Magic Arena OO talk

[Redfive]

Get Merfolk unlocked and you can start killing noobs.

The stock Merfolk deck isn't good. The mefolk murder deck took a ton of wilds, wins, or buying.

I did my dailies with the stock Merfolk deck. I stopped at 7 because I finished all the quests.



It's no pushover.

[Sudy]

I ran into a deck that combined graveyard recycling with Chance for Glory (take a 2nd turn, lose the game at the start of the 2nd turn's end step) with Lich's Mastery (can't lose the game, etc.). They must have taken 40 turns in a row to beat me with the one damage source in their deck (Banefire I think it was). I wasn't really annoyed... I just read while I waited. I think the best punishment was actually making them finish the game with their boring jank deck. Not that it should be looked down upon if it's legal. I just can't imagine playing such a deck for more than one win.

I went 8-2 with my WB weenie lifegain deck tonight in ranked. I was surprised... pretty much just threw this together one night. Have only refined it a little. Usually I go 50% or worse with it.

Spoiler:

//Creatures (25):
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Leonin Vanguard
3 Leonin Warleader
4 Resplendent Angel
3 Epicure of Blood
3 Regal Bloodlord
4 Healer's Hawk

//Non-creature Spells (11):
2 Call to the Feast
3 Ajani's Welcome
4 Inspired Charge
2 Sworn Companions

//Lands (24):
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Forsaken Sanctuary
15 Plains
6 Swamp
1 Forsaken Sanctuary

Yes, I'm incredibly lucky to have pulled a full deck's worth of Resplendent Angels as a F2P player.

[GreenGoo]

I wasn't really annoyed... I just read while I waited. I think the best punishment was actually making them finish the game with their boring jank deck.

Me too. I'm not opposed to alt-tabbing and surfing the net while they dick around with their infinite plinky damage.

[Paingod]

With the free daily decks (I think there are 10) if you get a card you already have or already have 4 of, do you actually get the card - or does it just say "Oh, you've got this already, well now it's in this deck"?

I'm wondering if I should accumulate the remainder of my free decks before opening another booster, or if it's all the same in the end.

[LordMortis]

Get Merfolk unlocked and you can start killing noobs.

The stock Merfolk deck isn't good. The mefolk murder deck took a ton of wilds, wins, or buying.

I did my dailies with the stock Merfolk deck. I stopped at 7 because I finished all the quests.



It's no pushover.

Weird. It would mostly get slaughtered in the games I get matched against (where I get regularly slaughtered) as well as the four decks I play most often.

Yes, I'm incredibly lucky to have pulled a full deck's worth of Resplendent Angels as a F2P player.

My Bla/W vampire life steal is one of my go tos. It went from my strongest out of the gate to still being my 3rd strongest. I should debate putting my two Resplendent Angels (also lucky but not as lucky as you) in but then I'd have to pull something out. Which might not be a bad idea. My latest curse is the enchantments that not only locks a critter but prevents you from playing copies of it. Internet says Ixlan's Blessing. Theoretically and uncommon, I haven' seen a single copy.

And things I don't understand. The cost for these doesn't make sense to me. Also I may just need to break down and get the Ixlan's Bindings by wild. I have four Heiromancers cages and four Luminous Bonds but zero blessings. And they are cheapish way to ruin creature decks that have 4 of this and 4 of that.

One white two other Luminous Bonds Enchantment Aura Enchant creature Enchanted creature can't attack or block.

One white three other Hieromancer's Cage Enchantment When Hieromancer's Cage enters the battlefield, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Hieromancer's Cage leaves the battlefield.

One white three other Ixalan's Binding Enchantment When Ixalan's Binding enters the battlefield, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Ixalan's Binding leaves the battlefield. Your opponents can't cast spells with the same name as the exiled card.

With the free daily decks (I think there are 10) if you get a card you already have or already have 4 of, do you actually get the card - or does it just say "Oh, you've got this already, well now it's in this deck"?

I think there are 14. One for each color and one for each 2 color combo. Cards in excess of four go to a pool for "the vault" only that's cards in excess of four from a specific set. If the card comes in two sets then you can have four from one set and four from another, even if you can only play four. I'm not sure what happens with regard to the rat you can have more than four copies of.

[Paingod]

Re: "The Vault" ... is this a serious thing? This isn't worth saving for if true.

Mtg arena vault ratio is 21:1. Dusting 21 mythics + 42 rares + 63 uncommons + 200 commons opens it ONCE...
Getting you 1 mythic wild card, 2 rare wild cards, and 3 uncommon wild cards.

So you randomly burn over 21 mythics and 42 rares to get 1 mythic and 2 rares?

[Isgrimnur]

https://twitter.com/saffronolive/status ... 5299357696

[Paingod]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a couple cards seem to always deserve a spot in my decks. Both are artifacts. It doesn't matter the theme or purpose of the deck, they fit in.

• Helm of the Host - (4) At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a token that's a copy of equipped creature, except the token isn't legendary if equipped creature is legendary. That token gains haste. (5) Equip
• The Immortal Sun - (6) Players can't activate planeswalkers' loyalty abilities. At the beginning of your draw step, draw an additional card. Spells you cast cost less to cast. Creatures you control get +1/+1.

The Helm has, by itself, won me a few games - if not simplified a few fights. It's hard to get into play early, though - but it only takes being clipped onto one creature, even a minor one, to make a real difference. The best part, aside from cloning, is that it activates before combat - not the beginning or end of your turn - so you can clone something new just before a fight, or equip it for the first time before a fight and get a clone. The clones are fully capable, with all the abilities of the original, even if it's legendary.

The Immortal Sun is a wonderful addition to stymie any deck with Planeswalkers - and grants +1 cards per turn (vital beyond turn 6), in addition to making your spells cheaper and creatures stronger. I've had this out twice with enemies who had Planeswalkers, and I swear I could feel them seething. Even without planeswalkers, this is worth it for the forever +1 card, +1/+1, and -1 casting costs.

Better yet - I've only seen the Immortal Sun in play once through another player, and I've never seen the Helm in play except when I use it - so I get to feel like I'm actually doing something unique.

My new favorite deck is white/black mish-mash of every (even moderately useful) Vampire card I have with a few enchantments and a few artifacts. 65 cards, but I have trouble deciding what to trim. The ugliest thing this deck has done so far was when I had the Helm (above) out and attached to a vampire with two clones that did 1 damage to enemies and gave me 1 health anytime a creature was hurt - in addition to 3 of the vampires that do 1 damage to my opponent when I gain health. I could attack with a 1/1 lifelink vampire token creature and hit my opponent for an unblockable pile of damage. It struggles against counterspell and direct damage - but I think most things do.

[LordMortis]

I'm not counting the days until my 5th cards collected and hidden from me total enough to open a vault.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a couple cards seem to always deserve a spot in my decks. Both are artifacts. It doesn't matter the theme or purpose of the deck, they fit in.

• Helm of the Host - (4) At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a token that's a copy of equipped creature, except the token isn't legendary if equipped creature is legendary. That token gains haste. (5) Equip
• The Immortal Sun - (6) Players can't activate planeswalkers' loyalty abilities. At the beginning of your draw step, draw an additional card. Spells you cast cost less to cast. Creatures you control get +1/+1.

The Helm has, by itself, won me a few games - if not simplified a few fights. It's hard to get into play early, though - but it only takes being clipped onto one creature, even a minor one, to make a real difference.

As a person with zero planeswalkers the Immortal Sun makes it in most of my decks. The Helm of the Host a card I own but don't ever put as the expense is too hard to justify. I have seen it used effectively against me but only in decks that have me cornered by shutting down my every action, where I'm going to lose anyway or in decks where I get screwed and the game progresses so slowly again where most any gimmick would kill me.

I have a white enchantment that costs one white, creates a 1/1 white vampire with lifelink and changes to a land that produces one white mana or can be tappped plus one white and two other to create 1/1 white vampire with lifelink
I have two - two green and one other 5/2 dinosaurs that draw a card every time an opponent activates a creature ability that go in to every green deck.

[Paingod]

I've been playing my Vampires deck tonight and kicking a lot of ass. Winning maybe 2/3 of my matches, which is a nice turn. I even delved into Ranked combat, and am now Bronze Rank 1. Next step, Silver, I guess?

The deck has a tremendous amount of synergy around gaining and losing a point of life and creature attacks or deaths. Most opponents get me to maybe 6-10 health before the deck "kicks in" and I start pushing back hard.

The primary damage isn't the creatures in combat. It's the synergy.

• 1 damage to opponents when I gain health.
• +1 health, 1 damage to opponents when a creature attacks.
• +1 health when any creature dies.
• Lots of Lifelink
• Pay 2 health, (1)B: Draw a card.
• When healed, Pay (2) to draw a card.
• Draw a card at the beginning of upkeep, damage opponent for converted cost.
• Draw a card (Immortal Sun)

That's the bulk of it. I can have a single 1/1 flying bat token die and gain 2 health while harming my enemy for 6. It multiplies the longer I'm alive. It gets downright gross when I start spawning more big, synergized creatures with the Helm. I could probably invest Wildcards to make it more efficient and streamlined, but I kind of like the sometimes random hodge-podge I get out on the field. A 0/3 vampire I can tap to steal 1 health? Sure. Oh, that translates to an added 3 damage thanks to the Epicures...

I like it because it's my deck. I haven't seen it anywhere else. Now that I have all the stock decks, I see them everywhere in most of my fights. The merfolk decks I fight are pretty stock. The dino decks are pretty stock. The lifedrain decks are pretty stock. The zombie decks.

I'm starting to get a really good feel for what the enemy deck will contain within the first two or three turns, and start adapting my strategy. A lot of people seem to fall for my "going down" warm up period and press hard, trying to kill me. They end up chewing through fodder, and burning good spells killing smaller things I'm happy to waste.

I suppose, in short, I feel like I'm getting it... and I'm enjoying it.

[GreenGoo]

I haven't even been doing my dailies regularly.

I like playing the game, but the amount of time I would spend to do this right is a serious barrier, so I've been avoiding committing fully.

I'll just keep reading along, maybe live vicariously.

[Paingod]

I haven't even been doing my dailies regularly.

I get it.

While I'm enjoying it, now that I've unlocked everything I don't feel any sense of urgency to continue except as a minor addition to my gaming time. A couple rounds here and there, maybe. Last night I played long enough to get the 'best' free stuff for the day and then moved on to other games.

I'm certainly not feeling any compulsion to spend $5 in real money to join a tournament I'll make it two steps into.

What the game really needs - and what previous iterations had - was a way to play against more than one person. I've seen shots from the previous two MTG games, and they had 'tables' with 4 people at them. I bet turns went a lot slower - but the games were far more dynamic and interesting.

[LordMortis]

I haven't even been doing my dailies regularly.

I like playing the game, but the amount of time I would spend to do this right is a serious barrier, so I've been avoiding committing fully.

That's called being reasonable. I don't really obsess, especially as I'm still enjoying myself as long I don't have to wait (and I timed my impatience, it starts at about 10 seconds and moves to annoyed 25 seconds. How crazy is that? Oddely enough, I don't think I'd be impatient if something was on the line. Whatever.)

I play too much for token coins and cards of which I use about... zero... I'm not going to spend money to hunt wilds to get planeswalkers (of which I still possess none). but I"m still having a good time, so it's alright.



The decks I face come in waves and I'm still not sure how matchmaking works. I got up to gold easily in the ranks and figured I should just move to non ranked games and those non ranked games went off the deep end of difficulty. Maybe I go back ranked? Weird. Yesterday, it was all decks of people who having nothing but explore capabilities and the first time I faced a enrage deck, something I was trying to build but I just don't have a critical mass of low self damage cards and enrage critters yet. Maybe I'll hunt them the next time I join a draft collecting my token gold, as I stink at drafts anyway (and yet they are the best of the game for my enjoyment). *shrug*

[Paingod]

I wish I knew how matchmaking worked. Sometimes the game seems to know, statistically, which decks will counter mine and dump those on me as opponents one after another. I've seen that 'waves' effect as I bump into Merfolk/Merfolk/Zombies/Merfolk ... and after a few fights, I'm a little tired of facing Merfolk.

I picked up a Mastermind's Acquisition card in a pack, and really want to use it - but don't know for what. Putting it in means taking something out, but it looks like a really nice "I'll find the perfect counter" card. The description: Choose one -- • Search your library for a card, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. • Choose a card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand.

The "Search Outside the Game" part made my eyes boggle a little. Like I could seriously have three islands out that I keep in for one of my funkier vampires, then reach out to my collection and pull in a Nezahal, Primal Tide just for fun? Hah!

I did bump into someone with a deck similar to mine - a non-standard Vampire deck - and while he got the initial upper hand, around turn 6 I knocked him off balance and he never recovered. Then I didn't just kill him so he could see the cards I had in there, and I was drawing well. I had four ways to draw extra cards out on the table before the end... and so much land in my hand that I choked on it.

[GreenGoo]

I have 2 quests. (Cast 20 white or black spells) and (Cast 30 white or black spells).

Any idea why the counters are going up at different rates?

edit: ...and never mind. I guess it has something to do with refreshing or something. Eventually they matched. Still weird though.

[Redfive]

I built a version of RDW last night by the way. It can be ridiculously fast.

In one game last night on turn 4 I had six creatures out and it continually just overwhelmed the decks my friend was playing.

[rittchard]

I gotta get into this over the break!

I'm still a little confused, are you guys playing against real players or against AI or a combo of both?

[Exodor]

I gotta get into this over the break!

I'm still a little confused, are you guys playing against real players or against AI or a combo of both?

All matches are against random human players

[GreenGoo]

I built a version of RDW last night by the way. It can be ridiculously fast.

In one game last night on turn 4 I had six creatures out and it continually just overwhelmed the decks my friend was playing.

I think I'll at least make an attempt at a RDW before I walk away completely.

Tried the white/green starter deck because it looks like fun. Some blue/something scry/explore/something deck ate me alive. The match ended with him at 20 hp and me with no creatures and no cards in my hand.

That's just a statement, not a complaint. I had a number of wins with the white starter deck, even 1 against a superior deck when he had bad draws. That has to be frustrating.

[Exodor]

Holy crap, I've lost 16 of the last 18 matches I've played. That's with the deck that was winning about 2/3 of the time before the last two days.

Time to step away for awhile.

[Paingod]

Holy crap, I've lost 16 of the last 18 matches I've played. That's with the deck that was winning about 2/3 of the time before the last two days.

So much this. My "so awesome, 2/3 win" vampire deck last night lost like 4/5 matches before I said "I've got other things to play" and tried out Curious Expeditions from the sale at GOG.com.

Granted, I was playing in the "Silver" rankings - but those don't seem to be filled with anyone harder than bronze. It's just who gets the lucky draws. Maybe three of my losses were because I still only had 3 land out (with 24 in the 65 card deck) by turn 6 and my enemy already had 6 land and 5 creatures.

[LordMortis]

Curious Expedition was/is a good game for the buck. It's still on my desktop waiting for me to get back and try and do better with a different team and work on the new area in the last DLC that I never worked on.

[Paingod]

They should honestly consider tapering the rewards better. I got really into the game, and feel...

1. The daily rewards taper nicely. You get a clump of cash, then less, and less, and single cards. Fine.
2. The weekly rewards should be broken up to daily rewards. I still have 40 hours to wait before I get another free pack.
3. The Deck rewards were really something to look forward to, but getting 15 decks in 6 days was a huge rush of cards - that suddenly shut off and left me feeling like they cut a firehose off.

I suppose to them, cutting off the firehose was supposed to make me want to buy more time at the hose. It doesn't. I see the hose as what it is and walked away from it.

Now I do a few dailies, get a couple cards, and call it a day. I don't even think I can play for enough Gold each day to get a Booster anymore.

So there's a huge rush, everything's cool, and you're flying high on new cards constantly - and then they pull that rug out and stick your face against an ATM and tell you to pay up. I get the business model - I just think it might work better to keep "Freebie" players more interested by breaking it up and spreading it out more.

Maybe give you daily one-time access to a championship quality deck. Break up the free decks by days or a week apart. Break up the weekly rewards to be either daily or every 2 days. They don't need to change the amount of content provided free, but they do need to change the jarring transition from feeling loved to feeling mugged.

[LordMortis]

Now I do a few dailies, get a couple cards, and call it a day. I don't even think I can play for enough Gold each day to get a Booster anymore.

I play enough to get to enter a draft on the weekend. For me spending 5000 on booster draft is more entertaining than opening five packs.

If I had to look at the drawbacks (though I don't think in those terms I think of entertaining me now) it's five packs of anything you want vs 3 packs where you can either cherry pick or just play to be competitive and a minimum of 1 more pack an 50 crystal if you lose three matches from your draft in a row but they mush all be from the current draft round, currently dominominop. But the truth is I like the drafts and constructed decks are nothing more than exploring the game to earn enough gold to get in the drafts. If exploring the game gets too boring and price of drafting remains about $5 a pop for cheap drafts, then I'll move on.

[GreenGoo]

7-8 turns in, only 2 land. I wonder what the probability of that is. Not high, certainly.

Even more hilariously, I was playing the W/B starter deck, which has at least 9 critters that cost 2 or less mana. I only ever drew one of them.

That's...got to be the definition of unlucky.

[GreenGoo]

Lol, merfolk vs. B/W deck. Spent 10 turns building our little armies into big armies, then he slept my entire board, at which point he did 27 points of damage. I had 25 and he had 10.

Sigh.

edit: 3 b/w vs u/g, 3 losses.
edit: and a win vs. stompy.
edit: and another win vs. blue control deck
edit: a few more wins that I don't recall. I liked the b/w deck before I lost to merfolk, and I like it now. It's fun.

[Exodor]

Another day of nothing but losses. When they released the last patch they obviously changed the matchmaking and now i play nothing but merfolk and drake decks.

I don't losing, that's part of magic - but when I'm consistently matched against decks I can't beat the game stops being fun.

[LordMortis]

Another day of nothing but losses. When they released the last patch they obviously changed the matchmaking and now i play nothing but merfolk and drake decks.

I don't losing, that's part of magic - but when I'm consistently matched against decks I can't beat the game stops being fun.

Are you playing ladder or "friendly"? I found that ladder is easier than the not ladder all way up to Gold (which is where i"m at now) and there will likely be more give and take there when I top out. I figure the non ladder would be more experimental but it's not. It's were tweaked decks that can't rise any higher go to fill out their dailies.

I got a mythic rare wild in a pack today. It's my only one. I don't recall spending my mthics before but I must have. Anyhoo, I think I want my first planeswalker with it but I can't make up mind which one to get. My three strongest decks are all White based. A white knight first strike, a white/black vampire, and a white/red mentor/goblin overwhelm deck. So I'm thinking straight white or the artifact planewalker but indecision has me sitting on it.

[Exodor]

Are you playing ladder or "friendly"? I found that ladder is easier than the not ladder all way up to Gold (which is where i"m at now) and there will likely be more give and take there when I top out. I figure the non ladder would be more experimental but it's not. It's were tweaked decks that can't rise any higher go to fill out their dailies.

Both. The losing started while playing ranked but continued when I switched to non-ranked.

I don't know if it's just a run of bad luck or if it was keeping track of my wins (I was winning 2/3 of the time) so I'm playing against good players with good decks but since the last patch the game has lost a lot of its appeal.

[LordMortis]

The slow blue decks will be the end of me in this game. I just don't have the patience to play against people making decisions about what should be easy things to do when there is no social aspect of the game. And blue is all about taking the time to decide how your deck is supposed to be played. If you aren't quick witted then I'm off surfing the internet while you decide what's up. I may or may not time out while waiting.

[LordMortis]

I don't know if it's just a run of bad luck or if it was keeping track of my wins (I was winning 2/3 of the time) so I'm playing against good players with good decks but since the last patch the game has lost a lot of its appeal.

This deck has me up to Platinum and holding my own. Not advancing but not falling, so a round 50/50

It was a really good deck before I broke down and filled out my Legion Warboss and Ixlan Bindings, 2 Warboss and 3 Bindings are my only purchased cards. I lucked into 4 Heroic Reinforcements and 2 divine Visitations (I actually own 3 but it's 5 mana to cast, I just can't dilute the speed of the deck with 3 copies.)

The Ixlans and Remorseful Cleric are silver bullets and don't help the deck unless common problems, otherwise too difficult deal with pop up and I just happen to have the right card at the right time. I use 4 Ixlan bullets because even without being a magic bullet, they're game changers for most decks.

1 Leonin Warleader (M19) 23
4 Leonin Vanguard (M19) 22
12 Plains (M19) 261
1 Clifftop Retreat (DAR) 239
4 Goblin Instigator (M19) 142
12 Mountain (M19) 273
4 Heroic Reinforcements (M19) 217
1 Trumpet Blast (M19) 165
1 Make a Stand (M19) 26
2 Sunhome Stalwart (GRN) 26
1 Goblin Banneret (GRN) 102
4 Legion Warboss (GRN) 109
1 Legion's Landing (XLN) 22
1 Goblin Warchief (DAR) 130
3 Haazda Marshal (GRN) 13
4 Ixalan's Binding (XLN) 17
2 Divine Visitation (GRN) 10
1 Rigging Runner (XLN) 157
1 Remorseful Cleric (M19) 33
1 Mentor of the Meek (M19) 27
1 Settle the Wreckage (XLN) 34


My other decks, not so much. Even my Vampire deck, for which most of my wilds went right when I started, is not competitive where I am in the ladder and the "firendly" games are consistently way harder than Platinum duels.

In the same news. Slow blue deck still bring out the worst in me. Fortunately, they are sparse in the platinum duels. Blue decks are almost as common as ever but their players aren't pulling out their hair looking at their own card as often.

[Paingod]

Slow blue deck still bring out the worst in me. Fortunately, they are sparse in the platinum duels. Blue decks are almost as common as ever but their players aren't pulling out their hair looking at their own card as often.

I don't get that. When I play Blue, I know exactly how I'm intending to play - especially when I get more than 3 turns into a session. Once I get a feel for what the opposition deck contains, I start mentally prioritizing my blue counter cards for their possible moves. There's no internal debate about how and when to use them.

I haven't been back to this one in days. Not since picking up a couple games on Steam I wanted to try. I'm guessing the flurry of interest died the second free stuff stopped raining down on me and "new things" started being "old things" ... not to mention the seemingly limited deck sets.

That "unique" deck I was so proud of started showing up in other hands opposing me somewhere in the Silver ranked matches. Not my two different artifacts, but the general theme. +1 health to me, -1 health to you. Not just Vampires and Lifelink.

The Mask continued to be an excellent 1-card stand-alone addition. It alone saved me from a few defeats by giving me the ability to spawn clones every turn at no cost. The nastiest two clones were the +1/+1 to other Vampires and the Epicure spawn, so 1 point of health gain for me hurt the enemy by 6 points.

[LordMortis]

You are in a minority. First it was Merfolk taking their time to do the same openings every time. Now it's the Blue Black counterspell-surviel-card steal deck who ponder their wonderful hand before and after putting out an island and doing nothing on their turn and again to Draw 1 and scrye at the end of my turn. And the Blue-Red counterspell-direct damage-graveyard building flying deck trying to find one of four copies of Niv-Mizzet who want to actively deliberate on whether to screw with my spells or permanents at every phase and then debate the order their play so as make their engine most efficient.

If you can play those decks efficiently and are actively involved in the game, great. We'll see if you can get your engine working before my bad draw rights itself (If I don't get a bad draw those decks tend to fall in four to five turns. My red/white weakness is against white mass destruction, green overpower, and black creature kill concurrent with creature generation... ). If your engine is working, I'll happily concede to spare us both the time it will take for you to click through all your crap moment to moment. Now, if you either aren't engaged or are constantly struggling then my own distracted and impatient nature takes over and I let it make me be productive doing other things and we play the match until the bitter end.

Edit: My RW dick is still not very competitive in the free play without a lucky open

[Paingod]

It seems the flavor of the week is "Corrosion" - which is non-standard, "purchased" cards. Very light on creatures, heavy on counter spells and Draw cards - with as many "Psychic Corrosion" cards as they can acquire. If it gets rolling, they'll cast a spell to draw three cards, and you'll immediately discard 8 cards. I've lost twice to this, but been faced with it maybe half a dozen times. Best counter seems to be anything that comes back from the graveyard or lets you draw and play quickly so you can't be counterspelled before getting a couple creatures out.

[Exodor]

It seems the flavor of the week is "Corrosion" - which is non-standard, "purchased" cards. Very light on creatures, heavy on counter spells and Draw cards - with as many "Psychic Corrosion" cards as they can acquire. If it gets rolling, they'll cast a spell to draw three cards, and you'll immediately discard 8 cards. I've lost twice to this, but been faced with it maybe half a dozen times. Best counter seems to be anything that comes back from the graveyard or lets you draw and play quickly so you can't be counterspelled before getting a couple creatures out.

I've played against this deck a few times.

My best defense is to hit ALT-F4 and play something else for 10 minutes.

Nothing annoys me more than a blue deck that denies you the ability to play anything and tries to mill your library to death. I figure the time they wait for the rope is time they can't be annoying another player.

[Paingod]

Looking through the card DB, it looks like Gaea's Blessing (Green Sorcery) would defeat this deck by existing. If it's discarded from your Library, the entire Graveyard is shuffled into your Deck. That would instantly defeat this kind of blech.

[Isgrimnur]

Nothing annoys me more than a blue deck that denies you the ability to play anything and tries to mill your library to death. I figure the time they wait for the rope is time they can't be annoying another player.

My college game shop owner was a big Magic player. Loved to build some odd decks. Would never play Blue.

[LordMortis]

I face a lot of corrosion decks and they all seem pretty ineffective especially given that it seems most decks I face are blue.

Still hate blue because slow play and blue is definitely the most common deck I go against. Either the BlueRed graveyard bump/NIV BMZZTT deck or the blueblack steal your enemies deck and use it against them deck.

Blue denial. That's what blue does. Black will kill all critters at a glance. White will kill all critters or trap entire card types at a glance.

Nothing annoys me more than a blue deck that denies you the ability to play anything and tries to mill your library to death. I figure the time they wait for the rope is time they can't be annoying another player.

I am still passive aggressive on slow blue decks as well. Not blue decks. Not losing. But playing slow. The tone is usually set before the first card is played. Player decides if they want to keep deck.... wait... Player plays land... wait.... my turn play land... wait... player scryes and draws card on my turn.... wait... player plays second land.... wait.... player plays one blue mana or one red mana critter (unblockable merfolk or small flying critter or hated tap to do one damage goblin, I think)... wait.... player passes rest of turn...

Slow play online in real time brings out so much of the worst sportsmanship in me that I think about stopping but I don't, because I'm dumb.

Some of the green explore players are starting to do this as well. I give them more patience though as the explore decks are less rote and need more thinking. I dislike that they make me wait so much but I can at least comprehend the need so I don't get distracted.

[Paingod]

I face a lot of corrosion decks and they all seem pretty ineffective especially given that it seems most decks I face are blue.

I honestly think the game pits you against whatever is most likely to beat your deck, statistically - though that makes me wonder about why my opponents are being pitted against someone they're going to trounce.

I sometimes wonder if all the players I'm up against are human. Most games of MTG can be boiled down to numeric superiority and ranking certain cards "threat level" accordingly, so the AI can play Murders and Shocks effectively. I mean, I stall until I have a numeric advantage before attacking. It's not hard math. By eliminating chat, the AI doesn't need to worry about talking, or can hit "Good Game" once every 4 matches or something.

[Exodor]

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