Matchups - Current state of the game

Unknown

Heyo, I thought I would take some time and write down my thoughts on the current matchups in quick battle between the different planeswalkers, and what cards I personally feel are best suited to counter them, and the strategies you should employ to beat them. Obviously you can't tell who your next opponent will be, but there are several cards per deck that you should always include as a "what if" scenario that will make your life much easier. They typically mirror high ratings in my card tier list so this might give a better idea of why a seemingly niche card is so highly rated.

My main PWs are Jace, Gideon, Nissa so I'll talk more in depth about those. If anyone more experienced with Chandra or Liliana could share their opinions I'd be happy to edit and include your thoughts.

Liliana

More info incoming

Jace

• vs Liliana - Very Easy - You have excess card draw and mana deny and bounce, she has nothing, not even support destruction.
• vs Jace - Easy - The opponent isn't as good at timing bounces or cascades. Keep that mana advantage and you're good to go. Keep a bounce handy, play slowly, go for a drain build. Fatty flyer rush works too.
• vs Nissa - Tricky - Potentially very bad if they get a good early cascade, and she can destroy your supports too. This matchup is more about simply beating each other into submission first. It is hard to trade efficiently vs Nissa, and she has enough mana ramp to ignore your drain. Forget about your drain supports for the most part, get a mizzium out asap, and save your 1 for her reach creatures so you can kill them efficiently.
• vs Chandra - Easy - Pretty easy for the most part, usual strategy works. Your creatures are usually fairly small and efficient enough that it doesn't matter if she burns them. If you get an early mana drain out she can't do much. Most of them don't even run demolish for some reason.
• vs Gideon - Very Easy - wait for him to use his sharp eyes on a creature, then use your 1 and laugh and laugh. Bounce his fatties too.

Nissa

• vs Liliana - Very Easy - you'll have like 5 creatures out before she has one. Your creatures are far more efficient and also you have far more mana gain. Plus your 1 counters her discard pretty well.
• vs Jace - Normal/Easy - You'll want to setup a good cascade to get several creatures out, so that he uses his 1 incorrectly and your reach creatures can do their jobs. Be wary of bounce and use your 1 to fill out your hand. Can be tricky if he gets his mana drain in place first. You'll want a naturalists esp if he has thopter network. However the amount of board clearing you get with Animists Awakening and your 1 should be clearing the board of supports easily.
• vs Nissa - Easy - Opponent doesn't know how to save up creatures or use the right spells. Simply roll over them with your better play. Remember your 2 is the difference between a sweeping victory and an equivalent trade. Don't waste so much time with your 1, let the opponent fill board with green for you.
• vs Chandra - Very Easy - you are more efficient, and faster. Her burn can't really touch your creatures and your reinforcement rate.
• vs Gideon - Easy - This might require saving some creatures if he has a beefy first striker out, but for the most part 2 is your friend, and you can roll right over him.

Chandra

• vs Liliana - Very Easy - Her stuff all have extremely low hp, she doesn't have much in the way of defenders (go prickleboar too), and you're much faster. Your creatures are all so efficient you are actually trading equally vs any destruction she may have so that is hilarious. Her discard is annoying but it shouldn't bother you. About half your cards you can cast with 1 turn anyway.
• vs Jace - Easy/Tricky - Easy if he is the slow mizzium + drain way, tricky if he is the flying fatty spell rush. You have zero flyers and no real way to get rid of them aside from normal burn, so that becomes a mana race. Aside from that, abuse Act of Treason to kill two creatures for the price of 1. He only has one defender and it falls easily to prickleboar (get another creature, maybe rambler, to eat Jace's 1).
• vs Nissa - Tricky - Probably the hardest matchup, Nissa's mana ramp is far faster than yours, and Chandra's extremely low hp pool (lowest of any pw) means a single good cascade can completely wipe you out before you can burn down her stuff. Focus on rushing, prickleboar is again your MVP vs her slew of efficient reach creatures. Burn anything out of his grasp and keep the board clean so you don't get Joraga'd.
• vs Chandra - Easy - pretty much a race to the finish, expect to take damage but you should be able to rush them down. AI is still not very good at saving burn.
• vs Gideon - Very Easy - All of his creatures (save Archangel) is killable with a single Exquisite, so having one handy means he loses. Make sure to kill any of his supports asap with demolish, and abuse Act of Treason to take care of any beefy creatures he has, using his own vigilance against him.

Gideon

• vs Liliana - Easy - Just play your efficient creatures and you will win. I only saw a couple Liliana's in tournament but the discard is kinda pointless and she doesn't have anything that can match your efficiency. You might lose a creature or two (hold back on reinforcing unless she is about to discard you), but it doesn't really matter.
• vs Jace - Tricky - This match involves playing extremely slowly and conservatively. You -might- be screwed if he gets a mana drain card out prior to your first creature. You may be screwed if your first creature gets harbingered. I would highly suggest simply forfeiting the match if either happens. If not, you will want to play with a full hand constantly. NEVER reinforce your creatures. Try to have two out, one beefy and one first striker, so that he uses -6 on the beefier creature instead. Do NOT use sharp eyes until you have a good feel for his cards. And above all, keep your hand full unless you will lose otherwise. It doesn't matter if you're only doing 6 damage a turn with your consul. Keep at it, do NOT let him get bounced. Also, let him play the first creature. If it is his reach drake, for instance, you don't want to play anything that you cannot enshrouding mist because he will -6 it and it will die to the drake. This is a slow and painful match no matter how you look at it.
• vs Nissa - Easy - This matchup is entirely based on speed. Get your consul out asap and sharp eyes it. Do not let her reinforce and get cascades, her creatures will overwhelm. Only one haste creature (that is super overcosted and noone uses), so you should always be able to see what is coming. Keep a enshrouding mist ready, and use preemptively if her second ability is ready. Never rely on your supports.
• vs Chandra - Easy - Chandra's burn is still not well utilized by the AI, however you still need to play conservatively. Do not play consul as your first card. Do not sharp eyes till you know you can tank the 6/6 scab, as it has haste. Keep an eye on her commander mana, be prepared to preemptively enshrouding mist when she has enough for her second ability. Keep toughnesses up and preemptively use things like Take Flight to buffer your creatures when it seems like she is charging a burn spell. Most of your good creatures are at least toughness 6 - make it a priority to make them toughness 7 before you play them. You will almost always take damage, but will rarely lose.
• vs Gideon - Easy - This match can go both ways, and mostly depend on who lays down their core creatures first. But there are several things that make it easy. First, Enshrouding Mist - the opponent doesn't know how to use this. I would HIGHLY recommend not playing your first creature before charging mist unless you have an overwhelming advantage. Another card that is useful is Take Flight - allowing you hp buffer and letting you fling your first strikers to kill his creatures. But actually, you don't even need this. Just let him stupidly cast sharp eyes on his flyers and bring them down to your level =P

Unknown

State of the game, afaik:

-drop them moneys or be the most patient guy on the face of the earth, because you can't get good cards without fat packs
-win 90% of your games due to braindead AI and lose 10% of them due to ginormous cascades from said AI

but, in all seriousness. I never felt like the matchup really mattered, just how lucky the AI was. I don't think I ever lost a game where both players had approx the same gem matching rate

Unknown

I have plate in my blue deck. With that green isn't that bad because you can kill a creature almost every turn.

All in all your list is pretty accurate.

It's good to know which match is tricky because you can quit early since all that matters in qb is wins per time.

My opinion with whom you can make the most points per hour:

> >= > >

ChrisTot

Blue is easy/normal to play against based on what metric?
I'd pay a reasonable amount of money to never have to play against blue again. Now THAT would be an advantage.

Unknown

ChrisTot wrote:

Blue is easy/normal to play against based on what metric?
I'd pay a reasonable amount of money to never have to play against blue again. Now THAT would be an advantage.

If you run a good deck and strategy I totally agree that Green vs Blue is easy/normal most of the time.
The only time blue is really painful is the combination of meddler and bad luck.
All in all I would call it easy/normal/tricky.

Unknown

You only lose to blue as green if you have really bad cards, hand, or just get completely outplayed in puzzle quest.

It is ranked "normal" however because you do need a decent complement of good cards to counter his good cards, and things may go sour at any point if you make poor decisions.

"Easy" rank typically means that unless you are AFK or playing randomly, even against overwhelming mana you should still win.

"Normal" rank means that with average luck you will win the vast majority of the time in an even matchup, and should win even with a deficit in mana.

"Tricky" means that any bad cascade will be very painful to recover from, and that you will only win by outplaying them (and/or if they simply have terrible cards).

"Hard" I reserved for an extremely unfavorable matchup where even playing optimally with good cascades you can lose, or have difficulty. I doubt I will rank anything as hard though because the AI simply isn't that good.

loroku

I'm happy to comment on red, but my advice is biased because I won't max her out. At this time, I find level 30 to be a great place to leave her, since she gets basically nothing worthwhile until 40 (and that's just another QB ribbon) and level 38 is still much worse than 37 to me. (There's an argument for 32 but otherwise, meh.) This advice probably changes at level 50 when you see more rares and mythics.

Also worth noting is deck style. I play a control-style deck with a few big guns and some small fry for niche occasions. Other decks may have different advantages vs. various colors.

vs.

- Normal to Tricky - Her ability to discard 2 of your cards is really powerful. As red, you get your cards out fast so you are often not at max hand, and part of your strategy is to save DD spells for when you need them - black ruins that. And if you are trying to spend several turns to get out a big gun, she'll likely destroy it or everything else you had saved up. That said, black's cards are awful so once you do get something on the board, you'll probably win. However if black has anything good up her sleeve, or gets some major cascades, she can empty the board and your hand so quickly you are effectively starting over - and that can be really hard to come back from.

vs. - Tricky - Blue's bounce and attack negation really, REALLY slows you down - which isn't fun because as red you tend to win quickly and longer games can turn against you (more time playing = more chances for the AI to get an insane cascade). Blue makes your big guns too expensive, so you'll need to focus on midrange and dinky creatures to take him out - one of which he'll make useless the whole game. That said, he has few cards that actually hurt you. Blue is tricky because they can keep ruining your plans and eventually he'll lay something down that you just can't stop in time. And he'll delay the game long enough to get this in a few times, and your low HP just can't survive it.

vs. - Normal - I've never lost a mirror match but vs. red will always hurt, and that makes playing her trickier because you also have to focus on reducing the damage. She can kill all your midrange and dinky creatures so you either need to flood the board or get out a big gun before she exhausts you. It's basically a race but the AI is so poor you will win - but not before she takes a chunk of your life. I put her at "normal" because she can slow down your ability to play more games, but the actual game is closer to Easy.

vs. - Easy to Normal - White has a few tricks to draw the game out and an HP total that is insane, but you will win this battle of attrition. The trick is to make sure white can never keep a creature on the board for more than a turn, because otherwise he will buff it like crazy. Save your DD spells and use them judiciously until you can get out a big gun or two, and then it's only a matter of time. Also, stay on top of his supports - he can also get too many out too quickly and that can ruin your day.

vs. - Easy - Poor green. She just can't stop you. Green plays like white but without the tricky cards or possibility to overwhelm you with supports. Once you get something serious on the board she has literally no answer, and even with her ramp it takes too long for her to respond to your DD. You are simply too efficient and the AI too poor to lose this game. (Note that at higher levels you'll run into her MUCH stronger rare and mythic cards which are way more efficient. Green is extremely card-dependent.)

Unknown

loroku wrote:

I'm happy to comment on red, but my advice is biased because I won't max her out. At this time, I find level 30 to be a great place to leave her, since she gets basically nothing worthwhile until 40 (and that's just another QB ribbon) and level 38 is still much worse than 37 to me. (There's an argument for 32 but otherwise, meh.) This advice probably changes at level 50 when you see more rares and mythics.

Also worth noting is deck style. I play a control-style deck with a few big guns and some small fry for niche occasions. Other decks may have different advantages vs. various colors.

vs.

- Normal - I find so few black opponents this might be part of it, but her ability to discard 2 of your cards is rough. As red, you get your cards out fast so you are often not at max hand, and part of your strategy is to save DD spells for when you need them - black ruins that. And if you are trying to spend several turns to get out a big gun, she'll likely destroy it or everything else you had saved up. That said, black's cards are awful so once you do get something on the board, you'll probably win.

vs. - Tricky - Blue's bounce and attack negation really, REALLY slows you down - which isn't fun because as red you tend to win quickly and longer games can turn against you (more time playing = more chances for the AI to get an insane cascade). Blue makes your big guns too expensive, so you'll need to focus on midrange and dinky creatures to take him out - one of which he'll make useless the whole game. That said, he has nearly nothing to actually hurt you. Blue is tricky because they can eventually play so many supports you can't kill them all, and then he'll lay something down that you just can't stop in time. And he'll delay the game long enough to get this in a few times, and your low HP just can't survive it.

vs. - Normal - I've never lost a mirror match but vs. red will always hurt, and that makes playing her trickier because you also have to focus on reducing the damage. She can kill all your midrange and dinky creatures so you either need to flood the board or get out a big gun before she exhausts you. It's basically a race but the AI is so poor you will win - but not before she takes a chunk of your life. Red is why you'll be low on potions sometimes. I put her at "normal" because she can slow down your ability to play more games, but the actual game is closer to Easy.

vs. - Easy to Normal - White has a few tricks to draw the game out and an HP total that is insane, but you will win this battle of attrition. The trick is to make sure white can never keep a creature on the board for more than a turn, because otherwise he will buff it like crazy. Save your DD spells and use them judiciously until you can get out a big gun or two, and then it's only a matter of time. Also, stay on top of his supports - he can also get too many out too quickly and that can ruin your day.

vs. - Easy - Poor green. She just can't stop you. Green plays like white but without the tricky cards or possibility to overwhelm you with supports. Once you get something serious on the board she has literally no answer, and even with her ramp it takes too long for her to respond to your DD. You are simply too efficient and the AI too poor to lose this game.

I played red a lot on level 22 before the patch and every match was easy. Green is way harder to beat at 50 with red because it can cast fatties pretty quick. And creatures too fat to kill in one round can be a big problem for red.

But I don't get what kind of problems you have with blue. Red and blue are the best PWs when you run into blue.
Yes fights against blue tend to be a bit longer but blue needs creatures to make damage and that's easy to prevent with red. And on your level blue only weakens your creature by 3 with his first ability. That should not be a really big problem.

loroku

After re-reading your OP I find it interesting that vs. is Easy to me but vs. is Easy to you, and both of us say that our side is "more efficient." I have a feeling that both those PWs are tricky to play and it's all about careful play choices that the AI can't match. Or it could be that green gets a lot better with more rares, and I just don't see many of those in play. (For reference, my deck has 1 mythic, 2 rares, 1 common, and 6 uncommon.)

Unknown

loroku wrote:

After re-reading your OP I find it interesting that vs. is Easy to me but vs. is Easy to you, and both of us say that our side is "more efficient." I have a feeling that both those PWs are tricky to play and it's all about careful play choices that the AI can't match. Or it could be that green gets a lot better with more rares, and I just don't see many of those in play. (For reference, my deck has 1 mythic, 2 rares, 1 common, and 6 uncommon.)

OP is from panda. I said with low level red it is not much of a problem to beat green. Gets harder with higher levels.

And in general I don't see a problem in a>b and b>a at the same time (a and b being different color PWs). Because player > AI

Unknown

I updated with my own Chandra thoughts.

I will drum up a Liliana deck (missing graveblade sempai though so I dunno) to see if she is viable and test maybe this weekend or next week.

loroku

Nerimos wrote:

OP is from panda. I said with low level red it is not much of a problem to beat green. Gets harder with higher levels.

I was responding to the OP; I didn't actually see your post until just now.

I stand by what I said for vs. blue; bounce + mana denial is a rough gig to play against, regardless of what color you are. Also, it's probably a bit harder because you never have enough because you're constantly matching whatever else you can get because you're always low on mana, so it's harder to swat down blue's creatures.

Maybe I just haven't played enough blue but but blue is the only color that when they get a massive cascade, I really, really worry. That's why I said "normal."

loroku

Re: panda's red takes: yeah the world must be a different place at 50 because green is a walk in the park at 30. Plus, we clearly use different decks: when Iroas comes out, green is dead, period. Green has basically nothing that can stop that card. You're relying on Prickleboar which is faster but not quite as tough. Interesting.

Blue still scares me, and it's mostly due to Jace's Sanctum (which any blue deck would have if the person has that card, it's so good). If you don't draw your support killer soon or have it ready, even your cheap cards become so expensive that each bounce hurts that much more, and you have to pray for cascades to dig yourself out. I guess the trick there is that even the AI can play Jace's Sanctum well.

Unknown

You only need a 4/5 to kill iroas. That's actually not that much of a problem with green. Green has a lot of fatties and lots of ways to make a fatty by increasing stats for 1 turn.. It's pretty rare that iroas played by ai lives more than 1 turn.
Most of the time I don't even lose my fatty that killed her.
And even if it does kill my creature. My creature wasn't as expensive as iroas was, so still ok for me.

loroku

Nerimos wrote:

You only need a 4/5 to kill iroas. That's actually not that much of a problem with green. Green has a lot of fatties and lots of ways to make a fatty by increasing stats for 1 turn.. It's pretty rare that iroas played by ai lives more than 1 turn.
Most of the time I don't even lose my fatty that killed her.
And even if it does kill my creature. My creature wasn't as expensive as iroas was, so still ok for me.

Except really you need a X/7 most of the time, thanks to red's 2nd power. And it's hard - even for green - to ramp out a medium creature and buff it the same turn. And I like to throw a buff on the Iroas when I can so you need a X/9 to stop it. And even if you did stop it, she at least traded for your creature.

I agree that Iroas played by the AI is ****. I've fought it like once or twice and didn't have much trouble.

Unknown

I totally agree that this would be a difficult situation against a player. You would even need a 4/8 to prevent an easy kill by iroas combined with 2nd ability. 6/10 if buffed with sword of the animist + 2nd ability.
But in my experience AI doesn't use 2nd if itself has creatures on the board.

Unknown

Prickleboar more useful than iroas in pretty much every scenario. Also saying that you need a X/7 to take down Iroas (actually an X/8)...well you need an X/8 to take down prickle (actually X/9), if we're going to count Chandra's 2. Also I've gone over iroas's usefulness for red before - she is good, prickleboar is just usually better. I usually run both.

The main creature pw's, Nissa and Gideon, both have tons of blockers. Prickleboar is almost half the price of Iroas and also off the bat can clear higher toughness creatures (5 vs 4) and also doesn't waste your time with berserker when you don't want it to.

You can also put in berserker plate or actually the red specific support that is better than plate. Either way he's just better.

Anything else you can kill with burn and/or treason.

Jace you can't kill his creatures with iroas or prickle as they fly (but prickle is better than iroas again, because he is usually not a target for AI's Jace 1 ability, but provides a surprise 5 damage first striker).

Iroas is good vs black as she kills every black creature (and trades vs black's graveblade fatty) unlike prickleboar.

But noone plays black so it doesn't even matter.

VS another chandra it doesn't matter what you pick as you can simply burn down all of chandra, though Iroas is a bit better as she doesn't die to one Chandra 2.

Nissa is tricky because a good Nissa cascade will outpace your burn, and your burn is barely more efficient than some of her creatures, and she reinforces a lot. Only saving grace is that her most dangerous creatures are usually 6/6 so one exquisite burns it, or a normal burn + prickleboar. Also that she makes green which is one of your allied colors, so you're not as bad off as say, black. Chandra has the lowest hp of any pw, and Nissa is the fastest pw, so it makes sense that things can go sour vs you very quickly if you get a bad hand. Also a single cascade + joraga's or Nissa 2 = you will take 90% of your HP in one round, and since chandra's ignition is so bad you won't be able to even recover as it retains the toughness bonus until next turn. I find her much harder to play vs than Jace, if you get lucky with drawing decent burn.

EDUSAN

to me the state of the game is:

Every color is easy to beat, except Nissa when they gets an absurd cascade.

the IA doesnt know how to play black, using the pw 1st skill as soon as you get it is a stupid idea 90% of the time.
the IA doesnt know how to play red, using the pw 1st skill as soon as you get it is a stupid idea 75% of the time.
the other 3 colors have good 1st skills, so the ia does fine using it as soon as it can. having more mana, buffing a minion, or screwing an opponent minion almost always is fine. (although blue screws up his 1st skill too lowering the attack of the highest attack creature instead of the defender creature that his own creatures are going to trade with)

Unknown

Of course all decks are beatable a large percentage of the time, because the AI isn't that good.

But the point of this was to show which ones give you trouble, or hurt, or take too long to profitably beat.

At some point it doesn't matter that you win, it matters that you win with as low damage taken as possible in the fastest way possible. So with those goals in mind there are certain pw that are much better than others, and you have to play differently vs some than others.

I lied about playing Liliana I didn't have time over the weekend, oops.

Maybe someone who plays her can give some insight.

However, generally speaking from just looking at my deck list is that...

vs. Jace - she gets stomped by mana drain and lack of flyers
vs. Gideon - she should do well, he has no hexproof and his schtick is all about long term buffs, which are disrupted greatly by removal.
vs. Nissa - probably boned, she has very efficient blockers and far better mana
vs. Liliana - should be easy, but you should also expect to take damage. If you play traps this is great for you.
vs. Chandra - hard to say, chandra is way faster and her dd is similar to liliana's removal, but she also has less hp. Probably a decently easy win but you'll take a significant chunk of damage.

XehutL

I play aggressively Liliana focused on discards & zombies at lvl 50 and my observations so far:

easy / normal
Because of all the discards, it is difficult to predict what will be lost and when. But it is much easier to get creatures back to play (but of course, some of opponent's are zombies as well). Despoiler of Souls is real pain, but with good timing can be mostly taken care of via the first ability. It only depends on how much damage it will deal just before.

normal / tricky
Claustrophobia, Jace's Sanctum, Turn to Frog, Mizzium Meddler and Thopter Spy Network are all bad, as well as the Jace's first ability. Also the Scrapskin Drake and (obviously) Possessed Skaab are zombies.
With the opening advantage, the game should be rather easy, but whenever should you lose the tempo (or some nasty card get through), your future will be.. difficult at least. The plays tend to be either quick (wrong card combination for AI) or painfully slow (with all the denial Jace has in his arsenal).

tricky / hard
The hardest match. Not because the green cards but because of all Nissa's super abilities (which are in my opinion currently 'over the edge'). The biggest problem here is in the matching. To be able to use the PW's abilities you need the Loyalty which comes through associated gems or time (I presume 1 per round?). But with the ability to literally 'swipe the board', the Loyalty goes up back easily and quickly. So Nissa will end with more mana AND loyalty on every play you will go against her. Here is the most frustrating part to only watch to almost never ending cascades of her matching, matching, matching.. while you could be lucky if you will get more than two such during the whole fight. And on top of it, you cannot deny her of cards on hand as they are easy to come by for Nissa.. It is truly devious how abysmal both Plainswalkers currently are.
Most dangerous cards: Conclave Naturalist (almost every green deck has them), Elemental Bond, Gaea's Revenge, Nissa's Pilgrimage, Nissa's Revelation and Zendikar's Roil. And as black has no way how to handle supports, almost all of above are hard to destroy/prevent (as they can be drawn again and recast almost anytime).

easy / normal
Most fights should be fine here. Although Sandra can deal a lot of damage, without cards there is usually no real danger. And of course - you should be able to return some or all of your destroyed back to play.
Notable threats: Volcanic Rambler, Act of Treason, Scab-clan Berserker, Molten Vortex and perhaps Iroa's Champion..

very easy / easy
Almost no threats here and you should not lose unless of very bad luck. The only problems might be from Murder Investigation, Suppression Bonds, Hixus the Prison Warden and perhaps Iroa's Champion..

For Liliana the mana gain is very slow, so it is all about the first board advantage and then maintaining it via discarding, destroying and returning.

Worst win ratio I have against green due to its capability to (even from 1 card on hand!) cast about 5 cards in one turn quite frequently. Still it is about 6 to 4 that I should win.

I badly need the Unholy Hunger. Also, the Despoiler of Souls would be very helpful.

I must use Nantuko Husk even spite this card is so awfully bad - only because it is the second/third cheapest zombie for Cruel Revival. I use it mainly as fodder for the first PW ability.

All Liliana's abilities are very expensive at lvl 50 and although the second one is nice on paper, it is practically too unreliable - it is quite common to get no gain from its expensive activation! Therefore, I'm using it only very rarely and mostly as the last chance gamble.

My win ratio is about 75% but it is still being largely affected from the crashes in past /before them I had almost 90%.

Nevertheless, all fights are quite slow - on average 10 minutes per one (or possibly less, if I count all factors in, it would be something between 5 and 10 minutes).

loroku

Thanks for the thoughts on black!

XehutL wrote:

Nevertheless, all fights are quite slow on average 10 minutes per one.

WOW. Yikes. *throws black cards away*