I’m trying to learn how to play MTG Arena and have no idea what I’m doing yet. I found a cool card called Rat Colony and am janking some wins with it! Deckbuilding as a concept in Magic is heavily confusing me, but it looks like a blast and I’m excited to learn more about it.
I just had a really successful pauper league in Arena with this list:
there's probably tweaks that could be made to this, but in general this was able to shut down nearly everything I went up against pretty easily -- the only deck that beat it was a blue/black deck where my opponent had 2 of the 0/3 "tap, 2: gain 1 life, target opponent loses 1 life" creatures, which meant we stayed at pretty much the same life totals for roughly 10 turns, and I drew almost exclusively lands during those turns. turns out a hand of 7 Plains can't actually win the game???
I have extremely little experience with constructed so I was just going with a number I felt was safe but it could probably drop down to like 18 easily based on my experiences playing with it
I've been playing arena.
With basically no prior mtg experience i'm currently mostly trying to get the hang of deckbuilding while collecting cards. (playing very janky decks)
For example i have had fun with this (don't judge me too hard, this would definitely look different if i had more of a collection )
I built something very similar about a week ago, with basically no prior MTG experience. I loved it, it was winning enough games for me to be happy, but everyone kept telling me it was awful.
Klick wrote:I built something very similar about a week ago, with basically no prior MTG experience. I loved it, it was winning enough games for me to be happy, but everyone kept telling me it was awful.
It probably was awful in the eyes of a longtime tournament grinder. Don't worry too much about that.
Arena is an excellent introduction to Magic. It will help you identify what aspects of Magic keep you coming back and which are less important. If you decide that the complex gameplay and competitive urge to become a better player is what you enjoy then you can seek resources that will help you fulfill those goals. If you're drawn to the artwork and story, there's resources for that. If Magic becomes an excuse to get together with your buddies or even just another game you play online...well that's pretty cool too.
My advice is to find like minded players and enjoy their company.
In post 7575, Klick wrote:I’m trying to learn how to play MTG Arena and have no idea what I’m doing yet. I found a cool card called Rat Colony and am janking some wins with it! Deckbuilding as a concept in Magic is heavily confusing me, but it looks like a blast and I’m excited to learn more about it.
man the rat colony exploit in the one event where you could only use a single copy of each card was so fucking funny for grinding
i have a jeskai in arena with azcanta and teferi, am making a grixis with nichol bolas, have like 3 goblin decks because goblins are so goat, a drakes deck thats pretty fun, and am trying to make the blue tempo and maybe even the boros weenie
I won two drafts at SCG Baltimore yesterday. the first one was a completely disgusting Izzet deck that won literally every game I played -- I countered dozens and dozens of spells and repeatedly looped my removal with Devious Cover-Up. the second one wasn't nearly as exciting -- just a Selesnya deck splashing black for Charnel Troll that won via a series of efficient combat tricks (it turns out if you bait your opponent into blocking your 1/1 lifegain creatures in such a way that all their 5-drops die, you win? who knew). I've only won three drafts in paper before (I've had a handful of drafts I won on Arena, but that's not really totally comparable since you're not drafting with humans, it's a league, and it's single games rather than full matches), so having two of them in one day felt really good.
"Do I have permission to....refute some of the bs that Inferno just spewed out?"--TywinL
“Does anyone know if Inferno is prone to going of on huge tangents of twisted logic regarding basically alignment neutral posting? Asking for a friend ...”—MagnaofIllusion
So after seeing the Orzhov mechanic, I got super inspired, and am now building the shell for a super cool BWG token shell.
Really simple idea:
Use Divine Visitation/Izoni/Afterlife cards to completely overwhelm the opponent.
Now I just need the cards to be spoiled...
"Do I have permission to....refute some of the bs that Inferno just spewed out?"--TywinL
“Does anyone know if Inferno is prone to going of on huge tangents of twisted logic regarding basically alignment neutral posting? Asking for a friend ...”—MagnaofIllusion
"Do I have permission to....refute some of the bs that Inferno just spewed out?"--TywinL
“Does anyone know if Inferno is prone to going of on huge tangents of twisted logic regarding basically alignment neutral posting? Asking for a friend ...”—MagnaofIllusion
So with the heavy spoiling, this is what my Abzan token deck is shaping into:
Izoni, the Thousand Eyed x3
Slaughter The Strong x3 (Sideboard)
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate x2 (Sideboard)
Whisper, Blood Liturgist x2
Vraska, Golgari Queen x2
Divine Visitation x3
March of the Multitudes x2
Arguel’s Bloodfast x2
Ashes of the Abhorrent x3 (Sideboard)
Bloodcrazed Paladin x2 (Sideboard)
Camaraderie x2 (Sideboard)
Costly Plunder x4
Elena, the Dusk Rose x3 (Sideboard)
Teysa Karlov x2
Orzhov Enforcer x3
Ministrant of Obligation x3
Knight of the Last Breath x1
Priest of the Forgotten Gods x3
Pitiless Pontiff x2
Imperious Oligarch x4
Lands
Obviously I’ll be running the Black/White Dominaria lands/Orzhov shock, but how’s this look for a starting point?
"Do I have permission to....refute some of the bs that Inferno just spewed out?"--TywinL
“Does anyone know if Inferno is prone to going of on huge tangents of twisted logic regarding basically alignment neutral posting? Asking for a friend ...”—MagnaofIllusion
I'm actually kinda climbing with it too (still only mid-gold, but it can certainly go a bunch higher), even with how much of a mess it is right now
Priest of Forgotten Gods is a really nice card. I'm missing a lot of cards to make the numbers on this more reasonable :/.
I guess I'll just play arena forever now. I don't even know where to go to participate in Magic events anymore which is sad. I would love to do a PPTQ type event but I don't think they exist.
PPTQ's not being a thing really sucks. My local shop is overall pretty casual but there's a small group of us that want to play competitively. We go to big events when they're close enough and really enjoy competing at that level. We used to be able to hit up a PPTQ of one kind or another somewhere within a couple hours drive on any weekend we wanted to. It was great prep for the big events and the planeswalker points added up quickly for earning GP byes. Without the PPTQ system we play more of the regular REL events which isn't a good fit for us or the people playing more casually.
I just want to play interesting games of magic against good players so that I can get better, but that's become a lot harder to do without grinding online.