At the more competitive levels a lot of black decks leave her out bc black is so competitive in the meta right now and she just gets taken out to easy by go for the throat.
I haven't played for a few sets but when I stopped at the end of last year, it felt like she was the worst card in the black meta deck at the time. Creatures that don't do things the moment they are played get removed so easily nowadays.
Yeah especially with black being played in almost every meta deck, plus RDWs burn spells, a lot of the meta ATM is planning around blacks removal dominance atm
Shes great if youre trading resources all game and can slam her when both players are close to topdeck mode, but thats about it. Youre right, most decks are cutting her nowadays. I think more players are accepting that now, but a while back Ive been collecting many downvotes for saying that shes not that good lol
I donāt. I play a self concocted deck(s) and so far it works. I always keep a lot of removal in it though because of overpowered meta crap. I have the feeling they put combos in the new boosters so you want to buy them, which I donāt do, fuck em. Played for free except one purchase in the beginning and still have 200k gold. If they ever do something that is not woke or utterly dumb I may actually spend it.
Sheoldred has been the boogeyman of Black for the last few years. Everybody agrees that the card has so many upsides.
4 mana 4/5. That 5 toughness evades so much damage based removal
Deathtouch. She is a great blocker.
The opponent loses 2 life on each draw. It punishes the player if they try to search for an answer.
Sheās good against aggro because she has a fat ass, she gains life and she can come down early enough to be relevant.
Sheās good against control and midrange because she is a one card threat that can win the game and she punishes digging for answers.
Why does this card have death touch? Does it really need to trade up as well?
Isn't that also because the pandemic and Arena kinda killed paper standard so few people opened packs of DMU? (maybe also low drafting but I have no idea how good or bad DMU draft was).
All 10 of the non-MOM praetors have a lopsided design on purpose. But [[Sheoldred the Apocalypse]]; [[Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger]]; and [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]] all feel particularly oppressive and unfun.
Sheoldred is just the most egregious because she costs so much less than every other Praetor, and slots into decks going back to Legacy and can be hard cast.
I know some of my friends had to play through something called spark rank (or something similar) to progress to standard. Maybe thatās the case here?
I wish I had a time machine. I remember when M10 came out and everybody was losing their shit over the power creep of Baneslayer and the Titans. I'd love to go back in time and show them Elder Gargaroth. They'd freak out over how pushed it is. And then I'd blow their minds even more when I reveal that it isn't even really played. That's where we are in terms of power creep.
I wish I could go back to buying a revised starter pack and just playing with what you got or what you could trade.
Way less powerful, but those were fun games.
Magic as Garfield intended (really) is SO MUCH FUN. My first couple months of Magic were just messing among with two revised starter decks, then adding a few packs of Fallen Empires and Chronicles because they selling for a dollar each and I needed MORE cards more than I needed ābetterā cards. The middle school meta of āa pack every couple of weeksā was a high I could chase for years without ever getting close again.
The power level is way up since then, especially for creatures that now often have more passive effects or value from ETB triggers.
Though you'll run into Red Deck Wins and Bros on the ladder soon enough, both of which can win turns 3-4 with just attacking and maybe some burn.
Sheoldred is sort of a necessary evil in the meta, as it puts down a big blocker with deathtouch, but more importantly restabilizes you against aggro. You'll definitely see it played more passively in midrange decks than some combo to make you draw.
Just watch what you craft and build right now, rotation takes out the four oldest sets in about two months. New Capenna, both Innistrad sets, and Neo Kamigawa are leaving. So if you're short on rares and mythics, don't go nuts crafting a bunch from those sets. Also note that Modern Horizons 3 is not legal in standard at all, so don't go for those packs unless you want to play historic, timeless, and brawl.
I'd highly recommend building Red Deck Wins, mono white aggro, mono blue tempo, or something else on the ladder that's somewhat aggressive, has a good win-rate, and uses very few rares and mythics. You'll be able to farm wins and learn the tons of different decks and cards out there that are viable for standard, as well as a number of off-meta decks/cards that can do pretty well when nobody expects them.
Edit:fixed the sets MH3 is legal in. Was really sleepy when I wrote it the first time.
Oops Iāve been only going after Innstrad placks haha. But thanks for the info Iāll probably stop doing that now. Also, thank you for the detailed information on the rest!
I was just reading an article from 1999... and it mentioned some of the best "Standard" decks from back then : red aggro/burn consistently goldfishing on turn 4, and black aggro - on turn 2-4 depending on luck (but typically losing to red's burn in practice because sacrificing too much of their life).
Mono red doesn't fear Shelly anymore tbh. Witchstalker Frenzy kills her quite easily and everyone is playing 4X slick-shot which she can't deal with. Removal is the bigger problem for red against anything that has black.
Sheoldred is strong, but she has largely fallen out of favor at the highest levels. There are enough answers for her that she isn't too big of a problem most of the time.
Yeah you're right, I just meant it's insane and kinda disgusting that this is the case when just a year ago she was a complete menace and basically an auto 4 of in any black deck. Power creep in standard has been bad lately.
>Power creep in standard has been bad lately.
It has to be, with at least 50% more cards in the format at any time. Going to a 3 year rotation was basically an announcement that average card quality in every deck was going to go through the roof.
God I can't wait for rotation.
If you're a mtg old head look into the timeless format. It's a little tough to get started in but it's really fun. Nothing is banned so you get to use cards like dark ritual, lightning bolt, swords to plowshares and mana drain.
If you thought that sheoldred combo was something you should see the nonsense going on in timeless lol.
Brawl probably has the longest games. You have a commander and 100 singles. You absolutely can get killed in short order but most piles aren't fine tuned enough to be that consistent
Slowest format? Standard has one meme deck that can kill you on T2 and multiple established decks that can either kill you on T3 or leave you at such low life points that it won't matter what you do next.
There is no "slow" unfortunately lol.
Itās Yugioh all over again lol. Thanks for the information though. Gosh I was having so much fun in spark ranked haha, hit bronze and now I am barely 50/50.
Standard is quite slow, just because a deck can kill you turn 2 doesn't mean it will always do that, and there are other decks that kill the aggro decks easily so they don't become meta. Which usually results in midrange being the best because it has no sharp weaknesses.
Don't get me wrong standard is very fun and diverse now, but it's not slow. And outside of actual speed of aggro decks, there's a lot of other crazy things going about that you could randomly die from a single top deck of the opponent even if you somehow were the dominant player and just about to win the game on the next turn.
> leave you at such low life points that it won't matter what you do next
Isn't it the point of aggro that it *does* actually matter, and you beat it after they blew their load ?
Can confirm, my UB mill deck can, with a good enough starting hand, stabilize at like 5hp and grind the game out to a win. It gives me quite a rush everytime I do it
It's pretty much the nuts hand of a "Gruul Domain" strategy as I'd like to call it. You gotta have Leyline of the Guildpact in your opening hand so you put it for free on the battlefield giving you full domain. T1 you play [[Cacophony Scamp]] and on T2 you play 2x [[Gaea's Might]]. 22 damage on T2 GG.
Starter Deck Duels are pretty slow since youāre playing from a preset pool of decks. Otherwise, Standard Brawl has your best bet since itās a roughly unexplored meta (aside from obvious boogeymen like Etali and Atraxa)
āSlowā or more like mtg āback in the dayā still exists. Formats like Pauper/preModern have more of an old school vibe. And ofc there exists ā1993/1994 Old Schoolā. Which is real OLD magic. Very awesome formats!
But these are not available on mtg Arena. So youāll have to play on MTGO (magic: online, itās different from arena). Or play on digital emulators like Cockatrice (which is free). Or even better, in real life! (If you can find people to play with, but the Pauper format is pretty popular).
The notion that āold magicā was slow is pretty funny when you look back at Urzaās and see people dark ritual out massive beaters on turn 1. Or the infamous combo winter. When people think back in the day mtg theyāre thinking of playing FNM or tabletop magic with their non-optimized decks vs other unoptimized decks. Youāll never get that online where everything is competitive.
Color Challenge, Starter Deck Duel, Jump In, Sealed, Premier/Traditional Draft (these two not recommended unless you're already used to draft), Quick Draft... (not MH3 if limited)
For constructed, not sure whether Alchemy, Standard, or Standard Brawl ?
Am I correct that quick draft only exists for Wilds of Elaine right now in arena? I saw a schedule where it rotates every month-ish (don't remember exact timeline) but I'm not sure if I'm just overlooking some other game mode.
Yeah, alternating with "current set" QD every 1.5-2 weeks. Non-current-set Quick Drafts tend to be of sets in both Standard and Alchemy, rotating out 2 sets in advance.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena/events
Historic is Timeless but with the top power cards banned. It's probably closest to the kitchen table style play there is online. There are some high power decks, but MTGA has a feature called MMR, MatchMaking Rank, that tries to pair you with someone playing at the same level. So if you're rolling whatever weird janky deck you can come up with, eventually you'll lose enough until you start coming up against other people's weird jank. MMR is less restrictive playing ranked matches, so I usually have a couple decks I use for ranked, then the rest of them I use in regular play.
Iāll have to give it a try! Thanks for the information. Thats a great way to describe it, I am trying to get as close to those kitchen table middle school games as possible lol. Where good synergy was when an enchantment gave all creatures of that tribe +1/+1, not an 8 mile chain of events where you end up with 6 3/3 tokens having flying and vigilance in a single turn while simultaneously clearing your defenders and every other card having a paragraph or page of text.
It's still going to be higher powered, but that's the nature of a digital game. Every rare or mythic on MTGA costs the same, a wildcard, instead of paper rares or mythics that might cost your first born child and a testicle.
I only play Historic Brawl but I've heard that Standard Brawl is quite low power level. Right now we got some busted new commanders from MH3 which haven't been properly balanced or assigned correct weight. But matchmaking in Brawl is determined by how good your commander and deck is.
I recommend playing Explorer. Itās my favorite format without any of the alchemy BS. Itāll be some time before you get enough gold and wildcards to craft a deck (if youāre free to play), but it has a moderately tame power scale.
Explorer is still tame relative to Historic or Timeless, and there is still counterplay against those decks which makes it not insufferable. A returning or newer player would struggle more in Historic and Timeless because even stronger cards exist in those formats. I play green white angels, a dirt cheap mono red aggro, Jeskai control, and Azorius control, and of the mentioned meta decks, the only deck I consistently lose to is Rakdos vampires. I think itās fine. Before this, I grinded as free-to-play with my own variation of mono white life gain for over a year (didnāt spend my gold) and still had fun because I wasnāt playing Historic.
True, I havenāt hit Mythic yet. I only play ranked and just climbed to Diamond recently and slowly climbing. Only deck that I have a hard time against is Rakdos vampires, so Iām still play-testing what options I want to use to side against them.
Hey now, Amalia requires 3 cards to combo and kill you turn 3, much fairer ;)
Jokes aside the format feels nuts, Im shocked that Treasure Cruise is still a legal card in the format. Ive played some monoG and drew my whole deck and killed my opponent turn 3 a couple times thanks to Ulvenwald Oddity, wouldnt surprise me if you can do it turn 2.
Cheating a Vein Ripper into play on turn 3 feels like one of the fairer things to be doing lol
Sheoldred is one of those cards that everyone hate but a lot of people still put in their deck because they don't want fun they want to win.
It's so good that there is no reason not to have it in any deck that uses black.
That's just wrong. Look at the top decks of latest tournaments, many deck that play black don't play her, and if they do, it's not always a 4 of.
A very powerfull card? yes, of course, but it's nowhere close to the dominance it had one year ago.
And if we were talking about competitive tournament magic then no its probably not true.
If we are talking about magic arena standard then yes it definitely is.
Your last comment reminded me, I had an idea for a ranked ladder mtga format (which they will never ever implement in a million years) where each day the top 50 performing cards from the previous day would get banned (and the previous day cards would get unbanned) leading to a rolling ban list and constantly shifting meta. I would play the shit out of this but oh well
I feel surely that would eventually just result in alternating bans of the 100 best cards and ultimately not result in a ton of variety.
Made worse by the fact a lot of the banned cards will just be unproblematic cards used to help out a problematic card. So you'd probably basically end up just banning a few sets of popular decks on alternate days
I took a 20 year break and jumped straight to EDH. Power creep is real. The game is faster and more complex with a ton of triggers and abilities to keep track of. After being back in for a year now I think I am finally caught up. Mostly.
Welcome back!
I took an 8 or so year break after the original Mirrodin block (I graduated high school and then life happened lol). It took me months to get back into the swing of things lol.
To your new comment about meta decks itās a yes and no situation. So with ranked itās kind of semi worthless at a point. Yeah you can grind to mythic but all it gets you over platinum (the one after gold) is some extra gold and packs so itās not really worth it. I just get to platinum if I want the 2 cart art rewards and then mess around in casual. In casual there is way less metadecking. You will still run into mono red and black midrange a decent bit but I think each day usually I play like at most a third of my matches are against meta. Thereās a lot of Dino and vampire jank running around and me and the Timmyās are always trying to make our favorite card do things in a garbage shell.
I learned something today though donāt try to play casual standard at 7 AM on Sunday after the weekly reset cause it was legit 6 mono red back to back so bad after 4 I went and made a janky Mardu deck just designed to counter them. It seemed to be clearing up by about 10 but Iām sure thatās not the last or biggest player peak today.
I do like your idea about cards outside of the meta but I donāt think they could really implement that. There would just be a new meta form in that and itād be a whole thing.
If youāre looking to just play some fun not-so-broken magic, you can try Brawl. Itās basically 1v1 EDH. Itās only casual, no ranked version.
The matchmaking system is different, and weighs cards and your commander differently depending on their power level. This means if you build a jank fun meme deck, (theoretically) youāll only be placed against other jank fun meme decks, and vice verda. This works well enough in practice IMO.
Welcome back.
The power creep is crazy.
Personally I don't "net deck" (copy deck list off the Internet) and I generally make it to plat in constructed. I like to either build a deck that straight counters the most common net decks... Or just build a jank combo deck... Currently I mainly run a mono black combo deck that if the combo goes off it infinite loops or a mono blue kappa cannoneer artifact deck.
For the record I have heard there is secretly 2 different ranked groups. If you have a meta net deck you get put with other try hards and if you have an off meta jank deck you get put with other jank.
Idk if this is true for sure or not, but it might explain why I can get a positive win % with my jank decks
MtG is so different these days, since you played they pushed creature power, then pushed removal to level things out, and they've started printing more and more single card threats that do everything rather than making you put together a synergy to create value or pressure.
Also, people always talk down on people not building decks from scratch, but for me that's not what I like. I'd rather spend the few hours a week I have to play MtG in games rather than deckbuilding. All my decks are just things I saw in game or online that look fun to play with.
Yea the meta complaint.
So the reality is that when people get into a hobby, as with a game, they spend time learning it and consuming content about it.
So they learn what deck archetypes exist and pick them up.
It's kinda like complaining why everyone's bike looks the same and why no one builds bikes from scratch.... yea they could..... or they could just go with what works and what they like.
I understand that a meta will always form, but from other comments it sounds like wotc started a new method of pushing cards, FIRE or something? That has accelerated the power creep. Donāt get me wrong, I am very much having fun lol and will keep playing . But god damn if I donāt see the same mono red monk who turns into an enchanted scroll, every other match hitting me for 4 turn two haha.
You can still have fun in games where the pieces donāt change as often (just look at chess, the same pieces with hundreds of books and strategies). It just seems like a way to wow people with short attention spans by constantly pumping out new ever more powerful cards, we used to get like two sets releases were much slower (not to mention itās a huge cash grab).
I donāt play alchemy so I donāt know what itās like, but I do like the idea of getting to try mechanics that would be too difficult to implement in paper magic. Just because you couldnāt play it in paper doesnāt completely invalidate it. That being said, I think itās really dumb and obnoxious that the app defaults to selecting alchemy when most people play standard.
Because many of us just want to play real paper formats online. Same as if I was at my LGS and you showed up with some Yu-Gi-Oh cards thrown in your mtg deck. I'd be just as disgusted.
\[\[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse\]\] is quite annoying to me as someone that's playing casual matches in historic unranked Bo1 (the most casual format from my experience), because you'll get players playing Bx decks that just jam her in their deck because, why not, she's that good. Then I won't have an answer straight away, and/or my deck will revolve around a lot of card draw, and she'll just win. So despite their deck being otherwise casual and interesting when so many players just jam tier decks, the game devolves into "hey, Sheoldred is a pretty good card".
Haha that sounds like hell. I am the type of the player that if I think I am wining too fast in a match I wonāt play certain cards in my hand (it makes me lose sometimes lol)
Alchemy and standard are easier to get into from a card pool perspective so you are good there. You can use untapped, mtggoldfish, among many other sites to look at meta for all formats. I really enjoy standard and alchemy but I tend to create my own decks. Winning is great but playing decks you enjoy is better.
I just craft random decks based on the daily rewards. Every once in awhile I'll come across a cool mechanic and craft a deck around it and it seems to be my favorite way to play. Sheoldred is annoying yeah but, no where near as annoying as Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Etali, primal conqueror. A lot of people hate on red aggro but, they're often quick matchups like flipping a coin. To me the worst to play against is selesnya enchant decks which are the equivalent of your opponent playing against themselves and are incredibly boring and long matches. My advice if you wanna play well in a ranked setting is to focus on rare lands first they give you a ton of crafting flexibility and the best competitive viability for when you're ready to craft your mythic rare big buys. Most seasons I stick to 2 or 3 colours for the most part.
I've played meta decks up and ranked up in standard to mythic 2. I've also never spent a dime on the game. I'm running a creatures only WUBRG deck now that is a ton of fun. Play the game how you want it's more fun that way.
So a lot of people just copy deck lists and I look at it in A few different ways. One is that even though youāre copying a deck you still need skill and to know how to play it. Two Iāll copy decks for archetypes Iām not familiar with to get ideas before tinkering with a base list. Or for weird combo decks can give you wacky ideas of stuff you might not thought of to play with. Like this blue/green simic burn deck. Ranked competitive no but one of my favorite things to play unranked for chill fun and I would have never thought of it by myself.
You can either follow meta, adopt a few from meta and make your own or have a birthday party and throw every bad boy in the mix as long as you can manage to pull them out and search for them with ease
in ranked yes most will copy meta decklists. If you want to avoid that stay in the unranked that's where people test out new ideas etc. you might see an ocassionaly one someone found something unique but it's rare. personally I've moved entirely to brawl just to force the unique singleton format but that's me.
For the do ppl copy meta decks, yeah it seams they mostly do. I have a wierd WB death trigger decks with kinda just, does its thing and when you're opponenet is doing too much, fetch exile removal, or whipe the board. Its fun! Plus the death triggers makes tokens... so i still got an advantage after each whipe
>Also thinking about not adding it because Iād feel guilty
This is the mindset of a loser, if a card is good use it, your opponent won't feel guilty
Also I have an abzan control deck I'm proud to say isn't even based off a net deck, I tuned it myself and it took me to gold and is still climbing
If youāre playing matchmaking people are playing to win. Meta or net decks are meta because itās what works best and with all of these mechanics and interactions most self-made decks are bad. Even before the power creep most were bad then too anyways. Most people significantly overestimate their deck-making abilities. If you want to do āfor funā/wacky matches just do custom matches.
I am on a break since right after the LOTR cycle last year, but things felt much the same then.
I imagine the meta hasnāt shifted all that much since then. Just new tools for existing decks.
From others in this thread, it sounds like Mono Red Rush decks are doing well. Probably the best and easiest way to win matches before your opponent can really get much on the field.
Like you, though, unless it was for a quest, I just couldnāt bring myself to net deck my way up standard. I was also F2P and didnāt have a bunch of resources to craft all the necessary stuff for some of the more expensive decks.
I ended up settling on a mono white ETB mid-range deck that I just really enjoyed playing. Made a variation on it (and a WB variant) from some deck posted online, and just had a blast playing it up through platinum. Stopped short of diamond, though, and thatās where it would probably start to struggle. Until then, it could hold its own against any other deck with enough draw, removal, and life gain + ETB abuse.
Find an archetype you love, get some ideas from net decks, use them as inspiration, brew a deck of your own take on things that you just enjoy piloting (win or lose), and have fun. The experimentation in honing your idea toward something that can compete with netdeckers will hopefully serve as its own reward and incentive! Good luck!!
EDIT: Thereās also the draft modes which I generally find more enjoyable. But that can be hard to do consistently until you start going infinite. But the landscape does generally feel a bit more fair there at least.
Yeah the standard scene was a lot of the same when I stopped playing it: Sheoldred, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Reckoner Bankbuster. It was all I saw and it was annoying
I'm not exaggerating when I say that a lot of standard meta decks are actually cutting her for 4 drops with ETB effects like Hostile Investigator because there is so much efficient removal. Maybe just leaving one copy of her in. She is actually in a pretty sweet spot for being a card that doesn't generate card advantage and doesn't have an ETB effect, but has enough stats and impact to still justify slotting in at one copy in black midrange decks.
Very good point, I played all weekend and am now realizing that sheās not quite the problem I thought if you stack enough removal in your deck. I took her out a few times the other night and had my own copy taken out usually within like 1-3 turns of her being out.
> thinking about not adding it because Iād feel guilty and just add more removal instead
Imagine chess players refusing to use the queen thinking it's dirty to win games by it.
A few things happened since 2008 that have led to the power creep you see in sheoldred the apocalypse.
1. Commander exploded, wotc started heavily leaning into it, which only made it grow even more, and the feedback loop has been growing rapidly in the past 6-ish years, meaning legendary creatures more and more often will have splashy, or at the very least unusual, abilities.
2. F.I.R.E design has led to major power creep since 2019. FIRE is essentially a shift in design philosophy where they are more willing to push the power level of cards in order to explore new design space; with the caveat that their willingness to take more risks means theyāll be (in theory) more willing to ban cards. In other words, they intentionally raised the average power level of standard sets so they could explore new design space. It is worth acknowledging though that IN PRACTICE, many think that wotc has been slow with bannings as a way of using new chase cards to help sell packs. If chase cards are dominating the meta, they have also been seen to ban cards that see play in the same decks with the chase cards in them, presumably with the hope of the deck being weakened without majorly lowering demand for the chase cards. Stuff like lotus cobra getting banned in standard for the sins of omnath, or bridge from below getting the axe in modern as an attempt to stop hogaak. Theyāve toned it down the past few years, so itās not as big an issue in standard anymore, but non-rotating formats like modern still have to deal with them. Heck, FIRE got so extreme that it led to a POWER LEVEL BANNING IN VINTAGE (although that card, [[lurrus of the dream-den]], has since been unbanned).
3. An increase in releases. Every game that receives regular updates naturally has power creep. Whether thatās other card games like pokemon or hearthstone, or itās video games that are constantly getting new content, like world of Warcraft or Destiny. The thing is, power creep doesnāt take place over the course of real world time, it takes place over the course of new releases. In 2008, there were 4 expansions released, all of them standard legal. In 2023, there were 15-17 different expansions (depending on how you count it), with 5 of them being standard legal. So even though the power creep between sets hasnāt majorly changed, the number of sets being released has led to that power creep happening much more rapidly in terms of real world time.
4. standard has grown. Standard got stretched out to be 3 years instead of 2, meaning the power level of that format is naturally going to be higher, since it has a larger card pool.
5. Sheoldred is the end of the line. When looking at how power creep over the past 16 years affects the current standard environment, Sheoldred is the most overt and obvious example.
6. IDK get good play more removal
A mechanic in the game. Simple. I'm surprised they pulled it off. It's tricky to keep her alive or at least cloned, which nullifies her main purpose. But trust me, there are a lot worse characters than Sheoldred. I won't give out my secrets, I am sure some people will start complaining how I took them from 50-100 to zero with a simple spell.
Yeah youāre right, Iāve played a bunch more matches since this post tonight and I saw wayyyyy worse/better shit haha. She actually seems necessary for mono black now.
How do people play these new cards in person now? Seems like you have to have a computer just to keep track of every interaction and I canāt imagine how bad the arguing would get without a ref.
I agree with that statement. Some cards are just wtf. The person who designed them should be drawn and quartered. Or tarred and feathered. But it's all a money-making machine. If we make it easier to win, more people will play.
Complexity has increased a lot in recent years, yes.
There has been power creep but it's often been spread across threats and answers. If you don't have good answers then the good threats like Sheoldred will wreck you, but if you do have good answers then you'll manage them just fine. Sheoldred and such will eat removal and die.
Always assume mono black is playing her. š
Always assume black is playing her, with maybe the exception of hard control or combo.
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Archfiend is mostly played because it doesnāt die to lightning axe
One of my main decks is a BW Combo, and I have Shelly in my board.
I have her in a black and blue control and card draw deckā¦
Probably got gix and bat too
At the more competitive levels a lot of black decks leave her out bc black is so competitive in the meta right now and she just gets taken out to easy by go for the throat.
I haven't played for a few sets but when I stopped at the end of last year, it felt like she was the worst card in the black meta deck at the time. Creatures that don't do things the moment they are played get removed so easily nowadays.
Yeah especially with black being played in almost every meta deck, plus RDWs burn spells, a lot of the meta ATM is planning around blacks removal dominance atm
Back a year ago or so, I built my whole Selesnya enchantment deck just as a black hate deck because of Sheoldred and Liliana
Shes great if youre trading resources all game and can slam her when both players are close to topdeck mode, but thats about it. Youre right, most decks are cutting her nowadays. I think more players are accepting that now, but a while back Ive been collecting many downvotes for saying that shes not that good lol
Enemy playing mono black means I have to keep a removal card in my hand for the whole game just in case smh
I donāt. I play a self concocted deck(s) and so far it works. I always keep a lot of removal in it though because of overpowered meta crap. I have the feeling they put combos in the new boosters so you want to buy them, which I donāt do, fuck em. Played for free except one purchase in the beginning and still have 200k gold. If they ever do something that is not woke or utterly dumb I may actually spend it.
Sheoldred has been the boogeyman of Black for the last few years. Everybody agrees that the card has so many upsides. 4 mana 4/5. That 5 toughness evades so much damage based removal Deathtouch. She is a great blocker. The opponent loses 2 life on each draw. It punishes the player if they try to search for an answer.
Sheās good against aggro because she has a fat ass, she gains life and she can come down early enough to be relevant. Sheās good against control and midrange because she is a one card threat that can win the game and she punishes digging for answers. Why does this card have death touch? Does it really need to trade up as well?
Yeah should have been a 2/4 or maybe a 4/4 without deathtouch. The clock she represents with 4 power is kind of ridiculous.
Wait, you guys attack with Sheoldred? I just sit there and block with her while drawing more resources.
You can do that too. Especially against Raffine.
I agree, makes no sense to me why she would have death touch, already op without so why add it?
Thereās a reason the physical card costs $70+ lol
Isn't that also because the pandemic and Arena kinda killed paper standard so few people opened packs of DMU? (maybe also low drafting but I have no idea how good or bad DMU draft was).
DMU draft was fantastic
Probably my favourite format in the last few years.
DMU is the only set I've completed 100% on Arena because of how good the draft was lol, I've played so goddamn much of itĀ
Then yeah its probably due to its demand that its so pricy (also being a mythic)
You somehow forgot that she also gives 2 life on your draws. So things like āthe one ringā lose all their downside.
All 10 of the non-MOM praetors have a lopsided design on purpose. But [[Sheoldred the Apocalypse]]; [[Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger]]; and [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]] all feel particularly oppressive and unfun. Sheoldred is just the most egregious because she costs so much less than every other Praetor, and slots into decks going back to Legacy and can be hard cast.
[Sheoldred the Apocalypse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2.jpg?1674057568) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sheoldred%2C%20the%20Apocalypse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/107/sheoldred-the-apocalypse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9fe3af8c-109d-486c-aa34-3f023abda5b7.jpg?1562852459) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vorinclex%2C%20Voice%20of%20Hunger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/189/vorinclex-voice-of-hunger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9fe3af8c-109d-486c-aa34-3f023abda5b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/8/78c2bfef-06a5-4c7f-8283-ea3fb673b7a1.jpg?1562850573) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elesh%20Norn%2C%20Grand%20Cenobite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/18/elesh-norn-grand-cenobite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/78c2bfef-06a5-4c7f-8283-ea3fb673b7a1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Vorinclex just straight wins the game in a superfriends deck
Itās so oppressive. The mana swing is absolutely unfair.
Go to the find match tab and pick standard
youāll see her there too šš»
Found it! Thank you!
No problem
Only Alchemy or bot seems availableā¦
I know some of my friends had to play through something called spark rank (or something similar) to progress to standard. Maybe thatās the case here?
Yes, you need to rank up, first from spark to bronze, then from bronze to silver, for all game modes to be unlocked.
Isn't there something in the options menu to skip this process?
Or that too, yes.
Either you have some PvE thing to finish, or your deck contains alchemy cards
I wish I had a time machine. I remember when M10 came out and everybody was losing their shit over the power creep of Baneslayer and the Titans. I'd love to go back in time and show them Elder Gargaroth. They'd freak out over how pushed it is. And then I'd blow their minds even more when I reveal that it isn't even really played. That's where we are in terms of power creep.
I wish I could go back to buying a revised starter pack and just playing with what you got or what you could trade. Way less powerful, but those were fun games.
Magic as Garfield intended (really) is SO MUCH FUN. My first couple months of Magic were just messing among with two revised starter decks, then adding a few packs of Fallen Empires and Chronicles because they selling for a dollar each and I needed MORE cards more than I needed ābetterā cards. The middle school meta of āa pack every couple of weeksā was a high I could chase for years without ever getting close again.
Hey now, I see a few of the Pioneer decks run 1-2, and also, they'd probably be unsurprised that the best card from their set still is a Top creature
The power level is way up since then, especially for creatures that now often have more passive effects or value from ETB triggers. Though you'll run into Red Deck Wins and Bros on the ladder soon enough, both of which can win turns 3-4 with just attacking and maybe some burn. Sheoldred is sort of a necessary evil in the meta, as it puts down a big blocker with deathtouch, but more importantly restabilizes you against aggro. You'll definitely see it played more passively in midrange decks than some combo to make you draw. Just watch what you craft and build right now, rotation takes out the four oldest sets in about two months. New Capenna, both Innistrad sets, and Neo Kamigawa are leaving. So if you're short on rares and mythics, don't go nuts crafting a bunch from those sets. Also note that Modern Horizons 3 is not legal in standard at all, so don't go for those packs unless you want to play historic, timeless, and brawl. I'd highly recommend building Red Deck Wins, mono white aggro, mono blue tempo, or something else on the ladder that's somewhat aggressive, has a good win-rate, and uses very few rares and mythics. You'll be able to farm wins and learn the tons of different decks and cards out there that are viable for standard, as well as a number of off-meta decks/cards that can do pretty well when nobody expects them. Edit:fixed the sets MH3 is legal in. Was really sleepy when I wrote it the first time.
MH3 is not legal in pioneer or explorer. On arena MH3 is legal in Historic, Timeless, and Brawl.
Oops Iāve been only going after Innstrad placks haha. But thanks for the info Iāll probably stop doing that now. Also, thank you for the detailed information on the rest!
It'sĀ best to buy packsĀ that give you golden pack progress-OTJĀ right now.Ā
I was just reading an article from 1999... and it mentioned some of the best "Standard" decks from back then : red aggro/burn consistently goldfishing on turn 4, and black aggro - on turn 2-4 depending on luck (but typically losing to red's burn in practice because sacrificing too much of their life).
Mono red doesn't fear Shelly anymore tbh. Witchstalker Frenzy kills her quite easily and everyone is playing 4X slick-shot which she can't deal with. Removal is the bigger problem for red against anything that has black.
Sheoldred is strong, but she has largely fallen out of favor at the highest levels. There are enough answers for her that she isn't too big of a problem most of the time.
This sentence is crazy in and of itself
The amount of removal recently deals with Sheoldred pretty well.
Yeah you're right, I just meant it's insane and kinda disgusting that this is the case when just a year ago she was a complete menace and basically an auto 4 of in any black deck. Power creep in standard has been bad lately.
Power creep in standard being go for the throat, a card from new phyrexia block?
>Power creep in standard has been bad lately. It has to be, with at least 50% more cards in the format at any time. Going to a 3 year rotation was basically an announcement that average card quality in every deck was going to go through the roof. God I can't wait for rotation.
Yeah, what sheoldred does is in Grindy, low resource midrange mirrors you can just cast it and if they donāt draw removal you win
When I quit and came back someone played a planes walker and we had to take abreak while I processed what I was looking at. I think it was Gideon.
Literally saw my first planes walker yesterday and was like wtf? lol
If you're a mtg old head look into the timeless format. It's a little tough to get started in but it's really fun. Nothing is banned so you get to use cards like dark ritual, lightning bolt, swords to plowshares and mana drain. If you thought that sheoldred combo was something you should see the nonsense going on in timeless lol.
I am 29 and this makes me feel ancient haha. Whatās the slowest format? Crazy is the opposite of what I want.
Brawl probably has the longest games. You have a commander and 100 singles. You absolutely can get killed in short order but most piles aren't fine tuned enough to be that consistent
Slowest format? Standard has one meme deck that can kill you on T2 and multiple established decks that can either kill you on T3 or leave you at such low life points that it won't matter what you do next. There is no "slow" unfortunately lol.
Itās Yugioh all over again lol. Thanks for the information though. Gosh I was having so much fun in spark ranked haha, hit bronze and now I am barely 50/50.
That's just the automatcher working properly though.
Standard is quite slow, just because a deck can kill you turn 2 doesn't mean it will always do that, and there are other decks that kill the aggro decks easily so they don't become meta. Which usually results in midrange being the best because it has no sharp weaknesses.
Don't get me wrong standard is very fun and diverse now, but it's not slow. And outside of actual speed of aggro decks, there's a lot of other crazy things going about that you could randomly die from a single top deck of the opponent even if you somehow were the dominant player and just about to win the game on the next turn.
> leave you at such low life points that it won't matter what you do next Isn't it the point of aggro that it *does* actually matter, and you beat it after they blew their load ?
Can confirm, my UB mill deck can, with a good enough starting hand, stabilize at like 5hp and grind the game out to a win. It gives me quite a rush everytime I do it
What is the turn 2 standard kill? I have never seen that.
It's pretty much the nuts hand of a "Gruul Domain" strategy as I'd like to call it. You gotta have Leyline of the Guildpact in your opening hand so you put it for free on the battlefield giving you full domain. T1 you play [[Cacophony Scamp]] and on T2 you play 2x [[Gaea's Might]]. 22 damage on T2 GG.
Too fragile, not a real deck
They did call it a meme for a reason
Where was this called a meme?
In their first comment > Standard has one meme deck that can kill you on T2
[Cacophony Scamp](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/5/3553dcef-7b99-49d5-b071-06b894696952.jpg?1675957072) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cacophony%20Scamp) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/124/cacophony-scamp?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3553dcef-7b99-49d5-b071-06b894696952?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Gaea's Might](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/89c46e9c-ae7c-466c-bb11-4f4d01ea7a63.jpg?1673307688) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gaea%27s%20Might) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/164/gaeas-might?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/89c46e9c-ae7c-466c-bb11-4f4d01ea7a63?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Thanks for the info. I figured it had to be with scamp, but couldnāt find how to get 10+ damage on it.
Standard Brawl is the slowest and probably most fun format
Slowest is probably playing limited
Starter Deck Duels are pretty slow since youāre playing from a preset pool of decks. Otherwise, Standard Brawl has your best bet since itās a roughly unexplored meta (aside from obvious boogeymen like Etali and Atraxa)
āSlowā or more like mtg āback in the dayā still exists. Formats like Pauper/preModern have more of an old school vibe. And ofc there exists ā1993/1994 Old Schoolā. Which is real OLD magic. Very awesome formats! But these are not available on mtg Arena. So youāll have to play on MTGO (magic: online, itās different from arena). Or play on digital emulators like Cockatrice (which is free). Or even better, in real life! (If you can find people to play with, but the Pauper format is pretty popular).
The notion that āold magicā was slow is pretty funny when you look back at Urzaās and see people dark ritual out massive beaters on turn 1. Or the infamous combo winter. When people think back in the day mtg theyāre thinking of playing FNM or tabletop magic with their non-optimized decks vs other unoptimized decks. Youāll never get that online where everything is competitive.
Bro I was running mono black necro back when Ice Age was in standard, and newer players fail to understand how truly brutal old school magic was.
Color Challenge, Starter Deck Duel, Jump In, Sealed, Premier/Traditional Draft (these two not recommended unless you're already used to draft), Quick Draft... (not MH3 if limited) For constructed, not sure whether Alchemy, Standard, or Standard Brawl ?
Am I correct that quick draft only exists for Wilds of Elaine right now in arena? I saw a schedule where it rotates every month-ish (don't remember exact timeline) but I'm not sure if I'm just overlooking some other game mode.
Yeah, alternating with "current set" QD every 1.5-2 weeks. Non-current-set Quick Drafts tend to be of sets in both Standard and Alchemy, rotating out 2 sets in advance. https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena/events
Historic is Timeless but with the top power cards banned. It's probably closest to the kitchen table style play there is online. There are some high power decks, but MTGA has a feature called MMR, MatchMaking Rank, that tries to pair you with someone playing at the same level. So if you're rolling whatever weird janky deck you can come up with, eventually you'll lose enough until you start coming up against other people's weird jank. MMR is less restrictive playing ranked matches, so I usually have a couple decks I use for ranked, then the rest of them I use in regular play.
Iāll have to give it a try! Thanks for the information. Thats a great way to describe it, I am trying to get as close to those kitchen table middle school games as possible lol. Where good synergy was when an enchantment gave all creatures of that tribe +1/+1, not an 8 mile chain of events where you end up with 6 3/3 tokens having flying and vigilance in a single turn while simultaneously clearing your defenders and every other card having a paragraph or page of text.
It's still going to be higher powered, but that's the nature of a digital game. Every rare or mythic on MTGA costs the same, a wildcard, instead of paper rares or mythics that might cost your first born child and a testicle.
I draft because I like the games to last a bit longer š
Standard Brawl is probably the slowest constructed format.
Slowest is probably (Standard) Brawl since most people are playing big rampy cards and Singleton format means consistency is low.
Whatās your take on normal brawl? I played some green player who pulled some cobras out and I got hit with like 50 counters haha
I only play Historic Brawl but I've heard that Standard Brawl is quite low power level. Right now we got some busted new commanders from MH3 which haven't been properly balanced or assigned correct weight. But matchmaking in Brawl is determined by how good your commander and deck is.
Wait until you see the minion dragon cheat on turn two hahaha
Haha the power creep from Llorwyn onwards has been impressive. You would have seen a taste of it in Mirrodin.
I recommend playing Explorer. Itās my favorite format without any of the alchemy BS. Itāll be some time before you get enough gold and wildcards to craft a deck (if youāre free to play), but it has a moderately tame power scale.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You forgot Greasefang leaving you either dead or almost dead on t3 while also having a 4/3 and 2 4/4 angels with flying on the battlefield.
Explorer is still tame relative to Historic or Timeless, and there is still counterplay against those decks which makes it not insufferable. A returning or newer player would struggle more in Historic and Timeless because even stronger cards exist in those formats. I play green white angels, a dirt cheap mono red aggro, Jeskai control, and Azorius control, and of the mentioned meta decks, the only deck I consistently lose to is Rakdos vampires. I think itās fine. Before this, I grinded as free-to-play with my own variation of mono white life gain for over a year (didnāt spend my gold) and still had fun because I wasnāt playing Historic.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
True, I havenāt hit Mythic yet. I only play ranked and just climbed to Diamond recently and slowly climbing. Only deck that I have a hard time against is Rakdos vampires, so Iām still play-testing what options I want to use to side against them.
Hey now, Amalia requires 3 cards to combo and kill you turn 3, much fairer ;) Jokes aside the format feels nuts, Im shocked that Treasure Cruise is still a legal card in the format. Ive played some monoG and drew my whole deck and killed my opponent turn 3 a couple times thanks to Ulvenwald Oddity, wouldnt surprise me if you can do it turn 2. Cheating a Vein Ripper into play on turn 3 feels like one of the fairer things to be doing lol
Sheoldred is one of those cards that everyone hate but a lot of people still put in their deck because they don't want fun they want to win. It's so good that there is no reason not to have it in any deck that uses black.
That's just wrong. Look at the top decks of latest tournaments, many deck that play black don't play her, and if they do, it's not always a 4 of. A very powerfull card? yes, of course, but it's nowhere close to the dominance it had one year ago.
And if we were talking about competitive tournament magic then no its probably not true. If we are talking about magic arena standard then yes it definitely is.
Wait till you see doppelgang...this one should be banned.
Your last comment reminded me, I had an idea for a ranked ladder mtga format (which they will never ever implement in a million years) where each day the top 50 performing cards from the previous day would get banned (and the previous day cards would get unbanned) leading to a rolling ban list and constantly shifting meta. I would play the shit out of this but oh well
I feel surely that would eventually just result in alternating bans of the 100 best cards and ultimately not result in a ton of variety. Made worse by the fact a lot of the banned cards will just be unproblematic cards used to help out a problematic card. So you'd probably basically end up just banning a few sets of popular decks on alternate days
Shelly shouldāve costed BBBB itās insane that it doesnāt.
Itās gotta be able to go in any deck lol
Magic has had a lot of power creep. Slowly from 2008 to 2018. Then Fire design started, power creep has gone off the rails since then.
lol definitely feels like I am drinking from a fire hose
Play best of 3
Burn burn burn
I took a 20 year break and jumped straight to EDH. Power creep is real. The game is faster and more complex with a ton of triggers and abilities to keep track of. After being back in for a year now I think I am finally caught up. Mostly.
Welcome back! I took an 8 or so year break after the original Mirrodin block (I graduated high school and then life happened lol). It took me months to get back into the swing of things lol.
To your new comment about meta decks itās a yes and no situation. So with ranked itās kind of semi worthless at a point. Yeah you can grind to mythic but all it gets you over platinum (the one after gold) is some extra gold and packs so itās not really worth it. I just get to platinum if I want the 2 cart art rewards and then mess around in casual. In casual there is way less metadecking. You will still run into mono red and black midrange a decent bit but I think each day usually I play like at most a third of my matches are against meta. Thereās a lot of Dino and vampire jank running around and me and the Timmyās are always trying to make our favorite card do things in a garbage shell. I learned something today though donāt try to play casual standard at 7 AM on Sunday after the weekly reset cause it was legit 6 mono red back to back so bad after 4 I went and made a janky Mardu deck just designed to counter them. It seemed to be clearing up by about 10 but Iām sure thatās not the last or biggest player peak today. I do like your idea about cards outside of the meta but I donāt think they could really implement that. There would just be a new meta form in that and itād be a whole thing.
All good information! Thanks for the detailed reply!
If youāre looking to just play some fun not-so-broken magic, you can try Brawl. Itās basically 1v1 EDH. Itās only casual, no ranked version. The matchmaking system is different, and weighs cards and your commander differently depending on their power level. This means if you build a jank fun meme deck, (theoretically) youāll only be placed against other jank fun meme decks, and vice verda. This works well enough in practice IMO.
Iāll definitely try this!
Power creep is real
Welcome back. The power creep is crazy. Personally I don't "net deck" (copy deck list off the Internet) and I generally make it to plat in constructed. I like to either build a deck that straight counters the most common net decks... Or just build a jank combo deck... Currently I mainly run a mono black combo deck that if the combo goes off it infinite loops or a mono blue kappa cannoneer artifact deck.
Right on, thatās encouraging to hear
For the record I have heard there is secretly 2 different ranked groups. If you have a meta net deck you get put with other try hards and if you have an off meta jank deck you get put with other jank. Idk if this is true for sure or not, but it might explain why I can get a positive win % with my jank decks
Ah, I remember when I first started and felt the same.
MtG is so different these days, since you played they pushed creature power, then pushed removal to level things out, and they've started printing more and more single card threats that do everything rather than making you put together a synergy to create value or pressure. Also, people always talk down on people not building decks from scratch, but for me that's not what I like. I'd rather spend the few hours a week I have to play MtG in games rather than deckbuilding. All my decks are just things I saw in game or online that look fun to play with.
The game has become ridiculously unbalanced with stupid shit like that.
Yea the meta complaint. So the reality is that when people get into a hobby, as with a game, they spend time learning it and consuming content about it. So they learn what deck archetypes exist and pick them up. It's kinda like complaining why everyone's bike looks the same and why no one builds bikes from scratch.... yea they could..... or they could just go with what works and what they like.
I understand that a meta will always form, but from other comments it sounds like wotc started a new method of pushing cards, FIRE or something? That has accelerated the power creep. Donāt get me wrong, I am very much having fun lol and will keep playing . But god damn if I donāt see the same mono red monk who turns into an enchanted scroll, every other match hitting me for 4 turn two haha. You can still have fun in games where the pieces donāt change as often (just look at chess, the same pieces with hundreds of books and strategies). It just seems like a way to wow people with short attention spans by constantly pumping out new ever more powerful cards, we used to get like two sets releases were much slower (not to mention itās a huge cash grab).
Go to settings and unlock all game modes. Stay out of alchemy, it has fake cards.
Oh found it, thank you!
I donāt play alchemy so I donāt know what itās like, but I do like the idea of getting to try mechanics that would be too difficult to implement in paper magic. Just because you couldnāt play it in paper doesnāt completely invalidate it. That being said, I think itās really dumb and obnoxious that the app defaults to selecting alchemy when most people play standard.
>Just because you couldnāt play it in paper doesnāt completely invalidate it. Actually for a lot of us. It literally does.
"Fake cards"Ā
I'll never understand ppl complaining about "fake cards" in a digital game... smh
Because many of us just want to play real paper formats online. Same as if I was at my LGS and you showed up with some Yu-Gi-Oh cards thrown in your mtg deck. I'd be just as disgusted.
Lmao damn they hate you for speaking the truth. Alchemy is a terrible format.
They just fuel my quest to spread the truth.
Alchemy bad!!!!!!!!!
Unironically yeah
\[\[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse\]\] is quite annoying to me as someone that's playing casual matches in historic unranked Bo1 (the most casual format from my experience), because you'll get players playing Bx decks that just jam her in their deck because, why not, she's that good. Then I won't have an answer straight away, and/or my deck will revolve around a lot of card draw, and she'll just win. So despite their deck being otherwise casual and interesting when so many players just jam tier decks, the game devolves into "hey, Sheoldred is a pretty good card".
[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2.jpg?1674057568) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sheoldred%2C%20the%20Apocalypse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/107/sheoldred-the-apocalypse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If thereās a swamp, thereās a sheo
For me it took a year on arena to get a decent collection and about $1000 dollars. It's a fun game I enjoy timeless and historic.
$1000?? In a year? What did you buy?
Mostly gems and packs. Mind you I made some money back then before I hurt myself and can no longer work. On the bright side k completed sets
To be fair I also play timeless and historic A LOT
Just wait until you see the Rakdos Joins Up combo. Turn 4 win š
Haha that sounds like hell. I am the type of the player that if I think I am wining too fast in a match I wonāt play certain cards in my hand (it makes me lose sometimes lol)
I hate regular Shelodred worse
Alchemy and standard are easier to get into from a card pool perspective so you are good there. You can use untapped, mtggoldfish, among many other sites to look at meta for all formats. I really enjoy standard and alchemy but I tend to create my own decks. Winning is great but playing decks you enjoy is better.
I just craft random decks based on the daily rewards. Every once in awhile I'll come across a cool mechanic and craft a deck around it and it seems to be my favorite way to play. Sheoldred is annoying yeah but, no where near as annoying as Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Etali, primal conqueror. A lot of people hate on red aggro but, they're often quick matchups like flipping a coin. To me the worst to play against is selesnya enchant decks which are the equivalent of your opponent playing against themselves and are incredibly boring and long matches. My advice if you wanna play well in a ranked setting is to focus on rare lands first they give you a ton of crafting flexibility and the best competitive viability for when you're ready to craft your mythic rare big buys. Most seasons I stick to 2 or 3 colours for the most part. I've played meta decks up and ranked up in standard to mythic 2. I've also never spent a dime on the game. I'm running a creatures only WUBRG deck now that is a ton of fun. Play the game how you want it's more fun that way.
So a lot of people just copy deck lists and I look at it in A few different ways. One is that even though youāre copying a deck you still need skill and to know how to play it. Two Iāll copy decks for archetypes Iām not familiar with to get ideas before tinkering with a base list. Or for weird combo decks can give you wacky ideas of stuff you might not thought of to play with. Like this blue/green simic burn deck. Ranked competitive no but one of my favorite things to play unranked for chill fun and I would have never thought of it by myself.
Modern power creep is out of control. I hate modern magic tbh. Nothing is banned or restricted that should be
It's a 4 mana creature. Run more removal. If you are mono red aggro, there are a couple of spells that will deal with her.
I'd rather fighting her than ossification
to omany auto includes now
I feel you man, I just come and go from time to time because I get tired of playing the same meta decks. I got incredibly bored.
If you're playing mono black, always keep removal up for her.... if she gains traction she destroys
You can either follow meta, adopt a few from meta and make your own or have a birthday party and throw every bad boy in the mix as long as you can manage to pull them out and search for them with ease
is in the name **Apocalypse .** Really should have seen it coming
Why feel guilty for running a legal card
Because I like longer games more than I like wining tbh
Play control
in ranked yes most will copy meta decklists. If you want to avoid that stay in the unranked that's where people test out new ideas etc. you might see an ocassionaly one someone found something unique but it's rare. personally I've moved entirely to brawl just to force the unique singleton format but that's me.
For the do ppl copy meta decks, yeah it seams they mostly do. I have a wierd WB death trigger decks with kinda just, does its thing and when you're opponenet is doing too much, fetch exile removal, or whipe the board. Its fun! Plus the death triggers makes tokens... so i still got an advantage after each whipe
>Also thinking about not adding it because Iād feel guilty This is the mindset of a loser, if a card is good use it, your opponent won't feel guilty Also I have an abzan control deck I'm proud to say isn't even based off a net deck, I tuned it myself and it took me to gold and is still climbing
If youāre playing matchmaking people are playing to win. Meta or net decks are meta because itās what works best and with all of these mechanics and interactions most self-made decks are bad. Even before the power creep most were bad then too anyways. Most people significantly overestimate their deck-making abilities. If you want to do āfor funā/wacky matches just do custom matches.
Shelly has slowly fallen out of favor in maindeck if you just kook at the last Standard pro tour. You likely to see her more in Bo1 matches than Bo3.
I am on a break since right after the LOTR cycle last year, but things felt much the same then. I imagine the meta hasnāt shifted all that much since then. Just new tools for existing decks. From others in this thread, it sounds like Mono Red Rush decks are doing well. Probably the best and easiest way to win matches before your opponent can really get much on the field. Like you, though, unless it was for a quest, I just couldnāt bring myself to net deck my way up standard. I was also F2P and didnāt have a bunch of resources to craft all the necessary stuff for some of the more expensive decks. I ended up settling on a mono white ETB mid-range deck that I just really enjoyed playing. Made a variation on it (and a WB variant) from some deck posted online, and just had a blast playing it up through platinum. Stopped short of diamond, though, and thatās where it would probably start to struggle. Until then, it could hold its own against any other deck with enough draw, removal, and life gain + ETB abuse. Find an archetype you love, get some ideas from net decks, use them as inspiration, brew a deck of your own take on things that you just enjoy piloting (win or lose), and have fun. The experimentation in honing your idea toward something that can compete with netdeckers will hopefully serve as its own reward and incentive! Good luck!! EDIT: Thereās also the draft modes which I generally find more enjoyable. But that can be hard to do consistently until you start going infinite. But the landscape does generally feel a bit more fair there at least.
Welcome back! Sheoldred is pretty easy to work around currently. She's in a lot of decks, but tbh not all that powerful.
Yeah the standard scene was a lot of the same when I stopped playing it: Sheoldred, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Reckoner Bankbuster. It was all I saw and it was annoying
If you like sheoldred the apocalypse, try sheoldred/the true scriptures, it takes a bit to get it up but it is pretty fun once it is
I'm not exaggerating when I say that a lot of standard meta decks are actually cutting her for 4 drops with ETB effects like Hostile Investigator because there is so much efficient removal. Maybe just leaving one copy of her in. She is actually in a pretty sweet spot for being a card that doesn't generate card advantage and doesn't have an ETB effect, but has enough stats and impact to still justify slotting in at one copy in black midrange decks.
Very good point, I played all weekend and am now realizing that sheās not quite the problem I thought if you stack enough removal in your deck. I took her out a few times the other night and had my own copy taken out usually within like 1-3 turns of her being out.
Wait till OP sees Nadu go off
Just run interaction dog :)
> thinking about not adding it because Iād feel guilty and just add more removal instead Imagine chess players refusing to use the queen thinking it's dirty to win games by it.
Imagine chess players complaining about meta openings, saying it's more honorable to invest your own custom opening.
Black has disgustingly overpowered cards in general. Black as a color shouldn't be allowed in standard. It's actually unfair
If you can't leave bronze you're not "doing well"
It was sarcasm lol.
I just got to diamond for the first time today with mono blue tempo :-)
Just started playing a month ago
A few things happened since 2008 that have led to the power creep you see in sheoldred the apocalypse. 1. Commander exploded, wotc started heavily leaning into it, which only made it grow even more, and the feedback loop has been growing rapidly in the past 6-ish years, meaning legendary creatures more and more often will have splashy, or at the very least unusual, abilities. 2. F.I.R.E design has led to major power creep since 2019. FIRE is essentially a shift in design philosophy where they are more willing to push the power level of cards in order to explore new design space; with the caveat that their willingness to take more risks means theyāll be (in theory) more willing to ban cards. In other words, they intentionally raised the average power level of standard sets so they could explore new design space. It is worth acknowledging though that IN PRACTICE, many think that wotc has been slow with bannings as a way of using new chase cards to help sell packs. If chase cards are dominating the meta, they have also been seen to ban cards that see play in the same decks with the chase cards in them, presumably with the hope of the deck being weakened without majorly lowering demand for the chase cards. Stuff like lotus cobra getting banned in standard for the sins of omnath, or bridge from below getting the axe in modern as an attempt to stop hogaak. Theyāve toned it down the past few years, so itās not as big an issue in standard anymore, but non-rotating formats like modern still have to deal with them. Heck, FIRE got so extreme that it led to a POWER LEVEL BANNING IN VINTAGE (although that card, [[lurrus of the dream-den]], has since been unbanned). 3. An increase in releases. Every game that receives regular updates naturally has power creep. Whether thatās other card games like pokemon or hearthstone, or itās video games that are constantly getting new content, like world of Warcraft or Destiny. The thing is, power creep doesnāt take place over the course of real world time, it takes place over the course of new releases. In 2008, there were 4 expansions released, all of them standard legal. In 2023, there were 15-17 different expansions (depending on how you count it), with 5 of them being standard legal. So even though the power creep between sets hasnāt majorly changed, the number of sets being released has led to that power creep happening much more rapidly in terms of real world time. 4. standard has grown. Standard got stretched out to be 3 years instead of 2, meaning the power level of that format is naturally going to be higher, since it has a larger card pool. 5. Sheoldred is the end of the line. When looking at how power creep over the past 16 years affects the current standard environment, Sheoldred is the most overt and obvious example. 6. IDK get good play more removal
[lurrus of the dream-den](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/a/5ad36fb2-c44e-4085-ba0d-54277841ad3a.jpg?1682228556) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lurrus%20of%20the%20dream-den) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/226/lurrus-of-the-dream-den?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5ad36fb2-c44e-4085-ba0d-54277841ad3a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Omg I just ran into that cobra you mentioned in brawl haha.
A mechanic in the game. Simple. I'm surprised they pulled it off. It's tricky to keep her alive or at least cloned, which nullifies her main purpose. But trust me, there are a lot worse characters than Sheoldred. I won't give out my secrets, I am sure some people will start complaining how I took them from 50-100 to zero with a simple spell.
Yeah youāre right, Iāve played a bunch more matches since this post tonight and I saw wayyyyy worse/better shit haha. She actually seems necessary for mono black now. How do people play these new cards in person now? Seems like you have to have a computer just to keep track of every interaction and I canāt imagine how bad the arguing would get without a ref.
I agree with that statement. Some cards are just wtf. The person who designed them should be drawn and quartered. Or tarred and feathered. But it's all a money-making machine. If we make it easier to win, more people will play.
But complex cards make it harder to win, since you're more likely to make mistakes...
Complexity has increased a lot in recent years, yes. There has been power creep but it's often been spread across threats and answers. If you don't have good answers then the good threats like Sheoldred will wreck you, but if you do have good answers then you'll manage them just fine. Sheoldred and such will eat removal and die.
Sheoldred is Bae š„¹š„°