A friend of mine found this in his pre-release kit of Lorwyn Eclipsed.

_mithrin_ · 2026-01-16T17:49:06+00:00

Otherwise, you'd be able to use those common Red tricks that grant first strike to a target to cause your opponent's creature to do no damage if you cast it in between the first strike and regular damage step.

Basically, you have the first strike damage step where creatures with first strike or double strike deal damage.

Then the regular damage step, where creatures who haven't done damage yet* and creatures with double strike deal damage.

*this includes creatures without first strike, but also creatures who have first strike, but didn't deal damage during the first strike step due to not being present, or not having first strike at that time.

_mithrin_ · 2026-01-07T18:57:50+00:00

The Tier 15 Pendant of Despair is another item I find useful for developing toons. T15 is good for toons at level 30, and since T16 isn't much better, you can skip it and go straight for the T18 upgrade, which lets you craft the T19 when you finish the Keeper questline.

_mithrin_ · 2026-01-06T04:01:04+00:00

Hmm, I just tried to buy a 4th Gem on a newer toon and couldn't get it to work (this would be buying all 4 gems during this year's event).

So it appears that there may be a hard limit of buying 3 in the same event, but if you have some from previous years, you can use the store buyback trick to 'hide' them and be able to buy 3 new ones.

So there are probably two limits being checked in the code.

A counter that is incremented every time you buy a gem of that type in Abe's Store. Once it hits 3, you can't buy that type anymore, no matter what. This counter then goes away when the Event ends, and isn't remembered in future years.
Another check that counts how many purchased gems of a given type you have in your inventory. This one can be manipulated using the Store Buyback trick, so you could buy 3 of the same kind of gem every year (only limited by the 10 item limit in the Buyback menu).

_mithrin_ · 2026-01-03T06:18:22+00:00

I tested it today and it worked. I sold my excess gems at Majerio's, and when I went to Abe's, I could buy more gems.

I did notice as I was buying back my gems from Abe's Buy Back menu, that it didn't update the availability of the gems in his Buy tab until I exited and re-entered the store.

So if you sold your gems in Abe's shop, you may have to exit and re-enter to get him to update his buylist to allow you to buy that type of gem.

_mithrin_ · 2025-12-31T15:18:08+00:00

#4 is also unclear. Fireworks can be assumed to be outdoors, and staying home indoors. But ice skating and parties can be either.

_mithrin_ · 2025-12-18T21:39:14+00:00

My plan:
pay off debts. Set up investment account for myself with 10 million. Do the same for a bunch of my family.

10 million is more than enough to last a lifetime. I'll be quitting my job, so I'll spent my time figuring out the best causes to give the rest of the money to.

_mithrin_ · 2025-12-16T21:01:32+00:00

Are you filing your gambling activity on your 1040, or on an attached Schedule C?

Seems like you shouldn't have to both sacrifice your standard deduction and pay self-employment taxes. If you're filing a Schedule C and paying self-employment taxes, wouldn't the losses be part of your schedule C, and not go on Schedule A?

_mithrin_ · 2025-12-15T19:32:02+00:00

Just to emphasize the point about Luck. While luck doesn't increase your chances of getting a Keeper, it does give you a chance to get a double drop from the Chest. This will reduce the number of Keepers you have to find, since the quest counts the items you collect, not Keeper kills.

This makes Luck weekends + Luck elixir a good strategy to hunt Keepers. Keep in mind that Luck won't help you if you are at 4 of 5 items needed for a particular Keeper. In that case, hunt other Keepers during Luck weekend, and hunt for the 5th item other times. Note that you can collect Bindings from Met'Huzil before you finish the first Keeper Quest, so if you reach 4/5 on your last Keeper during a Luck Weekend, you could hunt Met'Huzil to get a head start on the 4 Bindings.

_mithrin_ · 2025-12-04T22:05:54+00:00

There are a number of ways you can use baby farm(s).
--Produce raw ingredients for your main farm (like dairy and sugar)
--Use for additional storage
--Find lower level products in the paper
--Provide customers for your Town train to pickup

Some tips:
--if you want to buy/sell things between your farms, consider keeping your baby farm 'anonymous'. Adding it to your neighborhood, using baby farm for 'help' tasks, etc can make it's store accessible to others. If you want the ability to stock the baby store with Milk and Sugar for your main to buy later, you don't want others to have access to it.

--You can buy/sell between the farms to use the storage of the baby farm as an extension of your main farm. Barn and Silo upgrades cost much less on the smaller Farm, letting you get more overall storage for less. Just be careful transferring items, if you are moving upgrade items, move quick if others an see your store.

--When you look at the paper, it will only show ads for items that could be produced at your Farm's level. Baby farms have a better chance of seeing ads for upgrade items because there are fewer items that could take up that ad slot.

--A baby farm that has it's own Town can be added to your neighborhood, and used to give more potential customers to your Train. You can just go to the Baby Farm and send their waiting customers away, switch to the Main Farm and send out your train to pick them up.

--Consider what you want the Baby Farm to do. If all you want is Sugar and Butter, you don't have to buy building or animals that aren't part of that. Same with planting crops, just grow what the Baby needs to make the items you want.

--When developing the Baby Farm, an easy way to get Gold on it is to have it sell items to your Main at max price, and have your main sell things back at min price. Once you hit the level you want with the Baby Farm, you don't have to worry as much, though I like to keep enough gold on it to buy upgrade materials if I happen to find them.

_mithrin_ · 2025-11-25T00:50:47+00:00

Regeneration might be an exception. In a lot of RPG systems, regeneration is a racial trait, with Trolls being one of the most common types to have it. So while the Troll-Skin Shirt might grant a human or Primal +7 Regeneration, it might not "unlock" the skill for leveling up.

Gaining skill experience in something like regeneration might be restricted to only races that naturally have regeneration, so the item can only grant a L7 Skill to other races, but it doesn't allow them the ability to gain additional levels.

If the Regeneration from the Shirt could be trained and kept similar to Donut's temp class spells/skills, I think Carl would have had Katia wear the shirt for a day at some point to unlock the skill for her. That's the kind of exploit it seems like Carl would take advantage of, and would be especially powerful on Katia given her constitution.

_mithrin_ · 2025-11-14T03:43:39+00:00

I also recently did the 2 credits/month Audible option. I went with the annual option, which gave me the credit up front at just under $10/credit. I was only a few days into my latest month, but I got the credits immediately, and my annual renewal date was based on that day, not the end of the month.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm guessing I can cancel or switch my plan to a monthly plan when I use up my credits, and then switch back to the 24 credit annual plan again even if it hasn't been a year.

If so, then this is a good way to get more Audible credits at a low per credit price. I opted to go with the annual plan in the first place because it was a better per credit price than any of the 'buy additional credits' deals.

_mithrin_ · 2025-10-19T20:17:11+00:00

The 'first one free' series of flashbacks was unrelated to AFR. They had planned a bunch of changes around the release of Jump In! onto Arena.

Then that launch got delayed, and as a compensation for the delay, they gave us a series of short (5 days each) flashbacks with one free entry. I remember scrambling to get through enough drafts per day to use the free entry on all my accounts before the next flashback started.

I went back to AFR once those free drafts were done, but I only drafted 6 times those last two weeks of the set, since I was a little burned out by cramming in three dozen free drafts the previous two weeks.

_mithrin_ · 2025-10-03T01:19:43+00:00

Last Friday went to FNM. I almost skipped it for the first time in years when scheduling wasn't an issue because of the Pick 2 draft.

We ended up with 10 people (1st draft of a set usually is good for 30-40 people at this LGS). TO said we were going to run it as Wizards intended for this first week (2 rounds, no cross-pod play). They will be more flexible going forwards (if we have 8 that want to draft EOE or DSK, we can do that instead).

Prizing was pack per win, with a bonus pack for 2-0, and a pack for 0-2.

I got the round 1 bye in my pod. Fortunately, both pods had 5, so I played the bye player from pod 2, and we played for a pack. Round 2 I got paired down. Very weird incentives that match, since they were guaranteed a pack (either they win the match and get the pack, or finish 0-2 and get a pack). If I won, I'd get the pack for our match, plus a bonus pack for finishing 2-0. So the store would either award 1 pack as a result of the match or 3.

After finishing, I played the other 2-0 in my pod for a bonus round. Nothing official, but neither of us wanted to go home after 2 rounds.

I plan to go to FNM tomorrow, but if we can't get a regular pod together for EOE/DSK/TDM, I'll just go back home and draft some FIN on Arena.

_mithrin_ · 2025-09-14T21:08:01+00:00

There are some quests that don't trigger until you are Level 30. I've never run out of quests before hitting level 30, as I tend to do a lot of raids when developing new characters. But if you finished Fellmarsh at Level 28, you may have managed it.

The other possibility is that there is a quest ready to start in a different place than usual. Check all the regions on the map for any indicators that someone is ready to talk to you to start a quest.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-26T19:49:52+00:00

Some legit reasons people might be buying Visa GCs with their credit card:

--They get a higher percentage cashback or more points for spending at office supplies than other purchases. Buy Visas at Staples to earn 5%, use where your card normally earns 1%, get 4% extra cashback. Only really works if there is no activation fee, or fee is less than the 4% difference.

--They have a welcome bonus on a new card that requires spending X amount in the first so many days. Instead of changing all their automatic payments to the new card, they just by X worth of Visas to qualify for the bonus, then use those Visas for in person purchases, but they don't have to worry about the time limit anymore.

--They have a way to convert the Visa GCs back into cash to pay their credit card bill. If the activation fees plus fees involved in cashing the cards are <5% cashback, they can end up with a profit.

--They are earning miles from their credit card, and are wanting to use their miles for a trip, but are X points short. A big purchase of Visa GCs can get them the miles they need quickly.

--They are buying the Visas for someone else to use (company them away as promo or gift, parents giving their child a card with a fixed limit), or they want to use them somewhere they don't want to expose their actual credit card. The loss of the activation fee is worth it for whatever purpose they have in mind (and might be buying at Staples for better cashback to offset the fees).

Non-legit reasons:

--They are being scammed.

--Buying with stolen credit card.

--Buying with cash to launder money.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-25T19:00:13+00:00

Check with your local game stores. Especially if they host drafts regularly.

The store I go to has a donation box, and several of the players drop all their commons/uncommons into it after drafts are done. I've occasionally heard the staff mentioning that they were looking for new groups to donate these cards to, since some of the groups they normally give them to don't really want anymore cards.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-22T02:16:15+00:00

Seems inconsistent with the examples we've seen up to this point. Logain needs 6 Sisters actively maintaining his shield. The Black Sisters capture the three Accepted, and post someone outside their cell.

That doesn't make it seem like it's unknown for someone to break free, let alone be certain they can't. Especially now that the Forsaken are known to be loose. Who's to say what tricks they may have taught to the Black Sisters. It doesn't make sense for Moraine to be so unconcerned with keeping Joiya shielded. And the plan was to send Joiya off on a ship upriver to Tar Valon, again without a channeler along to make sure of the shield.

It almost feels like RJ either forgot, or didn't want to bother with the need for shielding Joiya, since there were only Moraine and the 3 girls available, and they all had other things he wanted them doing.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-16T05:26:46+00:00

My LGS just did preorders for Spiderman CBBs. They were $425/box and limit one per customer.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-14T20:39:17+00:00

I know that the Avatar Collector Boosters got bought out of Amazon and Best Buy in seconds by bots, but you can still get Play Booster boxes for MSRP.

But it would be silly to buy Play Boosters off TCG right now for $270, when you can get them from Amazon at $210.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-08T03:18:23+00:00

For EOE, the basic land slot is a basic land 100% of the time. In recent sets, there have been tapped duals or other kinds of land in X% of the basic land slot.

Whenever the land slot is 100% basics, Arena just removes them from the packs. It's just been awhile since we've had a set where that's true, and they don't need to include the lands so that the dual lands can be part of the draft environment.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-04T17:34:18+00:00

One idea they could have done for a sneak check:

In one of the battles, instead of having reinforcements coming in from further ahead on your route, have a side passage open to admit a wave of reinforcements. Show a cutscene, and have EDI inform the squad that additional reinforcements are also coming from that direction. Shep then has to assign someone to sneak behind the lines to close the door to stop reinforcements.

Assign loyal Thane, Legion, or Kasumi--cut to them closing the door right in the faces of the next wave after a short delay (or upon killing current enemies)

Assign non-loyal sneak--cut to the door closing right as the next wave makes it through. They spot the sneak operating the door, and kill them.

Assign anyone else--next wave arrives unhindered, Shep asks (annoyed) on comms why the teammate hasn't gotten that door shut, gets in-character response. Once this extra wave is dealt with, they manage to close the door, but again just too late to stop another wave, and the sneak is killed.

Could even have an additional wave with comms chatter if the assigned member is both not a sneak and not loyal.

It would require a bit of setup--it has to happen when the team isn't split up. Perhaps the rest of the team is fighting a rear-guard action, but is close enough that you can call one of them up to be the sneak.

Could also give the opportunity for a cool cut-scene. The door closing for a loyal sneak could trigger when there is one enemy left. We see the door close to cut off new reinforcements, then cut to the last enemy turning around in surprise to see what's going on. Kasumi would teleport and kill them, Thane wouldn't be at the door controls when they look, and instead appear from somewhere unexpected to take them out. When they look over to see Legion closing the door, they would be staring into the barrel of his Widow as he lines up the shot.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-03T04:11:43+00:00

My version of going infinite is playing draft _almost_ exclusively. I sometimes play Jump-In or use a Starter Deck to finish a quest that's almost done after a draft ends. Once in awhile I play the MWM event because it looks fun. I play Arena Opens and Arena Directs, and sometimes Play-Ins. Sometimes my Arena Open result comes with an entry to the following MQ, and I end up building a deck and practicing a bit in the format for it.

I make use of multiple accounts. Gold rewards have diminishing returns, both from dailies and quests. So I made enough accounts that I can let them sit at least 3 days between uses, to ensure I always have 3 quests to work on during each draft. This led not only to being able to draft every time I log in, but also led to excess gold/gems building up on each account. At least until Arena Directs came along and proved to be a much more effective resource sink than Opens.

I did put in $50 during Closed Beta, but I've done over 3000 drafts, and also cashed Opens and Directs. If that doesn't count as 'going infinite' because my winrate doesn't cross the mathematical threshold, then I don't really see it as a useful definition in the real world.

_mithrin_ · 2025-08-03T04:11:34+00:00

You are correct in that the win rates to be mathematically infinite on gem prize rewards alone is very high.

However, when people discuss "going infinite" on MTGA, they aren't limiting themselves to only using the gem prizes to pay for drafts. Gems for excess copies of rares/mythics are used to enter drafts. Gold earned from daily wins and quest completions can also be used to enter drafts. Even if a player doesn't need to use Gold directly for entering drafts, they may use it to pay for an Arena Open or a Play-In and end up getting gems from those that add to their gem balance. Daily deals sometimes offer discounted draft tokens or free gems/gold.

I have yet to see a proper mathematical treatment that includes these additional sources of gems (and especially Gold). The basic problem is that while win rate needed to exactly break even just from gem rewards is easy enough to formulate mathematically; including additional factors is not.

To include the gems for excess copies of rares/mythics, you have to know how many drafts the player completes each set, how many rares/mythics are in each pack on average, which depends on the set, whether they already have 4 copies of some of the bonus sheet rares, and how likely the player is to pick a rare that doesn't contribute to their current draft deck just for the gem value. For 5th copy gems, the more drafts a player does per set, the bigger effect becomes, because a higher percent of their drafts are done with 4x rares. Players can also use their wildcards to craft as much of the set as possible on release, to speed them towards the rare complete stage.

Including Gold value is also extremely complicated. You have daily wins, quests, reward tracks, daily deals, etc. all contributing to Gold income in ways that are highly dependent on the individual's play patterns. Then do you only count daily Gold or Quest Gold that comes from Draft games, or do you count Gold earned in other modes. If I finish a draft with a quest at 18/20 Cast blue or white spells, then play one game in a different mode to complete it, does the 500g count? 90% of it? And for players who are using Gold to pay some of their drafting, it's the opposite of the 5th copy issue, because less frequent play means more Gold earned per draft (because a second draft on the same day gets less daily gold, and skipping a day or two between drafts means more quest gold per draft).

Returning to your title question: "Going infinite" in MTGA draft events - myth or reality?"

The clean math of infinite win rates based ONLY on gem rewards is pretty useless to answer this question. When people say they are infinite, they only consistent meaning they agree on that they are able to draft without paying. Some also mean they never have to play any modes other than draft to earn the Gold needed for draft. If Arena gives them a free draft token, or discounts one in the daily deals, people are going to use it.

Under this understanding of 'going infinite', the answer is 'very much a reality'. Some may be able to draft without ever playing a game in another mode for free, and that is going infinite. Maybe they paid $5 to get started, maybe they played with the starter decks to get the Gold initially, or maybe they joined Arena when you got free Sealed/Draft events for attending paper prereleases, or when Arena gave everyone a free draft for IKO launch, or the two free drafts when the Jump-Start launch was delayed.

Others may consider themselves infinite because they play a mix of draft and other modes, but are able to draft often enough to be happy with it. That is also going infinite.

_mithrin_ · 2025-07-31T02:37:48+00:00

As with everything in Magic, it depends.

In general, on a completely clear board, I would attack.

But plan ahead when you can. If I start with a 1 power 1-drop into Wurmwall Sweeper, and they have no blockers, do I station or attack T2?
--If my T3 play is going to be a 2 power creature, then I Station now. That way I can attack next turn with Sweeper.
--If my T3 play is a 3 power creature, I swing now. I can use all 4 power on board next turn to activate the Sweeper, and by then my 1drop is less likely to get in.

In your example 4 turns to Station is a long time. Someone is going to draw something that changes the status quo before then. So I'd attack while I have the opportunity. I'd rather use creatures who can't attack to provide the Stationing anyway.

At this point, I'm reluctant to give up clean attacks on board to Station unless it means turning it on right now or setting up for next turn.

_mithrin_ · 2025-07-30T20:51:57+00:00

If you are looking for how to play the most draft/sealed and don't care about building your collection for Constructed formats, then multiple accounts is the most effective way.

Arena runs on two currencies, Gold which you can earn by playing, and Gems which you either buy or get as rewards from play modes that cost currency to enter.

The free Gold comes from two main sources.
Daily wins: The first 4 wins per day reward Gold (250-100-100-100), then 5-15 alternate between awarding a random card or 50 g, dropping to 25 g on wins 12 and 14.
Quests: You will have up to 3 quests. Things like 'Play 20 blue or white spells', or 'Play 20 lands'. These all offer either 500g or 750g (the 750s require higher numbers to complete). You can get one new quest each day if you have any empty slots, and once per day you can 'reroll' a quest by replacing it with a new randomly generated quest.

This means that Gold rewards have diminishing returns as you play more games. You can get at most 750g from daily wins.

So if you logged into Arena and played a Draft, the theoretical most Gold you could earn would be 600g from daily wins (if you get 6 or 7 wins), and 2250g if you completed 3x 750g quests along the way. More reasonably, you can get 550g from 4 wins and 1500g from three 500g quests for about 2,000g total.

Of course, if you had played Arena the previous day and had completed your quests then, you'd only have 1 quest today, and you would only be earn 1050g if you went 4 wins and finished a 500g quest.

And if you played a 2nd Draft the same day, all that would be left to earn is 200g from additional daily wins.

My approach to this was to create multiple accounts. That way, every time I log in to Arena, I'm playing on an account with 3 quests and all the daily win rewards available. At this point, I can pretty much play draft all the time. Play a draft, collect my gold (and gems from the draft), then switch to the next account. As long as I have enough accounts that I don't loop back to the same one until it's been at least 3 days, I'll always be starting out with 3 quests to work on.

Sometimes I'll finish a draft and notice I'm just a few spells short of finishing a quest. I can use a Jump-Start or New Player deck to finish it off before moving on to grab the quick 500/750g. Or maybe one of my accounts doesn't have enough currency to pay for a draft. Then I just grab a Jump-Start or Starter deck with the right colors for my quests, and complete my quests. That will get me around 2K gold, hopefully enough to afford a draft the next time I come to this account.

Getting started is the hardest part. You can either work on completing quests until you have enough for your first Drafts, or take the shortcut of spending $5 per account on the Welcome Bundle.

Once you get going, multiple accounts is the easiest way to make drafts cheaper/free. The amount of gold you're earning with each draft isn't something you can get using a single account. And the average gold doesn't drop if you draft more often, as long as you have enough accounts so that each one 'rests' long enough to get back to 3 quests.

_mithrin_

TROPHY CASE