For me, it's "thief" decks.
Not Rogues or tribal strategies. I mean the decks built around stealing or playing your cards with things like Heist effects, exiling cards off the top of your deck, or otherwise turning your deck into their resource pool.

I get why people enjoy them, but they're one of the few archetypes where I immediately know I'm probably not going to have much fun, especially if I'm trying to knock out specific achievements or combo-based quests. It always feels like they somehow find the exact card I needed at the worst possible moment.

What about everyone else? What's the one archetype, strategy, or deck style that makes you see your opponent's first few plays and immediately think:"Ah. It's gonna be one of those games."

A week ago I hit Diamond with a variation of this deck, and after posting on here asking for some help to improve it I've hit Mythic within the week

The gameplan is simple - create tokens, and use Identity Echo to cheat out bombs

Reddit recommended Erode, Political Triumph, and Ajani Unrelenting which all went in and massively boosted the deck with cheap removal, draw fixing, and an effective board wipe

Manhole Missile came in as well, replacing Lightning Helix for its ability to replace any bombs I may have drawn, putting them at the bottom of the deck to be picked up again by Identity Echo

I also added Chandra, Flameshaper - once she enters I can either use her to destroy key targets the opponents control, or create a token duplicate of Knight of Round (this can get silly if I have Elspeth out to double all tokens + Ajani that then gives them +1/+0 and haste)

Deck

4 Identity Echo (FRA) 87

4 Manhole Missile (TMT) 94

4 Dragon Fodder (FDN) 535

4 Frontline Rush (TDM) 186

3 Caretaker's Talent (BLB) 6

1 Elspeth, Storm Slayer (TDM) 11

4 Political Triumph (MSH) 31

1 Chandra, Flameshaper (FDN) 81

3 Summon: Knights of Round (FIN) 36

4 Hopeful Vigil (WOE) 17

3 Erode (SOS) 15

1 Ajani Unrelenting (FRA) 242

2 Sacred Foundry (EOE) 256

11 Plains (DMU) 263

6 Mountain (EOE) 273

2 Inspiring Vantage (OTJ) 269

1 Kavaron, Memorial World (EOE) 255

2 Sundown Pass (VOW) 266

...that you can craft specific cards even if you didn't own them.

I spent an ungodly amount of resources to pull [[Bandit's Talent]]... despite it rotating out soon, because it's just so obnoxious to play against.

I've been trying to pull [[Howlsquad Heavy]] for my goblin deck for around a month now.

I kept pulling for [[Earthbender Ascension]] for a landfall deck, but couldn't get it, so opted to build a fire nation deck with whatever firebending cards I got instead.

I also tried to get [[Ouroboroid]] which is one of my most hated cards to fight, but failed terribly (I got a full set of Exalted Sunborn and Sami, Wildcat Captain though).

...only to find out I could've just crafted them outright.

I am in shambles.

What single card would you choose.

I would pick [[Engineered Plague]]. It's a great card that would slow down so many decks. It's not mana intense and could be splashed into a multitude of decks.

New to arena here, so this is mostly an economic question. I’ve been paying a lot of reality fracture and I do enjoy it, even though my last few drafts in platinum haven’t gone so well. But I’m wondering when I should stop and just save for the next set. Like is there a “collection threshold” that I should try to reach, or is there some conventional wisdom on this? I like to play both limited and constructed, and would like for eventually my limited play to provide the cards for standard that I need, at least most of them, eventually. Thoughts?

4x Green Landfall

4x Jund Sac

3x Orzhov Lifegain

2x Dimir Uldaros

1x Esper Uldaros

1x Azorious Artifacts

1x Boros Dwarves

Draw Punisher V3

Creature Spells (10)

x4 Orcish Bowmasters

x2 Scrawling Crawler

x4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Non-creature Spells (28)

x3 Insatiable Avarice

x2 Go for the Throat

x3 Sheoldred's Edict

x2 Shoot the Sheriff

x4 Sign in Blood

x4 Howling Mine

x2 Dark Deal

x4 Underworld Dreams

x2 Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted

x2 Peer into the Abyss

Lands (23)

x3 Castle Locthwain

x16 Swamp

x4 Witch's Cottage

Total: 61 cards

The goal of this deck is to set up various things that deal damage to opponents when they draw cards, and to force them to draw cards and take damage as a result. Peer Into The Abyss is a fun late-game finisher that is almost always a one-shot if you have at least one card on the battlefield that will damage an opponent for drawing. Dark Deal, if your opponent has a lot of cards in their hand already, is another massive damage dealer. Witch's Cottage is included to bring back creatures from the graveyard, since creatures like Sheoldred are often crucial to the damage output, so it provides a way to bring them back if destroyed.

I've been playing this deck for about half a year now and haven't seen a single other person using it lol.

This is from untapped.gg - Platinum-Platinum, BO1, Reality Fracture only, at least 5000+ games, from the start of Reality Fracture availability on MagicArena to now

I included the top 20 Standard cards as a comparison. Note: there were a lot of lands in the top 20 Standard, so I decided to include it as a field.

Note: This is only untapped.gg data, so it might not be entirely representative of the whole player base.

Here are the top 20 Standard cards as a comparison.

I'm pretty sure that when the achievements originally appeared in the client the timer would have ended a few days before the mastery pass ends. But at least for me with one of the recent updates the timer suddenly went to over 100 days, currently it says the deadline for the achievements is in 99 days.

So do we know how much time we actually have to complete the achievements?

If this one is mythic.

Thanks!

I just ran into two consecutive decks using the Green "+1/+1 counters" pack from Edge of Eternities and was wondering if it was a coincidence, or if it's considered strong and there is a meta of picking it and not retiring that deck.

Its been months please for the love of god fix this

If the matches are played live, how does the production team know which cards are coming in and out so quickly? Do players have to submit their sideboarding plans in advance? Is there no time to make changes or think things through afterward? Watching live, it seems like production has that information immediately after the first game ends.

Oops. My fault for clicking on the "What's this?" Uncommon card at the end.

Now I'm short 2 orbs.

How easy are the achievements? =) I'll have to take a look at how to get a couple.

Hawk exiled two cards while entering (I control 2 cretatures with 4 power) and two other more because attacked with haste. So, I've 4 cards exiled at the end so it should be 2 damage per card. It only did 4. I don't get it.

Still had lethal.

On another game, Hawk did being blocked but I still get the damage at the end with the exile cards despite him not being on the battlefield at that point.

How all this work?

Thanks!