Hey everyone!

I was planning on writing about Modern, but I haven't played the format in about a month.

Modern is my favorite format to play because we have a booming local scene. We also have an abundance of Modern SCG Opens and Grand Prixs in the midwest and I have an advantage focusing on that one format.

Last month I entertained playing Modern at my LGS. As the day of the event drew closer it became clear that it was not only a bad idea, but highly unlikely the tournament would fire at all. Paper Magic events will be suspended for at least a couple months. It would be downright reckless to play.

This might not be a radical change for some of you, but I spend most of my life at a desk. Magic is most fun for me when I get to leave the office and have face-to-face interaction. I prefer to shuffle a deck of cards. It's what I've known for over twenty years.

COVID-19 has forced me to adapt. I began working from home and am getting used to it. Most of my Finance team members were not used to working from home either. I'm in quarantine at my mom's house and I haven't left for weeks. It's strange how quickly we can adapt to new circumstances.

I'm adapting how I play Magic, too. I still have to blow off steam after work. To keep myself engaged with the game I downloaded Arena.

The reason I chose to spend my time playing Arena over Magic Online is because I think it's the way of the future. WOTC has been quick to adapt to the lack of paper events by quickly putting together Grand Prixs on Arena. I am always quick to judge if something seems wrong, but they have been very nimble in these trying times. Kudos to them.

Since Arena doesn't have a secondary market it's important to have your own cards. I can't borrow a deck to play a tournament that would qualify me for an important event. This is a key difference from Magic Online.

I had a difficult time playing paper Standard because the local crowd wasn't interested in investing in rotating formats. It's hard to blame them because following Modern and Pioneer is difficult enough. Something has to give. Standard is very fun though and I always regret not playing.

The opportunity cost of playing Arena for me is spending little to no time playing paper Magic. I only have so much time each week allotted to Magic. Since I'm not skipping paper events to grind Arena there is less at stake.

Getting started was daunting for me. I had no clue how difficult it would be to acquire a deck to begin the grind. Was I getting hooked into a commitment that would cost me thousands of dollars? I had no idea and just needed to dive in to learn.

The first thing I did in the game was beat the computer with all five monochromatic preconstructed decks. I played five games with each deck and went 25-0. You get to keep the five decks and each game won provides a few cards to upgrade. This didn't cost me any money to get this far.

Since I can borrow cards from friends for tournaments, it's fun to build up a new collection from scratch. It has been decades since I've been in this position so I have been more mindful of the rarity of cards in each deck.

Next I went online and searched for redemption codes for packs. There are codes for free packs that were the most interesting to help get me started.

Since Arena isn't new at this point I asked a friend for guidance on how to tackle this new way of playing. Brian Demars was an early adopter of Arena and had plenty of insight.

I have spent under $100 on Arena so far. I was able to buy some introductory gem offers for purchasing packs. Through opening those packs and my redemption code packs there were enough wild cards to assemble a budget Mono-Red deck:

Mono-Red | THB Standard | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (25)
• 3 Bonecrusher Giant
• 3 Rimrock Knight
• 3 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 4 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
• 4 Fervent Champion
• 4 Grim Initiate
• 4 Scorch Spitter

• Instants (3)
• 3 Shock

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Lava Coil
• 4 Light up the Stage

• Artifacts (3)
• 3 Embercleave

• Lands (23)
• 21 Mountain
• 2 Castle Embereth

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I have been focusing on the BO1 ladder and practice games to earn daily rewards.

My end goal isn't to play Mono-Red so I have not fully fleshed out the deck. It happens to be an easy deck to assemble, but there's little overlap if you want to play other Standard strategies. I need enough rares to win games, but not enough to take down a tournament.

The only mythic rares in my deck are three Embercleaves. They are very powerful, but drawing two isn't useful. I have been happy with three of the equipment and save my other mythic wildcards.

Robber of the Rich is another Mythic I could play, but it's weaker in BO1 as the metagame is far more aggressive. Shock and Bonecrusher Giant can deal with it easily. Mono-Red is popular as it is one of the easiest good decks to build.

I opted to only redeem two Castle Embereth as most games don't drag out that long in BO1. I would prefer to have four, but it's not a necessity. Mono-Red is fast, but the mid game is incredibly powerful. I typically spend the mid game casting Embercleave, Torbran, and Anax. I miss the extra castles in games where Anax tokens are the last creatures standing.

Fervent Champion is worth the rare redemption because most decks focus on casting 1-drops. First strike is valuable when a bunch of small creatures are running into each other. It also helps enable Light up the Stage.

Lava Coil is a concession to the popularity of the mirror match. I can exile Anax and Torbran for two mana which is a pretty good deal.

I made the mistake of using some uncommon wild cards to redeem sideboard slots. Since I would be focusing on BO1 it wasn't a good use of resources. My incentives are very different on Arena compared to Paper and MTGO so I expect to spew some value along the way.

As I played ranked BO1 Standard it became clear the metagame exists at various steps of the ladder. If everyone begins with Mono-Red then the players with success should have a good matchup against fast creatures. I faced numerous Rakdos Sacrifice decks that crush Red.

Since I played Pokemon Go I was familiar with the daily tasks to grind value. The games go quickly with Mono-Red so I can cast 20 creatures or whatever the daily objective happens to be. Sometimes I need to cast 20 or 30 non-Red spells so I flesh out the other monochromatic decks as I open packs.

You can earn packs by accruing experience and gold. A pack can be purchased for 1,000 gold or enter a draft for 5,000 gold. The daily incentives for playing get me a couple packs per day.

When I buy gems I've been using them recently to enter drafts. Magic Online made me feel like I didn't enjoy drafting, but the real issue was the cost. I can buy 1,600 gems for $10 and a draft only costs 750. That's at least two drafts for ten bucks; you can't beat that. The more wins you get in the draft the higher the gem prize at the end.

There are a maximum of seven games to play in a draft and you play until three games are lost. As long as you can win five games before losing three you are well on the way to running back a new draft.

Each draft gives you at least one pack as a reward to build up your wild card collection. A pack opened counts toward earning wild cards of all rarities.

Best of One Theros draft has been a blast. I wasn't sure how the hand-smoothing algorithm would affect my deck construction so the first few drafts were learning experiences. Since the expected hand would contain three lands I thought it would make sense to play sixteen, but that was not the case. Since both players would have smooth draws it meant I faced many grindy scenarios. I wanted more top-end effects and that required more lands. In the end I am settling on playing a default seventeen lands just like in Best of Three, but for different reasons.

I have played about twenty Theros drafts so far and found Green to be by far the best color. Since the games grind out it's easy for a creature with escape to be the last threat standing. I have won a few drafts and all of them had Green. Most of the other drafts where I got close to winning contained Green, too.

Black has been the ideal pair with Green because there are plenty of common removal spells.

Surprisingly I have been very happy playing a single Wings of Hubris. Flying is strong in Theros Limited and pairs very well with Loathsome Chimera.

I was also happy with a Gruul deck I recently drafted. The two-drops were mana accelerants to help cast the big threats. It felt very good in BO1 since I'm likely to hit my land drops.

It's nice that the bots seem to be picking rares highly so each deck won't have many. Getting passed bomb rares is nice, but I prefer playing games that are decided by commons and uncommons.

Limited has been downplayed recently and it's nice to get to draft often without a large cash investment. I have been focusing on Constructed for the last couple of years so this is a breath of fresh air. I'm excited to draft Ikoria this week.

Since I already have the Red deck built there isn't much point in building something new before Ikoria shakes up the Standard metagame. By the time top Arena grinders help solidify the metagame I will need different cards than I do today.

I expect Ikoria to have a large impact on Standard given the three color wedge theme. We already have Jeskai Fires, Bant/Sultai Midramp, Temur Flash/Reclamation without the new tri-lands. Many Standard decks will be able to take advantage of the new gold cards.

Since I expect to do many Ikoria drafts I want to see what cards I open before investing any wild cards. This will give the metagame time to settle when I choose what deck I want to play next.

That's all I have this week. COVID has turned everyone's lift upside down, but that gives us a chance to challenge our routines.

Give Arena a try!

-Kyle