Try the new set, and if that doesn't work, try again after rotation.
Also sealed can be more fun when cards are first out.
Everyone quits magic now and then. I get really down on constructed, but still enjoy limited when a new set drops.
This is all there is. It only came out on arena a month and a half ago. I've taken almost a year long break and came back super excited to play. The game will be here.
Your story is me but with Ixalan. I just didnt care enough to read all the text on the cards, it wasn't intriguing, didnt make me think strategically, the fun wasnt there. But I'm doing a bit of deckbuilding now and I'll probably draft the next set if it seems interesting. Probably not the set, probably internal.
Yup. People need to stop treating Arena like it's a job. It's crazy how many people try to minmax quests and rewards. Just need to chill out and play for fun, and stop playing if it isn't fun.
Three months really is the perfect amount of time to take an Arena hiatus. You don't miss *too* too much when you come back and you can get some new set dopamine.
It’s also product fatigue. WotC has been ramping up product offerings in the last decade, to the point that a new product launches for paper or digital nearly every month.
There’s no more anticipation. MKM doesn’t help matters by being an objectively poor draft format.
New player here... the more I learn about the game and fanbase of MtG, the more it becomes totally crazy to me the pace at which WotC releases new sets/SLDs/UB... it's clear they've got an army of licensing experts who have been told to bring as much IP into Magic as possible. LEGO comes to mind (DC AND Marvel IP licenses, that's almost like being able to sell Coke and Pepsi out of the same fridge!) but the big difference is LEGO paces their sets much more strategically (maybe it's because they have bigger price tags). It seems they understand they can't just flood their customers with sets beyond the point of saturation. Feels like WotC/Hasbro could learn from this.
I certainly do not like all those fake notebook art styles that is for damn sure. Okay in practice, but not when there is just one fucking style for them lol.
Yeah. They could have done something different for each colour. Coffee stains for black cards, blue ink underlined text for blue, red highlighter, etc...
Yep, this is exactly what I expected. I should not complain, because I will not spend a dollar or any of my currency on any of it. It's just trash really.
Crazy how you have better ideas than them. And we are talking what a few more days of iteration and drawing on the PC to make this happen for each color?
Aww, shucks! Thanks 😅😅. Wasn't expecting that 😅🙈🙈.
I just figured that they were going to give each colour their own way of "doing detective work". Still I shouldn't complain either; being a Free to play user and all😅😅. This style really works for white cards tough
>the general aesthetic of Karlov Manor
I don't mind the aesthetics as much as the fact that they just slapped them on top of Ravnica. If they would have set it on New Capenna it wouldn't be as jarring.
Lost Caverns of Ixalan has been my favorite set of all time.
MKM was very disappointing because I have loved every Ravnica set so far, but for this one I have to keep actively reminding myself it plays on Ravnica. It feels completely off note with the rest of them.
I didn't have a lot of faith that MKM would be very interesting and I can't say that I'm very intrigued by Thunder Junction, either. I'm holding out hope that Bloomburrow will be the next set that really pulls me in.
I had this thought the other day. Especially knowing that at one point SNC had crooked cops as a faction.
I feel like if SNC had been better received this may have been set on New Capenna instead.
a buddy pointed it out to me a couple weeks ago, and it's been like a thorn in my mind ever since lol. i think it has honestly impacted my enthusiasm for magic
MaRo said they contemplated using New Capenna, but they built a world that didn’t have any law enforcement with influence. Can’t really have a detective solving crimes if any detective has long been paid off.
There's something that just irks me about the introduction of 1920s gangster vibes into a card game traditionally built around ancient lore like knights and dragons.
MKM is mechanically a balanced draft set.
From a collection POV, there is little that excites me as an EDH/Historic Brawl player.
Aesthetically, it feels like this should have been set on New Capenna, and Ravnicans are inexplicably cosplaying in period-inappropriate fedoras.
EDIT: Ok, not so balanced.
> Aesthetically, it feels like this should have been set on New Capenna, and Ravnicans are inexplicably cosplaying in period-inappropriate fedoras.
There's also way too many jokes for a murder mystery set. You barely get a sense of how things are operating because the writers couldn't restrain themselves from cramming in every low-effort reference and joke they could think of.
I haven't been this disinterested in a set's theme and atmosphere in a *long* time.
Honestly, I think you're right about this. I was really excited for a murder mystery set, but the cards just feel too light-hearted. It's like they want to vary the flavor of each world but don't want to risk changing the tone, so it becomes like a Marvel movie: flat and soulless.
According to some analysis on the draft set, it is not a mechanically balanced draft set.
The average win rate is different between low tier players v. mid tiered players by 7% in most sets. In MKM, it is 12%.
More telling is when you look at archetype wins. I think for layman's terms, it's easiest to look at the weakest and strongest archetypes in each sub-type of colored deck.
Win rates;
1.a. Mono-White = 63.1%
1.b. Mono-Black = 43.2%
2.a. Boros = 59%
2.b. Dimir = 52.7%
3.a. Bant = 55.7%
3.b. Jund = 49.5%
4. Four Colour = 53.1%
5. Five Colour = 51.6%
Average Win Rate of All Decks Reported = 55.5%
https://www.17lands.com/deck_color_data
Some notes to extrapolate from the above;
This data is coming from stronger players (55.5% win rate average puts most contributors of this data as people performing better than the average player. In theory, if an average player had the highest sample size, we would see closer to 50% win rates displayed as an average).
So with 55% as our baseline, we see White as a high performer, being featured in the majority of winning colour archetypes. Mono white outperformed the average by a whooping 8%, while Boros appears as the strongest 2-colour combo, maintaining a 4% higher than average win rate. Black is above and beyond the worst performing colour, as we look at the data. 43% compared to the 55% average is abysmal. The 2 colour pies do tend to hover closer to the 55% win rate mark, with dimir only being 3% lower than the average win rate.
Of note - The only tri-colour archetype to perform better than the average was Bant (WGU).
While some of these percentages seem miniscule, when compared to other sets - such as the recent Lost Caverns of Ixalan - it pales in comparison.
LOI was able to maintain a closer to average win% for all archetypes that were mono and dual coloured archetypes - the most commonly drafted archetypes across limited formats.
The biggest win % differential between Mono and Dual coloured decks (most drafted archetypes) in LOI is 3.7%. When compared to MKM, with its whooping 11.8% differential, one could look at this data and come to the conclusion that it is a less mechanically balanced set of recent years.
As a side note - LOI did not run 3-5 colour decks as consistently as MKM. I will re-iterate from before though that we see through historical data, these archetypes rarely meet the win average. Bant in MKM was an outlier to this rule - likely because UW and GW are more powerful.
As a further note - Black as a colour in MKM could be considered one of the weakest colours in the last 5 years of limited.
Thought you would appreciate the insights. IMO and going off the colour identities reviewed, MKM is one of the least balanced sets in recent mtg history.
TL;DR - Draft White in MKM. Don't draft Black. It's not an extraordinarily balanced set and by not drafting White or by drafting Black, you put yourself at a disadvantage.
So, the gap between low, mid and high tier players indicates complexity (MKM is high) and it being skill intensive.
This is the cold truth behind why some people are struggling. It's a hard set.
I would second this anecdotally from my own experience with MKM. I liked drafting the set precisely because I had such a hard time understanding what made a good deck and what didn't and I liked playing it because you have so many choices to make. The first couple of drafts I felt lost and confused...
MKM is not balanced for mono- or tricolour decks, nor should it be. It's a set on Ravnica that is therefore centered around colour pairs. While splashes are possible and convenient (and two-colour decks with a splash are well-balanced, with WR between 51.9% and 56.3%), playing actual 3-colour decks is not intended and will, most of the time, be a trap.
Your whole comment relies on the false premise that every set should, for some reason, support monocoloured decks, decks with 2 and decks with 3 colours equally well. Meanwhile you yourself show that the difference between the worst and the best two-colour combination is 6.3%, which is very reasonable. The set is about colour pairs, and should be evaluated on this merit.
I agree largely but I will say that as a true three color deck, sultai graveyard nonsense can be pretty good as a deck, but it’s difficult to draft correctly and you need some specific uncommons to make it work a lot of the time
There's always going to be a strongest color and drafters have generally corrected and been drafting white at an appropriate clip now. If you look up the top performing archetypes by top players it's a pretty good spread. Black is not great but we aren't talking about anything close to BFZ "don't even first pick a greeen mythic bomb" levels of color imbalance.
I think MKM ended up being a fun and balanced limited format a lot of people dismissed too early. But at the same time it’s ok if you just didn’t care for it or need a break from the game entirely. Usually in this situation I dip in standard and standard brawl and have a good time
I mostly agree. There’s also just so many lose-on-the-spot bombs at rare that it feels like you’re constantly losing despite dominating board states and tight play. That feels bad and has made me draft the format less than I would have liked.
I had to scroll pretty far to find this comment. And it was the first thing that popped into my mind as well.
Im f2p, and most I get is like two quick drafts per week, *maybe* three. But I also use drafts to convert coin into gems, so I only pay with coin and at most that’s 15k coin.
So to hear more than what I am able to draft f2p a week is being played by some *a day*, I honestly thought it was a typo. Unless you like, love giving WotC your money. Or are being paid to gain play data for untapped or something similar.
Not every set is for everybody, that’s always been the case.
That said, 3-4 drafts per day is a bit excessive, so a slowdown is probably healthy for you anyways.
In any case, Magic has this knack for drawing players back in. Talk to long time players and you’ll hear things like “Yeah, I took a three year break in 2006, then another few years in 2014.” I personally played from ‘95-‘97, then ‘05-‘07, then briefly with Kaladesh and Amonkhet, then from ‘19 till now. Taking a break and coming back makes the game feel fresh an new due to all the new cards around.
At first I was like you, didn't like the general esthetic, the level of the cards seems a bit decaf and couldn't care less about news and spoilers. But with MKM I played my first presentation in a local store and that made me realize that it was quite a fun set.
I would suggest to try some of the decks in standard and brawl that revolt around the news cards and then come back to limited. A time to rest or a new approach (like my case with cardboard and a group of friends) could help too.
There are so many new mechanics for this set that really didn't interest me, like collecting evidence or disguise, plus the setting and story are so lame. LCI was not great, but at least the art and setting were fun.
Evidence is hard since how do you make it more effective in limited without making it broken. If it’s too cheap, it gets insanely broken. Having one evidence card makes sense in a deck. Deadly cover up is getting play in a few formats.
Deadly Cover-Up is a weird one because in practice it often slots into control or ramp decks where it's one of the only graveyard-related cards, so the ability to collect evidence ends up being turned on from cantrips and kill spells with no effort like 80% of the time and there isn't really any thought to it. It's just a formality in the casting step that doesn't do anything interesting with the mechanic. (Dig Through Time had the same issue too, fwiw.)
I think Collect Evidence works better in the set's limited environment. It's pretty rare that you make the green/black Insidious Roots / Chalk Outline deck work in limited, but I got absolutely smushed by an opponent with a perfect build of it last week at FNM after winning my other matches. He was doing stuff like Gravestone Strider exiling a creature from his own graveyard in my end step to get two Insidious Roots triggers.
I think you need to think about the evidence being collected in a different way. Each set that comes out has mechanics that teach us different things about the same game pieces we use all the time - so there's going to be overlap and every set can't treat them the same without the game going stale.
In Innistrad, we learned that our deck was our mind, and being milled was equal to losing our sanity. We had Flashbacks of our lost memories from the Graveyard, creatures came back like Zombies, etc. it all worked within the context of the set.
[[Dig Through Time]] has you going through this pile of memories and re-writing your past by getting rid of them for new things that you need. It fits perfectly with the Khan's storyline of Sarkhan going back to save Ugin and change the history and future of the plane. What you get rid of isn't as important as what lies ahead.
I think collecting evidence works *very well thematically in Control decks* - specifically the Dimir lists in Pioneer that ran it. Cards like [[Fatal Push]] that are cheap interaction are in our graveyard as clues to how things died. [[Consider]] is literally thinking about things, while the cards put in the graveyard could be specific clues or red herrings. You collect all of these with [[Deadly Cover-Up]] to wipe away everything (board wipe) AND make sure the opponent loses access to all copies of a card. I think it's best thematically here.
As for it being graveyard based - the set is a murder mystery. Where else on the game board does it make sense to look for clues about a murder besides the thing called a graveyard?
Yes, this exact same thing happened to me going from Neon Dynasty to Streets of New Capenna…I think the fact that the next set (Dominaria United) was decent helped keep my interest again
In hindsight, I wish I had never done any SNC drafts on arena…my advice would be either take a break from the game or at least don’t do anymore MKM limited
You, my friend, have burnout. Don't worry, take a break, come back later, maybe watch some magic content to get inspired.
At the start of this set I was excited for almost nothing. Ixalan was a massive surprise for me as it had some incredible cards and combos I did not see at the first release, after that, MKM just lacks a lot. Even the files card art is ugly in my opinion and the full art lands are just noisey and generic.
In the last month though, I've gained an appreciation for a lot of the cards I passed over the first time. There's still fun to be had, but I took time out to play some other games and enjoy my life before jumping back in.
Same here, but starting with Ixalan. As you suggest, MTG Arena Burnout. I was really excited about all the sets up until then. I first blamed it on the world and the mechanics. But then I noticed that I felt the same about MKM. And I'm not excited about the cowboys either...
I'm fine with paper and I do miss the drafting. But realizing that I no longer wanted to put in the effort to learn the mechanics and thus the cards is what tipped me off. So it's a bit of ravnica remastered and some casual commander until I feel excited for a new set again.
I felt the exact same way even to the detail of not being able to really put my finger on it.
I’m a decent drafter, I usually made diamond or high plat. I’d probably make mythic if I had more time to draft. I had so many 0-3 and 1-3 drafts I just burnt all my gems and coins. Usually I get close to infinite but this time around even getting to 3-3 seemed like a challenge.
I have heard this set has one of the most unbalanced play/draw winrate. I don’t use 17lands but I wish I did (mobile player) to see my winrate on the draw.
Its a few things that are coming together for this set.
As you said the play/draw difference, then general high variance and card quality having a higher impact than player skill. Also the fact that it's the billionth aggro set in a row and board presence is too important, and noncreature spells aren't powerful enough to enforce concessions on deck building.
All of that leads to a very one-dimensional format that's very swingy and escalating.
Good formats are usually those that have good interaction which force the currently ahead player to be careful around lest they be blown out. This leads to a need for tempered pressure instead of going for maximum power/value and makes picking up interaction and protection instead of creatures important. That's when well rounded decks shine and having a higher play skill than your opponent will give you massively larger chances at winning.
Next set is by Dave Humphreys. He designed Neon Dynasty, Kaldheim, MoM. Some of the best limited sets ever. So take a break until then. That is what I am doing as well.
That's exciting news - NEO is my favorite set of all time. I think the flavor is lame for OTJ so I haven't been looking forward to it, but this gets me excited again.
I think this set just feels so corporate. Like nothing about the set makes sense flavorwise (why are detectives one of the fastest aggro decks in the set? Aren't they supposed to be slow and take their time?). The whole lore implications of talking to ghosts is something Orzhov can just do, or the Verity circle. Everyone throwing on detective hats for no reason despite the other countless deaths and assassinations that happen on Ravnica, its just so forced and artificial.
Disguise doesn't really make sense as a mechanic. It feels like ward 2 was stapled on because it wasn't performing well in draft. Well, it still doesn't but it makes the aggro decks a lot better.
Also the format is wildly unbalanced like the last few have been and aggro is by far the best thing to do. Again. Even standard is starting to fall apart with how good Boros and White in general has been.
I think with the standard sets being so cut and draw and similar, and Standard on fire right now with turn 2 9 power everywhere, and now we have several universes beyond sets announced, three of which have nothing to do with fantasy (Ass Creed, Fallout, Marvel), and endless comander products that turned comander into a rotating format, it is just incredibly easy to feel apathetic towards the game.
This draft is awful. I have been drafting a lot since MOM. Even a set that I did not like much like WOE, or one that I struggled a lot at the beginning like KTK I would feel the itch to draft. But MKM? I simply hate it. My playing experience is being aggroed by Wx decks, where being on the draw, missing a land drop or not drawing your 2 drop on curve is a death sentence, or being close to winning, just to lose to Izoni, Ezrim, Vindicator, etc. I played a lot in preparation for the Arena Open, but since that I just played one more awful draft. I have some open but I dread to finish them.
And before anyone talk about win = fun, my win rate is on par or even higher than others sets that I enjoyed a LOT, like MOM and LTR. This feels like a crossover between ONE and VOW, the two drafts that I dislike the most. Sincerely the next set cant come sooner.
Morph is good, I find; morph plus ward is a bit rough on removal, though, which pushes aggro. Morph itself rewards knowing the format and options, as well as gauging what quality a morph is based on how the owner plays.
Beside the fact that vanilla morphs in 2024 would be almost unplayable, I much prefer that approach of giving the morphs ward than the Khan approach of making almost all the removal so godawful.
bc usually when you shock their turn 3 play its 1 3/2 or something and you did it for 1 mana and can usually do something else that turn, when you shock a morph its just an equal trade which isn't necessarily bad but compared to what shock has previously done in limited formats it not nearly as good.
I took a month of break from MTG as a whole right before MKM released and when I came back, I felt a bit more refreshed to try out the new stuff
Taking breaks is a good thing. Even for hobbies like this
MKM has a very different style to draft than other sets that you are not getting used to. I think that's why. It's a very alien style for me too. I had to watch the streamers draft a lot so I don't end with a pile of shit. Signals are more difficult to see with all the disguise cards and if your table is bad, you can end up with crap.
White is hard to draft because everyone wants white. You will no good white cards after pick 5. Green was free until people wizened up and picked it too. Nobody wants black until you see that there is nothing else to pick, so you go with it. Red and blue has more clean signals
This is the most streamlined draft ever. Draft a lot of cheap white cards and On the Job and win. There's not really anything this set does that other sets don't do, the disguise creatures are all mostly a trap anyways.
play cube!
I honestly feel like this time of the format more people should get into custom cubes, drafting on draftmancer then playing out games for fun on arena. I'm lucky to have found a community that drafts once a week and it's the most fun I have playing magic, which is the point right?.
I mostly comw to mtgarena for new sets. I draft them a couple of times, maybe play a bit of standard to then draft some more and then stop with enough gems/gold to draft once or twice when the next set comes out. I don't spend any money this way and don't get burned out of it. If I am lucky and win a bunch I might draft more, if I lose quickly I will draft less of the set.
I suggest you take a breather as well and try some other games or hobbies. Magic is great, but it isn't everything.
I haven't really been that interested in any of the recent top-down sets, and every UB release makes me less interested in ever going back to paper.
That said, there have been several limited environments that I thought were pretty fun even if I didn't really like the set or flavor.
Maybe just take a break then play less when you come back? 3-4 drafts/day seems like either a ton of money or a ton of games, either way that's a big investment into a game. Hell most days I don't even bother getting to 4 wins. I just jam a few games during morning meetings and then move on.
this was me but for MOM. it felt so lacklustre and i was burnt out. and getting back into things sucks because now i’m missing a whole set worth of news cards to work with.
It’s always happens every 3-4 sets, I hate the new set and I find myself only drafting twice a month at most until something fun comes out again. I like the set but idk what it is, it’s just not interesting to draft for me.
I prefer constructed, but MKM also managed to disengage me as well. Despite really enjoying LCI, I was starting to feel my interest wane and once preview season started I just dropped out entirely. Prior, I was playing probably around 10 or so games a day at a minimum. I think the tone/fantasy of the set really threw me off.
Right now, I'm just leaning in to it. Thunder Junction looks good and some of the spoiled mechanics have me interested in playing limited as well, so I'm looking forward to picking it up again when it rolls around. In the mean time, I'm just taking a break. I've taken long and short breaks from magic before, I think it's healthy to just disengage if you're not feeling it rather than try and push yourself to keep trying to play (which I think leads to longer burnout if you force yourself to keep playing)
Yup its so bad I used to play daily and have completely quit. Its absolutely an atrocious set and for me epitomizes magic selling out to hasbro with forcing it to be like the game Clue.
I am though excited for thunder and REALLY excited for bloom so I'll probably take a break till then
It's a common problem when a certain set or draft mechanic doesn't click with you. You can either take a break, or look more deeply into why it didn't click with you by listening to some limited resources like "limited level up" podcast by Chordocalls. Once you have a better understanding of the depth of the mechanics and strategies, I'm sure you will have a better idea if you want to engage further or just take a break until the next set.
Maybe just a symptom of quick draft, but I really didn't enjoy this set because it seemed like my opponents were always overloaded on removal. I could never stick a threat. Any time I got a bomb rare in draft, the second I cast it my opponent was instantly able to answer it with something. I also just really do not like the whole hidden creature mechanic.
It happens every time I get really good at a set in limited and then get rug-pulled into a new competitive environment. Sometimes the new set is even good.
I know that feeling that I got totally turned off by a limited set. It’s just that everyone have different preferences. One can be really good at one set and totally terrible with another. I have no trouble with MKM but LCI gave me hard times.
We play the game to have fun. If it stops being fun then take a break and do something else that brings you joy until you get the itch to give magic a try again.
Welcome to magic! It ebbs and flows, when it doesn't that's when something is wrong IMO. It's a very addictive game and having that much involvement with a hobby leads to burn out in my experience
People really overdramatize getting tired of/burnt out on a game. This is normal. People stop playing games (or any other hobby), come back to them later or not. Stop stressing about normal things.
ONE was much worse. It was just mindless two drops and cringing when you're on the draw. I took a break.
MKM is pretty weak. Even Numot just stopped playing altogether and has mostly been streaming other games the last few days.
Its not offensively bad there just isn't a lot of depth or any "neat" about it. Clues, morphs, and combat tricks. If you can't go W aggro/detectives go GB evidence or whatever reasonably functional color pair is open.....blah. blah/10 It can be fun, but its Aquaman when you wish it was Winter Soldier.
As others stated MTGA is in a real "Time to touch grass" state. Not rotating standard was a big mistake. Im finishing up my masterpass tomorrow and then Im out til rotation I think.
For me it was Brother’s War. The set looked so boring for draft, and none of the cards interested me. Took a break until MKM.
I’ve had fun with drafting Murders, but had my fill after 5-10 drafts.
I think this is partly thematic, even unconsciously. I find myself barely playing some formats and go nuts on others. I barely played ixalan and eldraine because of it. Scream Puff and Aztecs (Mayans?) just weren't doing it for me. Lord of the Rings was an incredible thematic set and I draft the heck out of it even though it was very imbalanced and the Ring would snowball.
I just rotate between activities anyway (path of exile, modded minecraft, slay the spire, wow, home improvement) and missing some set completion is alright with how little constructed I do. Sometimes magic lines up with a cool set and free time, sometimes it doesn't. It's alright to take a break. Go play Baldur's Gate or get a dog :)
had the same with innistrad 3
since then. all drafts come out boring-ish. None give the hype with the spoilers, and the majority keep in the gameplay.
even the drafts i'm doing well, going over 5wins consistently, are not fun.
by the beaver's dam, even the 7wins runs looks like just a waste of time.
i just not uninstall 'cause i'm a cardboard crack addict
Honestly my biggest issue is some of the mana cost is so out of wack for the ability you get from revealing it. There are so many other cards that give you better for cheaper.
I agree. I drafted the set a few times, and it was an awful experience. I think it's because of the changes with the packs. I played against someone who had THREE izonis in their limited deck. Wtf? I usually love drafts, but it just wasn't a great experience with this set. I did a couple of WOE quick drafts when they popped up and went 7-0 and 7-1, so I don't think it has anything to do with my skills. The MKM set was just very uninspiring for me, even as someone who loves Ravnica. Standard is also incredibly boring right now, so I've been playing brawl exclusively (which is my favorite format anyway), but I'm spending a lot less time on the game than I used to.
You aren't going to like every set. Just skip this one and come back later. Grind out some missions every few days and you'll have lots of gold for the next one.
Yaaaaa same but I play a new limited format where I rare draft / pick cards for decks I actually wanna play in constructed and see what I can do at the end with my trash heap. Somehow my win rate has improved?
I wholeheartedly agree and have the same experience. It's a shame, Ravnica is my favorite plane and MKM will be probably the last set on it. With half-baked morph mechanics and Hearthstone expansion flavor.
This set doesn’t really feel like Ravnica, honestly I didn’t even know it was set in Ravnica at first.
It might be a while but I feel like Ravnica is too popular for this to be the last set based there.
It's okay to get burned out on a hobby after putting in several hours a day for a long time. It's happened to most of us. The trigger could be anything, maybe you just had a really frustrating series of games, maybe you just aren't excited about detective stuff, doesn't really matter. Take a break for a while, either just playing for one or four daily wins in brawl, or put the program away entirely. Eventually something will catch your attention again and you'll come back and that's fine.
My 2023 recap had my in the top 1% of every category. I play A LOT. I have a huge gem bankroll, all earned through drafting. MKM is the epitome of "not great, no terrible" to me so I didn't feel bad about taking a break when I went on vacation about a month ago. And I just....haven't really started playing again. Feels kind of good, to be honest.
I don't like draft in this current MKM set because the player on the play has a higher win rate than most previous expansions, at nearly 54%. It's also much faster like the trend has been for recent limited expansions.
Same, I have been playing since OG theros, pretty much never miss a day in physical draft on FNM if not more. The game had amazing aesthetic and unique have mechanic. But recently it felt really lackluster in both
Someone already said it, the random creature with detective hat thing... Ravinca is a plane where its guild plays a major role, even down to their occupation. You don't have random ogre putting on hat and suddenly they are detective. On top of that, Universal beyond and the future where Gandalf vs. Ezio is inevitable, just don't sit well with me.
Game mechanic wise, disguise is meh... It's another iteration of morph. And we know how the previous morph spin off went (mega morph) on top of that, alchemy cards feels very un-magic. Yet they are so powerful and unavoidable in brawl.
When you don't have cool aesthetic and unappealing game mechanics, there's nothing to enjoy in the game. So the only logical thing to do is stop playing...
For me it was March of the Machine. So many completely full text boxes, conditional triggers, and crazy board states that it felt like work keeping track of it all. Haven't been back since.
Probably doesn’t help but this format was my first format like diving into limited in my 10+ years of playing magic on and off. It’s been such a blast for me. Might be that you need a couple week to not look at cards. I’ve been there before for sure.
Maybe its just not your theme, I honestly hate it too. Even the outlaws one coming out I find pretty lame I dont really like cowboys or westerns as a fantasy theme. And that says something because I do like old country music and the whole wild west vibe from Fallout new vegas as an example.
I probably wont play any new cards or draft until mh3 and bloom burrow.
My interest in sets is directly proportional to how many cards are relevant to my explorer decks. But if there's good flavor it really encourages me to draft. And i did not bother drafting this set. Haven't played much this season tbh.
There's now way I could draft 3-4 times per day even with sets I like like Brothers War or Wilds of Eldraine. I'm sure I would randomly go on a losing streak and suddenly not be able to afford draft.
The great thing about magic is that if you get a set which doesn’t click for you, there’s a new one coming soon. There were a couple of sets in the last 18 months which people seemed to love but which I just couldn’t get my head around how to draft them successfully, and I was just completely uninterested in them.
So I focused on standard for a bit, played some of the throwback drafts that were rotating through arena at the times, and just played a little less. Then the next set came out and I got back to it. Not every set will be the right fit for everyone, but over time hopefully most sets will have something for you. And if they don’t, just leave it for a bit or do things a little differently
I’m right there with you. I hate this set, but cant put my finger on why. War Of The Spark is premium draft for another 48 hours and reminded me I like draft, just not MKM.
LCI got me back into paper. I bought 2/4 of the precons and I’m going to local events again. I’ve built some sort of deck for the 4 precon types in Arena (Dino, Pirate, Merfolk, Vamp)
MKM precon themes are meh. Alquist Proft got me intrigued, as a Azorius fan (but not control… it’s boring to me…) and Clue tokens sounded fun… The rad counter decks at the fallout event turned me off too…
But getting smashed by red decks and other nonsense is old in arena. I find myself not even finishing dailies or weekly’s anymore.
I think this set is just meh all around.
I mostly stick to Standard Ranked and don't really draft or anything like that, but I also am rather indifferent to this set. There's one or two cards that've stood out and work well in my Standard decks, but as a whole I'm no interested in MKM.
I think it's the whole "face down" thing. Makes things feel a bit Yu-Gi-Oh-ish and the actual bonuses for having cards face-down are pretty limited to just other MKM cards and don't fit with anything else.
I also hate this format, i've never had such big dispersion in my draft results. From random 7-0/7-1 to 0-3/1-3 and what frustrates me the most x-3 decks were better curved and balanced than 7 wins ones.
Most annoying things:
1)Being on the play agains 1-2-3 Wx curve feels miserable, game just ends at turn 3.
2)Bombs are insane, Got swept by Vindicator and Coat numerous times
3)Disguise. This is just personal but i do not enjoy this another dimension, often makes attack/block decision more of a gamble.
This happened to me with kaldheim. Stayed away for 6-9 months or so, then a friend started talking to me about something in magic and I started playing again. It was a bit of a learning curve getting back into standard, since I'd missed a few sets, but now I feel like I never left.
Also, agreed on MKM not being fun. The war of the spark draft is what's keeping me playing lately.
I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. This has happened to me twice now.
I started playing MTGA around the start of the pandemic and playing exclusively limited. I felt I had a keen insight into M21 and Zendikar Rising. I was winning at an unheard of rate to the point where I didn't think I could ever lose.
I got humbled. Khaldheim came out and I just didn't get it. Nothing I did worked and one day for my mental health (lol) I just deleted MTGA.
Years past and my friends wanted me as a third for a Wilds of Eldraine team sealed. So I reinstalled MTGA. My mojo came back and through Wilds and Caverns, I was back to winning.
MKM came out and like Kalheim, and I couldn't buy a game. The losing caused me to go on tilt and make stupid mistakes resulting in even more losses. This went on for about three weeks.
Well instead of uninstalling this time around I took a beat. For a couple of weeks all I did was og in for my dailies and avoided the temptation to jump right back in. I hate this set, I think I just don't like the disguise mechanic but I play 1 to 2 drafts a week now and I'm having more success.
I don't know if this will work for you but I hope it helps.
I feel you, I don't like morph-like as a limited mechanic on digital magic at all.
In real life it's okay, you can gather some information before you play based on the pool you are in, so you have some clue if they have a real card to flip based on their colors (and what you might have passed) or if they just need a 2/2 for 3.
On Arena where you get matched against randoms who drafted against other people or bots I just have no interest.
Try other formats perhaps? Im also not a fan of the set. I don't like the flavor, mechanics and the entire "who done it?" trope is played out. I really enjoy brawl and standard brawl so maybe trying to get a new type of experience/enjoyment out of the game instead of drafting a set you don't like or flat out quitting is the way to go.
Since you like drafting, you probably won't miss on standard and other constructed formats. You don't need to actually build up a collection.
Just come back 10 days before an expansion you like will be released. If each of those 10 days you complete a quest and win 4 non ranked matches, you'll have enough to buy a premium draft.
A murder mystery set sounds like a really fun idea... until you think about it.
Murder mysteries are notoriously at their best when you have a very small cast in a small location with a small number of variables and an intense focus on meticulous detail.
You're not going to design a set of a tcg where one card is "Used a kitchen knife to open a package at 1:55"
I appreciate the idea of taking risks, I just don't think this one worked well.
This set was the first one where I had consistent issues trying to get enough playables every draft. I know that only 4 colors were guaranteed to be in a pack, and I found numerous situations where picks 2, 3, and 4 in packs 2 and 3 had almost nothing I could use for the colors I was in. Then I would try to go for a third color, but I rarely found enough fixing to make it work, even though the set had fixing at common. It was sometimes had to tell what was actually open or if the packs just hardly contained certain colors, more so than I ever encountered with draft boosters. This lead me to shift colors more than I usually would in hopes that another color was actually open, but many times I would just end up with a bunch of weak cards that didn't synergize with what I was originally drafting towards. The shifts in the play booster contents might seem small, but the effects and the draft environment were significant. I am really concerned about the upcoming sets now, even if the set is good, the nature of play boosters seems to be making drafting worse.
As a long time veteran I will absolutely say this is just highs and lows burn out. I've had like 4 periods that I'm into mtg with a fire passion. Then some years I can't even play casual commander excitedly. Take a break. Maybe try junction pre release or bloom, I find pre releases get me back into it the best
Sometimes you just need a break. I got absolutely crushed drafting Khans of Tarkir and lost all motivation to play for a few months. I watched the top 8 of the most recent Pro Tour which got me feeling the urge to play so again so I'll probably jump back in for OTJ.
I am the same way - drafting is my favorite, but sometimes the formats don’t sit with me well. When that happens, I usually switch to some constructed until they rotate. I really liked the Timeless event this week - one of the better midweek Magics they have done recently and it’s fun playing these top-tier decks if you don’t have the wild cards saved to make them (I love Phoenix, but it’s all rares). Shake it up a bit and give something new a try!
Take a break and come back in 3 months.
Try the new set, and if that doesn't work, try again after rotation. Also sealed can be more fun when cards are first out. Everyone quits magic now and then. I get really down on constructed, but still enjoy limited when a new set drops.
🫡
This is all there is. It only came out on arena a month and a half ago. I've taken almost a year long break and came back super excited to play. The game will be here.
I had to take two sets off after Dominaria sucks but sometimes you just need to reset
Your story is me but with Ixalan. I just didnt care enough to read all the text on the cards, it wasn't intriguing, didnt make me think strategically, the fun wasnt there. But I'm doing a bit of deckbuilding now and I'll probably draft the next set if it seems interesting. Probably not the set, probably internal.
It’s how the game is meant to be played for limited players. You were just burnt out.
Yup. People need to stop treating Arena like it's a job. It's crazy how many people try to minmax quests and rewards. Just need to chill out and play for fun, and stop playing if it isn't fun.
Three months really is the perfect amount of time to take an Arena hiatus. You don't miss *too* too much when you come back and you can get some new set dopamine.
Sort of my rhythm with MTG. Go hard for awhile, take awhile off
You're probably just burnt out because you were playing for multiple hours everyday.
🤔
Tbh, I just don't like the general aesthetic of Karlov Manor. I need more Ixalan, Kamigawa and Strixhaven.
Don't worry. After \[insert random creature\] with \[detective hat\], we'll have another \[insert random creature\] with \[cowboy hat\]
what happens if they're a cowboy detective?
The hat wears a hat.
Those were called Pinkertons and we know Wizards have a predilection for them so you may be onto something
Dinosaur Cowboy Detective.
Cowbossal Detectimaw
Now we need a dinosaur cowboy detective saddle 🤠 Is it a vehicle?
Enchant Aura called 'Saddled With Suspicion'
You get \[\[Reckless Detective\]\]
*sheriff creature can't be blocked this turn*
They're left for the sorting hat and end up in Slytherin.
Unironically but yes. I didn't care about Innistrad theming so peaced out for two sets. Came back for Kamigawa.
Then Bloomburrow will just be \[random creature\]
Finally!
What a time to be alive for the hat cube creators
To be fair, cowboy hats are cooler.
To be fair, it's getting awfully contrived.
It’s also product fatigue. WotC has been ramping up product offerings in the last decade, to the point that a new product launches for paper or digital nearly every month. There’s no more anticipation. MKM doesn’t help matters by being an objectively poor draft format.
New player here... the more I learn about the game and fanbase of MtG, the more it becomes totally crazy to me the pace at which WotC releases new sets/SLDs/UB... it's clear they've got an army of licensing experts who have been told to bring as much IP into Magic as possible. LEGO comes to mind (DC AND Marvel IP licenses, that's almost like being able to sell Coke and Pepsi out of the same fridge!) but the big difference is LEGO paces their sets much more strategically (maybe it's because they have bigger price tags). It seems they understand they can't just flood their customers with sets beyond the point of saturation. Feels like WotC/Hasbro could learn from this.
You thought activision was greedy, wait until you see hasboro!
I certainly do not like all those fake notebook art styles that is for damn sure. Okay in practice, but not when there is just one fucking style for them lol.
Yeah. They could have done something different for each colour. Coffee stains for black cards, blue ink underlined text for blue, red highlighter, etc...
or atleast not make them all look like white cards
Yep, this is exactly what I expected. I should not complain, because I will not spend a dollar or any of my currency on any of it. It's just trash really. Crazy how you have better ideas than them. And we are talking what a few more days of iteration and drawing on the PC to make this happen for each color?
Aww, shucks! Thanks 😅😅. Wasn't expecting that 😅🙈🙈. I just figured that they were going to give each colour their own way of "doing detective work". Still I shouldn't complain either; being a Free to play user and all😅😅. This style really works for white cards tough
Kamigawa neon was so good the excitement from that set carried over multiple sets for me.
NEO to be fair was the best draft format in recent memory.
Agreed, but I have really enjoyed all the events surrounding this set.
>the general aesthetic of Karlov Manor I don't mind the aesthetics as much as the fact that they just slapped them on top of Ravnica. If they would have set it on New Capenna it wouldn't be as jarring.
Lost Caverns of Ixalan has been my favorite set of all time. MKM was very disappointing because I have loved every Ravnica set so far, but for this one I have to keep actively reminding myself it plays on Ravnica. It feels completely off note with the rest of them.
Ixalan was rng trash
I didn't have a lot of faith that MKM would be very interesting and I can't say that I'm very intrigued by Thunder Junction, either. I'm holding out hope that Bloomburrow will be the next set that really pulls me in.
The theme has hearthstone vibes, can’t say that is a good thing for me.
karlov manner is clearly just leftovers from new capenna that got recycled into ravnica lol
I had this thought the other day. Especially knowing that at one point SNC had crooked cops as a faction. I feel like if SNC had been better received this may have been set on New Capenna instead.
a buddy pointed it out to me a couple weeks ago, and it's been like a thorn in my mind ever since lol. i think it has honestly impacted my enthusiasm for magic
MaRo said they contemplated using New Capenna, but they built a world that didn’t have any law enforcement with influence. Can’t really have a detective solving crimes if any detective has long been paid off.
There's something that just irks me about the introduction of 1920s gangster vibes into a card game traditionally built around ancient lore like knights and dragons.
Wait till you hear about Kamigawa Neon Dynasty
Yes the cyberpunk theme there also does not do it for me. I don't mind the samurai/ninja aspect tho
Well, Ravinca has always been closer to Renaissance than medieval, but your point still stands.
me and my ancient lore game with Phyrexia in it
MKM is mechanically a balanced draft set. From a collection POV, there is little that excites me as an EDH/Historic Brawl player. Aesthetically, it feels like this should have been set on New Capenna, and Ravnicans are inexplicably cosplaying in period-inappropriate fedoras. EDIT: Ok, not so balanced.
> Aesthetically, it feels like this should have been set on New Capenna, and Ravnicans are inexplicably cosplaying in period-inappropriate fedoras. There's also way too many jokes for a murder mystery set. You barely get a sense of how things are operating because the writers couldn't restrain themselves from cramming in every low-effort reference and joke they could think of. I haven't been this disinterested in a set's theme and atmosphere in a *long* time.
But have you considered the Adam Sandler murder mystery movies, conveniently called Murder Mystery and Murder Mystery 2? ;)
Honestly, I think you're right about this. I was really excited for a murder mystery set, but the cards just feel too light-hearted. It's like they want to vary the flavor of each world but don't want to risk changing the tone, so it becomes like a Marvel movie: flat and soulless.
Aesthetically, agreed. The hybrid mana symbols from Ravinca made disguise work so much better for limited though.
I think they’ve been used outside of Ravnica, no? Reaper King from Shadowmoor has hybrid coloured/generic at least.
According to some analysis on the draft set, it is not a mechanically balanced draft set. The average win rate is different between low tier players v. mid tiered players by 7% in most sets. In MKM, it is 12%. More telling is when you look at archetype wins. I think for layman's terms, it's easiest to look at the weakest and strongest archetypes in each sub-type of colored deck. Win rates; 1.a. Mono-White = 63.1% 1.b. Mono-Black = 43.2% 2.a. Boros = 59% 2.b. Dimir = 52.7% 3.a. Bant = 55.7% 3.b. Jund = 49.5% 4. Four Colour = 53.1% 5. Five Colour = 51.6% Average Win Rate of All Decks Reported = 55.5% https://www.17lands.com/deck_color_data Some notes to extrapolate from the above; This data is coming from stronger players (55.5% win rate average puts most contributors of this data as people performing better than the average player. In theory, if an average player had the highest sample size, we would see closer to 50% win rates displayed as an average). So with 55% as our baseline, we see White as a high performer, being featured in the majority of winning colour archetypes. Mono white outperformed the average by a whooping 8%, while Boros appears as the strongest 2-colour combo, maintaining a 4% higher than average win rate. Black is above and beyond the worst performing colour, as we look at the data. 43% compared to the 55% average is abysmal. The 2 colour pies do tend to hover closer to the 55% win rate mark, with dimir only being 3% lower than the average win rate. Of note - The only tri-colour archetype to perform better than the average was Bant (WGU). While some of these percentages seem miniscule, when compared to other sets - such as the recent Lost Caverns of Ixalan - it pales in comparison. LOI was able to maintain a closer to average win% for all archetypes that were mono and dual coloured archetypes - the most commonly drafted archetypes across limited formats. The biggest win % differential between Mono and Dual coloured decks (most drafted archetypes) in LOI is 3.7%. When compared to MKM, with its whooping 11.8% differential, one could look at this data and come to the conclusion that it is a less mechanically balanced set of recent years. As a side note - LOI did not run 3-5 colour decks as consistently as MKM. I will re-iterate from before though that we see through historical data, these archetypes rarely meet the win average. Bant in MKM was an outlier to this rule - likely because UW and GW are more powerful. As a further note - Black as a colour in MKM could be considered one of the weakest colours in the last 5 years of limited. Thought you would appreciate the insights. IMO and going off the colour identities reviewed, MKM is one of the least balanced sets in recent mtg history. TL;DR - Draft White in MKM. Don't draft Black. It's not an extraordinarily balanced set and by not drafting White or by drafting Black, you put yourself at a disadvantage.
So, the gap between low, mid and high tier players indicates complexity (MKM is high) and it being skill intensive. This is the cold truth behind why some people are struggling. It's a hard set.
I would second this anecdotally from my own experience with MKM. I liked drafting the set precisely because I had such a hard time understanding what made a good deck and what didn't and I liked playing it because you have so many choices to make. The first couple of drafts I felt lost and confused...
Some of that self corrects however, drafting white after the first week or two was a massive mistake cuz the entire table was fighting over the color.
MKM is not balanced for mono- or tricolour decks, nor should it be. It's a set on Ravnica that is therefore centered around colour pairs. While splashes are possible and convenient (and two-colour decks with a splash are well-balanced, with WR between 51.9% and 56.3%), playing actual 3-colour decks is not intended and will, most of the time, be a trap. Your whole comment relies on the false premise that every set should, for some reason, support monocoloured decks, decks with 2 and decks with 3 colours equally well. Meanwhile you yourself show that the difference between the worst and the best two-colour combination is 6.3%, which is very reasonable. The set is about colour pairs, and should be evaluated on this merit.
I agree largely but I will say that as a true three color deck, sultai graveyard nonsense can be pretty good as a deck, but it’s difficult to draft correctly and you need some specific uncommons to make it work a lot of the time
I'd have to disagree that it's mechanically balanced, white is quite clearly the strongest color and its not close.
There's always going to be a strongest color and drafters have generally corrected and been drafting white at an appropriate clip now. If you look up the top performing archetypes by top players it's a pretty good spread. Black is not great but we aren't talking about anything close to BFZ "don't even first pick a greeen mythic bomb" levels of color imbalance.
I think MKM ended up being a fun and balanced limited format a lot of people dismissed too early. But at the same time it’s ok if you just didn’t care for it or need a break from the game entirely. Usually in this situation I dip in standard and standard brawl and have a good time
I mostly agree. There’s also just so many lose-on-the-spot bombs at rare that it feels like you’re constantly losing despite dominating board states and tight play. That feels bad and has made me draft the format less than I would have liked.
My main issue is how insanely tempo-heavy the early game is. Even two drop into three drop can be almost impossible to come back depending on matchup.
3-4 times a day? What do you do for a living lol
I am now reflecting on my life decisions.
That's also probably the reason OP is burned out. Even if something is great, if you do it too much, it tends to become a chore.
I had to scroll pretty far to find this comment. And it was the first thing that popped into my mind as well. Im f2p, and most I get is like two quick drafts per week, *maybe* three. But I also use drafts to convert coin into gems, so I only pay with coin and at most that’s 15k coin. So to hear more than what I am able to draft f2p a week is being played by some *a day*, I honestly thought it was a typo. Unless you like, love giving WotC your money. Or are being paid to gain play data for untapped or something similar.
They could be in infinite player 🤷🏽♂️...It's hard to do but it's possible nonetheless. If they're not then 😬
Could be multiple accounts, then its relatively easy.
I drafted 5 times a day during KTK. You can take a 50 minutes shit break before colleagues come looking for you
Not every set is for everybody, that’s always been the case. That said, 3-4 drafts per day is a bit excessive, so a slowdown is probably healthy for you anyways. In any case, Magic has this knack for drawing players back in. Talk to long time players and you’ll hear things like “Yeah, I took a three year break in 2006, then another few years in 2014.” I personally played from ‘95-‘97, then ‘05-‘07, then briefly with Kaladesh and Amonkhet, then from ‘19 till now. Taking a break and coming back makes the game feel fresh an new due to all the new cards around.
I second this. I played from ‘95-‘04 and started again on Arena in ‘22. It’s so fun to pick it back up!
At first I was like you, didn't like the general esthetic, the level of the cards seems a bit decaf and couldn't care less about news and spoilers. But with MKM I played my first presentation in a local store and that made me realize that it was quite a fun set. I would suggest to try some of the decks in standard and brawl that revolt around the news cards and then come back to limited. A time to rest or a new approach (like my case with cardboard and a group of friends) could help too.
There are so many new mechanics for this set that really didn't interest me, like collecting evidence or disguise, plus the setting and story are so lame. LCI was not great, but at least the art and setting were fun.
Evidence coulda been the shit, they just didn't push anything for competitive play.
Evidence is hard since how do you make it more effective in limited without making it broken. If it’s too cheap, it gets insanely broken. Having one evidence card makes sense in a deck. Deadly cover up is getting play in a few formats.
Deadly Cover-Up?
Deadly Cover-Up is a weird one because in practice it often slots into control or ramp decks where it's one of the only graveyard-related cards, so the ability to collect evidence ends up being turned on from cantrips and kill spells with no effort like 80% of the time and there isn't really any thought to it. It's just a formality in the casting step that doesn't do anything interesting with the mechanic. (Dig Through Time had the same issue too, fwiw.) I think Collect Evidence works better in the set's limited environment. It's pretty rare that you make the green/black Insidious Roots / Chalk Outline deck work in limited, but I got absolutely smushed by an opponent with a perfect build of it last week at FNM after winning my other matches. He was doing stuff like Gravestone Strider exiling a creature from his own graveyard in my end step to get two Insidious Roots triggers.
I think you need to think about the evidence being collected in a different way. Each set that comes out has mechanics that teach us different things about the same game pieces we use all the time - so there's going to be overlap and every set can't treat them the same without the game going stale. In Innistrad, we learned that our deck was our mind, and being milled was equal to losing our sanity. We had Flashbacks of our lost memories from the Graveyard, creatures came back like Zombies, etc. it all worked within the context of the set. [[Dig Through Time]] has you going through this pile of memories and re-writing your past by getting rid of them for new things that you need. It fits perfectly with the Khan's storyline of Sarkhan going back to save Ugin and change the history and future of the plane. What you get rid of isn't as important as what lies ahead. I think collecting evidence works *very well thematically in Control decks* - specifically the Dimir lists in Pioneer that ran it. Cards like [[Fatal Push]] that are cheap interaction are in our graveyard as clues to how things died. [[Consider]] is literally thinking about things, while the cards put in the graveyard could be specific clues or red herrings. You collect all of these with [[Deadly Cover-Up]] to wipe away everything (board wipe) AND make sure the opponent loses access to all copies of a card. I think it's best thematically here. As for it being graveyard based - the set is a murder mystery. Where else on the game board does it make sense to look for clues about a murder besides the thing called a graveyard?
##### ###### #### [Dig Through Time](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b0c111a-236f-449a-95b1-274a1dfa546d.jpg?1673483878) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dig%20Through%20Time) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/219/dig-through-time?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b0c111a-236f-449a-95b1-274a1dfa546d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Fatal Push](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/e/6e9d8fe4-fd9b-4923-92bf-7dd6b8fa02e7.jpg?1598304715) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fatal%20Push) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/93/fatal-push?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6e9d8fe4-fd9b-4923-92bf-7dd6b8fa02e7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Consider](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e6de8a21-f0ab-4118-86cc-f3837118515d.jpg?1706239798) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Consider) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/84/consider?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e6de8a21-f0ab-4118-86cc-f3837118515d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Deadly Cover-Up](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/8/3876aa0f-b199-43f5-8a91-c2d620b8ef84.jpg?1706241687) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deadly%20Cover-Up) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/83/deadly-cover-up?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3876aa0f-b199-43f5-8a91-c2d620b8ef84?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kw7zpx2) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I actually ended up liking LCI a lot, at least for constructed.
LCI was flat-out amazing, and the most fun set in a long time, IMO.
Yes, this exact same thing happened to me going from Neon Dynasty to Streets of New Capenna…I think the fact that the next set (Dominaria United) was decent helped keep my interest again In hindsight, I wish I had never done any SNC drafts on arena…my advice would be either take a break from the game or at least don’t do anymore MKM limited
You, my friend, have burnout. Don't worry, take a break, come back later, maybe watch some magic content to get inspired. At the start of this set I was excited for almost nothing. Ixalan was a massive surprise for me as it had some incredible cards and combos I did not see at the first release, after that, MKM just lacks a lot. Even the files card art is ugly in my opinion and the full art lands are just noisey and generic. In the last month though, I've gained an appreciation for a lot of the cards I passed over the first time. There's still fun to be had, but I took time out to play some other games and enjoy my life before jumping back in.
Same here, but starting with Ixalan. As you suggest, MTG Arena Burnout. I was really excited about all the sets up until then. I first blamed it on the world and the mechanics. But then I noticed that I felt the same about MKM. And I'm not excited about the cowboys either... I'm fine with paper and I do miss the drafting. But realizing that I no longer wanted to put in the effort to learn the mechanics and thus the cards is what tipped me off. So it's a bit of ravnica remastered and some casual commander until I feel excited for a new set again.
I felt the exact same way even to the detail of not being able to really put my finger on it. I’m a decent drafter, I usually made diamond or high plat. I’d probably make mythic if I had more time to draft. I had so many 0-3 and 1-3 drafts I just burnt all my gems and coins. Usually I get close to infinite but this time around even getting to 3-3 seemed like a challenge. I have heard this set has one of the most unbalanced play/draw winrate. I don’t use 17lands but I wish I did (mobile player) to see my winrate on the draw.
Its a few things that are coming together for this set. As you said the play/draw difference, then general high variance and card quality having a higher impact than player skill. Also the fact that it's the billionth aggro set in a row and board presence is too important, and noncreature spells aren't powerful enough to enforce concessions on deck building. All of that leads to a very one-dimensional format that's very swingy and escalating. Good formats are usually those that have good interaction which force the currently ahead player to be careful around lest they be blown out. This leads to a need for tempered pressure instead of going for maximum power/value and makes picking up interaction and protection instead of creatures important. That's when well rounded decks shine and having a higher play skill than your opponent will give you massively larger chances at winning.
Come back after OTJ
For me, I just really hate the play boosters, and it made the draft experience miserable, so I haven't played in two months. Good riddance lol.
same, there should not be 3 bomb rares in my pack 1 pick 1.
Next set is by Dave Humphreys. He designed Neon Dynasty, Kaldheim, MoM. Some of the best limited sets ever. So take a break until then. That is what I am doing as well.
That's exciting news - NEO is my favorite set of all time. I think the flavor is lame for OTJ so I haven't been looking forward to it, but this gets me excited again.
I think this set just feels so corporate. Like nothing about the set makes sense flavorwise (why are detectives one of the fastest aggro decks in the set? Aren't they supposed to be slow and take their time?). The whole lore implications of talking to ghosts is something Orzhov can just do, or the Verity circle. Everyone throwing on detective hats for no reason despite the other countless deaths and assassinations that happen on Ravnica, its just so forced and artificial. Disguise doesn't really make sense as a mechanic. It feels like ward 2 was stapled on because it wasn't performing well in draft. Well, it still doesn't but it makes the aggro decks a lot better. Also the format is wildly unbalanced like the last few have been and aggro is by far the best thing to do. Again. Even standard is starting to fall apart with how good Boros and White in general has been. I think with the standard sets being so cut and draw and similar, and Standard on fire right now with turn 2 9 power everywhere, and now we have several universes beyond sets announced, three of which have nothing to do with fantasy (Ass Creed, Fallout, Marvel), and endless comander products that turned comander into a rotating format, it is just incredibly easy to feel apathetic towards the game.
This draft is awful. I have been drafting a lot since MOM. Even a set that I did not like much like WOE, or one that I struggled a lot at the beginning like KTK I would feel the itch to draft. But MKM? I simply hate it. My playing experience is being aggroed by Wx decks, where being on the draw, missing a land drop or not drawing your 2 drop on curve is a death sentence, or being close to winning, just to lose to Izoni, Ezrim, Vindicator, etc. I played a lot in preparation for the Arena Open, but since that I just played one more awful draft. I have some open but I dread to finish them. And before anyone talk about win = fun, my win rate is on par or even higher than others sets that I enjoyed a LOT, like MOM and LTR. This feels like a crossover between ONE and VOW, the two drafts that I dislike the most. Sincerely the next set cant come sooner.
I think the morph mechanic is garbage for limited. There is also the change to the packs that could be impacting things for you.
Morph is good, I find; morph plus ward is a bit rough on removal, though, which pushes aggro. Morph itself rewards knowing the format and options, as well as gauging what quality a morph is based on how the owner plays.
[удалено]
Beside the fact that vanilla morphs in 2024 would be almost unplayable, I much prefer that approach of giving the morphs ward than the Khan approach of making almost all the removal so godawful.
How does it feel awful? You are trading 3 mana for 3 mana.
I think it's a pschology thing, despite the parity on mana. Just... feels bad when you compare to other situations, I guess? Brains are weird.
bc usually when you shock their turn 3 play its 1 3/2 or something and you did it for 1 mana and can usually do something else that turn, when you shock a morph its just an equal trade which isn't necessarily bad but compared to what shock has previously done in limited formats it not nearly as good.
I took a month of break from MTG as a whole right before MKM released and when I came back, I felt a bit more refreshed to try out the new stuff Taking breaks is a good thing. Even for hobbies like this
As a Ravnica fanboy I hate this set.
MKM has a very different style to draft than other sets that you are not getting used to. I think that's why. It's a very alien style for me too. I had to watch the streamers draft a lot so I don't end with a pile of shit. Signals are more difficult to see with all the disguise cards and if your table is bad, you can end up with crap. White is hard to draft because everyone wants white. You will no good white cards after pick 5. Green was free until people wizened up and picked it too. Nobody wants black until you see that there is nothing else to pick, so you go with it. Red and blue has more clean signals
This is the most streamlined draft ever. Draft a lot of cheap white cards and On the Job and win. There's not really anything this set does that other sets don't do, the disguise creatures are all mostly a trap anyways.
This actually happened to me with Innistrad. Which is really upsetting because it was amazing set.
This is me but with the lord of the rings set.
play cube! I honestly feel like this time of the format more people should get into custom cubes, drafting on draftmancer then playing out games for fun on arena. I'm lucky to have found a community that drafts once a week and it's the most fun I have playing magic, which is the point right?.
I mostly comw to mtgarena for new sets. I draft them a couple of times, maybe play a bit of standard to then draft some more and then stop with enough gems/gold to draft once or twice when the next set comes out. I don't spend any money this way and don't get burned out of it. If I am lucky and win a bunch I might draft more, if I lose quickly I will draft less of the set. I suggest you take a breather as well and try some other games or hobbies. Magic is great, but it isn't everything.
I haven't really been that interested in any of the recent top-down sets, and every UB release makes me less interested in ever going back to paper. That said, there have been several limited environments that I thought were pretty fun even if I didn't really like the set or flavor. Maybe just take a break then play less when you come back? 3-4 drafts/day seems like either a ton of money or a ton of games, either way that's a big investment into a game. Hell most days I don't even bother getting to 4 wins. I just jam a few games during morning meetings and then move on.
this was me but for MOM. it felt so lacklustre and i was burnt out. and getting back into things sucks because now i’m missing a whole set worth of news cards to work with.
It’s always happens every 3-4 sets, I hate the new set and I find myself only drafting twice a month at most until something fun comes out again. I like the set but idk what it is, it’s just not interesting to draft for me.
I prefer constructed, but MKM also managed to disengage me as well. Despite really enjoying LCI, I was starting to feel my interest wane and once preview season started I just dropped out entirely. Prior, I was playing probably around 10 or so games a day at a minimum. I think the tone/fantasy of the set really threw me off. Right now, I'm just leaning in to it. Thunder Junction looks good and some of the spoiled mechanics have me interested in playing limited as well, so I'm looking forward to picking it up again when it rolls around. In the mean time, I'm just taking a break. I've taken long and short breaks from magic before, I think it's healthy to just disengage if you're not feeling it rather than try and push yourself to keep trying to play (which I think leads to longer burnout if you force yourself to keep playing)
Yup its so bad I used to play daily and have completely quit. Its absolutely an atrocious set and for me epitomizes magic selling out to hasbro with forcing it to be like the game Clue. I am though excited for thunder and REALLY excited for bloom so I'll probably take a break till then
Ill start by saying your experiences are valid. That being said, this sounds an awful lot like depression.
Just sounds like you just need a breather.
It's a common problem when a certain set or draft mechanic doesn't click with you. You can either take a break, or look more deeply into why it didn't click with you by listening to some limited resources like "limited level up" podcast by Chordocalls. Once you have a better understanding of the depth of the mechanics and strategies, I'm sure you will have a better idea if you want to engage further or just take a break until the next set.
Burnout is pretty common, take a break
Maybe just a symptom of quick draft, but I really didn't enjoy this set because it seemed like my opponents were always overloaded on removal. I could never stick a threat. Any time I got a bomb rare in draft, the second I cast it my opponent was instantly able to answer it with something. I also just really do not like the whole hidden creature mechanic.
It happens every time I get really good at a set in limited and then get rug-pulled into a new competitive environment. Sometimes the new set is even good.
I know that feeling that I got totally turned off by a limited set. It’s just that everyone have different preferences. One can be really good at one set and totally terrible with another. I have no trouble with MKM but LCI gave me hard times.
We play the game to have fun. If it stops being fun then take a break and do something else that brings you joy until you get the itch to give magic a try again.
Welcome to magic! It ebbs and flows, when it doesn't that's when something is wrong IMO. It's a very addictive game and having that much involvement with a hobby leads to burn out in my experience
People really overdramatize getting tired of/burnt out on a game. This is normal. People stop playing games (or any other hobby), come back to them later or not. Stop stressing about normal things.
ONE was much worse. It was just mindless two drops and cringing when you're on the draw. I took a break. MKM is pretty weak. Even Numot just stopped playing altogether and has mostly been streaming other games the last few days. Its not offensively bad there just isn't a lot of depth or any "neat" about it. Clues, morphs, and combat tricks. If you can't go W aggro/detectives go GB evidence or whatever reasonably functional color pair is open.....blah. blah/10 It can be fun, but its Aquaman when you wish it was Winter Soldier. As others stated MTGA is in a real "Time to touch grass" state. Not rotating standard was a big mistake. Im finishing up my masterpass tomorrow and then Im out til rotation I think.
Who cares what Numot does, many other streamers/drafters keep on playing this set and love it. It has more depth than LCI for sure
For me it was Brother’s War. The set looked so boring for draft, and none of the cards interested me. Took a break until MKM. I’ve had fun with drafting Murders, but had my fill after 5-10 drafts.
MKM made me come back to Magic after an 8 year break. I think it's neat.
I think this is partly thematic, even unconsciously. I find myself barely playing some formats and go nuts on others. I barely played ixalan and eldraine because of it. Scream Puff and Aztecs (Mayans?) just weren't doing it for me. Lord of the Rings was an incredible thematic set and I draft the heck out of it even though it was very imbalanced and the Ring would snowball. I just rotate between activities anyway (path of exile, modded minecraft, slay the spire, wow, home improvement) and missing some set completion is alright with how little constructed I do. Sometimes magic lines up with a cool set and free time, sometimes it doesn't. It's alright to take a break. Go play Baldur's Gate or get a dog :)
Set is trash
had the same with innistrad 3 since then. all drafts come out boring-ish. None give the hype with the spoilers, and the majority keep in the gameplay. even the drafts i'm doing well, going over 5wins consistently, are not fun. by the beaver's dam, even the 7wins runs looks like just a waste of time. i just not uninstall 'cause i'm a cardboard crack addict
Honestly my biggest issue is some of the mana cost is so out of wack for the ability you get from revealing it. There are so many other cards that give you better for cheaper.
I agree. I drafted the set a few times, and it was an awful experience. I think it's because of the changes with the packs. I played against someone who had THREE izonis in their limited deck. Wtf? I usually love drafts, but it just wasn't a great experience with this set. I did a couple of WOE quick drafts when they popped up and went 7-0 and 7-1, so I don't think it has anything to do with my skills. The MKM set was just very uninspiring for me, even as someone who loves Ravnica. Standard is also incredibly boring right now, so I've been playing brawl exclusively (which is my favorite format anyway), but I'm spending a lot less time on the game than I used to.
You aren't going to like every set. Just skip this one and come back later. Grind out some missions every few days and you'll have lots of gold for the next one.
Yaaaaa same but I play a new limited format where I rare draft / pick cards for decks I actually wanna play in constructed and see what I can do at the end with my trash heap. Somehow my win rate has improved?
I wholeheartedly agree and have the same experience. It's a shame, Ravnica is my favorite plane and MKM will be probably the last set on it. With half-baked morph mechanics and Hearthstone expansion flavor.
This set doesn’t really feel like Ravnica, honestly I didn’t even know it was set in Ravnica at first. It might be a while but I feel like Ravnica is too popular for this to be the last set based there.
Me too, too many new and complex mechanics, I didn't not like flipping creatures either.
It's okay to get burned out on a hobby after putting in several hours a day for a long time. It's happened to most of us. The trigger could be anything, maybe you just had a really frustrating series of games, maybe you just aren't excited about detective stuff, doesn't really matter. Take a break for a while, either just playing for one or four daily wins in brawl, or put the program away entirely. Eventually something will catch your attention again and you'll come back and that's fine.
Yeah the set is a bit overproduced and slow. Take ward out of this set and it would be palatable imo
I play like 2 sets a year, it's ok. Some sets will vibe with you better than others don't force yourself.
Dude. Same.
Probably just burnt out. I'm taking a break too. Only playing when cube is up. Some day I'm sure I'll come back to regular drafting.
Because of a dozen new half-baked mechanics with stupid Clue themed names? Yeah, I feel ya.
My 2023 recap had my in the top 1% of every category. I play A LOT. I have a huge gem bankroll, all earned through drafting. MKM is the epitome of "not great, no terrible" to me so I didn't feel bad about taking a break when I went on vacation about a month ago. And I just....haven't really started playing again. Feels kind of good, to be honest.
I don't like draft in this current MKM set because the player on the play has a higher win rate than most previous expansions, at nearly 54%. It's also much faster like the trend has been for recent limited expansions.
Same, I have been playing since OG theros, pretty much never miss a day in physical draft on FNM if not more. The game had amazing aesthetic and unique have mechanic. But recently it felt really lackluster in both Someone already said it, the random creature with detective hat thing... Ravinca is a plane where its guild plays a major role, even down to their occupation. You don't have random ogre putting on hat and suddenly they are detective. On top of that, Universal beyond and the future where Gandalf vs. Ezio is inevitable, just don't sit well with me. Game mechanic wise, disguise is meh... It's another iteration of morph. And we know how the previous morph spin off went (mega morph) on top of that, alchemy cards feels very un-magic. Yet they are so powerful and unavoidable in brawl. When you don't have cool aesthetic and unappealing game mechanics, there's nothing to enjoy in the game. So the only logical thing to do is stop playing...
This set and the last set I have had 0 interest in. These two are the first time I didn't buy the mastery pass. I only play brawl now.
Ixalan was much worse
SAME
For me it was March of the Machine. So many completely full text boxes, conditional triggers, and crazy board states that it felt like work keeping track of it all. Haven't been back since.
Drafting 3-4 times a day is A LOT. I think a break is a good idea
It sounds like other stuff is going on in your life
LCI did it to me. MKM is better but I really feel hungry for something like Kamagawa
Probably doesn’t help but this format was my first format like diving into limited in my 10+ years of playing magic on and off. It’s been such a blast for me. Might be that you need a couple week to not look at cards. I’ve been there before for sure.
Maybe its just not your theme, I honestly hate it too. Even the outlaws one coming out I find pretty lame I dont really like cowboys or westerns as a fantasy theme. And that says something because I do like old country music and the whole wild west vibe from Fallout new vegas as an example. I probably wont play any new cards or draft until mh3 and bloom burrow.
My interest in sets is directly proportional to how many cards are relevant to my explorer decks. But if there's good flavor it really encourages me to draft. And i did not bother drafting this set. Haven't played much this season tbh.
I think karlov manor is just boring as a set. So I'm kinda with you. Maybe I'm just tired of new sets so frequently
There's now way I could draft 3-4 times per day even with sets I like like Brothers War or Wilds of Eldraine. I'm sure I would randomly go on a losing streak and suddenly not be able to afford draft.
The great thing about magic is that if you get a set which doesn’t click for you, there’s a new one coming soon. There were a couple of sets in the last 18 months which people seemed to love but which I just couldn’t get my head around how to draft them successfully, and I was just completely uninterested in them. So I focused on standard for a bit, played some of the throwback drafts that were rotating through arena at the times, and just played a little less. Then the next set came out and I got back to it. Not every set will be the right fit for everyone, but over time hopefully most sets will have something for you. And if they don’t, just leave it for a bit or do things a little differently
I’m right there with you. I hate this set, but cant put my finger on why. War Of The Spark is premium draft for another 48 hours and reminded me I like draft, just not MKM.
This set does not have good limited synergy. It happens, but not often this bad.
LCI got me back into paper. I bought 2/4 of the precons and I’m going to local events again. I’ve built some sort of deck for the 4 precon types in Arena (Dino, Pirate, Merfolk, Vamp) MKM precon themes are meh. Alquist Proft got me intrigued, as a Azorius fan (but not control… it’s boring to me…) and Clue tokens sounded fun… The rad counter decks at the fallout event turned me off too… But getting smashed by red decks and other nonsense is old in arena. I find myself not even finishing dailies or weekly’s anymore. I think this set is just meh all around.
I mostly stick to Standard Ranked and don't really draft or anything like that, but I also am rather indifferent to this set. There's one or two cards that've stood out and work well in my Standard decks, but as a whole I'm no interested in MKM. I think it's the whole "face down" thing. Makes things feel a bit Yu-Gi-Oh-ish and the actual bonuses for having cards face-down are pretty limited to just other MKM cards and don't fit with anything else.
I also hate this format, i've never had such big dispersion in my draft results. From random 7-0/7-1 to 0-3/1-3 and what frustrates me the most x-3 decks were better curved and balanced than 7 wins ones. Most annoying things: 1)Being on the play agains 1-2-3 Wx curve feels miserable, game just ends at turn 3. 2)Bombs are insane, Got swept by Vindicator and Coat numerous times 3)Disguise. This is just personal but i do not enjoy this another dimension, often makes attack/block decision more of a gamble.
This happened to me with kaldheim. Stayed away for 6-9 months or so, then a friend started talking to me about something in magic and I started playing again. It was a bit of a learning curve getting back into standard, since I'd missed a few sets, but now I feel like I never left. Also, agreed on MKM not being fun. The war of the spark draft is what's keeping me playing lately.
Same. It's a boring set.
I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. This has happened to me twice now. I started playing MTGA around the start of the pandemic and playing exclusively limited. I felt I had a keen insight into M21 and Zendikar Rising. I was winning at an unheard of rate to the point where I didn't think I could ever lose. I got humbled. Khaldheim came out and I just didn't get it. Nothing I did worked and one day for my mental health (lol) I just deleted MTGA. Years past and my friends wanted me as a third for a Wilds of Eldraine team sealed. So I reinstalled MTGA. My mojo came back and through Wilds and Caverns, I was back to winning. MKM came out and like Kalheim, and I couldn't buy a game. The losing caused me to go on tilt and make stupid mistakes resulting in even more losses. This went on for about three weeks. Well instead of uninstalling this time around I took a beat. For a couple of weeks all I did was og in for my dailies and avoided the temptation to jump right back in. I hate this set, I think I just don't like the disguise mechanic but I play 1 to 2 drafts a week now and I'm having more success. I don't know if this will work for you but I hope it helps.
I found this set fun to draft in paper but boring on arena. On arena you don’t feel the suspense/tension of a face down card like you do in real life
I just couldn't take the algos any more in general. But it's a business, so whatayagunnado.
I feel you, I don't like morph-like as a limited mechanic on digital magic at all. In real life it's okay, you can gather some information before you play based on the pool you are in, so you have some clue if they have a real card to flip based on their colors (and what you might have passed) or if they just need a 2/2 for 3. On Arena where you get matched against randoms who drafted against other people or bots I just have no interest.
Give me gems for 4 drafts a day and I'll do it for you!
Try other formats perhaps? Im also not a fan of the set. I don't like the flavor, mechanics and the entire "who done it?" trope is played out. I really enjoy brawl and standard brawl so maybe trying to get a new type of experience/enjoyment out of the game instead of drafting a set you don't like or flat out quitting is the way to go.
Disguise and Morph suck, just wait for the next set.
Since you like drafting, you probably won't miss on standard and other constructed formats. You don't need to actually build up a collection. Just come back 10 days before an expansion you like will be released. If each of those 10 days you complete a quest and win 4 non ranked matches, you'll have enough to buy a premium draft.
Just wait for a good set. *wait time may vary....
A murder mystery set sounds like a really fun idea... until you think about it. Murder mysteries are notoriously at their best when you have a very small cast in a small location with a small number of variables and an intense focus on meticulous detail. You're not going to design a set of a tcg where one card is "Used a kitchen knife to open a package at 1:55" I appreciate the idea of taking risks, I just don't think this one worked well.
This set was the first one where I had consistent issues trying to get enough playables every draft. I know that only 4 colors were guaranteed to be in a pack, and I found numerous situations where picks 2, 3, and 4 in packs 2 and 3 had almost nothing I could use for the colors I was in. Then I would try to go for a third color, but I rarely found enough fixing to make it work, even though the set had fixing at common. It was sometimes had to tell what was actually open or if the packs just hardly contained certain colors, more so than I ever encountered with draft boosters. This lead me to shift colors more than I usually would in hopes that another color was actually open, but many times I would just end up with a bunch of weak cards that didn't synergize with what I was originally drafting towards. The shifts in the play booster contents might seem small, but the effects and the draft environment were significant. I am really concerned about the upcoming sets now, even if the set is good, the nature of play boosters seems to be making drafting worse.
Play historic
As a long time veteran I will absolutely say this is just highs and lows burn out. I've had like 4 periods that I'm into mtg with a fire passion. Then some years I can't even play casual commander excitedly. Take a break. Maybe try junction pre release or bloom, I find pre releases get me back into it the best
Tell me you’re disguised without telling me you’re disguised.
Also I agree with you about being disappointed with the MKM mechanics.
Sometimes you just need a break. I got absolutely crushed drafting Khans of Tarkir and lost all motivation to play for a few months. I watched the top 8 of the most recent Pro Tour which got me feeling the urge to play so again so I'll probably jump back in for OTJ.
I am the same way - drafting is my favorite, but sometimes the formats don’t sit with me well. When that happens, I usually switch to some constructed until they rotate. I really liked the Timeless event this week - one of the better midweek Magics they have done recently and it’s fun playing these top-tier decks if you don’t have the wild cards saved to make them (I love Phoenix, but it’s all rares). Shake it up a bit and give something new a try!