Hopped a bit back into MTG Arena and thinking about what deck i wanna build, but also what mode I wanna play. Played it in 2019 and have some wildcards over and a collection from that days, can build like one competitive deck with that, with a shacky mana base that is (having to be your manabase be like 20 rares is such a scam, always was)
So what are the more fun format? Standard, Brawl, Historic, timeless?
The later seem good because I can use some cards form my old collections and build up cards what won't rotate, but also enjoy playing some standard especially control decks.
Oh yeah I tend towards more controly or combo decks like Azorius, Esper or Simic. Also enjoyed some Golgari in the ravnica days.
What are you playing, what are you having fun with?
Magic is the best card game of all time
I only rly like constructed because I like customizing my own deck and playing with things but as you climb ranks you run into more and more netdeckers and it gets boring, feels like youre playing vs AI… but thats just me
Now hold on a second, friend.
It sounds like you haven't yet been acquainted with the MTG Arena cancer that is Alchemy.
>Alchemy was built for digital-first players, who consume content more quickly but also want a metagame that stays fresh and evolves. As a digital-only format, Alchemy lets Wizards of the Coast add new cards after a set release, offer new mechanics that can only work in a digital game, and rebalance cards to keep the environment interesting. Alchemy begins with all the cards in the Standard card pool and adds in Rebalanced cards. They can simply update the text digitally, and the cards will remain accurate to their new function.
If you don't want to whale max, you probably want to avoid the Alchemy formats.
Timeless is an Alchemy format, for example, since it encompasses everything. For now, it doesn't really matter. Though the alchemy cards that are introduced are strong, very few have managed to break through the power level required to be must plays on Timeless, and when that rarely happens, they get debuffed pretty quickly.
However, the real important warning here is about "Historic". Historic has Alchemy shit in it. If you want to play actual Historic as it was known before, you should be playing "Explorer", which is Historic but without Alchemy
Thank you friend.
Yeah alchemy seems something I want to avoid, for the most part. I noticed cards that would be difficult or impossible in paper, like generating new cards that are put into the graveyard for example.
Explorer seems good then, but are many people playing it?
What formats did you play or enjoy playing?
There's enough people playing Standard, Explorer and Timeless that it's very rare when the waiting timer goes above one minute, it usually takes like 20 seconds to find a match for any. I don't really pay attention cause i'm alt tabbed but it's fast for all. I wouldn't worry about activity, MTG Arena has a small niche but active playerbase.
Brawl is also alchemy-forced, by the way, which is a shame, but they forced it down on us. It doesn't matter that much since it's only one offs anyways, but I wish I could play Brawl without those annoying cards.
No idea in terms of "Alchemy", the format itself or Historic.
Yeah brawl seems fun, have just played one game with a Judith, the Scourge Diva deck. Got kinda stomped on but also need to improve the deck and played pretty bad.
I mostly play drafts and do some brawling to do my quests
I just really like drafting tbh senpai
>timeless drops
>supercharge my historic deck and have fun even if it isn't the best
>MH3 arrives
>completely rotates the format
>try to go back to historic
>deck feels like molasses by comparison
this fricking sucks bros
So historic is timeless just with banned/restricted cards? And explorer is historic without alchemy cards?
They made it a bit confusing, gotta be honest.
Timeless is literally every card in Magic Arena ever.
Explorer/Historic starts at Return to Ravnica, the 2012 set. Everything before that can only played in Timeless. The difference between Explorer and Historic is that Historic has Alchemy shit and Explorer doesn't.
Explorer seems to be the format for me it seems, Return to Ravnica is not a bad starting point.
>Yeah, it's needlessly confusing.
It really is
Oh, I forgot
To further confuse things, there's these special sets like Lord of the Rings, Modern Horizons, and, coming next year, the Final Fantasy set.
Those sets are legal in historic but not in explorer.
Yeah, it's needlessly confusing.
The TL;DR is that Explorer is the most stable format that still has a very high power level
When you try creating a deck, in the upper right, it will tell you to select a format for it. After you select a format, you can go to Advanced Filters and it will show you in the whole list on the right which sets are Format Legal and which sets aren't
These are the ones that aren't legal in Explorer, for example.
thanks friend
>playing arena
>ever
ISHYDDT
I miss modern when it was good
Jund and Storm are tier 1 again, modern is healing.
I played Jund from 2015-2017. I don't want to play that deck anymore
Well what do you want to play?
Phoenix or a deck like
Buried Alive being printed into modern has to help phoenix, although it's a lot less explosive than the legacy version without dark ritual there has to be some way of making it work. Strike it Rich and Manamorphose could probably do some work.
If you could
>Mana Monkey
>Manamorphose x2
>Buried alive
Sure that'd be good, but that's 4 cards and you need to hope the birds stay in your deck. I don't think that deck will ever be good in modern again
>Nadu has entered the chat
*sides in harsh mentor*
*sides in damping matrix*
*sides in sudden edict*
*loses game 2 anyway*
Arena is unironically rigged
I made the mistake of making a historic deck a few months ago and now I'm playing against this gay shit and it's hell
Like the other anon said, timeless is so powerful that alchemy is irrelevant, but explorer >>> historic
They will eventually have a set that will add a lot of cards and make explorer 1 to 1 with the real paper format pioneer for all intents and purposes.
> MTG Arena
Why ANYONE would play Arena instead of Forge or Shandalar is beyond me.
because it looks and plays better
>online only
>microtransactions and daily quests
>no adventure/campaign mode where you gradually build your deck
>no quests or dungeons with special rules
>no special cards made for shandalar
>no ante rule (if someone wants that)
>no legacy only or the possibility to play UN- decks or with cards from the early versions
>no possibility to play with banned cards in most modes
>riddled with metagays and heavily powercrept decks when compared to Shandalar
Graphical improvements are simply not good enough to play an inferior game with less ways to play magic.
Arena not having a block feature in unranked is so fricking gay. No I don't want to ever play against a Black person again if they play netdecked trash and I'm going to instant concede everytime I'm matched with Black folk playing decks I don't play but could list every card since I've seen them a thousand times.
Is it still incredibly painful to grind dailies to get currency to play drafts in mtga?
It's the same
You are definitely not meant to grind dailies. You do the quests and 4 wins a day and you move on.