Board 8 > Magic the Gathering topic - SOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, if you don't think you're going to cap your 15 wins and do all 7 daily quests every week, it's probably not worth it.

Especially now that're you're already 2+ weeks behind.
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yeah i was wondering that cause I have no idea when or if the pass resets or anything like that so I didn't want to pour resources into it then OOPS, you ran out of time!

Thanks guys, another question, what are the top tier decks running around in standard right now?
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Emeraldegg posted...

Thanks guys, another question, what are the top tier decks running around in standard right now?

Golos
Golos
Golos
Golos
Golos Fires
Golos
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Should I be selling my Prerelease golos promo?
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Probably.
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Did MTGA ever get any decent solo content? I enjoy the game but suck at playing it against people who know what they're doing, so I mostly just play puzzle/quest modes of other games. Worth reinstalling Arena now it's out properly, or is it all multiplayer?
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There isn't any single player content to speak of beyond a tutorial.

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MCV decklists are out. 43% are Golos decks, which is actually less than I expected but still way too much.
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I didn't even know MCV happened. Nice marketing, WotC.
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Its happening this weekend.
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Statement still applies.
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... what's mcv
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Mythic Championship 5 (V), the clownfiesta they replaced the Pro Tour with.
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Oh neat, I didn't know we had a Magic topic. I recently got back into the game after over a decade away because I finally learned about Commander and making themed decks is fun. Would it be alright if I came here for noob advice? I can't seem to beat my brother's Ayula bear deck and I don't know enough about the strategies to understand what I'm doing wrong or how to fix it.
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What are you playing? Sounds like a deck that would be weak to mass creature removal if you're in white or black.
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What deck are you running? I'm not really into commander but just as a general rule, I'd guess the trick to beating tribals is to try and keep the board clear as much as possible, to keep them from ramping up too hard.
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I have a few decks, but I'm no card master and I haven't spent a lot so they're all probably mediocre. Thankfully my friends play decks of similar levels so this bear deck is the only one I'm having trouble with. Ayula costs so little (especially with green allowing lots of mana). It's always out early either powering up or auto-killing one of my creatures every turn so I can't get anything going. For example, my Goblin tribal/Ib Halfheart deck doesn't work because Ib can only make goblins explode for 4 damage and Ayula is always stronger than that by the time Ib comes out and the rest of my goblin boosters get picked off every turn.

The only time I managed to beat Ayula was with my Gorgon/Deathtouch deck, and that was only because I managed to get Damia, Sage of Stone equipped with first strike so the bears couldn't kill it and I was drawing seven cards every turn. I figured killing Ayula a few times would be an equalizer but my Demon/Devil deck killed the bear four times over the course of one game and green allowed so much mana that Ayula just came back, powered up, and killed my commander (Rakdos, Lord of Riots) before I could do much of anything.

I can sometimes beat my friend's crazy Sliver deck or my other friend's Gishath/Dinosaur deck depending on how many dinosaurs he draws, but I can't seem to overcome Ayula. Having a dozen creature destruction spells per deck just to ensure I draw enough to keep Ayula at bay is the best answer I can imagine, but I'm worried that's the wrong approach. I haven't needed to do that with any of the other decks I face.
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When you're playing against green creature decks, the fair solution usually is to have access to a few wrath effects. There are plenty of <$1 rare wraths you could run in your Damia deck, for instance. Something like Crux of Fate or Languish would go a long way, just giving some immediate examples of cards that tanked in price after rotating out of Standard and should be easy to come by.

Goblins are harder to work with, and there's a natural disadvantage there. I have a hard time suggesting improvements to a goblins deck that would help while still remaining a casual deck. Blasphemous Act is the gold standard for red wraths, but is a bit of a liability for goblins.
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So, I just want to make sure since you said you were new to edh, maybe your brother is too, are you guys aware of the rule where you have to pay 2 mana extra each time your commander is summoned from the command zone? And it's cumulative, you pay x, then +2, then +4, then +6, etc. Just wanted to be sure.

As far as preventing ayula from getting too ramped up, if you're playing goblins that means red, pack some instant speed damage spells and wait for him to cast a bear spell, then zap ayula while the spell is still on the stack. Stuff like shock, lightning bolt, etc. There's plenty of good kill spells in red/black as well (devils) and black/green (gorgons). Of course it depends on what cards you have at your disposal, but basically I would pack as much removal as you can find, preferably cheap so that you can zap ayula early before it can get ramped up the first couple of times. If you can keep his board clear, especially of ayula, you can just sort of keep board advantage with some creatures since green doesn't have much in the way of removal. You can't bank on killing ayula via combat because tribals like that like to just hang back and save creatures and eat the damage till they're ready to overwhelm you.
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IIRC MTGA gave out like 20-30 levels worth of mastery from promo codes last season. And I think mastery lasts...what... 60 or 90 days? I think every new standard release is when it resets.

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This is going to be a much longer mastery than the last one since the next standard set wont be out until next year.
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Yeah I know about commander's costing more to resummon, but Ayula dying three times means the mana cost is what most other commanders cost after one death.

But yeah, I'll look into more board wipes and damage spells, see how that goes. My goblin deck and demon deck (because of Rakdos) are probably too creature-heavy to stand up to the bears. Thanks guys!
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Thinking about using half of my remaining rare/mythic wildcards to finish up an easy burn deck, I need all the robbers and chandras, and the 1/1 dudes that make equips cheaper or something I forget his name.
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Fervent Champion? Im still not sold on him being good.
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I wish I could trade mythic wildcards for rare wildcards, because boy do I have more than enough mythics and am always short on rares.
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trdl23 posted...

Fervent Champion? Im still not sold on him being good.

in mono red cavalcade? What would you replace him with?

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pjbasis posted...

trdl23 posted...

Fervent Champion? Im still not sold on him being good.

in mono red cavalcade? What would you replace him with?

Are you already playing Tin Street Dodger, the M20 elemental one-drop, and Gingerbrute? I know the latter doesnt work with the legendary dwarf guy, but I value evasion or guaranteed damage vs. a glorified raging goblin that doesnt trade with X/1s.
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Yeah I can see that. I haven't really touched mono red in a while but I see it used.

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It is used and, frankly, might even be correct, but unlike mono-red from past standard, he has an incredibly low floor after turn 1. Furthermore, he cant get in for chip damage well if you dont draw an early cavalcade. I guess theyre decent in multiples, but in a deck with no other knights besides other copies of him, I dont know if thats worth him being the only creature in the deck who can get stonewalled iirc.
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I think I'm gonna try it without him next time I decide to improve the shell I have.


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I want to make the Improbable Alliance deck once I bother to play constructed on Arena. It looks sweet.
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My take is that Fervent Champion is good in the all-knights deck because it has good enough value with the +1 trigger later on and there's nothing better to play as the red one-drop. Outside the dedicated knights deck, I just do not envision it being high-impact enough. Maybe I'm wrong, but I want to see proof of it being great outside the knights deck first. I think there are other better red one-drops for Cavalcade decks.
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but imagine getting 2 in your opening hand...!

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Good point. Then you get TWO cards blanked by a 1/3!
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I couldn't imagine ayula being that big of a problem in edh. There are way worse mono green legends I'd have problems with unless these are solo games.
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Its so weird that I am crushing it in Eldraine irl drafts, but I cant seem to get above 5 wins in MTGA, even with decks that seem sick.
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So I was a schmuck and bought one of those special edition packs of Throne in Walmart last night.

Debating on never opening it from the blister pack.

Anyone else buy this?
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go back and return it tbqh
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The Mana Sword posted...

go back and return it tbqh

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What makes it so bad? Is this like a fat pack? Or just a single pack? What's wrong with it that he should return it?
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I take it back aggro only beats golos when it nuts

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Assuming he's talking about a collector's booster, it's a single pack that contains only foil and alt-art versions of Eldraine cards, but it's like $25-$30 and the EV swings extremely wildly and you're about as likely to get $10 worth of crap out of it as you are to make your money back.
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All he has to do is hit one good foil rare and the pack is pretty much paid for.

I mean even if you get 1 alternate common/uncommon foil and decent rares in all the slots you can get them (which you can get up to 6 rares per pack if youre lucky) then you're sure to at LEAST break even. If you hit a good mythic or a rare foil then you probably make money. If you hit a box topper (extended art foil rare/mythic) then you pretty much made 50-150 depending on what it is.

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I mean, that's true of any booster, it's just higher risk because it costs 10x as much.
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In other news, I just drafted this deck on Arena.

4x Merfolk Secretkeeper
2x So Tiny
1x Witching Well
2x Corridor Monitor
3x Hypnotic Sprite
4x Run Away Together
4x Didn't Say Please
2x Tome Raider
1x Turn into a Pumpkin
17x Island

Easiest 7-0 of my life.
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The Mana Sword posted...

I mean, that's true of any booster, it's just higher risk because it costs 10x as much.

10x is a far stretch. I mean youre more likely to hit even on these collectors boosters than say with other boosts from a masters series.

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Fine, 6x, whatever.
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The Mana Sword posted...

In other news, I just drafted this deck on Arena.

4x Merfolk Secretkeeper
2x So Tiny
1x Witching Well
2x Corridor Monitor
3x Hypnotic Sprite
4x Run Away Together
4x Didn't Say Please
2x Tome Raider
1x Turn into a Pumpkin
17x Island

Easiest 7-0 of my life.

Jesus Christ, you need to take like 5 showers to wash that filth off. I wish I could get the bots to give me such a lovely gift.
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Is the only difference between Brawl and Commander the deck size or am I missing something?
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Brawl is only Standard legal cards.
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