For anyone who didn’t get a code from a Theros prerelease, I have some extras that I picked up from non-arena players this weekend. Can only use one per account, gives 6 packs. PM me if you would like one!
Edit: All gone now!
This is now on Epic game store.
Bob’s code netted me a few sweet rares:
Kunoros, Hound of Athreos
Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths
Nyx Lotus x2
Gravebreaker Lamia
and a Mythic wildcard…
Thanks for the code, man!
That means the Mac client shouldn’t be far away now. They promised it’d be after the Epic launch.
Can’t wait. I just hope it doesn’t perform like a dog so I can blow away my boot camp partition and reclaim that SSD storage.
Oh, and big thanks to @ineffablebob for the code. I, too, snagged a few decent rares.
I’m mostly holding off on brewing right now, waiting to see how the meta shakes out. I do like the Gruul aggro deck I’ve mostly been playing, it didn’t require much investment in wildcards.
The World Championship is coming up in a couple of weeks, and Arena is running a promo where you can pick one of the competitors and get some free stuff based on how well they do.
I picked Strasky because I like his deck brewing, not because I think he has much chance of winning.
I picked Mengucci because he stands a great shot at winning. And from what I’ve seen, he’s universally liked and respected by his peers. Like an Italian Reid Duke.
I hate it when I get a wild hair up my ass to get new cards. It always ends up costing me all of my extra “fun” money. But I never regret it! I consider adding awesome cards to my decks an investment. Games come and go, but “always in” cards in my favorite decks are forever.
Bob very kindly got me a code, and my packs had a some pretty decent looking rares:
Bronzehide Lion
Polukranos, Unchained
Temple of Malice
Aphemia, the Cacophony
Setessan Champion
Elspeth Conquers Death
Thanks ineffablebob!
I just started playing this, and havent really played since when the game first released, back in what, 90’s?
I kinda enjoy playing the bot, and I am level 5 right now. Where I get lost, is when I get new cards - I have no clue which ones to include, and how many of each.
Also - am I the only one who see none of the nice atmospheric blurbps there usually are on the cards?
Also - how are people finding the online players? Jerks as they almost always are, or is it possible to have a civil game with others?
Flavor text still exists in the paper cards, and it’s fabulous. I don’t know if they had to drop it from Arena to make the cards more readable, maybe? I didn’t think about it until you said something, honest, it’s a good observation.
Others can certainly answer this better than I, I tend to shy away from MP games, even Magic (which I love) but I can say every single time I’ve been in a game, the other person has been very chill and it’s been a good experience. I have no reason to avoid it, other than I do. It helps, perhaps, that like Hearthstone you can only do a handful of pre-written lines such as “well played” or something.
Ah, the perennial question of the Magic player. If you figure it out, let me know. :) But seriously, when first starting out you can follow some basic rules of thumb. Stay at 60 cards - 24 lands, ~20 creatures, ~16 non-creatures. Try to keep your average mana cost somewhere in the 2.5 to 3.5 range - the deck builder will show that to you if you click on the little bar graph next to the deck name. In that non-creature category, it’s good to have a fairly even mix of things that help your own creatures or draw you cards, and things that stop your opponent’s creatures.
Those are just very basic things for learning with a basic collection. Once you get some more experience and cards, you can look at some decks that people are using for more competitive play to get a better idea of how to build around more complex themes. But don’t pay too much attention to those at first, as they usually require specific rares that likely aren’t in your collection yet.
There’s no flavor text on the cards, for what I assume are reasons of screen real estate. But if you hover over a card, it shows you a larger version, and on one side it will show the flavor text, as well as explanations of whatever abilities the card may have.
Supposedly they’re going to set up a friends list someday, but it keeps getting delayed. It’s fine to play in the regular play queue, though, once you’ve unlocked it through the tutorial/bot play. The matchmaker does a reasonable job of matching you against players with similar experience, for the most part. And like @Scotch_Lufkin said, there’s no direct chat, so you don’t have to worry about random jerkwads spouting off at you.
Thank you so much for the replies, @ineffablebob and @Scotch_Lufkin.
I’ll take a look at the deckbuilder then, and I will perhaps venture out and try the multiplayer part. Could be fun with a friends list at some point and have a few games with people here.
There is something…well, magic, about the game, that I´ve always enjoyed and the world building is also kinda interesting to me. Thats why I asked about the flavor text.
Same. It’s something I don’t think about often, but the early cards the flavor text really helped sell the concept of being a wizard in a multiverse full of things to summon and spells to cast, and I’ve never forgotten that aspect of the game, especially since they continue to tell stories/events through the cards (Theros more so than other modern sets, as they didn’t do a book tie in and have the entire story being told by the cards). It’s a strong point in Magic’s favor, for sure.
I’ve never had a bad experience playing vs other humans in Arena - just like in Hearthstone, you can’t actually “chat” you can only issue from a small set of canned phrases. And there’s nothing insulting there (though I guess if you pick “Good Game” 30 times in a row when you are way ahead the other person may think it’s ironic).
I am also pretty sure that you get matched against people with similar strength decks. So if you create a deck and pick a human opponent you will be against someone of comparable deck value - though of course not all decks are alike, so you very well may run into someone with a really good noob deck. But I also ran into some pretty poor decks.
I started playing with a Mono-red aggressive deck, since it was pretty easy to assemble and it doesn’t require a lot of mana to get going.
But I also took the decks I unlocked by playing against the bot and used them without modifying them - they are decent decks, not amazing, but not terrible.
You should definitely play against other people, because that’s how you complete your quests - every day/week/etc you get a number of quests, and if you can complete them you get rewards. A lot of them are pretty easy like “play 30 lands” or “play 20 black creatures” so if you can do them in the course of playing games it’s gravy.
Just to clarify: only in “Play” mode does the deck matching happen. Ranked play matching is some form of the Glicko rating system.
It’s not impossible for people to be jerks and some will try, but mostly they’re confined to canned remarks and the occasional roper. The key with Arena in ranked play is to play a large number of games, so most of the time people just want to get their games in.
The friends list does work, sort of. You can play games with known-friendly rather than strangers if you prefer, and there are whole discord channels devoted to that sort of play…though it’s worth noting friendly matches don’t advance your daily quests.
For anyone who may not have seen the Theros story stuff…I know I missed it the first time around…here it is:
And if you just want the summary:
Thanks for those links, @ineffablebob .
I’ve become somewhat engrossed in this game! Its VERY fun, and the MP games are really fun as well, and cool to see the decks people are playing with. No bad experiences except for the one guy who took aaaaallll the time he possible could to make a move.
Im almost max level, and silver rank 3 I think, and doing quite well actually. I do find it a bit of a shame that the tournaments, which I have never tried, are pay-to-play, but of course they have to get their money somehow!
Anyways - wayyy cool game, and no need to fear multiplayer in any way.
Theoretically, you can do everything in the game without paying. The catch is, you have to win. If you have a normal win rate (50-ish percent, that is), you’re probably going to be limited in the amount you can do without paying at least some cash.
If you’re digging it, though, it’s worth looking at buying the welcome bundles…those are good value for money.