I passed on the money tournament as it was best of 1 standard on day 1. Just too random for my blood. I pretty much only play best of 3 unless it is one of the workshop or festival events where I get to play Artisan or another fun format. For regular constructed on Arena, I’ve been playing Historic about 90% of the time as I enjoy the more varied meta there more than recent standard. People on Reddit seem to be freaking out that Winota wasn’t suspended in Historic. It did well in Hoogland’s tournament two days after Historic ranked relaunched, but in best of three it feels like the meta already adjusted to it. It is pretty beatable with multiple strategies, especially after boards. I could see where it would be a pain in the ass in Bo1 though.
I really enjoyed both Agent and Fires until the Lukka and Winota decks found a way to break them beyond repair.
I would have rather seen them ban Lukka and Winota but I guess they did prefer to ban older cards while people are still ripping packs from the new set.
I fear we'll just go back to the meta before Ikoria with the bans and I really hate playing against both the cat/oven and relclamation decks which will probably go back to be top tier.
I might start looking into historic. I always wanted a dinosaur themed deck starting out but held back on the wildcards knowing most of the cards would go with the next rotation. On the other hand it probably isn't the best deck for ranked.
I have been playing a lot (for me) of this since I can access it from Geforce Now. It's also gotten me to build some IRL decks to play with my son.
Anyone running anything fun these days? I'm still wishing I could build 100 card Commander decks. Brawl with 60 just isn't casual enough and so many more R/G cards I want to put into my Scute Swarm deck!
I've been logging in whenever they put free currency in the store (they put free currency in the store once or twice a week). Other than that I haven't been playing much lately. I bought into 2 Zendikar Rising drafts the last night they gave you the fancy lands, but I haven't actually played them yet.
Standard looks like it's finally in pretty good shape. My draft-junkie butt hasn't had the itch to try it, but it's nice to know it's good if I do.
I need to stick my toe in Kaladesh Remastered. I was rather fond of that set when it was out in paper, and I'm curious to see how well they've been able to refine it.
I haven't played MTG seriously in 15+ years, so everything is new to me. Love having the computer do all the computing of tokens, rules, etc.
I'm still wishing I could build 100 card Commander decks. !
There's a unsupported Arena format called Gladiator. It uses 100 card singleton decks, no commanders, and no sideboards or companions. It's pretty quick to set up a direct challenge game on the Discord channel.
Top_Shelf wrote:I'm still wishing I could build 100 card Commander decks. !
There's a unsupported Arena format called Gladiator. It uses 100 card singleton decks, no commanders, and no sideboards or companions. It's pretty quick to set up a direct challenge game on the Discord channel.
Oh yeah, that's grew out of the Canadian Highlander crowd, didn't it? No commander and a more Spike-y mindset, but it is 100 card singleton. I keep meaning to throw a deck together.
I couldn't figure out how that link was supposed to work? Is it a mod? I'm running Arena through GeForce Now and can't find any options within the always online game for anything like being able to build 100-card decks. Even Singleton only seems available during special times events.
Also: I'm old. What's an Internet's?
Gladiator is mostly what I play on Arena. For deck building, make sure you pick Direct Game (as opposed to Standard, Historic, etc.), so that you can see cards that might be banned in other formats. Only Oko and Field of the Dead are banned in Gladiator. Games are played by direct challenge (Challenge Match, Deck Type:60, Format: Best of Three, Coin Flip), and to find opponents just hop on the discord that is in the links at gladiator.blog
I couldn't figure out how that link was supposed to work? Is it a mod? I'm running Arena through GeForce Now and can't find any options within the always online game for anything like being able to build 100-card decks. Even Singleton only seems available during special times events.
Also: I'm old. What's an Internet's?
I believe most of the interaction and game organizing is done via the Discord (First link on their Community Links page). Folks make decks without a Format, arrange to play on Discord, and use Direct Challenge in MTGA.
The LLR team also did a show about it when it was first getting ground. Not sure how applicable it all is still, but it could help.
Commander Legends is real, and it's spectacular!
Commander Legends is real, and it's spectacular!
Not on Arena, it isn’t.
Not meaning to be snarky. Well, maybe a little. Mostly I just don’t want someone to get confused and then be disappointed.
Of course it isn’t like we talk so much MtG that we need two threads for it...
I do have 2 boxes of the set that I’m saving for when we can draft in person again. Looking forward to it; the set looks sweet.
Ah, this was the first Magic thread I saw, and I didn't notice it was for MTGA.
Agreed we could do with one thread to rule them all.
Agreed we could do with one thread to rule them all.
The only way to solve this is make a third thread!
Seriously though, can you merge threads on this platform?
Had a fun turn four shame concede from an opponent recently.
Turn two, they Valki my Hushbringer and I think I'm toast.
Except, that on turn four, they turn their Valki into a Hushbringer, so that they can play out another Valki......
This was followed by about a five second pause and then a scoop. 
I got everyone in my house playing Magic during the pandemic. We've been playing all kinds of sets.
For our Kaldheim prerelease (lgs sells the kits for home use, with 2 prize packs), my son opened a full art Valki.
This week was his ninth birthday, and I gave him some loose packs I had from various sets. One of them was my last Kaldheim prize pack.
He pulled another full art Valki. 
Oh man, Strixhaven is looking amazing, but it's not out until April! Too early to preview.
I love the enemy color pair colleges. In Ravnica I prerelease as Golgari, but this Silverquill college looks SO me. And both are contained within Abzan, my wedge of choice!
Also, I thought the Mystic Archives cards looked awesome, and then I saw the Japanese versions. I don't think I have ever once chased a blinged version of a card before, but this might do it.
I wonder how many of the Japanese promos will be available on Arena. The ones from War of the Spark had some of the art appear on sleeves.
Somewhere I read that the all-languages promos will be on Arena. I think it was one of the MTG Twitter accounts. Well, most of them will... the ones they don't want to add to Historic won't be.
On the paper side of things, it's interesting that we're getting these fancy reprints so close to the new batch of Timeshifted cards in Timespiral Remastered.
So is this like the Harry Potter theme of MTG?
So is this like the Harry Potter theme of MTG?
Seems like. I think it's fun.
This will be my family's first prerelease where you pick your colors, since we started playing sealed and drafting with Ikoria.
So is this like the Harry Potter theme of MTG?
This is more of a university than a primary school. These students all seem to be young adults at least. And the 5 houses seem more balanced than Hogwarts' "good guys, bad guys, and 2 bits of flavor text."
Had my best showing in an Arena qualifying event yesterday at 4-3, play mono white aggro.
Absolutely destroyed mono red twice and beat two different flavors of Yorian decks with the Reidane tax slowing them down enough to win in both matches.
Losses were to someone playing Crokeyz' Naya Squierl deck, a mono white prison deck that stalled me before filling the board with angels both games and a cool take on Lurrus Mono White splashing blue for the blue white enchantment that gives lifelink and draws a card.
Tomorrow is massive!
Arena comes out on iOS and tablets!
AND
the big Strixhaven preview stream is at 9am Pacific!
There's apparently a free Thoptor pet if you log on mobile
I picked up several Strixhaven prerelease packs this weekend, which include a code for SIX Strixhaven booster packs in MTGA, but I don't play it. I feel better about giving the codes away over just throwing the code cards out. I have 6 3 available codes, PM me if you want one, non-grinders only.
Really enjoying Strixhaven so far! We did our family pre-release on Saturday, and I played my first-ever draft on Arena that night.
Thanks Eldon!
Don't know if I'll get any higher so thought I would save this for posterity. I added one little ol Stixhaven card to my Mono White lifegain deck, and MTGA assistant tells my I'm currently at a 77% win rate across standard events and ladder.
My wife and I got 3 prerelease packs each. We haven't played them yet, but I have cracked and built two of the pools. I'm glad I managed to get one of each now that I see that the spindown dice have the college symbols on the 20. I'll have to remember where I stashed all my faction dice from Dragons, Khans, and Ravnica so I can put these with them.
My wife's been playing the heck out of Strixhaven on Arena. I'll go into the nursery and she'll be feeding the baby with one hand and drafting on the iPad with the other.
I'm moving a little slower because Magic commands too much of my attention for me to try and play it while I mind the child. I've gotten two drafts in though. The first was a grindy, value-driven deck in Red White of all colors. That went 7-1 pretty easily. I'm just about done with a Blue Green ramp deck that did the old 0-2 into 6-0. I'm almost afraid to play the last game.
Put in Code "RestorativeBurst" for two mastery levels.
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