Board 8 > Magic the Gathering Gopic (Ikoria is here!)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, I still don't think standard is going to be good, there are too many annoying/powerful cards and decks still left, but these bans were still necessary.

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Yea, can't wait for rotation. Not sure if I want to craft a bunch of Uros in the meantime and play some Temur or just play Phoenixes or Boros Cycling casually until rotation hits.

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I'm curious to see how the companion fix will work.
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Are people complaining about standard ever happy? Even before the bans there were a ton of interesting decks all doing radically different things.

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BlackDra90n posted...

Yea, can't wait for rotation. Not sure if I want to craft a bunch of Uros in the meantime and play some Temur or just play Phoenixes or Boros Cycling casually until rotation hits.

I mean...aren't an overwhelming amount of staples right now from post-Eldraine, anyways? Off the top of my head the only archetype based around a pre-Ikoria card is Reclamation. Does rotation actually kill any other decks? Even Teferi I don't think is necessary, just a really good card.

Not trying to be pessimistic because maybe you can still get a good format out of this but the last 3 sets feel very strong and I'm sure people don't want more power creep

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I think noxious had a good point regarding fires - it was too splashable at only one red mana. It was a cool card and i thought that gruul fires was a really neat deck. It just simply easily abused when joined at the hip with other colors and still easily cast.

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It does feel like Mana is too good. Jeskai fires wouldn't have been nearly as good if it couldn't easily play shatter the sky, lukka, and Narset

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Playing Winota in the Bo1 queue right now before the bans his and boy do I feel like an asshole.

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So the play is to craft 4 agents right

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Yeah, there's no real reason to not craft 4 Agents and 4 Fires, you'll get refunded once the bans happen.

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Yea, craft them for the hell of it. You don't lose wildcards but you get to keep the cards if they become useful for whatever reason.

I've also been trying to win as much as I can with my Fires deck before the ban hits.

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not sure if these will fix standard, but i'm pleasantly surprised by the agent ban. companion fix is clunky but probably necessary, even though my umori mutate deck was very fair. i didn't find fires to be particularly unfun to play against, but i'm not a balance expert and i'm sure others had issues with it.

masterplum posted...

Are people complaining about standard ever happy? Even before the bans there were a ton of interesting decks all doing radically different things.

i know it can seem like complaining is the norm, but the general time period between dominaria (early 2018) and eldraine (late 2020) had an overall great standard.

nexus of fate was the one bogeyman because while very beatable it was unfun to play against, but there's a difference between one bad deck and the entire meta being bad decks. i can deal with one frustrating matchup as long as there's a bevy of other viable options and opponents. And plus, nexus was eventually banned from arena, so I didn't have to deal with it

i actually disagree with your statement that there are "a ton of interesting decks all doing radically different things." There are always plenty of interesting tier 2 decks, but if they can't really compete with the top 2/3 that are all similar, it's a moot point.

maybe i stopped paying attention at the wrong time, but the pre-ban standard seemed to be 90% non-interactive, and mostly combo. The tier 0 deck (lukka) was combo, and when i peaced out the tier 1 decks were cycling combo "storm", gyruda combo, winota combo, and take-the-entire-day-fiddling around cauldron familiar/witch's oven engines.

maybe it's gotten better since then- looking at mtggoldfish, it looks like while lukka is still tier 0, and cycling combo and sit-around-waiting-for-cauldron-familiar are the tier 1 decks, there's also a control deck. i guess i miss aggro and midrange.

meta:
jeskai lukka: 32%
clicking-on-witch's-oven 500 times: 12%
control: 7%
cycling until you can OHKO your opponent: 6%

yeah actually idk if control or cycling even count as tier 1


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Question, what are in these haversacks of favor in the workshops that appear periodically on MTGA?
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Random rewards, sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's a skin, sometime's it's gems.

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Unpopular opinion:

Im going to miss Luka Fires

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Chandra Spellbook cards were all shown.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/signature-spellbook-chandra-packaging-and-contents-2020-06-03?=

Extremely hyped to finally be able to get a foil Fiery Confluence.

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Considering picking that up. Chandra is my favourite planeswalker and I've always wanted a Torch of Defiance. Wonder how much the foil one is gonna go for though.

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If the other spellbooks are any indication, not much. You can get a foil Gideon for like $5 from the last one. Obviously ToD is a pricier card and doesnt have any reprints but these things have been plentiful enough to keep the price down in the past.

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Wow, M21 reprints are fucking wild.

Ugin
Grim Tutor
Azusa

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Lots of really good reprints. Not looking forward to seeing Ugin ramped out in standard though.

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Damn, new Teferi is.. interesting.

http://www.mythicspoiler.com/m21/cards/teferimasteroftime.html

Maybe not as oppressive as T3feri but still pretty good.

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He seems like a reasonable power level. Which is nice (all the walkers from this set sans Ugin seem to be much more tempered down), but also means that they're all probably not going to see much play because they aren't good enough given the cards we have now.

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Hey, what ended up happening with our in house? Who came out on top?

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Hi

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I don't think new teferi is very good.

Like I think I would rather have JVP and that was two Mana cheaper.

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Peace___Frog posted...

Hey, what ended up happening with our in house? Who came out on top?

I kinda gave up on reaching out to my opponent.

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Oh wait you can use teferi on both your and opponents turn?

Never mind this is busted

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Yea, activation every turn at instant speed. Pair that with Oath of Teferi and it gets pretty stupid too.

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They turned 'mill' into a rules term finally. It's not the most elegant name but it's better than having no name at all, so I'm glad it happened.

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Yeah, I think the vernacular is common enough at this point that it's fine.

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The leaks say a Gruul variant of Courser of Kruphix is coming which should be sick with Azusa.

Plunge seems to be an incredibly solid removal spell

All Hounds being Dogs is also weirdly sweet, as is "mill" being keyworded as far as minor tweaks go.

This core set is already way cooler than I expected it to be

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I hope everyone likes RDW, because it's back in force.

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I switched over to RW cycling.

not as fun as yorian fires but zenith flare is such a dumb card

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I played RW cycling for awhile and just couldn't scrape enough wins together to be satisfied. Going from Umori-Winota before the bans to RDW now I'm at Diamond 1.

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Made it to Mythic. #614. I had to contend with going second all but 6-7 times tonight, but I did it.

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Wow. Nice job, dude

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Nice, if you hold onto that spot you qualify for a tournament entry right?

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Free gold in arena store today

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Not gonna lie this core set is looking pretty great. You can do a lot of really stupid things with Brash Taunter and the damage tripling enchantment. I live for jank like that.

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I want the cat bork
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Arena players are bad at cube

SHOCKING

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They really are. Not that I mind.

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Just got a 12th pick evolving wilds

What the hell. Wheres the first time? meme

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This is a weird cube

I'm on my 5th draft so far and it really feels like there isn't a big enough cardpool yet. The gap between the best cards and the worst cards is too high imo

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people are bad at cube because they gave everyone a free draft

i bet > 90% of the players are derping around with their free token

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Yeah, something is weird. I have yet to win 3,4,5 or 6 times

I've 7-X'd 4 times and won 0-1 twice

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Cube feels overwhelming to me right now

so many good cards how do you even choose what to first pick

I dont remember what am my options were, but I chose Embercleave P1p1 and now have some sort of Gruul aggro deck with Sarkhan at the top of my curve and im doing alright but it might just be because my opponents have been doing so badly
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Embercleave is a good P1P1

The secret to cube is value cards that are good against insane cards higher. Disdainful stroke goes from near unplayable to I just second picked it

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aggro deck went 6-3, just got beat by control decks with board wipes

so for my second draft I first picked the Giant with the board wipe adventure and now I have the most annoying control deck.

I have War of the Spark Jace and Thassas Oracle and have managed to win games by self milling, milling my opponent, and by dealing damage (thanks to countering a Questing Beast and then Body Doubling it). This is great.
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