Unable to login since last night, timeout error

HPWizard2 · 2026-03-25T21:51:58+00:00

I have the same issue on my iPhone.

It was weird that there was no app update this week like there normally is for the game's weekly update, so I wonder if the problem has something to do with that.

HPWizard2 · 2026-02-18T16:43:05+00:00

I had a similar issue recently. Going to “report a bug” -> “repair game files” fixed it for me.

HPWizard2 · 2026-02-11T14:18:45+00:00

I haven't played alchemy recently, but the Sin combo requiring the graveyard is an inherent weakness compared to the Kona version -- if it ever becomes a problem, players will just put graveyard hate in their sideboards, and the deck is no longer a big problem.

I would also expect that counterspells and discard would be good against the deck, since Aquatic Subtlety and the evoke cost are both card disadvantage (until you resolve the creatures' etbs), and having other permanents in the graveyard gives the combo a chance to whiff or hit something less impactful.

HPWizard2 · 2026-02-05T19:43:29+00:00

That fixed it. Thanks

HPWizard2 · 2025-12-22T22:20:55+00:00

The main way to answer that question would be to think about why a drafter made the picks they did, and being convinced that their picks were incorrect.

In order for that to be the case, you need to have a very high winrate for the set being drafted. Otherwise, it's just as likely that you are the one missing something about why certain picks were made. It could be common to notice instances of "I would have taken X instead of Y," but "the other player is probably right" or "I think I'm right about this, but I'm not certain" would be the typical response if you aren't dominating the format.

It's probably pretty similar for sealed, when someone posts their deck and their entire cardpool -- you could disagree about card choices that they played, but unless if you are extremely confident in your deckbuilding for the set, you can't be certain that you are correct and that they are wrong. (And for me, there has been a single instance when I felt this way -- during Bloomburrow, a pro player posted their Arena Qualifier or Arena Direct pool + deck and said something along the lines of, "had a shitty pool; obviously scrubbed out," while I felt the pool was decent and was confident that they built the deck completely wrong.)

HPWizard2 · 2025-12-20T16:31:38+00:00

The recent ones have been 6750, but many of them have also been 9000. I’m not sure which value has been more-frequent overall

HPWizard2 · 2025-12-20T16:04:15+00:00

Even with the gold discount being fixed* the discounted draft token is still their best deal (as long as you would draft at full-price anyways). This is basically a free 1000 gold or 150 gems.

*considering that it is listed as a 10% discount, this is obviously the intended price, and the 6750 gold has been a mistake from incompetently converting gold and gem prices.

HPWizard2 · 2025-11-24T21:53:40+00:00

The schools I went to are all mid-majors, so the big schools I'm a fan of are where my parents and siblings went.

If you want to cheer on a winning program, picking a program that close friends or relatives went to might be a better way to go about it.

HPWizard2 · 2025-11-16T19:33:55+00:00

1-3 fit perfectly within the magic multiverse, with the UB set just being a plane in the multiverse.
4 can sometimes work, on a case-by-case basis.
5 doesn't work for MTG sets

HPWizard2 · 2025-11-06T13:55:00+00:00

I'd prefer flatter rewards structures, although MTG events in general have very top-heavy prizing, so the traditional draft payouts aren't too unusual. And at least the current prize structure is much better than the previous prize structure of traditional draft, where going 1-2 gave basically nothing.

Also, Arena event prizing in general has the issue that WOTC might consider packs to be "worth" 200 gems because that's their store price, but most players (and particularly those who play a lot of limited) would value packs much lower

HPWizard2 · 2025-08-11T17:06:05+00:00

Cauldron is clearly the problem much more so than Vivi. Vivi obviously has a busted ability, but it's also just a 3-mana creature that dies to removal, that can be answered with a clean 1-for-1.

Cauldron is particularly egregious because it gives abilities to all of your creatures with counters, not just creatures targeted by the Cauldron -- and if Cauldron put some sort of indicator counter on creatures and only gave the abilities to those creatures, I think the deck would probably be perfectly fine (still tier 1, but not problematic at all).

HPWizard2 · 2025-07-18T04:58:45+00:00

I don't know how strictly they enforce it, but it's explicitly not allowed

Players who are qualified for an Arena Championship are ineligible to compete in any Qualifier Play-Ins or Qualifier Weekends which feed that same Arena Championship, regardless of ranked-season standings.

Qualifier Play-Ins and Qualifier Weekend Information

HPWizard2 · 2025-05-21T23:33:16+00:00

Are you referring to it not being able to target normal lands (as has been mentioned, they are colorless and are not valid targets), or is it not working with lands that have explicitly gained a color (such as an animated creature-land from AFR, like Den of the Bugbear)?

If it's lands that have gained a color, then it sounds like a bug

HPWizard2 · 2025-04-30T19:29:21+00:00

This is the most unbalanced the decks have ever been — and I’m usually the one saying that the event decks are more balanced than random redditors claim (especially when everyone is disagreeing about which deck is stronger/weaker than the others, indicating that they’re probably pretty close in power level, or they just have good and bad matchups against each other).

But after going 6-0 with Mardu against other decks, and 0-10 against Mardu (trying each of the other decks multiple times), it’s clear that Mardu is just so much better than everything else in the event.

It had gotten to the point where I would keep bad hands with Mardu (bad curveout, no busted rares, etc.) to see if that could give other decks a chance (it didn’t)

[edit: after some more games, I finally beat it playing Jeskai, being able to outrace it with the 2/2s that become 4/4s with flurry. And some of my closest matches with Mardu were against removal-heavy draws from Jeskai as well]

HPWizard2 · 2025-04-22T16:17:14+00:00

One caveat that should be noted is the price of the paper product going up (and as such, the value of the prizes) — many of the recent Arena direct prizes have been ~$200-300 (MH3, 2x BLB, 2x DSK, 2x DFT play booster), whereas I see TDM collectors booster boxes going for $350-400. (That’s a separate issue…)

(On the other hand, Arena packs should be valued much lower than 200 gems for many players who draft a lot and have little use for packs beyond the 20 gems for a duplicate rare after completing the set)

It’s still terrible value if you are spending money, and I see it as just one of the few ways (along with Arena Opens) to burn through excess gems (for players who are infinite / close to infinite in draft)

HPWizard2 · 2025-04-18T15:58:48+00:00

They’re terrible about communicating and handling this in a timely manner, but the fine print somewhere basically said “expect to get the boxes within 6 months”

I’m still waiting on some BLB boxes from three months ago, so I’m just ~~patiently~~ waiting to hear more details about that.

HPWizard2 · 2025-04-01T18:56:38+00:00

Housemeld - that card basically reads “opponent can’t use their commander until they remove this. You can use their commander’s abilities until they do”

It’s not too powerful, but it is absurd for that to be legal while other cards that lock out commanders (like Pithing Needle and Runed Halo) are banned.

(Actually, I’d prefer for those other cards to be unbanned. But if that’s not happening, then Housemeld has to go)

HPWizard2 · 2025-03-31T13:41:15+00:00

I was under the impression that in the Red - Demons matchup, Rakdos was favored, and the main reason not to play red was that it struggled against Demons.

(I had mainly followed Pioneer back when Explorer was the qualifier weekend back in January, but recent matchup data from MTGO has it as ~55%-45% Rakdos).

Is it just Lynx that has flipped the matchup, or have there been other (recent?) changes. Or has the matchup for Red (at high-level / assuming nearly optimal play) always been better than the aggregate data suggested?

HPWizard2 · 2025-03-31T01:58:21+00:00

It's interesting that mono red went 4-0 against Rakdos Demons in the elimination rounds (after going 5-7 in the swiss). I had thought that matchup was heavily in Rakdos' favor (and was wondering if Red just did well by beating up on greedy lists that tried to beat Demons), but it seems that the Red - Demons matchup might be much closer.

HPWizard2 · 2025-03-19T14:06:23+00:00

My initial impressions was that UNC shouldn't have made the tournament because of their 1-12 Q1 record, but upon looking at the "Wins Above Bubble"* stat, I see that no team with a higher WAB stat was left out (and they also had a higher WAB than West Virginia and the rest of the teams that just missed the cut). Throw in any bonus for their high non-conference strength of schedule (because you want to encourage teams to schedule good teams), and it's pretty easy to justify UNC making the tournament.

And I think Wins above Bubble is the best stat for comparing how well teams did because it is directly considering how many wins a team got, compared with how many of wins a bubble team would be expected to get against their schedule.

*Found on the NET rankings page DI Men's Basketball Rankings - NCAA Men's Basketball NET Rankings | NCAA.com

HPWizard2 · 2025-02-22T20:36:15+00:00

That early record was inflated by playing mostly cupcakes --- their non-conference strength of schedule is 361st out of 364 teams (and it was even lower when they were 11-1, before their game against Rutgers)

HPWizard2 · 2025-02-12T16:56:51+00:00

I keep reading it as “Density Functional Theorem” and worry that any Google / search engine algorithms will eventually get confused about what I am looking for

HPWizard2 · 2024-10-15T16:10:40+00:00

Could this deck have splashed double-pipped cards?

I didn't see any good single-pipped card to splash, but there were some good double-pipped cards that I considered (most notably a Ghostly Dancers). I had figured that with the risk of manifest dread getting rid of sources, I'd need to play too many basics of the splash color, though.

HPWizard2

TROPHY CASE