I think I've said it before here but it needs repeating. Magic community at large - subreddit, twitter, various discords, and local game stores - is the most negative, toxic, and unwelcoming community I've been a part of. The number of times any announcement is met with immediate anger makes me wonder why so many of them play. The latest thing is bitching about "pandering to casuals" at every change or arena announcement as if people that haven't been playing for 10 years are less worthy of a fun experience than them.

Speaking as a GP grinder who isn't a horrible misanthrope, BO1 is fine. The only issue is that it warps the metagame towards strategies that invalidate the maindeck of a normal mid-range style deck. e.g. Monored burn, Nexus, Creatureless control. It's more fun to watch and play tho, if you got rid of those issues. Which is why draft BO1 is da bomb since you don't have metagame problems.

I have a genius or grifter story from the last round of GP NJ.

I attack, opponent blocks. Very large combat. 3/3 trample is on a 3/2 which should bring opponent to 1. Opponent notices, doesn't say anything. Asks what his life total is on his main phase, I say 'oh yeah 1 because of the trample.' He calls a judge, judge rules that putting all the damage on the 3/2 is a legal decision so he stays at 2. He then casts Blade Juggler to go to 1.

BO1 is perfect for ladder. I can jump in, get a game or two in, and jump out. I've played more magic on a day to day basis in the last 6 months because of Arena than I did in the previous 5 years. Not having to block off 50 minutes every time I want to do a match is huge.

For competitive games, I think it will be fine. A lot of the negatives of BO1 are negated by a tournament. Ladder is polarized because the majority of people that want to grind need to go aggro since it's the best games played:time ratio you can get. Then you get those that go in the other extreme to prey on those with creatureless control and fog decks. In a tournament though it isn't about games played:time. It's wins:games played. It'll end up mirroring the normal bo3 gp meta as well imo.

That's an unfortunate aspect of paper tournament magic. You'll run into a lot of people that game the system and then judges can only go on a he said/she said basis. It's obviously gifter and isn't close. You even identified that the trample damage brought them to one.

Best of 1 is fine for limited, but sideboards make constructed a lot more interesting. Best of 1 gives you a lot of incentive to play uninteractive strategies.

This isn't really the issue. If you're bringing white weenie to a GP, most of the games you play will be against decks that can draw a sweeper. In best of 1, that's not the case. Creatureless control decks mostly play against decks running Duress or Negates in best of 3, and rarely in best of 1. And so on.

im gonna keep playing mid-range with answers to both then complain when I draw the wrong ones

What's the best way to sell paper goods? I apparently have impulse control issues so I went ape-**** in the last two months buying paper MTG because I wanted to play, but I've since changed my mind and now own like ~$1.5K worth of cards legal in standard (and a small number of singles from the last round of Standard sets that rotated out)


I know I can just list them on ebay and they'll slowly go. I also know that I value my time highly and I don't think selling a single card for $2 is worth my time to package it and mail it out. All cards are pack fresh / near mint and any cards of value were immediately put in combo of perfect-fit sleeves and standard sleeves.


What's my plan?

I usually send out singles on cardsphere. put any cards worth more than 5 bucks in your haves and anything in demand like dual lands you can get 75-85% of retail most of the time

selling in bulk to a game store you are probably getting 50 cents on the dollar at best

How do you package them? Do I need to invest in a bunch of those hard sleeves to do this? Is shipping still a single stamp? (sorry I know I can probably look this stuff up but adulting is hard) Thank you for the response.



Nevermind I'm reading the cardsphere stuff about how the trades work and expectations on shipping. Thanks again for pointing me in a direction

buylisting to Card Kingdom or another online store is an option too

you can put up to 4 cards in a sleeve and toploader. probably get 100 of those for 10-15 bucks.

i've never had any issues sending that with a sticky note taped over the top in just a regular envelope with one stamp

If I had any complaint about Bo1 its that getting the best of 2 hands and a Vancouver mulligan warps deck construction A LOT. Its a totally different game than Bo3 but thats not all bad like pointed out above.

oh god that is hilarious

I made mystic in the MTG Arena Bo1 constructed ladder playing a mono blue tempo deck. Now I'm trying to grind Bo3 with a modified version of the same deck with (obv) a sideboard. I've found 90% of the meta are Tefari/Nexus of Fate decks. Some of them run green for fog, while others use an esper build, but otherwise they are very similar. Then about 8% are green decks and maybe 2% everything else.

When 90% of the meta is (basically) one deck, that's boring and broken imo.

Edit: Since I made mystic last season, I started at platinum rank. It might be the lower ranks have a more diverse meta.

that's crazy, in gold this ladder I literally have not seen a single nexus cast.

Yeah I'm bronze and I see rdw like every game.

Yeah, I've been playing in gold, majority of decks I face are MonoR or Rb.

7-2ed with my current incarnation of vannifer muldrotha. Probably switch over to hydriod golgari when i have 3 hydriods. Heres my current build of vannifer for what it is worth. (The frog i something I added to test with and haven't played with at all but seems pretty good on paper. I believe I previously had tombrobber in this spot which was experimental. If i was playing Bo3 I would cut it and put in another land.)

I know part of this is likely variance, but sometimes I have such a hard time judging how my draft went and how far it will go. Draft a deck expecting to go to 7, struggle to get 3-3. Draft a deck expecting to go 0-3 or 1-3 and go all the way.

Decks:

Strict adhesion to 2 color, tons of Bombs, tons of synergy. Struggle to go 3-3. Color stuck a bunch of times.

https://mtgarena.pro/decks/draft-dec...-69e3460ca68a/

Wild 5-color kitchen sink deck, duct-taped together with some gates and 2 gate payoff cards, easy-peasy 7-1 with 6 of the wins not even being close. Not even a single game of color-screw?

https://mtgarena.pro/decks/draft-dec...-4921c4dae850/

Sort of interesting p1p1

There is a few build mistakes in this one.

Cuts:
Open the gates
Prying Eyes
Scuttlegator
Maybe Lizrog

Add:
2 Gyre Engineer
Biogenic Upgrade
Maybe Skitter Eel
Maybe Quench
1 land

I find it odd you have no gates.