Magic the Gathering

hello,

so me and my brother recently played some mtg together and we ran into a disagreement. i had swung at him for 60 with a 20/20 kalonian hydra https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=420771 and a 40/40 primordial hydra https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253670 . he then proceeded to play polymorphist's jest https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=433022. his thought process was that because my hydras lose all abilities. that would include 1/1 counters. my thought process was that they wouldn't lose the 1/1 counters as counters are not an ability but the hydras would lose trample as those were abilities. 

my brother decided to find what he could about rulings on jest and found this passage "Polymorphist’s Jest overwrites all previous effects that set the creatures’ base power and toughness to specific values. Any power- or toughness-setting effects that start to apply after Polymorphist’s Jest resolves will overwrite this effect.". he took that to mean that the counters wouldn't affect the hydras again until the turn was over. i went to the same rules site (the one i shared) and found this passage "Effects that modify a creature’s power and/or toughness, such as the effect of Titanic Growth, will apply to the creatures no matter when they started to take effect. The same is true for any counters that change their power and/or toughness and effects that switch power and toughness.". to me, that says the counters are still there AND still active but he read it to mean that the counters wouldn't work.

is there someone that can help me find an official ruling from a tournament or maybe some mtg arena gameplay with this interaction or has a ruling from an official? we even had my brother ask his friends (some of whom have  played since mtg started) and they were split on the issue.

I have posted in the past that MTG Arena is in a pale comparison to the table top version, which is still true, but I played it much much more and started to like it much more at the moment. Of course when I get home I'm going to go back to playing Hearthstone with the new buffs to cards but I have grown to love both games quite a bit now.

At first I found MTG Arena to be really expensive, and it still is, but the game really awards you much more than Hearthstone for playing more. Hearthstone only gets you 1 quest per day but MTG Arena can give you many rewards in one day. I have grown to really enjoy the constant wave of free packs from just playing the game. However it is extremely needed due to decks needing 4 copies of the same card and having no disenchant system in place.

I do wonder how they will handle the system when there is a new rotation of cards. Hopefully they implement a similar system to allow everyone access to certain cards for free and let people unlock new decks to add card their new collection.  Either way the new player experience on MTG Arena is a great experience and gives you a great number of cards to start you off. Hearthstone in comparison has a horrible new player experience. There is almost no way to actually make any somewhat viable deck with the tools they give you compared to Magic Arena.

After heavy use of both I have to give it to MTG Arena for new players. I've been giving an extremely biased position to Hearthstone and my endless resources and collection I have. I can honestly see Hearthstone going into a really bad place if they don't change the new player experience compared to the competition. 

However MTG Arena has a horrible meta at the moment compared to Hearthstone. Hearthstone at the current moment has the best meta compared to Duel links and MTG Arena. Once a rotation happens this might all change.

1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide (DAR) 199
9 Forest (RIX) 196
9 Swamp (RIX) 194
4 Island (RIX) 193
1 Divination (DAR) 52
2 Divination (M19) 51
1 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp (DAR) 76
2 Adventurous Impulse (DAR) 153
2 Llanowar Elves (DAR) 168
2 Broken Bond (DAR) 157
2 Elfhame Druid (DAR) 159
1 Pierce the Sky (DAR) 176
3 Grow from the Ashes (DAR) 164
1 Krosan Druid (DAR) 167
1 Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma (M19) 186
1 Vigilant Baloth (M19) 206
1 Aeromunculus (RNA) 152
2 Simic Guildgate (RNA) 258
1 Primordial Wurm (WAR) 174
1 Carnage Tyrant (XLN) 179
1 Bond of Revival (WAR) 80
1 Opt (DAR) 60
1 Deliver Unto Evil (WAR) 85
1 Eviscerate (DAR) 91
2 Ravenous Chupacabra (RIX) 82
1 Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted (WAR) 100
1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight (DAR) 95
1 Nature's Spiral (DAR) 175
1 Cloudreader Sphinx (DAR) 47
2 Thallid Omnivore (DAR) 106
1 Davriel's Shadowfugue (WAR) 84

So far 2-0 with it in casual play.

So much fun actually making a deck and then playing it. The idea is to ramp as much as possible and then play your big minions. When your graveyard has a few dead key minions you can play:

1 Bond of Revival (WAR) 80

1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide (DAR) 199

We will see how it goes. Unsure if I can keep up against aggro but its still fun even if I loose.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/command-the-dreadhorde/

This deck seems to be getting some popularity right now, and since I pulled 2 [Hearthstone Card (Command the Dreadhorde) Not Found]s from my starter packs, I decided to start building towards it while I play other decks.

Anyone else tried this deck yet? Can you offer any thoughts on it? 
And deck strategies / tips for this one would be cool too. :-)

Welcome to the first MTG thread! I figured i would ask everyone what sort of Magic gave you when you began playing it. I had not played magic up until a couple months ago when i decided to give MTG:A a shot. I figure i am not the only one who has played a lot of Hearthstone but little Magic (but if i am that is ok too), but perhaps veteran players would be interested in sharing their thoughts from the past as well.

Overall i think it's pretty fun, although the deck building is much different than i am used to. The resource mechanic of lands is also quite interesting, although it can add a level of frustration if you don't actually draw enough. There are many more complex dynamics to the turn structure and how cards can interact and i think that is pretty cool. I enjoyed what i played, although sometimes it took me a while to comprehend how or why some things happened. It's interesting to observe the similarities and differences between this and hearthstone, which i have played abundantly.

The digital version is great because i don't think i could really get too into the physical version so i could finally introduce myself to this game i always here so much about. I learned a lot over several hours of playing and i definitely see what the fuss is about. It's not something i play a lot of right now, but i am dabbling and figuring out what's strong and what isn't. I seem to prefer green or black decks off the bat, green in particular because it's much easier to get lands on the field.

In terms of flavor the art and themes are great along with the flavour text. That said, i think i still prefer hearthstone in that regard simply because i can relate more to the lore and can enjoy that aspect much more. I'd also say blizzard executes the voice lines and animations better but it is definitely a different type of atmosphere so i don't expect that to be comparable, just preference. I also don't have a huge knowledge of all the different magic sets and what sort of themes they encompass, i should probably check that out one day. I'll continue playing here and there and maybe i'll get hooked on it one day, who knows, but it's definitely a good game. Hard for me to commit to too many games at once though. 

What was your first experience with MTG like?

In the presumably short and small - that's what sh-... no... - absence of a dedicated section for MtG Arena players and lovers in here, I am creating this thread as the go to place (for now) for your MtG needs.

If you want to grab a game against me and one of my half-baked, god-awful nooby decks, then feel free to see if I'm around and send me a challenge.
my Username is: 

Scorpyon#47528

At the moment I am attempting to build some sort of weird and janky Amass based Black / White deck, and another silly discard Win-With-Jace blue deck. :-P

Come join me here and there. ;-)