Mtg arena open beta

[Primarch]

I know I usually tease, but that Thassa's Oracle deck would be a prime target for Thought Erasure.
As decks go it would seem to be dull for the player, so I doubt it will stick around.

That's... a lot of eyes

That's all I had left after 30 odd minutes of counters and board wipes. Top-decking my last few cards and Escaping Sentinel's Eyes for long enough to pull off the win was all I could do. Worth it though.

A game or two would help remind me that I'm actually a functioning human being.

You're a what now? No-one here but us delusional pod-people mate.
Sure, I'll be up for a game or two. I hope to be available between 7 and 8 tonight, but that's largely dependent on when my better half gets home.
I'm off all day tomorrow, so if you have a time you expect to be online, let me know. I will be using my usual non-net-decked, uncompetitive jank, and after last night will disconnect from the game and throw my pc out of the window at the first hint of a Teferi.
As for Koji, you'll probably want to email him, I don't know if he ever looks at this thread. He only has starter decks so far, so I've been using starter decks against him. The new in-game chat function is pretty handy as it allows for some coaching as we play.

[me_in_japan]

between 7 and 8 is tricksome for me, as that's the kids' bedtime, and I've been given prior warning that mrs mij wants to go for a swim this evening (and will thus not be available for bed-time-storying). Thursday may be doable, though. I'll be out from 1ish to half 3ish (teaching! Ha! Remember when students used to gather in numbers larger than 2 for english lessons? Haven't seen one o them in, oooh, weeks, now ) and a Very Nice Man is coming round in the morning to deliver/install our new telly (thank god!) , but apart from that I'm free.

[Primarch]

Once I get home and online, I'll send you a friend request. (Or you can send me one). That way, whenever we are both online, we'll be visible to each other and can set up a game. I may be online later tonight, but I really don't know for sure.
4pm-ish tomorrow should be doable.

[me_in_japan]

added you, good sir. 4pm maaaay be doable. I'll endevour to make it so.

btw, my new flavour of the fed-up-with is Uro/Nexus. Such a long, boring win con. I'm heartily sick of decks that demand your opponent sit and watch you play solitaire for a dog's age. I'm trying real hard to not play control, despite that being my comfort-zone, but being in green/white/black is showing me quite how necessary blue is. I can put counter-cards in my sideboard for all the decks that give my deck problems, but it just comes down to consistency. Sure, I may pull one of the 3 copies of the card I need, but the odds of me doing it before their deck hoses me are so bad I may as well not be playing.

Bah. If this keeps up I'm busting out the Thought Erasures and Big Tefs, I'm warning ya, Arena. Don't make me do it! *wags finger admonitorily*

[Primarch]

Arena announcement due to Covid.

Starting at 8am PT on Thursday, players will be greeted with:

A persistent Brawl playmode called the Brawler’s Guildhall. Usually this costs 10,000 gold or 2,000 gems, but will be free until April 16.

Ranked draft for Theros: Beyond Death. It was announced earlier this year that, unlike previous sets, THB would be removed as a ranked draft option with other sets rotating in. As stated, the new set would be a ranked draft option in early April, but will now be persistently available, again until April 16.

[me_in_japan]

I'd be interested to see how the numbers fall down for user footfall in brawl/standard/draft now they've got all 3 options available for an extended time. Could be the first chance we've had to have a fair and balanced shot at all 3. At this point I'm just waiting for a massive Steam sale to splurge on

On the down side, I see channel fireball are closing their dispatch warehouse for the foreseeable. It'd suck if all the sellers went this way - I need my cardboard crack!

[Primarch]

Last weekend I played a couple of games against Kojibear using some starter decks and some of my own builds. I'm happy to say that he beat me a few times.

Yesterday I tried the workshop event where you could choose one of four pre-cons which had the 4-card rule removed and had 10+ of certain cards in them. After 8 games of losing to tidal waves of goblins or flying 15/15 lifelinked cats, I finally won a game with the zombie deck because my opponent conceded out of nowhere. My prize for winning after an hour of being stomped? 20 gems.
Yeah that felt good.

[me_in_japan]

I only ever play those events until I get my 1 win. I went with zombies, and first game I got hosed by cats, but I won the second game against elves. The concept is...so-so interesting, but the actual decks are pretty dull.

After getting repeatedly trounced while using my ever-so-special-technical-graveyard-fun-deck with the Gitrog, I eventually snapped and built a pure hand hate deck. It's mostly black, with a bit of blue. Once (only once) I came up against a Thassa's Oracle deck. Oh. So. Satisfying

Oh aye, I also got half a dozen Mystery boosters, just for shiggles. I got some pretty decent pulls, but nothing spectacular (no mana crypts, sadly). Probably my best cards were dragon broodmother, meddling mage, kaarthus tyrant of jund, the gitrog monster, and Triumph of the Hordes.

Incidentally, I dont suppose you have a Gravecrawler you'd be willing to trade? I kinda need one for my Gisa and Geralf deck, and while I could buy one, they seem very expensive here in Japan compared to the US prices.

[Primarch]

A uB hand-hate deck. Let me guess...

I have seen a lot of mono-black hand-hate decks in Ranked Historic recently, using Waste Not to generate tokens, mana and card draw, and a bunch of discard effect cards. As I was mainly playing Rakdos Aggro I had no trouble with it, by turn 3-4 I was generally top-decking anyway. More often than not my opponent would have a full hand of discard style cards, my hand would be empty and I'd be stomping them with a big ol' Dreadhorde Butcher. Good times.

As for the Gravecrawler, I might have one. For some reason the flavour text seems familiar, though I could be imagining it. I'll have a dig around and let you know.

[Primarch]

Yes, I have a Gravecrawler.