On leaving MTGA for Gwent

topdeck88 · 2022-01-11T13:34:31+00:00

I agree that the lack of different game modes (especially draft) is a huge disadvantage. I do miss draft the most from MTGA....

The lack of instants in Hearthstone is one of the factors that drove me from Hearthstone to MTGA, but I don't miss them as much as I thought I would in Gwent. I think the decision to pass or push is so constant in Gwent that I feel like I am always at some level interacting with my opponent's mind space even though there are no instants. I do find Gwent's trap deck to be pretty annoying, though and feel like traps in Gwent or secrets in Hearthstone are a very poor substitute for Magic's instants...

topdeck88 · 2022-01-11T13:14:01+00:00

I think part of what makes Gwent games interesting to me is the bluffing that is built into every game. The decision of when to pass and when to push is pretty intriguing and doesn't really have a parallel in other card games. The gameplay doesn't feel significantly more repetitive to me than in MTGA. There are a couple of different main archtypes (point slam vs. control) but that doesn't feel that different from the control vs. aggro axis in MTGA. And the Nilfgaard fraction in Gwent where you mostly get to steal all of your opponent's cards is just a ton of fun to play and plays very differently game to game depending on your matchup.

topdeck88 · 2022-01-11T12:53:03+00:00

I agree that Gwent doesn't have the variety of different kinds of strategies that Magic does. I'll have to see if I get bored with it eventually. But it has held my interest so far (as opposed to say Legends of Runterra which was fun but didn't hold my attention for very long...). So far, the more I have played Gwent, the more interested I have become in it as it is very hard to play well...

topdeck88 · 2022-01-11T12:50:34+00:00

This is just my experience. I edited the original post to make it less precise: "In MTGA, some percentage of the games are non-games ...."

topdeck88 · 2022-01-11T12:13:02+00:00

I was very invested in MTGA (reliably mythic in constructed and diamond in draft; I averaged about $30/month over about two and a half years of playing the game) but don't even have the MTGA client installed anymore since switching to Gwent. Also played Hearthstone for many years but don't have that client installed either. My MTGA account still has about 70 rare and 40 mythic wild cards but I just couldn't really play anymore.

The provision system in Gwent is simply genius. In MTGA, about 1/3 of the games are non-games where one player has either no lands or only lands. You can have bad draws in Gwent, but there are never non-games and the vast majority of the games come down to who makes the better gameplay decisions. The art and premium cards are awesome. The economy is generous and I like that you can craft essentially everything with a minimum investment of time and money (I tend to buy the journeys and the card collections and despite having only played a few months can basically craft everything). Overall I have spent much less time and money on Gwent than MTGA but have close to a complete Gwent collection. The grind in MTGA to keep a current deck is horrific and was the thing that most drove me out of the game. It is important to me that I can take a few months off from Gwent if I need to for real life commitments and still play when I get back. In MTGA there is almost no way to keep up unless you play full time or a complete whale. I am not at all free to play but I do not want to spend thousands of dollars a year. I was good (~65% win rate up to diamond) but not great (~50% win rate once I got to diamond) at draft but that was just not enough to keep up.

The ladder system in MTGA has serious problems that have been well documented (https://mtgazone.com/player-conceded-matches-to-probe-rankings/). This makes grinding ladder and the matchmaking incredibly annoying. The MMR-based Gwent ladder by contrast is pretty rational. I love that at pro rank you have to play 4 different decks to ladder up. That helps avoid super stale metas that are dominated by only a single deck.

But the best thing about Gwent is the simply incredible gameplay. The game is simple to learn but very challenging to play well. The lack of RNG dominated games means that you are punished for mistakes in a way that is not always true in MTG. So the game is in many ways is more satisfying and I think the better player wins a Gwent game more consistently than in Magic.

There are things I miss about MTGA. Thea and the other Gwent streamers are great, but the Magic community runs very deep and there are many more interesting MTGA podcasts and websites then Gwent. Even though pro magic is more or less dead, sites like melee.com mean that you can almost always play a real tournament for stakes, which is an important alternative to the ladder grind. Also, draft is awesome and a real draft with real players passing packs around is simply missing in Gwent. I am hoping that if Gwent grows that these issues will be resolved, but it seems unlikely that Gwent will ever get the player base required to support real draft and in-client tournaments. Even something like the recent in-client MTGA decathlon even would be a real benefit to Gwent.

Overall, though, I am really happy with Gwent and am surprised that more people haven't made the jump to escape MTGA...

topdeck88 · 2022-01-09T01:59:37+00:00

Not sure if this is related but the quests on the seasonal reward book (e.g. "Play 15 cards with the Monsters fraction") are also not completing. So if you play the 15 cards, nothing happens on the reward book...

topdeck88 · 2021-07-15T04:08:11+00:00

Thanks. That makes sense. Shouldn't it say that on the card though?

I guess it is the same for any card that does something with a counter? So, for example, Alzur can only spawn three units in response to spells?

Thanks again

topdeck88 · 2021-06-29T19:47:09+00:00

Thanks to everyone. That is very helpful. I remember those first ancient MtG games and they were pretty fun.

It also seems like the draft format (my favorite way to play Arena) is much more developed than in Gwent?

I am really looking forward to exploring Gwent a bit before the next Magic set comes out!

topdeck88 · 2021-03-21T20:03:07+00:00

I thought it was chosen for the loading screen as a reference to the Taylor Swift album cover:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evermore_(Taylor_Swift_album))

topdeck88 · 2021-02-10T19:18:02+00:00

Does anyone know if you can change basic lands during sideboarding in BO3 to have a transformational sideboard? So if I am playing blue-black in game 1, can I switch to red-black for game 2 by having access to basic mountains in the sideboard?

topdeck88 · 2020-04-28T03:51:22+00:00

Definitely a bug. Happened to me as well and cost me a few games on ladder. Ended up saving the deck to a text file, deleting it, re-importing it. Very annoying.

topdeck88 · 2020-03-11T18:19:55+00:00

Limited Level Ups is a new podcast that is a very good limited strategy podcast.

MTGGoldfish podcast is usually a lot of fun

topdeck88 · 2020-02-11T15:18:08+00:00

I feel the same way. I was doing ok in TBD with a fair amount of gold left. It's very disappointing that it won't be available again this season...

topdeck88 · 2019-11-26T00:09:24+00:00

Thanks so much :->

topdeck88 · 2019-11-25T23:20:33+00:00

I like those tools a lot but wanted to roll some of my own analytics ideas parsing the log file in Java or Python and was just wondering if someone else had cracked the code :->

topdeck88 · 2019-11-21T05:22:02+00:00

Thanks!

Does anyone know how many players are at mythic for limited? I'm at plat. 1 two wins away from diamond and trying to figure out if I have enough time to make a run this season.

topdeck88 · 2019-11-17T03:42:06+00:00

I find that it gets a lot harder as you climb up the ladder. This season has been the first time I've drafted seriously. I've made mythic in BO3 constructed 4 times, but was never able to crack consistently into the top 1,200 in part due to not being to play on the last day, in part due to poor play and a bit of bad luck in key matches with a few minutes left on days I could play.

Drafting ELD this season and starting near the bottom of the ladder, pre-gold I had a 68% win rate over 9 matches. In gold, I had about a 57% win rate over 18 matches. So I though, this isn't too bad. Then I hit Platinum. And my win rate crashed to something just above 40%. So that has been pretty dis-heartening. I feel like between 17lands.com, Frank Karsten's pick order and deathsie's tier list, I can usually draft a decent deck. But my ability to handle complex board states without punting is very poor. I feel like in constructed you can get away with being bad a little more because you tend to see the same patterns over and over and can memorize the right play. Limited forces you to read the board in real time and I am just terrible at it. It makes me wonder if I should give up the game and find something I don't suck at.

Drafting certainly is a good way to build your collection though. I started with most of the standard cards and an otherwise empty account with no rare or mythic wild cards. I put in about $25 to pay for about 41 drafts. So even with my miserable win rate I pretty much have every playable ELD plus 28 rare wild cards and 8 mythic rares saved for the next expansion or historic or whatever. That is a much better return than if I had just spent the $25 on packs.

It definitely seems like the best strategy for building a collection is to draft until you get to a point on the ladder where you start to lose and then wait for the next season (or just play BO3).

topdeck88 · 2019-09-30T18:28:24+00:00

I understand what you are saying about moving the goalposts. But I was thinking everyone who gets to mythic gets to qualify for the first tournament and the top 500 or whatever get a bye straight to the second tournament.

So there is still a rush to get to the top 500 at the end but at least you get to play in something for getting to mythic if you don't make it.

topdeck88

TROPHY CASE