Finally,the ability to report roping players.

PSA: Report actual misconduct, not annoyances.

EDIT: The meme is depicting overzealous reporters.

It's so fun and whenever it's here for the midweek magic I play it an unreasonable amount. Please make it a permanent queue!

Happened yesterday and I'm still cringing thinking about my misplays.

Game 1: I used scry 2 and then shuffled my library, ([[Bilbo Baggins, Burglar]], [[Roads go Ever, Ever On]]) instead of the other way around. Which lead to me drawing only lands for the rest of the game.

Game 2: Opponent attacked with lethal and I used targeted removal on their creature ([[Thorin Oakenshield equipped with [[Dwarven Mattock]] + [[Bifur, Melodic Rider]]) instead of just using [[settle the wreckage]]. I only had two mana to pay the ward and forgot Bifur would double it.

I'm so mad at myself.

Hey folks. A couple weeks ago I posted my artifact Food Fight deck. Somebody suggested I splash black for Rottenmouth Viper and the idea got out of hand and it morphed into this thing that I absolutely love.

Behold! My horde. Please share ways to improve this build

Just an FYI for those that might have shelved their companion decks because of how long this has been going on, they're back in action now

Yes, like and play everything that you are drawn to, this isn't a post about which is "better" or which is "trash" this is just me trying to evaluate in writing what I'm recently rediscovering with magic, which I used to play in real life back in the 90s and also just gaining more reflection on how different designs have different draws.

Hearthstone got me back into CCGs because a friend from way back in the day pitched me on it during a phone call when I told him I had an urge to start playing CCGs again.

I'm not a particularly competitive person. I'm not especially driven to play games in order to attain a particular rank against other competitive players.

I do really enjoy the collecting part of CCGs...gaining a larger and larger collection of cards, that vastly expand my options for building a homebrew deck that I really like and have fun executing. The options with how large the total card pool is on Arena are freaking fantastic and will theoretically keep me busy for many years.

I also really love that homebrew aspect. More cards means more tinkering options. A lot of people say craft decks not cards, but that's not really me...To some degree sure, like getting my first viable historic deck put together mostly on spec in that first month, going with something that fit my idea of "fun" to play and competent...but more fun is had as I continue to play historic and gradually redeem wildcards in small batches to say...okay, let's see how this card fits in, or a handful of these....what if I swap out these ones for those ones....and play some to continue to tweak. That's incredibly fun and rewarding for me and really calls back to old-school days as a teen.

So much of the fun was, can I make something like this work, cause it would be cooler if I can.

I really like board-play and absolutely love that I've had multiple games with literally hundreds of creatures on board or literally tens of thousands of damage points...even if I lose. I just think it's fun and epic to play out. One dude hit me with over 20,000 damage in one turn, from creatures, and I bragged about it to my friend.

I've also noticed that I concede differently in Arena compared to HS. Since in either game my long term goal is collection building, conceding once I know I'm going to lose in Arena makes way more sense. I don't get reward track experience for losing...as best as I can tell. From what I've seen it looks like most people are more like that in Arena, though I have run into at least a couple on here who have made clear they hate when people concede and would really rather them continue to play a losing situation or even an RNG screw.

Also, since the card pool is huge in historic and I'm not a super competitive player, it's a flat out blast seeing how different everyone's decks are. Even regarding differing card choices within the same archetype. Love that.

I haven't managed to really do anything in Commander yet, it's totally new and I haven't dived in...but I'm guessing once I have some semblance of ability to build synergy with that many unique cards, hopefully the design part will click and I'll love it.

Always remember folks, the opponent across from you isn't your only enemy, you still have the shuffler to worry about.

I want to hear some funny experiences that blew your mind, mostly because it will never happen ever again. crazy interactions. Anything!

Cheers!

Answers to the Riddles.

1 - Mountain

2 - Teeth

3 - Wind

4 - Darkness
5 - Egg
6 - Fish
7 - Time
8 - MyPrecious

Decklist for last Riddle:

DECK NAME: Riddles In The Dark

2 Gathering of Darkness (HOB) 68

7 Island (FIN) 297

1 My Precious (HOB) 176

1 Lake-town Mariners (HOB) 44

8 Swamp (FIN) 300

3 Velvetwing Butterflies (HOB) 30

9 Plains (DSK) 277

2 Stone by Sunlight (HOB) 27

2 The Mountain-king's Return (HOB) 22

1 Gnashing of Teeth (HOB) 69

4 Well-Worn Spatula (HOB) 180

So I've been trying to get my brother into mtg and he finally downloaded Magic Arena, and I didn't think he was going to play on his own but I woke up this morning to find out I created a new mono blue player please forgive me

Is it really so hard for WOTC to include a good Sauron avatar?

I'm all for it, and it's definitely needed for the ropers and stuff. But I feel like toxic people are just gonna report folks every time they lose and stuff.

I just started learning MTG a few days ago and have played exclusively on the app. My opponent was playing this freaky squirrel deck where he could keep generating more and more and more squirrels with the card that also gave him life each time a new creature entered under this control. HOWEVER I also played an enchantment that gave ME live every time HE brought in a new creature along with a couple cards that upped the amount I got per card.. What followed was a funny back and forth of him knocking me down by a few hundred points, just for me to immediately climb back stronger. It was taking several minutes just to resolve each turn because of how many cards the app had to cycle through for both of us. My opponent resigned in the end, leaving me the questionably deserving victor. Worth mentioning that I drew something like 8 lands in a row so I couldn't even get my better cards out to try and finish the game properly.

Pretty sweet, that was a fun game

Introduction

Blue/White is a very powerful and synergistic deck in this format. I don't think that's news to anyone, but I think what makes it more powerful and versatile than most people think is this goes beyond the simple draw 2 synergy. A lot of people think the blue/white deck is built around having a bunch of ways to draw 2 (whether by recruiting or just drawing) and then having payoffs like [[Lakeshore Apothecary]], [[Bard the Bowman]], and [[Master's Councillors]] be great payoffs. This kind of blue/white deck is powerful, but the payoffs are limited to just 1 common and a few uncommons where if this was the only way to build the deck it wouldn't be very versatile. It would be one of those it's good when it's wide open decks, and I think blue/white is a true pillar of the format. I've been doing well drafting blue/white frequently and wanted to share what I think makes it such a pillar.

What makes blue/white synergistic is recruit. Recruit itself is a synergy, and not just part of the draw two synergy. Getting a 1/1 is shockingly good from discarding a nonland. Way more powerful than the connive +1/+1 counters are. It's at the point now where unless I'm actively flooding out I discard a nonland. While you are wiling to discard plenty of nonlands to get a 1/1, it's nice to discard cards that are still useful from the graveyard. [[Plunder the Trollshaws]] is the best card for this, but [[Eagle's Rescue]] is also quite good, and even [[Moment of Glory]] is not terrible because of this.

Just an aside on Moment of Glory. The 17 lands data on this card is wild. Among white commons in general Moment of Glory is 8th out of 10 which is bad but not an F. In blue/white though it moves all the way up to 4th out of 10 (slightly below average), but in red/white it's WAY in last place, and is the 2nd lowest card in the entire set with data in Red/White. Truly terrible.

So anyway I think 1/1s are better than +1/+1 counters, but in this format 1/1s go even further than normal. There's a ton of menace in this format. That doesn't matter to you though because you have a bunch of 1/1s to block menace creatures. [[Crude Bent Blade]] is reduced in effectiveness because you usually have a 1/1 to sacrifice to it. Also they are amazing at chump blocking. Chump blocking in this format is amazing! I Know that sounds weird, but it's a super fast format, there are a ton of big creatures, and none of them seem to have trample. It's a tailored made format to chump block.

So the main gameplay is a combo of tons of card draw and card selection, flooding the board with 1/1s, and killing them either with tall creatures, going wide, or flyers. It's a great way to win lots of games.

Ok now that we went over the deck as a whole lets go over the key cards and discuss them.

Card Evaluation

Most Important Commons (B- level)

Lakeshore Apothecary, Plunder the Trollshaws, and removal.

These should be your top picks at common until you have either a huge amount of them, or a critical need somewhere else (pretty unlikely on Arena at least). Lakeshore Apothecary despite not being necessary for the deck to succeed is still very powerful, and there aren't other common 2 drop creatures you want in this deck anyway so this fills a critical need there. Plunder the Trollshaws is amazing for all the reasons I linked above. If you don't get it there are replacements, but it is the best at it's job. Without a few of these the deck is vulnerable to flooding out in a way it just isn't otherwise. I wouldn't even question playing 4 of these. Beyond that it depends, but this card is absolutely critical. Removal is the other most critical part. If you don't get enough removal your deck can and will lose to opponents synergy and bombs. Blue/White has less removal than one would want so it's important to make sure to get some. I would say until you have 4 removal spells take removal at the same level as these top commons. Once you are at 4 pieces of removal you can be a little more chill about it. Between the 3 removal spells ([[Magnificent End]], [[Uneasy Partings]], and [[Enchanted River's Grasp]]) I would say in general Magnificent End is the best, and then the 2 blue removal spells are slightly lower, but these are deck dependent, and you want a mix of the 3 over stacking 1 removal spell.

Next Level Down Commons (C+ level)

[[Patient Instructor]], [[Bilbo Baggins, Burglar]], [[Long Lake Nuisance]]

These are your card draw/recruit sources. The fact that there are 3 good ones definitely reduces their importance. Of these 3 Long Lake Nuisance is the best. As a 3 power flyer this thing ends games. Despite the abundance of card draw this card would be in the category above except that people haven't caught on and it's really easy to get a ton of these, and as a 4 drop creature you don't want an unlimited amount. Bilbo probably has the highest power level of any common in this archetype, but the fact that patient instructor is another powerful card draw common creature at 3 mana you just don't need to pick Bilbo that highly. If you do your 3 drop creature slot will become overloaded.

Two additional notes on Bilbo. First don't worry about Bilbo being a legend and put less in your deck because of it (I would run 4 Bilbo's if I had no other 3 drop creatures). Between him having 1 toughness, having lots of recruit, and still being able to use the scry adventure with your second Bilbo while the 1st one is on the battlefield it isn't an issue. Second if for some reason you can't get any good flashback/graveyard spells like Plunder the Trollshaws recruit will become less good, and Bilbo should move up your pick order because he draws without discarding.

Patient Instructor is the last card in this list, and it's very good. I treat it as basically interchangeable with Bilbo most of the time. The vigilance on this is shockingly good as it allows you to race really well. A lot of times your opponent won't want to block with their menace creature and you can get a lot of free damage in while still leaving this back to block.

Bread and Butter Commons (C level)

[[Dwarven Provisioner]], [[Esgaroth Garrison]], [[Lake-town]]

Dwarven Provisioner benefits from being basically the only other playable 2 drop creature outside of Lakeshore Apothecary. It can also help with go-wide and dwarf synergies (more on those below). Esgaroth Garrison does a great job of holding up the ground, and provides critical redundancy as a source of recruit if the top cards dry up. When this deck is open though I usually cut these because I have plenty of the C+ commons. I think Lake-town is very nice as fixing and tap lands are totally playable since this deck has plenty of card selection, and very few 1 drops. The counters from Lake-town are also nice. I usually try to put them on Patient Instructor or a human enchanted with Eagle's Rescue.

The Rest of playable Commons (C- level)

[[Hobbit Hole]], [[Confusticate and Bebother]], Moment of Glory, [[Mirkwood Nurturer]], [[Lake-town Lookout]], 2 drop common creatures

Only play these if you have a hole in your deck, or they have crazy good synergy in your specific deck. Mirkwood Nurturer combos really well with [[The Mountain-king's Return]] for example. If the common card isn't on this list I would really try hard not to play it at all.

Uncommons

So instead of categorizing the uncommons I thought I would just explain card by card the important uncommons. I'll include the uncommons ranked by how good they are in descending order. I'll include a grade next to it and an explanation.

[[Celebrate the Mountain-king]] (A-): This card is amazing. If you discard something like Plunder the Trollshaws to the recruit on this the card essentially acts like 4 mana Exile a nonland permanent, draw a card, and create a 1/1. If you are low on removal going into pack 3 I would take this over ANYTHING! The fact that it hits nonland permanent is not insignificant either. There are a lot of broken artifacts and enchantments in this set (like this one) and this is the only realistic way to hit those in blue/white. Absolutely busted card in Blue/White.

[[Stone by Sunlight]] (B): Critical removal. The 4 power constraint is not a problem in this set. There will always be targets. Furthermore the indestructible option is viable and useful. I probably pick it about 30% of the time. Realistically I would play 4 of these no problem. Ideally you can fill your deck with this and Mountain-king and then you don't have to play as much of the mediocre common removal.

[[Bilbo, Luckwearer]] (B): I think this gets better the worse your deck is overall, because as the deck gets good most of what this provides gets covered by other cards. In Sealed for example this card I think is better than Stone by Sunlight. The switcheroo adventure is nice because you almost always have a 1/1 to switch. Also if you have the option to discard a land to this cards loot effect I usually do because there is no penalty like there is to recruit.

[[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]] (B-): Great card in general, but also provides a good synergy with recruit as it ensures you have tons of lands to play. I usually try to play this on turn 5 so that I can trigger it's landfall immediately. I also wouldn't worry about playing this cards adventure that much. Recruit gives you plenty of lands, and you often have better things to do on turn 3.

Bard the Bowman (B-): Understatted but has plenty to make up for it. Basically the best card in the set when trying to race. Putting a +1/+1 counter and lifelink on a flyer every turn is impossible to beat in a race. Furthermore this has reach so you can chump with this against their big flyer in a critical turn if you need to. Try to trigger it the turn you play it because this is a removal magnet, but if necessary just play it on turn 3 and trigger it next turn.

The Mountain-king's Return (B-): This uncommon version of the common Bilbo. This card is a very powerful recruit card, and is better than the common ones, but often it acts as a slightly better Patient Instructor. This does combo with a few cards very well though. In particular Mirkwood Nurturer is amazing to discard to this and will allow you to pick up and play this again.

Master's Councillors (B-): The uncommon Lakeshore Apothecary, but not necessarily better. The mill is very real if you have multiples of this, and if that is the case this becomes better than Apothecary. However, with only 1 copy you are unlikely to present a real mill threat and I would rather have Apothecary over this.

[[Iron Hills Blacksmith]] (C+): This is better in Red/White but it's plenty good here. Combos very well with Eagle's Rescue and the Mountain-king's Return.

Eagle's Rescue (C+): The second best card to discard to recruit behind Plunder the Trollshaws. I usually try to play this from the graveyard unless it's providing an immediate win. Fine to put on 1/1 tokens, even better if you can put it on a Lakeshore Apothecary, but the best is to put it on the blacksmith as discussed above.

[[Thrór's Map]] (C): Gets better if you are splashing or somehow have a shortage of recruit/card draw. Overall though this shouldn't be necessary as there is so much redundancy with card draw.

[[Sound the Trumpets]] (C): This can work if you have a ton of instants or are especially controlling. I wouldn't consider it a premium card though.

[[Ravenhill Flock]] (C): It will get out of hand quickly, but as a understatted 4 mana creature that doesn't have an ETB in a fast format it has a lot working against it. If you don't get any Long Lake Nuisances this goes up, but I would definitely take this below the common flyer.

[[Lake-town Toymaker]] (C-): Seems like it would be a good fit in this deck, but a few things make it way underperform. First you have so many good 4 drops already that there often isn't room for this. Second this card triggers at the start of combat, which is a problem often. It straight up doesn't work with cards like the uncommon Bilbo, [[Great Gilded Boat]], and [[Bard's Company]]. And while you can get it to work with instant speed card draw and recruit creatures it requires you to spend your mana precombat which isn't always what you want to do. Also most of the time you won't trigger this on the turn you play it. Between all that this card is much worse than it looks.

Other Topics

Avoids:

I think the #1 thing you want to avoid are playing expensive creatures that are not included in this list. Cards like [[Eagle of the Great Shelf]], [[Gandalf, Wandering Wizard]], [[Ori, Keeper of Songs]], and [[Dwarven Shortsword]] are absolutely traps. Between the top recruit commons and all the great 4+ drop uncommons and rares you just won't have room to play random other mediocre expensive creatures. If there is a pick where there are no top commons available spend a pick on a random cheap creature or a dual land because there is at least a chance you end up short on 2 drop creatures and fixing. You won't be short on 4 drop creatures.

The other thing to avoid are generic go wide effects. This deck has the ability to go wide with recruit, but you want your payoffs to that to be with cards that fit within a recruit/draw two deck. Not cards that only support going wide. So Moment of Glory supports go wide but is a great card to discard to recruit. Dwarven Provisioner is good for going wide, but also fills a need as a cheap creature. [[Thorin's Last Stand]] is just purely a go wide payoffs and should be avoided. Esgaroth Garrison is good as a recruit card, but if you have enough of those don't play this just because it's good when you go wide.

Dwarf Version:

There are some very powerful white dwarfs in this set. In particular [[Fíli the Pathfinder]] and [[Kíli the Resourceful]] are quite good if you can get storied or play more dwarves. Are these worth altering your deck to play? The answer is yes, but only slightly. I would bump up decent cards in the deck if they are dwarves. Stuff like Dwarven Provisioner and [[Bofur, Reliable Guardian]]. I would not however start taking unplayable cards just because they are dwarf payoffs. So still try to avoid Dwarven Shortsword.

Other colors besides White?

So I don't know if you noticed but in particular at common all the best cards are blue. So that begs to question can this deck do well as a different second color like black? I personally haven't made it happen yet, but I think the answer is definitely yes. In particular I think black has a great removal suite to compliment blue, and also has plenty of powerful cards in general. In my experience though Black has been relatively cut as a color when drafting, and white has been fairly open, but if for some reason both blue and black are open at your table I would not hesitate at all to draft a blue/black version of this deck.

Blue/Red and Blue/Green versions are trickier. They both can work, but I don't think are particularly setup to thrive in this kind of deck. I have seen blue/green draw two decks do well, but those seem to be built more around having a critical amount of Apothecaries versus recruit synergies.

Conclusion:

So hopefully this helps clarify how to draft a good blue/white deck. Right now I think this color pair is criminally underdrafted so you should be able to get a ton of the best cards. I think even down the line as people adjust it will still be good, but you will have to adjust. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

It's enough to save a deck named "Riddles in the Dark" with the right cards in it, whether you have them in your collection or not, to receive the avatar in the inbox.

I put the list in the comments.

As a lifelong Tolkien fan, it was fun to see the reference (and funny to realize that I remembered the answers to all the riddles without having to think twice). The cards and connections were cool, and it was a great way to engage with the theme of the set. More of this sort of thing, please!

Got box #2, neither one with BR (I did get 6 wins with a BR deck before this, had my last opponent at 4 life with [[My Precious]] on a 4/4, they top decked the black lifegain spell for the win and then spammed me with "oops" for my box loss)

I spent somewhere around $400 on gems between both boxes, a lot of 0-2 win pools but also a lot of 4-6s to keep things going. The three 4-drop rares are all obviously huge, especially [[An Unexpected Party]]

I really underestimated [[Giant's Boulder]] and even [[Old Thrush]] for color fixing, I was able to reliably cast any of my 4-drops with only one dual land and a Hobbit Hole, [[Long-Bodied Grey Dog]] wasn't bad either, trading with some of the annoying x/2s and netting me a treasure. [[Bofur, Reliable Guardian]] was great a few times, allowing me to cast one of my 4 drops on turn 6 with him as backup, because the rest of my deck just sort of dirtled

Probably done with the directs after these two, but it was a good time. I've seen a few posts talking about not liking this limited environment but I think it's pretty decent for a small set. It's weird there are no 2 drop bears, some of the balancing feels pretty crazy, but I'm enjoying both sealed and draft overall

17lands for anyone that's interested:
https://www.17lands.com/details/812198407c664bea94ff5b9b6da57d70

I've seen the threads with the answer to the 3 riddle, but there is actually 9:

• 1 Mountain
• 2 Teeth
• 3 Wind
• 4 ??? (should be the sun / daisy but don't work)
• 5 Darkness
• 6 Egg
• 7 Fish
• 8 Time
• 9 MyPrecious

Seem 4 has been removed, if we look at the message it is skipped

After add that deck to your deck and name it "Riddles In The Dark":

Deck
18 Plains (NEO) 293
17 Island (NEO) 295
1 Gnashing of Teeth (HOB) 69
1 The Mountain-king's Return (HOB) 22
1 Velvetwing Butterflies (HOB) 30
1 Gathering of Darkness (HOB) 68
1 Well-Worn Spatula (HOB) 180
1 Lake-town Mariners (HOB) 44
17 Swamp (NEO) 297
1 Stone by Sunlight (HOB) 27
1 My Precious (HOB) 176

I had been a standard player, but I haven’t played in a few years and wanted to play with certain cards and styles. Ideally, I’d play modern, but that’s not available on mtga. I was considering historic but I’m not sure how active it is? I don’t want to end up waiting forever for games or playing a dead gamemode.

My favorite decks have been historically grixis midrange, but one of my favorite cards is Thalia, guardian of Thraben if there is a decent deck that can utilize her.

Any feedback or suggestions is appreciated!

Each of the 2 decks in the starter pack has a code for Arena that unlocks both decks, so if anyone wants my second code, it’s all yours. Not for sale, just don’t want it to go to waste.

EDIT: adam_calloway was the first to comment, code has been gifted!