My opponent went completely off with Hare Apparent, Ouroboroid, and Elspeth—hundreds of creatures, with most of them capped at 1,073,741,823 toughness each, or roughly 283 billion total toughness.

They passed the turn at 10 life instead of killing me. I topdecked Ultimecia, Temporal Threat, which tapped their entire army on entry. Authority of the Consuls gained them 1 life, putting them at 11, but they still had zero available blockers.

I swung for 17 and won with them at −6.

Apparently the answer to 283 billion toughness is simply: tap all creatures.

As is tradition at this point, ya girl is back with another MWM Brawl Builder deck that only costs a single rare wildcard!

The game plan here is straightforward: Get Hit-Monkey and his ridiculous collection of keywords onto the board on turn 3, and then use him to control the board with fight/bite spells, pump him up with counters / auras / equipment, and attack every turn with vigilance until the opponent is dead. The one thing he lacks is trample, but fortunately Green is very good at providing that, and once you have it, the combination with deathtouch makes it pretty much impossible for the opponent to block.

The #1 thing I've learned in testing this deck is that the absolute most important thing is being able to get Hit-Monkey down on turn 3 rather than turn 4. To that end, do not keep opening hands that don't have at least one of the cards pictured in the second-to-last column! Ideally, you only have exactly one, but more is better than none. The best are of course the actual land ramp spells, but the rocks & auras are necessary for redundancy. In a pinch, you can cast turn 3 Monkey off of turn 2 Gold Pan. Broken Bond is a special case — it should only be your turn 2 ramp solution if you (a) are on the draw, (b) strongly expect the opponent's commander to present an artifact or enchantment target on turn 1 or 2, and (c) have at least 3 (ideally 4) lands in your opening hand. It is, however, extremely funny when you get to snipe an Arcane Signet with it on turn 2 as well as get down an extra land. Careful Cultivation, likewise, should only be used as turn 2 ramp as a last resort because the creature token is a lot more vulnerable to removal than our other options.

You don't have to worry about counterspells because of can't be countered or targeted removal spells* because of hexproof, so the only things we're really worried about are (a) wrath effects and (b) edicts. This makes Black decks by far our worst matchup, but we do have a couple of tools to fight back — the creature tokens from Khalni Garden, Glimmerlight, Careful Cultivation, Wolfkin Bond, and Wolfwillow Haven can provide a little bit of edict insurance, and the instant-speed indestructible from Tyvar's Stand, Biosynthic Burst, Collective Resistance, Gaea's Gift, Origin of Metalbending, Overprotect, and Gilt-Leaf's Embrace can stop "destroy"-based wraths as well as blowing out anybody who tries to take down our monkey by blocking.

[*Except goddamn Nowhere to Run 😭]

The fight & bite spells are pretty self explanatory — kill anything you want because the moneky has deathtouch. Trash the Town is a wonderfully versatile card that can provide trample, grow the monkey with counters, and/or draw some extra cards. Sixth Sense, Season of Growth, Hunter's Insight, and Harmonize give us a bit of card draw so we don't flood out with all the lands and ramp spells. I was a bit skeptical of Monstrous Step and Enlarge at first, but they've proven their value in testing — the combination of acting as pseudo-removal with the forced blocking AND getting in a huge chunk of damage from +7/+7 and trample makes them well worth their 5 mana costs. Finally, I found in testing that the deck excelled at killing creatures but needed a few ways to handle particularly problematic artifacts & enchantments, so to that end we've added a couple versatile naturalize effects — Collective Resistance and Origin of Metalbending can double as protection spells, Over the Edge can provide a couple +1/+1 counters or lands, and as mentioned above Broken Bond can occasionally provide the funniest turn 2 turnabouts you can imagine.

Happy hunting 💕

Importable decklist:

Commander
1 Hit-Monkey (MSC) 723

Deck
1 Gate to Manorborn (HBG) 78
1 Khalni Ambush (PIO) 181
1 Bridgeworks Battle (MH3) 249
1 Vastwood Fortification (ZNR) 216
1 Tangled Florahedron (ZNR) 211
1 Captivating Cave (LCI) 268
1 Rogue's Passage (FDN) 264
1 Algorithmic Ferocity (Y26) 10
1 Audacity (PIO) 164
1 Skyshroud Ambush (J21) 29
1 Trash the Town (OTJ) 186
1 Biosynthic Burst (EOE) 173
1 Gaea's Gift (BRO) 182
1 Hunter's Talent (BLB) 179
1 Overprotect (BLB) 185
1 Ram Through (IKO) 170
1 Rune of Might (KHM) 191
1 Setessan Training (M21) 205
1 Cartouche of Strength (AKR) 184
1 Frantic Strength (DSK) 179
1 Gilt-Leaf's Embrace (ECL) 177
1 Novel Nunchaku (TMT) 127
1 Origin of Metalbending (TLA) 187
1 Tyvar's Stand (ONE) 190
1 Bushwhack (FDN) 215
1 Go Forth (J25) 20
1 Master's Rebuke (NEO) 202
1 Season of Growth (WOT) 61
1 Meltstrider's Resolve (EOE) 199
1 Sixth Sense (AKR) 220
1 Utopia Sprawl (WOT) 63
1 Ancient Animus (DAR) 154
1 Warbriar Blessing (J25) 739
1 Cosmic Hunger (MOM) 182
1 Explore (J25) 146
1 Glimpse the Core (LCI) 186
1 Into the North (CSP) 111
1 Lion Umbra (MH3) 160
1 Rampant Growth (J25) 704
1 Shared Roots (TLA) 196
1 Sylvan Smite (Y23) 15
1 Wolfwillow Haven (THB) 205
1 Bala Ged Recovery (PIO) 165
1 Careful Cultivation (NEO) 178
1 Historian's Wisdom (NEO) 192
1 Hunter's Insight (OMB) 35
1 Sheltering Boughs (VOW) 218
1 Signature Slam (MH3) 168
1 Harmonize (FIC) 308
1 Pitiless Fists (ECL) 187
1 Monstrous Step (IKO) 166
1 Enlarge (JMP) 392
1 Wolfkin Bond (SIR) 227
1 Khalni Garden (J21) 121
1 Barrow-Blade (LTR) 237
1 Arcane Signet (ELD) 331
1 Glimmerlight (DSK) 249
1 Gold Pan (OTJ) 242
1 Mind Stone (WTH) 153
1 Fireshrieker (FDN) 674
1 Storm the Seedcore (MOM) 206
1 Go Nuts! (MSH) 168
1 Felling Blow (FDN) 105
1 Knockout Maneuver (TDM) 147
25 Snow-Covered Forest (KHM) 285
1 Shimmerwilds Growth (ECL) 194
1 Coldsteel Heart (CSP) 136
1 Solar Transformer (MH3) 211
1 Cave of Temptation (J25) 763
1 Broken Bond (DAR) 157
1 Collective Resistance (MH3) 147
1 Over the Edge (LCI) 205
1 Hashep Oasis (AKR) 301
1 The Hunter Maze (ONE) 253
1 Tranquil Thicket (ONS) 326

Just wanted to share that I made it to diamond for the first time! Bounced between plat 1/2 for a bit but between yesterday and today I went 8-2 to reach diamond!

This is something that should never happen. There should always be a way to cancel

Kinda driving me crazy tbh. I don't even think this Commander is that good.

I've been trying to get back into brewing after a pretty long stretch of net-decking, so I took the opportunity to brew [[The Astonishing Ant-Man]] as a sort of voltron into go-wide +1/+1 counters deck. And of the 5 games I played, the 3 that I won were all against decks that seemed to consist entirely of [[Okoye, Dora Milaje Leader]] and as many [[Hare Apparent]] as they could jam in. No removal, no buffs, no token doublers or anthem beyond a single copy of [[Heraldic Banner]] in one deck.

I'm confused, both on the reasoning for that deck of all the decks that could have been brewed, and because the mirror for those decks is just a coinflip on who goes first essentially. Are folks just grinding out the midweek for rewards and fast games? And, if so, is there any way that we could think of for Arena to change that play pattern, besides the obvious banning of Hare in brawl?

I am guessing my opponent forgot to go Full Control before playing the Oracle. The Oracle scry resolved and then they played Tainted Pact and exiled their while library. I did give them a Oops emote but they probably didn't notice.

I've forgotten Full Control myself but I caught myself before playing Tainted Pact.

Is this a value or a trap?

Despite this, for 6000 gold you can get 9 rares with at least one WC, which you can use for a min. of 2 years

based on that, I would say that a rare has 600 gold value

so the daily offer is 4x the price

hmm

I've been messing around with a few mono-white and mono-red builds lately and they feel surprisingly consistent, but most of the deck discussions I see on here lean multicolor. Curious what people who play more competitively think - are mono-color archetypes still holding up on the ladder, or is that mostly a lower-rank thing at this point?

I love cubes and limited in general, and so far the cube has been an OK experience ~3 drafts in. I’m just not super sold on the inclusion of so many alchemy cards…. Maybe I’m not the biggest fan of them / their effects in general but wanted to see what others were thinking!

Just the title, it’s been years since we had such a boring, lopsided limited experience. It’s just white and blue white. Every draft. Pick all the rares you want in other colors, the common/uncommon blue white deck will run all over your deck.

I’m winning 70%+ games just forcing blue white in every. Single. Draft. This shit sucks

Just played 2 runs of MTGA Planar Cube (Zendikar edition) and went 3-0 twice by playing some variation of 4C value/good stuff

I've got the same feeling with this cube as with the previous arena cubes (with the exception of the powered cube) : The presence of really good midrange threats that are hard to positively interact with and generate value somehow ([[Professor Dellian Fel]], [[Earthbender ascension]], [[Loch mare]] to name a few) make it so that "small games" are impossible and not a viable way to navigate the draft/the games themselves

By small games, I want to describe this specific space where the goal is to limit your opponent's development, either by pressuring them with low to the ground creatures played on curve (traditional aggro) or by shortcutting their development with interaction (tempo/hard control/prison). In this cube, like many other arena cube, since every card brings extra value in addition to its board presence and threatens to snowball all the time you're incentivised to just try to go bigger than your opponent. Ultimately, the best thing you can do is to play all the best cards available before finding a 5/6 drop that is able to turn the corner by itself. So far [[Sunfall]], [[Grenzo, crooked jailer]] and the titans seem to be decent endgame, but I literally went 3-0 with a deck that just sought to play lands and hard cast [[Ulamog the ceaseless hunger]].

The biggest offender in this environment for me is the lack of combo/unfair strategies such as reanimator/sneak and show/natural order/storm. There is no natural predator for big dumb midrange decks playing the best threats and best removal (Plus the amount of fetches makes it so that any competent drafter can easily disregard color restrictions and jam any power outlier like [[Swords to plowshares]]. Synergies between low-mana value cards aren't strong enough so "synergies" is mostly a fancy way of killing once you've assembled good mana acceleration and good generic source of card advantage.

I feel like only one kind of macro-archetype is available and really viable in those kind of cubes, that decks that are able to ramp into big midrange threats/decks that are able to interact with said ramp are the two cornerstones of the format and you can't really deviate by playing aggro/hard control, therefore it seems that there are many "traps" and cards in this cube that will lead their drafters to play archetypes that are doomed to fail. At least, if you're playing vintage cube you're getting wrecked by card combinations you probably weren't aware of, but losing to [[tolarian academy]]+[[candelabra of tawnos]]+[[upheaval]] is a learning experience for every cube enthusiast and new players can walk away with the knowledge of what beat them and how they could improve for their next draft. Here the pitfalls that new players/less experienced drafters can fall into are way less obvious and they may not understand why jamming every red card that was given to them gave them a subpar deck despite red being obviously open at their pod.

I know it's a lot of nitpicking for a minor event between two standard sets but it just feels bad that every arena cube boils down to the same kind of gameplay when cube can be so much richer and so much deeper. I also think it would be an easy fix to cut some of the most egregious power outlier to let cute synergies/different archetypes shine a bit more.

Tl Dr : I wish the strongest things you could do in arena cubes such as the planar cube was also the cool stuff and not simply jam good midrange cards in all the colors you can afford to play

(btw here are the two decks, the first one had actually a cool landfall theme so there was that but it still felt like the individual power level of cards was what put the deck ahead and any games where I opened with a dork felt pretty much unloseable)