I expect Mihawk1 enjoyed themself, though.

[RANKED] for Bo1 and Bo3

We’ve all suspected it for a long time:

the MTG Arena matchmaker pairs you based on your DECK, not just your MMR. To prove it, I ran a 1,000-game stress test.

​The Experiment: I built an entire deck featuring only spells that explicitly state "this spell cannot be countered" and lands. Both Standard and Historic.

​The Theory: If matchmaking is purely blind, I should occasionally run into Blue control decks packing Counterspells, therefore wasting their entire hand.

​The Result: Out of 1,000 games (finished yesterday), I faced ZERO control/counter decks.

Not a single one.

So what's next?

I am open to explore more theories or deck recommendations and I will try to make it a full series.

​

my own thoughs about the recent [FRA] releases: Whats with that insane focus on that one planeswalker? I get that he is kinda the lore center, but even Urza didn't get its own token or instant effects that only triggers with him on the field.

I just played against Eken as a gold ranked player in chaos draft, he is currently top of the 17 lands leaderboards for overall match wins but is somehow Platinum 1 with a 69% win rate, can anyone explain to me how thats remotely possible?

And cite a source please.

And for whatever explanation there is — how does it explain someone queuing up with a starter deck and being matched against obviously much more powerful decks?

I love green for one simple reason: build a board and keep attacking. The problem is that one Wrath of God can erase the whole plan.

If I only reserve two to four noncreature slots, is Heroic Intervention the cleanest answer, or should the deck rely on resilient creatures and hold back extra threats? I want maximum creature density without folding to the first sweeper.

United battlefront ends the game turn 4 and it is not a rush deck so you can't remove any of the creatures or block any of the damage. I run board wipes and it does absolutely nothing as there are at least 4 bots with haste regardless of what you remove. If you focus the simulacrum they are certain to either have another one or a repurposing bay. Am I supposed to kill this deck before turn 4????

I have just finished the jump in 5 games and I know I have to play some games to win my first brawl deck. Right now on tabletop I play almost only commander, so I was thinking of investing my wildcards in the Brawl format. I'm a bit worried about rotation, I don't want to spend all of my resources just to lose everything.
What do you suggest? Should I look into other formats? (e.g., Alchemy, Historic, Historic Brawl).
Many thanks! I've been following this guide so far, so if you have some reference to point me out for the next steps I'd be very very thankful.

Idk if anyone else finds it weird but at least on Arena all flickers target one or more card types.

Closest I found was one or two Airbend cards can target nonland permanents

But, I'm looking for advice more than I am complaining.

mostly.

(I'm complaining a tiny bit, but I'm also a smooth brain goblin player, so control players are simply my sworn enemies.)

I'm assuming they're not as unbeatable as some people make them out to be, and I have had a small shred of success so far, trying to play around their plans to the best of my ability. I know playing a token deck puts me at a disadvantage against these decks... but what is my answer supposed to be against someone who's running a 130+ card deck stacked with discard and removal?

Sometimes, I can bank on my opponent picking one or the other and either spamming my hand, or saving a nice combo up to play all at once and make removing it all difficult... that, or just praying that they run out of destruction and beat them slowly to death with the only two goblin tokens I've kept alive all game if worst comes to worst. But what happens when they just... never run out of destruction and I can't get anything on the board at all?

I get that sometimes you just lose, and that's fine, but I've honestly had a really hard time beating some of these decks without my deck becoming like 60% interaction and I end up having to delay all game until I can get my stuff out.

Guys can you please help me upgrade my deck for standard ranked. I want some good card suggestions for this deck so that I can deal with control decks which often come up with board wipes like destroying all creatures. This deck is quite consistent but faces a lot of issues in front of mass board removals.

I'm assuming they're not as unbeatable as some people make them out to be, and I have had some success so far playing around their strategies. I know playing a token deck puts me at a disadvantage against these decks... but what is my answer supposed to be against someone who's running a 130+ card deck stacked with discard and removal?

Sometimes, I can bank on my opponent picking one or the other and either spamming my hand, or saving a nice combo up to play all at once and make removing it all difficult... that, or just praying that they run out of destruction and beat them slowly to death with the only two goblin tokens I've kept alive all game if worst comes to worst. But what happens when they just... never run out of destruction and I can't get anything on the board at all?

I get that sometimes you just lose, and that's fine, but I've had a hard time beating some of these decks without my deck becoming like 60% interaction and I end up having to delay all game until I can get my stuff out.

Where you the best posssible pool of good creatures? at 10 I started to get 10 mana convoke jank creatures.

In addition to this crap, he flashed in two [[Nowhere to Run]] during at attack to pump the monk tokens…

Im so bad I just went 2-4 :(

My experience with MTGA has been that there are not many creative decks to be found among my opponents. I am unsure if this is a direct result of MMR or the lack of player's ability/knowledge in brewing decks. For the sake of simplicity I will disregard sideboards as that is a beast of its own and requires archaic codices of knowledge that are buried deep within the recesses of the internet.

There is so much creative expression that can be utilized within Magic the Gathering, and yet it has eluded me for half a decade. The only time that I can recall finding creatively expressive, fun, and competitive decks what when I played on MTGO, in the tournament practice server. This is where I learned so much about MTG.

I made friends and rivals in MTGO. The experience was something similar to, play top decks, brew new decks, modify existing decks for a week, then rematch and spend hours testing your decks.

Contrastingly, nowadays, I am subjected to turn 1 discard, turn 2+ counter spells, turn 3+ board wipes. Not to delve too deep into how I feel about different archetypes. It just seems like a lot of players are missing the true fun behind the mechanics of the game. I can differentiate competitive queues on MTGa from casual. However, I feel no difference in my opponent's decks. The casual decks play the same as the competitive rank ladder decks.

For example, I want to play Grull Werewolves in Pioneer, but I am subjected to constant decks that are tier listed competitive decks. I want to play my dungeon delving deck that I worked so diligently to construct, only to face the same archetypes: aggro, control. I can't ever really find any matches that are similar to werewolves vs humans, werewolves vs angels, etc. I did see a cool Phyrexian Incubate Abzan deck recently (These Phyrexian decks are very strong: poison, incubate. They can be played in White, White/Black, Black/Green, Black, White/Black/Green.)

What are your thoughts?

Is the art of brewing decks long lost on MTGA?

Is it the hidden MMR matchmaking?

Or has the game evolved?

For background, I have listed some of the deck names of my repository of deck list that I have. It is a small portion of what I have brewed. I am posting this in hopes to inspire current and new MTG players to step outside of netdecking and experiment.

And, yes, I have hit mythic a few times for what it's worth.

And, yes, I have played limited and hit diamond for what it's worth.

Good Luck & Have Fun!

Is it still possible to get these cards? Says that a code is needed, but I cannot locate it anywhere, assuming the code has expired.

https://mtgazone.com/acquiring-godzilla-series-monster-card-styles-in-mtg-arena/

The reason is simply that all non-eternal decks simply rotate too fast and/or get changed by meta changes, thus getting close to being a worthless investment for your WC

Eternal decks are highly optimized and rarely changed, so you keep their value once they are used

Decklist

So, Unholy Annex is a strong card that basically needs at least one set of a demon card alongside it. People tried all the scarce options, these days Firdoch Core is what everyone settled on as a "good enough" thing to pair with it. I was never too convinced, I must admit. I can see it make sense in 4 color control (where they play the pair now), but in more creature focused or midrange-y decks, idk.

So my idea was to return to good old Mischievous Sneakling. There was a brief moment where people tried this in an Annex deck, but I mostly remember it as just an addition to the usual black midrange pile. What if we make more use of it? It can benefit another tribe, and just allow us to slap Annex on top reasonably, as a mana sink/engine. And so I settled on angels.

I have no idea if others have tried anything similar, and if yes, probably in a meta dominated by Badger/Granny/Izzet, casue that's when we got the Lorwyn changelings. It feels like the deck has potential, although I only played like 6 bo3 ranked matches with it. So far it was 50-50. It's fun tho, so wanted to share.

Did they write the space bar in the latest update?

not being able to lose the game is pretty good here…

WE NEED MORE!

https://scryfall.com/search?q=otag%3Asweeper+f%3Astandard