Mtg arena open beta

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me_in_japan
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Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:24 am

As you may be aware, the new Magic game on the pc is Magic Arena, and I’ve been playing the closed beta for a couple months now. As of yesterday, the official announcement of open beta (ie still technically in development but fully open to the public) is go from September 27th. Now (well, from the 27th) would be a very good time to get into this game, if you’re so inclined, as everyone will be starting from a level playing field. It’s free to play (I once spent 5usd on the ridiculously good value welcome pack, but that’s all the cash I’ve ever dropped or ever will) and is genuinely one of the best versions of Magic I’ve tried. Also, there are tutorials and suchlike for those who have no idea what all the fuss is about.

Anyway, sales pitch: over. I’ve got no stake in this other than at some point down the line Wizards have said there will be support for organised games between players (as opposed to the current random match ups) and I reckon it’d be awesome if we could all play each other at Magic in the evenings from time to time.

Here’s the announcement trailer, btw. As some wit on Facebook said “has Danny Trejo ever refused a job?” :lol:

https://youtu.be/tpOySUK3Vdc
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:54 am

as a follow up to this highly commented-upon thread :roll:, the MTGA beta has moved onto having PvP matches available. By which I mean, you can now choose to play matches against your friends (yay! - and there was much rejoicing in the MTGA community). I'd be rejoicing, too, if I had any friends who played MTGA....


hint...



hint...



:D
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:16 pm

Tempting, but I'm trying to spend more time with a brush in my hand than a mouse. My mountain of models isn't going to paint itself. :D
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Fri Nov 16, 2018 4:29 pm

eh, you can get a game of magic done in about 10 minutes. What difference is that going to make to your painting progress?





*glances down, nudges huge pile of unpainted minis out of sight*





:D
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Fri Nov 16, 2018 10:33 pm

Because I would only play one game. :lol:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy MtG, but I sank too much time into Duels that I could have put to better use elsewhere. Magic is a hobby in itself, and quite a time (and money if you use real cards) intensive one.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:40 am

So I was kind of bored over the weekend and rather than spend money on buying a new game, I figured I'd give Magic the Gathering: Arena a shot.

From my experiences so far:

The Good
It's free to download and play. You can pay real cash money if you'd like, but it isn't necessary for the basic game.
The starter decks are pretty reasonable. I've managed to win about half of my games against real people using just the starter decks plus a few random free cards. As you complete your first few games, new cards and starter decks become available.
There are free packs available if you enter special offer codes found on the interwebs. You can also get more free packs by playing regularly. If you played for an hour or two per day, you should be able to average about 10 free packs of cards per week.


The Bad (well, things that aren't fantastic, but honestly really aren't much of an issue :) ).
If you are the type who wants to collect a full set of cards, you'll either need to drop some serious cash or play for a looong time. Also (unlike the previous game Duels), it seems that Arena has no limit to the amount of duplicate cards you can get. So you could open 1000 digital packs and still not get the last card you need for your set. There are ways around that though.
Entry to some of the alternative play styles requires either cash or a lot of the in-game currency found from grinding through regular games to play. You'll then need to win about half of your games to get your investment back in card terms.


So far I have enjoyed playing casually and from that point of view, it is a great way to play MtG for free. I'm still a little bummed that my progress and collection from MtG:Duels won't carry over, but Arena seems like a good game.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:01 am

woooo! Yay Prim!

Join us! Joooooooiiiinnn ussssssssss :twisted: :twisted:

*edit* and, to the surprise of nobody, MiJ's response to this is massively over-long. Sorry. can't seem to help myself :oops:

In my role as arch-proselytiser for MtGA, I have some responses to Prim's (very valid) points. I say this simply through dint of having played the game a frickin frackin lot, rather than through any inherent skill or owt (cos believe me, I aint got none). I am, however, the kind of person who likes to use his time/resources as efficiently as possible, so I have done a fair bit of reading about how to maximise the results when playing MtGA.

Collecting a full set does indeed take a very long time. This is helped out a little by the presence of Wild Cards. These show up randomly in packs, and the (more desirable) rare and mythic rare types are also regularly (every 6 packs opened) awarded to you. So, in theory you can simultaneously open packs, collect the cards in them, and after a while use your wild cards to fill in any gaps in your collection. But, it's very much worth noting that even if you dont own a card, you can still view it in your deck builder, so in fact what people tend to do is build "theory" decks, then spend wild cards on the stuff they dont have in their collection, rather than try to collect whole sets. To be totally honest, there's little to no purpose to collecting full sets of cards. I do it in real life, and even that has limited use, but in Arena, I honestly can't see a single reason to do so.

There is a thing called The Vault. It's actually not visible in game, but it's in the code and there are 3rd party apps that allow you to view it. Basically, any duplicate common or uncommon card you get (past 4) goes towards the vault. Each is a tiny percentage, but once the vault is filled to 100% it opens and you get awarded 3 uncommon, 2 rare and 1 mythic wildcard. In the normal course of play it takes aaaaaaages to open, but if you draft you pick up stupid numbers of duplicate cards, so I have actually opened the vault 2 or 3 times this way.

From a technical perspective, sticking to one Set (eg Guilds of Ravnica) does increase your odds of getting all the cards from that set. Each pack contains a random rare or mythic rare card. You can be randomly allocated a duplicate of a rare or mythic you already own, but only up to a maximum of 4 (a playset). After that you absolutely will not be given a duplicate. So in theory the more rares you have from a given set, the better the odds are of you getting one you need. The numbers are pretty astronomical, though, so again, deck building then using wildcards to fill in the gaps is the way forward.

Entry to other types of game (Draft, Sealed, etc) does cost Gold or Gems. Gold, tbh, is pretty easy to come by. It's reasonable to collect 5000 per week, which is enough for a draft.

There was an article by one of the devs for the game which discussed how to maximise your gold. Essentially it boiled down to: Always do your daily quests (at the very least the win-one-game for 250gold one), and always click on the 500gold quests in the hope that they change to a 750gold quest.

Drafting is by far the best way to increase your collection for a free-to-play player. It's simple numbers. 5k = 5 packs of 8 cards in the store, or 5K = 1 draft (which equals 45 cards plus 1 pack at the end). Critically, you get to choose the cards you keep (from within the draft pool.) That's assuming you don't get a single win. If you do win, even a few, you get gems, which can be saved up and used for sealed events, which are fantastico for getting more cards (2000 gems = 10 packs of 8 cards in the store, or 1 Sealed event, which is 6 x 15 card packs, plus 3 8 card packs at the end, again, assuming no wins.)

The downside of drafting/sealed play is that it doesn't move your rare/mythic wildcard bar forward (altho the packs you open at the end do), so if you're desperate for wildcards, it's not the best way forward. In its favour, the format is inherently fair - everybody starts with the same pool of resources, so it comes down to player skill, rather than how many awesome cards youve collected. @Prim: if you're interested in these formats, I'd be happy to chat more about it. If you'd rather just open packs and save up wildcards, thats cool too :)

by the way, the current special event (Ravnica At War) is a limited time thing. If you want to get the fancy schmancy stained glass planeswalkers you gotta do the event this week. Next week it'll move on to part 3 with different walkers. The rewards are all cosmetic, by the way, so it won't affect your future gameplay in any way.

There's a schedule for all the upcoming events here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena/game

Be aware that all the cards from Ixalan up to M19 will rotate out in the Autumn, meaning any cards from those sets will no longer be useable in Standard in Arena. At the moment, Arena ONLY has Standard, but after the autumn rotation they have confirmed they will introduce a new format which will allow for usage of older cards (and will, over time, grow to be an evil bloat-monster, just like Modern is in real life. I believe they will add older sets to this format, too, all the way back to Shadows over Innistrad.)

There's a new set coming out in July called M20, and it's the basic set for the year. Nowt fancy, no storylines or stuff, lots of reprints of staple cards.

All of the above is more kinda factual based stuff. The next bit is just my opinion.

be very cautious about spending rare and mythic wildcards. they're pretty hard to accumulate, and some of the higher tier decks use a LOT of dual coloured lands. Stuff like esper control or Four-colour-dreadhorde have a mana base of 24 rare lands, even before you get into the actual rare/mythic spells in the deck, so can be very, very arsey to build for free players. By all means build whatever decks you like for fun, but at some point you may find yourself actually wanting to use a "pro" deck, and then you 'll kick yourself for spending all your rare/mythics on "fun-but-actually-kinda-useless" cards. I know I did :roll:

Netdecking is much more fun than I thought. It's all very well having a decklist, but playing it well is a whole 'nother thing. I was a bit surprised by this, tbh, as I abhor netlisting in wargaming, but hey ho, apples and oranges, I guess.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:55 am

me_in_japan wrote:To be totally honest, there's little to no purpose to collecting full sets of cards. I do it in real life, and even that has limited use, but in Arena, I honestly can't see a single reason to do so.
Because you chose the 'Mild OCD' flaw at character creation. :lol:
Yeah, there isn't much point to it beyond the sense of achievement at getting a full set. Most of the common and uncommon cards are chaff anyway, but you'll end up with one of each of them before you get halfway through the rares.

I've been reading up on the Vault and the 5th card issue. It looks like the developers have figured out a way to deal with it. The Duels system was better for buying full sets as you would never get more dupes than you could use if you kept buying packs and eventually you would max out. The Arena style seems better for the 'pro' players as they can get the wildcards and get exactly the decks they want without needing to buy loads of packs.

I've always enjoyed MtG as a casual game, played between friends with similar levels of skill and decks. Going out and buying the exact cards you need for a specific deck might be what you want for competition levels of play, but holds zero interest for me. I want to play with my collection and decks that I have put together, regardless of rarity or tiers in the global meta. Sure, I may run across significantly more powerful decks and better players (I'm hoping that the Arena set-up allows for some balancing of pair ups), but when I win, I want it to be my win, not the guy whose deck I copied. I realise that this will prevent me from entering the higher levels of play where I assume the prizes are better, but it's really not my thing. :D Still, to each their own. The game seems pretty good at rewarding all styles of play.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:04 am

Last night I enjoyed playing through the Pauper format event. If I have a chance I plan to try the Sealed event using the gems from the starter package this week.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Tue Jun 04, 2019 1:01 pm

Have you managed 15wins in pauper? I’m stuck on 12, and even that has been a grind.

Also, are you wanting to win some in Sealed, or are you just looking to get a bunch of cards? If the latter, fire away. If the former, I have a much longer post I can write on the subject :D
current (2019) hobby interests
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Wow. And then Corona happened. Just....crickets, all the way through to 2023...

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