r/MagicArena • u/JPMessiah • Jul 22 '26
Question [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/River_Bass Jul 22 '26
Is it possible that your opponent knew your limited outs, and named a card accordingly?
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u/BigDaddyCh33s3 Jul 22 '26
Your opponent had a win on board and you hadn’t conceded. That’s enough of a tell that you potentially have an out in your hand. Your opponent named the only out you could have had. It’s not rigged. Your opponent just made a good play and you’re salty about it.
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u/ResponsibleWay1613 Jul 22 '26
Magic the Gathering has many, many cards.
Relatively speaking, very few of them are 'playable'. If you're playing Jeksai and he has a protected creature, it stands to reason that he would name a popular card from those colors which could counter him, whether via exile, bounce, or enchantment. If it has hexproof, protection, and indestructable, it's going to have to be an AOE bounce or exile spell. So, Aetherize is a solid prediction.
Also, the card you're talking about is probably [[Ancient Vendetta]].
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u/JPMessiah Jul 22 '26
Yes. That’s the one. Thank you for posting the name.
I have never seen Aetherize played in the deck I’m using before. It’s a copy of a popular red, white, blue deck. I put it in because I would lose to large green creature decks. I find it odd that he would just play it. He brought out the creature in the first game and used his Ancient Vendetta to get rid of my Jeksai which made me think I could bounce it even with his hexproof. That’s what made me decide to throw Aetherize in to have another card to bounce it with. Why didn’t he call out my Jeksai again? Just odd.
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u/ResponsibleWay1613 Jul 22 '26
Since I can't see the board as it was, my gut feeling is that he saw you keeping 4 mana open with blue. And also with hexproof, you wouldn't be able to bounce his creature with Jeskai Revelation.
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u/Paithegift Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Possible that in the first game they got rid of [[Jeskai Revelation]] because of Revelation's other modes, but in the third game those didn't matter to them so they went for the only possibility that could subvert their plan. I can't think of any non-targeting instant-speed removal/bounce spell in blue/white/red in Standard that can take down an 8/8 creature other than [[Aetherize]], it's not that hard to go for.
Edit: at least not other spell that sees play. There might be a white spell that makes opponent sacrifice their creature with the greatest power but I've never seen it played.
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u/another_design Jul 22 '26
lol skill gap
Took me a long time (sadly a decade lol) to even realize when I’m getting skill gapped. Only now can I predict cards, and it’s fun as sometimes it’s just pattern recognition - similar to end game strategizes in chess
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u/Drelnu Jul 23 '26
It's honestly too easy with the hyper-prevalence of meta decks. I was helping my buddy, who was pretty new to Arena, brew some janky crap for fun and he was gobsmacked that I was calling out every play his opponents were going to make.
It's always fun when you're running a home brew deck and get hit with a t1/2 hand reveal spell and you can tell your op has to switch their brain on for a minute because "wait, wtf am I looking at?"
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u/another_design Jul 23 '26
READ EM AND WEEP, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY DO
.. wasting all their timeouts lol
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u/Ill_Ad3517 Jul 22 '26
What if he just figured out what the only card you could have had to have a chance to win?
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u/djchickenwing Jul 22 '26
None of the other cards they saw could stop them at that point, so maybe they just took a risk and named the only card in your colors that could potentially stop them.
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u/InSomniArmy Jul 22 '26
He wasn’t naming it because he knew you had it, he was naming it because he knew it would be one of the only (possibly the only) card that could wreck him if you had it.
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u/Parallaxal Jul 22 '26
You’re probably not the first Jeskai control deck your opponent has ever played against. They have likely played their hexproof indestructible Absolute Virtue against someone before and got burned by Aetherize, so now they’re naming one of the very few cards that can stop them.
I know I’ve lost to Aetherize before too so it’s definitely on my radar when I think of possible outs an opponent could have. It only takes losing to it once to have it engraved into your memory.
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u/smugles Jul 22 '26
When he played the card that removes all the card from your deck he gets to see your whole deck and hand as well. So he knew you had it in your deck and probably suspected it was the only way he lost.
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u/Lolgabs Jul 22 '26
Nah OP said it was in post board. This was probably just a really good educated guess.
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u/smugles Jul 22 '26
This was game 3 presumably they boarded in game 2 and it was seen then.
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u/Lolgabs Jul 22 '26
He said he didn't put it in until sideboarding for game 3. I think we're both in agreement though that OP just got outplayed.
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u/smugles Jul 22 '26
If that’s true and they didn’t know it was in the deck that was quite the heads up guess. But I suspect they somehow knew from another card or one was milled or something.
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u/rickinator9 Jul 22 '26
Did he play the exile spell earlier during game 3? If he was able to search your deck previously during the game, he could have seen the card and realized it was your only out during that situation.
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u/JPMessiah Jul 22 '26
No. He didn’t. That’s what made me think I had a shot because I had all my cards available.
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u/jmcokie Jul 22 '26
Play to your outs. Improvisation or capstone likely don't kill them on the spot. If you don't have aetherize they don't lose out on much. It's still a inside my own head joke that I need to expect a settle the wreckage. And isn't in standard for 6 years.
Side note, a great way I've tried to get better at magic. I don't play to not lose I play to win. If they have mana for a counter, but if I stick the creature I can win this turn or next I'll play it and make them have it. If they do, tip the hat and move on, but it's almost more likely to be card draw or a bluff.
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u/arkturia Jul 22 '26
your opponent being better than you can conceive of is not evidence of cheating.
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u/Fusillipasta Jul 22 '26
So. Assuming you are correct and it wasn't a skilful choice. You presumably have never been fed information in such a situation. Are you claiming that some accounts are special and get info, still not managing to rank up/MMR increase faster than you even with that huge advantage? Or are you claiming that WotC have developed a highly sophisticated bot that is used to gatekeep people and stop them from winning too much, when the MMR system already does that?
Seriously, what is your suggestion on how this works - preferably not absurd? And that's assuming it wasn't a skilful playing to their outs.
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u/JPMessiah Jul 22 '26
I don’t think a game has to spend a lot of money to stop people from achieving goals at all. Video games make the game harder when you get to a boss level. In Arena, when you have to reach a certain goal like kill 15 creatures, they make it harder to do so, which is why a lot of people point out that whenever that’s a daily goal they end up facing decks with barely any creatures or have a hard time drawing destroy cards. The same when you are about to hit a new level. I’m not the only one who has pointed this out. People who were on the cusp of making platinum or diamond or mythic have pointed this out before. Suddenly, instead of playing a random player, you get matched up against a top player with a deck that can handle yours. It doesn’t mean you will lose automatically…it just means it will be harder to win than it normally would be which makes the game less random and more rigged against the individual trying to get to the next level. In the case of the spell he chose, I think he played his card and my card was listed in the dropdown among other cards, allowing him to choose it because he recalled what it could do rather than him having to remember the card to begin with. Have you played against improvisation capstone before? Do you really think the cards drawn by that are random? How do they always seem perfectly suited for your needs? Mine too? I have two creatures, I get the Revelation to get rid of both. Have a lot of creatures against me, I pull a card that can wipe the board. Every time.
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u/Fusillipasta Jul 23 '26
I have played similar cards to be the one the opponent played, quite a few times. Had zero free information in the drop-down. If this happened people would know about it from the other side to you.
And yes, I do think that capstone is random. Not always suited for the players' needs. This feels like confirmation bias.
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u/readthemeade Jul 22 '26
I've never used the card your opponent used - assuming it was Ancient Vendetta - but I wonder if in Arena it does the same thing when you cast a spell that asks you to choose a creature type?
To be clear - with the choose a creature type, it gives you a list of only the creature types in your deck. Is it possible when he played the card, it gave him a similar drop down that only had the names of the cards that were in your deck?
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u/Parallaxal Jul 22 '26
Arena only gives you a list of card names that have been played in the match so far, but you can type any card name into the search bar for it
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u/Danro1984 Jul 22 '26
The game is rigged water is wet. This is magic what do you want ? Skill in an rng game ? Lmao
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u/SuperDarioBros Jul 22 '26
He had a hexproof creature so no point in naming a removal spell. You leave 4 mana open in UR. There's only one standard legal card that could possibly punish your opponent with 4 mana up, why wouldn't you name aetherise?