For ****s sake I want to try out a new deck and NO JOKE - 6 mono red opponents in a row. Are they all retarded? Why play it in Free Play? Goddamn ******* handicapped morons.
So they recently add this feature to the game where you can use your creatures to attack another player's planeswalkers. This new feature will allow you to interact with planeswalkers in an obvious and simple way with cards you should already be playing.
On a serious note, they did alter a number of uncommons, rares and even a few commons to specifically answer planeswalkers. There is a lot of paper in the format to answer the rocks. Planeswalkers are showing up more than ever because there are more than ever but they are far from dominating.
Trouble is they keep pushing creatures and planeswalkers, and this is great for anyone who is 30. But for anyone who played in the old days, Mtg was about stack interaction, artifacts, and enchantments. People playing creatures were the ones suffering, and that is pretty much how a lot of old timers prefer it.....
Not to mention you need a creature who can reach a walker. All the powerful walkers have a first turn defense - Teferi, Ili, Bolas, Vivians. Turn 1, and for many their +1 is defense. When the new Ili walker drops you have TWO turns to destroy it before it;s game over and shes going to either drop a 2/2 defender turn one or kill two of your creatures. Vivian takes your flier. If your opponent drops one and then the other in two turns its GG. There's no play around for a lot of them other than have a PW removal spell in hand, but PW are going to outnumber your removal spells. What do you run 4 Vraska Contempt? Maybe 4 Bedevil? 4 Vivian A, 4 Vivian B, 4 Ili. The only way the game is playable is because you get Thought Erasure on your first three turns so you can kill them in hand before they drop. I dont like cards that are "press X to win the game" and a lot of the walkers are realllllllly close to that.
I would argue Magic is a ALOT like chess.....except it has tens of thousands of pieces that all do different things as opposed to only 6. If you dont think each game of magic has its own challenges and strategies then I dont know what to tell you. Its called finding the correct line in any given situation.
Regarding "play-to-win", if you want to play "competitive" magic then yes, you have to invest in the cards to be competitive. If you dont want to, then just play draft. Arena may be a casual forum but the decks being played are more often than not of a competitive nature.
No deck is going to have a good matchup against everything. Thats not how Magic works
Holy ***** dude not even close. You don't draw your pieces in chess and need to rely on RNG giving you your Bishop when you need it. Your opponent cant be playing a board that directly counters your board. Chess is equal and balanced on both sides, the only exception being someone plays first. Not anywhere near a comparison to MTG.
I also feel like there may be too many, and in that massive swarm of walkers there's some that seem way to powerful. Nissa that Shakes the World for example is absolutely insane and almost impossible to deal with once it's out if you're not playing a control deck that has PW removal spells. If you're playing any midrange, aggro, or creature deck her hitting the board is usually game over. The problem with having so many is now you can drain your opponents removal spells on your second rate walkers and then drop your gamewinners unchallenged. I feel like the inclusion of so many PWs is Wizards attempt at speeding up the game. I know that's been a direction they've been heading in for several releases now - they want to get games into the 5-10 minute range and away from the 45 minute slogs in order to attract all those new players who may go Arena first and then enter the card game from that. So if you create a ***** ton of walkers that's one way to end the more controly games early - keep dropping your walkers and if one lives for two turns you won.
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.
(Was banned from the official forums for this observation, so here it is)
I don't think Competitive Standard is a "fun" way to play Magic. It's good. It has it's place - Seeing the best deck you can create and trying to beat all others is totally a legit way to play the game. However it's not an inherently "fun" experience, especially when that's all you have. Magic offers so many ways to play, but in Arena, since the goal is 'win at all costs' and the only free modes are Ranked and Play, that means in Arena THE game is competitive standard. (There's Draft and Sealed, but those are $$$$ and there's the occasional, blue-moon Pauper or Singleton but they're so rare as to hardly consider 'modes of play' in Arena). So Ranked play is all the same top tier decks. And you have to play those too unless you enjoy losing by turn four. I get tired of playing Esper Control sometimes and want to try something janky or a combo deck or even just a halfway decent deck like Esper midrange, but there is no place to play them. Anything else get's crushed fast in Ranked. Even unranked Play mode is all the same tier-1 decks: Monored, monoblue, Esper, Gates, Sultai, Dimir.. on a loop. Sign in to Arena, play one of your tier 1 decks, play 4 games against monored, 2 monoblue and a dimir control, then quit. Janky decks aren't fun to play when your opponent is playing World Championship Mono Red Turn 3 victory deck in the unranked freeplay mode. And I don't know about you guys but I get bored of playing my top tier decks after a while. So what does that leave? The occasional Draft game when I save up enough gold once a week maybe? Draft is fun, but I like deckbuilding and want to play some other games. But right now there's no place for anything else in Arena. So I've just been logging in, doing my daily quest, and leaving... usually feeling "well that was a waste of time" after I'm done. I'd love for this game to make it, but sadly I dont think it's much fun.
Seeing as you have repeatedly shown yourself to be incapable of handling subtlety, I'm going to be blunt. You aren't having fun because you are terrible at the game.
When you just started after jumping over from Hearthstone it was understandable - the game is new, there's a completely different resource system, there's a lot of new effects and timing and all kinds of stuff that HS never touched. Magic is a much more nuanced game, and there's going to be a learning curve. Everyone starts out terrible at the game, but if you take the time to learn and understand the differences, you can do well. Several notable HS players have transitioned to Magic very well even if you don't count Brian Kibler (Who started with MTG, jumped on the HS bandwagon and with Arena has come back to MTG)
You have not done this. Instead you have chosen to complain about every single aspect of magic that you don't like, as if you expect that it will magically change for you. Furthermore, you have not only ignored every attempt by everyone on this website to give you advice, you have made an art form out of deflecting blame from yourself. Lose a game or two because of mana flood or topdecks? Obviously wizards is rigging hands! Lose a game because you ignored a disinformation campaign until drew them 10 cards? Wizards can't balance cards worth a hell, these need to be banned! Get blown out by a pteramander you made no effort to kill because you didn't recognize it for the must-answer threat it clearly is? Magic isn't fun, you're just playing the same tier 1 decks on repeat. Do you honestly listen to yourself when you say these things? It's like listening to a whining 5-year old who got a different toy than the one they wanted and is throwing a temper tantrum, and you should be embarrassed.
And no, magic will not change for you, because you want a game that fundamentally isn't magic. If you were actually GOOD at the game and not stuck in the bronze and silver ranks you would see that the game is incredibly varied, there's easily ten to twelve decks you can run into in plat and mythic with regularity, to say nothing of the meme decks like Rainbow Lich or High Alert Marwyn that still win games because the format is one of the widest open we've seen in five years. If you were actually GOOD at the game you would bring up some of the actual legitimate concerns with Arena going forward instead of Dessy's sponsored crapposts, because there are questions that we want answered that are going to make or break the game in the future. And I find it very likely the reason you were banned was because of these personal failings that you STILL have found a way to maintain aren't your fault.
But you're not good at the game, in fact you seem to take pride in refusing to try to become good. So I'm glad you're finally leaving, because it means the rest of us will suffer a little bit less now that you're gone. #ByeFelicia
I guess most players suck then. Ended last season in Diamond. And that's not the point of the post. The point is Arena needs more game modes. But you incel gamergate nerds cant see past gentle criticism of any consumer product that you devote your personality too. I'm sorry the mean "sportsball" jocks picked on you in high school because you had acne and smelled like pond water and your only outlet was purchasing consumer goods. Maybe you should join a gym or something. Get out of your gaming chair and comfort zone and improve yourself a bit. Maybe people would like you. Its a big "maybe" I'll grant but I'll be praying for you. There is always hope, even for the most repulsive nerd out there. You just gotta want it and put in the work. A better life cant be purchased at GameStop.
(Was banned from the official forums for this observation, so here it is)
I don't think Competitive Standard is a "fun" way to play Magic. It's good. It has it's place - Seeing the best deck you can create and trying to beat all others is totally a legit way to play the game. However it's not an inherently "fun" experience, especially when that's all you have. Magic offers so many ways to play, but in Arena, since the goal is 'win at all costs' and the only free modes are Ranked and Play, that means in Arena THE game is competitive standard. (There's Draft and Sealed, but those are $$$$ and there's the occasional, blue-moon Pauper or Singleton but they're so rare as to hardly consider 'modes of play' in Arena). So Ranked play is all the same top tier decks. And you have to play those too unless you enjoy losing by turn four. I get tired of playing Esper Control sometimes and want to try something janky or a combo deck or even just a halfway decent deck like Esper midrange, but there is no place to play them. Anything else get's crushed fast in Ranked. Even unranked Play mode is all the same tier-1 decks: Monored, monoblue, Esper, Gates, Sultai, Dimir.. on a loop. Sign in to Arena, play one of your tier 1 decks, play 4 games against monored, 2 monoblue and a dimir control, then quit. Janky decks aren't fun to play when your opponent is playing World Championship Mono Red Turn 3 victory deck in the unranked freeplay mode. And I don't know about you guys but I get bored of playing my top tier decks after a while. So what does that leave? The occasional Draft game when I save up enough gold once a week maybe? Draft is fun, but I like deckbuilding and want to play some other games. But right now there's no place for anything else in Arena. So I've just been logging in, doing my daily quest, and leaving... usually feeling "well that was a waste of time" after I'm done. I'd love for this game to make it, but sadly I dont think it's much fun.
I agree with paper being cheaper. For me the issue with Arena is the lootbox aspect and that I can't really just craft a card I want without "earning" one of their obnoxious wildcards. There are SO many rare cards and mythic cards in each viable meta deck, and there is little crossover unless you play similar decks. So to make my Golgari deck, from before RNA dropped, I needed say 18 rares and 7 mythics. Now I am tapped out of rare and mythic wildcards. RNA launches and to make that deck competitive again I need another 6 rares and 4 mythics. The only way to get these are to open a boatload of packs (is it 20 packs for the guaranteed mythic?) In a shop I can buy them, and even sell the cards that are not in the meta anymore. And some of these rares I need are like $0.75. But in Arena they all have the same value and that value is either long-ass grind, or $40+ in packs to either lootbox RNG the card or earn the WC.
Heaven forbid that you get tired of playing the same deck over and over and want to change it up and make something else competitive. Now I need to earn another 20 rares and 10 mythics (on average Id say) to build another deck of a different type. Arena is a huge expense IMO. IRL I play mainly draft at FNM and buy a few packs or cards just to mess around in standard and I have better standard decks IRL than I do in Arena which I can play everyday. And my cards have an actual real-world value. So even though it's not a true investment, it at least feels like if I drop $3 on a pack, I can "earn" money by pulling a $10 card from it. In Arena it's all valueless except in it's rarity which is selectively doled out by a program that rewards only time or (larger) amounts of money.
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Awful. Mono-red or spam Walkers. I think I'm done until the next release. War of the Spark is bad folks. It's made the game worse.
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Not to mention you need a creature who can reach a walker. All the powerful walkers have a first turn defense - Teferi, Ili, Bolas, Vivians. Turn 1, and for many their +1 is defense. When the new Ili walker drops you have TWO turns to destroy it before it;s game over and shes going to either drop a 2/2 defender turn one or kill two of your creatures. Vivian takes your flier. If your opponent drops one and then the other in two turns its GG. There's no play around for a lot of them other than have a PW removal spell in hand, but PW are going to outnumber your removal spells. What do you run 4 Vraska Contempt? Maybe 4 Bedevil? 4 Vivian A, 4 Vivian B, 4 Ili. The only way the game is playable is because you get Thought Erasure on your first three turns so you can kill them in hand before they drop. I dont like cards that are "press X to win the game" and a lot of the walkers are realllllllly close to that.
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Holy ***** dude not even close. You don't draw your pieces in chess and need to rely on RNG giving you your Bishop when you need it. Your opponent cant be playing a board that directly counters your board. Chess is equal and balanced on both sides, the only exception being someone plays first. Not anywhere near a comparison to MTG.
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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.
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I guess most players suck then. Ended last season in Diamond. And that's not the point of the post. The point is Arena needs more game modes. But you incel gamergate nerds cant see past gentle criticism of any consumer product that you devote your personality too. I'm sorry the mean "sportsball" jocks picked on you in high school because you had acne and smelled like pond water and your only outlet was purchasing consumer goods. Maybe you should join a gym or something. Get out of your gaming chair and comfort zone and improve yourself a bit. Maybe people would like you. Its a big "maybe" I'll grant but I'll be praying for you. There is always hope, even for the most repulsive nerd out there. You just gotta want it and put in the work. A better life cant be purchased at GameStop.
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I don't think Competitive Standard is a "fun" way to play Magic. It's good. It has it's place - Seeing the best deck you can create and trying to beat all others is totally a legit way to play the game. However it's not an inherently "fun" experience, especially when that's all you have. Magic offers so many ways to play, but in Arena, since the goal is 'win at all costs' and the only free modes are Ranked and Play, that means in Arena THE game is competitive standard. (There's Draft and Sealed, but those are $$$$ and there's the occasional, blue-moon Pauper or Singleton but they're so rare as to hardly consider 'modes of play' in Arena). So Ranked play is all the same top tier decks. And you have to play those too unless you enjoy losing by turn four. I get tired of playing Esper Control sometimes and want to try something janky or a combo deck or even just a halfway decent deck like Esper midrange, but there is no place to play them. Anything else get's crushed fast in Ranked. Even unranked Play mode is all the same tier-1 decks: Monored, monoblue, Esper, Gates, Sultai, Dimir.. on a loop. Sign in to Arena, play one of your tier 1 decks, play 4 games against monored, 2 monoblue and a dimir control, then quit. Janky decks aren't fun to play when your opponent is playing World Championship Mono Red Turn 3 victory deck in the unranked freeplay mode. And I don't know about you guys but I get bored of playing my top tier decks after a while. So what does that leave? The occasional Draft game when I save up enough gold once a week maybe? Draft is fun, but I like deckbuilding and want to play some other games. But right now there's no place for anything else in Arena. So I've just been logging in, doing my daily quest, and leaving... usually feeling "well that was a waste of time" after I'm done. I'd love for this game to make it, but sadly I dont think it's much fun.
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Heaven forbid that you get tired of playing the same deck over and over and want to change it up and make something else competitive. Now I need to earn another 20 rares and 10 mythics (on average Id say) to build another deck of a different type. Arena is a huge expense IMO. IRL I play mainly draft at FNM and buy a few packs or cards just to mess around in standard and I have better standard decks IRL than I do in Arena which I can play everyday. And my cards have an actual real-world value. So even though it's not a true investment, it at least feels like if I drop $3 on a pack, I can "earn" money by pulling a $10 card from it. In Arena it's all valueless except in it's rarity which is selectively doled out by a program that rewards only time or (larger) amounts of money.