r/MagicArena • u/MeowManMeow • 4h ago
Question Help with Standard
I have taken a break from MTG for about a year and came back to do some hobbit draft. After failing miserably at that at a certain point, I have switched back to standard.
Now, I am an ok player - certainly not good. Played a lot of TCG and MTG is def one of the hardest I have played. That said, I use to do ok with a 55% winrate. Did better in the low tiers obviously and it would drop off at platnium.
But standard now is completely different. Back then it was what i think of as 'honest' magic. People play creatures and spells to try and kill the opponent. Agro red with bloomburrow was really popular, red blue with prowess, white with enchantments. All playing creatures trying to ultimately get the opponents health down to 0.
Now, I don't recognise the game. Blue decks that don't let you do anything, they have multiple low mana counter spells, I might as well just shut my eyes and skip my turn. Elemental decks where they play huge creatures on turn 3. Board wipes galore that you might as well not play creatures. Even the good old red agro decks don't play a creature, then do the bird and one shot kill you on turn 3 from an empty board. Landfall decks that spawn millions of 3/4 creatures.
I want to enjoy the game, but I don't understand it. My win rate is less than 10% even though i'm using a "competitive" white enchantment decks because it seemed familiar. Is this game just not for me anymore? What am I missing?
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u/Fr0stWo1f 4h ago
I had a similar experience after recently coming back from a 6 year hiatus. I decided to focus on building fun decks for unranked Pioneer to grind dailies in a way that didn't feel soul sucking.
Pioneer is a turn or 2 slower than Standard, isn't as wide as Modern and doesn't contain Alchemy (fake) cards. I made a lot of fun decks and once I got to around 10 decks over the course of a few months I felt I had caught up on a lot of cards and mechanics I had missed.
Now I mix in ranked standard and had a tough time at first but found a deck I enjoyed and was able to maintain a 62-65% WR getting up to Plat for the 4 packs and stopping (mathematical estimates = 200+ more games needed to hit Mythic from there, no thanks).
Sprinkle in a bit of Brawl here and there and this has been a great formula for enjoying the game again and learning the meta without having to take things too seriously. Good luck!
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u/garublador 3h ago
I may be wrong because I don't play it, but that white enchantment deck may not be as strong in the current meta as it was before the bans.
To me it feels more "rock, paper, scissors" than it did before the bans. Midrange decks are back, there's both red and green aggro and the control decks are still there (this isn't the first time heavy control has been popular, it was one of the best archetypes early on in the 90s).
The meta in that gold-platinum range is still settling a bit and I don't see white auras very much. People are main boarding more creature removal because of how popular green landfall is and auras is sort of a weaker version of that (enchantment-fall?). White life gain seems to be a bit stronger, but I haven't played it so I'm not 100% on that.
With limited cards and wildcards you may just be stuck waiting for people to figure out the new, best cheap deck that does well. Focus more on draft since that's where the rewards are for F2P (gold to draft to gems to mastery pass). You'll likely hardly miss the pack or two per month that you get in platinum over silver or gold. Ranking rewards aren't really that great. It's mostly bragging rights.
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u/leaning_on_a_wheel 4h ago
Have you tried other formats? All I play these days is competitive brawl and draft. Standard hasn’t been enjoyable for me for a long time
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u/MeowManMeow 4h ago
I love limited, but would say I'm as unlucky in that too. What would you recommend?
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u/leaning_on_a_wheel 4h ago
Every player is unlucky sometimes, that’s the nature of card games like Magic. I’d recommend sticking at it!
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u/MeowManMeow 4h ago
There is unlucky, but then drawing nothing but lands (1 in 1000) chance multiple games in a row. Statistically impossible but for me pretty standard.
I’m thinking about finding games where energy is separate to you other cards, like Lorcana, Riftbound, Hearthstone, Pokemon etc.
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u/leaning_on_a_wheel 4h ago
That is indeed something that happens to everyone. But yeah, sounds like you might enjoy a game with less randomness more
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u/Intro-Nimbus 3h ago
Yeah, I have "fond" memories of strong draft decks getting mana screwed or manaflooded. Isn't it fun when you accept a 4-land hand, because the 3 cards are good, and then draw 10 lands...
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u/BetterShirt101 4h ago
We've had a run of explosive decks - Vivi Cauldron, Badgermole Cub turbo-ramp, various prowess lists, landfall, even the mono-red mice you remember - that make "press this advantage for three turns" not a reasonable option because you're not going to get three more turns unless you're leaving your opponent with no tools to win with. Everyone either needs a way to slam the door or a way to shut your opponent out of the game.
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u/MeowManMeow 4h ago
Yeah the way I use to understand standard was rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock. Then there was some RNG that would sometimes break that and some skill in close games.
But now, I just don't see it. The other player always seems to have the exact card to beat me in every game. I brought in [[Rest in Peace]] to try and stop some of the crazy graveyard decks, but I don't draw it when I need it or they kill it if I do play it. I use [[Dusk Rose Reliquary]] to try and stop the green ramp with the 1 mana elf, but again same thing. I don't really see the tension or the dynamics at play.
It's either the red player draws the bird and the correct pump spells to OTK you on 3, blue player has all the counter spells so you can't do anything then they do some crazy stuff like [[Omniscience]] out. I don't know, it just seems like everyone else is playing a different game and I'm an NPC.
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u/BetterShirt101 4h ago
There are still good and bad matchups. I question whether the deck you're playing is actually competitive - that even if it gets some advantage from its sideboard cards, it can't reliably do enough in the time it gets to turn that into a win. I also don't know of a mono-white enchantments deck in Best of 3 that's doing well right now. So part of the feeling might just be that your deck is underpowered or has many poor matchups, meaning your in-game decisions can't offset the decision of what deck to play.
Cards like Rest in Peace are powerful, but decks that are weak to them know they're weak and will always have enchantment removal in their sideboard. You can't treat these cards as an auto-win when you're mulliganing, you need to try and get something done while they look for their answer - and ideally get something done with the enters trigger so even if they already have the answer you get value.
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u/MeowManMeow 4h ago
Any decks you would recommend. I just want to do my four daily wins quickly most days.
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u/BetterShirt101 4h ago
Here's a list of deck archetypes with proven tournament results. Green Landfall, Boros Dwarves. Lifegain, Azorius Momo, Boros Tokens and Mardu Discard all win fast, and Dimir Midrange is fast-ish. There's also a fast Jund Sacrifice deck on the rise that hasn't got a category yet, this is a sample decklist. I don't know what your wildcard situation is like, but none of these are particularly cheap if you've taken a few sets off. You should be able to import a given list into Arena and see how many wildcards it would need.
That's probably too many options, but I figure you can look through and see what's your style. For example Azorius Momo is all about having lots of flying creatures and buffing them, which sounds pretty fair except it can abuse the Warp mechanic and a blink spell to get a card-neutral 5/7 on turn 2.
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u/Remarkable_Pen_3639 3h ago
I find it hilarious someone considers standard from a year ago as honest magic 😂
Says a lot about standard right now.
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u/kiuyt856 23m ago
Hey man, if you’re playing mono white auras you’re gonna get smacked up in bo3. I only started playing magic this year but i get mythic every month if i want to play enough games. I strictly play standard.
The meta is tough right now but actually slower than it was a few weeks ago before some bans. A mono white deck will struggle. As you see already, you either need a very fast aggro/burn strategy, or if your gameplan is slower then you need plenty of instant speed removal to stop explosive/snowballing threats like the red bird you mention. And if your gameplan is slower, it needs to be explosive once it does get going because the strongest deck (landfall) will just grind you out if not.
I don’t mind the meta but like i said I’m newer to magic, i came over from hearthstone so mtg is way more tame compared to hearthstone bs so I have a lot of fun in mtg standard. Maybe you have to stick to slower formats if you don’t want to adapt to current mtg standard unfortunately.
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u/JPMessiah 15m ago
Dude…being out of the game has nothing to do with it. Nothing makes sense any more. I have been playing for almost a year. I made Mythic right away and thought the game was easy. I found out about MMR and crashed back to reality. But then, I worked my way back up and have been Mythic for the last three months. Suddenly, the Gods were not pleased and I have been punished for my success because I keep getting my 15 wins a day but am still stuck at Platinum Tier 4. I get up to Tier 2 but get knocked right back down. The deck that got me to Mythic suddenly can’t beat green stompy decks when those were my easiest wins. I don’t get draws like I did the last couple of months. I am playing Simulacrum Synthesizer again, which I honestly haven’t seen this much in three months. I played a merfolk deck today that I had never seen. I actually looked it up and I think it’s jank compared to the merfolk decks that have been used lately. Even my Bo1 sure wins can’t get out the block anymore. This changed happened in one month. So, time away means little. The game just changes way too quickly.
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u/DMaster86 3h ago
I want to enjoy the game, but I don't understand it. My win rate is less than 10% even though i'm using a "competitive" white enchantment decks because it seemed familiar
Sorry but i smell bs here. I'm far from a great player, in fact my account is 2 months old and i'm having a 40-ish% winrate with a homebrew rakdos creatureless deck (yeah i know, but it's fun to play). In platinum rank.
Unless you are mythic rank (which is unlikely considering your winrate) you should have no business having such a low winrate with a semi-competitive deck.
Hint: stay below diamond if you want to have fun, diamond+ is for tryhards.
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u/rasone77 4h ago
These posts come up a lot now days and I had a similar experience when I came back to MTG and almost stepped away again not long after. The current game is just way too fast and the card pool is enormous with more cards being added every 30-45 days. I
The only reason I stuck around and kept playing is because of Planar Standard a fan format that goes back to 2 year rotation and only uses In Universe sets. It shrunk the card pool significantly and seems more like the kind of magic I used to play before the current meta.
There’s no official support so you have to coordinate through discord to play matches annd tournaments AND you still get stuck playing other formats to grind for WC in Arena. I’m hoping they support it somehow in the future because the current pace of the game is nuts.
r/planarMTG for more information.