I bet if you look at all of the formats they are a much better way to lose gold than packs even if you are bad.
I was looking at draft for this. I just started last night. Opening a normal pack gets you a wild card. Do you get wild cards from drafts? Those seem like the most important resource available because they're essentially a percentage of a Chase mythic, guaranteed.
Assuming you get the wild card credit, you've got three packs for the price of five off the bat. If you're competitively drafting you'll probably actually get lower return on those since you won't be rare drafting. What's the guaranteed reward for losing a draft?
The above is a really good analysis of the rewards for each of the events.
Mythic wildcards are great, but I think giving up a few of them for the ICR is a good trade off. There are only 74 mythic rares in the game and you can average getting 2 a day just doing constructed events for your 15 wins a day and buying packs with the rest of your gold.
You earn wildcards pretty slowly but you get free cards quickly. If you do everything to maximize wildcards but ignore all the free cards you are going to struggle putting together anything. I think that's why people feel like the game is stingy. It is stingy if you try to build all your decks with pack buying/wildcards.
You do get about 1 mythic wildcard for every 13.3 packs, 1 uncommon for every 2.7 packs, and 1 rare wildcard for every 5.7 packs. Hopefully, that helps determining what mode to play.
furbat on
+1
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
He means you don't increment the wildcard counter like you do when you open arena packs. It really depends on how badly you want to play higher tiered constructed decks vs limited or just playing what you have and waiting. To build good constructed decks quickly you're buying packs for wildcards. Of course once you have one you like, which can be pretty quick, depending, then you can patiently grind to fill out your collection with randoms. Unless you want to build a second constructed deck right now. Or a fifth, or..
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
0
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
From my experience it's the rare wildcards that are the bottleneck. Though that could change and depends on what you want to build, probably.
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
+2
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Mythic wildcards are great, but I think giving up a few of them for the ICR is a good trade off. There are only 74 mythic rares in the game and you can average getting 2 a day just doing constructed events for your 15 wins a day and buying packs with the rest of your gold.
You earn wildcards pretty slowly but you get free cards quickly. If you do everything to maximize wildcards but ignore all the free cards you are going to struggle putting together anything. I think that's why people feel like the game is stingy. It is stingy if you try to build all your decks with pack buying/wildcards.
You do get about 1 mythic wildcard for every 13.3 packs, 1 uncommon for every 2.7 packs, and 1 rare wildcard for every 5.7 packs. Hopefully, that helps determining what mode to play.
I'm not sure how getting random mythics helps you build a deck. After all, there are 74 of them so you're unlikely to get the ones you want.
What's the percentage of playable mythics, anyhow?
Also, how much gold are you expecting people to have, in order to get your daily wins through constructed events? You need a deck to have a fair shake in those anyhow.
At a 50% win rate, the average run costs you 90 gold. You earn 1360 gold on average a day if you hit 15 wins (1160 at 4). You can play in constructed events all day long and not run out of gold even if you are bad. I usually do 2 runs a day. The gold you lose is so minor compared to the free gold you earn a day. And a lot of people here, myself included, have mentioned making gold there. The last time I had a run where I won less than 5 wins was 4 days ago.
If you play all 105 wins each week in constructed events, over the course of a year you will earn around 10 copies of each mythic rare.
I wrote up a big analysis here where I compare 3 play styles: 16 wins a week, 42 wins a week, 105 wins a week. And then calculated how fast you acquire cards vs how fast they release in a year.
When does Ixalan / Rivals of Ixalan / Dominaria / M19 rotate?
And I am up to 32,000 gold. I am an idiot.
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0
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
105 wins per week for playsets of mythics (though a lot of those will be 5th copies) sounds kind of extreme. I do not have enough time for 210 games per week assuming a 50% win rate. That's 30 games per day.
Doable if I do nothing after work except play arena, but I 100% cannot do that.
I normally get around 4-5 wins in an evening then call it a day.
105 wins per week for playsets of mythics (though a lot of those will be 5th copies) sounds kind of extreme. I do not have enough time for 210 games per week assuming a 50% win rate. That's 30 games per day.
Doable if I do nothing after work except play arena, but I 100% cannot do that.
I normally get around 4-5 wins in an evening then call it a day.
Moderate Player: 4 wins 3 days a week, 15 wins 2 days a week (42 wins)
Free Play: Cards per year: [2529, 1458, 498, 90] C/U/R/M cards and [181, 199, 95, 41] C/U/R/M wildcards
. 6.60 of each common, 4.86 of each uncommon, 2.29 of each rare, and 1.53 of each mythic rare. Moderate players will also open the card vault 2.65 times.
Constructed Event: Cards per year: [2208, 2970, 882, 300] C/U/R/M cards and [158, 174, 83, 36] C/U/R/M wildcards. 5.77 of each common, 9.9 of each uncommon, 4.06 of each rare, and 5.08 of each mythic rare. Moderate players will also open the card vault 7.86 times.
At 50% win rate, each win on average 'costs' you 33 gold in CE. So a constructed event player that plays 42 wins a week will buy about 1.4 less packs a week.
furbat on
0
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
edited November 2018
So in that analysis, you're still spending most of your gold buying packs? You just recommend spending some gold to do your constructed play in the constructed event rather than quick play ladder? That makes some sense. You have to play somewhere, after all, and you get no rewards at all for quick play itself.
The gold cost from constructed events is basically nothing. If you go 2-3 it costs 200 gold. If you are a 4 win a day player and you went 2-3 every time it'd 'cost' 400 gold to do 4 wins but you earn 1160 a day on average anyway. Over the course of a week this would be 2.8 less packs. Which means 8.3 packs a week vs 11.1 packs a week. But you are getting 42 cards a week.
But you shouldn't go 2-3 every time. Realistically it's costing you about a pack or 2 a week even if you are playing all day long and not breaking even. But you are getting rares and mythics out the waazoo with free cards.
I'm playing golgari and getting 5-7 wins each time. A good mono-red, mono-blue, or white weeny could probably do better and do it faster.
Real talk, @furbat card acquisition breakdowns are the reason I decided to keep playing. His post came quite literally after my post where I was feeling overwhelmed with the economy/card count of the game. Knowing that playing for about a year would yield a large portion of the cards made me stick with it for a bit longer.
That also allowed me to get to @Kay video post about crafting a cheap, yet competitive Merfolk deck. While I've accepted that I'll be playing this deck exclusively for a long time, it also made me feel a bit better knowing I was piloting a functionally strong deck, instead of the pre-made partial junk deck the game provides. Tack on all the posts about helping me wrap my head around the turn mechanics and order-of-operation effects and I feel much better about the game.
Funny how just one post can change a mind, no?
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+9
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I really wish they had a separate kind of wildcard for Rare Dual Lands.
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
@MNC Dover Remember that if you like that deck, there are further options to improve it in that video - you should be able to make it stronger with that info!
Orrrrr you can continue to grind with it as is, and build towards another style of deck. I mostly hunted out Merfolk advice as you'd expressed and interest in that precon.
My next aim are 4x Sword Point Diplomacy for Rakdos burn, which I've wanted to play for ages after seeing Risk Factor (got a playset of those in Arena now) which now makes me look like a trend follower as it is emerging as a Real Burn Deck now.
The game is actually very generous. It just seems overwhelming. You can average around 2 mythics a day if you win 15 games a day in constructed events with a 50% win rate. There are only 74 mythics in the game. In 2 months of play you could have collected about 100 mythics and earned a good 10 mythic wildcards on top of that. Between the two you should be able to piece together enough copies of mythics to build most of the tournament decks in the top 8. Or at least come awfully close. Rares are probably a bigger bottleneck though.
I just had a frustrating moment. Opponent plays a Planeswalker lady who has a "-3 Destroy an enemy Permanent" ability and she casts it on my legendary fish dude. I cast Blink of an Eye to send her back to his hand. It does, but her ability goes off killing him. I thought it would cancel his ability out seeing as how she isn't on the board anymore. Guessing that falls into the "I'm still blocking even though I don't exist" weirdness.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
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I just had a frustrating moment. Opponent plays a Planeswalker lady who has a "-3 Destroy an enemy Permanent" ability and she casts it on my legendary fish dude. I cast Blink of an Eye to send her back to his hand. It does, but her ability goes off killing him. I thought it would cancel his ability out seeing as how she isn't on the board anymore. Guessing that falls into the "I'm still blocking even though I don't exist" weirdness.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
Yeah, you should have bounced your own dude.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
+1
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
Correct. Once an effect is on the stack, it doesn't matter what happens to the source.
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
+1
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
I just had a frustrating moment. Opponent plays a Planeswalker lady who has a "-3 Destroy an enemy Permanent" ability and she casts it on my legendary fish dude. I cast Blink of an Eye to send her back to his hand. It does, but her ability goes off killing him. I thought it would cancel his ability out seeing as how she isn't on the board anymore. Guessing that falls into the "I'm still blocking even though I don't exist" weirdness.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
Just chalk it up to a learning experience. Bouncing a Planeswalker is usually only good to stop them from using their ultimate ability when they are getting close. Note: it won't stop the ability going off if they're using it, so do it in their untap/upkeep or just in your main phase.
However, you could have bounced Kumena back to your hand, protecting him from the ability. (if the spell doesn't target permanents and opponent controls - some of the cheaper bounce can only bounce opponent's cards)
You could also tap and draw, or tap and put counters on merfolk etc, if you had the requisite untapped creatures in play. Always useful to get value of of something even if it's going to die.
I forget - does that deck play both Merfolk Branchwalker and Jadelight Ranger? They're good possible upgrades, and go into other decks, too.
I just had a frustrating moment. Opponent plays a Planeswalker lady who has a "-3 Destroy an enemy Permanent" ability and she casts it on my legendary fish dude. I cast Blink of an Eye to send her back to his hand. It does, but her ability goes off killing him. I thought it would cancel his ability out seeing as how she isn't on the board anymore. Guessing that falls into the "I'm still blocking even though I don't exist" weirdness.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
I always picture the cards hurling fireballs at each other for this. The planeswalker shoots the spell, but if you kill the planeswalker in response, the spell is still in the air. Usually once abilities fire, nothing can be done to stop them, unless you remove their target or otherwise change the environment around them.
As far as I'm aware, the only way to take something off of the stack is to counter it. You can counter spells, but there are also ways to counter abilities (such as siren stormtamer).
The one thing to remember about that is that the stack in MTGA is not quite accurate. For instance, if you cast murder on a stitcher's supplier, two effects will go on the stack: first, the stitcher supplier's death ability, and second, murder. That means they'll happen in the right order, but as far as I'm aware, stitcher's supplier's death ability only goes on the stack at the point it is actually sent to the graveyard.
Which means if you don't want that ability to trigger, you can bounce it, and since it never entered the graveyard, that ability will "leave the stack" (note, it does not leave the stack, it was never on the stack, but MTGA treats spells and abilities and effects on the stack and REMINDERS of what will end up being on the stack the same, visually speaking)
0
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
I just had a frustrating moment. Opponent plays a Planeswalker lady who has a "-3 Destroy an enemy Permanent" ability and she casts it on my legendary fish dude. I cast Blink of an Eye to send her back to his hand. It does, but her ability goes off killing him. I thought it would cancel his ability out seeing as how she isn't on the board anymore. Guessing that falls into the "I'm still blocking even though I don't exist" weirdness.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
Yeah, once an ability is put on the stack, the ability is kind of its own object independent of the card that created it.
When a spell or ability is played, it checks whether it can legally be played (have you selected valid targets, are any conditions met, etc.) and if yes, it gets added to the stack and waits for its turn to resolve.
If you want to remove it from the stack once it's on there, you will have to do something to the thing on the stack, not the thing that put it there (I mean, killing a player removes their stuff but mumble mumble).
In your case, one way would be if you had a card that exiled your fish dude and then returned it to play. When fish dude disappears, the ability on the stack "loses" track of it, and doesn't get to "re-target" fish dude when it returns. Then, when the ability went to resolve it would check what it was targeting, see nothing, and fizzle out.
My next aim are 4x Sword Point Diplomacy for Rakdos burn, which I've wanted to play for ages after seeing Risk Factor (got a playset of those in Arena now) which now makes me look like a trend follower as it is emerging as a Real Burn Deck now.
I built this deck and got hammered in normal ladder with it. I dunno, maybe I made a mistake, but I never got my threats / maybe had bad shuffles. I dunno.
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
As far as I'm aware, the only way to take something off of the stack is to counter it. You can counter spells, but there are also ways to counter abilities (such as siren stormtamer).
The one thing to remember about that is that the stack in MTGA is not quite accurate. For instance, if you cast murder on a stitcher's supplier, two effects will go on the stack: first, the stitcher supplier's death ability, and second, murder. That means they'll happen in the right order, but as far as I'm aware, stitcher's supplier's death ability only goes on the stack at the point it is actually sent to the graveyard.
Which means if you don't want that ability to trigger, you can bounce it, and since it never entered the graveyard, that ability will "leave the stack" (note, it does not leave the stack, it was never on the stack, but MTGA treats spells and abilities and effects on the stack and REMINDERS of what will end up being on the stack the same, visually speaking)
This all sounds very not correct. Once Murder murders Stitcher's Supplier, Murder is done resolving and is no longer on the stack (technically it gets pulled off the stack when it goes to get resolved). Stitcher's Supplier's death ability triggers once it hits the graveyard, which is after Murder is gone. You can't bounce the Supplier after its death ability triggers because it's no longer in play.
I just had a frustrating moment. Opponent plays a Planeswalker lady who has a "-3 Destroy an enemy Permanent" ability and she casts it on my legendary fish dude. I cast Blink of an Eye to send her back to his hand. It does, but her ability goes off killing him. I thought it would cancel his ability out seeing as how she isn't on the board anymore. Guessing that falls into the "I'm still blocking even though I don't exist" weirdness.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
I always picture the cards hurling fireballs at each other for this. The planeswalker shoots the spell, but if you kill the planeswalker in response, the spell is still in the air. Usually once abilities fire, nothing can be done to stop them, unless you remove their target or otherwise change the environment around them.
I remember my brother teaching me about the stack and comparing it to throwing grenades; a guy throws a grenade and you can see where it’s going (target), and shooting the guy won’t stop the grenade.
As far as I'm aware, the only way to take something off of the stack is to counter it. You can counter spells, but there are also ways to counter abilities (such as siren stormtamer).
The one thing to remember about that is that the stack in MTGA is not quite accurate. For instance, if you cast murder on a stitcher's supplier, two effects will go on the stack: first, the stitcher supplier's death ability, and second, murder. That means they'll happen in the right order, but as far as I'm aware, stitcher's supplier's death ability only goes on the stack at the point it is actually sent to the graveyard.
Which means if you don't want that ability to trigger, you can bounce it, and since it never entered the graveyard, that ability will "leave the stack" (note, it does not leave the stack, it was never on the stack, but MTGA treats spells and abilities and effects on the stack and REMINDERS of what will end up being on the stack the same, visually speaking)
This all sounds very not correct. Once Murder murders Stitcher's Supplier, Murder is done resolving and is no longer on the stack. Stitcher's Supplier's death ability triggers once it hits the graveyard, which is after Murder is gone. You can't bounce the Supplier after its death ability triggers because it's no longer in play.
Something is not right here.
So, you play murder on the supplier. I have a bounce card in my hand. I get priority after you have played murder but before it resolves. The stack now LOOKS like there's two things on it, but in reality there is just one: murder.
I bounce stitcher for whatever reason. The first thing that happens visually is that stitcher's ability "fizzles" (it doesn't, it looks like it fizzles, but really MTGA just realized it's not going to end up going off so it deletes the visual reminder). The second thing that happens visually is that murder ACTUALLY fizzles, because as it resolves its target is no longer on the battlefield.
During that interaction stitcher's death ability LOOKS like it's on the stack, but since murder never resolved, it never was. Rather, it was a visual reminder of what the stack WILL END UP LOOKING LIKE if everything proceeds as noted.
Another perhaps more common version of this is if you play a creature with ajani's welcome out, and I counter it.
First ajani's welcome "goes on the stack" then the creature spell goes on the stack for real, then I get priority. I counterspell it. Then, the creature spell fizzles due to being countered and also the ajani's welcome trigger "fizzles" even though it was never on the stack in the first place, just a reminder was.
1 Angrath, the Flame-Chained (RIX) 152
1 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
2 Banefire (M19) 130
3 Fiery Cannonade (XLN) 143
2 Fight with Fire (DAR) 119
2 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84
Not a full sideboard due to available cards / was just doing normal ladder anyways.
Looks pretty solid. If you're getting run over by aggro consistently, swap in a couple of Rituals of Soot if you're not playing in a sideboard format. What's beating you usually?
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
0
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
As far as I'm aware, the only way to take something off of the stack is to counter it. You can counter spells, but there are also ways to counter abilities (such as siren stormtamer).
The one thing to remember about that is that the stack in MTGA is not quite accurate. For instance, if you cast murder on a stitcher's supplier, two effects will go on the stack: first, the stitcher supplier's death ability, and second, murder. That means they'll happen in the right order, but as far as I'm aware, stitcher's supplier's death ability only goes on the stack at the point it is actually sent to the graveyard.
Which means if you don't want that ability to trigger, you can bounce it, and since it never entered the graveyard, that ability will "leave the stack" (note, it does not leave the stack, it was never on the stack, but MTGA treats spells and abilities and effects on the stack and REMINDERS of what will end up being on the stack the same, visually speaking)
This all sounds very not correct. Once Murder murders Stitcher's Supplier, Murder is done resolving and is no longer on the stack. Stitcher's Supplier's death ability triggers once it hits the graveyard, which is after Murder is gone. You can't bounce the Supplier after its death ability triggers because it's no longer in play.
Something is not right here.
So, you play murder on the supplier. I have a bounce card in my hand. I get priority after you have played murder but before it resolves. The stack now LOOKS like there's two things on it, but in reality there is just one: murder.
I bounce stitcher for whatever reason. The first thing that happens visually is that stitcher's ability "fizzles" (it doesn't, it looks like it fizzles, but really MTGA just realized it's not going to end up going off so it deletes the visual reminder). The second thing that happens visually is that murder ACTUALLY fizzles, because as it resolves its target is no longer on the battlefield.
During that interaction stitcher's death ability LOOKS like it's on the stack, but since murder never resolved, it never was. Rather, it was a visual reminder of what the stack WILL END UP LOOKING LIKE if everything proceeds as noted.
Another perhaps more common version of this is if you play a creature with ajani's welcome out, and I counter it.
First ajani's welcome "goes on the stack" then the creature spell goes on the stack for real, then I get priority. I counterspell it. Then, the creature spell fizzles due to being countered and also the ajani's welcome trigger "fizzles" even though it was never on the stack in the first place, just a reminder was.
Maybe I've just never seen or noticed MTGA doing this but I do not like the sounds of this at all.
Looks pretty solid. If you're getting run over by aggro consistently, swap in a couple of Rituals of Soot if you're not playing in a sideboard format. What's beating you usually?
Aggro, the walkers in green, vampire decks, etc. It just takes longer than mono red to get going, sadly.
That and playing Sword Point Diplomacy and getting unlucky and only getting lands (so they're like, cool, here).
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
So a "hit the battlefield" ability WILL hit if the creature if murdered immediately but won't if it's countered?
When the spell is on the stack, you can't Murder it. Because it doesn't exist as a creature yet. You can counter it, however.
Once it hits the battlefield, you can respond to the ETB ability and Murder the creature, but the ability still goes off as the creature had entered the battlefield.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
+1
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Just a reminder that Ravnica draft is coming back in a couple days, so if you want to do Dominaria draft get that in now and if you're in need of Ravnica cards, hold off on spending gold/gems for a couple days!
Maybe I've just never seen or noticed MTGA doing this but I do not like the sounds of this at all.
I could be wrong about something in there but I know that I've been confused before about when an ability has been on the stack and when it hasn't due to the way MTGA populates their visuals. And I'm reasonably certain casting a destroy spell on a creature will put their deathrattle stuff "on the stack" prior to the spell resolving
Posts
Well, you can, but why would you?
(You still make progress on wildcards for cards you already have four of)
https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/9lpdac/expected_value_of_mtg_arena_events/
The above is a really good analysis of the rewards for each of the events.
Mythic wildcards are great, but I think giving up a few of them for the ICR is a good trade off. There are only 74 mythic rares in the game and you can average getting 2 a day just doing constructed events for your 15 wins a day and buying packs with the rest of your gold.
You earn wildcards pretty slowly but you get free cards quickly. If you do everything to maximize wildcards but ignore all the free cards you are going to struggle putting together anything. I think that's why people feel like the game is stingy. It is stingy if you try to build all your decks with pack buying/wildcards.
You do get about 1 mythic wildcard for every 13.3 packs, 1 uncommon for every 2.7 packs, and 1 rare wildcard for every 5.7 packs. Hopefully, that helps determining what mode to play.
I'm not sure how getting random mythics helps you build a deck. After all, there are 74 of them so you're unlikely to get the ones you want.
What's the percentage of playable mythics, anyhow?
Also, how much gold are you expecting people to have, in order to get your daily wins through constructed events? You need a deck to have a fair shake in those anyhow.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
If you play all 105 wins each week in constructed events, over the course of a year you will earn around 10 copies of each mythic rare.
I wrote up a big analysis here where I compare 3 play styles: 16 wins a week, 42 wins a week, 105 wins a week. And then calculated how fast you acquire cards vs how fast they release in a year.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/9tt17n/the_real_math_behind_the_f2p_economy_in_mtga/
And I am up to 32,000 gold. I am an idiot.
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Doable if I do nothing after work except play arena, but I 100% cannot do that.
I normally get around 4-5 wins in an evening then call it a day.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
I don't think many people do. This is probably closer to you. You can compare free play vs constructed play over the course of a year here. https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/9tt17n/the_real_math_behind_the_f2p_economy_in_mtga/
Moderate Player: 4 wins 3 days a week, 15 wins 2 days a week (42 wins)
Free Play: Cards per year: [2529, 1458, 498, 90] C/U/R/M cards and [181, 199, 95, 41] C/U/R/M wildcards
. 6.60 of each common, 4.86 of each uncommon, 2.29 of each rare, and 1.53 of each mythic rare. Moderate players will also open the card vault 2.65 times.
Constructed Event: Cards per year: [2208, 2970, 882, 300] C/U/R/M cards and [158, 174, 83, 36] C/U/R/M wildcards. 5.77 of each common, 9.9 of each uncommon, 4.06 of each rare, and 5.08 of each mythic rare. Moderate players will also open the card vault 7.86 times.
At 50% win rate, each win on average 'costs' you 33 gold in CE. So a constructed event player that plays 42 wins a week will buy about 1.4 less packs a week.
But you shouldn't go 2-3 every time. Realistically it's costing you about a pack or 2 a week even if you are playing all day long and not breaking even. But you are getting rares and mythics out the waazoo with free cards.
I'm playing golgari and getting 5-7 wins each time. A good mono-red, mono-blue, or white weeny could probably do better and do it faster.
That also allowed me to get to @Kay video post about crafting a cheap, yet competitive Merfolk deck. While I've accepted that I'll be playing this deck exclusively for a long time, it also made me feel a bit better knowing I was piloting a functionally strong deck, instead of the pre-made partial junk deck the game provides. Tack on all the posts about helping me wrap my head around the turn mechanics and order-of-operation effects and I feel much better about the game.
Funny how just one post can change a mind, no?
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Orrrrr you can continue to grind with it as is, and build towards another style of deck. I mostly hunted out Merfolk advice as you'd expressed and interest in that precon.
My next aim are 4x Sword Point Diplomacy for Rakdos burn, which I've wanted to play for ages after seeing Risk Factor (got a playset of those in Arena now) which now makes me look like a trend follower as it is emerging as a Real Burn Deck now.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Good deferral removal plus you’re milling their good creatures already
Next you can splash in Thought Erasure and Disinformation Campaign and just go full-throttle FUCK YOOOOUUUUU with it.
Just when you think you understand the rules....
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Yeah, you should have bounced your own dude.
Just chalk it up to a learning experience. Bouncing a Planeswalker is usually only good to stop them from using their ultimate ability when they are getting close. Note: it won't stop the ability going off if they're using it, so do it in their untap/upkeep or just in your main phase.
However, you could have bounced Kumena back to your hand, protecting him from the ability. (if the spell doesn't target permanents and opponent controls - some of the cheaper bounce can only bounce opponent's cards)
You could also tap and draw, or tap and put counters on merfolk etc, if you had the requisite untapped creatures in play. Always useful to get value of of something even if it's going to die.
I forget - does that deck play both Merfolk Branchwalker and Jadelight Ranger? They're good possible upgrades, and go into other decks, too.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
I always picture the cards hurling fireballs at each other for this. The planeswalker shoots the spell, but if you kill the planeswalker in response, the spell is still in the air. Usually once abilities fire, nothing can be done to stop them, unless you remove their target or otherwise change the environment around them.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
The one thing to remember about that is that the stack in MTGA is not quite accurate. For instance, if you cast murder on a stitcher's supplier, two effects will go on the stack: first, the stitcher supplier's death ability, and second, murder. That means they'll happen in the right order, but as far as I'm aware, stitcher's supplier's death ability only goes on the stack at the point it is actually sent to the graveyard.
Which means if you don't want that ability to trigger, you can bounce it, and since it never entered the graveyard, that ability will "leave the stack" (note, it does not leave the stack, it was never on the stack, but MTGA treats spells and abilities and effects on the stack and REMINDERS of what will end up being on the stack the same, visually speaking)
When a spell or ability is played, it checks whether it can legally be played (have you selected valid targets, are any conditions met, etc.) and if yes, it gets added to the stack and waits for its turn to resolve.
If you want to remove it from the stack once it's on there, you will have to do something to the thing on the stack, not the thing that put it there (I mean, killing a player removes their stuff but mumble mumble).
In your case, one way would be if you had a card that exiled your fish dude and then returned it to play. When fish dude disappears, the ability on the stack "loses" track of it, and doesn't get to "re-target" fish dude when it returns. Then, when the ability went to resolve it would check what it was targeting, see nothing, and fizzle out.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Something is not right here.
This was @Bizazedo about Rakdos Burn, BTW.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
I remember my brother teaching me about the stack and comparing it to throwing grenades; a guy throws a grenade and you can see where it’s going (target), and shooting the guy won’t stop the grenade.
So, you play murder on the supplier. I have a bounce card in my hand. I get priority after you have played murder but before it resolves. The stack now LOOKS like there's two things on it, but in reality there is just one: murder.
I bounce stitcher for whatever reason. The first thing that happens visually is that stitcher's ability "fizzles" (it doesn't, it looks like it fizzles, but really MTGA just realized it's not going to end up going off so it deletes the visual reminder). The second thing that happens visually is that murder ACTUALLY fizzles, because as it resolves its target is no longer on the battlefield.
During that interaction stitcher's death ability LOOKS like it's on the stack, but since murder never resolved, it never was. Rather, it was a visual reminder of what the stack WILL END UP LOOKING LIKE if everything proceeds as noted.
Another perhaps more common version of this is if you play a creature with ajani's welcome out, and I counter it.
First ajani's welcome "goes on the stack" then the creature spell goes on the stack for real, then I get priority. I counterspell it. Then, the creature spell fizzles due to being countered and also the ajani's welcome trigger "fizzles" even though it was never on the stack in the first place, just a reminder was.
Currently, this.
4 Ghitu Lavarunner (DAR) 127
4 Viashino Pyromancer (M19) 166
4 Electrostatic Field (GRN) 97
2 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
4 Sovereign's Bite (M19) 120
4 Sword-Point Diplomacy (XLN) 126
4 Lightning Strike (XLN) 149
4 Risk Factor (GRN) 113
4 Shock (M19) 156
4 Wizard's Lightning (DAR) 152
4 Dragonskull Summit (XLN) 252
9 Mountain (XLN) 273
3 Swamp (XLN) 269
4 Cinder Barrens (M19) 248
1 Angrath, the Flame-Chained (RIX) 152
1 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
2 Banefire (M19) 130
3 Fiery Cannonade (XLN) 143
2 Fight with Fire (DAR) 119
2 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Looks pretty solid. If you're getting run over by aggro consistently, swap in a couple of Rituals of Soot if you're not playing in a sideboard format. What's beating you usually?
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Correct
That and playing Sword Point Diplomacy and getting unlucky and only getting lands (so they're like, cool, here).
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
When the spell is on the stack, you can't Murder it. Because it doesn't exist as a creature yet. You can counter it, however.
Once it hits the battlefield, you can respond to the ETB ability and Murder the creature, but the ability still goes off as the creature had entered the battlefield.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
I could be wrong about something in there but I know that I've been confused before about when an ability has been on the stack and when it hasn't due to the way MTGA populates their visuals. And I'm reasonably certain casting a destroy spell on a creature will put their deathrattle stuff "on the stack" prior to the spell resolving