I tried to play this morning. Picked an Esper Control deck in Bo1. Played three games all against Esper control decks. Game two I was so mana starved my opponent had 12 lands to my 3. Like I just can't imagine how anyone can be like "this is a good product." Why do they need to so much interference into the game? Just let the game run on it's own. Stop with all the manipulation. It's such a gross experience.
I just switched from Gruul Midrange to Mono-Red aggro. I see WAY more mono-red aggro, as a mirror match now. Additionally, I have noticed big swings in opponents when working on my Gruul deck. If I made enough changes to it, while also importing a new list as text, I would receive MANY new opponents. I though Merfolk were long dead! Until I put a "new" decklist in that is.
I had 3 mono-red opponents in a row just recently in bo1 ranked. Many more besides that. My games are like 60-75% mono red right now. In addition, I keep seeing the Electro-static Wall version of the deck. This is probably due to the fact that it's better against the mirror, which you keep running up against in mono-red.
I am absolutely disgusted with Wizards right now. They have denied the shuffler problem (see the threads in this forum pertaining to it), not admitted the match making going on in bo1 at the very least, and once I figured out a work around to the shuffler problem, the got rid of it on this most recent patch 3/27/19. BTW, they didn't mention the changes in the patch notes. They made the bo1 hand decider even worse by giving it a 3rd hand to choose from, and also choosing from 3 hands even after a mulligan as well.
Hope this changes soon. I'll be writing to Wizards soon and you should too. They do try to cater towards their customers, eventually, after a ton of them have an outcry.
Yeah, I've really barely been playing this game anymore due to a lot of these reasons. Any deck I make I am paired with incessant mirror matches and it's impossible to make a deck to 'counter' the meta as a result of the matchmaking changing anytime you do. The generic meta itself is super boring - mono-red and mono-blue decks that are just superpowered, uninteractive garbage. The mana-clumping if you don't mulligan does not seem to be resolved at all. If I don't mulligan I still see the same patterns described by the million game analysis. I just don't see a reason to play much since I'm not interested in just grinding out mono-red wins, and there's no other modes to play.
I do know that the gate deck is heavy on uncommons... which also means that fewer wildcards are required to make the deck on average. Does your newer deck use fewer rares/mythics or fewer cards you crafted with wildcards? Those are the two measures I can think of that would let wizards distinguish between precons and actual competitive decks.
I bet this is it. R/W deck is a lot "cheaper" to build in rarity terms than the other one. Man that is some lame ass rigging of the matchmaking. No wonder gate decks are so popular in Arena - you get matched up in potentially "easier" games.
What are you playing? Ranked, Traditional Ranked? Normal matchmaking, Constructed events?
If you are playing the best of 1 unranked then yes, there is some matchmaking based on deck going on. At some point it was confirmed that they were attempting to match based on Deck "strength" but what that actually means has been vague and ill understood.
Bo1 Ranked... :\ Figures.
This game is so unlike actual Magic it really does it a disservice.
Yeah, I've really barely been playing this game anymore due to a lot of these reasons. Any deck I make I am paired with incessant mirror matches and it's impossible to make a deck to 'counter' the meta as a result of the matchmaking changing anytime you do. The generic meta itself is super boring - mono-red and mono-blue decks that are just superpowered, uninteractive garbage. The mana-clumping if you don't mulligan does not seem to be resolved at all. If I don't mulligan I still see the same patterns described by the million game analysis. I just don't see a reason to play much since I'm not interested in just grinding out mono-red wins, and there's no other modes to play.
I bet this is it. R/W deck is a lot "cheaper" to build in rarity terms than the other one. Man that is some lame ass rigging of the matchmaking. No wonder gate decks are so popular in Arena - you get matched up in potentially "easier" games.
Bo1 Ranked... :\ Figures.
This game is so unlike actual Magic it really does it a disservice.
Switch to R/W aggro, see 70% Gate decks.
I'm sure just norrrrrrrrrrmal variation though... Mmmmmhmmmm.