Yeah, I'm using the default decks and I seem to come up against pretty strong decks fairly regularly I feel. I know it's not what they want but I wish you could have games just against the default decks, they're fun enough for me at least. Whereas once you start getting into more competitive decks they're extremely not good.
Not sure how that would upset their precious ranking system. I suppose some sort of format could exist limited only to the preconstructed decks.
They would probably have to give out those precons. I believe they're using new pre-cons along with the new tutorial system and since people like me can't redo the new tutorials on existing accounts, we don't get the new decks.
Or maybe they can give you precon decks to choose from in that kind of format but you don't get to keep the cards. I dunno. It's an interesting idea but I can almost guarantee WotC won't implement such a thing.
I guess you can use the new trainer mode they have. But the thing is so junk, I'm not even sure if it's really worth it. For me, at least, the A.I. seems to intentionally make worse plays as your life point drops down. I was fooling around with it because I wanted to see if the hand shaping still happens. We were both 1:1 on creatures but the bot had, IIRC, a trampler. All it needed to do was swing and win but it kept holding back for about ten turns until I drew what I needed. WTH?
By direct admission of the Arena team (through patchnotes) the matchmaking takes into account both your rank and the "power level" of the deck, yet, they didn't expand on what they mean by that.
It is possible that it has something to do with the rarity count as well as the win-rate or win-history of specific decks.
I suspect it's down to card level, not deck level. In other words, not strictly a rarity count. I think the card(s) have some kind of grade or value associated with them. Lower commons have a lower value, Mythics have a higher value, sure. But I think jank commons all the way to mythics have a lower value than their non-jank brothers and sisters at the same rarity level.
I forget which deck I did the experiment with, green stompy I think. I don't have my notes handy. But I digress, I found I was constantly being paired up with a specific arch type every time I played that deck. I eventually acquired a few new Planeswalkers from pack wins and decided to add them to my deck to try and improve the match ups. My first experiment was to swap out one card for a PW (I only had one). The change in opponent was immediate. Instead of the usual opponents, IIRC, I began to be paired up with U-Mill and Nexus decks. Holy-heck... the power level jump from swapping one card was insane and completely unexpected. I knew it would change what I went against but the power shift was way beyond what I expected.
So I swapped the PW for another, different PW, and the power shift dropped a tad and the decks became jankier. More like multi-color anti-mill decks with high card counts. Presumably, I was seeing the Anti-Nexus decks. Removed the PW and reverted the deck to its original configuration and I was right back to where I started, going against the same decks as before.
This seems to hold true with all my decks. If I take my Red Aggro deck and add/remove cards one at a time, I'll see my opponent arch-types change. Most times, very little, but once in a while I'll hit a "jackpot" and my matchups will change drastically, usually for the worst.
I also realize this is purely anecdotal so take it at whatever value you want.
Not sure how that would upset their precious ranking system. I suppose some sort of format could exist limited only to the preconstructed decks.
They would probably have to give out those precons. I believe they're using new pre-cons along with the new tutorial system and since people like me can't redo the new tutorials on existing accounts, we don't get the new decks.
Or maybe they can give you precon decks to choose from in that kind of format but you don't get to keep the cards. I dunno. It's an interesting idea but I can almost guarantee WotC won't implement such a thing.
I guess you can use the new trainer mode they have. But the thing is so junk, I'm not even sure if it's really worth it. For me, at least, the A.I. seems to intentionally make worse plays as your life point drops down. I was fooling around with it because I wanted to see if the hand shaping still happens. We were both 1:1 on creatures but the bot had, IIRC, a trampler. All it needed to do was swing and win but it kept holding back for about ten turns until I drew what I needed. WTH?
Are you somewhere under EU jurisdiction?
I suspect it's down to card level, not deck level. In other words, not strictly a rarity count. I think the card(s) have some kind of grade or value associated with them. Lower commons have a lower value, Mythics have a higher value, sure. But I think jank commons all the way to mythics have a lower value than their non-jank brothers and sisters at the same rarity level.
I forget which deck I did the experiment with, green stompy I think. I don't have my notes handy. But I digress, I found I was constantly being paired up with a specific arch type every time I played that deck. I eventually acquired a few new Planeswalkers from pack wins and decided to add them to my deck to try and improve the match ups. My first experiment was to swap out one card for a PW (I only had one). The change in opponent was immediate. Instead of the usual opponents, IIRC, I began to be paired up with U-Mill and Nexus decks. Holy-heck... the power level jump from swapping one card was insane and completely unexpected. I knew it would change what I went against but the power shift was way beyond what I expected.
So I swapped the PW for another, different PW, and the power shift dropped a tad and the decks became jankier. More like multi-color anti-mill decks with high card counts. Presumably, I was seeing the Anti-Nexus decks. Removed the PW and reverted the deck to its original configuration and I was right back to where I started, going against the same decks as before.
This seems to hold true with all my decks. If I take my Red Aggro deck and add/remove cards one at a time, I'll see my opponent arch-types change. Most times, very little, but once in a while I'll hit a "jackpot" and my matchups will change drastically, usually for the worst.
I also realize this is purely anecdotal so take it at whatever value you want.