5 Foot Step wrote on Feb 16^th, 2019 at 12:49pm:

Nice. Some decks get way better after sideboarding. Namely control decks. Often times bringing in anywhere from 4 to 8 cards in a match-up. Best of 1 would be really bad if it were Legacy or Vintage formats. Some decks have insane g1 win percentages, most of them are combo decks like Dredge, or ANT. Even decks like Workshops are insane g1 especially if they win the die roll to go first. I am assuming this standard format currently has no combo decks. Best of 1s should then be an aggro fest. Like Hearthstone is on ladder.

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Feb 16^th, 2019 at 2:47pm:


My new deck is cavalcade goblins. Destroying all comers at high gold on the ladder currently. More on this later.

Dinos is still fun. It is a bit slow for the ladder (or rather, aggro opponents have sped up with the new set) It's kind of midrangey. Your best aggro draw is something like

turn1: Commune with Dinosaurs
turn2: Otepec Huntmaster
turn3: Swing with 4/5 hasted Ripjaw Raptor

Otherwise you want to set up a Forerunner of the Empire and then either lock them down with Needletooth Raptor (if they are showing aggro) or win via card advantage with Ripjaw Raptor (if they are showing control). Carnage Tyrant is a big finisher.

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Feb 16^th, 2019 at 2:47pm:


I've got one of those too. It's surprising how often you can get it out on the cheap. I do those "special rules" events quite a bit when they are available. They don't cost much in coins and are pretty fun for a deck-building nerd like me. I'd like to remake the planeswalker singleton deck I had in closed beta before the wipe, but...it's too costly for now.

Quote:


"Draft (Whatever set). Spend 750 gems or 5000 gold." is the format you want to focus on.

Drafting is a great deal (just for the cards you get) if you don't have much of that set yet. My strategy is to stockpile coins for when a new set comes out, and once it comes out not to open any boosters until I run though all my coins on drafting. Because, getting a 5th copy of whatever card in a booster is worth more than getting it in a draft.  (5th in a booster progresses your wildcard wheel, 5th in a draft goes to vault%)

If you've got gems saved up, I would spend them on this format as well. Although you might want to keep some set aside. Sometimes special events pop up that are gems-only.

The higher stakes (1500 gem) draft, I avoid. I like to grab the high value cards even if they don't fit my draft deck even though it affects my win%.

I don't get why they even offer buy-in vanilla constructed events when you can just play the ladder for free.

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Feb 18^th, 2019 at 2:35pm:

Only if it states target player/opponent.

I used some of my combinatorics knowledge for the first time outside a classroom.

The Traditional Draft Ravnica Allegiance has a 2 losses and you're out format. So! I calculated my average number of wins if I had a 50/50 chance of winning any given match. (also did a 2/3 chance of winning)

w is chance of winning
l is chance of losing
You use a multi-set to solve the binomial coefficients.
The other coefficient is the exponent of w, since that is the number of wins.

Microsoft mathematics formula:
Quote:



~~

It turns out you'll have an average of 1.85 wins for a 50/50 win rate.
With a 67% win rate, you'd only have an average of 3 wins. 3 wins is the break even point in terms of gems; however, it's VERY hard to get that high of a win rate in card games like this in my experience. Kripparian (Hearthstone, diablo, dude) talks about how in standard certain decks only average slightly about 50% win rates. I'm pretty bad, so I probably have a 33% chance to win. This averages to 1 win in the format. There's also a huge systemic problem with these gem formats... ...only the winners keep playing these formats. If you lose are you gonna play the format again? No. Only the winners are. This pushes the skill curve higher than a P2P format should have IMO. On the other hand, it seems to use your ranking to match you, but I matched with a Gold player when I was Bronze. (Luckily I had a Golgari midrange deck from the draft so I actually got a win in.)

I'll see about doing the other formats, the average pack return, and the average gem returns for various win rates.

Should I be mulligan'ing on a two and four mana hand? I suppose if I have curve then I can chance it but getting flooded or starved sucks fucking balls.

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Feb 20^th, 2019 at 8:59am:

Usually you should not. Unless the hand is so bad that you do not have any plays to start the game. Playing lands -> go, for the first few turns, without any way to interact with your opponent or further your own game plan is bad. And the risk of getting mana screwed is greater than than the risk of getting flooded. If you are an aggro deck then you probably will never keep a 4 land hand unless the other 3 cards are 1s and 2s.

I've just been playing casually, doing my dailies.
I created the RDW that is pretty much geared to just blast the other person in the face as quickly as possibly.

the other RDW I see as the Steam Kins and Goblin Chainwhirler.  That's a good deck when not facing my RDW deck... other player has two many creatures, and I kill those Steamkins as soon as they drop.

However, after this latest update, when playing RDW deck, it now takes about 2 minutes to get a matchup and 80% of the time it is against another RDW deck (the other 20% is White Weenie, Mono Blue Tempo, green stompy... fuck  you Steel Leaf Champion, or red/blue izzet).

I've still only spent the $5 for starter kit.
I've got a Gate Deck and Esper Control, but dammit, I usually get on and just want to get my daily quests and at least 4 wins done... so gate and Esper just take too long to win.

I'm pretty sure I've run into that Cavalcade deck several times... It's killed me more than I've killed it.

I realized Boros Angels is way to fucking expensive for me, so I settled and spent most of my wildcards on a monoblue deck.

We'll see if I climb out of tier4 gold....

pbob the builder wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2019 at 5:40pm:


dude this made my night

nice

I totally cleaned up on the "greedy" draft event over the weekend. Too bad it wasn't ranked.

It gave me an idea for some UG control action though. Centering around Wilderness Reclamation, Verity Circle, and Icy Manipulator...

Lavinia is so broken in Cascade format. 

Also, run lots of instants/flash. You can get a cascade trigger from each of your opponent's turns as well as your own.

Today I played 5/10 games against Teferi decks.

I am so fucking sick of those decks. The matches take forever, and sometimes the assholes don't even run a fucking win condition.

I am done with constructed until this shit goes away. Holy fuck is it fucking retarded.