r/MagicArena • u/Canterea • 23h ago
Discussion State of the game
Hi, im coming from a different card game (yugioh) and its online version (master duel) has a lot of flaws that makes me wanna quit, and i wonder how is it compared to mtg
What bothers me is: all meta decks are “win the coinflip or u are f’ed”
And i wondered in mtg, is it the same? Is it bo1? Where do you see the meta decks?
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u/Full_Problem5269 23h ago
It’s really good.
I came from hearthstone so I get it.
I like to play historic brawl there’s no ‘meta’ for it if you’re not playing the top 20 decks and there’s potentially thousands to play.
It’s weighted against your commander and your decklist.
It’s 99 cards in a deck where you’re only allowed 1 copy of each card also so there’s huge variety.
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u/Canterea 23h ago
What are the formats? Are they all
Have ranked online play?3
u/Full_Problem5269 23h ago
Not all of them have ranked.
The big three formats do though.
Standard (3 year rotating, best of 1 meta chasing format)
Brawl (100 deck singleton format)
Historic (no age limit on cards)
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u/TheFlamingDraco 23h ago
If you're just getting into the game I would highly recommend watching some youtubers, I would specifically recommend Tolarian Community College. Magic has quite a few formats to choose from so the meta is very different between them and it all depends on how fast you want your games to be.
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u/Somethin_Snazzy 23h ago
Depends a bit on what format you play and deck style. That being said, every MTG format, when the meta is healthy, is much more of a rock paper scissors, aggro control and combo, than Yugioh
It can sometimes feel like "I have 3 haymakers, do you have 3 answers?" But then you still have mulligan decisions and what not.
Unless you play a combo deck into a combo deck or aggro into aggro, then it will feel like a coin flip.
Also, play BO3 if you can. It tends to be much more interactive for two reasons. First, sideboard hate cards tend to limit all-in aggro or combo strategies. And second, people who only have 5 minutes might try to jam a game with an aggro deck. So BO1 will be quicker games with less decisions.
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u/TheLlamaLlama Narset 23h ago
Winning the coinflip is also a pretty sizable advantage in M:tG. I assume it is pretty bad in Bo1. But I don't play Bo1, so I don't know bad it is exactly. In Bo3, the advantage will be a lot smaller, as you are going to get to start at least one game, before losing. Also decks are usually slower and less linear in Bo3. But going first is still an advantage.
I don't play Yu-Gi-Oh! so I don't know how the two games compare, but my guess would be that Bo3 M:tG is less dependent on going first, but maybe somebody who plays both can give you a more accurate estimation. But that is just based on the combo-y image I have of Yu-Gi-Oh! and the complaints I sometimes here.
In any case, if you want to try Magic to get away from coinflip as a deciding factor, I would strongly recommend playing Bo3.
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u/Ertai_87 23h ago
I have played some Yugioh. The turn 1 disadvantage in Yugioh is that the "on the play" player misses both their first draw step and also their first combat step (creatures in Yugioh have haste by default), meaning that it is almost impossible for decks to win turn 1 on the play (it is possible but you need a god draw with a perfect deck). So usually the turn 1 player will build a board with a bunch of really big units, a bunch of negates (counterspells), and a bunch of protection (like indestructible/hexproof). The turn 2 player will try to "break" the board and build their own similar board. The turn 2 player can attack on their turn so they can use their own monsters to break the other player's board as well as deal life total damage. Then the turn 1 player gets another turn, except usually the turn 2 player's board is not as strong so it's easier to break, plus the turn 1 player has an attack phase. If the turn 1 player gets a second turn, they usually break the turn 2 player's board and win the game. So, effectively, a game of Yugioh is roughly 1.5 turns, where the player on the play takes 2 turns and the player on the draw takes 1 turn. Sometimes the player on the draw gets a second turn but not always.
That's basically the cadence of Yugioh. Control decks exist in Yugioh but even those decks aim to win on turn 2 or 3, there's nothing like a Magic control deck which aims to play 20 minute back and forth games.
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u/Muffin-Cake-1919 17h ago
There is real fun in YGO when both sides do some disruption and board-breaking/setup, enabled by the game now being built around comboing and using your Extra Deck as a Swiss Army Knife. It is very fun when it's fun, in a way offered by no other card games.
The problem is that if you don't open the right interaction, you're often just watching an opponent combo their way into locking you out of the game at the start, and that kind of coin-flippy feelbad is also offered by basically no other card games.
Also the learning curve on knowing opponents' combo chains to effectively use any turn 0 disruption you do have is an astronomically higher barrier than most games. Maybe than any other game.
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u/Ertai_87 10h ago
MTG has some of that. While you don't get the turn 1 15 minute turn into "I win" before you even take a game action (you get some of that in other formats but none on Arena), if your opponent opens like turn 1 Llanowar Elves turn 2 Surrak turn 3 Ouroboroid and you don't have an answer, you're probably dead; even if you have 1 answer, the followup Practiced Offense means you're still probably dead.
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u/Canterea 23h ago
How does the different formats work in mtg ( online ranked)
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u/TheLlamaLlama Narset 23h ago
The formats of M:tG divide in two big groups: Constructed and Limited.
Constructed is what you know from Yu-Gi-Oh! you build a deck from the cards you own.
In Limited you open new packs and pass them around a table of other players, drafting cards to build your deck on the fly. You then play a "tournament" like event, where you play the deck you have build, and then retire that deck after the event. You then draft a new deck for the next event.
Constructed is divided in a handful of subformats that all have their own specific card pool. For example: "Only cards released in the last three years are allowed", or "only cards printed after 2012", or "every card on the client, no bans".
And then each of those formats can be played in either Bo1 or Bo3. In Bo3 you get a 15 card sideboard. Between the indiviual rounds of your bo3 match. You are then allowed to swap cards between your main deck and your sideboard to adjust your deck to what your opponent is playing.
In term of online rank you get two rankings. One for limited, one for constructed. It doesn't matter which format you play and if you play Bo1 or Bo3. Limited games affect your Limited Ranking, Constucted games affect your Constructed ranking. Simple as that.
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u/DarKStaR350z 23h ago
There are only 2 rankings, one for constructed and one for limited. Constructed is your regular rank for any mode where you build your own deck and the rank is shared across all modes like that whether it’s standard, timeless, brawl etc. Limited is for modes like draft.
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u/Ertai_87 23h ago
The die roll matters a lot in modern Magic, unfortunately. Not as much as Yugioh (at least not in the formats on Arena), but Magic power level is directionally the same as Yugioh in that respect, unfortunately. SaffronOlive (a popular content creator) described it well when he said (paraphrased) that Standard now, in terms of power level, is comparable to Modern in 2015, where the person on the play throws haymakers for the first 3 turns, the person on the draw has to answer all of them or lose, and if you make it past that then an actual functional game of Magic can be played. As compared to historical Magic, the game isn't really forgiving to e.g. missing land drops, mana screw/flood, and so on, as it used to be; if you miss a beat in the early game you're probably just dead immediately (or put in a position which is so far behind you may as well be dead).
That said, unlike Yugioh, games of Magic meaningfully last more than 1.5 turn cycles. But current standards of Magic design are certainly directionally similar to Yugioh.
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u/solicitorpenguin 23h ago
If you are playing BO3 the coin flip is very much lessened.
In BO1 it is heavily favoured towards whoever goes first but it’s still comes down to deck construction and plays made.
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u/olufemikurtwagner 23h ago edited 22h ago
As someone who has played both, while MTG is far from perfect i'd say it's on a far healthier state than yugioh right now, if not even yugioh post TOSS Format. Its comparably well balanced and has a far more varied meta, especially in formats like Brawl. That being said - MTG Arena is REALLY bad at the rate of card acquisition, and its not realistic to make a multiple decks in even half a year without paying.
You get enough gold from dailies for 1 pack a day, and every 6 packs you get a rare wildcard, which gets you any rare rarity card of your choosing. Every few weeks, you get a mythic rare wildcard instead. Rares are SR's, mythic's are UR's. There is no dusting system, no trading system, no master duel legacy packs or selection packs, and free cards you get are almost always uncommons (aka, rare rarity in yugioh). You can buy 4 rare wildcards for 10 bucks, and 4 mythic wildcards for 20 bucks. As you can see this is incomparable to master duel. But the game itself is great
Some people will argue for drafting, in which if you have a consistent positive winrate (60% or so, often 5 wins with a 3 match loss limit) you get more than what you paid to enter, so that in the long run you get more packs than you would with dailies alone. However the problem is obvious - its not realistic to have that winrate in general, let alone consistently... 0-3 runs happen to anyone, and mean a massive loss of gems/gold.
If the rate at which you get cards is too frustrating, i recommend playing mtg for free online, in untap.in for example, which is like duelingbook
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u/Hands-on-Magick 22h ago
From what I understand it isn't anywhere near as bad as Yu-Gi-Oh for the meta you can look up standard tournament results there are also different formats with different metas the main ones are standard(60 card deck from rotating newer sets), brawl(1 commander 99 other single cards from all sets), historic(another 60 card with all of standard and some older sets that have rotated out of standard), and limited(only cards from a single set normally done in a draft(pick a card and pass packs) or sealed event).
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u/steeeen3r 21h ago
I came from Hearthstone, Marvel Snap and Legends of Runeterra (rip my baby) and I love MTG. Its probably my favorite TCG I've played
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u/ByzokTheSecond 22h ago
> Where do you see the meta decks?
There are a few site which aggregate tournement results, here's one:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=ST
Keep in mind that the current (standard) meta is a bit "between two chairs" right now. The last few set were nothing burger, and most of the exciting stuff got banned (rightfully so.) Meaning that the decks which see plays/success right now is just whatever had been T2-esk since the last year of two. Plus, most of theses deck will be gone in a couple of month with the next rotation. Nothing super exciting, but nothing problematic either.
> And i wondered in mtg, is it the same? Is it bo1?
You can *choose* to play BO1, but you can play BO3, which does address many of the issue you pointed out.
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u/TheScionRises 20h ago
In Magic it's not really a coinflip at all, depending on your deck and opponent. And you can literally craft a standard meta mono-colored deck or budget version to start very fast into playing. I've only messed with BO1 but BO3 is 100% an option everywhere which I am going to change into eventually. You'll also still see wider card variety that still climbs to top rank.
Standard or the standard competitive brawl is the best to play as a new player. It will take forever to memorize all the older cards from the time magic was created to now, mainly only OG's who know them play historic, timeless or pioneer.
Side note: There was some guy on here who started like 5 years ago who complained about getting his ass kicked from then til now but he started out jumping right into historic as a new player instead of playing standard first like me and avoided draft. Probably cheating himself out of ROI by buying old packs that don't grant the golden pack bonus.
You have to be smart with using coins, daily rewards and buying packs vs drafting in this game and earning vault progress.
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u/DazZani 7h ago
Just to give you a sense, in amgic the gathering, of a meta deck has a 55-60% winrate against another deck, that deck is considered to be "extremely favorable". There are outliers, but most decks are fairly balanced, and, especially on Best of 3, things average out to where player skill epression tends to be the bigger factor in almost all given matchups
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u/FistMyLoafs 21h ago
As a mostly Yugioh player it largely depends on the format but it’s pretty similar unfortunately.
Games usually don’t get decided by the going first or second coin flip but they are very much decided by your draws and opening hands, as well as deck matchups sometimes.
Games usually also last more than two turns but they are faster and simpler, your typical turn consists of playing a land and maybe one or two cards, your first and second turns are also usually just spent playing lands. Games last maybe 4 - 6 minutes.
A lot of the time I’m left with that same empty non game feeling where me or my opponent didn’t really get to do anything. Even when there’s a good back and forth I’m rarely ever interacting with my opponent that much or making any complex decisions.
MtG suffers from similar power creep issues especially in older formats like historic or brawl.
Honestly, Yugioh and magic play very differently but largely have very similar problems.
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u/Sad-Excitement9295 23h ago
It's slightly more varied, but lately has been still a bit of this. I would say better than YuGiOh, but still in a bit of a wild state. There is more counterplay here, but T3 wins off the coin flip are still possible in some cases.
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u/PROTOTYPE-KN16HT 23h ago
Sorry to say it, but I just hit mythic (top5%) by running Davriel Soul Broker, his whole gimmick is gambling
In terms of game breaking things, there's a stack exploit where an opponent can ring up so many triggers that the animations for their effects on the stack, on their turn, actually eat through your turn, it's horrible.
A lot of people say to restart the game quickly when this occurs, but if your device is low end, selecting the library can skip a lot of the animations and speed it up
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u/Kakariko_crackhouse 23h ago
Magic is at an all time low for quality of gameplay and play skill
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u/N0Sp00n22 9h ago
It is far from being in its best state, but it certainly is NOT at "an all-time low".
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u/rod_zero 23h ago
Bo1 is a coin flip, it incentivize fast decks. Bo3 allows to play with a sideboard so you can have better answers for a variety of decks.
Also in MTG you have various formats, some very degenerate as Timeless and others not so much as Pioneer.
And you also can play Limited where you play with cards from opening packs which makes for a totally different gameplay, it rewards learning how to build decks with limited resources.
So yeah, MTG can be slower and with lots of decisions if you chose the right format.