0:00

Hey, hello everyone

0:04

and welcome to

0:06

episode 476 of

0:08

the MTG Goldfish

0:10

podcast. I'm

0:15

Seth, probably better known as Zafrad Olive,

0:17

and we have a small crew here

0:19

this week. Unfortunately, Richard

0:21

couldn't be here, Ether's sick so he's out

0:23

doing the dad stuff today, but I'm joined

0:26

by Crim. Good morning Crim, how are you

0:28

today? I'm good, I'm good,

0:30

I'm excited, you know, here to take over while

0:32

my dad is checking in

0:34

on my, obviously my real dad,

0:37

my sibling. Your little sibling, yeah. Yes,

0:41

yes. So we

0:43

got some interesting topics for today. So it's been

0:45

kind of like a slow news week,

0:47

we're gearing up for spoiler season starting next

0:49

week for Outlaws at Thunder Junction, but we

0:51

want to talk a little bit about Crim

0:53

playing some paper magic. I know you played

0:55

a tournament over the weekend, so we wanted

0:57

to get into that. Want to talk about

0:59

Modern, now that we had bannings last weekend, what

1:02

the meta looks like. There

1:04

was an interesting question about what hill in

1:06

magic you'd be willing to die on. And

1:08

then, I think our big topic for the

1:10

day is arena conspiracy theories. I love arena

1:12

conspiracy theories, there's a million of them, I

1:14

got a pretty big list, and we're going

1:16

to go through and discuss and hopefully debunk

1:18

some of these conspiracy theories that are always

1:21

floating out there about magic arenas. So that's

1:23

the overview for today, and then maybe some

1:25

fish mail at the end. Before

1:27

we get into it though, a reminder that today's show is

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the easiest way to sell your magic card. So

2:03

let's talk some magic and let's start

2:06

with a topic I'm very interested in.

2:08

Krim, I heard you were playing some

2:10

paper magic this weekend. What tournament

2:12

did you play? What format was it? What did you do

2:14

this weekend? Krim I just pretty

2:16

much went to a...well I played standard. I've

2:18

been pretty high on standard. I've

2:21

been having a lot of fun with that

2:23

format and so naturally it's been a while

2:25

but I decided to go and attend one

2:27

of those standard showdowns. A

2:29

standard showdown over the weekend was pretty fun but

2:33

the main problem that I

2:35

have is...well so

2:38

none of my collection is sorted.

2:40

Right? At all. Yeah.

2:43

So not a single card is sorted. I

2:45

had to dig and dig

2:47

and find a bunch of just Esper cards

2:50

on my desk because

2:53

it was nearing the

2:55

time of the standard showdown event.

2:58

I go out to one of these. It's been a while. It's

3:01

not like an RCQ. You know what I mean? It's

3:05

just like getting my feet back into the

3:07

water. Of paper,

3:09

standard and all that stuff. So I

3:11

just threw together a bunch

3:14

of cards and I

3:16

don't even think it was a full

3:18

Esper control list because I know that

3:20

I was just jamming random cards and

3:23

not respecting aggro whatsoever. Right? So

3:25

A, a lot of the cards that I'm

3:28

required to have to respect aggro or like

3:30

Elspeth's smite, cut downs

3:32

and things like that. I'm like, no, you

3:34

know what? I'm just not going to run into those decks. So

3:36

I actually had a pretty

3:39

darn good time. My deck is funny

3:41

enough heavily catered towards playing against

3:44

mid range and other control

3:47

mirrors. So I've got like

3:49

all the siphon insights because clearly that's

3:51

where removal should be and the

3:55

outrage of robberies. Right? So

3:57

I'm playing just good old Esper Peer Control.

4:00

Ah, I have come alive or the

4:02

i'm not gonna lie to you, I

4:04

steamroll my way. Ah, through are

4:06

like my first batch of rounds, right?

4:09

Final: Round. I.

4:12

Get paired against Boras

4:14

Can Vokes. Ah,

4:17

you know I'd play tested, you know?

4:19

And I'll have a local store, right?

4:22

A local store, just a little bit

4:24

of. A suit way

4:26

because I didn't have any of the

4:28

carts and I got I'd like you

4:30

know a went about as well and

4:33

the plate us as I thought it

4:35

would. If you don't respect aggro, you

4:37

only have half of the temp temporary

4:39

lockdown that you need a home so

4:42

all I I I got steamrolled by

4:44

corporate that like Boris can vote to

4:46

speak as. I had

4:48

safe it inside. Miss outrageous

4:50

recovery is. When

4:53

I outrageous robbery in size it

4:55

inside my opponent. they actually didn't

4:57

have removal and therefore it can

5:00

vote deck. The really use it

5:02

is no out of fun time.

5:04

It's so good. Shuffling oppegard you

5:06

know, papers standard. Again, I don't

5:08

think I've played papers. David says

5:11

twenty nineteen. I mostly to see

5:13

the digital qualifiers. Stuff like that.

5:15

sure but paper standards. It's so.

5:17

Nice to see these events firing. ah

5:19

you know what I mean like ah

5:22

I'm I'm gonna go to one today.

5:24

I probably again. Raila go out on

5:26

a beautiful this what does beautiful beautiful

5:28

Monday that they were filming. I'm going

5:31

to go to another one's other standard

5:33

of it's it's just me or oh

5:35

ah. So. Are you gearing up

5:37

to like qualify? Crim is like sweaty cream

5:39

back. Are we gonna win our seats? You

5:41

and like dude bro to were saying are

5:44

you just gonna play like for fun because

5:46

you like mannered right now Both I see.

5:48

yeah I think I want to get sweaty

5:50

again A wanna i wanna sweat it out,

5:52

try to queue for something but on top

5:54

of that I think Status is so fun

5:57

right now that I'm actually just having a

5:59

good time play. I don't really care

6:01

what quite what like you know level of

6:03

play I'm playing. I don't care what level

6:05

the tournaments s I'm just gonna go to

6:08

locals like is the honestly tournaments it's just

6:10

so fun that I don't care how I

6:12

get my it's and it's it's we different

6:14

you know then like playing online. And

6:17

when I love, I love playing online.

6:19

Don't get me wrong, but it's the

6:21

same as like playing Commander online rates

6:23

met online. I can do it. Sure,

6:25

you know, spell table, all these things.

6:27

Sure, let's let's play all of those

6:29

online variants. But when you play in

6:31

paper, it's totally different. He feels totally

6:34

different. and it's just. I know it's

6:36

really fun. It's it's really fun. How

6:39

was the turn out? Because I've heard some people

6:41

they're like oh standards like kind of booming in

6:43

my area. coming back in my area other people

6:45

are still like in my area. I can even

6:47

like find game as the internal bleeding anymore. How's

6:49

the I was the turnout at the that you

6:51

into and in your area. Ah

6:53

you know for the I do

6:55

have the luxury right of living

6:58

in L A Society S L

7:00

L A is is very popular.

7:02

everything fires three again maybe not

7:04

Legacy watched. I'm pretty sure Legacy

7:06

fires as well. Ah like every

7:08

everything the have like like fires

7:10

here and and the turnout was

7:12

actually super solid. everything felt greater

7:14

I didn't I think is like

7:17

maybe like. Thirty. People write

7:19

something like that. Ah,

7:21

but. For the most

7:23

for as I think that silly really

7:25

good turnout for what is wild because

7:27

I think the turnaround. Of

7:29

of like the is like the

7:32

weight standard was not a mean

7:34

standard put was struggling to just

7:36

even have people. Show. Up

7:38

for sale, was struggling to even just have

7:40

events. I think that it's nice to

7:42

see our city season eyes standard here.

7:44

It's standard you know all around right now

7:46

and it's nice to see all these

7:48

people come out and I think this is

7:51

good for the game. You may not

7:53

like standard and that's just fine, Right

7:55

Leone? like Stand Arabia, Don't like this standard.

7:57

Ah, but the point of this matters

7:59

that I. Think as long as standard is

8:01

good. That's. Good for the game

8:03

overall. Oh yeah, I think

8:05

I would definitely agree with that and I think

8:07

we've are certainly seen a comeback. I think the

8:10

having Rc use is a huge deal, it just

8:12

giving people a reason to please. The Hundred: I

8:14

was actually thinking about standard prices a little bit

8:16

over the weekend and I need a bit of

8:19

research in. It was pretty interesting to see if

8:21

you look at the last ten years of standard

8:23

deck prices and I was looking at like the

8:25

ten most played decks in a format is the

8:28

easy way to time to judge it. We actually

8:30

bottomed out in twenty twenty one with an average

8:32

zag been two hundred and thirty seven dollars which.

8:34

Makes less sense, right? That was like trying

8:36

to a pandemic and lockdowns. No place to

8:38

play paper magic at all. There was no

8:41

reason to buy papers standard deck and ever

8:43

since then we've been and I know, like

8:45

people don't like that prices increasing, But I

8:47

think in this case it would kind of

8:49

a good thing because it's showing that people

8:51

are once again like putting the other standard

8:53

Ags we've seen for the last four years.

8:55

Actually, twenty twenty two. when up to three

8:57

hundred than last year? Three twenty. This year,

8:59

Three Sixty nine. He seems like there's actual

9:01

demand of people to build standard. I simply

9:03

standard I am and. I'm with you.

9:05

I think that's a really a really

9:07

good thing for magic in standard. Right

9:09

now it seems pretty healthy. like I

9:12

still have my issues with it, where

9:14

I still think of little bit boring

9:16

to see the same cards for three

9:18

years in a row. But if you

9:20

just look at it objectively, the menace:

9:22

healthy, you have control, You have aggro.

9:24

You even have some Tom mood axes

9:26

weird like Landfall graveyard combo decks with

9:28

Nyssa and Aftermath analysts, so I feel

9:30

like we're kind of in that rock

9:32

paper scissors men. A nothing like dominating

9:34

or forty. Percent of the matter like we saw

9:36

a bag with vietnam of warmup severe Someone is

9:38

like ban on The fans are like out of

9:40

standard For the last couple years it seems like

9:42

a pretty reasonable time to get back into it

9:44

in as much as I do unless you're lying

9:46

sheltered, the unless you're playing see over at him

9:49

even if you are please let let let it

9:51

isn't the format for another year. In his much

9:53

as I don't like the three euro tease him

9:55

thing it does kind of soften the blow of

9:57

getting into the format right. Were visibly the then

9:59

normally right. Like are a good but Rudy's

10:01

him coming and like just a few minds

10:03

the really want to buy you an attack

10:05

when rotations going to happen but I think

10:07

if you pick and choose wisely it's gonna

10:09

be a lot easier to like buy it

10:11

active in a survivor apiece and discuss the

10:13

not as many cards are going to rotate

10:15

is frequently so they can. We get a

10:17

little easier for people who buy into the

10:19

format now, so doubleheader a matter. Of

10:22

kind of what I was like, hopeful of

10:24

break that know what? The initial announcement I

10:26

was a little bit shocked like wait, why

10:28

are we extending standard by another year Ah

10:31

but then like edge of the You'd mentioned,

10:33

it's soften. The blow is nice and like

10:35

now. When. You when you want to

10:37

have people who just want to get into the

10:39

game and learn the game. I actually think as

10:41

much as I love Commander, I think Okay, so

10:44

it's it's It's weird wishy washy feeling that a

10:46

half his commander the format to get somebody started.

10:48

You. Know when he comes in a magic

10:51

the place is kind of really hard

10:53

to tell you to sit down learn

10:55

not only a one hundred of your

10:57

own cards three hundred other cards in

10:59

your opponent's deck across magic time. Whereas

11:01

I think like if upon if somebody

11:03

wants to get into magic you they

11:05

want to play constructed right not not

11:07

limited or anything like that I i

11:09

i would normally recommend standard but I

11:11

couldn't see the longest time to stand

11:13

or was so bad rates and and

11:15

now now it's actually like really fun.

11:17

Like you'd mentioned there's an archetype. In

11:19

every way, shape or form running across

11:21

the board. It's really fun. And speaking

11:23

of it's it's it's so fun Like

11:25

you get to you get a watch

11:27

like example Me: sit there at the

11:29

I swear shuffler is real of shuffler

11:31

truth or are real ah in real

11:33

life as well Being so the I

11:35

swear. I get

11:38

over ourselves as as one word against

11:40

the broken Vogue Degli have cavern of

11:42

souls that a city they're going up

11:44

like dissipate does Eighth Seed no more

11:46

alive than I'm like dude, I'm so

11:48

dead and I. Sewed is puts. It

11:50

is really fun to see that every

11:52

deck has fight across the board. I

11:54

think it's. A

11:57

kind of use and real right? Like an and I'm

11:59

I'm excited to see. What? This three year

12:01

does you disturb extension because now there's

12:03

just more cards hitting the pool. Ah like

12:05

you know people are that like you

12:07

know. One thing that we talked about

12:09

Impasse prague Up podcast is like. Will.

12:12

We see cards from. Murders.

12:15

A market manner. Will we see Car some

12:17

L C I A Rights like actually see

12:19

play. And were see undies

12:21

course Now course again not at that

12:24

in these sets aren't gonna be like

12:26

oh my god every card from this

12:28

set is a banger. Rights not all

12:30

of them can be jaya yet fiery

12:33

negotiator for city is still sucks but

12:35

ah yeah facilities but yeah like I.

12:38

I've. Been excited to see just.

12:41

How many cards? And like how divert.

12:43

Like how packed every deck is From

12:45

a like all the sets across the

12:47

formats said it's been pretty damn good.

12:51

I still feel like murders of or floppy like

12:53

I'm really gonna be that much murders I think

12:55

lt I did really well. We feel that l

12:57

the I garden wilds of elderly and so I

12:59

think those do that. but. I.

13:02

I think that's fine. like some sets are weaker

13:04

than others ray and like if you're going and

13:06

twelve said something hundred they're not all going to

13:08

be equally represented. Summer going to be stronger in

13:10

your as the lots of those guards, others are

13:12

going to be weaker. Maybe you have a different

13:14

purpose her flavor. They're more focus on other formats

13:16

though I don't know I've been in a while.

13:18

the underdogs him probably going to be a strong

13:20

said i feel like beds with them to unlikely

13:22

hundred or math and just like how much is

13:24

going into, I'm expecting a lot out of that

13:27

one by little. it was the vulgar in another

13:29

year to you. By. Guess not

13:31

years like months, Todd, How long as

13:33

murders denounce? I have no idea of

13:35

a lot. a month. A little over

13:37

a month and I thank them for

13:39

dropped. You. Don't think that he

13:41

like. So. example we're seeing

13:43

a lot of murders you don't think

13:45

we see a lottery use army uk

13:48

conspiracy unravel are in all the reenact

13:50

the crime decks receive vein reapers out

13:52

of like grix this and like marty

13:55

vampires and mid range stuff like that

13:57

you see our readers robbery deadly com

14:00

up. Wait, do we see

14:02

Vaynerifrin standard or pioneer stuff? Well,

14:05

it's bigger in standard, but

14:07

I won't lie,

14:10

it's in part to some of the people, content

14:12

creators are putting out videos. CGB

14:14

I think recently did

14:17

an Angel's deck on

14:19

his channel and now all over

14:21

the ladder. And again, it could be different from

14:24

paper to arena and whatnot. All

14:26

over the ladder is Boros Angels.

14:29

I'm just seeing Boros Angels left and I'm

14:32

like, who did this? I just knew either

14:34

you or CGB or somebody

14:36

playing the deck. And I'm

14:38

like, okay, all right, what's going on here? But

14:41

we're seeing cards like that, Deadly Coverup,

14:43

right? And Fugitive

14:45

Code Breaker. I

14:49

even played a little bit of

14:51

mono green in Standard, dude. I

14:55

saw that video, you did a video of it not that

14:57

long ago, right? It's kind of

14:59

weird, dude. It's actually

15:01

not that bad. And Mark

15:03

Druids Charm is mine at home. You've got

15:05

Axe Bane, you've got Sharp-Eyed Rookie. These

15:08

are cards that are actually just seeing play

15:10

throughout the format right now, along with Cryptic

15:12

Coat. You know if Krim says

15:14

mono green is not that bad. It is truly

15:16

not that bad because Krim will take any chance

15:19

to trash out a green if he gets it.

15:22

I will say that one of the

15:24

wildest things from the new set for

15:26

that deck is an uncommon It's

15:29

the thing that's big equal to the number

15:31

of forests you have. The two drop? Oh,

15:34

yep. Dude, that card

15:36

is sweet, along with Sharp-Eyed Rookie. I

15:39

will say we have seen multiple combo

15:41

decks kind of emerge in Standard because

15:43

of murders. We have the

15:45

Conspiracy and Raveller combo deck with Reenact the

15:47

Crime, which at this point it really is

15:49

like a combo deck. The goal is when

15:51

I reanimate anything I'm going to mill you

15:53

out with Reach the Multiverse this turn. And

15:56

then we've seen the Landfall combo decks which are

15:58

also very driven by Aftermath analyst

16:00

and some of the LCI cards that what's

16:02

the world gorgeous rage is that the the

16:05

yeah X-bell like so He knows decks kind

16:07

of like evolve so in that sense it

16:09

has added something to the meta that wasn't

16:11

there before we had like this Mid-range

16:14

slog fast with like some aggro and control

16:16

thrown in and now we have like a

16:18

pretty mixed meta where we have all Those

16:20

decks and we also have these weird combo

16:23

decks on top of it, which has led

16:25

to a really interesting and fun standard So

16:27

so yeah standards in a good place, but

16:29

I wanted to ask you about another format

16:31

So last week we got some

16:34

banning Well really one big banning in

16:36

violent outburst in modern So this was

16:38

targeting actually the top two decks in

16:40

the modern meta number one was crashing

16:42

footballs Which is a cascade deck number

16:44

two most played was actually living end

16:47

Which is another violent outburst cascade into

16:49

my no mana value spell thing So

16:52

we have about a week's worth of data now

16:54

mostly for magic online To look

16:56

at and see what the meta looks like

16:58

without having this cascade spell and I will say

17:00

it Seems like this banning has

17:02

really shaken up the pata like so on

17:04

one hand the good decks are still the

17:06

good exit Tron is still there Yogg still

17:08

there amulet Titan still there like a lot

17:10

of decks that were good before is still

17:13

good But we've really seen the cascade decks

17:15

knock down a ton We

17:17

went from having rhinos being number one in

17:19

living in number two to rhinos Maybe

17:21

not even being a top tier deck

17:23

anymore in living in like falling towards

17:25

like a tier two status So it

17:28

seems like the banning has actually worked

17:30

right if the goal was to power down these

17:32

cascade decks It seems like it's

17:34

having the desired impact Yeah,

17:37

I mean I the

17:39

power level of an instant speed

17:41

cascade spell is pretty nuts Right

17:44

like so if you're keeping cascades

17:46

strictly to sorcery speed much

17:48

more like manageable, right? You're looking at now

17:50

Like you don't get caught off guard by

17:52

something to just die at the end of

17:55

your turn, right? Because because they could always

17:57

go end of turn cascade spell

17:59

and then now started their turn cascade

18:01

smell. So it

18:03

gets pretty rough. So this is

18:05

interesting. Modern I

18:09

don't know, like do you feel like now

18:11

the format, what

18:13

does it feel like now power level wise?

18:15

Because I look at these, I look

18:18

at these bandings and I see that

18:20

people are still trying to force that

18:22

new, it's not new, but it's the

18:24

old blue white artifact thing or it's

18:26

one blue and white or is it

18:28

black and white? The enchantment? No it's

18:30

an enchantment that also has cascade. Oh

18:32

the cascade Ardent plea, yeah yeah yeah.

18:36

That's been the most common way for people

18:38

who are playing the cascade decks to try

18:40

to keep them going. So we've seen both

18:42

rhinos and living end, they've kind

18:44

of just dropped violet outburst and splash

18:47

into white to be able to have

18:49

Ardent plea as another three mana cascade

18:51

spell. Obviously a huge downgrade,

18:53

right? You're going from instant speed to sorcery

18:56

speed and you're having to

18:58

add another color into your deck which

19:00

is a little bit awkward. You can

19:02

do it in Modern. I think that

19:04

rhinos actually has fared slightly better with

19:07

the bandings than Crashing Footballs has or

19:09

than Living End has. So the thing with rhinos

19:11

is there was already a rhinos deck that was

19:14

built around Leyline of the Guildpack that was

19:16

kind of mashing together like Leyline of the

19:18

Guildpack, Cyanid Rocko with the rhinos plan and

19:21

that was already playing white. So we've

19:23

just seen that deck, if there is

19:25

one of these cascade decks that's still

19:27

kind of thriving, it seems like that's

19:29

the build. It's put up some performances

19:31

on Magic Online and Challenges and Last

19:33

Chance Qualifiers. So it's essentially rhinos with

19:35

Leyline of the Guildpack taking advantage of

19:37

Ardent plea. Living End on the other

19:40

hand, it seems kind of rough. Like we've seen

19:42

a few people try to play it,

19:44

its performances haven't been super great. That's

19:47

the deck that really gets hit by having

19:49

to add another color. It was really leaning

19:51

on these like land cyclers from the Lord

19:53

of the Rings set and that's like a

19:56

little bit awkward now. We do see some

19:58

Teferis in there to try to like be

20:00

able to. like still interact and protect your

20:02

stuff during your combo turn which

20:04

is something you used to be able to do much better

20:06

with force syndication when you're a combo going at instant speed

20:09

but I think that winos it's probably gonna

20:11

stick around like adding 10 power to the

20:13

battlefield is still a really powerful effect living

20:16

and it seemed like that one took the

20:18

brunt of it the meta overall it's

20:21

still modern right like it's still a very fast

20:23

format if you look at the top tier decks

20:25

in the meta they're really all

20:27

trying to win like turn three or turn four

20:30

you got like goryos vengeance reanimator is actually the

20:32

new top deck in the meta now and that's

20:34

just trying to let in a while yeah that

20:36

one's really in just like the last month has

20:38

really ticked up and now that you don't have

20:40

to deal with rhinos I guess it's just kind

20:43

of taking the throne at the top of the

20:45

meta but really all you're trying to do is

20:47

like discard an atroxa and goryos vengeance and then

20:49

you're playing like ephemera so you can find

20:51

your ephemera with your atroxa and blink it

20:53

to keep it around forever so it doesn't

20:55

go away with goryos vengeance so that X

20:57

kind of emerged is the the best second

20:59

but is this scam like is it another

21:01

is it now s

21:04

for scam I swear that

21:07

literally every deck in modern is scam

21:10

like goryos in their

21:12

own way like demean zoo number two is

21:14

like scamming with lane line of the gilpeck

21:16

in draco tron scams I turn three card

21:18

yagmoth just combos off a mule it just

21:21

plays the pervival tie in so yeah that's

21:23

that's kind of where the meta is that

21:25

it's still very fast I think these paintings

21:27

have improved it but it's

21:29

still a lot like modern there's

21:32

one recent development that I really like

21:34

mm-hmm I

21:37

saw that demir mill won a tournament

21:40

right like about a couple up back

21:43

mill so and now I'm seeing

21:45

mill is like sitting maybe somewhere

21:47

like just slightly tier two right

21:50

maybe let's call it that why

21:53

how is this good now why is

21:55

this good now I don't know I

21:58

don't like I have asked because I'm

22:00

like okay any meta where that Demir

22:02

Mill deck is good I immediately

22:05

am listening right we we're immediately

22:07

listening so so

22:10

I think part of it is they just

22:12

keep printing upgraded mill spells which has really

22:14

helped in just the last couple of years

22:16

getting like Tasha's Hideous Laughter

22:18

fractured sanity even getting like Drown in

22:20

the lock back in Alderain was like

22:22

a huge deal for the deck the

22:24

other thing that I think is helping

22:26

it right now in the current

22:28

meta which is kind of funny but at

22:31

the top of the meta where you're just

22:33

talking about Goryos Vengeance reanimator being like the

22:35

current most played deck since the mannings also

22:38

Yagmoth combo is kind of a

22:40

graveyard based combo deck in the mill decks

22:42

the ones that are doing best are often

22:44

playing like four exerpates and four surgical extractions

22:46

in the main deck so yeah you can

22:48

mill them out but you also just kind

22:51

of hosed some of the top decks in

22:53

the meta by exiling their combo piece exiling

22:55

their reanimation target so I think that's part

22:57

of why mill is like actually oddly well

22:59

positioned in modern right now you just

23:02

concede to Zu Zu

23:04

yeah I don't know what you I

23:06

don't know what you do about I

23:08

can't imagine you're fast enough to beat

23:10

Zu with any consistency but yeah that

23:13

seems like a very bad matchup I

23:15

even don't know like amulet Titan doesn't

23:17

seem that great but I don't know

23:19

you could squeak by against amulets because

23:21

the thing is I've noticed one thing

23:23

is they've actually dropped Tasha's hideous laughter

23:25

right now because you'd look at all

23:27

the way it's probably again the effect

23:29

of where modern design is going towards

23:32

like we're looking at six mana ley

23:34

line load is it ley

23:36

line ley line binding

23:39

yeah ley line binding right they have

23:41

ley line binding you've got Draco's you've

23:43

got all these things right that are

23:45

12 mana right or six mana so

23:48

I'm now seeing the dropping of Tasha's

23:50

hideous laughter now you're just going a

23:53

full four like fractured

23:55

sanity fractured sanity is

23:57

just better which is funny And,

24:00

you know, let's not lie here, it probably synergizes

24:02

way better with, you

24:05

know, 8 extra paid effects, right,

24:07

or surgical extraction effects, that the cards

24:09

hit the yard as opposed to being

24:11

exiled. So it's

24:14

just wild to me because, you know, where Modern

24:16

was, right, Tasha's Hades Laughter

24:18

hits pretty much like a chunk of your deck,

24:21

like a third of your deck. Now

24:23

because of how the mana cost of things are, it

24:26

may hit, like, it may get cleared after 5

24:28

cards. But actually, yeah, I

24:30

played this Ley Line deck in Modern for

24:32

my video last Friday and played against a

24:34

Mill deck and they Tasha's Hades Laughter for

24:37

4. I'd never seen a

24:39

worse Tasha's Hades Laughter. I was like,

24:41

okay, I guess that makes sense why some

24:43

people are cutting this card. Interestingly, we've seen

24:45

some builds bringing Trapmaker's Snare back in, which

24:47

is a card I haven't seen in a

24:49

long time, but it's just like 2 mana,

24:51

search for a trap, which in the deck

24:53

is Archive Trap, so it's essentially just 2

24:55

more copies of Archive Trap that you can

24:57

get early in the game, which that makes

24:59

a lot of sense to me. It looks like

25:01

a cool build. It kind of makes me want

25:04

to play a Mill deck now because I do

25:06

like extirpating and surgically extracting people's stuff, and I

25:08

guess that's how you can beat those combo decks,

25:10

right? You just, like, build a Promeval Titan and

25:12

then you exile it and then it's really hard

25:15

for a Titan to actually do anything. So yeah,

25:17

Modern, I think, is in a, maybe Modern and

25:19

Standard are both in decent places at the same

25:21

time, which is kind of

25:23

wild. It's been like a long time

25:25

since I've felt like both of those

25:28

formats were in relatively healthy places. Yeah,

25:31

so I mean, like, yeah, that's

25:33

why it's shocking me. Again, I

25:35

see Mill, I see Mill somewhere

25:37

near the tops here. I am

25:40

definitely intrigued. Today's

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shopify.com/goldfish. All right, so. right,

27:12

Crimp, I got a good topic for you. I've been wanting to

27:14

do this for a long time, and it worked out that this

27:16

is actually the week for us

27:19

to do it, and I want to talk

27:21

a little bit about Arena, Magic Arena, and

27:23

the conspiracy theories around Magic

27:25

Arena. So, you

27:28

know Magic players, they love their conspiracy theories,

27:30

they love to complain about things, talk about

27:32

their bad beats. There's a pretty massive list.

27:34

I was going around through the internets, through

27:37

Twitter, through some videos people have posted, and

27:39

I was just trying to find all the

27:41

conspiracy theories about Magic Arena possible,

27:43

and I wanted to give you some of these

27:45

theories, and I thought we could maybe discuss and

27:48

maybe for some of them even debunk them, because

27:50

some of them are pretty far out there. Some

27:53

of them actually are like, seem

27:55

somewhat realistic, potentially. So, conspiracy theory

27:57

number one. I want your take

28:00

on this one, Crib. You

28:02

get bad draws, or bad opening hands, if

28:05

you win too much. Essentially, I guess the

28:07

theory is that WotC doesn't want you to

28:09

win that much, so if you start to

28:12

win too much, they knock you down by

28:14

messing with your draws. My question for

28:16

this is, why? What would

28:18

their motivation be? How would that

28:20

benefit WotC in some way, to be like, hey, you

28:22

won four in a row, we're gonna like, manascrew

28:25

you this game or something, even if I did have

28:27

the technology to do that. I

28:31

don't think that's real. I don't know.

28:33

Yeah, exactly. What is the benefit of

28:36

that? I mean, maybe

28:38

what you're experiencing is you go on a

28:40

run, and then yeah, eventually variance hits you.

28:44

Variance will hit you eventually. Or

28:48

what about maybe, if not that, then

28:50

like in every game, I could, at

28:53

best, if I were to give any

28:56

benefit of the doubt to that

28:58

kind of claim, it's that maybe

29:01

you win so much that your elo

29:03

goes higher, so then you

29:05

just get paired against better players. That

29:08

was the first thing I thought, because we know

29:10

they have like the hidden MMR or something, like

29:12

you have your rank, but there's also like a

29:14

hidden rank system that helps determine like the matchups

29:17

and so forth. That was my

29:19

first thought is, maybe this isn't some

29:21

conspiracy, but maybe if you win like

29:23

10 matches in a row, you just

29:25

end up getting bumped up against tougher

29:27

opponents who then you're more likely to

29:29

lose against because they're just better at

29:31

playing magic. So I think that could

29:33

be possible. Like that's not really some

29:35

sketchy conspiracy, though. That's just like kind

29:37

of how rankings work in video

29:39

games. So yeah, that one has never

29:41

really made sense to me. I also

29:43

think like, I

29:46

don't know. We remember our bad stuff more than

29:48

our good stuff. I think when you have all

29:50

land hand or no land hand and you mulligan

29:52

to four, That's the game that's going to

29:54

stick in your head at the end of your play session and

29:56

not the five other games where you just ran normally and played

29:58

a normal game of the game. Magic though I think

30:00

maybe we tend to remember the the bad names

30:03

more than the good games. What about this one

30:05

guy most as a good one. This. Sought

30:07

for use by this is a this is the

30:09

infamous one. This one goes all the back to

30:11

Magic online where it would be used to be

30:14

a conspiracy theory of air also kinda related to

30:16

the Scribe bugs but basically the idea is when

30:18

you thought sees your polling take a guard. They're.

30:21

Somehow more likely to draw another copy of

30:23

the same car to. But he'd just thought

30:25

these myths freiburg of the same. Except when

30:27

you try hard to the bottom, you're more

30:29

likely to draw that same card off the

30:31

top. your dogs. Yeah, so they. could there

30:33

be any truth to this? Whole

30:37

rest is likely. To

30:39

give we I've done that in real

30:41

life or ah, seven or eight like

30:44

I've been thought seized in real life.

30:46

And then I drew the cops. Here

30:48

is the first. so it's like attorney

30:50

out again. The Why

30:52

did they take? why Didn't thoughts easier. Because.

30:55

It's the best card in your deck right?

30:57

or in your hand. So then if that's

30:59

the best for your hand you probably want

31:01

to see that card quite often right? So

31:03

you probably play of will play set of

31:06

those. So yeah maybe maybe you go are

31:08

lucky or unlucky to the person task and

31:10

thought sees every now and then. I mean

31:12

that's why the saying goes thought sees doesn't

31:14

stop top tax rate me up and all

31:17

that goes with any discard smell. So

31:19

this one I actually tried to map

31:22

out a little bit in. I think

31:24

that this is probably a combination of

31:26

like vividness bias made me really remember

31:28

these like these weird things that happen

31:30

more than the normal things in. also

31:32

dislike not understanding the odds of that

31:34

happening. So the way I would calculated

31:37

as I let's see you on easier

31:39

pull me into something they're playing a

31:41

plea set up two or three more

31:43

copies that card in their backs. There's

31:45

about likud. Six is percent chance depending

31:47

on. Like exactly how. many cards are left

31:50

on their died but there's some around like a

31:52

six percent chance to they're grovel be one of

31:54

the other three copies of that card which isn't

31:56

a high number but if you're playing for boxing

31:58

is as important like that Regularly that's

32:00

gonna happen fairly often. That's one

32:03

out every like a little

32:05

more than 20 thought sees is 19 thought seizes

32:07

So it's not like some astronomical odds that your

32:09

opponent's gonna draw the same card. You just thought

32:12

sees I think that's just like

32:14

gonna happen sometimes mathematically That's just like how

32:16

math works in this case And then I

32:18

think we just remember those bad beats because

32:20

when you thought sees The

32:22

treasure cruise and they draw the treasure cruise and they

32:25

like draw three cards. You're just come on magic I

32:27

like seriously come on you remember that you don't remember

32:29

the time where they top deck a land and you went

32:31

on to win Though like that game doesn't stick in your head

32:33

or that thought sees doesn't stick in your head Of

32:36

course not everything was play as plant

32:38

right so yes very good Alright,

32:41

what about what about this one? This is another

32:44

one I don't understand if this

32:46

was possible why what wizards

32:48

motivation would be for this But the theory

32:50

is when you're one win away from ranking

32:52

up you need that one win to get

32:54

to platinum or gold or mythic You

32:57

get bad luck and your opponents run perfectly and then

32:59

the watsy makes it hard for you to get that

33:01

last win to get That one rank that you need

33:05

Why why would what does what does not want

33:07

people to be mythic or platinum or something like?

33:10

Like this is the company that there's an employee

33:13

auto tapper work. They got my creature lands to

33:15

themselves With auto tapper

33:17

I can't imagine they're sitting there being like that's

33:19

about to get mythic Let's you know give them

33:21

some extra lands in this draw so we get

33:23

some you know flooded It's

33:26

very easy though because there's somebody

33:28

that just sits at the office And

33:31

you know just monitors them Every

33:33

every game pulled up you know they

33:35

have 32 different monitors And

33:38

they thought here it is I caught

33:40

this screen screen a to write over

33:42

here It's about a mythic mythic get

33:44

them hit the switch hit the red

33:46

button hit the big red button Like

33:50

you know that that's that's nonsense

33:52

right like I as someone who

33:54

speaks in only nonsense That's too

33:56

much nonsense That

33:59

was that one's so over the top. I just

34:01

like I think that's

34:03

another case where if you're

34:06

someone who plays enough arena to rank up

34:08

to mythic or the higher levels that means

34:10

you've played a lot of games of arena

34:13

and not all those games are gonna be memorable

34:15

but when you're like one win away from hitting

34:17

mythic that's like the biggest game you play of

34:19

the month or whatever that's what you're gonna remember

34:21

right if you end up getting mana screwed or

34:23

mana flooded in that game it's gonna stick in

34:25

your head and you're gonna like have a story

34:27

to tell about it so I think it's just

34:29

like I think it's just how our memories work

34:32

with it but I can't see any motivation from

34:34

wizard side to do this especially since in

34:36

theory like you're probably playing someone else hopefully

34:38

who's like relatively equal rank for you so

34:40

if they're like screwing you over they're helping

34:42

someone else get to mythic so it doesn't

34:44

even out in the long run anyway like

34:46

with a whole bunch of people playing so

34:49

yeah I don't really understand why you're actually

34:51

taking one for the team yeah you're right

34:53

yes you're helping the other

34:55

person get to mythic all right

34:58

let's let's do this one cuz this one I think

35:00

actually at least with this one

35:03

I can see why wizards would

35:05

do this now that they do do this

35:07

but the theory is you get better matchups

35:09

when you spend money in the store so

35:11

you spend some money you build a new

35:13

deck with you know the packs you just

35:15

cracked you're gonna get good matchups for a

35:17

few games that's also related when you build

35:19

a new deck it gives you easier opponents

35:21

for your first like fivus matches to make

35:23

your next thing better than it is it

35:26

encourages you to like buy more cards and

35:28

build more doo-daxes are like well I'm the

35:30

greatest forever I'm crushing everyone with my you

35:32

know brew so so I'll build more decks

35:34

and buy more cards first off

35:36

the the first thing that you brought up the

35:38

if you spend more money in the store you

35:40

get better matchups and draws or whatever we just

35:43

call that arena premium right you just call

35:45

it arena if

35:47

you if you spend money then you

35:49

pay you renewed your arena premium membership

35:52

now if that were true crazy if

35:55

true if that were true you and

36:00

I and all of

36:02

goldfish we never lose should be we should

36:04

never lose the game because

36:06

we make content right so yeah

36:08

we spend money on arena a

36:11

lot of money you know

36:13

you spend a lot of money when you open

36:15

packs and you are given gems and play the

36:17

other rares right so if

36:19

this was true you

36:21

and I should be undefeated mythic instantly

36:23

every day sure like just like like

36:25

there are no losses it's

36:28

better you crimp because you have you have

36:30

all the like fancy like car dials and

36:32

stuff too right so you're like the wailiest of whales

36:35

when it comes to arena you should definitely be yeah

36:37

in the I have never leave a

36:39

ball for some odd reason right so like you

36:41

know what I mean like I

36:43

don't I have so many pets and cosmetics that

36:45

I don't even know how they got into my

36:47

account so if

36:50

that weren't true I should

36:52

be undefeated mythic one easy

36:57

so not true by the way it's

36:59

not it is yeah I also don't believe

37:01

this is true I can

37:03

see at least in this case some of these

37:06

we've talked about it's like I don't see why

37:08

Wizards would even do this how they would benefit

37:10

from doing this at least this conspiracy theory I

37:13

could see why like it's that we

37:15

could make more money things so I

37:17

could see why someone would think that

37:19

a company would have a motivation to

37:21

do that at least but I just

37:23

really don't think that Wizards for one

37:25

would have the time and ability to

37:27

do something like that and

37:29

even if company that has the auto tapper

37:32

tap your land like you mentioned is is

37:34

out here doing this oh yeah that's that's

37:36

like some supervillain stuff for Wizards technology yeah

37:38

I just I don't think they're at that

37:41

level the other thing is like if

37:43

this was true and it came out wouldn't

37:45

that just destroy a game like I imagine

37:47

that's like you know the worst headline you

37:49

could ever have for your game yeah people

37:51

who are paying money you're like somehow getting

37:53

this like skewed matchup advantage or the shuffler

37:55

treats you better when you buy stuff from

37:58

the store like so I don't think like

38:00

the risk would be worth it like so even

38:02

if they could do it which I don't think

38:04

they could I don't think they would do it

38:07

because just like the risk isn't worth destroying your

38:09

whole game over something as silly as that all

38:12

right here's one that's kind of related

38:14

and interesting in this one this one

38:16

actually makes me think that this one

38:18

maybe oh wait possible hold

38:20

on what about the brew one though wait

38:23

the brew one what's the one where if

38:25

you brew a new deck you just talked

38:27

about oh like so we technically didn't touch

38:29

up on that so we should I will

38:31

say so I will say I feel

38:35

like in my brain I feel

38:37

like when I build a new deck I do

38:39

better with it than I should in my first

38:41

few games I don't have you ever seen that

38:43

I don't believe the conspiracy theory because I think

38:46

it's probably some bias in my head that's just

38:48

like remembering things in a weird way but I

38:50

will say when I like first build the deck

38:52

I feel like maybe I do

38:54

better in my first few games and then

38:56

I just like lose lose lose I'm like

38:58

alright onto the next deck so I can

39:00

see that happening to someone and then like

39:03

making a conspiracy theory out of it but

39:05

I'm pretty sure it's just like natural variance

39:07

and sometimes you run well with a new deck or

39:09

whatever hit the right matchup but what do you think

39:11

about that one Chris I mean if

39:13

you play I think that there's an element right

39:15

to brewing and that and that gives

39:17

you an advantage and it's that people don't know

39:19

what the hell you're doing like as

39:23

someone who plays a control deck that relies on

39:25

knowing what your deck does what are the key

39:27

points what's what's making your deck tick if you're

39:29

playing a brew deck you're just gonna be able

39:31

to you might just steal wins because

39:33

some people will have no freaking clue

39:35

what you're doing like oh I

39:38

counted a random like piece that isn't even

39:40

like you know important to your deck on

39:43

top of that I know for a fact and

39:46

unless again there's just somebody that's

39:48

sitting at watsy staring at my

39:50

games and trying to make me lose so

39:52

this doesn't look fishy I take

39:54

brews out all the time and you

39:56

know you see me build out if you if you tuned into

39:58

the streams you've seen me build them on stream, right?

40:01

And then try to playtest before I film any

40:03

of the content for the week, right? I just

40:05

like playtest these decks out, all right, do they

40:07

work? And people just watch me

40:10

get dumpster'd for like an hour until I

40:12

tune stuff to the right point. I

40:15

think you made a really good point. I played

40:17

this, and this is like the most extreme example,

40:19

but I play this a little Laelia historic brawl

40:21

deck with like 94 lands in it for a

40:23

video a couple weeks ago. And that

40:26

deck won a ridiculous amount. I went like 12

40:28

and 3 or something with that deck. The deck

40:30

is incredibly easy to disrupt. All you got to

40:32

do is leave up any removal spell and kill

40:35

the Laelia once, and the whole deck like cannot

40:37

win. But no one knew they had to do

40:39

that because they didn't know what the deck was.

40:41

So there were many opponents that had they known

40:44

what I was doing and seen the deck before,

40:46

100% would have won the match. All they would have done

40:48

is left up their removal spell. They just didn't know

40:50

they had to because they had no idea what it was

40:52

up to and didn't know that like if I just cast

40:54

Laelia and put a cascade spell on I'm gonna win the

40:57

game on the spot. So I think that's one of those

40:59

examples, right, of how brewing and playing a brew can

41:01

have that advantage. So maybe that's part of it is when

41:03

you first start playing a new deck, especially if no one

41:05

knows what it does, maybe you do better with it because

41:07

you just have this information advantage. Your opponents don't know how

41:10

to stop it, don't know what your combo is, don't

41:12

know when they need to leave up their interaction and when

41:14

they can tap out for something. So I think that

41:16

kind of makes sense. And then once people start to

41:18

know, oh, here's how the combo works, then they play

41:20

in a way that can stop the combo when your

41:22

win rate drops. So I think that actually that seems

41:24

like a pretty good explanation to me, really. All right,

41:29

let's let's talk about this one. So this one is

41:31

a little bit related. And this one I could

41:34

mail, I don't know. The theory is

41:36

arenas use the odds of hitting certain

41:38

combos that they don't want you to

41:40

play. And this was specifically in reference

41:43

to to bolts trickery combos during the

41:45

height of its popularity. So the thinking

41:47

was basically everyone hated to

41:49

ball trickery. So lots of behind the scenes,

41:51

like, you know, fiddle with the numbers

41:53

a little bit. So when you did your trickery,

41:56

you're more likely to hit one of your fizzles

41:58

and hit another ornithopter or whatever, then hit your big

42:00

bomb and win the game to try to discourage

42:02

people from playing the combo that they didn't really

42:04

want people to be playing anyway. Again,

42:08

why? Like,

42:12

the best thing about these conspiracy theories

42:14

is like, why?

42:18

Like why? Why would they care,

42:20

right? If they sat

42:22

down, had somebody

42:24

program the wildest string

42:26

of code or some

42:28

way to make it so that Arena does

42:31

this, why would they spend more time and

42:33

invest more hours into it rather than just,

42:35

hey, we're going to ban it? And

42:38

with the

42:49

odds of it working, it's like

42:51

hard. Again,

42:56

why? Why?

43:01

Yeah, that, I mean, I guess

43:03

this one would probably be theoretically possible.

43:07

It seems just like the hardest way to go

43:09

around solving the problem when you can ban the

43:11

card or in some formats you can just errata

43:13

the card or rebalance the card. So I don't

43:16

know why you'd spend weeks programming things when you

43:18

could just do one really easy action to scare

43:20

the whole problem. What about this one, Grim? Players

43:23

know how to hack Arena. For

43:25

example, they can hack it so they can

43:28

see your hand. Your opponent can see your

43:30

hand somehow and know specifically how to play

43:32

because they know everything in your hand. I

43:35

will say I've never seen evidence

43:37

of people being able to hack

43:39

and see your hand, but there have been

43:41

a couple of cases of someone

43:44

who's posted videos or articles, there's one like

43:46

six months or maybe a year ago now,

43:49

about someone who figured out how to hack the code

43:51

of Arena to force their opponent

43:53

to concede in the middle of the game

43:55

and actually posted all the code of it.

43:58

I believe stuff like that is true. But I

44:01

imagine that's like a bug. I don't think it's

44:03

like a conspiracy I think it's like a flaw

44:05

with the code that someone figured out and then

44:07

it gets fixed afterwards But what do you think

44:10

is there are there hacks in arena or opponents

44:12

looking our hands crammed? I

44:14

mean, well first off the one thing

44:16

here is like yeah what you had mentioned I think

44:18

yeah, that's supposedly true right like where if they they

44:21

figured out how to make the game essentially blow up

44:23

right like but

44:26

hacking otherwise Like

44:29

even if they're looking at your hand like if

44:31

that again, that's that's just like another one of

44:34

those things where I Don't

44:36

know how much that does right? I

44:38

mean technically both of us as streamers

44:40

We we we've actually that's a self-induced

44:42

hack where we just show our hands

44:44

because you get a stream snipe, right?

44:47

But like the one thing about

44:49

that hack is that is that even like

44:51

worth all the hours you would have to

44:53

put into it Right, like I do believe

44:55

hacking probably could exist because that happens across

44:57

the board across multiple different video games. Yeah

45:00

now I Would

45:03

they would have to hack to a level to

45:05

where they get to just essentially tutor their next

45:07

draw That's where it would

45:09

start mattering right? Yeah, so I guess like

45:11

my hand being revealed has never mattered to

45:13

me So I guess I just don't

45:15

care right because it's like oh, all right Well, I

45:17

mean I've always like I've openly told people if you

45:19

want to look at my hand while we play and

45:21

I'm streaming Just sub to the channel. I don't care

45:24

you can't you can't make me as much as what?

45:26

Yeah, that's a viewer. Yeah Ostrate

45:29

up read you my card Like

45:31

you know what I mean like and make sure

45:33

you got the notes So

45:36

I'll say on this one I think that

45:38

so I think like you said that pretty much any

45:40

game is probably hackable for someone who like Knows what

45:43

they're doing and is good at that stuff and is

45:45

gonna put enough time into it I'm

45:47

not sure what the motivation would be on

45:49

a arena though, like Like

45:52

it seems so hard to profit off of that right?

45:54

Like what do you get out of spending months

45:56

or years of your time going through code to try to

45:58

come up with some hack? Like, your

46:00

rank is like, tier or

46:03

something. Mythic one, you get to

46:05

queue for some of the event. Because obviously if

46:07

you had it, right? If you had this hack,

46:09

I assume the hacker wouldn't openly tell people they

46:11

have the hack, right? But then wouldn't so. But

46:13

then wouldn't you eventually have to like, play an

46:15

event where you would get caught or something if

46:17

you were actually going to try to seriously profit

46:19

off of hacking that way? Yeah. So

46:22

it seems like it could get you to a point of like,

46:24

oh I'm high on the ladder or whatever I claw off life

46:26

or something. But sooner or later it's going to fall apart because

46:28

you're going to have to go play a paper pro tour because

46:30

you qualified for it. Or you're going to

46:32

do some championship where people are like, actually

46:34

watching you play on live on stream somewhere.

46:36

Like the mythic invitational or something. And

46:39

then it's all going to fall apart because you're not going to be

46:41

able to hack your way through that, right? I

46:43

mean, I assume if they're willing to hack their

46:45

way to just get to the pro tour that

46:47

they would probably also try to sleight of hand

46:49

you while you play them in real life. But

46:51

you know, like, it's probably true. Right?

46:55

Like, will it work? I doubt it. All

47:00

right, let's we got a few more

47:02

here. This one's another money one. So

47:04

arena makes you lose more in draft.

47:06

If you enter with a draft token,

47:08

like you get from whatever

47:10

the monthly reward thing is, or if you

47:12

pick with gold compared to playing with gems.

47:15

So basically, if you pay with real

47:17

money, they're going to give you a better cards, better

47:19

running. But if you pay with gold or fake money,

47:22

Wizzard is going to get you because they don't want you to,

47:24

you know, you can't do well with a draft token. Another

47:27

arena premium situation. Another

47:29

arena. Yes, more arena premium. This

47:32

is, again, do you

47:35

know how hard that would be? We

47:39

don't have, we don't even have pioneer

47:41

fully, right? We don't even have. Every

47:43

day I wake up, I'm like thankful that

47:45

arena opens. Like I'm not stuck on that

47:48

loading screen for the whole day and re-insawing

47:50

the client. Like, that's a win. That's a

47:52

win when I get to play magic on

47:54

arena and it's functional. There's no way, there's

47:56

no way. They're like programming them. Mm, did

47:58

they use a draft token then? this

48:00

draft, oh no, no rares for you, yeah, we're

48:02

gonna make sure you open all lands. We're

48:05

talking about the client that updates and then usually

48:07

when a new patch or a new set comes

48:09

out and then blows up after the update, right?

48:11

Like, so... Oh,

48:14

there's just no way. Yeah, I

48:16

can't imagine that they're just out

48:18

there nefariously plotting like that, right?

48:20

Like, there's just no, no, it's

48:22

not. This one applies

48:25

to you, Kram, because I've had people ask me

48:27

about why you always play 61 cards

48:29

or often play 61 cards in your

48:31

decks and videos. So the theory is this,

48:33

and I thought maybe Kram, you know, is

48:35

a believer in this conspiracy theory. So

48:37

the theory is that the shuffler's rigged,

48:40

but if you play 61 cards, it

48:42

throws off the rigging and it throws off

48:44

its math and then it runs properly. So

48:47

you play that one extra card and the

48:49

rigging does no longer apply to you. So

48:51

is that the reason you sometimes play 61?

48:54

The hand smoother is at

48:56

work, dude. It's at

48:58

work, okay? Let me put my tinfoil

49:01

hat on. Okay, is that the answer

49:03

you want? Because I'll give you that

49:05

answer. In reality, I play 61 just

49:08

because everybody asks why do you play 61.

49:11

That's a conversation starter. Yeah, it's

49:13

a conversation piece. Hey, how

49:15

are you? Why do you play 61? Well, you

49:17

know, I got you to ask, didn't I? And

49:21

you know what? We could even

49:23

say I'm pre-boarded for Mill. So

49:26

the one thing I'm pushing now is the 61, right? Yeah.

49:30

But we're climbing. We're going to 62. We're

49:32

going to 62. I mean, we

49:34

have somebody out there went to a

49:36

tournament and also is a believer in

49:38

the hand smoother in real life. So

49:40

that's why they did the 68-card land

49:42

combo, right? Yeah,

49:44

that's true. Why did nobody ask them about

49:46

68 cards, you see? So

49:50

I will say there probably is like a

49:52

little kernel of truth, not that the conspiracy is

49:55

real, but I think how people start thinking this

49:57

way is because of the hand smoother

49:59

and best of luck. So I think

50:01

it is true in best of one We know it's

50:03

true because they've said in best of one like you're

50:05

opening hands not fully random They like draw multiple hands

50:07

and try to give you one where the amount of

50:10

lands you have matches the ratio in your deck Or

50:12

whatever and in that context

50:14

Maybe playing an extra land actually shifts the math

50:16

and so it would shift the math in some

50:18

way But I don't like it's a conspiracy like

50:21

that's just Wizards is up fun about it This

50:23

is how best of one works We try to

50:25

make sure people get functional hands if you don't

50:27

like it play best of three So maybe some

50:29

people like hear that stuff and

50:31

then they just run wild with it and

50:33

ends up being this huge Conspiracy when really

50:35

it's not it's just kind of this Straightforward

50:37

thing to make best of one a little

50:39

bit more playable for whatever people getting into

50:41

the game or whatever So I think I

50:43

wasn't it supposedly only an unranked that the

50:46

hand smoother works Oh, is it

50:48

really I wasn't it was all best of one,

50:50

but I could be wrong. Maybe it is only on rain best

50:52

of one Yeah, unranked best

50:54

of one is where I believe the

50:56

hand smoother and matchup pairings What

50:59

happened right? It's like they do give you pairings Where

51:02

like, you know the power level of your

51:04

deck, right? Yeah, if it's full of jank

51:06

They're gonna probably match you up with somebody

51:08

else that's full of jank But

51:11

this is all in the casual cues not in

51:13

the ranked cues Right, and

51:15

I think that makes sense for the casual

51:17

cues Why when right like if you're playing

51:19

the casual cues wouldn't you want to play

51:21

someone whose deck is roughly match with yours

51:23

and not? Like I'm playing to your s

51:25

per mid-range and you're playing some janky thing

51:27

with your new player experience cards Like it

51:29

seems like it's better in unranked that way

51:31

But I think it's those little things that

51:33

like people just run wild with and turn

51:36

to this big conspiracy theory when actually it's

51:38

just like An upfront conscious choice

51:40

to make the game better these next two

51:42

these next two or two if there any

51:44

on this list I might believe

51:46

it would be these two. So the next one

51:48

is Wizards intentionally prints

51:50

OP alchemy cards knowing that they'll have

51:52

to nerf them to suck wild cards

51:55

out of the player base What

51:58

do you think rim? I could see

52:01

half of that. Like

52:03

half of that. Like some of that. Like

52:05

the suck the wild cards out of you

52:07

thing. I don't know if

52:09

that's the game plan. I do think that they will just

52:12

print the most busted thing they can because it's

52:14

digital. They can easily or well I guess I

52:16

say easily but months after

52:18

a couple of months, six months or so they can

52:20

just errata it. But like

52:23

I do think that they do run

52:25

a little more wild with alchemy cards

52:27

because they can just patch it up

52:29

in a like a simple update. That's

52:32

kind of that's basically where I'm at. Like I

52:34

think this does happen but I only get the

52:36

conspiracy theory. I think it's more like

52:38

we have the flexibility to rebalance these cards which

52:41

we do in paper. So we

52:43

don't have to worry quite as much about getting

52:45

100% right the first time. We

52:48

can kind of just like put it out there and see how it goes

52:50

and then if we need to we can fix it later. I mean

52:53

honestly all of alchemy is probably to

52:55

drain wild cards out of the player

52:57

base. So maybe like the fact that

52:59

the format even exists is like a

53:01

financial thing. But that's how I kind of view this. I

53:03

think it is true that if

53:05

the cards couldn't be rebalanced they would probably

53:07

be lower powered. Some of the highest powered

53:09

alchemy cards. But because you can rebalance them

53:12

there's just not a reason to worry about

53:14

it too much. You might as well see

53:16

how it plays because it's really hard to

53:18

judge power level. Watch any of

53:20

my spoiler videos or Krim talking about cards during

53:22

spoiler season. Like Watsy's in that same

53:24

position. It's really difficult to judge the power level of

53:26

a card when you haven't got to play a million

53:28

games with it. And Watsy like has to do the

53:30

same thing when they're printing the cards. So

53:33

I think it kind of happens that alchemy

53:35

cards are overpowered. But I don't really think

53:37

it's like a conspiracy theory specifically to like

53:39

get wild cards out of people. What

53:42

about this one Krim? Wizards published Bad

53:44

Necklace on Magic.gg to try to make

53:46

the meta look more diverse than it

53:49

really is. So

53:51

I have a whole series based on

53:53

this. The Meme or Dream series where

53:55

you take decklists that Wizards publishes on

53:57

Magic.gg and try to like it. like

54:00

put them to the task and see if they actually could have

54:02

got six wins in a row or whatever. I

54:04

will say I'm like 99% sure I

54:06

know what happened here and that is I think

54:08

it was just bugged because we definitely have gotten

54:11

some deck lists that were like literally all basic

54:13

lands and they ended up getting published on the

54:15

page that says this got six wins in a

54:17

row or you know platinum rank or better. There's

54:20

no like it's not possible. There's no way

54:22

that all basic land deck actually won six

54:24

times in a row. But

54:26

I would also wear some really weird decks with

54:28

no sideboards and really weird janky decks. My

54:31

guess is there's two possibilities. The most likely one

54:33

is there was just a bug with them publishing

54:35

deck lists and it was pulling lists that it

54:37

shouldn't have pulled because it's gotten much better than

54:39

like the last year when they first launched this.

54:42

The decks were like really hit or miss. But now

54:44

if you look at the decks they're pretty much all reasonable

54:46

enough looking that I'm like alright I could probably get a

54:49

few wins in a row. So I

54:51

think that's the most likely thing is it was just

54:53

some sort of bug with how they were pulling deck

54:55

lists. But yeah

54:57

so I don't know what do you think Grim? Like was

54:59

there a conspiracy here or a bug or none

55:02

of the above? I mean

55:04

I think the only thing that would lean into that

55:06

it's like well why does Wizards care about you know

55:09

like websites showing like metadata and

55:11

percentages and stuff like that you

55:13

know because but like that's

55:16

about as much that I think could

55:18

feed into that. I

55:21

don't know if I actually think

55:23

that like it's intentional. I do think

55:25

that usually anything that happens on their

55:27

end. What's

55:33

that saying don't ascribe to malice what

55:35

could be incompetence or something like that.

55:38

That's just like wotty basically. Like

55:40

I always assume they're probably just messed it

55:42

up and they're not actually being malicious here.

55:46

But this could also be the funniest like most

55:49

that they are so good at

55:52

going under the radar they're like

55:54

oh I had no idea. Oops

55:57

I mean what I feel like

55:59

the motivation. and wouldn't be to make the

56:01

meta look more diverse. If there was gonna

56:03

be a motivation here, I would say if

56:06

I was a conspiracy theorist running LODZY, I

56:08

would try to publish lists that like, overrepresented

56:11

cards from like, the newest set that I'm trying

56:13

to sell to like, encourage people to buy those

56:15

cards. So I don't even think it makes that

56:17

like, what does Watsy really care about making the

56:20

meta look more diverse? I know we complain about

56:22

it on Twitter and so forth and on Reddit,

56:24

like, we like to complain about it, but in

56:26

the grand scheme of things, like Esper

56:28

being 15% or 10% of the meta, I

56:31

don't think it actually matters in like,

56:34

the big picture or to Watsy. So I don't know if that's

56:36

a motivation enough for them to try to do it, just to

56:38

like, make the meta look better. Yeah.

56:42

All right, last one. And

56:44

this one is interesting because it's actually

56:46

a carryover from a paper magic conspiracy

56:49

theory, but essentially, it's

56:51

hardest to open popular cards.

56:54

It's harder to open popular cards

56:56

from packs than unpopular ones. The

56:58

best rares and mythics somehow have

57:00

lower drop rates than like, the

57:02

bad rares and mythics. So if you open a pack, your

57:04

odds of getting a shield rid is lower

57:07

than getting whatever the jank mythic from the same

57:09

set is. You're more likely to get the bad

57:11

mythic. And I remember in paper, I

57:14

wanna say it was like, dismember. Do you remember?

57:16

Like, there was this big controversy about- Fetal push.

57:18

Fetal push, yeah, mythic uncommons, where like, fetal

57:20

push is actually way scarcer than it's supposed

57:22

to be, and it's like, actually the rate

57:24

of a mythic, and there are videos about

57:26

it in this huge thing. I'm

57:28

pretty sure that was not true either, but this

57:31

basically sounds like the same conspiracy theory to me,

57:33

like Wadzi somehow knows the best cards and makes

57:35

it harder to open them. Any

57:37

chance, Graham? I, of

57:40

the conspiracy theories, right? Of the conspiracy

57:42

theories, if I had to pick one

57:44

of these, it probably,

57:46

this one, I think is the one

57:48

that I understand more, right? Because-

57:50

Yeah. Because it's not so

57:53

much a conspiracy, but I think there is a

57:55

thing to it, right? Where the print

57:57

sheet, the way it's cut, right, and in the

57:59

packs. where the card sits, right?

58:01

Because, so right now, we just brought

58:03

up Fatal Push. Yep. Murders

58:06

at Markov or Karlov Manor, I think

58:09

that that's true of No More Lies. So

58:15

I got, okay,

58:17

so Watsy sent some

58:19

of the ambassadors, right? Yeah.

58:23

Some product. So I

58:25

think we got a collector's booster, a

58:27

set, like the play boosters, right? And

58:30

like boxes. And then on

58:32

top of that, I bought a box,

58:35

right, of just regular play boosters. In

58:39

those three boxes, I have opened one

58:41

No More Lies. Wow.

58:46

But at the same time, couldn't that just be

58:48

variants? It could be. That's always

58:50

the hard thing because that's always the argument I hear

58:52

people use for this, is like, oh, I opened five

58:54

boxes and only got two of these, or one of

58:56

these. And that could be pointing to

58:58

something, but it also could be like you just

59:01

kind of ran bad with your boxes. Yeah. It's

59:04

so hard to actually gather the data on

59:06

this. You'd have to be, I'd like to see

59:08

no data. There's no data. Or

59:11

if you have a big store, though, that opens

59:14

hundreds of boxes, maybe you could get

59:16

enough data to really figure it out from

59:18

there. I will say it doesn't

59:20

really apply to Arena, right? This is more

59:22

of a paper conspiracy theory because I

59:25

think what you're saying is right about the print

59:27

runs and sheets and how cards are printed

59:29

could have an impact on that. But none of

59:31

that actually applies to Arena. I imagine there's

59:33

no printing sheets on Arena. It just randomly generates

59:36

a card at the rate it's supposed to. So

59:38

I guess in theory, they could fiddle with

59:40

the numbers to make children scarcer than a normal

59:43

mythic or whatever. But again, I've

59:45

never seen evidence of that.

59:49

I've never seen evidence of that being possible on

59:51

Arena. The other problem

59:53

I have with this whole thinking is

59:55

I just don't think it's that easy

59:57

to predict the good cards. It's very

59:59

easy. easy to be like oh you know

1:00:01

shieldred there should be more of them printed or

1:00:03

it's so scarce but how did Wizards know that

1:00:06

shieldred was gonna be the banger when they were

1:00:08

printing the set or like look at Ledger Shredder

1:00:10

or Arclight Phoenix like these are cards that are

1:00:12

being the best cards in their sets that were

1:00:14

really slept on by the community and probably by

1:00:17

Wizards so Wizards wouldn't even know like when they

1:00:19

were printing the cards to like make Ledger Shredder

1:00:21

you know scarce or make Arclight Phoenix scarce or

1:00:23

make that one of the super rare ones so

1:00:25

I think like the logic of it kind of

1:00:27

doesn't doesn't line up because I just don't think

1:00:30

WotC can predict what cards are gonna be good

1:00:32

like they didn't know that Feliadar Guardian was gonna

1:00:34

be a combo piece when we printed it until

1:00:36

it was out there like so I just don't

1:00:38

think it's that easy for WotC to know what

1:00:40

cards are gonna be good when they're making this

1:00:42

that yeah I fully agree with

1:00:44

that too like yeah like that it's hard to

1:00:46

predict that anyway

1:00:48

that is our list of Magic Arena

1:00:50

conspiracy theories I think we did a

1:00:52

pretty good job of debunking most of

1:00:54

them curious what y'all think

1:00:57

though if you're watching this what do you think

1:00:59

about these conspiracy theories what do we miss are

1:01:01

there any arena conspiracy theories that you're actually a

1:01:03

believer in and you just you know you can't

1:01:05

get away from definitely let us know in the

1:01:07

comments and I believe this brings us to the

1:01:10

end of episode 476 of

1:01:12

the MTD Goldfish podcast so no fish mail this

1:01:15

week if you got in question send it in

1:01:17

for next week hashtag MTD fish mail

1:01:19

MTD Goldfish on Twitter thanks for hanging out

1:01:21

Grim thanks to card conduit for supporting the

1:01:24

show thanks to everyone for listening and we'll

1:01:26

be back next week to talk about whatever

1:01:28

goes out in the world of magic so

1:01:30

until then have an amazing week and this

1:01:33

is the crew signing out