Ayup. Don’t let me get started on this new game called Halo!
…
I’m not complaining about Soul Warden per se, but I am surprised that it was released (and then frequently rereleased) as a common.
I mean, it wasn’t so long ago we had that godawful cat-cauldron thing. Bleugh.
Free gold today…
In the store under Deals.
Thanks! I always appreciate the freebie codes and heads-ups that members post in this thread, even though I haven’t played the game, yet. I hope to one day!
Kamigawa Dynasty released today. I would say…get in on the drafts while people are still figuring stuff out. I made enough gems to pay for the next mastery pass and then some, but I did blow through 30k in gold to do so. No more drafting for a while!
Now I’m debating whether to get the cosmetic lands and basically give back all the hard won gems. They do look great though, and snow covered lands will rotate out later this year.
Code for your three free packs: PLAYNEO
https://twitter.com/MTG_Arena/status/1491833762002448391
Yep, good idea. I only had time for one draft, but it went well with RW samurai.
Always good advice. Sadly I’m on vacation right now so I’m already permanently behind the curve, but ah well. I’ll get 'em next time!
If anyone’s been looking for a chance to try out the new set, the free midweek Magic event is a phantom draft - you don’t get to keep the cards, but you don’t have to pay either. Runs today and tomorrow.
PSA: free gold in the store’s deal section today.
Had a great Premium Draft, in which I didn’t snag any crazy rares (my best card was Inventive Iteration, which is granted a damn good card) but I ended up with 4 copies of Tamiyo’s Compleation, which played in every single match. I think it’s too slow for constructed but hitting creatures and planeswalkers both is solid.
I’m sure you folks knew this also, but ninjitsu plus saga creatures=good times. Being able to scry 2 late using Era of Enlightenment helps more than the damage from a 2/2, and the life coming back is also very welcome.
It’s a great limited set all around. Very complex, tons of viable decks, dynamic gameplay. Limited has been such an all-star for me recently. Even VOW, which was admittedly bomb-y, had “blood” which was an incredible mechanic. I barely play constructed formats anymore.
I too love Limited although I’m not good enough to “infinite draft”. I’m working my way to gold 4 and I might have to stop there for lack of gems/coins.
After the near-miraculous 4x Tamiyo’s Compleation above, I had two decent drafts in which I got smoked, with 0 wins and 1 win respectively (although I gave away a win through stupidity-a recurring motif). Then this last draft nothing seemed open and I started taking best available from W/R/B, figuring another beatdown was on the way.
But somehow between Sunblade Samurai and Network Terminal, plus Secluded Courtyard, I managed to fix lands and hold out until Raiyuu, Storm’s Edge was drawn. It doesn’t look like much at first glance but it comboes beautifully with Imperial Subduer, and God help you if Isshin, Two Heavens as One or Asari Captain are on the board.
God, I love this set. I didn’t think I’d ever quick draft out of the current rotation, but I’d definitely draft Kamigawa again when it comes up. It’s so well designed. Red is probably the worst color but even then there are some gems to make the deck viable.
I’ll go against the grain a bit and say that this is one of my less-liked limited sets for a while (which is sad because I love the style and flavor). I don’t know exactly how to describe it but it feels like the extreme amount of value plays, especially at common and uncommon, limits counterplay and to some degree deckbuilding in ways that I don’t find fun. It’s almost more like a legacy/vintage cube format where you’re just trying to build a more broken value-engine than your opponent… except part of the appeal in those cubes is that you get counterplay from sideboarding in Bo3 matches, while Arena drafts are almost all Bo1 because of the reward structure.
I resemble this remark. I usually do a few premier drafts in the first week of a set, then after that it’s just the occasional quick draft, maybe once or twice a week.
I’m with the first half of this statement. My favorite part of the set is the vehicles, which isn’t a very good archetype in draft. A lot of games play out with saga after saga, so you can see the beating coming for you but can’t do anything about it. I got lucky early and won a couple drafts with samurai before people really got going with the big value decks, but after that my experience has been consistently bad with lots of long games where I’m basically just waiting for the opponent to overwhelm me.
As for the second half of that comment, I’ll differ there…I don’t much like the flavor either. Except the mechs, those are cool. But ninjas and spirits never did anything for me, and turning some of them into artifacts doesn’t improve matters. Plus much of the art style just grates on me. The cards with neon art look cheesy and those basic lands (except the mech plains) are just ugly.
Yeah, vehicles never work out for me. On the other hand they rarely fall to me either, so someone must like trying them.
@Kyrios I’m still newish to Arena, having played only since Midnight Hunt. Is counterplay similar to “interaction”? While I don’t much play ninjas unless they just fall in my lap, I think Kamigawa has more interaction than the last two sets because of ninjitsu and channel. It makes the block/no block decision much more interesting.
Whoops, I see you referring to the sideboard. So the Learn mechanic is probably a good example of counterplay then. Ditto dungeons?
Not even that so much but more “answers” is what I’m trying to get at. There’s a certain balance between threats and removal in most draft environments that shifts a bit in terms of effectiveness from one set to another. (Is a 2 or 3 mana spell that does 3 damage, or a 4 mana low/no condition kill spell good or bad? Depends on the threats that it does and doesn’t answer, and how efficiently.)
This one is all the way to one side of the spectrum: basically, if your removal isn’t also itself a 2-for-1, you’re falling behind (both in mana and tempo) even by casting what would be “premium removal” in most other draft environments. It’s not something that is objectively right or wrong or better or worse, I just… don’t love it, because it pushes effective Bo1 deckbuilding almost exclusively towards “build bigger/better threats”. Or alternately, most of the common removal solutions are much worse than most of the common threats, which is probably also why you see red struggling (since that’s usually what they’re good at in limited).
Do they really not sell theme/starter decks? Or am I just not seeing it?
You get some number of theme decks (10?) for going through the tutorial and beginner quests on Arena. They update those every once in a while.
Ah, unfortunately there’s some bug that means I can apparently never complete those, so I can’t get them.