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 Greetings, Planeswalker! Magic the Gathering: Arena is a digital implementation of the venerable and popular collectable card game. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, it’s casual, it’s totally playable without grinding yourself into a paste. Most importantly, it’s MAGIC with very few caveats. Let’s start with the links, and not make folks scroll like crazy to find where I hid them:  Arena download site: https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena Trad Games thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3979741 Daily MTG: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles Discord: https://discord.gg/5tsv4tmBdE Deck overlay/collection tracker: https://mtgarena.pro/ Card database: https://scryfall.com/ Deck ideas and meta info: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/ Less-proven/currently brewing deck ideas: https://twitter.com/ArenaDecklists Competitive reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/ Currently active promo codes: https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-promo-codes/ Submit a ticket (for reimbursement after something you paid for breaks): https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new Limited deck recording, tracking and replays: https://www.17lands.com/ Deck Overlay (good one): https://mtga.untapped.gg/   Welcome to the good one. Many of the common complaints about other CCGs go back to limitations those games placed on themselves due to technology at the time. The upside is you get to play on your opponent’s turn. Spend some time getting used to the phases of each turn. Google “priority” in MTG terms, and get used to the idea of the stack and how triggers work (and resolve). Combat works very differently in Magic than in many other digital CCGs. Most people here will tell you it’s better. Functionally it makes games a bit slower, but also a LOT less snowbally.   Welcome back! Many people used the Arena launch as an on-ramp back into a game they found too time- or cash-consuming. The good news is Arena is, in fact, MUCH less time- and cash- consuming. You give up the ability to “cash out” your physical collection, so the game is 0% investment. It's NOT a CCG. It's a video game. There's no market to play or groundfloors to get in on. But for most people, $20-30 each set will go a long way toward making this a full Magic experience. Now go check the price of a Scalding Tarn.   What can I do? Magic is split broadly into two formats: constructed and limited. Constructed is decks you bring with you (standard, Brawl, pauper), limited is decks you build as part of the event (booster draft, sealed). Every constructed event has its own rules about deck construction. Both constructed and limited offer Best of One (Bo1) and Best of Three (Bo3) modes. In general, Bo1 offers faster, more varied, and more random play. Bo1 is how most digital games are played and is best for when you want to jam games for an indeterminate amount of time. It’s more random, so DO NOT GET SALTY about Bo1. Bo3 offers longer, more strategic matches. Bo3 is how paper Magic is played in tournaments, so many familiar players prefer it. It takes more time and meta knowledge than Bo1, but it’s still very much Magic, so DO NOT GET SALTY about Bo3. There is a limited ladder and a constructed ladder. Bo1 and Bo3 share a ladder but will not queue into each other (obviously). What is the ladder? Ladder is similar to most other games. You win and go up; you lose and go down. The rank tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Mythic) have floors, so you can’t drop from Gold to Silver, but you can drop from Gold 1 to Gold 2. If you are having trouble in the unranked queue, jumping into ranked might be a great idea. Ranked will pair you with other people who are just starting out (or who are just coming back from a long break). The rewards for ladder are intentionally VERY flat. The difference between Plat and Mythic is several hundred games played and only a few packs in rewards. This is the game’s way of telling you, “Plat 4 is fine, chill out and play what and when you want.” Let me yell this from the rafters: If you are playing a reasonably competitive deck reasonably well, your rank prior to Mythic is a function of your time played more than your skill. R E LA X How does the economy work? There are a handful of currencies in Arena. Gold is the hand-out currency, and it is most-commonly earned by completing your daily quests. You can spend gold on packs (1000 gold = 1 pack) or on events (5,000 gold for entry into one booster draft being the most popular, some tournament-structured events have gold buy-ins). Gems are the in-app-purchase currency. You will most likely acquire them via paying money into the game. They also are granted as a reward for doing well in certain events. The most reliable way to convert gold into gems by using gold to enter Ranked Draft mode. Experience is earned by completing quests, participating in events, cashing in codes, and winning games (up to a 15-game-per-week cap, rotating on Sunday morning, EST). Experience earns you free packs in the Mastery system. Orbs are earned along the Mastery system, as well, and are used for unlocking the cosmetic versions of cards. What is the Mastery system? The Mastery system is Arena’s answer to season passes. On the free path, you earn a pack of the newest set every other level, plus some cosmetic Orbs. Paying the gem-equivalent of $20 gets you the season pass, which has larger and more varied rewards, plus a few other cosmetic trinkets. How do I craft cards? Opening packs earns you Wild Cards. You collect Wild Cards of every rarity (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythic), which you spend in the collection manager to acquire individual cards. You earn an uncommon and a rare wild card every six packs you open, and a mythic every fifth time around the circle. You can also open a Wild Card IN the pack (as in your rare for pack is a rare wild card). A rare wildcard is the best thing you can open. There is duplicate protection in place on rare and mythic cards. You WILL NOT open a rare or mythic card of which you already own a playset (4 copies). The game simply rerolls that card in the background for you. Common and uncommon cards do not have duplicate protection. Every common and uncommon you open past your 4th goes a small percentage toward unlocking your Vault. When the Vault hits 100% you get a little treasure chest in your top bar; clicking it gives you a small handful of Wild Cards. You start building toward your next vault immediately, whether you click the chest immediately or not. In practice, don’t worry too much about the Vault, it’ll just happen on its own about once per set and the rewards are relatively small. How do I build a collection? How you build your collection will depend on your goals and how you want to play. If you love to play constructed, spend your gold on packs. Packs lead to Wild Cards, which are what you use to craft your stuff. 5,000 gold is five swings at opening a card you need, plus moves you nearly all the way around to unlocking a rare Wild Card. If you love to draft, spend your gold on drafts. You will earn wild cards more slowly this way, but you need them less because you primarily want to draft. 5,000 will give you any rares you draft, but only the packs you open as rewards will go toward your Wild Card wheel. Craft cards you want to play in decks you expect to be fun. If you want to craft a card you currently own zero copies of, click over to the search interface and click on the toggle for cards not yet in your collection. They'll show up dark in the UI to show you don't have any, but you can craft them from here.   I’m brand new ... First off, I'll repeat this link from above. Every set has its own promo code for some free packs, and they'll occasionally put out codes for other freebies. After you finish the new-player stuff, go try every code on this page: https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-promo-codes/ OK, done. I'm brand new, what deck should I build? This is far and away the most-asked question, and also the hardest one to answer in an OP. Intro decks are going to change nearly every set, and “what deck is good?” is going to change a lot more often than that. So here’s a link: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper This contains the best information for what decks and cards are good at any given moment. It has recent tournament results, broad strokes at the current meta, and playable budget decks. Look for cards that fit both into some of the budget lists and the current meta, and start there. If you just want to play games to win, there’s almost always a common/uncommon heavy aggro deck that focuses on a handful of rares and a basic-heavy manabase. Seek it out. Feel free to ask the thread. We'd rather steer you in the right direction than have you spend all your new-player Wild Cards on a deck that is not going to be fun. I want to spend some money, what’s the best way to do it? Finish the New Player Experience completely to unlock the starter decks and cards, then buy the intro bundle. Its contents will probably change from set to set, but it’s always going to be the best value starting out. Can I go infinite like on MTGO? Probably not, it’s much harder in Arena. Are they going to put in old sets? Yes! The long-term plan is for Pioneer to be playable on Arena (see "What is Explorer?" section below). This means some large chunks of cards need to be dropped into the game. The plan was originally to rush Pioneer onto Arena, but the rising popularity of Historic and the success of the release of pre-launch sets seems to have shifted priorities behind the scenes. Right now, we seem to be alternating between dumping large sets of non-Pioneer cards into Historic (via Jumpstarts and other supplemental products) and releasing "Remastered" sets for blocks that were published into Pioneer before Arena launched. Explorer is here. Pioneer is coming. The timeline for that full transition is measured in years, not months. What is Alchemy? In early 2022, Wizards launched a new Arena-only format (a "Live" format, in WotC terms) named Alchemy. The format is parallel to Standard, sharing rotations and largely sharing cardpools, however Alchemy includes digital-only cards: specifically, cards in Standard that have been adjusted for power level and cards introduced specifically for Alchemy. As Historic is also a Live format, all powerlevel changes to Standard cards also carry over to Historic. What is rotation? Every year in the fall, Magic releases a new set. And with the fall set’s release, Standard rotates out all the sets from 3 years ago and Alchemy rotates out all the sets from 2 years ago (the goal being to keep the Alchemy metagame churning more often while allowing paper Standard players to enjoy their physical cards a bit longer). https://whatsinstandard.com/ What is Historic? Historic is the non-rotating "Modern-ish" format of Arena. It comprises every card available on Arena, starting with the game's open beta launch. Historic will eventually include the complete card list of Pioneer, but also has had larger releases of cards specifically for Historic that mostly have comprised cards not legal in Pioneer. The overall idea is, "If you can play it on Arena, you can play it in Historic." Historic, of course, maintains its own large banlist, along with a "Suspended" list. Suspended cards are on time out as the team decides whether to remove them permanently from the format (potentially resulting in wild card refunds) or let them back in once the format has gotten more powerful. Cards have actually returned from suspension: Field of the Dead returned (and was eventually banned), Burning-Tree Emissary was unsuspended and has been unproblematic. Historic's design goal seems to point at it being "Powerful, Fair Magic." Fetches are banned as are most game-winning combo pieces and oppressive strategies. What is Timeless Timeless is the non-rotating "Vintage-ish" format of Arena. It comprises every card available on Arena, period. That includes fetch lands and combo pieces with only a Restricted list protecting us from the most absurdly broken strategies. What is Explorer? Explorer is the non-rotating "Pioneer-ish" format on Arena. It comprises all Pioneer-legal cards currently implemented in Arena. The plan is to introduce all the relevant cards for Pioneer over a few years, then eventually retire the name Explorer and just call it Pioneer, aligning it with paper and MTGO. Explorer is a paper-aligning format. Alchemy changes are not live, and its banlist will largely match Pioneer until the Explorer-to-Pioneer transition is possible. Explorers lead to Pioneers, get it?  What is the most efficient way to break into Historic as a newer player? kalel posted:there were historic cards released in special "historic anthology" sets which you could buy in bundles, but there were also events called "jumpstart" which introduced new cards into arena. those cards could only be acquired by playing the jumpstart event (basically you choose two precons with one or two rares each and combine them into a deck, the contents of which were added to your collection) or by spending WC's. (one fucky thing is that the second jumpstart added some modern horizons 1 and 2 cards but these aren't searchable in the collection search interface, you need to manually type set:mh1 or set:mh2 into the search bar to see these) What's the deal with packs? If you came from paper, you're familiar with 15-card boosters. Arena introduces 8-card boosters as well, and they perform different functions. When you buy a pack with gold or earn it through a reward you get an 8-card pack. This has duplicate protection and advances your Wild Card wheels. You can open Wild Cards in these packs. The 15-card packs still exist, but only as part of limited. There is no duplicate protection and opening them does not advance your Wild Card wheels. If you draft (or open in a Sealed pool) a rare or mythic you already have four copies of, you'll play the event with that card and be given some gems to compensate. Where do I submit a reimbursement request? Just had a draft stall and fail on P1P12. (Or similar game-breaking bugs.) https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new What is everybody talking about? Often, players will refer to their deck’s colors by the officially sanctioned WotC names. The Guilds (introduced in Ravnica block): White + Blue = Azorius Blue + Black = Dimir Black + Red = Rakdos Red + Green = Gruul Green + White = Selesnya White + Black = Orzhov Blue + Red = Izzet Black + Green = Golgari Red + White = Boros Green + Blue = Simic The shards (introduced in Shards of Alara block, representing a color and the two colors it’s touching on the color wheel): Red + green + black = Jund White + green + blue = Bant Black + red + blue = Grixis Green + white + red = Naya Blue + white + black = Esper The wedges (introduced in Khans of Tarkir, representing a color and the two colors it is NOT touching on the color wheel): Blue + red + white = Jeskai Red + white + black = Mardu Black + green + blue = Sultai Green + blue + red = Temur White + black + green = Abzan Four- and five-color have some informal names but nothing yet set in stone. Huxley fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Dec 12, 2023 |
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Aug 31, 2022 15:37
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magic fun
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Aug 31, 2022 15:42
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thanks for the new op, op. I too like Magic on the go
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Aug 31, 2022 15:48
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Is there a separate thread for MTG Spellslinger
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Aug 31, 2022 15:49
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I have enough currency for 5 drafts. I am prepared to lose them all and still have fun
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Aug 31, 2022 15:51
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when does DMU go up on arena? Tomorrow?
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Aug 31, 2022 16:00
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Tomorrow yes
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Aug 31, 2022 16:05
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Kashuno posted:when does DMU go up on arena? Tomorrow? Yeah Thursday 8am ish Pacific, after server downtime and then the client will be buggy as gently caress all day like it is every set release lol
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Aug 31, 2022 16:08
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Ignoring drafts and spending all gold cracking packs is also a perfectly valid F2P option that has worked out well for me so far.
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Aug 31, 2022 16:12
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Huxley posted:
Probably should have the following: Limited deck recording, tracking and replays https://www.17lands.com/ Deck Overlay (good one) https://mtga.untapped.gg/
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Aug 31, 2022 16:16
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With boogeymen like Goldspan and Luminarch Aspirant going away, I am excited for standard.
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Aug 31, 2022 16:40
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gems in the store today
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Aug 31, 2022 16:40
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Shrecknet posted:With boogeymen like Goldspan and Luminarch Aspirant going away, I am excited for standard. The boogeymen are dead. Long live the boogeymen
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Aug 31, 2022 16:41
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One extra link that's useful - MTGDecks.net Good for metagame breakdowns especially for Arena where there aren't very many major tournaments so getting data can be a bit of a pain Playingexplorer.com is also good if you want some explanations of the Explorer metagame, though the decklists tend to be a bit wack (not in a good way)
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Aug 31, 2022 16:42
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yeah, for explorer decks, you kinda need to check playingexplorer, mtgazone, untapped.gg, mtggoldfish, and aetherhub, and basically just try to figure out the common denominators because they all suck in their own ways.
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Aug 31, 2022 17:03
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Hello
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Aug 31, 2022 17:55
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goodness posted:I have enough currency for 5 drafts. I am prepared to lose them all and still have fun I have 4 event tokens from the bundle plus 3 (soon to be 4) drafts' worth of currency, we'll see how long that lasts me lol. I will start as usual with Sealed and see how things go from there
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Aug 31, 2022 18:06
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Lone Goat posted:
Thank you, I've been using mtga pro tracker and untapped in's website is much better.
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Aug 31, 2022 18:09
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It feels like another lifetime that I thought I could keep up with the top 1200 when even the pros who have played for years are fighting tooth and nail on the last day lol https://twitter.com/h0lydiva/status/1565030691754196994 Maybe I will leave behind all that bad energy. New thread, new day
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Aug 31, 2022 20:44
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Craft lands that produce multiple mana colors as these are useful in pretty much any deck you build Also black is the best color
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Aug 31, 2022 20:47
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:It feels like another lifetime that I thought I could keep up with the top 1200 when even the pros who have played for years are fighting tooth and nail on the last day lol There's a certain type of person ... and I AM that person ... that those stat trackers are like poison in your brain. Just watching the number go up and down makes enjoying playing impossible. It gives every game stakes, even if it's just stakes in the number. I totally understand for some people that's what gets the juices pumping to play in the first place, but I think it's very important to know what kind of person you are and how your mental health is affected by those trackers. Don't be afraid to just feel your W/L on vibes, assume you're doing pretty well, and enjoy the ride. I spent a season pushing for rank in Hearthstone a million years ago, nearly gave myself an ulcer, then never played another match after reset. That's definitely not everybody, but was definitely me. You gotta know if it's you. Magic Arena does not reward success proportionate to the effort required to succeed. That's not a bug, it's a design ethos.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:26
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:It feels like another lifetime that I thought I could keep up with the top 1200 when even the pros who have played for years are fighting tooth and nail on the last day lol Yeah top 250 ladder is very difficult. I'm not good enough to get there playing Premier normally but I've exploited quick drafts to squeeze in. For limited it takes a consistent 65% bo1 winrate; it's probably in the 70s or higher for bo3 constructed. Best to ignore mythic rank unless you really want to do the qualifier weekend, and even then the play-ins are probably a more reasonable way to get in.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:38
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first page post. achievement unlocked 
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Aug 31, 2022 22:45
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Maybe I will leave behind all that bad energy. New thread, new day I enjoyed you enjoying historic brawl. Dumb, good fun 
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Aug 31, 2022 22:59
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Whooping Crabs posted:Craft lands that produce multiple mana colors as these are useful in pretty much any deck you build Craft decks not cards is usually good advice to follow. It's nice to have a solid mana base, but if you never end up playing those colors it ends up being wasted wildcards that could have been used on a deck.
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Aug 31, 2022 23:55
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 I've been running this in Explorer BO1 and it's been pretty damned good for me.
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Sep 1, 2022 00:03
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Judgy Fucker posted:I enjoyed you enjoying historic brawl. Dumb, good fun My go to dumb fun is historic brawl Gyruda. So entertaining to pull out Gyruda plus spark double or any of the other handful of copy/flicker stuff. Panopticon is hilarious.
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Sep 1, 2022 00:07
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Huxley posted:DO NOT GET SALTY
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Sep 1, 2022 00:07
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Mentat Radnor posted:My go to dumb fun is historic brawl Gyruda. So entertaining to pull out Gyruda plus spark double or any of the other handful of copy/flicker stuff. Panopticon is hilarious. My dumb fun is Kaalia, Zentith Seeker. Giada is the supposed angel commander but I love having access to black and red. My deck is an angel tribal deck, but in the top end I have a handful of dragons and one demon so I get the benefit of Kaalia's ETB and also have this flavor of "angels but with an angry and bad streak." And there's some very interesting-looking angels in mardu colors coming out in DomU, so excited about some upgrades to the deck
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Sep 1, 2022 00:19
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From the content I’m seeing showing off the early access, domain seems to be powerful enough that the common duals seem superior to the rare painlands in draft. How odd. Also the Thran portal is hot garbage.
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Sep 1, 2022 00:19
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It’s me the annoying “hbrawl is so much fun you guys” poster.
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Sep 1, 2022 00:33
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Simone Poodoin posted:It’s me the annoying “hbrawl is so much fun you guys” poster.  It's great for completing daily quests too, in a no-stakes fun format with all sorts of absurd jank to chuckle about even when you get your rear end handed to you.
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Sep 1, 2022 01:02
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Simone Poodoin posted:It’s me the annoying “hbrawl is so much fun you guys” poster. it's only annoying if you complain about losing as baral
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Sep 1, 2022 01:12
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kalel posted:it's only annoying if you complain about losing as baral Yeah if you play a baral deck you renounce your human rights
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Sep 1, 2022 02:27
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Sep 1, 2022 02:30
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Simone Poodoin posted:Yeah if you play a baral deck you renounce your human rights 
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Sep 1, 2022 02:58
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Just got back into arena this month. Maybe I will start playing something that isn't straight red this rotation.
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Sep 1, 2022 03:05
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Is there a separate thread for MTG Spellslinger Oh jeez, I'm actually still playing Spellslinger. It's kinda good...
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Sep 1, 2022 03:06
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Dominaria United Limited Primer Kicker:      If you've never played with kicker before, it's very strong. It gives you flexibility; it's cheap when you need something cheap, but later in the game you get something more powerful out of the same card. DMU puts a unique twist on it, making kicker costs be a different color. You really want to be in both colors because if you're just getting a two mana 2/2 every time, that's just a below-rate card. There's a decent amount of fixing though, so you can do things like put a small number of blue sources in your green deck to kick Vineshaper Prodigy some of the time. Kicker is evenly distributed color-wise, each color has four kicker cards at common (one with each other color in it's kicker cost) and four at uncommon (same). Green has a lot of fixing though which makes it better at utilizing those kicker costs. Archetypes: While the archetypes of most sets are split into 10 color pairs, this set focuses more on giving each color a singular thing to build around. Your two color decks will be an overlap of those two synergies. For example:         White cares about making tokens. Black cares about sacrifice. So white/black gold cards want you to sacrifice lots of tokens. Blue cares about spells, so blue/white cards will reward you for casting spells and making tokens. And so on. White: Tokens/Enlist     White is good at making a bunch of 1/1s. The payoffs are mostly found in the gold uncommons. Blue: Instants/Sorceries     Usually it's just U/R that cares about spells but here every blue pair is going to like cheap instants/sorceries that give you a redraw. The common blue cards honestly look pretty weak on their own; like white you should be looking to your gold cards for your power. Black: Graveyard/Sacrifice      Black does a lot of different things here, there's cards where you sacrifice creatures, cards where you self-mill, and cards that care about what's in your graveyard. How exactly those things get you ahead will depend on your second color. White give you tokens for lots of sacrifice fodder, green gives you big creatures that your black cards get back from your graveyard, etc. Also you have a bunch of removal as usual. Red: Aggro      Red says I don't care what synergy we're doing, let's get people dead. Their commons lean aggressive and the gold uncommons take the synergy of your secondary color and converts it into damage. Green: Domain/Big Boys       I'm not very high on domain. You have to put off-color lands in your deck, plus cards that can find those lands, and hope that your payoffs outweigh all the risk you've taken on. Domain has the side benefit of allowing splashes though, which is a big deal in this set since all of the kicker costs in the set require a different color. There's a cycle of 10 dual lands with basic land types, which green some extra use out of, getting a potential +2 types for your domain cards. Alternatively, we could just cast creatures that are bigger than our opponent's creatures, and then attack with them. Sounds like a good plan to me. Top Commons in no particular order:     Kind of a short list, everything afterwards is pretty contextual. Good luck, have fun! little munchkin fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 03:15
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I'm very excited for Dominaria United! I always love rotation time and Explorer has been really fun. I made it to Mythic this month with like 15 minutes left in the season for the first time ever and I was really happy! Huxley posted:There's a certain type of person ... and I AM that person ... that those stat trackers are like poison in your brain. Just watching the number go up and down makes enjoying playing impossible. It gives every game stakes, even if it's just stakes in the number. I had to step back and play a little less in the last 6 months because of how unhappy it made me. I decided towards the end of July that I wanted to get into Explorer, and I played a lot this month and have had fun, but haven't let it totally consume me either! SalTheBard fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 03:19
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