 20:52

Zero VGS: Aug 16, 2002; ASK ME ABOUT HOW HUMAN LIVES THAT MADE VIDEO GAME CONTROLLERS ARE WORTH MORE; Lipstick Apathy

Captain Invictus posted:

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

Shameful that no one has said Biogenic Ooze

# ? Feb 3, 2023 21:24

babypolis: Nov 4, 2009

the jaunty tune that plays whenever you play a citizen

# ? Feb 3, 2023 21:38

Ithle01: May 28, 2013

As far as I'm concerned there is no better Arena animation or sound than Mnemonic Betrayal.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 22:34

Mike N Eich: Jan 27, 2007; This might just be the year

I know others have found them annoying, and there certainly are some animations that go on for too long, but I am sad that it seems like animations in general have gotten phased out.

Have there been any special animations for cards since Midnight Hunt or so? I can't think of any.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 23:13

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Nothing massive the way the used to do, that I can think of - the tri lands all got animations, for instance, btu they're not exactly Brazen Borrower.

Thank gently caress.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 23:48

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Ithle01 posted:

As far as I'm concerned there is no better Arena animation or sound than Mnemonic Betrayal.

I don't remember who it was but I do remember watching some streamer almost poo poo their pants in fright when they first saw it

# ? Feb 3, 2023 23:50

Bugsy: Jul 15, 2004; I'm thumpin'. That's
why they call me
'Thumper'.; Slippery Tilde

Questing Beast is still the longest animation. Love waiting forever for the smoke to clear just to see where my card is on the battlefield to attack.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 23:51

Ithle01: May 28, 2013

Judgy Fucker posted:

I don't remember who it was but I do remember watching some streamer almost poo poo their pants in fright when they first saw it

The screaming exploding skull can be a bit off putting the first few times.

# ? Feb 3, 2023 23:56

GonSmithe: Apr 25, 2010; Perhaps it's in the nature of television. Just waves in space.

Enlist has a really annoying high-pitched �SHIINNNNNGGGGG� noise that persists even after you are done attacking with them. I didn�t realize how sensitive my ears were until I was playing Monowhite with the Enlist cards.

# ? Feb 4, 2023 00:07

imagine dungeons: Jan 24, 2008; Like an arrow, I was only passing through.

Chevill just being handsome is a pretty good animation.

# ? Feb 4, 2023 01:13

Khanstant: Apr 5, 2007

babypolis posted:

the jaunty tune that plays whenever you play a citizen

give us cosmetic audio options and this would be my default token summon noise

# ? Feb 4, 2023 01:16

resistentialism: Aug 13, 2007

Bugsy posted:

Bolt hound pet zapping across the screen.

The original green dog slobbering is so much worse. Amazing how they one-shotted out a pet that made me turn off the system forever.

# ? Feb 4, 2023 04:18

Barry Shitpeas: Dec 17, 2003; there is no need
to be upset

Winner POTM July 2013

Simply Simon posted:

Did a NEO Premier because I'd never done one before

https://www.17lands.com/draft/6d5f9f40df0f4da5973610dbb83ded43

Not really happy with the results. I guess this is the most playable:

Green started super open then dried up

Most likely second color seemed blue (even though Simic is awful in NEO, if it's free I'll take it), but then that dried up too

Opened and got passed a bunch of black bombs, but in the end, still nothing

So, basically a double splash on a solid enough green base. Have to play some real stinkers* and it's not super consistent, but I'm sure I can steal some wins with the Toad dude and general BG lol value (which is powerful but actually not a playstyle I enjoy much, but who can say no to a Gloomshrieker).

Let's see!

*to be exact, I really don't want to play Jukai Trainee, Careful Cultivation, Favor of Jukai and especially Heir of the Ancient Fang, but what can you do

Yeah the thing with NEO is that green is so deep that it can look open when it's not. Something like Tales of Master Seshiro is a fine playable but it could easily be the 3rd or 4th best green card from the pack.

Shigeki + Skyturtle is a very powerful engine but it's very slow and the rest of your deck isn't really defensive enough

# ? Feb 4, 2023 17:21

hambeef: Aug 21, 2004

Captain Invictus posted:

what is everyone's favorite arena noise

mine is the troll noise where it goes URRRRAAHHHHH

# ? Feb 4, 2023 17:59

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

I'm doing Draftsims of ONE and I keep seeing Praetors from older sets come up - is Draftsim being buggy or is this actually a thing in this set?

# ? Feb 4, 2023 18:38

flatluigi: Apr 23, 2008; here come the planes

thespaceinvader posted:

I'm doing Draftsims of ONE and I keep seeing Praetors from older sets come up - is Draftsim being buggy or is this actually a thing in this set?

during the early access event the other day they were showing up in the drafts on arena, and at the very least i know the five praetors have promo versions (with their original set legalities) that are in boosters in paper. don't know if they also appear in the non-promo forms or if draftsim has the weighting of the praetors correct

# ? Feb 4, 2023 18:42

Lone Goat: Apr 16, 2003; When life gives you lemons, suplex those lemons.

thespaceinvader posted:

I'm doing Draftsims of ONE and I keep seeing Praetors from older sets come up - is Draftsim being buggy or is this actually a thing in this set?

In paper boosters, they have special art versions of all 5 Praetors in draft boosters, so they're also on Arena. We don't know what the drop rate on them is, though.

Check the part that of this article says Borderless concept praetors.

# ? Feb 4, 2023 18:44

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Barry Shitpeas posted:

Yeah the thing with NEO is that green is so deep that it can look open when it's not. Something like Tales of Master Seshiro is a fine playable but it could easily be the 3rd or 4th best green card from the pack.

Shigeki + Skyturtle is a very powerful engine but it's very slow and the rest of your deck isn't really defensive enough

That is a salient point on Green. Definitely something that I didn't realize in the QDs (which is the only way I could draft NEO until now).

The engine is great, but I actually really don't like playing slow grindy games that outvalue opponents over many turns. I wouldn't have drafted this deck if it didn't seem quite that open - I'm not going to force something else just because of a personal dislike. Anyway, hopefully next time I get something I actually like playing, like Ninjas, or the UR artifacts dream which is probably very bad but dammit, I want to make mechanauts happen

# ? Feb 4, 2023 19:07

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Lone Goat posted:

In paper boosters, they have special art versions of all 5 Praetors in draft boosters, so they're also on Arena. We don't know what the drop rate on them is, though.

Check the part that of this article says Borderless concept praetors.

flatluigi posted:

during the early access event the other day they were showing up in the drafts on arena, and at the very least i know the five praetors have promo versions (with their original set legalities) that are in boosters in paper. don't know if they also appear in the non-promo forms or if draftsim has the weighting of the praetors correct

Huh, that's cool. Mostly won't have much impact I guess but the occasional Vorinclex Toxic deck will be hilarious.

# ? Feb 4, 2023 20:01

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 15:23

flatluigi: Apr 23, 2008; here come the planes

vorinclex in a set with ten planeswalkers is also very funny

# ? Feb 4, 2023 20:04

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