JumpStart comments after playing

Heartstone
Heartstone Posts: 233 Tile Toppler
in MtGPQ General Discussion
When JumpStart was announced, I wasn't enthusiastic about the entry price, but hey, I could get Sheoldred, one of my favorite cards in paper magic. so I gave it a chance.

The positive:
- it's different,  and that's good. I never was a fan of draft/sealed in paper magic, but it's nice to have a different system
- the planeswalkers we get are all level 60 and with the same mana bonus, which equalises the games a bit.
- Sheoldred ( did I say already it's one of my favorite creatures ever? 😁)

The negative:
- The entry price, but we've said that already
- the planeswalkers: because yes, they may have the same mana bonus, but Garruk and Teferi are seriously stronger than the rest of them. There is no reason to choose any of the other ones unless you absolutely want one of the new cards in that color. I choose Liliana because of Sheoldred (yes, I know you know ☺️) and I'll get her, but that's it...
- mana bonus: it's nice that they a have the same bonus, but why, oh why make them so weak? +2 for your main color? This makes every game so slow that it gets annoying. And that's on top of:
- the decks: because you get a slow and not really coherent deck to play with. At least, let us swap some cards within a limited set , to get a chance of playing with a fun deck.
- it's boring. And I'm truly sorry to say that because I'm aware of the effort that went into this, but that's how I feel. I'm not sure if we'll get new charges, but at this point. I won't use them anyway.

My conclusion is that,  between the 320 crystals and the fact that I don't find it fun, I'll never play Jumpstart again unless some things change

I hope others will have a better experience, but for me that was it.

My suggestions: lower entry price, better mana bonus, some deckbuilding

Thanks for trying
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Comments

  • Julie71
    Julie71 MTGPQ Mod Posts: 707 Critical Contributor
    it would have been nice to actually get the new cards.   but i dont see any.   standard pack that is got didnt have them included.  no wont play that event again.
  • Mestre
    Mestre Posts: 5 Just Dropped In
    I didn't get any new cards 😑
  • Tezzeret
    Tezzeret Posts: 223 Tile Toppler
    I wish I would of know you only got to play one node.. 
  • Heartstone
    Heartstone Posts: 233 Tile Toppler
    Mestre said:
    I didn't get any new cards 😑

    I think we get those at the end of the event
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,259 Chairperson of the Boards
    You aren't guaranteed to get a color-appropriate pack.  For example, I chose Garruk as the planeswalker, and had a selection of Lightining (sic), Witchcraft, and Spirits, which are red, black, and blue respectively.  Picking Teferi doesn't guarantee you get option of choosing the Milling pack, picking Liliana doesn't guarantee you get the option of choosing the Phyrexian pack, etc. 

    Personally, at 320 crystals a pop, I don't think I'll be playing this again. The degree of randomness, though not unexpected from the gacha, is too high.  For those of us with complete or near-complete collections, it's a waste of time.


  • Ninjiggle
    Ninjiggle Posts: 6 Just Dropped In
    edited August 2022
    I played 7 games and lost every one. Different opponents fielded TWO mythic creatures more than one game. Creatures with Hexproof, which is a staggeringly powerful ability in this limited format. Meanwhile I got a jank **** Liliana vanguard and a **** 3/2 Phoenix for my lone rare. My opponents’ decks are objectively superior to mine, in multiple ways. Seriously, not ONE win in 7 games. And the games aren’t even close. 

    There are no nodes. Normally I’d just tap the green GOT IT button and it would just launch the game. But now that button is gray for me and I can’t play any games. 

    F*** this lopsided event. 

    You shan’t get my money again lest you fix this, for I’m surely not the only person who got royally f***ed on this. 

    Never again. 
  • Tezzeret
    Tezzeret Posts: 223 Tile Toppler
    It's on record that I was SOOOOOO excited for this event. It sounded so cool. And it has been the biggest let down i have ever experienced with this game! It was absolutely  false advertising. I'm not mad at you octy I'm just dissapointed, more  dissapointed with myself for having such high hopes. Imma dip out for a bit  and play some Plants vs Zombies Heros.
  • fox1342_2
    fox1342_2 Posts: 37 Just Dropped In
    I'm assuming there will be more nodes as the progression rewards go up to 80. So you'd need at least 8 full wins to do so. Probably at least 10 nodes to stand a chance. 

    Having 2ndry targets that don't match the decks is annoying, especially as you don't know what's i the decks or what the targets are until you start
  • Ninjiggle
    Ninjiggle Posts: 6 Just Dropped In
    edited August 2022
    Having things like Baneslayer Angel as a standard issue mythic creature for SOME of the decks is bullsh*t. 

    Yeah Oktogon, in this incredibly limited format, let’s include a huge, cheap, Flying creature that has protection from TWO colors (Read: Hexproof) and no non-targeted creature kill available, so that as soon as one hits the board, it’s basically game over without any way to get around it. Make sure you include Lifelink with it too, so there’s no way to ever outpace your opponent’s damage output and win that way, either. 

    This isn’t the only example, but I’ve faced Baneslayer Angel in FOUR of my matches in this event and every time it hits the board it’s just straight up game over because there is NO way to kill it with the absolute pile of dogsh*t that is the deck that you get combining Liliana and Lightning. 
  • Ninjiggle
    Ninjiggle Posts: 6 Just Dropped In
    Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything he said up there 👆🏼

    But, all that praise for the positives said, as someone who personally got one of the absolute sh*t combinations of packs (Liliana and Lightning) and didn’t even get a second mythic like most of my opponents seem to have scored, I feel like what I ACTUALLY did was get scammed out of 320 crystals (which I paid REAL money for to cover the entry fee) for a mid Vanguard mythic and a mediocre, random rare, and a deck with which I’ve literally not managed to win a single game out of 10.
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,259 Chairperson of the Boards
    I agree, the mana gains made playing pretty arduous.  Also, I always have the feeling that when they make card choices, it's just "random cards that loosely fit a theme" rather than actually attempting to build a competitive deck.   There are many matchups that are pretty much an auto-loss.  Garruk used his second ability on turn 2 and has a 35+ power critter attacking? Too bad you don't have any form of damage or removal, paltry mana gains, and no hope of outracing him. 

    They do this with the planeswalker beginner/expert/master decks too, of course, but at least then you can find a handful that are actually playable. 
  • Anarchangel
    Anarchangel Posts: 48 Just Dropped In
    Ninjiggle said:
    Having things like Baneslayer Angel as a standard issue mythic creature for SOME of the decks is bullsh*t. 

    Yeah Oktogon, in this incredibly limited format, let’s include a huge, cheap, Flying creature that has protection from TWO colors (Read: Hexproof) and no non-targeted creature kill available, so that as soon as one hits the board, it’s basically game over without any way to get around it. Make sure you include Lifelink with it too, so there’s no way to ever outpace your opponent’s damage output and win that way, either. 

    This isn’t the only example, but I’ve faced Baneslayer Angel in FOUR of my matches in this event and every time it hits the board it’s just straight up game over because there is NO way to kill it with the absolute pile of dogsh*t that is the deck that you get combining Liliana and Lightning. 
    Sorry that happened. I was on the fence about the price. Paying players always will and, even in a perfect world should, get more than non paying.
    But reading the comments here, it's clear there is too much hook and not enough bait.

    I am working on the wiki, and we are missing just one card from Jump/Start
    For Lightning we have:
    Weaver of Lightning
    Lightning Phoenix
    Lightning Bolt
    Riddle of Lightning

    Do you remember what the fifth card is, please?
  • Stormcrow
    Stormcrow Posts: 462 Mover and Shaker
    The balance is completely off. Garruk is clearly better than all the other PW choices

    What's funny is that I agree the balance is completely off, but I think it's because Teferi is clearly better than all the other PW choices. My Teferi + Pirates deck just went 8-1 (one loss to @julie71's Basri/Rogues deck which cascaded/dumped its entire hand on turn 2) and about half my opponents were Garruk, including at least two Garruk/Angels. They weren't particularly close fights. The format's too slow to realistically stop Teferi from hitting his third ability, and once he does there's absolutely nothing in this format that can compete with three swaps per turn every turn + Teferi's second ability. And there's not enough gem conversion to make the support from Teferi's 3rd ability bug out and stop working (like it always does for me in constructed), so that's nice too.

    I didn't mind the slow format/reduced mana gains (though I think it helps make Teferi overpowered), but there are a lot of other gripes I do agree with - the progression rewards are absolutely worthless (change my mind: "Standard" packs that can have dupes are the second-worst type of pack in the game, only surpassed in worthlessness by "Legacy" packs that can have dupes) and the mystery-meat nature of picking your initial deck combo doesn't really feel great. And the event seems awfully expensive, though I suppose if we're talking guaranteed mythics at the end then maybe it's not, but then that just makes certain deck combos dramatically better for their cost than others.


    tl;dr - slow format's okay, but the progression rewards are bad and it needs balancing, badly.


  • Mainloop25
    Mainloop25 Posts: 1,959 Chairperson of the Boards
    Aside from the ludicrous cost, the fact that you have to keep playing the same mediocre deck over and over again, without a way to even try the other ones, against a similar weak deck, with really cruddy progression rewards is why I don't like it. The only reason I'm not even more disappointed in it is because I was able to pick up the card I wanted the most. I have no reason to play this event again

    I wanted to give this event a chance, but it's just not good.
  • Ninjiggle
    Ninjiggle Posts: 6 Just Dropped In
    Anarchangel said:
    Ninjiggle said:
    Having things like Baneslayer Angel as a standard issue mythic creature for SOME of the decks is bullsh*t. 

    Yeah Oktogon, in this incredibly limited format, let’s include a huge, cheap, Flying creature that has protection from TWO colors (Read: Hexproof) and no non-targeted creature kill available, so that as soon as one hits the board, it’s basically game over without any way to get around it. Make sure you include Lifelink with it too, so there’s no way to ever outpace your opponent’s damage output and win that way, either. 

    This isn’t the only example, but I’ve faced Baneslayer Angel in FOUR of my matches in this event and every time it hits the board it’s just straight up game over because there is NO way to kill it with the absolute pile of dogsh*t that is the deck that you get combining Liliana and Lightning. 
    Sorry that happened. I was on the fence about the price. Paying players always will and, even in a perfect world should, get more than non paying.
    But reading the comments here, it's clear there is too much hook and not enough bait.

    I am working on the wiki, and we are missing just one card from Jump/Start
    For Lightning we have:
    Weaver of Lightning
    Lightning Phoenix
    Lightning Bolt
    Riddle of Lightning

    Do you remember what the fifth card is, please?
    Lightning Axe
  • Heartstone
    Heartstone Posts: 233 Tile Toppler
    Mainloop25 said:
    Aside from the ludicrous cost, the fact that you have to keep playing the same mediocre deck over and over again, without a way to even try the other ones, against a similar weak deck, with really cruddy progression rewards is why I don't like it. The only reason I'm not even more disappointed in it is because I was able to pick up the card I wanted the most. I have no reason to play this event again

    I wanted to give this event a chance, but it's just not good.
    My extra two cents after a cooling off period: it's not that bad.

     I think it was the colossal tussle where we complained because the placement rewards were so hard to get ( node system...). That was, we complained until we realised that the progression rewards were good enough and we could just ignore placement. From then on, I only played TCT until full progression.

    Now, let's apply that filter to jumpstart: For 320 crystals and one game played, we get two mythics and a few other cards. And you don't even need to win!

    Compare that to the price of the mythics in the Planechasing Fblthp or the duel decks: You pay around 300 crystal for one mythic. 

    Conclusion: the return on investment is worth entering the event.

    It does not make the event more fun or interesting,  but until they make this event better, I can live with playing that one game.
    And yes, I did get Sheoldred 🥳

  • Julie71
    Julie71 MTGPQ Mod Posts: 707 Critical Contributor
    320 for an undupe packs NOT. got one uncommon creature and a common land.  all the rest were duplicates I already has. Smh very disappointed with this event
  • Heartstone
    Heartstone Posts: 233 Tile Toppler
    Julie71 said:
    320 for an undupe packs NOT. got one uncommon creature and a common land.  all the rest were duplicates I already has. Smh very disappointed with this event
    Isn't there always an exclusive mythic in the booster pack you choose?


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