Midweek Magic on Arena is Momir this week. I’ve never played it before, and I’m not sure if I’m doing it optimally.
I’ve had multiple opponents just pass turn for the first few turns, and I’m wondering if they’re just confused or if there’s a strategy I’m not seeing. It seems worth it to use the emblem every turn if you’re not doing anything else, right?
Disclaimer: I only play Momir on Magic Online, not Arena
If you play a land every turn and discrad another one to activate the emblem, you use 2 cards of your hand per turn. But you only draw one each turn. This means that you end up with 6 lands (on the play, on the draw 7) in play when you start your turn with an empty hand. If you play the land then, you have no card left to discard for the ability. If you skip an emblem activation (or two), you end up in a late game with more lands in play. Playing an 8-drop every turn is better than a 6-drop. Also, those skipped one- and two-drops become irrelevant often very quickly.
Thanks for the math on it, I’ll keep that in mind!
I did get fairly lucky with the random creatures (at one point I got Tergrid, which was excellent because the lands they discarded became my lands) but the games all ended before I could run out of cards. Might be my opponents just didn’t use enough removal.
I alternate between activating the emblem every turn or building up to something bigger. Kinda depends on what my opponent is doing.
Pretty good article here: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2023/06/mtg-arena-midweek-magic-guide-momir/
I haven’t gotten there, yet, but I’m trying to get to a 10-drop.
Thanks, I’ll check the article out!
Seems like it would be really good to get a mana dork with an early cheap creature, that way you can get the bigger creatures sooner. I dunno what the odds of that are though (never happened to me).
Yeah, I’ve had terrible luck with the utility of the creatures I’ve been getting. It’s mostly hoping to get flying before the other person at this point, haha.
If you play a land and use the emblem to discard every turn, you can run out of cards eventually, and the 7-drops in the Momir pool (for example) mostly provide better value than, say, the 1-drops. At least that used to be the case when the decks only had lands. Now the decks have some non-land cards, and if some of them help you draw (can’t remember which cards are in there), maybe it doesn’t make as much sense to pass early.
I didn’t run into any card draw cards in the deck, but there were a few removal spells and some other various stuff like a couple buff spells. There’s probably a halfway decent chance you’ll get at least one random creature that provides at least some kind of card advantage, too.
I used the emblem every turn and never ran out of cards; I might have eventually but the games didn’t last that long. Building the board early game seemed worth it. I could see passing turn 1 though. Thanks for the advice!
Most 1, 2, and 3 drops are quickly outscaled in Momir, you want to get to making 5+ drops because those are the ones that will win games. So skipping your early turns ensures you have enough cards to keep making 7 drops late into the game.