Hello again everyone! It's been quite some time, but I have finally been accepted into the beta and it's time to get back into magic! Woohoo!

Anyone know where I can see controls for in game? And what these new abilities are?

Left CTRL holds priority.

The rest of it is just clicking on lands to manually tap or giving permission for each transition when you have priority by clicking the correct command on the right side of screen. Dragging cards onto the board plays them, you can manually tap lands, etc. It took me one game of playing way too slow to figure out (other than the CTRL thing) and then I was okay.

The two new things I didn't know were "Explore" and "The City's Blessing". Most of the other stuff is the same.

Explore means "Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a land then draw it. If it's not a land, choose whether it stays on top of the deck or goes into the graveyard; then the creature who Explored gets +1/+1." So a card might say "Choose a creature to explore. You can play an extra land this turn." Either you draw a land, or the creature gets +1/+1 and you choose whether or not you want to filter the card into the grave. The creature only gets buffed if it's not a land, which is the "trade-off" for not drawing the card. Then you get the extra effect listed on the card, in this case you can play that extra land if you drew it or any extra land in your hand.

Edit: I am using a real card as an example. I just don't remember the exact name, text, or mana cost other than it's green. /edit

"The City's Blessing" is a Rivals of Ixalan? mechanic. It's something you get the first time you have 10+ permanents on the field. Once you have it you have it for the rest of the game. A bunch of cards, especially Azorius cards, do special things if you have the City's Blessing.

Cheap decks to play for little to no investment are aggro merfolk, aggro vampires, and aggro pirates.

The best aggro deck to grind with before Dominaria (which releases in about a week or week in a half) is currently Ramunap Ruins Red Deck Wins, although that card is expected to get banned as soon as they fully implement Standard.

The most popular control deck is The Scarab God, but it's not necessarily the best. The most budget control deck is Izzet? I think? For anything super competitive you want to go look up Standard lists and try to copy them with subs for the Kaladesh cards. Keeping in mind that the Standard banlist isn't in effect yet, so 2 red cards that are banned in paper are currently good grinding aggro cards in MTG:A.

Edit: There is going to be another collection wipe at the start of open beta. Other wipes may happen before that but that's the only guaranteed one we know of. If gems are implemented (real world currency) before a wipe, you'll get any purchased gems refunded at the time of the wipe, but the prices in their shop are subject to change if they implement gems before the last wipe.

Thanks for that. I thought it was supposed to be that simple but it wasn't working right for some reason. Example..
I was attempting to play a creature enchantment err aura like pacifism onto an enemy creature. I tapped the lands manually for it, chose the creature, but couldn't figure out how to make it resolve.. It was frustrating..

It probably has a blue Bar that literally says "Resolve" on the bottom right of the screen. The game literally makes you click through everything on both players turns whenever you have the ability to play something. So on your opponents turn if you have the ability to play Lightning Strike you will have to literally click Attackers, Blockers, etc. ending with "My Turn" even if you have no creatures on the field.

Edit: And the game almost always makes you click Resolve.

resolve wasn't there. it said cancel instead..

Then your spell had to have been cancelled OR you tapped the wrong mana.

I'm not sure what the problem was but I'll figure this app out.

Btw, is there a discord channel for nga?

Nope

There is currently no way to set up a non-random match.

I don't mean for matchmaking per se. Good to know that isn't an option though. I just mean for us to hang out and communicate, deck craft, ect!

I'll set one up if anyone else is interested!

But that hurts this site

This is where we talk

Doesn't hurt the site. We can post decks, ideas and what not. The discord would be for having conversations real time. No different than anyone who has added someone from here onto another platform.

Oh sorry, I didn’t know it was a chat app. I thought it was like Reddit

It's like a chat app in that it's so easy for conversation to get lost. I keep pointing people over here when I can without being overbearing.

Yeah, they both have their purpose!