The FAQ also says something about wipes:



I'm wondering if I should keep playing so I can get some experience with drafts - I have literally never drafted before in my life.

Draft is life.

I would do the opposite: now is the time to play whatever you want and just keep playing loads with all the free stuff and even try out Kaladesh and Amonkhet blocks.

Easy for you to say, it's hard to get cards and it's not fun losing to decks that are simply better than mine.

On another note, I started a quick draft, opened a pack, and ... there's no timer? Isn't draft supposed to have a timer since the pack you open is passed to your neighbour? If there's no timer, what's going to show up in my next pick?

PS: Ambuscade, Sunscourge Champion or Imaginary Threats P1P1?

You draft against bots, not real people ATM so you can start a draft and pick it up whenever you want.

PS: Sunscourge Champion by a mile

Do the bots go into colours? Can you read signals? I virtually didn't see any deserts in the first two HoD packs. Is that normal?

Also, went 2-3 in my first attempt. I thought I had quite a good GW deck, but got tempoed out on the draw in my first loss. Second loss I missed a crucial play (why didn't I play Desert's Hold on my opponent's Sunscourge Champion, especially when he had Anointed Procession out!?) and lost. Third game I kept a 2-plains hand on the draw with two cyclers, didn't get there, and mana screwed into oblivion.

Pretty disappointing overall It was my first draft though, I guess I can't be too unhappy.

Cucho knows better than I do but Ambuscade is reminder cal so I would pick that first

How come when I use my red deck, I queue into the mirror most (>50%) of the time, yet when I use my blue deck, I never meet red decks? I swear it's like a conspiracy, as though they're using the cards in my deck to determine who I play against.

Dunno, I queue against RDW 50% of the time no matter what deck I'm running (well, I only have 2, so "either deck I'm running).

Whoa, according to sites like this one matchmaking does take into account the cards in your deck: https://mtgarena.pro/news/magic-core-se ... mtg-arena/



I dunno what to think of that. It does mean in principle that I can try the craziest jank and still reach the top ranks. On the other hand it means that farming a collection is less important, and me being stuck at Gold I is probably a playskill matter

Okay the weird matchmaking mechanic is making me not sure what to do. Like, do I make my deck stronger? There're lots of bad cards, and there's room for improvement. But if I make my deck stronger, I'll also run into stronger opponents. What's the point then?

The point is that you can play magic outside the top tier decks, besides the matchmaking on deck strength is just on free play, you can always go for the competitive modes to play the tier 1 decks, if that works for you but that gets old pretty quickly, I mean I saw CGB on the diamond ranks for a short time and that thing was just awful.

I think that with the influx of new players the matchmaking isn't working anyway. I've been messing around with my green deck in free play and I get constantly matched against low bronze or placement players, the deck is most certainly not friendly or off-meta seeing as it can out-race r/b aggro at times (or flat stonewall them from turn 2 onwards). I have noticed that when I play UW I seem to get more control opponents(though this is certainly within the bounds of rng), but I don't think you should worry about making your deck better since the matchmaking seems intent on feeding my green deck newbies to crush - the deck runs over 30 rare+mythic cards mainboard. It's annoying since I want to test stuff and that's kind of hard if the opponent is conceding on turn 3 or 4.

Wow I didn't know that there're such formats as competitive constructed, quick constructed, etc, all available all the time! And there I was stupidly grinding quickplay!

Competitive constructed's reward rate is actually really good - one only needs a 50% win rate to earn the entrance fee (1000 gold) back, and winning out rewards 2100 gold. I'll probably be spending most of my time playing that format in the future, or at least earning the coins to play limited there. Somehow though, I seem to mana screw or mana flood a lot. Maybe it's got to do with me just conceding in quickplay if it happens and going on to the next game, but in competitive constructed, it's important to see what's in the opponent's deck.

How do I tell who's going first in the next game during sideboarding? I want to vary my sideboarding due to play/draw, but I can't figure out whether or not I'm on the play.

Bump?

It should be the loser of the last match. No idea what Arena does though.

I think that's correct, thanks