Mtg arena open beta

[Primarch]

Despite that win, I’m still finding Eldraine draft to be very challenging. I don’t really have a feel for what works and doesn’t.

I kind of see that as a good thing, (it being different, not you finding it challenging). The three sets between M19 and M20 were a fairly unified block in terms of content and styles I felt. You could sling red and blue together to create an Izzet deck and you'd know what it could do. In Eldraine, it doesn't really feel like an Izzet deck or a Dimir deck. The colours still do what they always do, but it's all a bit distant from the feel of Ravnica. I think that's a sign of good design, especially in terms of flavour and artwork. Whether or not it's a good set in terms of Standard, I can't say, but I'm enjoying the refreshing (and gingerbready) taste of Draft so far.

[me_in_japan]

I agree - I do think it's a good thing that eldraine "dimir" isnt the same as ravnican dimir. I think I'm just too used to the ravnican definitions of the colour identities.

On a side note, I got so frustrated with being milled that I went into a draft with the express intent of only drafting a mill deck, come what may.

I went 7-2, and the 2 were a result of my opponents going above and beyond - some really nice play, actually. But still, I feel a bit dirty. When you can force-draft a style and straight up win with it, something is awry. I think the main issue is that the key pieces for mill are all common/uncommon, and the bots dont seem super interested in them. To be fair, it does make for some pretty nail-bitey games (from the blue seat, anyway), as there are times you'll have countered 3 of their spells in a row, but this time around you're sitting on a pair of islands in hand and 3 mana open - are they gonna play or pass? play or pass? PLAY OR PASS THE TURN!!! SWEET JESUS THE TENSION IS KILLING ME!!! AAAAAAAAgh!

Also, the mill mirror match is pretty fun - you have to be super careful not to commit anything to the board, because as soon as you do, the opponent will inevitably play their milling merfolk, then bounce it (and whatever you played) back to their hand and mill ya again. And if they have a lucky clover out? brrr. game over, man, game over...

How are your drafts going?

[Primarch]

I'm currently 8 drafts in and I'm mainly going 3-3. I seem to consistently lose at least one game per draft due to mana screw. Even with 40% land in my deck, I regularly wind up with 2 lands in my opening hand and none for the next half a dozen turns. RNG is as RNG does I suppose. Still, I get to play some cool draft games, add a bunch of cards to my collection and convert some gold to gems in the process.

[me_in_japan]

I just had a really odd game (in draft) where I literally beat my opponent into submission with a...Mantle of Tides

And I do mean literally. Turn 1: Mantle. Turn 2: Witching Well. Turn 3: Animating Faerie on the Mantle. Turns 4-8: tap down everything my opponent has in play while the Mantle of Tides whales* on them

Ah, never to be repeated, no doubt, but fun nonetheless.


*see what I did there

[Primarch]

I played 3 full drafts yesterday which consisted of 10 games total.
I almost won a second game after milling a guy down to drawing his last card. One more turn and I would have won it.

[me_in_japan]

Yeah, I've had a pretty bum run in draft for Eldraine, anomalous winning streaks aside. It's a wierd block. I think, while there are definitely powerful rares/mythics, there are certain really strong uncommon/commons which, if you can gather a critical mass of them, will pretty much guarantee a strong showing. If you don't get them, however, yer stuffed. It's a bit swingy, tbh.

I've run out of gold (aside from about 5K I'm saving for weekend event entry and suchlike), so rather than draft I've been trying to work out a Standard deck I like. So far, I've built 3 or 4 that I'm testing out (which are by no means optimised - I'm keeping my wildcards until I settle on one I like best). I've tried:

Mill - basically the draft deck with all you'd expect from Eldraine, plus all the milly stuff from earlier. Works ok. Bit dull.
Orzhov aristrocrats - cats, ovens, and Orzhov-y things that ping the opponent for 1/draw cards/does something useful every time something dies. Not super exciting so far, but I feel I should give it another chance.
Emry artifacts - I happen to have 4 Emrys, so I had a stab at an artifact deck. It gets pretty out of control pretty fast. I've produced some horrific Gingerbread Men quite early on with All That Glitters and a whole bunch of artifacts (and once with Saheeli in play things got really out of control- ye gads it was beautiful!) Lots of fun, but not especially strong.
Mono-blue Phoenix - I found this deck online, but the sheer curveball-ness of it appealed to me. Basically, it's a mono-blue mill deck, and you spend every turn milling the absolute crap out of yourself. Then all your arclight phoenixes come back to life and wallop the bejeesus out of your opponent. There's also a tiny splash of Black for Creeping Chill, which ideally you dont want to cast at all, but occasionally ends up in your hand. Lots of fun, but struggles with planeswalkers. I'm still tweaking, as I lack some of the better spells I need for this (I only have 1 Drowned Secrets, and it really needs 4 to get moving).

Still, I'm enjoying the break from draft for a bit. Incidentally, would you be available for a game any time in the next few days? It's been a while, is all

[Primarch]

I was doing ok (4-3 or thereabouts) in draft until I hit Gold rank. Now I win one game per draft max.

I tried putting a mill deck together using the new Eldraine cards along with suitable cards from previous sets (Jace, Wall of Lost Thoughts, Drowned Secrets etc). When it worked, it was very fast at milling through an opponent's deck, but if the curve was off, the wrong sequence of cards came out, or my opponent had a reasonably fast deck, it got stomped. I think Mill might be better for draft where A) decks are smaller, B) decks are slower and C) decks are less likely to have more than one win condition.

Still, I'm enjoying the break from draft for a bit. Incidentally, would you be available for a game any time in the next few days? It's been a while, is all

I guess maybe Friday or Saturday evening? I played a fair bit yesterday, so I'm going to do some painting tonight.

[Primarch]

Thanks for the games the other night. Despite what it looked like, I wasn't playing a Mill deck. There are cards in my deck that have a Mill effect, but that's really more of a secondary thing. I could probably take them out and replace them with something else. Somewhere at the bottom of my pile were three Agents of Treachery, a couple of Mass Manipulations and some other 'Those are my permanents now' type cards. Sadly they decided to keep a low profile rather than risk getting Thought Erasured or Counterspelled.
Your Phoenix deck is pretty cool, it certainly seemed to play very quickly. And your blue artifacts deck was fun too. I nearly had you with Chandra's +2. One more turn!! As for your Temur deck, while it might be nailbiting for you, staring at an empty hand, an empty board and topdecking everything knowing that it will be quickly discarded, countered or destroyed makes for a dull game on my end. Still, everyone gets to play what they like. I can't fault you for building a deck that wins games, that is the aim of playing after all.

Speaking of winning games, I joined the Brawl event with a Simic deck using Roalesk as my commander. I played 7 games and won 6. (Yes, I know I only needed to win 5, but Brawl is fun). Singleton style decks are great, I saw loads of cards that I don't normally see being played.

[me_in_japan]

and thank you for the games, too. It's really nice being able to spend a pleasant evening slinging virtual cards with an actual person you know, as opposed to a bunch of randoms.

And yeah, I've been enjoying the brawl event a lot. It really, really lends itself towards building a fun deck - I have 3 now;

one Kaalia deck stuffed full of angels, demons and dragons (and it's surprisingly effective - Kaalia herself gets played asap, finds me more cards, she gets killed, but that's ok cos now I have dragons...)
one Grumgully deck, stuffed full of goblins, which I feel has potential, and when it works it totally works, but I've been getting mana flooded a lot with it. I may trim the mana a bit, actually, as it's a pretty low curve compared to most.
one Vraska deck, which is, to be honest, Not Nice At All, and was mostly built as a screw-you to anybody playing an Oko deck. But that Vraska, man, she is The Answer to pretty much any 3CMC commander. Doesnt matter who they are or what they do: Vraska'll gitcha...

I'm looking forward to playing more Brawl, though, especially against folks irl (or yourself online.) I hold out hope for multiplayer games, too, as getting 4 of us together would be awesomesauce. I played a game irl with the 4 brawl decks last weekend against Jesse and my kids. It went pretty much as expected (the kids spent the game beating me up and ultimately Jesse won. *shrug* nothing new there, really... But hey, it was fun )

[me_in_japan]

Ah me oh my, I'm quite liking the wierdness that Brawl is spitting at me recently.

I had a game with my (pretty rubbish, actually) Lazav deck against a Kykar deck. Things got wierd, with a lot of stealing of stuff going on. At one point, I had stolen his Deputy of Detention which had come into play to capture his Kefnet which I had previously stolen, so I was left with a stolen Deputy sitting atop a stolen Kefnet. And then I cast Thought Erasure, he casts Narset's reversal, copying the Thought Erasure and returning it to my hand, then using the copy to discard the original Thought Erasure into my graveyard! It was all a bit meta... By the end of the game, both our commanders were on a casting cost of 12, and I was down to my last 2 cards. 2nd last turn, I pull Lochmere Serpent. I wait till the end of his turn, cast it, then was able to make it unblockable and swing for lethal on my very last turn before I milled out. Nail-biting stuff...