its literally just the exact same red deck 80%+ of the time.

[Malkavian]

tested a new deck with 10

8 different people had the exact same red deck.

[mwesthoff]

You should give Mono Red a try. The shuffler struggles to cheat with Mono Red.

[Ravenns24]

Mono decks are usually cheapest to make so they will always be popular, but this game has weird matchmaking, it forces you into mirror matches like 95% of the time.

[magnumaniac]

Blame the reward structure - optimal value for F2P is 4 wins per day.
Quickest way to get 4 wins is Mono Red - play 3 turns, if you don't see an easy way to win in the next couple of turns, concede and move on. Often a turn one Kumano will get a concede from the opponent too.

[DontMisunderstand]

Originally posted by mwesthoff:

You should give Mono Red a try. The shuffler struggles to cheat with Mono Red.

You've got it backward, the shuffler cheats most FOR aggro decks. The lower the curve and the shorter the match, the more the shuffler impacts the game. It's been overtly stated that they take 2 starting hands and show the player the better one. Basically more than doubles your mulligans for free.

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

theres enough good red cards for diversity. I prefer goblins in alchemy for my red deck. the LotR cards are great.

[Malvastor]

RDW is cheap, fast, and takes minimal expertise and fiddling to pull off. So in a game where there's no PVE and the only thing that really matters is winning, it's gonna be popular.

The bright side is if you make a deck that can reliably survive and get the upper hand after 3-4 turns, they'll probably just concede. Or get petty and rope out.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Originally posted by Malkavian:

tested a new deck with 10

8 different people had the exact same red deck.

Play standard ranked, you get a nice mix of decks until you hit plat.

[Hannah Barbara]

It is well known that mono red is an unbeatable deck.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Originally posted by Hannah Barbara:

It is well known that mono red is an unbeatable deck.

Two of my four games today were against mono red and I won them both using BGR. I got ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crushed by a WB deck and my fourth game crashed because the client is a buggy piece of ♥♥♥♥.

I'm not what your call "good" so mono red must be beatable if you build balanced deck.

Four lands on draw, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I'm still laughing.

[Mirror]

To be fair, winning matters the most to 2 different players. F2P and the ones that like gold stars on their papers. I am neither, so I dont make meta constructed decks for ranked or to farm coins. I play just to play. I enjoy the matches I want and move on to something else. Sure I get frustrated at seeing the same aggro or control deck a million times but its not really the players fault. I blame Hasbro for making MTG what it is today. The game never felt like this back 90s-00s. Sure there will always be Meta decks but in my days. The only way to find out about the most broken OP decks in the Meta is if you copied a Professional Deck after watching it played at a Tournament. We didnt have access to contructed meta decks you could just copy and paste. Not to mention, paper was our only option. So you had to dish out some serious cash if you wanted the best of the best. Now, you just farm some wild cards, go to whatever site, copy/paste, and win. Zero effort, skill, or anything that remotely resembles fun. At least to me, for kids today. That is all they know, so its fun to them. I guess I am just a relic of a better time.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Hannah Barbara:

It is well known that mono red is an unbeatable deck.

Nah, I'm a pretty crappy MTG player and I can beat them pretty regularly (if my own opening hand is decent). RDW is the two-pump-chump of decks. It needs to overwhelm you within the first few turns because if you can get even a couple blockers out and keep them alive they're in trouble.

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

Originally posted by Hannah Barbara:

It is well known that mono red is an unbeatable deck.

red burn loses to lifegain. red rush loses to token spam and lifegain and in many cases cheap removal. IDK what you mean unbeatable. I think boros doublestrikers are much more of an unbeatable deck, it just relies on draws.

What kind of decks are you playing against it? cantrips with no creatures before turn 3? sweeper control decks that lose by turn 4, or to hasted creatures? small threats that get destroyed in ambush? thats what prowess does. I guess some people don't like to play versus ambush outside of limited. lots of 1 mana cards that let you ambush in every color.

[Winter Wolf]

Originally posted by Judy:

To be fair, winning matters the most to 2 different players. F2P and the ones that like gold stars on their papers. I am neither, so I dont make meta constructed decks for ranked or to farm coins. I play just to play. I enjoy the matches I want and move on to something else. Sure I get frustrated at seeing the same aggro or control deck a million times but its not really the players fault. I blame Hasbro for making MTG what it is today. The game never felt like this back 90s-00s. Sure there will always be Meta decks but in my days. The only way to find out about the most broken OP decks in the Meta is if you copied a Professional Deck after watching it played at a Tournament. We didnt have access to contructed meta decks you could just copy and paste. Not to mention, paper was our only option. So you had to dish out some serious cash if you wanted the best of the best. Now, you just farm some wild cards, go to whatever site, copy/paste, and win. Zero effort, skill, or anything that remotely resembles fun. At least to me, for kids today. That is all they know, so its fun to them. I guess I am just a relic of a better time.

The thing is, Hasbro for all their MANY AND MYRIAD wrongs did not do this one by themselves. Internet culture and magic players helped a great deal. WOTC in fact tried to hide meta data for a while (to no avail). Magic Online still (I think) does not publish the daily top winners anymore. But that stopped happening as a way to curb the meta data overflow. Players wanted the data.

Yes you can do fine without Wild Cards and without spending anything on Arena and you definitely don't need "magic content" as long as you have no interest in winning or competing in tournaments. You are set. But for those who want to compete and whose fun IS winning (not necessarily deck building at all) net decking is a way of life and like water seeking the lowest possible path, information will leak no matter how hard you try to stop it. It is rather pointless in the long run imho. Yet another windmill, slain by an errant knight.

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

If you only have fun when you win, I think you are doing it wrong.

[CourtJesterCowboy]

This is why Arena is not real magic. The knowledge and ease of creating top meta decks creates two scenarios: You either have the wildcards to create one of the top meta decks, or you dont have the wildcards, and get forced into budget options, the vast majority being mono-red. Regardless, we see very similar decks at all times.

I have taken mono-red decks to 99% Mythic with ease, but that isnt the Magic I want to play. Even the drafts are affected with overlays and post draw deck builders...

I think the only way to get genuine feeling Magic gameplay on Arena is to cut off overlay apps ability to function along side the game, and to discontinue the deck import option... Ofcourse, this would mainly fix drafts, but try hard players will still read deck lists off sites like AetherHub and manually create the decks anyway, so is it a real solution? Not really. Would it still make Arena "better" at least in game play? Definitely.

A real solution would be killing off overlay apps, and deck imports specifically for sealed and draft events, forcing us to create the deck right on the events page. Then lowering the cost for the events to atleast half of what they are now. Players would have so much more fun at the expense of what? Wizards/Hasbro only making 1 billion rather than 2? on what is quite literally a money extorting scam app where we just want to have fun?

Brutal reality. I wish our government actually did what they are supposed to do and protected the people in a fair manner.