So, I played a lot of games last night to get to 20. I streamed them all, not so much that I expected anyone to watch, but just to record if I had any interesting stuff happen. I played 32 games total (Plus one that glitched on me and I had to quit out of the program) and there were a wide variety of decks.

Probably the most surprising thing was that I do not believe I faced a traditional Cars.dec. I think maybe 1-2 that didn't get a good start, but they could have been something else. From 15+ I ended up facing the same people over and over, and wait times for matches went up significantly. Strongest decks I faced were Rakdos agro, (A guy named Intel that defaulted to AI each time I played him. I thought that was pretty funny. AI beat me on his T5 while I was on the draw!) Counter spirits (Although that could have just been a bad matchup for my deck) PW.dec (Who knows if it can survive the agro overall, but Heart and Harvester will help defense) and Fel's Dimir Artifacts (That was a great battle).

I also had issues w/ a Orzhov Lifegain/enchantment deck that I didn't respect at first. A flipped Lone Rider was painful w/ Infernal Scaring. Stabilized at 2 life while he was at 55 life.... (On a side note, I think Harvester/Lone Rider can be a pretty good combo. He didn't have it that I saw...but seems like a good fit.) I also had some issues w/ a good Haunted Dead type deck w/ Chandra's Ignition and all the usual discard/graveyard cards.

Other decks I saw a fair amount of were Esper and RDW.

New card I saw the most was Yahenni's Expertise. It was cast several times vs me, but I think only 1 time was it followed up by another card by using the Expertise. Second card I saw the most was probably Harvester. I really didn't see any other cards that often. The one card I was expecting was Fatal Push, but only saw it 2 times, and that was in the same deck. Not sure why I didn't see it more often. I also saw no Druid of the Cowl. That surprised me a bit as well. Oh, I did see a Call to arms deck. It was Azorius flicker deck. Call got up to +3 before I won. It seemed a bit slow, but it was threatening as call added up.

Anyway, played way too long last night, and may be forgetting something, but seemed a lot like last season's meta. Besides Fel's deck, nothing that really hit me as a new archetype that will do well that I faced.

What have others seen?

I've seen one uninteresting new thread since the release.

This is a cool analysis, especially since I only had time for one game last night. Maybe I missed it in there, but what deck(s) were you playing with?

Interesting that Yahenni's didn't get much full value. I naively assumed that the Expertises would always get a free card after, and it didn't even occur to me that you just might not have something playable in hand. I'm a little hesitant to use it in some control decks now, since a lot of the three slot is counterspells or single target removal.

We are all glad you decided not to post your thread then

So far my high level analysis has determined that treasure keeper is a good magic card.

Now i know what you're thinking "Nighthawk, it's just a 3/3 for four mana and it has to die for its ability to come up, it's practically a downside!"

But get this - Some decks don't mind their creatures dying and can even get some benefit from it

Take for example Emerge creatures, you can emerge off this guy AND get a free 3 drop as well! Amazing right?

Even a sacrifice deck can get benefit from this - sacrifice this guy to a Nantuko husk and you can start a chain of creatures!

#TheMoreYouKnow

I've clearly seen that Stainless delivered a strictly political statement with AER.
And I seriously can't deny my full support to that kind of hard working people.

Therefore:

• Persona (clear innuendo)
  
  
  
• Back Sleeve (clear innuendo)
  
  
  
  
• Key card: Unbridled Growth
  
  
• Catchy username: Check.

Presidential Inauguration MP here I come.

BY GEORGE, I THINK HE'S RIGHT!

Our game was great! I was sure I had it when I was outdrawing you and got Skyboat and the 2 Harvester to get some life back (I was between 2 and 5 at that point), but Reflector Mage on my Padeem, Consul of Innovation + double Reclamation Sage all on the same turn was too much to handle

I also faced the Spirits guy and the Rakdos guy multiple times. The Rakdos guy was easy (if you're playing aggro and you can't answer Harvester, you lose), the Spirits I wen't 1-2, but both of my losses I kept really bad hands.

(I don't know if you noticed, but we randomly getting paired for a game in the first night of the expansion has happened for multiple seasons in a row. It's almost like a tradition at this point).

Trying mostly some Selesnya decks and overall, this is what I found:

Aid from the Cowl is absolutely nice to have around, but the 5 mana threshold in a game were you need to be able to dominate the game by T4 is just.... iffy. There are not that much noteworthy cards that would be above your manacurve that you would like to luck into and not a lot of ETB cards that would help you during end phase. It's just weird. It's like a weird sort of Lurking Predators.

Call for Unity is awesome but again, 5 mana makes it a really heavy card to cast but definitely can wins games if you can keep spewing creatures out.

I've yet to make a good working Selesnya Bounce&Boon type of deck. Basically,the good stuff is too expensive to cast or doesn't flow right with what I have in mind.

BIG UPS for Renegade Rallier! It's such an awesome card when you trigger his ability. The very fact that you can put Evolving Wilds back onto the board for small ramp is very noteworthy. Had the pleasure of doing this many times.

Unbridled Growth has been the biggest ally in triggering Revolt so much that it's almost revulting. It's pretty much a must play card.

I have noticed. This is the first time that I actually got to play you though I think. It seems every other time the connection drops and we end up playing the AI. Not sure if it is my end or yours...or maybe Stainless just doesn't want us to play I was kinda expecting it this time, and was very glad to actually play you.

I like your deck. In that game I was holding 2 Sages forever, and frantically looking for my Mage, esp after I hit 9 mana. I think you played Flagship just before I drew mage. Kind of lucky for me because I had a target on the two Harvesters before the Flagship showed.

As far as the Radkos guy, I think I beat him 2-1, maybe just split 1-1, but I was just blown away that the AI beat me. On his 5th turn. I did make a mistake that probably cost me the game, but tbh, on that game I think he would have had it anyway. But you are right, Harvester is pretty hard for agro to handle. MVP of the set I think. the counter Spirit I ended up winning back the games I lost. 2-2 or 3-2? Still, was a pain to play against.

Of my 6 losses, I think 1 was a major mana issue, 1 minor mana issue, 2 games I flat out lost and 2 that I think I could have been okay w/ a 2 drop. Decks I think I lost to: Rakdos Aggro, Haunted dead deck, Spirits x2 and an Esper control is what my faulty memory remembers. Haunted dead deck, he won by a Chandra's ignition on Katilas....which I Displaced to save my displacer.....and he use Blossoming...which wiped my whole board. Well played on his part, as if I did not activate Displacer I would have had a chance.

I wonder how much of that was simply due to newness? First thing I did post-download was beat story mode, unlocked new cards, build a couple decks I had pre-dreamed, did a couple test games vs AI to see how bad my ideas might be, and then slept. Didn't even jump online.

Figure I can't be the only one like that. Since everyone is starting at 0, early games would be plentiful even with (potentially/probably) fewer people in total playing online, but matchmaking higher levels would logically be sparse (later timezones to you already in bed, same or earlier timezones still dicking around in story mode, deck building, and early rank scrum).

I've played a few, but aside from one guy running a standard vehicles deck, I've only gotten paired with newbs. I guess expansions do bring in new blood. I have to say I felt pretty bad smashing them up with hasty trampling boar+Heart of Kiran+primal bellow when they're tossing out crap like Countless Gears Renegade...probably not doing anything to help the longevity of the game. Oh well! Wizards' fault for not making it easier to get the old sets.

Just started tonight, did storymode and the skillquests, spent 17k gold on what could be bought and then went versus. 5 games before I met competition, and the first loss. I feel bad for the first 5 opponents, same experience as others have mentioned - basicly only D cards and it was an absolute slaughter. Now it's every 3-4 games I meet someone with a collection. Hope to rise to real competition soon.

Oh, and the D guys stick around while the ones with better cards quit/pull-plugs as soon as their plan falters...

the first game went like clockwork, heaven!

i think i am in love with the aether

edit:

t2 vial
t3 tutelage1
t4 yahenni sweep and tutelage2
t5 baral himself + epiphany
t6 baral expertise + tutor (ob nix) - vial - 2 opponent dorks
t7 ob nix - vial
t8 mill winz ^^

This is one reason I race to get as high in rank as I can early. I hate facing the more casual guys because I feel bad about how uneven the matches tend to go. (Of course, there are time I just lose to bad decks as well. Sometimes overconfidence, sometimes luck and sometimes just not anticipating their deck correctly.)

The second reason is I want to see what deck are most competitive, and you generally find it in the higher ranks. The downsides are that you may miss some new deck ideas that are very good, but not fully tuned, and matchmaker can take longer as well as putting you up against the same players over and over and over again.

On a side note, I made a clip of my Game w/ Fel. Long game!

https://www.twitch.tv/wintervoidx/v/115889463

Omg, so much "X is watching damage effects..."

With full collection ORI + BFZ + OGW + SOI + KLD completed I had a small savings to acquire the 30% of AER already (but I got only 1 Mithic ... Tezzeret ... my luck is garbage) ... Anyway I made up a Jund Energy driven Deck with which I made 5-1 yesterday (the loss is due to me getting mana-screwed) ... AER cardpool seems very interesting already !!!

So let's talk about my observations with the game as it is.

Well firstly I play against the AI a lot as the soul-destroying slowness with which actual people make decisions drives me up the wall. As such I'm growing increasingly frustrated by who often AI decks run Renegade Map since it means half my matches end with my quitting due to game breaking bugs. Yay.

The AI still insists on playing vehicles despite having no goddamned idea how to use them. I feel it may have improved a little since Kaldesh proper but going from infuriatingly incompetent to just laughably incompetent isn't much of an improvement.

This one may just be me but the game seems sluggish as all hell. It isn't like load times have increased or anything like that it's that everything seems unresponsive. The deck editor is probably the worst example of this with my often having to hammer cards repeatedly for the game to register I want to add them to my deck. Everything just takes too much time.

Speaking of the deck builder it is nice that we now have the ability to filter cards. Shame it took so long to add and the filters are kinda finicky about what they grab but eh what you going to do?

Lack of right clicking is killing things for me as everything now takes just that little more time to complete. This is probably most annoying when dealing with planeswalkers since the 'click here to activate' button is often misaligned from the card text.

I do like the card selection we were given this expansions which is nice but hamstrung a little by most of the above. Also Dark Intimations confirms we're getting Bolas in game next expansion and that is neat.

Huh. That ended up being more negative then I intended. Oh well.

Sorry to hear all of this Garren. This pretty much mirrors my own experience aside from finding those Unbridled Growth bugs, you're on Steam too right?

Just because it references Bolas does not mean it confirms we are getting Bolas next set.