Ravni - meh

Well, here we are. The mechanics of Ravnica Allegiance have been revealed! And all I can say is - 

Meh....

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/ravnica-allegiance-mechanics-2018-12-17

Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh. But, honestly, that’s my first reaction. I’m not saying that any of them are bad. Or that they won’t be good to play with. But, collectively, they all feel lazy in their design. Lacking creativity or inspiration. Let’s go through them. 

Rakdos: Spectacle 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lssAiUNx62s

And so begins my issues with the RNA mechanics. Spectacle is a slightly less-restrictive rehash of Prowl. And that’s my major problem with the RNA mechanics. For the most part, they’re just revisiting other mechanics.

Instead of looking for a creature type that matches the card type, it only looks at whether the player lost life (damage causes loss of life). I think the primary reason for this change is so that non-creature spells can be included. With the way Prowl works, you need to go back to the “Tribal” card type, and that ain’t happening. 

It’s an OK mechanic. Nothing inspired, nothing particularly interesting. It doesn’t promise much in the way of interesting game decisions. It does exactly what Rakdos wants to do, and “encourages” exactly the play style that Rakdos is noted for. It’s bland, and so on rails that Superman would have a hard time stopping it. 

Orzhov: Afterlife 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkFWLq7AOaw

“Doomed Traveler” the mechanic. OK, technically, not exactly, it’s “Doomed Traveler” for (N) Spirits, which is basically Hangarback Walker. There’s 8 creatures which do this exact thing - dies and leaves a 1/1 spirit behind - and 78 cards which do a very similar thing - dying and leaving a token behind. This doesn’t even count the cards which have a similar “leaves the battlefield” trigger.

So why did R&T take a very common ability, which has been done repeatedly, and Keyword it? Again, this just feels lazy and uninspired. And it also doesn’t really look to lend itself to interesting game decisions. At least, not for the controller of the Afterlife creature.

Simic: Adapt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW7UMzYgWUw#action=share

Simic. Oh, Simic. I’m so sorry they did this to you. 

Adapt is literally a “fixed” Mostrous. Why? Who in the entire Multiverse was asking for a “fixed” Mostrous? This feels so much like one of Maro’s crusades to redo something he felt R&D took a pass at and *almost* got there. "It’ll be good if we just tweak it a little."

All Adapt does is put +1/+1 counters on the creature with Adapt. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing more. It is the most bottom-feeding, low-hanging fruit of a mechanic I’ve ever seen. 

=======================================

The Simic R&D focus meeting: 

“What should we do for Simic?”

“I dunno. Something with +1/+1 counters, I guess. People seem to like that.” 

“Howabout redoing Monstrus? Except this time it won’t do anything but put +1/+1 counters on stuff.” 

“Seems good to me. Can we go get lunch now?” 

========================================

Is this really the best they could do? With things like the tremendously fun, and insanely on-flavor Host/Augment languishing in Silver-Border land, what we get for Simic in RNA is “Just put some +1/+1 counters on stuff.” 

WE COULD HAVE NINJA KITTENS!

I’m not even a huge Simic fan, and I’m terribly disappointed. 

Azorius: Addendum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10WTNd1jCA8#action=share

We redid Prowl. We redid Monstrus. We turned Doomed Traveler/Hangarback Walker (“Travelback Walker”? “Doomerback Traveler”?) into a mechanic. Now let’s just do Might of Old Krosa as a mechanic. Except we’ll do it in a color pair that precludes us from reprinting Might of Old Krosa. The one card from that OG cycle that actually still sees play. 

Are you starting to see what I mean by “uninspired”? 

Now, Addendum is a fine mechanic. Honestly, this one will actually make for some interesting game decisions when it’s tacked onto Instants. Oh wait. You really can only put this on Instants, can’t you? I mean, it would be kind of pointless anywhere else, wouldn’t it. That seems pretty narrow. So every Azorius card with the Guild’s keyword, will have to be an instant, or also have Flash. So you’re possibly going to take Creatures, Enchantments, or Sorceries, and give them Flash so you can cast them at Instant speed, only to give them a mechanic that encourages you to cast them when you normally could. 

Sigh

Moving on….

Gruul: Riot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nagoGx3pwQo#action=share

Of all of the RNA mechanics, I think Gruul’s promises the most interesting game decisions at every Rarity. Granted, it’s an Unleashed variant - again, just rehashing some other, old mechanic - but it’s definitely the most interesting just on its face. 

I also swear that this actually was a card, but I might be thinking of Fanatic of Xenagos.

Riot is a fine ability. And in a vacuum, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I think it’s actually very good. It does what Gruul wants to do, in a way that lends itself to relevant in-game decision making. Sadly, it sits among a pile of reworked mechanics, and tired, redundant, rehashed, uninspired ideas. 

I realize that Maro has talked about how they were OK with reprinting old mechanics in RNA, and how they looked back to see what would be a good fit for the new Ravnica sets, but did they have to make every, single RNA mechanic a riff on something else? 

I think they’ve jumped the shark a bit here. Much like Star Trek in the Enterprise era, they’ve gone back to the Ravnica well too much, too often. They’re clearly out of fresh ideas for the Plane. 

If we don’t revisit Ravnica again for another decade, it won’t be too soon for me. 

I’m Tweeting now @23rdPlayable. I’m also occasionally streaming on Twitch as 23rdPlayable. And, as always, you can find me on Facebook in the MTG Arena Players group, where I’m a mod. 

Have fun, Play on, and Be kind to one another. 

First thougths on the Dec 2018 updates

Big changes this week. I thought I’d share some initial thoughts.

The Phase Ladder Breakdown
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/43386

Summary: Changes have been made to the appearance of the Phase Ladder, and some other controls.

Opinion: This seems largely cosmetic to me. I never had a problem with the phase ladder as it existed, but apparently, they had data that newer players were giving it too much attention. I won’t really know how this feels until I’ve played with it for a bit, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I’m glad that they clarified that they’ve added the full “Pass Turn” option, and that there’s more, explicit information in the Game Options dialogue box on how to manage your turn.

GRN Draft Bot Personalities
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/43385

Summary: The other “bot” players in Draft queues have been changed to have preferences for various color combinations and strategies.

Opinion: Generally, I think this is a good change. Again, I’ll have to play with it for a while to see how it feels. But not having every bot at the table be a clone, should make for a more enjoyable and “lifelike” drafting experience. Not much else to say here. Also, note, that they’re asking for bot feedback to be posted in this thread. So be sure to do so!

Rank 1.0 Breakdown
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/43384

Summary: Rankings will no longer be permanent. They’ll reset in “seasons” and you can earn rewards for achieving various rankings.

Opinion: Overall, I think these changes are positive. This system actually makes it feel like Ranking means something, and it looks like they’re addressing the issue of newbies getting roflstomped when they first start playing.

One thing I greatly appreciate here is that they’ve clarified how advancing through the Ranking works. There are four tiers total in each Ranking. You need a certain number of steps to move forward, and you receive some number of steps for each win, and lose some number of steps for each loss. Once you advance, you will not go back for the rest of the Season, which is really great. It’s all forward progress, which feels better than the older system.

Example:

Bronze. You gain 2 Steps for each win. You lose 0 Steps for each loss. You need 4 Steps to advance to the next tier. There’s a full breakdown of all the tiers in the forum thread.

The “Play” section will not longer be ranked games. You’ll be paired according to your Play MMR (Matchmaking Ranking) and Deck Weighting. This should help ensure that newer players aren’t paired against top tier decks, and highly experienced players.

Just to clarify a bit, on what the MMR is, here’s Wizards’ explanation “Matchmaking rating is our way of trying to ensure that you face the best possible opponent at any given time. What our system considers 'best' pulls from a variety of criteria that will vary depending on the format (such as rank, win/loss record, deck, etc.) player skill, and the amount of time you've spent searching for a match.”

There will be a new, No Entry/No Rewards “Ranked” play area. However, in these events, Deck Weighting won’t be taken into account. You’ll be matched solely on Rankings.

The Constructed events have been streamlined. 600g entry. If you break even, then you break even on Gold. Anything better than .500 and you earn Gold. This applies to both Best of Three and Single Game Match events.

Matchmaking Breakdown 
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/43383

Summary: The Matchmaking system is being revised, and will function differently in various events, with different ratings and Rankings for Limited and Constructed events.

Opinion: Most of the changes here seem great. I like that there will be events where the only thing that matters in the matching will be your record in that event. That feels much more like “traditional Magic” as they’re calling it, now. I’ll list out the matchmaking below, but reading the forum post will be good if you want detailed information about how the MMR works. They’re also removing the random card rewards (ICRs) from the Constructed best-of-one events.

BTW - 0.10.00.00 is their current Ranking/Matchmaking Build designation. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that.

Play (Best of One) - This is an unranked event
Current System: N/A
0.10.00.00: Open Play MMR, Games Played, Deck Weight

Traditional Play (Best of Three) - This is an unranked event
Current System: N/A
0.10.00.00: Open Play MMR

Ranked (Best of One)
Current System: N/A
0.10.00.00: Rank, Constructed MMR

Ranked Draft (Best of One)
Current System: Win/Loss Record
0.10.00.00: Rank, Win/Loss Record, Limited MMR

Traditional Draft (Best of Three)
Current System: Win/Loss Record
0.10.00.00: Win/Loss Record

Sealed (Best of One)
Current System: Win/Loss Record
0.10.00.00: Win/Loss Record, Limited MMR

Constructed Event (Best of One)
Current System: Win/Loss Record
0.10.00.00: Win/Los Record

Traditional Constructed Event (Best of Three)
Current System: Win/Loss Record
0.10.00.00: Win/Loss Record

Special Events (Momir, Pauper, Singleton, etc.)
Current System: Win/Loss Record
0.10.00.00: Win/Loss Record

============================================

Well, those are my initial impressions on the Dec 2019 updates. Thanks for taking the time to read through my ramblings. Feel free to comment.

I’m Tweeting now @23rdPlayable. I’m also streaming on Twitch as 23rdPlayable. And, as always, you can find me on Facebook in the MTG Arena Players group, where I’m a mod.

Have fun, Play on, and Be kind to one another.

Live from PAX East - it's Em-Tee-Gee Ayyyy!

If you're not getting the reference, that's probably because I'm too old and all my references are dated. What I'm going for is “Not ready for prime time”.

Wizards made a huge announcement last week. Arena is going to feature prominently in some high-stakes, eSport events. Notably, a $1,000,000 prize pool for an Invitational at PAX East in Boston in 2019. I'm a little surprised.

More than a little, actually, because I assume this means that they're going to exit the Beta testing before these events happen. I can't imagine they're going to run events like this if the program is still considered to be in Beta. Maybe I'm wrong there.

While I personally think that Arena is a fantastic product, and they've got a solid foundation to proceed, I think it's far from ready for a full launch. So here's what I think needs to be “fixed” before they go to a full open release.

Time for a change.

Mileage will vary on these, and any “top” list is going to be controversial, but I think the biggest component of the game that needs a healthy revision is the timer system. I'm not sure what the answer is, or how to balance the somewhat opposed needs of an in-game timer system.

From what I can tell, Wizards’ priority for the timer system is fluid, brisk game play. In MTGO they use a “chess clock” system. Which is to say that each person gets 25 minutes per match, and anytime you have priority, your clock is running - theirs is not. There's also a 10 minute “idle” kill - which is to say if you take no game actions within that 10 minute window, you forfeit the game. If you run out of time, you lose the game and match.

Personally, I love playing with this system. I'm a quick enough player that I almost never run up against time issues, and I have won matches that I almost certainly would have otherwise lost because my opponent ran out of time. More importantly, is the idle forfeit, which Arena does not really have right now.

However, this system does not foster a brisk pace of play. You're managing an entire 25 minutes of time, not a few minutes of idle countdown. You actually have the time to sit and and think about your moves, which his very important in Magic, and even more so in formats like Legacy and Vintage.

Unfortunately, Arena’ s timer system readily lends itself to abuse. Most of the players I talk to have had the experience of someone “roping” them - which is to say allowing the timer to burn completely down before taking a game action, and then taking a quick action to advance the game just a little, so they can let the timer burn down again. (Roping is a term which many people will be familiar with from Hearthstone, where the timer “fuse” is represented in game by a length of rope).

However, there are certainly also times where the other player runs into legitimate issues of system lag or connectivity problems. This can seem like they're roping their opponent, when they're not. It make this kind of thing very hard to police by Wizards, because figuring out what's a legitimate system issue, and what's intentional time-wasting is nearly impossible.

So what's the solution? Well, damned if I know. I think it will involve a revision of the timing system, to reduce the ability to abuse it, perhaps by having a hard time limit on any given turn.

Trash for Treasure

The next elephant in the Arena isn't a Loxodon. To make another dated reference - “It's the economy, stupid.”

The biggest issue here is what's become known as “the 5th card problem”. This stems from the fact that you can only have 4 copies of any uniquely named card in your deck, so in the digital realm, you only ever need 4 copies of any given card. So what happens when you open that ever looming “fifth” copy?

Well, right now that copy is converted into “Vault” progress. The Vault contains Wildcards. Three Uncommon, two Rare, and one Mythic. The trouble is that Vault progress is ridiculously slow. Opening the 5th copy of a Mythic only adds 1.1% to your Vault, and Commons and Uncommons are practically worthless when it comes to this.

Again, I'm not sure where the solution lies. I don't have much experience analyzing or designing FTP game economies. And, like with the timer system, it's a balancing act. Wizards needs to find the sweet spot between enabling players to build the decks they want in a timely fashion, while also limiting how quickly they can totally max out their accounts. I think one good alteration would be to set the system to not drop a Mythic or Rare when you already own a playset. At some point, it will probably have to override that, if you've collected everything at those rarities, but I think it would be a good place to start.

You might say that a “dusting” system (where you can exchange existing cards for some resource which you can convert into different cards) like Hearthstone's would be good, but Wizards has intentionally rejected that type of system. It's their philosophy that newer players will be compelled to spend a ton of time researching what to dust and what not to before they can do anything, and this encourages them to research and spend time on forums, instead of playing the game. Honestly, I have to agree. I've only played Hearthstone a little, but that's one of the things that turns me off about the game. I had no idea which cards I should “dust” and what to convert them into.

Rankin Ass, or A Match Made in Heaven

I'm going to group these next two together, because I think they're related topics - and that is the Ranking system and the Matchmaking System.

Both of these are totally FOBAR, and I realize that both of them are going to get a revision starting in mid December 2019 (later this week), but I thought they deserved to be mentioned here.

The ranking system is utterly meaningless. I remember winning half a dozen games, slowly clawing my way from Silver 1 to Silver 2, being just one win away, and then having one loss which tanked literally all of the progress I'd made. That's the moment where I stopped giving any fucks about what my ranking was.

The pairing system is also “odd”, to put it mildly. Prior to the transition to Open Beta, it was engineered to pair high-tier decks - decks which had been performing well at major events - with each other. I'd still get long runs of either a mirror match, or an opposite match.

Hopefully, we'll see some true improvements on both these fronts.

My buddy, 
My buddy, 
My buddy and me. 

I know we're still dealing with the prototype build on the direct challenge, and there's no in-game friends list yet, but this needs to be addressed before Arena goes live.

The direct challenge system, as it sits, is hopelessly cumbersome. Again, I'm not criticizing it. I'm sure what's happening now is Wizards testing the underlying architecture for functionality, but is 4 months enough time to get it right? Let's hope so.

A scene of pure horror

This next one is a pet peeve of mine, that's bothered me since day one on Arena. That nightmare of a Deck Construction scene. What a hot pile of garbage.

Here's one spot where MTGO has it all over Arena, in spades. Seriously, I do NOT need the cards in my collection to be three times the size of the ones in the deck, and for the actual deck portion of the screen to be the same vertical width as the collection section.

This one is real easy, Wizards. Just do what you did in MTGO. That deck builder is fantastic. It's the one place there that clunky, outdated pile of code actually gets it right.

Knife to a Gunfight 

I'm going to end this with a personal thought, although I'm not really sure this needs to be implemented before going to a full release.

I think there should be a “precons only” scene, or the matchmaking system in Ladder games should be set up so that if you're playing an unaltered precon, you'll only be matched against other precons.

There's a real “feel bad” moment when you're just starting out in Arena, not to mention Magic itself, where you're bringing a spitball to a gunfight. I've been playing for a long time, so I'm no stranger to being outgunned in a Magic match. But I recently started an account that I am intentionally not spending any money in, to see how well I can progress, and I have to say, I've had some pretty rotten moments where I've gotten hammered playing a precon. It's not cool, and I can see  how that might be enough to make someone not want to play.

I’m Tweeting now @23rdPlayable. I’m also streaming on Twitch as 23rdPlayable. And, as always, you can find me on Facebook in the MTG Arena Players group, where I’m a mod. 

Have fun, Play on, and Be kind to one another. 

Archetype of Whoa

For the new player, choosing a deck can be a daunting task. 

This post is intended to serve as a guidepost of sorts, by giving a broad overview of the major deck types. There are five major archetypes in Magic. They’ll probably be familiar to anyone who’s played another CCG, or any of a number of other strategy based games. We’ll talk about what they look like in the game of Magic, and which colors are most generally associated with them. 

The five deck archetypes are Aggro, Control, Midrange, Tempo, and Combo. For the most part, the names are pretty self-explanatory. But let’s go over them, and talk about how they function. 

Aggro is, obviously, aggressive. The primary color for Aggro is Red - in fact there's a long tradition of mono-Red Aggro throughout Magic's history. White and Green can also be paired with Red, and sometimes Black. The original Sligh deck (precursor to Burn and RDW - Red Deck Wins) was basically built on the theory of efficient mana use, and also the idea I had heard of called the “Rule of 7” (although I can’t find a reference for that now). The idea being that you only had to resolve 7 spells like Lightning Bolt to win the game (3x7= Yer Dead!) 

With this type of deck, your one and only goal is to end the game as quickly as possible. This typically involves some combination of aggressively costed creatures, and direct damage spells - hence the predilection for Red, because that's the color of Direct Damage. Aggro tends to have the weakest individual cards, so it relies on doing as much damage as possible in the fewest turns, and for the least amount of mana. 

Aggro's biggest weakness is stalling out near the end. There are times where you've gotten your opponent down to their last few life points, but can't quite close out the game. Your creatures are now out-matched on the Battlefield, and your hand is empty. Red and White especially, don't have good ways to draw more cards. Additionally, it's important that each of your cards is focused on doing damage quickly, so draw spells can actually prevent you from getting enough damage done in a timely fashion. 

Aggro is also probably the highest variance archetype. There are times where you're just going to mise wins and there's nothing your opponent can do about it - You're going to feel totally unstoppable. (mise is basically an unexpected event -  MiseTings (so named for the expression) defined a mise as "something unusually great or unexpected" or the act of obtaining such.). There's other times where you're going to run up against something that gives a player Hexproof, or a Life Gain deck, and you're going to feel like there's nothing you can do to win, even if you were to draw your entire deck. 

The one constant with Aggro is that you're definitely going to have time to go grab food between rounds, because your matches will be over before most people have finished shuffling. 

Control is the next archetype we'll talk about. Again, the name is pretty self-explanatory. Your goal it to completely control the pace of the game, keeping it slow until you can resolve one or two threats which are so dominating and hard to remove that your opponent has no chance to win. Control is primarily a Blue strategy, but is very often paired with White and Black, because both of those colors are the most capable at dealing with permanents after they've hit the Battlefield. 

The keyword for Control is patience. There's a reason control strategies often are nicknamed “Draw-Go”. Control decks are highly reactive, as a rule. The only pro-active components tend to be hand disruption (like Duress) and card draw/filtering. Card advantage is a major component of Control decks, so taking a peek at my post about Card Advantage might be helpful.

Control’s major weakness is Aggro. You only have so many counterspells, and they tend to be less mana-efficient than direct damage spells, and cheap creatures, so it's not unusual to find yourself overwhelmed. Although there are “catch up” cards like Settle the Wreckage and Fumigate. 

Of the major archetypes, Control is probably the most skill-intensive. Facing down a Control deck, it's easy to feel like they're able to effortlessly answer every threat you produce. In truth, knowing what to counter, and when, takes a lot of learning and experience, and a solid comprehension of not only the meta-format, but what your opponent is trying to do. You need to not only understand how your deck works, but how each of your opponent's decks work. 

Midrange is, quite obviously, somewhere in between Control and Aggro. It has elements of each. Midrange is most typically Black and Green at its core, and is often paired with one of the other colors. BUG (Sultai), BGR (Jund), and WBG (Junk or Abzan) are a trio of decks that share a common core, and have been staples of the non-rotating formats for decades. 

In Midrange, you're not as fast as Aggro, although you can have some very quick starts, and you're not as slow as Control. Midrange revolves around a combination of hand disruption (like Duress) and permanent removal (like Assassin's Trophy) to try and disrupt your opponent's strategies, and get to a mid game point - often around turns 4-6, where you can stick a very resilient, and hopefully evasive threat, like Carnage Tyrant. 

Midrange's biggest weakness is itself. You're trying to be a Jack of all Trades, doing a little bit of everything well, but not excelling in any one area the way that Control and Aggro do. It's a balancing act, and, again, demands a thorough understanding of what your opponent is trying to accomplish. 

These are the most common deck types you'll encounter, and the Standard format, which is what we have in Arena, can often become a rock/paper/scissors situation between these three deck types. With Control beating Mirage, Midrange beating Aggro, and Aggro beating Control. 

The next deck I'm going to talk about is Tempo. Honestly, it took me a while to understand the difference between Tempo and Midrange, or Tempo and Aggro. Tempo is most typically a Blue/Red type of deck. It can be paired with Green and Black, and can also be Blue/White. 

The idea is to manage the pace of the game, keeping your opponent off balance just enough to allow you to complete your game plan in a pace that suits you. Sometimes this involves sticking a solid threat early in the game, and then just protecting it while it closes out the game. U/R, Temur (URG) and Sultai (UGB) Delver operate this way in Legacy. The current Izzet Drakes decks are a type of tempo deck, pairing counterspells early, with powerful threats later on. 

Tempo decks will take full advantage of temporary removal effects, like bouncing creatures (returning them to their owner's hand) and “frost” effects (tapping them and having them not untap right away) - whereas Control decks look to permanently answer threats. Remand is a classic Tempo card. It counters a spell, but puts the countered spell back in its owner's hand. So you're taking your opponent off their desired pace, and gaining card advantage, but you haven't permanently answered the threat of the card which you countered. 

And finally we come to Combo. The whakiest archetype of them all. They do exactly what the name implies, look to combine the effects of various cards - typically not printed in the same Standard environment - to do utterly broken things like gaining infinite life, or creating infinite hasty creatures. Combo decks can be literally any color in Magic. 

Combo decks are uncommon in Standard formats, although in 2017 Felidar Guardian was banned in Standard because it created a combo of infinite hasty creatures with the Planeswalker Saheeli Rai. A combo which was missed in R&D’s play testing, and would have easily been fixed with a small wording change to the Guardian. 

Combo decks are often the least interactive of any deck type. Often they don’t give a crap about what their opponent is doing, and just try to get to their combo pieces as fast as possible. Playing combo is all about knowing what your deck is doing, and maybe about what bits are worth fighting for through counterspells - depending on the format.

Thanks for popping by my little blog. Hopefully you found this interesting, and maybe informative. As always, constructive comments are welcome, and you can often find me hanging out over in the MTG Arena Players Facebook group. 

The Smokey Stack

Knowing the Stack is fundamental to leveling up your Magic play. 

The better you understand how it works, the more you’ll see opportunities to take advantage of it, and be able to avoid traps and pitfalls. This involves understanding the general timing system of the game, and steps and phases as well, so we’ll touch on those here. Let’s start with a little history. 

Back in the day, Magic didn’t use the Stack. Instead it used “batching” as a means of tracking spell casting. The batch was defined for the Fourth Edition as:

"A series of non-interrupt fast effects that build on one another as players respond to each other's spells. Batches are resolved by first-in, last-out for all effects. Any damage done to creatures or players isn't applied until the end of the batch, but creatures that are destroyed through means other than damage are sent to the graveyard immediately and regeneration and/or death effects are checked when this occurs.” 
(https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Batch) 

“Hold on,” I hear you saying. “What in tarnation an ‘Interrupt’?” Well, back in the day, there was another spell type called “Interrupt”. It was “faster” than an Instant. You could respond to Instants with Interrupts, but you could only respond to Interrupts with other Interrupts. Counterspells were always Interrupts. It’s a superfluous card type which was removed with the Sixth Edition rules overhaul, along with Batching and a whole bunch of other stuff. Recreating the feel of Interrupts was the inspiration for the “Split Second” mechanic in Time Spiral block. 

It was a clunky system, with odd restrictions and the really bizarre part is that all the damage was saved until the end of the batch resolving. Effectively, what this meant was that you couldn’t respond to someone trying to pump their creature with a burn spell to kill it. But more on that in a moment. 

So after the Sixth Edition rules changes, batching was left behind, and we moved to the Stack. It’s a much cleaner way to handle spell casting, and it’s as simple as “Last in, FIrst out”. Objects are placed on the Stack in basically one of three ways - a Spell is cast, or an Ability either triggers or is activated. There are a number of actions, known as “special actions” which do not use the stack. Relevant to Arena, these primarily are Playing Lands, and activating Mana abilities (most typically done by tapping Lands). 

A quick note on terminology. If it’s your turn, then you’re the “Active Player”. Everyone else is the “Non-active player”. In Arena, this will always just be your single opponent. 

Whenever a spell or ability is placed on the Stack, each opponent has an opportunity to respond to that before that spell or ability resolves. Actually, we probably need to get our Priorities straight here. 

The way timing works is through a system of “Priority”. When you’re the AP (Active Player), you receive priority first in any given step or phase (steps are a subset of phases). When it's your turn, you'll get priority at the beginning of your main phase. If you put a stop in your upkeep, you'll get priority there as well. Technically, there's both the Upkeep step and the Draw step where you get priority, but Arena kind of mashes both of those into a single step. 

There's basically two “speeds” for putting objects on the Stack. Sorcery speed and Instant speed. What Sorcery speed means, in pedantic rules terms, is 1. On your turn (so you're the active player), 2. During one of your main phases, 3. With nothing else on the Stack. This is when you can play lands, activate Planeswalker Loyalty abilities, cast Creature, Artifact, Enchantment, and of course, Sorcery cards. 

Instant speed means that you can do it anytime you have priority. This can be on either player's turn, with an empty stack or not. *Most* activated abilities of permanents can be done at Instant speed, unless otherwise stated. As noted before, tapping Lands for mana doesn't use the stack and may be done at any time, and activating Planeswalker Loyalty abilities can only be done at Sorcery speed. This is a rules restriction that's attached to those abilities. This is also true for the “Equip” ability on Equipment artifacts. 

Triggered abilities are a bit of a special case. If you see the words “When”, “Whenever” or “At” in a text box, you're dealing with a triggered ability. Anytime the condition specified in the rules text are met, that ability will go on the stack as soon as priority is checked. 

So how can you take full advantage of the Stack? Primarily it's by knowing when you can and can't respond to various actions.

For example, say that your opponent is attacking with their Adanto Vanguard. You block, and they activate the Vanguard's ability in an effort to save it. That ability goes on the stack, but in the moment after the activation and before the resolution, that Vanguard is not yet indestructible. Before the ability resolves, you will gain priority, and can cast a spell like Shock to try to kill the Vanguard. Now your Shock will be on the stack. But the Vanguard's not dead yet. After you put your spell on the stack, your opponent will again receive priority before it resolves. They can again activate the Vanguard to try to save it.

*Edit* A quick note here which should be included, Lifelink and Deathtouch do NOT use the stack. They happen as Damage happens, and are applied before Priority is checked. So if you're at 3 life, and you're being attacked by a pair of 3 power creatures, but your only blocker is a 1/1 with Lifelink, you will live at 1 life after combat done. 

This type of scenario is probably the most common way you'll be able to take advantage of understanding the Stack - whether it's with an activated ability, or by your opponent casting a pump spell to buff their creature. It's why the defending player will always have an advantage in combat, because the active player will have to initiate  the action, and you'll always have an opportunity to respond. 

In this way, priority is passed back and forth until each player passes without taking an action. At that point, the spells and abilities will start resolving, one at a time, Last in, First out. And after each one resolves, each player will again have priority to put new objects on the stack. 

Arena defaults to a “quick play” type of mode, where you're automatically passing priority if you can take no actions. If you want, you can put stops on your opponent's turn, or switch to “full control” (by hitting the Ctrl key), in which case you'll have to manually pass priority each and every time. It's more cumbersome to play that way, but it will maximize your opportunities to take actions. 

The Stack is nothing mysterious. It's an elegant and clean way to handle in-game timing. 

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. I hope some of you find this helpful. Feel free to post any questions or corrections. You can frequently find me hanging out in the MTG Arena Players group on Facebook.