MtG

[bob48]

I suspect that have ignored sideboards too much. I need to think about being more constructive in that respect.

[Bison]

Side boarding is interesting but really only comes into play in best of three games where there is a degree of uncertainty about your opponents deck.

In limited, your side board is the cards you drafted or opened but did not select to be the 22-24 playable in your forty card deck. So in draft, which is how I usually play my cube, you have around 21-23 “side board cards” not all of which are in the colors you are playing. So even fewer cards. Designing a cube, what I don’t want is a handful of cards always taken last and put in the side board. They are situational good sometimes, but usually never played. Ideally every card is desirable but that is hard to achieve if not impossible. For example I’d try to never make a cube slot for a 2/2 for 2 mana creature. It’s filler and unplayable. Anyway, it’s hard to know the dead cards because different people and groups prefer different things. I love counter and bounce spells. But in my 540 card peasant (commons and uncommon only) cube, of the 38 or so blue non-creature spells I want a mix to include combat tricks like cannot be blocked or +1/+1 and flying. So control spells like counter or bounce might be 1/2 or a little more. The reason is to try and ensure some are pulled in every pack but not every spell is counter spells.. Variance a jerk however. It’s tricky.

[Metaldog]

Necro Resurrecto!

Any Arena players here?  A few months back, I taught my D&D group Magic.  Two of them jumped in with both feet and in looking for all things Magic, they stumbled across a free browser based game called Arena.  I was skeptical about downloading it, but,  once I did, holy smokes was I glad!  It's just fantastic!!  You start with several tutorials, all mono decks versus the AI.  As you progress, you open more decks.  I forget how many, but, after you get six or so, the tutorial is over.  Then, it's time to jump in to live duels.

The options to play are varied.  You can enter draft tournaments, play one offs or best of threes, ranked matches or just for fun.  The card selection is outstanding.  The current sets that are legal, War of the Spark, Ravnica, Ixalan, Core 2019, the new set, Ixoria, and maybe a few more as well as Historical sets can be collected and played.  You can spend real money to seed your collection or power up and (try to) dominate.  You can also go the free route and grind.  Every day you have a task, cast 20 Black or Green spells, Destroy 25 of your opponents creatures, etc.  You get coins and XP for completing the day's task.  Coins can be used to purchase Boosters and entry into tournaments and XP unlocks a new prize for every 1000 earned.  The prizes range from more coins to single cards to whole Boosters.  Plus, there are daily rewards for wins as well as bigger bonuses for winning 15 matches in a week.

The three things that make this truly great are

1) All the cards you collect, you keep.  Yes, it's digital.  And I get the tactile pleasure of shuffling and playing cards.  But, the pure joy of having a bunch of cards to choose from to build any kind of deck you want is still there.

2) You can build any kind of deck you have the cards for.  That's right, full control of how your deck is built.  White or red weenie, blue/black denial, green Trample deck.  Whatever your collection can bear.

3) The community is super active.  I rarely have to wait more than 15 seconds to find a match.  The ranking system has 6 Levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Mythic) and four Tiers in each level.  You are matched within the same Level, so, if you are a Tier 3 Gold, you will be matched with another Gold player regardless of Tier.

There is so much more I could go on about.  The duels allow you to Mulligan your starting hand if you choose to.  Once you start, it plays out exactly how you would play if you were face to face.  Cards go into the field of play and are resolved as they should be.  It's great to have someone else keep track of your +1/+1 counters or damage taken during Upkeep or whatever mechanic is in force.  The duel plays out until there is a winner and then you can go find a new match!

A really neat thing about this is, opening Boosters gains you 'Wild Cards.'  Six Boosters opened gets you a Common Wild Card.  12, an Uncommon.  18 is a Rare and 24 is a Mythic.  A Common Wild Card can be traded for ANY Common card in ANY set in the Arena game.  Same for Uncommon and so on up the line.  Plus, opening Boosters may net you a Wild Card, too.

I can't stress enough how awesome this game is.  All the cards and opponents you could ever want.  Play any type of Deck you can construct.  And yes, Bison, they have Commander cards.

[bob48]

I may need to look at this again 

[bbmike]

Interesting. The wife and I received started sets for Christmas. Might be a good way to start learning.

[Metaldog]

^If you have a FLGS, I would just about bet they have a Magic presence there.  You can go down and watch matches being played and ask questions.  It's a great game.  The strategy of putting together a winning deck and the tactics used to play it out make it hard to beat.

[bob48]

MtG is still an excellent game and a lot of fun, despite the kicks it gets on occasions.

[Metaldog]

I have quite literally played 100s of duels in the last two months.  The things I have come away with are:

1) Deck design is critical.  There should never be a time where you draw a card and you simply can't use it in the current game situation.  It's ok if you can't play it until you get enough mana to cast it, but, you should still be able to find it useful.

2) Overly fidgety combos should be avoided.  Unless you have a way to get to the cards needed for the combo in a quick, direct, manner.  Otherwise, combos that need a chain of cards to operate well should be avoided.

3)  You are always at the mercy of the draw.  I can't tell you how many promising opening hands I have seen go in the tank from too much or not enough of the right cards.  A perfect example from last night, I had four mana and three creatures.  The creatures would have built up, when played, into several more token creatures and bonuses to power and toughness.  I played the first card and my opponent killed it.  I put out the second card, my opponent killed that, too.  Still, all was not lost.  The creature that created more creatures was third and it didn't die.  Then, I drew nine mana in a row.  Nothing wrong with the deck design, just a run of bad luck.

4)  There are few things as satisfying as watching the core design of your deck run smoothly.  Again from last night, I am playing a Red/White token Weenie deck.  There is a White spell that makes all new token creatures into 4/4 Serra Angels.  There is another card that creates a number of token creatures equal to your White mana in the field of play.  I put that combo into play, along with the large number of creatures I already had, and it was glorious!  My opponent quickly conceded and I took the battlefield!  So, yeah, it's pretty neat when that shit happens.

[bob48]

Some great advice there, MD. Weenie decks can be really effective because you almost always have enough mana to play at least one card, and chipping away at your opponent is a lot of fun :-)

[Metaldog]

The Cube is coming!  The Cube is coming!  Starting June 12, MtG:Arena is offering a Cube Draft.  The first entry is free, then it looks like a 4000 Gold or 600 Gem entry.  The bad news is, it's a "phantom," draft.  Which means that the cards will not be added to your collection.  The good news is (looking at you, Bison), IT'S A CUBE DRAFT!  I've never done a Cube.  And I suck at drafting.  But I will give it a go.  More info at the link:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-game-may-2020-05-19

[bbmike]

There was one?

[bob48]

I'd actually never heard of it before Bison mentioned it a while back. I've not tried it, but I did read up on it.

[Metaldog]

I hadn't either until Bison mentioned it.  I was trying to catch his attention.  Or yours.  Get you excited about Arena.  It really is just about anything you could want in a digital Magic game.

[bob48]

Yeah, I'm going to have another look at it.

[Bison]

I played Arena when it first came out but current circumstances prevented me from continuing to play. My thoughts on Arena are generally positive.  It provides means for isolated players (I'm not talking about the currently forced isolation but those who lack a regular playgroup) and those constrained by finances to play and enjoy the game.

Adding a cube format to Arena is very cool. It's a popular format on MTG online too. My favorite in paper MTG as I've said previously. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes drafting or constructed.

The issue I have with the draft and I suspect cube in Arena is you do not draft against human opponents in your draft pod but an AI system. The cards in your packs are not selected by other players but are done independently of other humans. Each player has their own "pool" of cards which are reduced by an algorithm, which does not evaluate cards as a human player does.  So you'll see cards come back that never would have cycled through in a real draft format. This is really unfortunate. It artificially increases the occurrence of deck consistency and the likelihood of card combinations in a draft environment. However, it's understandable because it removes a lot of restrictions and downtime waiting for a draft cue to fill with players. Despite this, I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun to play. I enjoyed a couple of drafts in the past.