MTG thread

Rules update today:

-"Non-Lands in Front, Lands in back" is extended from "On-camera matches" to all Competitive REL play. The Crusade marches ever on!
-Cards that are both lands and creatures have to be put in the front row of your play area. No more ninja FTV: Realms Dryad Arbor shenanigans. Manlands move from the back row to the front row when activated.
-Block Constructed is no longer a supported tournament format, which means no block constructed banned/restricted lists apply any longer. Lin Sivvi is free at last.

My pre-release pool was the dirtiest I've ever had.

1 Tempest Djinn, 1 foil Tempest Djinn
1 Zahid, 1 foil Zahid
Traxos

Add a few short swords, other junk and 17 islands.

Still had close games! The limited power level felt off the charts.

Kuro said:

Rules update today:

-"Non-Lands in Front, Lands in back" is extended from "On-camera matches" to all Competitive REL play. The Crusade marches ever on!
-Cards that are both lands and creatures have to be put in the front row of your play area. No more ninja FTV: Realms Dryad Arbor shenanigans. Manlands move from the back row to the front row when activated.
-Block Constructed is no longer a supported tournament format, which means no block constructed banned/restricted lists apply any longer. Lin Sivvi is free at last.

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Jesus christ did that reddit faggotry over dryad arbor REALLY require a fucking rules change?

Lands in front is pure cancer and you know it.

Lands in front rules text facing your opponent.

Kuro said:

Rules update today:

-Manlands move from the back row to the front row when activated.

Click to expand...

What kind of cheating asshole DOESN'T do this already?

I always move my Binkmoths and Inkmoths.

To be a jerk who is trying to make your opponent screw up because you are an asshat. "oh you didn't realize my manland was activated cause it's hidden in the back? oh, sucks to be you i guess'. I hated those guys at tournaments, beat them anyways was the sad thing. The best players in the world never resort to that kind of asshattery, only the guys who wish they were good. I remember Kenji used to remind his opponents about Pact triggers, he didn't want to win a game on a technicality, and he was considered the best player in the world at the time.

edit: this reminded me of a story. Was playing a tournament back during Lorwyn days, match next to me some 14 yr old kid goes to cast Browbeat against his opponent (some twenty something 'grinder'). Dude just nonchalantly says like 'oh, targeting me with it, of course?' as if that's what everyone does, kid is like 'uhh.. yea.', then dude draws 3 cards. Pissed me off, but unfortunately it was within the rules. Would be one thing to jedi mind trick someone in the top 8, they should know better, but this was round 1 or 2 and obviously the kid hadn't played a tournament before. His deck was janky, dude was gonna win anyways from what I could tell of the board state, didn't need to make the kid feel shitty on top of it.

Enzee said:

To be a jerk who is trying to make your opponent screw up because you are an asshat. "oh you didn't realize my manland was activated cause it's hidden in the back? oh, sucks to be you i guess'. I hated those guys at tournaments, beat them anyways was the sad thing. The best players in the world never resort to that kind of asshattery, only the guys who wish they were good. I remember Kenji used to remind his opponents about Pact triggers, he didn't want to win a game on a technicality, and he was considered the best player in the world at the time.

edit: this reminded me of a story. Was playing a tournament back during Lorwyn days, match next to me some 14 yr old kid goes to cast Browbeat against his opponent (some twenty something 'grinder'). Dude just nonchalantly says like 'oh, targeting me with it, of course?' as if that's what everyone does, kid is like 'uhh.. yea.', then dude draws 3 cards. Pissed me off, but unfortunately it was within the rules. Would be one thing to jedi mind trick someone in the top 8, they should know better, but this was round 1 or 2 and obviously the kid hadn't played a tournament before. His deck was janky, dude was gonna win anyways from what I could tell of the board state, didn't need to make the kid feel shitty on top of it.

Click to expand...

Drew the cards immediately without giving the players of the game a chance to take five damage? Game loss sir, drawing extra cards! The double reverse asshat hoodwink.

yea, this was years ago, but he paused and gave a look of like 'ok.. it resolves' head nod, type of thing, I'm pretty sure. The kid called a judge even, but unfortunately that was how the card is worded and he just hadn't realized. He did agree that it was targeting the opponent, thinking of it like a burn spell.

Wizards Reveals MTG Arena Economy Updates, the Cost of Gems, Constructed and Draft Event Details
Event information.

Average 5.5-3 in games and you go infinite. If you average 1-1 in the constructed queue you spend 100g on 3 uncommons. Spend 5000 gold on a draft, go 3-3, get 300 gems and 4-6 boosters, seems like a better use of gold than buying packs, albeit forcing you to warp your play schedule around weekend tournament availability.

"In addition, packs that you open during a Draft event (see below) will count towards your Vault progress. " This is wrong, they clarified on the beta forums. Chris mispoke on the stream that people are getting that tidbit from, we are guessing it WAS that way and got changed late in the development cycle and he forgot. The packs you open to pick from will not count, but the ones you get from prize support are normal packs that always do.

This update looks ok on the surface, but all the ways they added gold or 'value' they took it away somewhere else, basically. Packs were over 4% of vault progress before, now 3.3%. Individual card rewards (ICR) were removed (which is fine, no one liked them) for the extra daily gold. That's still a better deal, increases player agency by letting them pick the set and increased chance for wildcards, but we aren't getting 'more' overall. Also, the vault is 1 mythic WC, 2 rare WC and 3 uncommon WCs now, which is better, but still not good enough for how rarely you open it. Also, they reduced the 'pity timer' rates on wildcards in packs, so you can go longer without opening a certain WC.

The constructed events look like the way good players will really go 'infinite'. 4 wins gets you your entry fee back +some ICR. Not too hard to average over 4 wins for good players.

However, the draft reward structure is silly. You need to average 5.5 wins out of 7 to go 'infinite', and literally your number of packs for reward are randomized no matter how many wins you get. 1 win? Oh you highrolled into 3 packs! Hurrah for you this time! 7 wins? Nice job! Here's 1 pack, thanks. Like, wtf? 5 wins should reward your entry fee worth of gems back, and the pack rewards should scale. ex: 1 pack for 1-3 wins, 2 for 4-6 and 3 packs for 7. I mean, even hearthstone figured this shit out, and they are stingy as hell. 7 wins out of 12 is 'infinite' in HS arena and that's certainly easier then 5.5 out of 7.

His logic for the events serving different purposes is fine, but then they got the reward structures reversed. Constructed ones are always available, and is supposed to be a way for hardcore players to 'keep playing arena'. Draft is supposed to be an approachable way to learn draft but then you have to get 6+ wins to be able to afford another draft, lol. Needs to be an easier way for a player to get back to a draft if they did 'ok', but maybe had a bad deck or a couple mistakes in draft picks. As it stands, they won't be able to get more practice at it for awhile, unless they just buy a ton of gems.

On the positive side: Their pricing seems fair. Was afraid they were gonna do something stupid like $2+ per pack or $10+ for a draft (some leaked info early on suggested drafts were originally planned to be 8-10k gold, so basically double these prices). Can buy packs for close to $1/each if you buy $100 worth of gems, which is fair enough. In an ideal world, they would have been $1 to start, and as low as $.75 if you bought in bulk, but that was never gonna happen with the greedy bean counters at hasbro who can't see long term enough.

see... if they animated all the cards like that for the foil versions on arena, they could be alot more generous with the regular versions of cards and make tons of money on people chasing the premium versions of cards. It would make the game a ton more popular overall too. It's such a shame they aren't going that direction.