Been enjoying Jumpstart a good amount, but this was the saddest strugglebus of a combo yet:
Just a bunch of mid-tier draft commons with easily disrupted synergies and Tiny Bones. I think it took 7 matches to get my 2 wins and retire.
I got Dragons Spellcasting earlier and it was also a real fight to get anything done. For a pack called "Spellcasting" that thing is remarkably creature-heavy.
I stumbled on a mono black aggro list that I'm tweaking and it's doing.....okay...in Bo1 unranked. At this point I'm farming quests but I'm changing the list as I go.
I'm trying to decide if I want to burn wildcards on Archfiend's Vessel if I have minimal graveyard shenanigans, or do I burn even more wildcards for Call of the Death Dweller and Grim Menagerie (I have one of each to test out).
It feels like you want one of the "Iconic Creature" packs (Dragons, Angels, etc...), as they tend to yield a good density of playables across the curve alongside absolute bombs, and then pair that with a Utility pack (like Phyrexian) or Aggression (like Legion).
Garruk + Phyrexian has been the strongest pairing so far.
It feels like you want one of the "Iconic Creature" packs (Dragons, Angels, etc...), as they tend to yield a good density of playables across the curve alongside absolute bombs, and then pair that with a Utility pack (like Phyrexian) or Aggression (like Legion).
Garruk + Phyrexian has been the strongest pairing so far.
It feels like you want one of the "Iconic Creature" packs (Dragons, Angels, etc...), as they tend to yield a good density of playables across the curve alongside absolute bombs, and then pair that with a Utility pack (like Phyrexian) or Aggression (like Legion).
Garruk + Phyrexian has been the strongest pairing so far.
Two "mythic" packs better be dumb.
Is this to say that Garruk + Phyrexian are more rare than other packs, or that they guarantee Mythics? I feel like I see Phyrexian a lot and nothing about it screams "overpowered", but I suppose Garruk must always get Garruk?
Oooooor.... People are just playing Magic instead of posting here!
I am having fun with the deck that you posted nexuscrawler
I don't have bonecrusher giants for some reason so I used Legion Warbosses to replace those cards.
This deck really beats on slowish deck strategies it feels like. I have yet to face rdw though.
Board wipes hurt but I find i can usually outpace standard RDW. Not to mention if you get Tajic/Enforcer on the board your creatures are effectively immune to RDW
I was debating some Legion Bosses to give a hasted options for Winota to trigger. Really if she triggers more than once on a turn you almost always win.
So I heard this morning that the most recent PT / event had 72% Reclamation of some form.
I've been in and out of the MTG scene the past 12 years or so, but the last time I can remember this dominant of a deck type in Standard was back when Jund and then Caw Blade were everywhere.
Do you think there will be another round of bans to pull the meta back, or is there enough deck type counters and more people have to play them?
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
So I heard this morning that the most recent PT / event had 72% Reclamation of some form.
I've been in and out of the MTG scene the past 12 years or so, but the last time I can remember this dominant of a deck type in Standard was back when Jund and then Caw Blade were everywhere.
Do you think there will be another round of bans to pull the meta back, or is there enough deck type counters and more people have to play them?
It's only 54%, though if you add Bant Ramp it's 65% Growth Spiral decks.
The bigger question to me is not whether it'll solve itself but whether we're close enough to Zendikar Rising (two months) that they don't see it worthwhile to shake things up now. The PT Finals are the last big event of the format, so it seems like if they were going to drop another big ban it would've happened after PT4.
It feels like you want one of the "Iconic Creature" packs (Dragons, Angels, etc...), as they tend to yield a good density of playables across the curve alongside absolute bombs, and then pair that with a Utility pack (like Phyrexian) or Aggression (like Legion).
Garruk + Phyrexian has been the strongest pairing so far.
Two "mythic" packs better be dumb.
Is this to say that Garruk + Phyrexian are more rare than other packs, or that they guarantee Mythics? I feel like I see Phyrexian a lot and nothing about it screams "overpowered", but I suppose Garruk must always get Garruk?
So I heard this morning that the most recent PT / event had 72% Reclamation of some form.
I've been in and out of the MTG scene the past 12 years or so, but the last time I can remember this dominant of a deck type in Standard was back when Jund and then Caw Blade were everywhere.
Do you think there will be another round of bans to pull the meta back, or is there enough deck type counters and more people have to play them?
The last several sets have each been one of the least diverse metas in Magic’s history. Throne of Eldrain had simic food and led to the Bannings of oko, once upon a time and summer’s veil. Ikoria had companions and lukka fires which led to the banning of fires/agent and the first ever power level errata. M21 temur rec is slightly better than the 70+% that simic food was pulling and there are a few decks than specifically target it that can take advantage of how it builds for the mirror. The play design team has not had a good year which is really odd considering last standards were considered the best it’s ever been.
Tried out 4 different deck combos. 1 was crappy, 2 were about 50/50 wins decks, and the good one: Counters/Basri got me 3 wins in a row very easily. Should have kept it.
Tried another Jumpstart as well. Predatory Counters. It did a lot better than the Devils & Angels deck, at least. Although I suppose I haven't played enough of either deck to be able to tell for sure.
Even tried a few games of Ranked. I'm all the way down in the lowest of the Bronze tiers. Surely there my severely limited card pool and janky "builds" will be less of a handicap.
First game was against a Growth Spiral/Uro/Hydroid Krasis deck.
*sigh*
Well... at least it wasn't Teferi.
Now, in fairness, second game was against a Mentor Boros deck my monowhite nonsense actually prevailed against, but still. Not a very inviting welcome back to Ranked, you know?
Does Fate Unraveler hit all opponents? Black Vise's revised wording has me questioning even though it seems obvious it does.
Yes.
Black Vise originally read "target opponent" so its revised wording is consistent with the original, just more clear.
Not that I disagree with your answer, but Black Vise originally read "If Opponent". 50 people are all my "opponent"! But alas.
Unfortunately the most recent printing of a card trumps any previous version. This is why Loxodon Warhammer actually grants "lifelink" while every other card with the old version (printed prior to Future Sight) still has a triggered ability that has to resolve before you gain the life; the 10th Edition printing of Warhammer was updated to actually have lifelink.
In the case of Black Vise, the 4th Edition wording targets your opponent.
I bought into another jumpstart event. After the slow slog that was the teferi Liliana mix that focused on discard and mill I got Cats: heavily armored. The cats heavily armored mix is a cats aggro and +1/+1 package that has a lot of synergy and had a lot more fun to play.
Wilderness Reclamation is a really badly designed card like Nexus of Fate
its like it was designed to trash the meta
If they had just worded the ability like Prophet of Kruphix or Seedborn Muse then it would have been more reasonable and done (probably) what they wanted, which was to give you untapped lands during your opponent's turn. Making it a triggered ability that goes on the stack is what broke it into "double your mana for instants" territory.
I think they should consider taking advantage of the digital nature of arena to shape decks towards more variety somehow? Like, they could keep track of the cards people are playing all the time, and cards which are always present with 4 copies in the deck and somehow auto limit them in a special format? Call it 'Evolving standard' or something.
Evolving standard would start out the same as normal standard, BUT, every deck records the day it was created on, and only lasts 7 days from the day it was created, before it just turns into a normal standard deck. In evolving standard, the game would keep track of wins, and card content of decks and if ever a card was uniformly present in a wide variety of decks, especially if those decks always won, then the maximum number of it you could have would go down if you made a deck on the next 'day'
Lets imagine there are these cards
Llanowar Elf
Grizzly Bear
Force of Nature
Giant Growth
Giant Spider
Healing Hawk
Serra Angel
Holy Strength
Initially, on day 1 you'd be allowed to have 4 of any of them. However, if it turned out that on day 1 75% of the decks looked like this
4*Healing Hawk
4*Holy Strength
4*Giant Growth
or
4*Healing Hawk
4*Serra Angel
4*Giant Growth
And the system found that two things were true
75% of decks contained 4/4 giant growths
Decks containing 4/4 giant growths won 50% more than those which didn't
Then on day 2, decks you made that day would only be allowed 3 giant growths. And if people kept on including giant growths, and the giant growths kept on making them more likely to win, then giant growths might be completely banned by day 5, and would stay banned (due to the old decks from days 1-4) until day 12 when their numbers would start going back up again (because they aren't allowed in any decks any more, so they can't make the decks win)
Effectively its a format which gradually auto bans anything which seems to be always making people win, or anything which everyone is playing, but ESPESCIALLY if both those things are true at once. Not forever, but, I think it might be a cool little extra thing that you can only do in MTGA.
They already hold "Standard Shakeup" events fairly often.
Yes, but I'd like to play "Kill the winners" as a format all the time. Like, rather than click on "Play a standard match", and have yet another deck which is copied from a website I'd like to play against a card set which is continually forced to change.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
It's a very interesting idea, just hard to balance the coding investment with the payoff, and since by design it needs to run for weeks or longer to work it creates another division in the player-base. Then what do you do if/when it creates a better format than standard? XD
(I'm guessing what would actually happen is you'd see it degenerate until enough cards had been removed it was a weird bad block format, but that'd take a while.)
It's a very interesting idea, just hard to balance the coding investment with the payoff, and since by design it needs to run for weeks or longer to work it creates another division in the player-base. Then what do you do if/when it creates a better format than standard? XD
(I'm guessing what would actually happen is you'd see it degenerate until enough cards had been removed it was a weird bad block format, but that'd take a while.)
The reason I think it might be interesting is that at lower levels in it, where people are just engaged in muck about play with weird and wacky decks, most decks would be legal in "Evolving Standard" AND "Standard" at the same time, so your evolving standard queue could often pull people in from the standard queue at lower levels. I'd also want cards to come back if you see what I mean, after all the decks which 'were allowed' to be built with them before they were banned were removed from the cycle, clearly those cards couldn't win or be included in every deck any more, so they would start to come back
But yes, breaking up the queues could be annoying. Multiqueue would be the answer to that though
To me it would seem to fundamentally make a different style of play than standard. Much harder to 'solve' for the strongest deck, because the strongest deck you can make today is not the same as the strongest deck you could make yesterday. You've only got 1 day with that instance of the format before it changes, and every piece you use to solve it that day is at risk of being taken away from you tomorrow. Combo pieces which made something unbeatable might fade away, leaving you only with one part of the combo, can you rebuild it in another way? And so on. It's not such a neat and clean puzzle as Standard is, which some people wouldn't like, but every day is a bit different which some people definately would.
I can't wait for them to ban the new Ugin. What a broken card.
New Ugin is not that bad. Old Ugin is the real awful one. May as well just say “win the game”
I can handle Old Ugin. He takes a while to win the game, so you have a chance to do something about him. New Ugin completely wrecks you the moment he hits the board. He's a better Planar Cleansing than Planar Cleansing. Your opponent doesn't get any death triggers and you get to keep Ugin on the board. And he's colorless.
I mainly play in the Play queue and I've started to quit against Simic players because the chances of meeting Ugin are too high. My decks - that depend on having a board state - can't win against him. You can't even add removal to your deck, because you don't get a chance to play it before Ugin activates.
I can't wait for them to ban the new Ugin. What a broken card.
New Ugin is not that bad. Old Ugin is the real awful one. May as well just say “win the game”
I can handle Old Ugin. He takes a while to win the game, so you have a chance to do something about him. New Ugin completely wrecks you the moment he hits the board. He's a better Planar Cleansing than Planar Cleansing. Your opponent doesn't get any death triggers and you get to keep Ugin on the board. And he's colorless.
I mainly play in the Play queue and I've started to quit against Simic players because the chances of meeting Ugin are too high. My decks - that depend on having a board state - can't win against him. You can't even add removal to your deck, because you don't get a chance to play it before Ugin activates.
The new Ugin you're talking about is old Ugin. Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is a reprint. "New" Ugin is the 6-mana Ugin, the Ineffable.
Ah, ok. I haven't been playing long enough to see him before. So I thought he was new. But if he's a reprint, then the chances of him getting banned are probably low
Fiskebent on
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
If something's going to get banned it's not the 8-mana topper, it's the cards that let you get the 8-mana topper in on turn 4. The power of G/U ramp is the problem.
Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
Posts
I also played in the Historic Shake-up event, which coughed up a level if you managed a single win.
Just a bunch of mid-tier draft commons with easily disrupted synergies and Tiny Bones. I think it took 7 matches to get my 2 wins and retire.
I got Dragons Spellcasting earlier and it was also a real fight to get anything done. For a pack called "Spellcasting" that thing is remarkably creature-heavy.
I'm trying to decide if I want to burn wildcards on Archfiend's Vessel if I have minimal graveyard shenanigans, or do I burn even more wildcards for Call of the Death Dweller and Grim Menagerie (I have one of each to test out).
Garruk + Phyrexian has been the strongest pairing so far.
Two "mythic" packs better be dumb.
Is this to say that Garruk + Phyrexian are more rare than other packs, or that they guarantee Mythics? I feel like I see Phyrexian a lot and nothing about it screams "overpowered", but I suppose Garruk must always get Garruk?
Board wipes hurt but I find i can usually outpace standard RDW. Not to mention if you get Tajic/Enforcer on the board your creatures are effectively immune to RDW
I was debating some Legion Bosses to give a hasted options for Winota to trigger. Really if she triggers more than once on a turn you almost always win.
I've been in and out of the MTG scene the past 12 years or so, but the last time I can remember this dominant of a deck type in Standard was back when Jund and then Caw Blade were everywhere.
Do you think there will be another round of bans to pull the meta back, or is there enough deck type counters and more people have to play them?
It's only 54%, though if you add Bant Ramp it's 65% Growth Spiral decks.
The bigger question to me is not whether it'll solve itself but whether we're close enough to Zendikar Rising (two months) that they don't see it worthwhile to shake things up now. The PT Finals are the last big event of the format, so it seems like if they were going to drop another big ban it would've happened after PT4.
They are more rare, with no variations.
Yes.
Black Vise originally read "target opponent" so its revised wording is consistent with the original, just more clear.
The last several sets have each been one of the least diverse metas in Magic’s history. Throne of Eldrain had simic food and led to the Bannings of oko, once upon a time and summer’s veil. Ikoria had companions and lukka fires which led to the banning of fires/agent and the first ever power level errata. M21 temur rec is slightly better than the 70+% that simic food was pulling and there are a few decks than specifically target it that can take advantage of how it builds for the mirror. The play design team has not had a good year which is really odd considering last standards were considered the best it’s ever been.
Play other formats if you can right now.
its like it was designed to trash the meta
Tried out 4 different deck combos. 1 was crappy, 2 were about 50/50 wins decks, and the good one: Counters/Basri got me 3 wins in a row very easily. Should have kept it.
Even tried a few games of Ranked. I'm all the way down in the lowest of the Bronze tiers. Surely there my severely limited card pool and janky "builds" will be less of a handicap.
First game was against a Growth Spiral/Uro/Hydroid Krasis deck.
*sigh*
Well... at least it wasn't Teferi.
Now, in fairness, second game was against a Mentor Boros deck my monowhite nonsense actually prevailed against, but still. Not a very inviting welcome back to Ranked, you know?
Not that I disagree with your answer, but Black Vise originally read "If Opponent". 50 people are all my "opponent"! But alas.
Unfortunately the most recent printing of a card trumps any previous version. This is why Loxodon Warhammer actually grants "lifelink" while every other card with the old version (printed prior to Future Sight) still has a triggered ability that has to resolve before you gain the life; the 10th Edition printing of Warhammer was updated to actually have lifelink.
In the case of Black Vise, the 4th Edition wording targets your opponent.
If they had just worded the ability like Prophet of Kruphix or Seedborn Muse then it would have been more reasonable and done (probably) what they wanted, which was to give you untapped lands during your opponent's turn. Making it a triggered ability that goes on the stack is what broke it into "double your mana for instants" territory.
Evolving standard would start out the same as normal standard, BUT, every deck records the day it was created on, and only lasts 7 days from the day it was created, before it just turns into a normal standard deck. In evolving standard, the game would keep track of wins, and card content of decks and if ever a card was uniformly present in a wide variety of decks, especially if those decks always won, then the maximum number of it you could have would go down if you made a deck on the next 'day'
Lets imagine there are these cards
Llanowar Elf
Grizzly Bear
Force of Nature
Giant Growth
Giant Spider
Healing Hawk
Serra Angel
Holy Strength
Initially, on day 1 you'd be allowed to have 4 of any of them. However, if it turned out that on day 1 75% of the decks looked like this
4*Healing Hawk
4*Holy Strength
4*Giant Growth
or
4*Healing Hawk
4*Serra Angel
4*Giant Growth
And the system found that two things were true
75% of decks contained 4/4 giant growths
Decks containing 4/4 giant growths won 50% more than those which didn't
Then on day 2, decks you made that day would only be allowed 3 giant growths. And if people kept on including giant growths, and the giant growths kept on making them more likely to win, then giant growths might be completely banned by day 5, and would stay banned (due to the old decks from days 1-4) until day 12 when their numbers would start going back up again (because they aren't allowed in any decks any more, so they can't make the decks win)
Effectively its a format which gradually auto bans anything which seems to be always making people win, or anything which everyone is playing, but ESPESCIALLY if both those things are true at once. Not forever, but, I think it might be a cool little extra thing that you can only do in MTGA.
Yes, but I'd like to play "Kill the winners" as a format all the time. Like, rather than click on "Play a standard match", and have yet another deck which is copied from a website I'd like to play against a card set which is continually forced to change.
(I'm guessing what would actually happen is you'd see it degenerate until enough cards had been removed it was a weird bad block format, but that'd take a while.)
The reason I think it might be interesting is that at lower levels in it, where people are just engaged in muck about play with weird and wacky decks, most decks would be legal in "Evolving Standard" AND "Standard" at the same time, so your evolving standard queue could often pull people in from the standard queue at lower levels. I'd also want cards to come back if you see what I mean, after all the decks which 'were allowed' to be built with them before they were banned were removed from the cycle, clearly those cards couldn't win or be included in every deck any more, so they would start to come back
But yes, breaking up the queues could be annoying. Multiqueue would be the answer to that though
To me it would seem to fundamentally make a different style of play than standard. Much harder to 'solve' for the strongest deck, because the strongest deck you can make today is not the same as the strongest deck you could make yesterday. You've only got 1 day with that instance of the format before it changes, and every piece you use to solve it that day is at risk of being taken away from you tomorrow. Combo pieces which made something unbeatable might fade away, leaving you only with one part of the combo, can you rebuild it in another way? And so on. It's not such a neat and clean puzzle as Standard is, which some people wouldn't like, but every day is a bit different which some people definately would.
New Ugin is not that bad. Old Ugin is the real awful one. May as well just say “win the game”
Probably means Old Ugin, as it was reprinted in M21.
I can handle Old Ugin. He takes a while to win the game, so you have a chance to do something about him. New Ugin completely wrecks you the moment he hits the board. He's a better Planar Cleansing than Planar Cleansing. Your opponent doesn't get any death triggers and you get to keep Ugin on the board. And he's colorless.
I mainly play in the Play queue and I've started to quit against Simic players because the chances of meeting Ugin are too high. My decks - that depend on having a board state - can't win against him. You can't even add removal to your deck, because you don't get a chance to play it before Ugin activates.
The new Ugin you're talking about is old Ugin. Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is a reprint. "New" Ugin is the 6-mana Ugin, the Ineffable.