Mtg arena open beta

[me_in_japan]

https://mtg.bigweb.co.jp/boxes/DMA

and

https://www.hareruyamtg.com/ja/products ... 24?lang=JP


Yes, to be fair it's a 33 card pack. But...
half of that is land. more than half the rest is commons/uncommons. Foil, yes, but a hundred buckaroos worth?

Basically, if you happen to pull a bomb rare/mythic (JTMS, Mana Crypt (or is it vault?), that kind of thing) then you're ahead. Otherwise...nuh uh.

Meh, they're testing market tolerance for whale products. I mean, the mythic edition thingy for eldraine was already a joke, so expect more of the same. Reminds me a bit of GW in it's dark times a few years back. It bodes, Prim. It bodes ill...*

in other news, I had a very amusing draft game in which things went as follows:
T1 - I play the one drop 1/1 lifegain dude.
T2 - I play the enchantment griffon maker
T3 - I play Dub, giving my 1 drop +2/+2 and first strike. Swing for the first of many griffons...
T4 - opponent realises that those griffons aint going away any time soon. Scoops.

But, life being what it is, the next game went:
Opening hand: Good, but a tad short on creatures.
T1 - I play the one drop
T2~The end of the game - I draw no more creatures. At all. I have aaaaany number of spells to pump creatures. Hell, I even have Basri Ket. But no creatures. And they killed my one drop in turn 2. I was very sad face

As for now, I'm mid draft and have gone for UG smash-em-inna-face-wiv-monstas! No removal, no evasion, just Big Effing Beasties, all over the place. So far, I'm 3 for 1, so it's proving surprisingly viable.

*It's also worth noting that the reason I linked to hareruya and BigMagic is that Amazon is sold out. Make of that what you will

[Primarch]

Ah, it's a limited collector's foil ultra-powerful card chance thingie, got it.

If you're not a whale, it isn't for you. Thing is, even whales won't drop that kind of cash if they have no-one to play with. In a way, I guess it shows how healthy the game is if they feel like top-end spenders will pay that much. The regular Double Masters boosters still seem pricey though. I dunno, I'm not really the kind of player they're aiming for here.

Reminds me a bit of GW in it's dark times a few years back. It bodes, Prim. It bodes ill...

Remember that time GW got everyone really hyped for a new product, then two days before release told all the FLGS's that they were only getting half of what they ordered, thus driving all the excited customers to buy from GW direct. GW got all the profit and the already struggling FLGS's got shafted. Dark times indeed.*

In other news, have you seen the new B&R lists?
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-07-13
Most of them make sense, but I was rather partial to Burning Tree Emissary in my Gruul decks. How is that more ban worthy than Wilderness Rec or T3feri?

The Anointed Chorister + Griffin combo is pretty good for draft. I've used it a few times and seen it quite often too.
I have to say Ugin sucks! I'm sure you'll have seen other posts to that effect elsewhere, but let me rant a little here.
I drew Ugin in last night's draft. I won Game 1 when I was on 7 mana and had Ugin in hand. I won Game 2 when I was on 6 mana and had Ugin in hand. In Game 3 I had Ugin in hand and was forced to discard him, (at random, but I only had the one card available). I then lost. In Game 4 Ugin got milled on turn 3 and I lost. In Game 5 Ugin was hiding at the bottom of the deck while I flooded up to 10 mana and then lost. Seriously Ugin sucks!

Anyway, roll on July's State of the Game.



*Circa July 11th 2020.

[me_in_japan]

Hmmn. Interesting BnR choices. Agent, Winota and Fires are gimmes. Nexus is also a complete arse of a card (I had a game once where it had gone on so long that my opponent had nearly milled himself to death. I was down to my last couple points of life, and I cast Ashiok. “Huzzah!” Thinks I. I activate Ashiok and mill his last 4 cards. The last freaking one of which is Nexus, which promptly tucks itself back into his library. There had been zero evidence of there being Nexus in his deck until that point. Near flipped the metaphorical table, so I did ).

BTE, though, is a bit of a surprise. Sure, it’s a massive pain in the arse (as a control player) when they BTE into BTE into zur-taa goblin, but it’s not game breaking, I woulda thought. Maybe there’s summat going on up in Mythic that I’m unaware of?

Re Ugin - I was under the impression that Ugin was a game winning bomb, no? I believe the trick is to ramp like a sonovabitch and drop him as early as possible. I’ve never pulled him or played against him, though, so I dunno.

[Primarch]

Re Ugin - I was under the impression that Ugin was a game winning bomb, no? I believe the trick is to ramp like a sonovabitch and drop him as early as possible. I’ve never pulled him or played against him, though, so I dunno.

Difficult to ramp in draft.

[Primarch]

There is a trailer/video up for Jumpstart and how to play it on Arena.
For 2000 Gold or 400 Gems, you get two packs. For each pack you get to choose from one of three random themes, so you have some control over what you get. (I'm planning to print out a list of all the themes and check them off as I play).
The event doesn't have an X losses and you are out like Draft. Instead you have a max of two wins (you can continue to play after that if you want) that drop ICR's chosen from the Jumpstart set. It looks like two Rares, but don't quote me on that.
BUT...
JS only runs from July 16th to Aug 16th. You can't get packs after that. You also cannot buy packs directly, it's event or nothing. You will be able to craft them and you keep what you draft. There won't be any wildcards from packs and no 5th copy protection either by the looks of things. No idea if the themed lands will be craftable, but since you only ever need 1 to access them for your deck you can probably get what you want with careful vetting of the random themes.

For the entry price it seems fairly reasonable. As a janky casual play mode it looks like fun and cheaper than draft too. Saving decks should allow for direct challenges as well.

[Primarch]

State of the Game is up.
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/66785

Jumpstart details are confirmed, as are the requirements for the next Arena Open.

Some new FNM events and older sets coming to Premier Draft. Workshops are going away.

Amonkhet is confirmed for August 13th. Amonkhet and Hour of Devestation have been cut from 490 cards to 340 and are primarily meant for Draft and Sealed.

A Pioneer Masters set is due by the end of the year and Historic Anthology 4 early in 2021.


I'm liking all of the above, though I won't be entering the Open. I'm expecting Jumpstart to eat up most of my Gold/Gems, so I have no idea how I'll get Amonkhet and then Zendikar the month after.
Historic is going to be awesome though with 600 new cards being added this summer. (Ramp/Cheat Ullamog will probably still be a thing though. )

[me_in_japan]

hmmn....

ponder ponder ponder...(I'd link a card pic here, but I'm lazy. Just imagine a Ponder...)

Right: My thoughts:
Jumpstart: 2000 entry for 2 packs. Seems very reasonable. I will defo play some of this. How much, depends on how fun it is. But aye, a bit. Is it doable in direct challenge? That's what I'd like to know. Now that would be great.

Amonkhet remastered? Hmmn. Prooooobably fine, but if they've removed any of my pet cards I'm going to spit the dummy something awful.

Premier Draft/Worskshops - meh, don't really care, as I don't really play em. I see Workshops as a somewhat jamma distraction from all the other stuff I need to do.

Pioneer Masters - Very interesting indeed. Bodes bloody ill for Historic as a format, but I suppose the end game was always going to be merging Histoic into Pioneer. This'll just speed things up a bit, I guess. I'm not really clued up on Pioneer, so I suppose merging into it gradually is a good way of getting used to the card pool?

Historic Anthology - aye, sure. Bring em on. By that point Historic is going to be a beast of a format. The Anthology drop is likely to be some real powerhouse cards if they want it to make a splash over and above JumpStart, and whatever's in Pioneer Masters.

Overall, it all seems very good. My only concern (and it's been growing for a while now) is that while I was fairly comfortably able to keep up with the new stuff without spending cash, if I have to grab Zendikar Rising, Pioneer Masters, Jump Start, Amonkhet and Historic Anthology in the next few months, I may have to make some difficult decisions. And if they continue with this rate of release? Definite risk of bad burnout. I'm watching em with a beady eye, so far.

[Primarch]

>>>>


WotC hasn't mentioned Direct Challenge as an option for Jumpstart. I would imagine we will be able to save our decks from the JS event in the same way as a Draft deck, and then use them for DC games.
I'm envisioning playing the heck out of JS until I start getting too many duplicate packs, at which point I'll have to craft any remaining cards that I want. A checklist for which boosters/cards I get is going to be important.
https://draftsim.com/mtg-jumpstart/#Jum ... s_by_Theme
Given the large number of M21 cards in JS, I'm holding off on cracking any of my M21 boosters until after I'm done with the event.

The Amonkhet Remaster should still have the important cards like yon Dimir Scarab fellow. From what I can gather from the scuttlebutt online, a lot of the chaff has been cut. We'll see.

I think Pioneer and Historic may have to end up merging at some point, but Historic should have a larger card base in Arena than Pioneer, making it effectively Pioneer+. For example, the new cards in JS are not legal in Pioneer, but all Pioneer cards will (as things currently stand) be legal in Historic. Besides, it'll take ages to get all of the Pioneer cards into Arena, there are 18 sets to cover. By the time they've all been entered, Historic will be huge and will have a dedicated group of players. If they make Pioneer the go to format for competitive events like the Arena Open, it might become a bigger thing, but the format with the bigger card pool should win out. I've seen arguments that Pioneer will take over because it is a Paper format as well, but I really doubt that will be a consideration for most players.
Now, if Commander were available, I could see that destroying the Brawl format...

I think your beady eye is definitely merited in this case. I don't mind splashing 5000 yen for a pre-order, but this summer is stuffed full of releases. I mean, yes, I can afford to spend more on the game, but that comes at the expense of paper or adding more to my lead mountain. And, as you say, burnout is a real possibility. On the one hand, 4 sets in 4 months is a lot to wade through, especially with time limited events like the JS queue. On the other hand, variety is the spice of life and things are looking VEERRRYYY spicey right now.
Monitoring your own mental health and knowing when to step back and do something else (like painting minis) for a bit is going to be important.

[me_in_japan]

well, I've played 3 games of Jumpstart so far. It's.... ok, actually. Not like super-wow-brilliant, but fun, I guess. I've won 5 rare WCs, too, of course, and will hopefully get a 6th if that dang zombie spellcasting deck ever gets its arse in gear. Not my best choice (but hey, Phyrexian Vampires was a thing of beauty!)

I've saved my decks, btw, so if you ever fancy a throwdown, just say the word.

I also went and bought a box of jumpstart actual irl cards. Meh, I reckon theyll be good for at home play, and I'm feeling reasonably financially flush these days compared to this time last year. And who knows? There may even be a craterhoof in there...

I'm getting slightly bored of M21 draft. I've played maybe half a dozen, and cant seem to get past 4 wins. I mean, 4 is ok, but I feel I'm missing something. Fwiw, once I learned the format a bit, my takeaways are:

UG counters - pretty good. I got that cat-lord rare once, and with a bit of effort managed a halfway playable moggy deck. Did ok, but not spectacular.
RU spells is reeeeaally reliable. I actually force-drafted it both times, and got 4 wins. God knows how it'd play if you actually had decent cards to choose from.
The Teferi's Insight mill deck is a real thing. Again, I got 4 wins, but to be fair I pulled 3 insights, two of those draw-3 cards, and 2 of those merpeople that draw when they attack. When it goes off, it's unstoppable. It was just a tad slow (and totally dependent on those insights, obviously.)
Dimir Reanimator is Really Bad. I went 0-3. Suffice to say I will not be doing that again...

[Primarch]

I've only had two games of JS so far and lost both. Above the Clouds + Well Read doesn't seem like a potent combo. Fingers crossed I'll be able to get two wins with it and then do better with another pairing.

The reason I didn't get many games in yet is that I spent yesterday evening playing EDH with Koji and a surprise mystery guest who we'll call Badmiral Adruck to preserve his anonymity. Koji used the new Ikoria Mutate commander, our surprise guest used my Karametra deck and I ran an Orzhov deck with Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as my Commander. Towards the end if the game we got to a mexican standoff with whoever swung first leaving themselves wide open. Luckily my opponents distrusted each other just enough that they didn't work together and I was able to scrape out a win.
Everyone seemed to have fun and we may have a new player in the EDH group.