A Veteran Paper Player's Thoughts On This Game

[swagen2167]

First some background so I'm not just some noob new to Magic.

I started playing around Revised. I think it was late 1994. I graduated from Standard to Legacy when Standard started to bore me. Was able to hold my own against most opponents and won quite a few tournaments. Okay, I know how to play Magic.

So far, I'm finding playing this game itself easy. I win most of my matches. Of course I run into a lot of opponents who seem to scoop, sometimes before they even play a land. I'm not sure I understand that, but whatever.

For the most part, I like this game. Of course I love playing Magic itself so I am quite biased.

Having said that, there are things about this game that bug me a little. Not enough to stop playing but enough that I felt the need to vent just a little.

1. It's obvious that opening hands are somewhat rigged. People here call it hand smoothing. I call it a shame. Not every hand should be playable. Sometimes, in the real world, you just get no land or too much land. That doesn't happen here. Some people would say that's a good thing. I'm not so sure I agree. Deciding whether or not to mulligan should be harder than it is here. I had to mulligan ONCE in all the games I've played. I think a realistic hand draw based on real probability and not on some algo would make this a better game,

2. The reward system discourages playing this game a lot. I sometimes run out of things to shoot for early in the day long before I want to stop playing. But what's the point when a win gets you nothing at some point?

3. The rewards themselves, for free players, are almost meaningless. With all the cards I've won (most early on) only 2 were worth putting in my RW deck and those 2 marginally made the deck better. In fact, it's arguable if they even DID make the deck better. As they are one ofs, I've yet to use them. Mostly because this deck is so fast that the game ends usually before those cards are even drawn, let alone cast.

4. Then there is the player base itself. Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm playing against a bot. Two matches today, it took way too much time for them to decide whether to mulligan or not. And the one player scooped on his turn before he even played a card and even knew what I was playing. This leads me to believe that they know that most decks in this format (Standard) are very fast. In my experience, they are lightning fast. Some are even faster than my deck. The ramp I've seen on some of these decks is insane. Point is, I've played some matches where I didn't feel I deserved to win based on how quickly some players quit.

Having said all that, Magic The Gathering has been my favorite game for over 30 years. I have some good memories. I spent a lot of money on cards and at one point owned every legal Legacy top tier deck. Those were incredibly fun days. Every week I would bring a different deck to our Legacy shop. When they closed, I cried. Literally.

I eventually sold all my cards for a crap ton of money simply because there was no place left to play around me. I don't even know what the state of Magic is these days as I haven't really followed either the Standard or Legacy meta in a long time. I'd like to think the game is still healthy but it wouldn't surprise me to find out it's not. Like I said, I'm biased but I can understand if people don't like the current Standard meta. Some of these decks are insane. I don't think the best Legacy decks could keep up with them.

In closing, I think the reward system needs to be seriously revamped so as not to discourage f2p players. Though it is doubtful that will ever happen.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on all this. What I said that you agree with as well as what I said that you don't agree with.

[anaris]

yeah i actually would love it if you conceded every time your deck gets shuffled. free wins baby

[lockwoodx]

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

yeah i actually would love it if you conceded every time your deck gets shuffled. free wins baby

The most annoying thing about MTG Arena is we can't tell our opponent "Sorry that card's on the personal banned list" when we concede.

[anaris]

jsyk if u said that to me i'd run 4 more copies

[lockwoodx]

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

jsyk if u said that to me i'd run 4 more copies

That's why even at tournaments you're still referred to as "nerds" instead of "good"

[Kurt Angle's Neck]

Publicado originalmente por lockwoodx:

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

jsyk if u said that to me i'd run 4 more copies

That's why even at tournaments you're still referred to as "nerds" instead of "good"

Sorry you got wrecked so hard at your tourney, amigo. Maybe next time show up with a competitive deck instead of just a pile of jank and a handful of cheap insults.

[ethorin101]

mmmmmmmm...

...I'm pretty sure the starter decks, between the lot, include 4x Shock and 4x Burst Lightning so that's 8x 1 mana answers to Hare Apparent and if you aren't killing them fast enough for that to be enough I'm not sure how aggro your deck really is... I dunno, maybe the times I ran into it they just had really bad hands... have you tried Aggro Mouse? Anyway, ran into too many "Kill my enchantments or die" decks in standard and outside of my meh Aggromouse I don't feel good about basically any other deck I've put together so far... so now I'm playing Brawl with Mabel, Heir of Cragmane as my commander, white/red aggro can actually have ANSWERS for things that aren't creatures or artifacts, it's great! Also, Mabel is demonstrably silly bad, every time I run into something actually competent I get blown out but it's fun anyway. I like Mabel, she reminds me of Redwall... those are good books. Also it's funny when Mouse with Sword makes the Golem Army flee in terror when I stack enough buffs to make her 13/4 with Trample who can't be blocked by anything with 3 or more power...(House Mouse is a deeply fun card).

Also the Alchemy mouse with "when a Mouse attacks draft a card from this set of mostly cheap red/white combat buffs, that one giant enchantment and EMBERCLEAVE" also very nice. Also the white room that makes my creatures have +1/0 and then copies itself into my hand so I can get another while handing out first strike.

Only just hit 10k gold for first time ever. Mabel is currently my happy place :D. I kinda wish I had enough otters to make a deck of otter spellslingers but mice is what I got and I'm not actually sad about it!

Yay for Brawl being eternal!
Yay for the deck weight algo that means I don't get the deeply mean decks!
Yay for being able to actually play games!
Yay for hand smoothing meaning I don't get hands where I literally never get to play the game!

[anaris]

ok but u should run enchantment removal in brawl too

signed
https://scryfall.com/card/hou/19/overwhelming-splendor

[anaris]

60 card decks are actually quite tough to compose because really you have like, 10 cards with which to answer every threat, after you put in lands and account for the need to run 4 of things you count on. 100 card singleton is a great way to start and you'll get a sense over time of how much percentage of ur deck should be one thing or the other

[nul]

Publicado originalmente por lockwoodx:

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

jsyk if u said that to me i'd run 4 more copies

That's why even at tournaments you're still referred to as "nerds" instead of "good"

"i lose but im still better" head ass

[ethorin101]

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

ok but u should run enchantment removal in brawl too

signed
https://scryfall.com/card/hou/19/overwhelming-splendor

Yes, White has things that answer enchantments and I have a few of them in the deck. That's why I said red/white had actual answers to things I couldn't answer in the monored mouse aggro in standard.

[nul]

Publicado originalmente por ethorin101:

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

ok but u should run enchantment removal in brawl too

signed
https://scryfall.com/card/hou/19/overwhelming-splendor

Yes, White has things that answer enchantments and I have a few of them in the deck. That's why I said red/white had actual answers to things I couldn't answer in the monored mouse aggro in standard.

Yeah, monored's 'answer' to any problem is the opponent's life total.

[anaris]

white splash makes almost any deck better imo, i can't cope without my "exile nonland permanent" effects

[swagen2167]

Question: When rotation comes, how will I know what cards in my decks are no longer standard legal. Will the cards be removed? Will the game just not let me pick it when going to play Standard BO1? How does this work?

[nul]

Publicado originalmente por swagen2167:

Question: When rotation comes, how will I know what cards in my decks are no longer standard legal. Will the cards be removed? Will the game just not let me pick it when going to play Standard BO1? How does this work?

It will not let you pick it, with a yellow warning icon with the number of illegal cards in it.
While editing the deck, the illegal cards will be highlighted in red.

example images:
Yellow warning icon: https://i.imgur.com/1BhCEQr.png
Deck list: https://i.imgur.com/04Vp5cw.png

[Zlehtnoba]

Publicado originalmente por swagen2167:

Question: When rotation comes, how will I know what cards in my decks are no longer standard legal. Will the cards be removed? Will the game just not let me pick it when going to play Standard BO1? How does this work?

You can check already which sets will rotate out in fall, and then check whether any cards you play will not be legal after rotation. According to this page, https://magic.wizards.com/en/formats/standard , Dominaria United, The Brother's War, Phyrexia: All will be one, and March of the Machine should rotate.