Board 8 > Magic the Gathering: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

(+) Yeah! (+)

I actually just started playing Historic again recently. Playing B/W Auras and maybe it's because it's best of one, but Jeskai doesn't seem all that bad. I do have main deck Claim//Fame for that early Lightning Helix which absolutely makes a difference, but there are cracks in that armor. I don't actually have the wildcards to try Humans or Jeskai for myself but I dunno if I need to. Historic seems like such a wacky, open field right now anyway.

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turbopuns3 posted...

I've been playing some standard games with a blue green deck I hobbled together

I still haven't crafted a single card, just collecting resources and getting exposure to the meta and whatnot

I faced someone named mtg_punker who was running that green landfall bug that duplicates itself

They were clearly running away with tempo etc as my draw was awkward and I was having to deal with threats suboptimally just to survive

I played Stolen by the Fae for X=3 on 5 mana to last one more turn

During this turn mtg_punker amassed a board of 50 creatures against my board of four 1/1 flying creatures (I had a silver raven also)

But they had nothing to deal with flying and I won with exact lethal from Return of the Wildspeaker

'oops' I guess, fun stuff

In other "cool story, bro" news

Same deck newer iteration, I somehow managed to beat someone after they activated world tree and put about 12-15 gods on the board

Again because nothing to deal with flying

I get way too obsessed with perfecting whatever my first idea for a deck is without ever branching out. I've earned 25 different decks and used 0 of them

pyresword posted...

Anyone playing Historic lately? I'm trying to decide what to play for the Arena Open this weekend. I think I'm currently torn between Jeskai Control and Mono-white Humans. Jeskai is probably the safe bet, but Mono-white got some really good new tools recently in Esper Sentinel, Thalia's Lieutenant, and Ranger Captain of Eos. I think mono white does quite well vs matchups like Jeskai, but I'm less sure how it fares against the rest of the field.

Ended up not going with Jeskai and not doing that well (2-3). Not sure I'd have had any better chances with mono white though. I did end up facing someone who was obviously just building purely anti-control with stuff like multiple Chandra, Awakened Inferno and Shifting Ceratops in a best-of-1 deck, but I also played 1 or 2 matches against decktypes that I found in testing that mono white really struggled with. (tribal or midrange decks with big creatures)

Oh well, probably going back to Izzet in this format especially now that we're getting Consider and Play With Fire in the Innistrad set.
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I ran Mono Red Madness to 4-3. I maybe could have done better with more practice, but by the time I was able to get into the event it was down to a lot of aggro players trying to squeak by and Arena hates letting me play first so my chances weren't going to be great. I probably should have known better than to try since it took 1.5 hours for the game to even load up since it wanted to recheck all my files for "stability" and couldn't seem to get more than 2% through before it stopped responding.

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Ive reinstalled twice and cant login to Arena on iOS, it just fails to connect. Google doesnt show anything, anyone notice any issues?

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The Golos ban in commander was something I didn't see coming, but I'm pretty happy about it. A commander that generically good shouldn't exist in the format.

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new set is up on Arena

first sealed went ok, but 2 of my rares were the w/u flashback spell which is maybe the worst rare in the entire set

then I just started my first draft and the rare in my first pack was that same spell again

i cant escape it

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Did about 4 drafts with mixed success. Didnt tear it up like ikoria or strixhaven but didnt inexplicably lose like Kaldheim either.

The good news for the format is I got my teeth kicked in both by a turn 4 concede vampire deck and an insanely unbeatable control deck. The format seems fairly balanced so far, with white potentially being weak.

Favorite card so far was probably the Thing in the Egg card that flips after you cast 7 mana of spells.

Early impression is the gameplay is solid. Still not a fan of the Arkham horror theme, but thats not a deal breaker

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I did a draft yesterday and didn't do too well, probably need a couple tries to get a feel for it.

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I think red is the strongest color yeah, but I dont think its going to be as bad as forgotten realm because I dont think a color is unplayably bad.

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I haven't been able to do drafts myself yet since I'm short on gold/gems, but this set looks really cool for both limited and constructed tbh.

I have still been playing constructed Historic and I can say that Izzet Phoenix unsurprisingly likes the addition of Consider a lot. In a bit of a "wait and see" mode for standard right now but there are a number of decks I'm interested in seeing if they work. Most notably I want to try some tempo shell with Delver, Smoldering Egg, and whatever the Looter il-Kor werewolf is called.
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I should probably try this set out a bit. Been busy and haven't been particularly enthused to play Magic the past couple months.

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Feels like this set has a ton of incredibly good cards compared to Forgotten Realms.

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AFR was one of the lowest-powered sets in a very long time, so that makes sense!

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I'm going to try to draft a bit tomorrow.

I'm really curious how the day night thing is going to play out so I'll probably force gruul if possible

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I figured I'd give MTGA another shot on tablet, since there's the new set and my slate of other games I play has been losing my interest. Early returns on drafting:
U/B zombies 4-3
B/W junk I think? 3-3
R/B day/night 6-3
U/W humans 4-3
R/W aggressive 7-1
and I ended up at gold rank starting from nothing, and a little plus on gems (especially with the discount draft token in today's daily deal). Day/Night has been a fun mechanic so far.

3-3 with bw removal and some sacrifice synergies

I thought the deck was ok but i think i needed more ways to create multiple creatures for the sacrifice outlets

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Did my first in-person prerelease since the pandemic started. Made a blue/black zombies deck and went 1-2. Thought I could pick up at least two wins but oh well, it was still fun to be back in the store and playing against real people.

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Had an absolutely nuts draft in Strixhaven Quick Draft today. Went 7-1 with most of my wins being a cakewalk and my only loss being due to mana screw.

Wish I could say it was skill, but turns out it's pretty hard to go wrong when you get dealt P1P1 Velomachus Lorehold into P2P1 Lightning Helix into P3P1 Lorehold Command >.>
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i'm crossing my fingers and waiting for standard to settle- no deck in the format is calling to me yet.

if anyone's having a good time with something, i'd like to hear about it!

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I made a red/blue deck that won legitimately 9 of 10 matches in a row, I sent the decklist to some friends talking about how good it was, and now I cant win a match with it to save my life.

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there are a lot of izzet variations flying around! they're eating each other alive, and i think everyone has their eyes on it

it's kinda hard to pin the meta down with no significant events

i saw one list with Storm-Kiln Artist and Goldspan Dragon that looked super fun, but i think it's not good enough


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I think in competitive Standard your deck wants to be doing at least one and ideally multiple of the following things right now:

(1) Playing Esika's Chariot

(2) Playing Goldspan Dragon

(3) Preventing your opponent from doing (1) or (2)
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Fun fact i am running 4x broken wings main deck now

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yeah wrenn and seven along with esika's chariot is just ridiculous, but it doesn't look fun to me for whatever reason. i realize i'm being difficult and should just play the good deck

i'm more hopeful in the red-based or black-based field

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Honestly I think Izzet Dragons is my pick among stuff that's been tried so far, though the format also feels very unsolved to me. (From a strength standpoint...I don't really like piloting the deck much)

If you want something completely different I think Dimir or Esper Control might be ok? Gabriel Nassif had this build linked below which looked interesting, and there's also the treasure focused builds that were run a lot in the Standard 2022 queue before Innistrad released. (Those were generally black/white only but I really do think you want to be running counters right now if you aren't trying to go under the other decks...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrF_KV4C4dc
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I've been enjoying U/W control. It takes longer to play a game than I'd normally like, but nothing beats that feeling of knowing you've won without putting down a creature or doing a point of damage and then just waiting for your opponent to figure it out.

It's doesn't matter too much, though, since we're a month and a half from a new set. By the time this format is solved it's going to be spoiler season for the next set.

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Honestly Ive been playing a good amount of story book brawl which has taken over my arena time.

Im just not a fan of the flavor and lack of paper magic doesnt help

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I've been copying Alrund's Epiphany in standard because why just settle for one extra turn when you can take all of them. I do think the deck as it currently exists loses to mono-green but it feels quite strong vs everything else.

I've been testing out a mostly blue/black version of the deck but it's hard to say yet if it's better or worse. I'm convinced there's some way to crack this deck so that it destroys everything though and that it's just a matter of time until someone finds it.
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i don't fully understand the mtg circuit, but here's the list of decks in their top 16

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/q1xxvp/worlds_metagame_and_decklists_leaked/

this is probably where we should look for stuff that's "good", or at least stuff your deck might want to be able to snipe

4 Grixis Epiphany
4 Izzet Epiphany
3 Mono-Green Aggro
2 Mono-White Aggro
1 Izzet Dragons
1 Gruul Aggro (splashing Negate)
1 Azorius Aggro

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You have to consider worlds decks are going to meta against expected worlds decks. Not necessarily the best ladder decks

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Honestly I would tread carefully. I'm quite skeptical of the Grixis list, and even if they end up proving me wrong it still seems like it's geared towards a very narrow meta.

Expecting the mono-green players to clean house in this event. I suspect it's possible to tune Epiphany decks towards that matchup but I don't think any of these lists are it. Dark horse pick goes to the Azorius deck which is hard for me to evaluate until I see it in action I think.
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yeah, i'll be honest- i'm mostly a bo1 player, and these are clearly bo3 decks

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Brainstorm and Tibalt's Trickery banned in Historic, Memory Lapse Suspended.

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Ive been playing soooo much this week, like 2 or 3 hours a day, procrastinating at work lol.

In an attempt to avoid meta I made a red/white equipment deck, using things like Bruenor Battlehammer and Halvar, God of Battle.

Its working great so far.

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Man I was really enjoying MID quick drafts, even made it up to diamond in limited.

Now it switched to a set I know almost nothing about (Which admittedly is every set but MID lol)

=(

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Forgotten Realms is probably one of the worst limited sets in a while anyways tbh.

Going to be sad when MID leaves Premiere Draft though because I'm really liking this format.
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TIL that if you cast Alrund's Epiphany 4 times in a row it gives you exactly enough birds to swing for 20 damage by the final extra turn even if you have nothing else going on.

No comment as to how I came upon this information.
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pyresword posted...

TIL that if you cast Alrund's Epiphany 4 times in a row it gives you exactly enough birds to swing for 20 damage by the final extra turn even if you have nothing else going on.

No comment as to how I came upon this information.

This information bugs me because I've been done in by an Alrund's out of left field so many times lately lol.

I've played like 200 matches this week, I don't know why but I've been addicted.

I made a monoblack zombie decay deck thats a lot of fun, and a sloppy dungeon delve deck that in one match hit so right that I ventured into a dungeon 8 times in one turn, each of those actions proccing twice--it was awesome.

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I'm pretty sick of Alrund's Epiphany at this point. It's not a broken card per se, but it clearly creates unfun game states and isn't healthy for the game.

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Honestly I get more annoyed at Esika's Chariot. I don't mind when your 7 mana spell wins you the game but I do mind when your 4 mana spell wins you the game.

This is obviously a stupid and reductive argument from the standpoint of metagame balance/ban decisions/etc but in terms of my own playing experience this is how I see things.
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Funny enough by far my most hated spell in Historic is Collected Company so I wonder what this says about my playing preferences
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esika's chariot is something my current deck can generally deal with, so while i might roll my eyes, i don't really mind. if you have creatures of your own, artifact destruction, or a board wipe, the chariot isn't a big deal unless they also land a wrenn

what really sucks is having the ability to play the game taken away from me, or anything that makes me wait excessively

i'm talking like pre-ban eggs, or any crazy combo deck where the person just sits in the corner playing with themselves for 10 minutes

pretty much anything extra turns or land destruction gets that way, too

cat oven and mono white got a little tedious on arena due to so many triggers, even if they weren't that powerful

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I don't know. I know what you mean but I just view the game differently. If I lose to someone playing their "win the game" sorcery on turn 8 I generally feel like the game was an enjoyable fight and there's things that could have gone differently, etc. Losing to a mono-green deck that just draws must-answer threats which are impossible to interact with profitably at every step of its curve is just demoralizing and frustrating.
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i get it, i think it totally depends on what deck *i'm* running

i love participating in the back and forth of a grind/value race- i'm golgari at heart, and my favorite deck archetypes are usually some kind of interactive midrange. it wasn't always this way- arena helped me learn to embrace the ravenous chupacabras of the world. prior to that, i was functionally more of a fearful, budget pillow fort player

if my deck can't really participate in that race (if i'm low to the ground aggro or something), then absolutely i get frustrated

on the other end, anything that can break through and give pure control a big middle finger (carnage tyrant, hydroid krasis, discard, that card drawing squirrel, etc) makes me giddy

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