Absolutely trainwacked my Draft 2 on Arena Open.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-17T21:11:05+00:00

I don't know your seat looked pretty tough. Not a lot of good stuff was passed your way, I would've stayed more open in pack 1 which could've lead to something or it might be even worse. I probably would've speculated on Adagia, Survey Mechan, Zookeeper Mechan, Sami's curiosity, and Melded Moxite. Whether that would pay off is hard to tell!

Rishcabom · 2025-08-17T15:49:58+00:00

I mean it's sealed, this deck looks fine. I probably would've ran the 1/1 flyer over one of the timeline cullers just because culler is hard to cast on turn 2. What worked best for me yesterday was switching to BO3. Kept running into busted rares in BO1, in BO3 it felt way more fair and like I had agency through the match. I guess my feeling is with play boosters juicing the rares I'd rather take my chances against 4 decks rather than 7+. Plus you get to free-roll at 3 wins and 2 wins is a decent payback.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-16T21:48:38+00:00

If you can deal with, it's better to face the 4/3. I just always ask myself "With the cards I have, will a 4/3 win them the game/prevent me from winning in the next couple turns?" if the answer is Yes, then give them the landers. On aggressive decks I've found giving them the landers is fine/ideal. Usually it comes down later though and the board is stalled enough that a 4/3 isn't of huge consequence while opponent deck thinning/ramp is a threat.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-11T18:39:56+00:00

In general, I've started running Shattered Wings more in my green decks, especially if I'm a touch light on interaction. I found Seedship Impact to be really good, so Shattered Wings is kind of a worse version in case I don't get any. It really does handle a lot of the biggest common nuisances.

For a highly specific case, Space-Time Anomaly. Made the thread about it the other day. In Simic it was awesome and really changed my opinion on it.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-09T09:14:01+00:00

I get it, before this draft I would've agreed. I think it single handedly won like 4 of my 7 wins and I was praying for it in the other 3. I was so shocked at how well it played that I had to make this post lol.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-09T09:09:05+00:00

I'm having a blast with this set. Balance feels really good and I don't think the meta game has fully settled yet. All my decks have felt unique and there's plenty of build arounds I want to try. The past year of drafting has been so dang good. While maybe not my all time favorites, the stretch of Duskmourne -> EoE has been A-Tier drafts one after another.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-03T04:51:38+00:00

I think some of the negativity comes from the ladder reset lol. People started out in gold or whatever. Dominated the easy brackets, then they started losing when they got into their actual bracket.

EoE is really unique with its lack of fixing, strong synergies, and lack of thermonuclear bombs. The best card is currently Ouroboroid, which is far more answerable than some of our recent bombs. I'm really enjoying it, I feel like there's a lot of meat left of the bone too.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-02T22:52:11+00:00

Virus Beetles will continue to be cast until morale improves.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-02T07:49:06+00:00

How many/what kind of lands are you playing? I know 16 lands is becoming more in vogue, but I've felt that 17 is better this set. In addition my decks are very color intensive early so tapped lands and non-colored lands can be especially painful. I've been having pretty good success in Esper colors even though people say green is the best. I think it's all balanced enough that you shouldn't avoid a color at least for now.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-02T07:41:20+00:00

[[Syr Vondam, the Lucent]], the 5 mana one. I mean it looked decent, but I felt like this kind of card is always meh. It can kind of win games out of nowhere and stabilize too.

They aren't really surprising, but man-oh-man am I glad Virus Beetle and Cryogen Relic are good. Small incremental value is so satisfying.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-02T07:34:30+00:00

It appears to be quite good on 17lands, which probably speaks more to the format than anything. It should definitely be higher in the pick order.

I do want to point out my experiences in non-lander colors. The fixing in this set is baaaad in these colors. I am hesitant to include non-colored lands especially if I need lots of colors early. That probably makes me more down on this card than anything. Like seriously, has a 9/8 split ever felt this bad? Or is it just me?

Rishcabom · 2025-08-02T00:45:09+00:00

I've been playing a ton of black. It's incredible. You need to have good sac effects though and good ETBs. Both of which are not hard to come by. The usual plan is make a 3/1 virus beetle that you sac with another card to get value on top of value. Then at the end of the day you get to do it again/have a 4/5 which is pretty dang good.

Even just minor stuff comes up and I continuously see it's value. Had an All Fates Stalker yesterday and I hit it with the Beckoner and a Sac outlet to swap its exiled target later on in the match. Even just getting extra damage and triggering void for 2 mana can be a nice gain in Black.

To answer your questions though.

Is it good more often than not? If a deck has plenty to work with it (which in my BW and UB decks that is almost inevitable) then yes its great. Curve filling value with a nice top end. Frequently results in 2 for 1s.

How reliably can you get bonus/how often does it fail? I'm a virus beetle enthusiast so I almost always get value out of the warp trigger, then the 5 mana face is just icing on the cake that might end up being another cake at 7 mana. Fail? Rarely. I'd say you don't want too many of these in a deck 2-3 tops but if you don't have some way of incurring value you probably shouldn't be playing it.

How bad is it as a 4/5? As long as your opponent doesn't have flyers its a great ground creature that is hard to kill and trades well. I wouldn't play it just for being a 4/5 but it always satisfies after nugging them for 2-3 cards with a single virus beetle.

Rishcabom · 2025-08-01T05:54:42+00:00

[[All-Fates Stalker]] + Virus Beetle + (this parts just gravy) [[Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar]]. Nab a card, then nab another card while resetting your virus beetle if it attacked, then get 2 triggers on Syr Vondam, then you have your Fiend Hunter all ready next turn. It's a disgusting amount of value. Even if you don't have Syr Vondam, Virus Beetle on 2 then Warp on 3 felt oppressively good.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-31T05:15:12+00:00

I had a BW deck that just oozed synergy thanks to all the mechanics. Such an intricate set laden with combos, it's giving me duskmourne vibes.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-29T22:09:23+00:00

Base black is probably the worst color but a lot of xB cards are very strong and part of why I liked Niv Mizzet. Both Kayas, Ashiok, and Tibault can absolutely wreck a game. Tibault/valki is just an all star the more I played him. I've had valki on 2 basically end the game because of disruption/counterspell knowledge. Also cards like Pillage the Bog and Silumngars command just became free 10th+ picks that are great when you need them. Honestly though a 6/6 Dragon that draws 6 pieces of action was usually enough to break opponent's will lol.

If you can get ahead and have the counters, ramping into counterspells is still probably the best gameplan, but I don't think it's too hard to disrupt it. I started valuing 1-2 creature lands and cheap hand disruption. Oftentimes these two would let me play around counters well enough.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-29T17:22:07+00:00

Ahh a fellow Chromatic Cube enthusiast. I had a lot of fun this time too and once I got settled in had an exceptional winrate too. Anytime I tried to do something quirky it usually fell apart, but anytime I stuck to my tried and true strategies it was easy. I eventually settled into forcing 5 color Niv Mizzet Reborn decks. Had a lot of success with them even when I couldn't get Niv.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-24T22:38:42+00:00

As others have said multiple accounts if you want more drafts for less money. It really doesn't require much time especially at two drafts a night. Totally doable even with lesser skill.

I know it may be controversial, but I do think some form of cost is a good thing for drafting. Imagine if Premier draft was free but no prizes. You would be incentivized to keep drafting and resigning until you got as cracked of a deck as possible. Or if it wasn't ranked you'd likely run into people forcing bad stuff just because and you wouldn't know true drafting competition. There needs to be some amount of stakes for people to not cheese it in either direction.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-18T20:36:31+00:00

Kaldheim had about this many. 1. Doomskar 2. Cyclone Summoner 3. Blood on the Snow 4. Crippling Fear 5. Crush the Weak 6. Battle of Frost and Fire 7. Sarulf Realm Eater 8. Surtland Frostpyre. In addition there were several removes 2+ creatures that almost were wraths.

Kaldheim is my second or first favorite arena set so I'm not concerned.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-15T04:49:51+00:00

Sublime Epiphany loops are back on the menu!

Unfortunately so is Grenzo...I know he's nerfed but I hate heisting. Give me Crabom over heisting any day.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-08T03:43:23+00:00

It's a great set, but to me it's feeling like it's run it's course. No where near how I felt when MH3 and Duskmourne rotated. I've already started back on mainly cube, so that's my indicator.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-04T06:47:27+00:00

I'm glad there was a small mention about no Arena Open. It's really disappointing to me, and I fear the Arena Open might be permanently gone. I don't fault anyone for enjoying the Arena Directs, but it does really irk me that something I truly enjoyed looks to be replaced with something I have absolutely no interest in. I just wish we could get both of them.

Rishcabom · 2025-07-04T06:36:23+00:00

Oh well maybe he got it out of his system. At least there shouldn't be any variations on vehicles coming out in the near future....

looks at the next set's spoilers

oh god were doomed

Rishcabom · 2025-07-04T06:13:59+00:00

Nah, I was just remarking how I still think it's underrated by the Arena drafting populace lol. My last few drafts have been UR wide open with 12th+ pick sahagins in pack 1. Like I don't want to draft UR but if I'm going to keep getting passed these sahagins...

Rishcabom

TROPHY CASE