...
Now at diamond tier 3 with land matters deck.
Because red aggro went second and ran their robber into the 0/1 landfall hellhound with a Fabled Passage on the board.
And then conceded.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Honestly, changing daily wins to daily games played would probably go a ways to help
It is generally a very bad idea to implement any F2P rewards system where where optimal play pattern is intentionally losing. You really do not want your queue every day to be 20% people conceding t0 for their daily grind.
It's a good thing you can put some other requirements for it to qualify. And yes you could still game it to whatever degree depending on what those requirements were.
Though I'm struggling to think why I would care. 20% instant free wins in exchange for more people being willing to play off-meta in play queue...sounds rough.
I really don't think you have experience with heavily botted games if you think that a bunch of non-games that delay your ability to actually play is something that can be shrugged off.
And sure, you can put more restrictions on it to make it so people don't tank games or otherwise waste time for rewards. The most obvious and successful one is "make it so you have to win", because everybody has about a 50% win rate so it's very easy to set up.
I'm fairly convinced that wins as the reward system is the worst system because it is what makes the game so monotonous.
Runeterra's approach of "use X amount of deck archetype" seems like a great way to force players to try to play games with off meta or different things.
"Attack 20 times with creatures with first strike"
"Foretell 20 cards"
"Exile 20 opposing cards"
Build a good pool of those, weight them against what's in meta and make them the dailies. It even adds rewarding gameplay for many players to have to build a deck they like using the card type required.
Honestly, changing daily wins to daily games played would probably go a ways to help
It is generally a very bad idea to implement any F2P rewards system where where optimal play pattern is intentionally losing. You really do not want your queue every day to be 20% people conceding t0 for their daily grind.
It's a good thing you can put some other requirements for it to qualify. And yes you could still game it to whatever degree depending on what those requirements were.
Though I'm struggling to think why I would care. 20% instant free wins in exchange for more people being willing to play off-meta in play queue...sounds rough.
I really don't think you have experience with heavily botted games if you think that a bunch of non-games that delay your ability to actually play is something that can be shrugged off.
And sure, you can put more restrictions on it to make it so people don't tank games or otherwise waste time for rewards. The most obvious and successful one is "make it so you have to win", because everybody has about a 50% win rate so it's very easy to set up.
I'm fairly convinced that wins as the reward system is the worst system because it is what makes the game so monotonous.
Runeterra's approach of "use X amount of deck archetype" seems like a great way to force players to try to play games with off meta or different things.
"Attack 20 times with creatures with first strike"
"Foretell 20 cards"
"Exile 20 opposing cards"
Build a good pool of those, weight them against what's in meta and make them the dailies. It even adds rewarding gameplay for many players to have to build a deck they like using the card type required.
I mean, they do this, it's just "Play 20/30 spells of color X or Y"
Yeah but they don't do this at all because it's just the color and it's so broad with rerolls that I've never, not once, had to build a deck to solve these.
Specific mechanics which force off meta would change it.
Darkewolfe on
What is this I don't even.
+3
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
I feel like I've seen a pretty big variety of decks in my habitat (up through low plat).
e: I guess I should note I pretty much only play ranked standard but I think the following applies regardless.
I don't think there's anything you can do to encourage more diversity at higher tiers because at that point your deck has to actually be as good as the top tier decks and the pool of players who can build decks that good is probably much smaller than the pool of players who can successfully pilot a top tier deck.
I feel like I've seen a pretty big variety of decks in my habitat (up through low plat).
e: I guess I should note I pretty much only play ranked standard but I think the following applies regardless.
I don't think there's anything you can do to encourage more diversity at higher tiers because at that point your deck has to actually be as good as the top tier decks and the pool of players who can build decks that good is probably much smaller than the pool of players who can successfully pilot a top tier deck.
Deckbuilding is real hard.
We don't need to promote extreme diversity on the ladder. The ladder is specifically for people that want competitive play. It's the fact the EVERY other queue in Arena is also promoted to be highly competitive. There is no queue for off-meta decks and the matchmaking they do for the play queue is horrendously bad.
I think they'd have to do a lot of combination of things to make a "jank" queue work and I don't think they'll ever go through the effort. Darkwolfe has some good ideas about quests.
..
Without using Kroxa?
You've got Egon's chair -> Kroxa, or Kroxa -> Lurrus -> Kroxa.
Basically every discard deck I've seen plays Kroxa early and threatens to get it back out of the graveyard quickly somehow.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
..
Without using Kroxa?
You've got Egon's chair -> Kroxa, or Kroxa -> Lurrus -> Kroxa.
Basically every discard deck I've seen plays Kroxa early and threatens to get it back out of the graveyard quickly somehow.
I run a modified Tergrid/Yorion deck that focuses on ETB discard triggers
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I think one of the reasons Magic ends up so samey is the complexity of the cards and the solvedness of the game. Without more mitigating unknown outcomes it's much easier to define perfect play. Solved perfect play means almost never doing pretty well with jank. Increased random outcomes means winning with jank more and therefore seeing it more.
Maybe I'm just tired of Eldraine though. At least once it rotates out I might see decks that are more substantially different than the ones last year and the year before.
Every format evolves the same way (especially standard). HighValueCardsPile.deck -> DeckThatSpecificallyBeatsHighValueDeck.deck -> HighTempoAggro.deck. At that point you figure out matchup winrates, what percentage of the player base does each deck have, what sideboard options you have, and you're pretty much done. The issue is with MTGA is that it's really impossible to balance your deck against random, faceless opponents of wildly varied skill levels. Doesn't matter that W,R,RG, and WRG aggro is 60% of the meta when you're blindly thrown at 10 hard control lists in a row. Especially in Bo1, where you can't 'play the field' and keep answers in the sideboard.
I'd hardly call this meta solved, though it's a bit samey. Tons of decks in the meta, and the difference in power level of the #1 best deck and #5 best deck is very low. I'm constantly getting blown out by decks from out of left field by weird shit like BW Doom decks, Food brews, Blue tempo, even when playing top meta decks. The really big problem with deck diversity is that most people aren't good at making decks! So they just pick whatever won the last tournament, or sits at the top of Aetherhub, and go with it.
The main way to create deck diversity is with huge, constantly updated ban lists (which people complain about), and/or highlander (which incentivizes people to buy fewer packs). MTG really doesn't have the tools to softly modulate cards in a way that, say, Android Netrunner did.
Ugggghhbhhhh
There's apparently a 3 cost infinite loop in standard.
Enter the Omenpaths -> mutate mythic recast from graveyard cat -> enter the Omenpaths -> mutate Heron -> etc.
Ugggghhbhhhh
There's apparently a 3 cost infinite loop in standard.
Enter the Omenpaths -> mutate mythic recast from graveyard cat -> enter the Omenpaths -> mutate Heron -> etc.
Ugggghhbhhhh
There's apparently a 3 cost infinite loop in standard.
Enter the Omenpaths -> mutate mythic recast from graveyard cat -> enter the Omenpaths -> mutate Heron -> etc.
Good news for those of us who think Bo1 wishes are too powerful: with Strixhaven, Bo1 SBs ate restricted to only 7 cards instead of the usual (and still Bo3) 15. That sounds like a fair compromise to me.
I think I'm uninstalling this again.
Diamond Bo1 is degenerate, and I'm not having fun.
Maybe just take a little time off?
I was feeling a little burnt out, so I haven't logged in for the past few weeks. Absence is starting to make the heart grow fonder, or maybe it's just looking at some of the Strixhaven cards and thinking about how they'd fit into a few decks. Either way, a little break has been nice but I'll probably pick it up again within the next week or so.
I still like a five-card wishboard that is separate from the sideboard, and there just aren't sideboards in bo1.
This isn't that different, just +2 cards.
That's the difference in Bo1, but this way lets Bo3 decks use lessons without sacrificing valuable sideboard slots.
Sure, although the article calls that out as part of the strategy in using them.
Sure, but that means lessons, as they printed them, will not be Bo3 competitive viable. Sideboard slots too important. Mostly this looks to me like that was always the plan, and lessons were always intended to be a draft mechanic, and that makes me sad.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
I still like a five-card wishboard that is separate from the sideboard, and there just aren't sideboards in bo1.
This isn't that different, just +2 cards.
That's the difference in Bo1, but this way lets Bo3 decks use lessons without sacrificing valuable sideboard slots.
Sure, although the article calls that out as part of the strategy in using them.
Sure, but that means lessons, as they printed them, will not be Bo3 competitive viable. Sideboard slots too important. Mostly this looks to me like that was always the plan, and lessons were always intended to be a draft mechanic, and that makes me sad.
Wishboards have been a thing in Bo3 long before Arena was even coded. Lessonboards will be no different.
I regularly feel the same way. Right now I'm playing in the Play queue and it's a lot more enjoyable for me. You still get opponents that play the top meta decks, but you can just scoop against them.
I still like a five-card wishboard that is separate from the sideboard, and there just aren't sideboards in bo1.
This isn't that different, just +2 cards.
That's the difference in Bo1, but this way lets Bo3 decks use lessons without sacrificing valuable sideboard slots.
Sure, although the article calls that out as part of the strategy in using them.
Sure, but that means lessons, as they printed them, will not be Bo3 competitive viable. Sideboard slots too important. Mostly this looks to me like that was always the plan, and lessons were always intended to be a draft mechanic, and that makes me sad.
There were multiple Adventures variants that used 5-10 sideboard slots mostly as a wishboard for Fae of Wishes and were still fine. If the shell is there, lessons could be similar; you just need the right meta where sideboard silver bullets are less critical.
I ate an engineer
0
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
I regularly feel the same way. Right now I'm playing in the Play queue and it's a lot more enjoyable for me. You still get opponents that play the top meta decks, but you can just scoop against them.
this is more or less why i only play the Play queue and not ranked, seeing that rank go down after losses tilts me more than just losing or scooping does by a huge amount, especially if said loss is to some meta netdeck bullshit
I regularly feel the same way. Right now I'm playing in the Play queue and it's a lot more enjoyable for me. You still get opponents that play the top meta decks, but you can just scoop against them.
this is more or less why i only play the Play queue and not ranked, seeing that rank go down after losses tilts me more than just losing or scooping does by a huge amount, especially if said loss is to some meta netdeck bullshit
I suffer through ranked up to Gold for 1000gp (+packs and styles) payout at the end of the month. Grinding up through Silver isn't that hair-pulling although last night certainly tested my patience.
I've been switching from Ranked to the Standard Event once I hit Plat. My win rate is slightly higher after that shift, and the awards are just about break even with some slow collection growth.
What is this I don't even.
0
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
After the first Faceless Haven activation showed that it wasn't going to tap the other one, I didn't double check the activation of the second one, leading to this incredible play by the autotapper:
The only card in my hand was a land.
e: wait, I'm an idiot, they require snow mana to activate and that land wasn't snow. Ah well, the land in my hand was a tap land so there was nothing to be done. I also learned this morning that it's possible to drop back down a tier in gold.
I still like a five-card wishboard that is separate from the sideboard, and there just aren't sideboards in bo1.
This isn't that different, just +2 cards.
That's the difference in Bo1, but this way lets Bo3 decks use lessons without sacrificing valuable sideboard slots.
Sure, although the article calls that out as part of the strategy in using them.
Sure, but that means lessons, as they printed them, will not be Bo3 competitive viable. Sideboard slots too important. Mostly this looks to me like that was always the plan, and lessons were always intended to be a draft mechanic, and that makes me sad.
There were multiple Adventures variants that used 5-10 sideboard slots mostly as a wishboard for Fae of Wishes and were still fine. If the shell is there, lessons could be similar; you just need the right meta where sideboard silver bullets are less critical.
Sure, but none of the lessons they printed are good enough to justify the cost of not only a sideboard slot, but also playing weaker cards that have learn on them. It's one thing to use a wishboard to get more or less the best card for your context available in your format, and another to lose sideboard slots to play 5 mana destroy one thing give them a card.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
I also learned this morning that it's possible to drop back down a tier in gold.
Yeah AFAIK the tier characteristics are:
Bronze: +2 win, -1 loss, 4 to rank up
Silver: +2 win, -1 loss, 5 to rank up
Gold: +2 win, -1 loss , 5 to rank up, can backslide (with some protection)
Plat: +1 win, -1 loss, 5 to rank up, can backslide (with less protection?)
Couldn't say for Diamond or Mythic.
IME you won't lose tier until you've gained points in your new tier and you really have to tank several in a row to slide out of gold itself.
I just had a pretty fun game with my Jund mid-range deck against Rakdos sacrifice. It became a battle over graveyards where he tried to exile stuff with Immersturm Predator and escape his Kroxa and Woe Strider. I tried to exile as much as I could with my Scavenging Ooze to keep him from doing it. It was just a matter of time before he found a way to kill my ooze and win.
I finally managed to get rid of Immersturm Predator by trying to exile it with Tibalt. As a counter, my opponent sacrificed it to Woe Strider and I exiled it from his graveyard with my ooze. Then my opponent played his own Tibalt and exiled my ooze. On the next turn my Tibalt draw a Claim the Firstborn and a Questing Beast and that pushed it enough in my favor that my opponent scooped.
I still like a five-card wishboard that is separate from the sideboard, and there just aren't sideboards in bo1.
This isn't that different, just +2 cards.
That's the difference in Bo1, but this way lets Bo3 decks use lessons without sacrificing valuable sideboard slots.
Sure, although the article calls that out as part of the strategy in using them.
Sure, but that means lessons, as they printed them, will not be Bo3 competitive viable. Sideboard slots too important. Mostly this looks to me like that was always the plan, and lessons were always intended to be a draft mechanic, and that makes me sad.
There were multiple Adventures variants that used 5-10 sideboard slots mostly as a wishboard for Fae of Wishes and were still fine. If the shell is there, lessons could be similar; you just need the right meta where sideboard silver bullets are less critical.
Sure, but none of the lessons they printed are good enough to justify the cost of not only a sideboard slot, but also playing weaker cards that have learn on them. It's one thing to use a wishboard to get more or less the best card for your context available in your format, and another to lose sideboard slots to play 5 mana destroy one thing give them a card.
There are better lessons than that, and the white 2/1 that learns on ETB looks interesting in a flicker shell.
I also learned this morning that it's possible to drop back down a tier in gold.
Yeah AFAIK the tier characteristics are:
Bronze: +2 win, -1 loss, 4 to rank up
Silver: +2 win, -1 loss, 5 to rank up
Gold: +2 win, -1 loss , 5 to rank up, can backslide (with some protection)
Plat: +1 win, -1 loss, 5 to rank up, can backslide (with less protection?)
Couldn't say for Diamond or Mythic.
IME you won't lose tier until you've gained points in your new tier and you really have to tank several in a row to slide out of gold itself.
You can't slide out of a rank you've earned.
So once you're in gold, then you keep gold until the end of the month.
Backsliding tiers also only happens after about 3-4 losses in a row, or after one win and then more losses, in all ranks.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
*frantically shoving Adventures into an overstuffed closet behind me* there's no way that jamming two low power cards together will result in anything powerful!
Posts
Now at diamond tier 3 with land matters deck.
Because red aggro went second and ran their robber into the 0/1 landfall hellhound with a Fabled Passage on the board.
And then conceded.
That’s not deck strength, that’s player rank.
I'm fairly convinced that wins as the reward system is the worst system because it is what makes the game so monotonous.
Runeterra's approach of "use X amount of deck archetype" seems like a great way to force players to try to play games with off meta or different things.
"Attack 20 times with creatures with first strike"
"Foretell 20 cards"
"Exile 20 opposing cards"
Build a good pool of those, weight them against what's in meta and make them the dailies. It even adds rewarding gameplay for many players to have to build a deck they like using the card type required.
I mean, they do this, it's just "Play 20/30 spells of color X or Y"
Specific mechanics which force off meta would change it.
e: I guess I should note I pretty much only play ranked standard but I think the following applies regardless.
I don't think there's anything you can do to encourage more diversity at higher tiers because at that point your deck has to actually be as good as the top tier decks and the pool of players who can build decks that good is probably much smaller than the pool of players who can successfully pilot a top tier deck.
Deckbuilding is real hard.
We don't need to promote extreme diversity on the ladder. The ladder is specifically for people that want competitive play. It's the fact the EVERY other queue in Arena is also promoted to be highly competitive. There is no queue for off-meta decks and the matchmaking they do for the play queue is horrendously bad.
I think they'd have to do a lot of combination of things to make a "jank" queue work and I don't think they'll ever go through the effort. Darkwolfe has some good ideas about quests.
control stuff just has too many powerful draw abilities right now. You can't outpace how quickly they refresh their counters
Without using Kroxa?
You've got Egon's chair -> Kroxa, or Kroxa -> Lurrus -> Kroxa.
Basically every discard deck I've seen plays Kroxa early and threatens to get it back out of the graveyard quickly somehow.
I run a modified Tergrid/Yorion deck that focuses on ETB discard triggers
Every format evolves the same way (especially standard). HighValueCardsPile.deck -> DeckThatSpecificallyBeatsHighValueDeck.deck -> HighTempoAggro.deck. At that point you figure out matchup winrates, what percentage of the player base does each deck have, what sideboard options you have, and you're pretty much done. The issue is with MTGA is that it's really impossible to balance your deck against random, faceless opponents of wildly varied skill levels. Doesn't matter that W,R,RG, and WRG aggro is 60% of the meta when you're blindly thrown at 10 hard control lists in a row. Especially in Bo1, where you can't 'play the field' and keep answers in the sideboard.
I'd hardly call this meta solved, though it's a bit samey. Tons of decks in the meta, and the difference in power level of the #1 best deck and #5 best deck is very low. I'm constantly getting blown out by decks from out of left field by weird shit like BW Doom decks, Food brews, Blue tempo, even when playing top meta decks. The really big problem with deck diversity is that most people aren't good at making decks! So they just pick whatever won the last tournament, or sits at the top of Aetherhub, and go with it.
The main way to create deck diversity is with huge, constantly updated ban lists (which people complain about), and/or highlander (which incentivizes people to buy fewer packs). MTG really doesn't have the tools to softly modulate cards in a way that, say, Android Netrunner did.
There's apparently a 3 cost infinite loop in standard.
Enter the Omenpaths -> mutate mythic recast from graveyard cat -> enter the Omenpaths -> mutate Heron -> etc.
That's not infinite but it is amusing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt0grOIwQwk
Good news for those of us who think Bo1 wishes are too powerful: with Strixhaven, Bo1 SBs ate restricted to only 7 cards instead of the usual (and still Bo3) 15. That sounds like a fair compromise to me.
This isn't that different, just +2 cards.
That's the difference in Bo1, but this way lets Bo3 decks use lessons without sacrificing valuable sideboard slots.
Sure, although the article calls that out as part of the strategy in using them.
Diamond Bo1 is degenerate, and I'm not having fun.
Maybe just take a little time off?
I was feeling a little burnt out, so I haven't logged in for the past few weeks. Absence is starting to make the heart grow fonder, or maybe it's just looking at some of the Strixhaven cards and thinking about how they'd fit into a few decks. Either way, a little break has been nice but I'll probably pick it up again within the next week or so.
Sure, but that means lessons, as they printed them, will not be Bo3 competitive viable. Sideboard slots too important. Mostly this looks to me like that was always the plan, and lessons were always intended to be a draft mechanic, and that makes me sad.
Wishboards have been a thing in Bo3 long before Arena was even coded. Lessonboards will be no different.
Woke: Drafting Rakdos Control in Cube.
Most satisfying win: Reanimating opponent's Torbran, casting Magmaquake for X=2 to wipe their board, and killing them from 20 with Toralf triggers.
Nah.
A little a lot.
I've had enough playing W-aggro,
R-aggro, world tree/ultimatum, "mirror".
Installed the app because it was an app, but it hasn't made the underlying game fun or safe for me to play.
Have to uninstall to prevent myself playing.
There were multiple Adventures variants that used 5-10 sideboard slots mostly as a wishboard for Fae of Wishes and were still fine. If the shell is there, lessons could be similar; you just need the right meta where sideboard silver bullets are less critical.
this is more or less why i only play the Play queue and not ranked, seeing that rank go down after losses tilts me more than just losing or scooping does by a huge amount, especially if said loss is to some meta netdeck bullshit
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
I suffer through ranked up to Gold for 1000gp (+packs and styles) payout at the end of the month. Grinding up through Silver isn't that hair-pulling although last night certainly tested my patience.
The only card in my hand was a land.
e: wait, I'm an idiot, they require snow mana to activate and that land wasn't snow. Ah well, the land in my hand was a tap land so there was nothing to be done. I also learned this morning that it's possible to drop back down a tier in gold.
Sure, but none of the lessons they printed are good enough to justify the cost of not only a sideboard slot, but also playing weaker cards that have learn on them. It's one thing to use a wishboard to get more or less the best card for your context available in your format, and another to lose sideboard slots to play 5 mana destroy one thing give them a card.
Yeah AFAIK the tier characteristics are:
Bronze: +2 win, -1 loss, 4 to rank up
Silver: +2 win, -1 loss, 5 to rank up
Gold: +2 win, -1 loss , 5 to rank up, can backslide (with some protection)
Plat: +1 win, -1 loss, 5 to rank up, can backslide (with less protection?)
Couldn't say for Diamond or Mythic.
IME you won't lose tier until you've gained points in your new tier and you really have to tank several in a row to slide out of gold itself.
I finally managed to get rid of Immersturm Predator by trying to exile it with Tibalt. As a counter, my opponent sacrificed it to Woe Strider and I exiled it from his graveyard with my ooze. Then my opponent played his own Tibalt and exiled my ooze. On the next turn my Tibalt draw a Claim the Firstborn and a Questing Beast and that pushed it enough in my favor that my opponent scooped.
There are better lessons than that, and the white 2/1 that learns on ETB looks interesting in a flicker shell.
You can't slide out of a rank you've earned.
So once you're in gold, then you keep gold until the end of the month.
Backsliding tiers also only happens after about 3-4 losses in a row, or after one win and then more losses, in all ranks.