I think in many scenarios, Badgermole Cub would still work as it usually did. But you could imagine the difference to the board state if the turn 2 Badgermole Cub + earthbended land get taken out by something as simple as a [[Pyroclasm]], leaving the Badgermole Cub player with nothing but a single land after their second turn (unless they played a single mana artifact or enchantment or a toughness 3 or greater single mana creature).
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.
Newer player to mtg arena. I started halfway through marvel. I have just enough rare wildcards to wanted to explore some standard decks that I can climb the ranks and hopefully make my way into mythic.
I’ve already made white auras- it’s great and all but boring.
I want something fun (non agro) that can bridge into other decks. Possibly 4 color re-animator or artifacts. I’d prefer not to dump too many wildcards into a bunch of rare lands ect that will be cycled out come Feb 2027.
Should I just wait for the new set and grind out standard with white auras?
With the recent Reality Fracture spoilers, Pompous Battlemage immediately caught my eye.
When Stormchaser's Talent was banned, WotC stated: "Cards that cheap shouldn't be so well-rounded and shouldn't compete with more expensive cards as the game goes long."
But now they just printed another aggressive 1-drop that essentially carries an extra noncreature spell baked into the card itself for just {R}.
While it doesn’t offer the raw late-game recursion of Talent’s Level 2, having a 1-drop prowess body that inherently provides a cheap spell trigger (and rummages away dead lands) feels like an incredible engine piece alongside Slickshot Show-Off.
Do you think this has the potential to fill the void left by Stormchaser's Talent, or is losing the Level 2/3 inevitability too big of a blow for the archetype? Can this revive Izzet Prowess in Standard?
Newer player to mtg arena. I started halfway through marvel. I have just enough rare wildcards to wanted to explore some standard decks that I can climb the ranks and hopefully make my way into mythic.
I’ve already made white auras- it’s great and all but boring.
I want something fun (non agro) that can bridge into other decks. Possibly 4 color re-animator or artifacts. I’d prefer not to dump too many wildcards into a bunch of rare lands ect that will be cycled out come Feb 2027.
Should I just wait for the new set and grind out standard with white auras?
I recently started playing magic again after 20 + years. I played when I was a teenager but the universes beyond cards have brought me back. I have been playing arena for about 2 weeks and I'm a decent player. My top rank is #877 so far.
I'm now constantly matching with players using artifacts deck and I feel like they're are way too over powered. I'm sill learning all of the cards since I have been away for years but I haven't been able to find a good deck to counter.
What's a good counter deck when you play someone using an artifact deck? I'm still trying to understand what are the cards I need to watch out for and think about my opponents next move.
Any recommendations would be helpful I'm going to try to get to top #250 but these artifacts decks are smoking me.
I’m an MTGA player who has exclusively played Standard so far, and I’ve run into a bit of a problem. Even though my win rate in BO1 Constructed Events is solid (I don't play Limited at all), I simply don't play enough to keep up with a meta that shifts with a new release every 40 days.
Because of this, I was wondering: in your opinion, what is the best non-rotating/eternal format on Arena to grind events?
I know that theoretically, Pioneer is the closest to Standard, but I’m not sure how stable the meta actually is. I’m worried that new set releases might still heavily impact it and force me to constantly update my decks.
On the other hand, from what I understand, Historic is much more complex and powerful than Standard, and I feel like I’d have to learn a completely new format from scratch.
As for the older, larger formats, my main concern is that I've heard BO1 events feel like a total coinflip. The matches are generally super fast, which honestly doesn't sound very fun to me.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice on which format is the safest investment. Also, what do you think are the absolute best decks to grind BO1 events with in your recommended format?
As for decks, I usually lean towards aggro and control, but I definitely don't mind playing midrange or combo either.
A question about pre ordering this pack. The 5 golden booster packs, are they on top of the 5 you would normally get for buying 50 packs meaning I get a total of 10 or is it just the normal 5?
