Arena does a bunch of hidden mulliganing before it shows you hands to keep, right? To make it much more likely you have a few lands but not too many and maybe even to make it more likely you have early turn plays? I hardly ever seem to get mana flooded or starved in opening hands compared to shuffling in paper magic and I don't think I'm suddenly magically better at deckbuilding now than I was in paper.
In Bo1 it deals you three hands and tries to give you the one it thinks has the best curve. In 24 land decks, that's normally 3 lands with a curving drops. In Bo3 I think that's turned off.
One thing in the original post by Wizards about Smoothing that didn’t seem right is that it applies only to your opening hand draw and doesn’t apply to any Mulligans. So I mulliganed each Arena hand down to zero and tracked those numbers as well.
Finally, I decided to use a data set size of 104 hands. I settled on 104 because 7 mulligans in Arena gives you 8 hands to look at. Do that 13 times to get past 100 hands and you have a total of 104 hands. According to Hasbro’s recent Q4 earnings call, the average player spends 8 hours a week playing Arena. Based on my own experience, 6 games per hour is about average when playing a mix of deck styles. So 104 hands is about 17 hours of play, which is about 2 weeks of play for the average Arena player.
With the paper deck, I found that I averaged 2.78 lands per hand, which is about what you would expect from a 24 land deck. Then in Arena Bo3 104 hands averaged 2.70 lands, while Area Play B01 averaged 2.76 lands per hand. Finally, Ranked Play averaged 2.75 lands per hand. That’s a pretty consistent result between all four data sets considering the sample size. This was an expected outcome. Smoothing doesn’t change the average number of lands you would draw over a large sample size. The point of Smoothing is to reduce the individual hand extremes. Two hands with 3 lands a piece has the same average land count as one hand with 0 land and one hand with 6 land. The important difference in those two small groups is the difference in playability.
I've heard it said that you get the best of three hands, and best of two hands. I'm not sure anyone knows, and I'm pretty sure it's tuned frequently. I notice a lot of times immediately after patches, I'll get hands with 0-1 or 6-7 lands that I never see outside of those patch windows.
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
In no way does smoothing give you the “best” hand, just one closer to your expected average land draw.
Like you can still get a completely unplayable 3 land hand with 4 4-6 drops
fuck gendered marketing
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Yeah, here "best" is indicative of your average amount of lands per hand.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I've made what feels (to me) to be the best Rakdos deck I can make in the current standard. Currently 11-3ish today (realized halfway through the day that I haven't reinstalled aetherhub).
My main problem with Snakdos (using treason effects and then sacrificing them) is that it's very binary; it's either 100% soul destroying when you grab that 8/8 Speaker of the Heavens with a Sky Hammer through their Loyal Compainions, or half your deck is dead cards. My version of Rakdos plays more like Big Red with black added in for some more efficient removal and graveyard tricks. We then splash white because the deck desperately needs card draw against control matchups, Showdown of the Skalds is pretty much the only card that works.
Tried some other card draw. Village Rites wasn't "card advantage" except in a few situations (saccing Kroxa after playing him, or saccing Shades and replaying them after attacking). Throne of Death is nice, but 3 mana for one card is too slow, and competed with escape cards. Funeral Rites was tolerable, but didn't swing the matchup. Erebos kinda sucks in a lot of control matchups, due to not going off on exile effects. Treacherous Blessing is mostly an "I lose" button in most aggro matchups. Skull Raid often just discarded (great card tho). Mazemind Tome is too slow, but wasn't unplayable (acceptable replacement).
Clash of the Skalds really gives you that mid-late game boost against decks you'd normally stall out against. The deck has so many plays to make, grabbing four cards all at once really lets you explode. I think the best reason to run it is just because it shows you all the cards at once, as opposed to Mazeminding them out one at a time.
Otherwise the deck is just beatdown+removal+recursion. The original deck ran Kardur's Vicious Return, which combo'd off playing a shade/triton/reaper, and would (likely discard and) bring back the Terror of the Peaks, Ox, or Goldspan. Terror of the Peaks + Kroxa/Shades was loads of fun, but the deck was fairly fragile to removal and typically folded if I drew too many dragons and no Kardurs.
Renegade Reaper is a huge MVP for me. It throws four cards into the bin instantly, and you get a nice flying body. Compare it to Tymaret Calls the Dead, which bins six cards (exiling two, hopefully), but only has a chance of actually making (non-flying) bodies. The Goldspans are also a huge win, but the Predators are pretty meh; I'll likely drop them when another good 4 drop appears. I think they'd work better in a deck that puts out more tokens early game.
Huh. Was stalled out against some kind of janky artifacts/red/ugin deck in the festival, and then I guess they decked themself because they got above 20 life with two of those elixir artifacts and started drawing from them, and had already burned through a lot of their deck with mazemind tomes. I was dead next turn too. Was not expecting it at all, funny.
I don't understand. Was playing against an angel deck, they had a bunch of flying bastards out and won the attrition war with the enchantment that makes you sac a creature every time you kill one of their angels. I was down to one hellkite punisher with an empty hand. They had me dead to rights the next turn so I said "good game" then dumped all my red mana into pumping my dragon for a futile final attack, suicided it into their defenses... and they chose not to chump block it and took the lethal damage in the face rather than simply making me sac it after chumping, then finishing me off the next turn.
??? did I psych them out with the "good game" and the big number on the dragon???
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
edited March 2021
Holy shit this gaaaaaaaame.
Kept a two land hand because it had Duskwielder and a bunch of two drops. Proceeded to miss land drops for the next 4 turns, leading to sick plays like Demonic Gifts'ing the Duskwielder to kill their lone Explosion Hawk. Next turn Packmate comes down, followed by a Horizon Seeker who immediately gets Snake Skinned to kill my blocker and then next turn Struggles to kill my other 2/2.
Things are getting sweaty, since at this point I still have two land. Demon Bolt gets foretold, followed by finally drawing another mountain. This lets me kill the big Seeker and another, newer one with Frost Bite and Bolt. Dwarven Reinforcements keep the Packmate at bay while Stalwart Valkyrie lands and eats a Weigh Down. Beskir Shieldmate trades away. I'm down to 1 but finally getting land and play the Draugr equipment, making a zombie and also equipping the Hammer. Packmate gets a Valor of the Worthy, and when I swing with the equipped zombie it eats an Iron Verdict and my opponent GGs. The second Dwarven Reinforcements comes down and the Packmate swings in anyways, trading for the 1/1 flier. My opponent GGs again.
The turn 1 Duskwielder suits up and swings in, gaining me the 1 life I need to survive the flier. Next turn it swings in for the win.
Played my first Draft in months. Last one I did was Ikoria, I think. Anyway, Quick Draft Kaldheim. Put together a WR deck that I wasn't super happy with, but did have some promise, I thought. A lot of cheap creatures to go wide and aggro them out, a couple of fliers, some removal, and a few heavy hitters in case the aggro plan didn't work out.
I must have been playing during a quiet moment. I frequently had to wait quite a bit and my low Bronze rank regularly got matched against players high in Silver rank.
Anyway, I went 7-0. So, you know, it worked out in the end.
WotanAnubis on
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
@Carnarvon that list you posted looked cool and I had a chunk of it so I threw together something completely different and janky.
But ermegerd it's Tergerd. Except my opponent played their Tergrid first, and took my first Showdown. Unfortunately they conceded before we could start passing the Showdowns back and forth forever.
@Carnarvon that list you posted looked cool and I had a chunk of it so I threw together something completely different and janky.
But ermegerd it's Tergerd. Except my opponent played their Tergrid first, and took my first Showdown. Unfortunately they conceded before we could start passing the Showdowns back and forth forever.
This was a very silly game.
Tergrid is going to replace Kroxa when he rotates out, I think. Not a 1:1 replacement by any means, but it's a largely unignorable threat that wins the long game.
Here's hoping we get a viable Mardu list out with Strixhaven.
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
The only way the game is rigged is that it keeps putting me against diamond players in limited instead of gold.
I had two games against gold leaguers recently and one used a Gnottvold Slumbermound to destroy their own land and I'd like more games like that, please.
The only way the game is rigged is that it keeps putting me against diamond players in limited instead of gold.
I had two games against gold leaguers recently and one used a Gnottvold Slumbermound to destroy their own land and I'd like more games like that, please.
Limited matchmaking is more flexible than constructed matchmaking because it bases it on your record with your current deck as well as your rank.
The only way the game is rigged is that it keeps putting me against diamond players in limited instead of gold.
I had two games against gold leaguers recently and one used a Gnottvold Slumbermound to destroy their own land and I'd like more games like that, please.
Limited matchmaking is more flexible than constructed matchmaking because it bases it on your record with your current deck as well as your rank.
Yeah, and I was of course using the pro strat of throwing the first two games to get easier matches and it wasn't at all because I'd built yet another pile of garbage.
The only way the game is rigged is that it keeps putting me against diamond players in limited instead of gold.
I had two games against gold leaguers recently and one used a Gnottvold Slumbermound to destroy their own land and I'd like more games like that, please.
Limited matchmaking is more flexible than constructed matchmaking because it bases it on your record with your current deck as well as your rank.
Yeah, and I was of course using the pro strat of throwing the first two games to get easier matches and it wasn't at all because I'd built yet another pile of garbage.
My 52 card quick draft deck is 6-2.
This pile's gonna make it
Feels like i got matched against a bunch of bad jank decks right after I retuned my deck. But probably just running into a bunch of people with unlucky draws or bad matchups against me or something.
My main issue with Genesis Ultimatum is that it's too much luck and too little skill.
Eerie Ultimatum is probably a personal peeve since I like playing long games. When my opponent plays Eerie, it's so devastating that the game is basically over. And it's not the epic ending to a tug of war game that I was hoping for.
Emergent seems OK to me. It's not luck based and it's not necessarily a game ending card.
It's a set about casting spells, so I'm going to be pretty PO'd if there aren't big, cool spells. Ultimatums are big, cool spells. Ikoria was a tricolor set with plenty of two-color hybrid cards. Strixhaven is a dual-color set, but could it also have tricolor cards?
The previously spoiled Command cycle is kinda meh, so here's hoping.
I've got decks that, through a variety of colour combinations, might theoretically run 4 of the 5 Commands that have been shown (technically all 5, but the 5 colour Slivers deck doesn't really need any more thrown in there).
Lorehold and Silverquill aren't really blowing me away at the 4-5 mana range, though the former acting as an anti-board wipe holds some appeal.
Quandrix might make it into either the Rafiq or Edric's decks, 3 mana and some solid versatility at instant speed.
Witherbloom I could put into 3 (non-Sliver) decks and its effects might be a bit limited by its cost, but the idea of blowing up someone's Sol Ring with one of them amuses me all the same. The potential to act as double removal (that and the -3/-1 effect on a small creature, pro-actively or after combat) holds appeal.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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In Bo1 it deals you three hands and tries to give you the one it thinks has the best curve. In 24 land decks, that's normally 3 lands with a curving drops. In Bo3 I think that's turned off.
Edit: great article at https://mtgazone.com/mtg-arenas-opening-hand-algorithm-and-smoothing/
I've heard it said that you get the best of three hands, and best of two hands. I'm not sure anyone knows, and I'm pretty sure it's tuned frequently. I notice a lot of times immediately after patches, I'll get hands with 0-1 or 6-7 lands that I never see outside of those patch windows.
Like you can still get a completely unplayable 3 land hand with 4 4-6 drops
Two lands two one drops 2 2 drops and a 3 drop is a decent start for many decks.
But if the second hand it pulls is 3 lands and all your high cost cards and 3 lands is closer to average, enjoy having to mulligan!
(The annoyance of this is mitigated in that you never see that first hand of course)
The way y'all are describing it is outright wrong and would be easily gameable.
3 Immersturm Predator (KHM) 214
3 Goldspan Dragon (KHM) 139
2 Ox of Agonas (THB) 147
4 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger (THB) 221
4 Bonecrusher Giant (ELD) 115
3 Skyclave Shade (ZNR) 125
3 Mire Triton (THB) 105
3 Renegade Reaper (KHM) 386
2 Eliminate (M21) 97
3 Bloodchief's Thirst (ZNR) 94
2 Soul Sear (M21) 160
4 Showdown of the Skalds (KHM) 229
2 Shatterskull Smashing (ZNR) 161
4 Blightstep Pathway (KHM) 252
3 Swamp (ZNR) 272
4 Needleverge Pathway (ZNR) 263
2 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241
4 Savai Triome (IKO) 253
4 Brightclimb Pathway (ZNR) 259
My main problem with Snakdos (using treason effects and then sacrificing them) is that it's very binary; it's either 100% soul destroying when you grab that 8/8 Speaker of the Heavens with a Sky Hammer through their Loyal Compainions, or half your deck is dead cards. My version of Rakdos plays more like Big Red with black added in for some more efficient removal and graveyard tricks. We then splash white because the deck desperately needs card draw against control matchups, Showdown of the Skalds is pretty much the only card that works.
Tried some other card draw. Village Rites wasn't "card advantage" except in a few situations (saccing Kroxa after playing him, or saccing Shades and replaying them after attacking). Throne of Death is nice, but 3 mana for one card is too slow, and competed with escape cards. Funeral Rites was tolerable, but didn't swing the matchup. Erebos kinda sucks in a lot of control matchups, due to not going off on exile effects. Treacherous Blessing is mostly an "I lose" button in most aggro matchups. Skull Raid often just discarded (great card tho). Mazemind Tome is too slow, but wasn't unplayable (acceptable replacement).
Clash of the Skalds really gives you that mid-late game boost against decks you'd normally stall out against. The deck has so many plays to make, grabbing four cards all at once really lets you explode. I think the best reason to run it is just because it shows you all the cards at once, as opposed to Mazeminding them out one at a time.
Otherwise the deck is just beatdown+removal+recursion. The original deck ran Kardur's Vicious Return, which combo'd off playing a shade/triton/reaper, and would (likely discard and) bring back the Terror of the Peaks, Ox, or Goldspan. Terror of the Peaks + Kroxa/Shades was loads of fun, but the deck was fairly fragile to removal and typically folded if I drew too many dragons and no Kardurs.
Renegade Reaper is a huge MVP for me. It throws four cards into the bin instantly, and you get a nice flying body. Compare it to Tymaret Calls the Dead, which bins six cards (exiling two, hopefully), but only has a chance of actually making (non-flying) bodies. The Goldspans are also a huge win, but the Predators are pretty meh; I'll likely drop them when another good 4 drop appears. I think they'd work better in a deck that puts out more tokens early game.
This.
Though if you’re my opponent please keep playing 16 land limited decks.
3 Glorious Protector (KHM) 12
7 Plains (ANB) 115
4 Saw It Coming (KHM) 76
10 Island (ANB) 113
3 Ravenform (KHM) 72
4 Cosmos Charger (KHM) 51
4 Behold the Multiverse (KHM) 46
1 Hengegate Pathway (KHM) 260
3 Niko Defies Destiny (KHM) 226
3 Hypnotic Sprite (ELD) 49
2 The Raven's Warning (KHM) 227
3 Brazen Borrower (ELD) 39
4 Vega, the Watcher (KHM) 233
2 Gates of Istfell (KHM) 256
3 Temple of Enlightenment (THB) 246
4 Lofty Denial (M21) 56
Sideboard
1 Invoke the Divine (DAR) 22
2 Swift Response (M21) 40
2 Realm-Cloaked Giant (ELD) 26
2 Alrund's Epiphany (KHM) 41
1 Kiora Bests the Sea God (THB) 52
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (M21) 1
1 Spoils of Adventure (ZNR) 237
1 The Magic Mirror (ELD) 51
1 Doomskar (KHM) 9
2 Daybreak Chimera (THB) 10
1 Ravenform (KHM) 72
??? did I psych them out with the "good game" and the big number on the dragon???
Kept a two land hand because it had Duskwielder and a bunch of two drops. Proceeded to miss land drops for the next 4 turns, leading to sick plays like Demonic Gifts'ing the Duskwielder to kill their lone Explosion Hawk. Next turn Packmate comes down, followed by a Horizon Seeker who immediately gets Snake Skinned to kill my blocker and then next turn Struggles to kill my other 2/2.
Things are getting sweaty, since at this point I still have two land. Demon Bolt gets foretold, followed by finally drawing another mountain. This lets me kill the big Seeker and another, newer one with Frost Bite and Bolt. Dwarven Reinforcements keep the Packmate at bay while Stalwart Valkyrie lands and eats a Weigh Down. Beskir Shieldmate trades away. I'm down to 1 but finally getting land and play the Draugr equipment, making a zombie and also equipping the Hammer. Packmate gets a Valor of the Worthy, and when I swing with the equipped zombie it eats an Iron Verdict and my opponent GGs. The second Dwarven Reinforcements comes down and the Packmate swings in anyways, trading for the 1/1 flier. My opponent GGs again.
The turn 1 Duskwielder suits up and swings in, gaining me the 1 life I need to survive the flier. Next turn it swings in for the win.
WU control deck winning against Yorion/Ugin metadeck: Hahaha, yes!
Also turning mazeminds into 1/1 birds is funny.
I must have been playing during a quiet moment. I frequently had to wait quite a bit and my low Bronze rank regularly got matched against players high in Silver rank.
Anyway, I went 7-0. So, you know, it worked out in the end.
But ermegerd it's Tergerd. Except my opponent played their Tergrid first, and took my first Showdown. Unfortunately they conceded before we could start passing the Showdowns back and forth forever.
This was a very silly game.
Can you even imagine flickering out a Troll after it's come back as an enchantment!
Tergrid is going to replace Kroxa when he rotates out, I think. Not a 1:1 replacement by any means, but it's a largely unignorable threat that wins the long game.
Here's hoping we get a viable Mardu list out with Strixhaven.
I am begging people to stop believing this.
I had two games against gold leaguers recently and one used a Gnottvold Slumbermound to destroy their own land and I'd like more games like that, please.
Limited matchmaking is more flexible than constructed matchmaking because it bases it on your record with your current deck as well as your rank.
If the game isn't rigged against me, why aren't I rank 1? I get my 15 wins every week! What else am I supposed to do?
My 52 card quick draft deck is 6-2.
This pile's gonna make it
Emergent is ok?
And they're CCCDDEE spells. They had better be powerful.
Speaking of Strixhaven...
Eerie Ultimatum is probably a personal peeve since I like playing long games. When my opponent plays Eerie, it's so devastating that the game is basically over. And it's not the epic ending to a tug of war game that I was hoping for.
Emergent seems OK to me. It's not luck based and it's not necessarily a game ending card.
Uh... I have bad news on that front.
Exactly one of those saw serious play. Go on, guess which.
Man... comparing Violent to Ruinous never fails to upset me...
Hmm... there's something suspicious about the new Professor... I got it! Her name is an anagram for "Sexy Roofs Porn"!
Ok then I don't know why you'd expect them in a set without a 3-color theme. Or were you expecting something like a WWWWBBBB spell?
Make them cost CCCDDDH, where H is a hybrid mana.
The previously spoiled Command cycle is kinda meh, so here's hoping.
wonder if Giants will become a viable standard deck with the Red Blue love.
Lorehold and Silverquill aren't really blowing me away at the 4-5 mana range, though the former acting as an anti-board wipe holds some appeal.
Quandrix might make it into either the Rafiq or Edric's decks, 3 mana and some solid versatility at instant speed.
Witherbloom I could put into 3 (non-Sliver) decks and its effects might be a bit limited by its cost, but the idea of blowing up someone's Sol Ring with one of them amuses me all the same. The potential to act as double removal (that and the -3/-1 effect on a small creature, pro-actively or after combat) holds appeal.