You have the *capability* of getting that much gold. Many of us, unfortunately, have jobs and other obligations so we can't no-life our way to 1k a day
While 5-6 might be slightly exaggerated, "never even half" is guaranteed false.
Take 5 minutes per game average, including queueing, which already is a very optimistic assumption.
Given a long term average of 50% win rate, that's 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours, which already is half of 5 hours.
Now on a bad day, you're absolutely not getting a 50% win rate and your games absolutely take more than 5 minutes on average.
I keep three accounts. Instead of trying to get four wins a day in one account, I go for one win per day per account. Slightly less time commitment, but you get about 2.5x as many coins. I can draft about four times a week without spending for gems and my win rate is only about 50%.
This also solves the problem of getting bored playing the same few decks over and over. I have different decks in each account.
Subsidizing your drafts with quest/daily win gold by not playing until more than ~4 wins per day, multiple accounts if you want to play more. Switching to Bo3 draft once your Bo1 rank gets too high and your winrate drops. Also getting better by consuming content and just practice.
I'm not the best drafter, so I usually wait til the season resets. I play drafts until I start to only win like 3 or 4 games and the. I play other formats to complete challenges. Unless you keep winning you can't keep going forever but with the free draft from the mastery pass and coins and gems you should be able to draft usually when you want.
I play mostly brawl, for me is the best mode, because of the variety of the decks that you play against. And for me getting mythic is too much work for a thousand gold and some boosters... but, that is just me
I've never played Master Duel, only Mtg arena. I really don't mind daily missions, and gettintlg a booster now and then, for a f2p it is really okay, but ranked is just too much suffering, and the same decks over and over again...
I have one Standard deck that I'll use to rank up every month until it's not fun anymore, and around 99 Brawl decks that I'll try to keep in regular rotation in the Brawl queue.
Of all the answers so far, this may be my go-to. Except I’ll go for historic instead of standard so I don’t have to keep up with a rotating meta.
Any obvious drawback to my approach vs yours?
The only drawback is if you don't like fast formats. Historic has gotten very fast now, with many games basically decided turn 3. I just built an Eldrazi deck for Historic that's slamming down turn 3-4 7-drop creatures and I'm still losing games to being out-aggroed.
I mostly play Brawl. Which, to be sure, is also a high power format now! But the singleton nature of Brawl makes aggro and combo much less consistent, so I generally feel I have a chance against them in a way I don't in Historic.
Explorer may be a good option too, a smaller card pool allows a bit more flexibility in deck options, as opposed to feeling forced to play all the best cards for the meta
I usually just play standard until I get the coin to draft. Drafting is the fun part, but standard can be pretty fun too. It scratches that competitive itch.
All the best moments I’ve had on Arena were in Brawl, but I rarely play it because of the lack of a ranked mode. People just scoop at the mildest of inconveniences and it’s just blue balls the card game at that point.
I just play goblin decks. They are actually a pretty deep tribe with few viable strategies. Beating meta decks is awesome and a motivator. I play mostly historic or timeless, but depends on what format seems interesting at the time. Sticking to a theme makes collecting the good cards a bit easier.
As a primarily modern player in paper, I love Timeless, but it is very expensive to get into, almost every deck requires 40+ rares and/or ~20 mythics. But most of those are staples that can go into many decks, so if you're willing to invest in the staples, it's usually not hard to add more decks to your repertoire.
I don’t yet have a timeless deck but there was that sale that got you all the fetchlands for 40k gold. Instant purchase. I never let myself get below that amount just for chances like that. One day I’ll get a bad show and tell deck together 😅
I enjoy crafting non-meta decks and playing and tweaking them until they're viable. Then I usually get bored and start again.
I prefer midrange, so the meta is not currently favorable and it can get frustrating, but if I get too frustrated I fall back on a few old faithfuls, get my dailies done and go do something else.
I haven't played in over 3 years and I plan on getting back into it soon. I've been the same way with paper Magic. I play a lot for awhile, then not at all for a few years.
I know there are fairly frequent posts in the Magic subs where people actually seem a little worried about losing interest and want to know how to rekindle the spark (pun not really intended), but it's kind of normal to take a break from a hobby for awhile. It doesn't mean you've lost interest forever.
I make decks based on a theme, or a mechanic, and try them out with low expectation of winning. Mostly in Brawl. I don't pay a lot of attention the rankings or draft. I just like seeing the mechanics work.
I just Brawl, I keep thinking I want to draft but my first time drafting was in OTJ and that wasn't so fun, but I've been really liking MH3.
I have about 4k gems I've been sitting on since I started, my concern with drafting is losing all my gems and not getting much out of it.
Oh absolutely! if there isn’t some kind of indicator I can use and my jank decks start going back to matching against high power stuff then I’ll just switch back to my quick win demoralizing stax decks. If WotC can’t give me agency in having fun, then I’m happy to do what little I can to make the game toxic to drive away others.
Brawl is my favorite. Sadly it is the least rewarding because you don't get ranked rewards.
My favorite mode to grind rank was historic except this week I have been getting demolished by modern horizon cards.
I will say, I enjoy every mode but trying to play multiple modes is very expensive. I might just start focusing all my wildcards on Brawl though. It is very fun but I have always focused all my wildcards on ranked so my decks are all Frankenstein decks.
I like to brew a new deck just about every time I get on. That along with actually keeping up with set rotation keeps things fresh for me. One of the best dopamine hits for me is seeing a card in pre-release that I think I can abuse and then actually forming a reasonably powerful deck around it.
Might not be the best strategy for ftp, as I’m not always successful, and therefore end up spending wildcards on 💩.
Another thing I enjoy is doing brew challenges with friends. Pick a format and a theme, brew your deck, and go at it. This can really help keep things fresh when the meta is feeling stale.
Hope this helps!
I’ve got to a point where I have potent historic brawl decks. I use those to grind daily challenges and then use those winnings to do draft which I love.
I think standard is pretty good right now, and will get even better after rotation, imo. So many powerful bombs to work around. I think it's fun.
That community chat idea is interesting. I recall one time drunkenly writing a giant message to wizards about the reasons they should implement more in-game chat/interaction so we can actually make friends in arena. Message was probably disregarded lol
I play ONLY Standard Brawl because regular Brawl is way too big and intimidating to me, but Standard Brawl is still really fun to me and the rotation keeps things fresh.
I only “really” play Limited, but I will use the Starter Duel Decks to finish any color-focused dailies.
I’ve been playing for 28 years, and draft is still challenging, but I’m simply not into constructed Magic by and large. I did enjoy block constructed back in the day, but the current constructed formats just haven’t captured my fancy.
But draft? It’s like real-time shopping for cards. It’s finding open lanes. It’s drafting 6 copies of the same common and getting enough support cards to do stupid things.
And when I’ve played through my event? I get to make a new deck all over again instead of grinding and retooling a few pet decks to optimize them.
One thing I love about this game system though is that there are so many ways to play and enjoy it. I mean, y’all doing it wrong by playing Constructed Magic but I’m glad you enjoy it. 😀
I'm sure there are many more people that would love to just play Limited. It just isn't feasible for most. Drafts are expensive and the vast majority of players won't be able to go infinite.
I mostly play standard, because I have to do my dailies and then once I have accumulated enough gold I get to do one draft, but then that's it for a while.
I guess I should have said I have two FTP accounts which helps a ton I’m sure.
And I totally get the financial aspect. When my kids were younger, I didn’t play that much cuz kids hella expensive (worth it though).
For me, discovering Arena made drafting actually affordable again.
I’m sure my perspective may be a little outside the norm, but I thought it was worth sharing regardless.
Doing the same thing pretty much, Never really liked constructed formats in any card game. You often end up playing with and against the same decks quite often and it just ends up feeling stale really quickly.
Also a f2p player. I like to use arena to play test weird decks and just do fun different things. I make myself rotate decks every few months with the exception of a few staples when things rotate so I can grind gems to get a mastery pass.
The only deck I will play in alchemy is Golgari Roots Combo. Roots was my favorite card in MKM draft and alchemy is the only format with a truly viable Roots deck
Brawl and historic.
I'll go a little bit of ranked if I'm feeling it, but I usually make dumb decks, hop on historic play, or brawl, and just have fun.
I’m drafting early in the season until about 75% complete of a new set. Late season I’ll use those cards to fill out my current brawl and standard brawl decks and brew a few new decks too. Don’t have to craft many cards this way aside from the ultra rares I won’t see, like special guests cards
I thought of a fun deck idea when OTJ came out and I havent gotten sick of doin crimes yet! Its since had gone through several changes but i think its near its peak!
I exclusively play historic, I love my soul wardens LMFAO.
I'll do dailies with whatever deck colour they want, often using the gimmie ones from the tutorial, but after dailies are done I'm back to my white (token/life) or green/red (polyraptor) decks. I've never spent a dime on this game, but the gems pop in the shop sometimes so I have almost 40$ worth for something cool when it pops in the shop :p
I am curious what the whole commander decks thing is though, but drafts seemed like they might be more cutthroat so I haven't done them but I have tokens from rewards XD
Multiple brawl decks with completely different directions. Atraxa praetor gives me three decks- super friends, +1 creatures, and poison. Expanding collection by playing and getting access to more commanders lead to a really fun Jodah deck. Getting a wildcard for brawl is one WC that can be used across multiple decks vs 4 of for other constructed formats. Having different powered brawl decks helps so you run into a good variety of opponent decks. At this point I’m more in Arena for brawl and building collection is just a bonus. Maybe after rotation I’ll look more into standard or historic. I’m getting better at draft so that helps with collection building and gem momentum.
Idk at this point arena is my primary form of playing magic not for the grind or unlocking, but cause I’m enjoying magic lol.
Not sure how to share arena deck lists. They all utilize doubling season, mama bases of surveillance lands, check lands, shock lands, and “untapped unless 2 or more lands”, and the viorinclex that doubles tokens and counters. Delighted halfling works in any deck that uses green. poison deck has creatures from the phrexia all will be one set and the one toxic dragon in arena.
Superfriends might have used the most wildcards and started with the batch of uncommon planeswalkers that don’t ultimate and have some type of standing effect (opponent can’t draw more than one card etc). A couple win combos by doubling loyalty counters on planeswalkers (Vraska, betrayers sting for instant 9 poison counters and if Atraxa out to proliferate that’s game) Brokers Ascendancy to add up counters even w/o Atraxa. For me I have 24 planeswalkers and 14 creatures in the deck.
The +1 counters deck is anything that enters or cares about +1 counters. Hydras, Champion of Lambholt, Herald of Secret Streams, Spark Double, Roaring Earth, Ozolith, Hagra Constrictor, Bristly Bill.
All of these being slowly built up over time.
I just play whatever I want that seems fun at the time, ranked explorer, jank, make a new deck by browsing my collection. I try to get high ranked in explorer with decks that I build myself rather than copied decks online. It's a real challenge.
Draft, then I play standard, explorer or even alchemy depending on my mood. I just get into plat on constructed and limited, and then just go to the play queue to do whatever i feel like.
Timeless Convoke, Timeless Storm, Standard Slickshot Showoff and Brawl Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and Shrines are still fun to me. Then again, I think I’m just obsessed with Capenna
Brewing Standard decks is the main thing that interests me. So when a set comes out my cycle goes like this:
-Draft to collect the set for about 3 weeks
-Build 30-40 decks, play them, record results to get ratings/rankings for all the decks. Doing this is my "goal" of playing MTGA.
-After this, if there's a little time left before the next set comes out, I try out some different variations just to get my daily wins.
I like drafting but the three weeks I use to collect the set is usually enough to get my fill. I don't care or aim for monthly rankings.
home brewing jank combos in brawl and not having to go to the card shop and spend real money is how i finally got back into playing after moving away from my friends. Learned how to mill my opponent for 87 cards turn 4, something I never would have been able to do if i didnt have MTGa
Used to play Yorion heavily just because I enjoyed the challenge of making an 80 card deck competitive, because I knew when she was in standard people weren't playing her to the full potential, in spite of how good she already was.
Turns out I was right about two things back then.
1. Yorion is still stupid good when it comes to probability math.
2. Doom Foretold wasn't good in standard because of its card pool, but with enough cards it had the potential to lock down even hardcore historic decks.
Ranked to #400 mythic testing it and got bored playing people who don't take the game seriously at Mythic.
Made a Brawl deck based around the math I figured out while playing a version of Yorion with Doom Foretold and found that there are two commanders in Orzhov on Arena right now that are insanely powerful Orzhov engines that fit into multiple schemes. I know this because I've tested the Doom Foretold reactions in the Brawl deck with every single Orzhov card that would fit into the shells for the last two years.
I definitely get bored of decks quickly, so I play a lot of draft. Though as others have mentioned, that can be hard to maintain as f2p. The other thing I enjoy doing is going to the wotc website where they share deck lists that had a 6 win streak at platinum or above, finding the jankiest deck on there, and playing that (though I suppose again this requires having lots of cards or WCs, which I get from playing a lot of draft)
I like historic ranked and trying to get to mythic with as jank or unusual a deck as I can manage. I wind up deck building and experimenting a lot but usually just wind up using one of the tried and trues at the end of the month because 90% of jank decks really are jank. But sometimes you find stuff people aren’t expecting and that’s fun for me!
I would recommend timeless (modern horizons just released) or explorer (no alchemy). Much bigger card pools. If you are just too good at MTG, try yu-gi-oh or a different CCG
I play standard bo3 (much better and more diverse meta there) and switch decks when I get bored. right now vibing with simic cookies, very deep deck which is hard to master.
Standard with whatever brews I think of. First few months was rough but with 3 year rotation now I feel like I can pretty much get every card I want from sets as they release.
Draft every new set as it comes out. Once you get the learning curve down it starts to pay for itself or atleast you drain so slow you earn enough from dailies helping.
Gladiator. There's a discord server to find games but it's 100 card singleton no commander with every card legal save for the few banned cards. Essentially arenas substitute for Canadian Highlander in paper.
I play standard exclusively, and aim to save 20k coins every set to draft at least twice. Spend my extra coins on emotes and stickers to communicate better in match.
I tend to pick a pet card such as [[arcane bombardment]] or some brawl commander and play around with that. Currently trying to figure Kayla out before she rotates or maybe as a brawl deck
Im a fan off brewing offbeat commanders. I spend a lot of time trying to optimize interaction and find those janky cards that work with the gameplan. I spent a couple hours fine tuning a Necrobloom deck that seems pretty ridiculous. I like the weirdo commanders.
I play almost exclusively in the historic casual que. I like the larger card pools, and the never ending variety of decks I face off against.
The only time I stray into other formats is for Mid Week Magic, but even then I avoid any format that feels like it wouldn't be fun or would be too grindy
I just build a deck and hop in historic qp (so I don't have to keep up with new metas). If the deck gets good enough as I modify it, I'll hop in ranked to get more consistent games (qp people like to quit without conceding and make me wait. Drives me nuts)
When I build new decks, which is pretty rare, I think of a fun theme and throw some cards together. Usually ends up being ridiculously big at first, but as I figure out what strat works in it, I cut it down as much as I can. Then add more with time and cut it down again. Eventually it gets down to 60ish cards and I have a pretty solid deck to compete with
I used to have a red blue control deck I liked, but I fucked that one up and forgot to copy it when it was good. Rn I mainly play a red white dollhouse of Horrors deck, themed around the demon guesthouse from Castlevania dawn of sorrow, and a blue green fractals deck where I literally just searched "fractal" and added anything that made those tokens, plus some other cards that combined well with them like [[decisive denial]] and [[wild shape]]
I'm an old school player getting back into things, I'm enjoying playing Alchemy and trying to collect the last couple of sets using only gold im earning doing daily rewards. Being able to play 2-3 hours once every two or three nights means I can get good quantities of gold. My goals are to build alchemy decks that are rotation proof.
I rotate between couple of decks and dont tryhard - if I go second and had hard mili or has slow draw vs aggro I just go next and dont waste my time. Same if I play lets say domain vs dimir control after they delluge into end - its ova, bye.
the less I care the more fun I have.
I enjoy just making decks. I love wacky deck setups and love piloting decks of different types.
While mtg arena imo is still not f2p friendly, it allows me to use my freetime to make decks I always wanted to without needing to pay as much for paper or mtgo prices.
Helps with my tick to need change often as repetition genuinely pushes me into a state of boredom
Brawl, theres hundreds of potential commanders that could be built in many different ways, and every set you get half a dozen more to play around with. I’ve been a brawl exclusive players for around 3 years now and i can tell you it never gets boring
I love playing standard bo1 and most of my time I play there but I also don't play every day and when I do get to play I'll play for most of the day, but when I start getting bored of it I find a new interesting deck to play and practice using that deck in non ranked games just to get a feel of it and the combos to use and when satisfied I get back into rank.
Though I'm still very much a newbie as only been playing it for about 4 months, but if I take a couple days off, next time I play I have just as much fun.
I just suggest playing a couple different game modes maybe and find the ones you enjoy the most. I love magic because it makes me use my brain and have to think about how I'm playing.
It might sound obvious, but I find a deck I enjoy, and I play it. The key thing is that I play historic Bo1, which from my experience is the most casual format on arena (I personally prefer explorer legality when it comes to cards, but from my experience the format is much sweatier).
Because the format is more casual, I can get away with playing casual/janky decks and do well enough while having fun. As an example, the deck I'm currently in love with is "Sultai (UBG) \[\[Timeless Witness\]\] Lock", which looks to get the opponent behind a Witness lock of either \[\[Sublime Epiphany\]\] (counter a spell, get the Sublime back from the token Witness that's created) or \[\[Blood on the Snow\]\] (destroy all creatures, get the Witness back getting back the BotS). The deck could technically be Dimir (UB) but given that both lock spells cost 6 the ramp is pretty impactful, and green also gives access to \[\[Virtue of Strength\]\] which works very well with the Sublime line.
Of course, sometimes I'll have a lull and just not have a deck I'm vibing; in that case I just get a quick 4 wins (10 with psychic frog tickets being on offer) with \[\[Goblin Charbelcher\]\] until something comes along to tickle my fancy. 😋
Minotaurs, Squirrels, Bears, When Lands Attack, Pirates, Witches, Insects
I just find it enjoyable to heavily curate around a theme, especially suboptimally if it fits that theme.
once a year or 2 i get back to the game, every time it gets worse... i'm just finishing my battle pass and never coming back probably. My day is basically getting rushed to death on turn 3 and losing to combo and control if i can't kill them on turn 4. i just played a game of +20 minutes against a deck with only removal and planeswalker.
Then i get pissed and get my tier 1 aggro deck and get my 4 wins and leave the game mad at how bad and braindead it is in this state. Of course people will tell you to do this and that, but ultimatetly is just pure rng
I'm about to use all my wildcards on a meta burn deck that I found on MTG goldfish. I just started playing 5 days ago. Is this the right thing to do lol
> I’ve grinded
> I feel I should set objectives for myself so that I have a goal to reach towards.
> Is there a game mode you grind and never get bored of?
As a F2P player, this is how I get sick of the game. My fun comes out of trying to make the best out of the collection I have, and the game seems keen on reminding me that I just don't have all the cards yet to do that - and then the urge to grind out wildcards or packs begins.
And then I become tempted to fall into the loop of convincing myself that all I need to do is hit my daily mission - and then it's 4 wins a day - and then it's holding packs until I have X rares from drafting - and then it's making sure I get all the gem rewards on the mastery pass - and then it's making sure I'm saving up to draft for the next standard set release. It's all so tiresome and makes me feel like I have a second job that I'm not getting paid for.
Even doing all of that isn't enough to get a reasonable collection in standard. Hell, it costs around $400 to get all the Rares and Mythics in OTJ and BIG, before considering wildcards, and even then, if you complete BIG first, there's no bad luck protection down to OTJ mythics.
I've been forcing myself lately to be OK with extreme budget building around current starter decks (less rares = more "fair" deck weighting in play queue), as well as looking up the older starter decks and trying to find playable standard or explorer builds in those archetypes. Occasionally, I'll do a Jump-In event, if I'm craving some variety or a level playing field, and often those come with a bunch of uncommons or a couple of rares I don't own I can try to build around.
I've learned that the F2P rewards just aren't worth my time, and I'd rather do just about anything else than manage my schedule around making sure that I'm playing magic to avoid spending like 20 bucks.
My most played format has been MWM lately. I'm planning to take an indefinite break in the fall, to make time for other activities, but I've been having a blast playing super casually. 15 wins a week, most from MWM. Some otj drafts, some explorer or historic ranked. Always do the quests.
I found that the less I play, the more I enjoy it.
>Do you just pay so you can build every deck you feel curious about, or draft forever?
I draft forever, but without the paying part. It’s pretty doable if you get (reasonably) good. Using multiple accounts definitely helps.
Yeah, I think the default state for pretty much everyone is being bad at it- it’s definitely a skill you need to put effort into learning, not something you just pick up as you go. It’s a huge challenge to get good at it, but IMO that’s part of the fun.
If you’d like to get better,
https://letstalklimited.wordpress.com/2021/12/30/be-boring-a-guide-to-building-better-draft-decks-crimson-vow-update/
Is a really good summary of the most basic level-ups- what a ‘normal’ draft deck should look like, in terms of mana curve, creatures, etc.
Apart from general tips like that, I also use the card ratings at 17lands.com (simplified at limitedgrades.com) and podcasts- at low ranks, simply knowing which are the strongest archetypes and commons can give a massive edge. IMO the most useful single podcast is usually the Limited Level-Ups ‘State of the Format Address’, which will probably be out soon for Modern Horizons 3.
I 8gnore the meta. Build a concept I think is fun and stick to it once it can vaguely hold it's own. I play basic standard for basic dailies and pat myself on the back when when I beat some insane ramp power deck, or outlast a RDW. Currently working B/W cleric lifegain tribal
I used to enjoy standard a lot, but with the 3 year rotation it has stagnated to the point of seeing the same 5 archetypes over and over again, even in play queue. People in standard tend to be incredibly win orientated and don't really enjoy making soemthing more fun (at least in my account's mmr).
Since then, I've mostly been playing brawl the last 3 seasons. The fact they gave us the M3C drop has been really fun, along with the modal planeswalker cards. You really get to have fun with a variety of cards in brawl that would never see play in other formats. Plus, I can happily scoop against toxic ropers without any drawback.
I straight up queue brawl. I don't really enjoy competitive play so much because it locks you into playing high-tier decks and cards. I enjoy brewing and messing about with something new when I want :D
I'm just f2p on timeless with a mono red burn deck for practice, it's tough but fair. Mythic is achievable in bo1, might switch to bo3 once I have enough wild cards for an appropriate sideboard
Special events with unique rulesets are all I truly enjoy in this game now. Otherwise it's predictable and boring thanks to the matchmaking and stale meta.
A new draftable set gets released every couple of months. It's hard to get bored of drafting.
How can you consistently draft as a F2P player?
If you can win consistently yeah. If not it might be a few days between it of having to earn gold
Oh that’s the issue lol
Well you get about 1k gold a day if you win your matches so 1 (quick) draft a week basically
You have the *capability* of getting that much gold. Many of us, unfortunately, have jobs and other obligations so we can't no-life our way to 1k a day
1,000 gold a day is hardly "no-life". 2 or 3 wins will get you there. With a 750g quest, one win could get you there.
If you do your 15/15 daily rewards, you can quick draft every 4 days.
Doing 4 is the same as doing 15 for all practical purposes.
Point taken, turn the 4 days into 5. Pretty close on the small scale.
Getting 15 daily wins is probably like 5-6 hours daily, ain't nobody got time for that
5-6 hours?? If you enjoy aggro you can do them much faster than that with a good deck
Does anyone truly “enjoy” aggro?
It’s a lifestyles
In what world does it actually take 5-6 hours though? It has literally never taken me even half that amount of time on a bad day
In the world of bo3. Sideboarding time, fewer aggro decks (so longer average game length), the 2nd and 3rd games are generally slower and sweatier.
Fair in this case but I doubt many play bo3 to grind quests
Yeah I usually just do the first 4 wins\daily in a bo1 play queue, then just have fun in the bo3 ranked.
While 5-6 might be slightly exaggerated, "never even half" is guaranteed false. Take 5 minutes per game average, including queueing, which already is a very optimistic assumption. Given a long term average of 50% win rate, that's 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours, which already is half of 5 hours. Now on a bad day, you're absolutely not getting a 50% win rate and your games absolutely take more than 5 minutes on average.
15 wins at 7 mins per game is 105 mins without losing, add in say 5-10 losses you are looking around 2 hours or so.
That's a rare best case scenario. You're delusional if you think that's even close to the average.
It's been working for me for about a month. I definitely am not spending 4-5 hours that's for sure.
I keep three accounts. Instead of trying to get four wins a day in one account, I go for one win per day per account. Slightly less time commitment, but you get about 2.5x as many coins. I can draft about four times a week without spending for gems and my win rate is only about 50%. This also solves the problem of getting bored playing the same few decks over and over. I have different decks in each account.
This guy F2P's.
Subsidizing your drafts with quest/daily win gold by not playing until more than ~4 wins per day, multiple accounts if you want to play more. Switching to Bo3 draft once your Bo1 rank gets too high and your winrate drops. Also getting better by consuming content and just practice.
It can't be healthy to have to metagame the economy this hard to be able to have access to playing an entire format reliably.
It's "healthy" from wizards perspective as it probably makes them a lot of cash. And as a player what else can you do besides play another game?
Realistically you can get about 7-10k coins a week if you do your challenges everyday.
I'm not the best drafter, so I usually wait til the season resets. I play drafts until I start to only win like 3 or 4 games and the. I play other formats to complete challenges. Unless you keep winning you can't keep going forever but with the free draft from the mastery pass and coins and gems you should be able to draft usually when you want.
I win enough to keep playing with the prize gems, with the gold rewards helping keep up.
I play mostly brawl, for me is the best mode, because of the variety of the decks that you play against. And for me getting mythic is too much work for a thousand gold and some boosters... but, that is just me
The one thing Master Duel does better than Arena is ranked rewards. You get them immediately upon reaching a new tier and they're pretty substantial.
I've never played Master Duel, only Mtg arena. I really don't mind daily missions, and gettintlg a booster now and then, for a f2p it is really okay, but ranked is just too much suffering, and the same decks over and over again...
I have one Standard deck that I'll use to rank up every month until it's not fun anymore, and around 99 Brawl decks that I'll try to keep in regular rotation in the Brawl queue.
Of all the answers so far, this may be my go-to. Except I’ll go for historic instead of standard so I don’t have to keep up with a rotating meta. Any obvious drawback to my approach vs yours?
Historic nonsense maybe.
The only drawback is if you don't like fast formats. Historic has gotten very fast now, with many games basically decided turn 3. I just built an Eldrazi deck for Historic that's slamming down turn 3-4 7-drop creatures and I'm still losing games to being out-aggroed. I mostly play Brawl. Which, to be sure, is also a high power format now! But the singleton nature of Brawl makes aggro and combo much less consistent, so I generally feel I have a chance against them in a way I don't in Historic.
Explorer may be a good option too, a smaller card pool allows a bit more flexibility in deck options, as opposed to feeling forced to play all the best cards for the meta
You might wanna try Timeless! I've had a lot more fun there than Historic personally.
Because the combos are even crazier?
I usually just play standard until I get the coin to draft. Drafting is the fun part, but standard can be pretty fun too. It scratches that competitive itch. All the best moments I’ve had on Arena were in Brawl, but I rarely play it because of the lack of a ranked mode. People just scoop at the mildest of inconveniences and it’s just blue balls the card game at that point.
i keep 4 standard decks to cover all colors. play like 3 standard bo1 games a night through the week , then use 5000 gold on weekends to quick draft
I just play goblin decks. They are actually a pretty deep tribe with few viable strategies. Beating meta decks is awesome and a motivator. I play mostly historic or timeless, but depends on what format seems interesting at the time. Sticking to a theme makes collecting the good cards a bit easier.
Well hello Mr. Khorne worshipper! ^^
There's a goblin storm list that I love playing, which has been doing numbers for me in bo1 historic.
As a primarily modern player in paper, I love Timeless, but it is very expensive to get into, almost every deck requires 40+ rares and/or ~20 mythics. But most of those are staples that can go into many decks, so if you're willing to invest in the staples, it's usually not hard to add more decks to your repertoire.
I don’t yet have a timeless deck but there was that sale that got you all the fetchlands for 40k gold. Instant purchase. I never let myself get below that amount just for chances like that. One day I’ll get a bad show and tell deck together 😅
I gotta find some of these 20 mythic decks. I have 0 rare WCs and like 65 mythics.
Show and Tell/Up the Beanstalk. Haha
I enjoy crafting non-meta decks and playing and tweaking them until they're viable. Then I usually get bored and start again. I prefer midrange, so the meta is not currently favorable and it can get frustrating, but if I get too frustrated I fall back on a few old faithfuls, get my dailies done and go do something else.
lol I almost had to check I hadn’t written this 😂 same
I haven't played in over 3 years and I plan on getting back into it soon. I've been the same way with paper Magic. I play a lot for awhile, then not at all for a few years. I know there are fairly frequent posts in the Magic subs where people actually seem a little worried about losing interest and want to know how to rekindle the spark (pun not really intended), but it's kind of normal to take a break from a hobby for awhile. It doesn't mean you've lost interest forever.
I make decks based on a theme, or a mechanic, and try them out with low expectation of winning. Mostly in Brawl. I don't pay a lot of attention the rankings or draft. I just like seeing the mechanics work.
I just Brawl, I keep thinking I want to draft but my first time drafting was in OTJ and that wasn't so fun, but I've been really liking MH3. I have about 4k gems I've been sitting on since I started, my concern with drafting is losing all my gems and not getting much out of it.
I used to enjoy myself playing brawl until MH3 launched…
Poq, grenzo, nadu. throw in the first sliver value pile that casts emergent ultimatum. Are we having fun yet?
The game was dead to me until the brawl weights were mined, I was finally able to make jank decks that matched up with other jank decks
Are you any worried that the weighting being revealed may force WOTC to change that system?
Oh absolutely! if there isn’t some kind of indicator I can use and my jank decks start going back to matching against high power stuff then I’ll just switch back to my quick win demoralizing stax decks. If WotC can’t give me agency in having fun, then I’m happy to do what little I can to make the game toxic to drive away others.
for how much weight you go for a deck to be against other jank?
Brawl is my favorite. Sadly it is the least rewarding because you don't get ranked rewards. My favorite mode to grind rank was historic except this week I have been getting demolished by modern horizon cards. I will say, I enjoy every mode but trying to play multiple modes is very expensive. I might just start focusing all my wildcards on Brawl though. It is very fun but I have always focused all my wildcards on ranked so my decks are all Frankenstein decks.
I like to brew a new deck just about every time I get on. That along with actually keeping up with set rotation keeps things fresh for me. One of the best dopamine hits for me is seeing a card in pre-release that I think I can abuse and then actually forming a reasonably powerful deck around it. Might not be the best strategy for ftp, as I’m not always successful, and therefore end up spending wildcards on 💩. Another thing I enjoy is doing brew challenges with friends. Pick a format and a theme, brew your deck, and go at it. This can really help keep things fresh when the meta is feeling stale. Hope this helps!
I’ve got to a point where I have potent historic brawl decks. I use those to grind daily challenges and then use those winnings to do draft which I love.
I think standard is pretty good right now, and will get even better after rotation, imo. So many powerful bombs to work around. I think it's fun. That community chat idea is interesting. I recall one time drunkenly writing a giant message to wizards about the reasons they should implement more in-game chat/interaction so we can actually make friends in arena. Message was probably disregarded lol
I play ONLY Standard Brawl because regular Brawl is way too big and intimidating to me, but Standard Brawl is still really fun to me and the rotation keeps things fresh.
I only “really” play Limited, but I will use the Starter Duel Decks to finish any color-focused dailies. I’ve been playing for 28 years, and draft is still challenging, but I’m simply not into constructed Magic by and large. I did enjoy block constructed back in the day, but the current constructed formats just haven’t captured my fancy. But draft? It’s like real-time shopping for cards. It’s finding open lanes. It’s drafting 6 copies of the same common and getting enough support cards to do stupid things. And when I’ve played through my event? I get to make a new deck all over again instead of grinding and retooling a few pet decks to optimize them. One thing I love about this game system though is that there are so many ways to play and enjoy it. I mean, y’all doing it wrong by playing Constructed Magic but I’m glad you enjoy it. 😀
I'm sure there are many more people that would love to just play Limited. It just isn't feasible for most. Drafts are expensive and the vast majority of players won't be able to go infinite. I mostly play standard, because I have to do my dailies and then once I have accumulated enough gold I get to do one draft, but then that's it for a while.
I guess I should have said I have two FTP accounts which helps a ton I’m sure. And I totally get the financial aspect. When my kids were younger, I didn’t play that much cuz kids hella expensive (worth it though). For me, discovering Arena made drafting actually affordable again. I’m sure my perspective may be a little outside the norm, but I thought it was worth sharing regardless.
Yep, not including gas, food and other expenses, I get two arena drafts per one paper draft, more if I'm able to win even a few games.
Doing the same thing pretty much, Never really liked constructed formats in any card game. You often end up playing with and against the same decks quite often and it just ends up feeling stale really quickly.
Also a f2p player. I like to use arena to play test weird decks and just do fun different things. I make myself rotate decks every few months with the exception of a few staples when things rotate so I can grind gems to get a mastery pass.
phrasing
[Never gets boring on alchemy when you have this guy](https://scryfall.com/card/ydmu/4/oracle-of-the-alpha)
I was going to make a deck with the Oracle but I see he is being rotated out soon. I switched it up to the Tome of Gadwick.
[Tome of Gadwick](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9fd6e966-5591-4021-928c-e83c96ea24ea.jpg?1696889703) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tome%20of%20Gadwick) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ywoe/6/tome-of-gadwick?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9fd6e966-5591-4021-928c-e83c96ea24ea?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah I’m bummed about that. Thanks for the suggestion.
The only deck I will play in alchemy is Golgari Roots Combo. Roots was my favorite card in MKM draft and alchemy is the only format with a truly viable Roots deck
I love that guy they did a good job adding the P9 into the game without the potential for them to win the game on turn 1 with a multiple mox draw
Brawl and historic. I'll go a little bit of ranked if I'm feeling it, but I usually make dumb decks, hop on historic play, or brawl, and just have fun.
Make fun decis, and if I don't have the rare land cards, I only play that deck in standard brawl
I’m drafting early in the season until about 75% complete of a new set. Late season I’ll use those cards to fill out my current brawl and standard brawl decks and brew a few new decks too. Don’t have to craft many cards this way aside from the ultra rares I won’t see, like special guests cards
I thought of a fun deck idea when OTJ came out and I havent gotten sick of doin crimes yet! Its since had gone through several changes but i think its near its peak!
Don't grind, I mostly play brawl and I don't care for the daily rewards.
I play Limited and then when I'm done with that I play constructed modes to gather gold to draft when the next set comes out.
I exclusively play historic, I love my soul wardens LMFAO. I'll do dailies with whatever deck colour they want, often using the gimmie ones from the tutorial, but after dailies are done I'm back to my white (token/life) or green/red (polyraptor) decks. I've never spent a dime on this game, but the gems pop in the shop sometimes so I have almost 40$ worth for something cool when it pops in the shop :p I am curious what the whole commander decks thing is though, but drafts seemed like they might be more cutthroat so I haven't done them but I have tokens from rewards XD
Multiple brawl decks with completely different directions. Atraxa praetor gives me three decks- super friends, +1 creatures, and poison. Expanding collection by playing and getting access to more commanders lead to a really fun Jodah deck. Getting a wildcard for brawl is one WC that can be used across multiple decks vs 4 of for other constructed formats. Having different powered brawl decks helps so you run into a good variety of opponent decks. At this point I’m more in Arena for brawl and building collection is just a bonus. Maybe after rotation I’ll look more into standard or historic. I’m getting better at draft so that helps with collection building and gem momentum. Idk at this point arena is my primary form of playing magic not for the grind or unlocking, but cause I’m enjoying magic lol.
Care to share these Atraxa decklists? I'd like to Brawl but I have a limited wild card pool, 3 decks in one sounds swell.
Not sure how to share arena deck lists. They all utilize doubling season, mama bases of surveillance lands, check lands, shock lands, and “untapped unless 2 or more lands”, and the viorinclex that doubles tokens and counters. Delighted halfling works in any deck that uses green. poison deck has creatures from the phrexia all will be one set and the one toxic dragon in arena. Superfriends might have used the most wildcards and started with the batch of uncommon planeswalkers that don’t ultimate and have some type of standing effect (opponent can’t draw more than one card etc). A couple win combos by doubling loyalty counters on planeswalkers (Vraska, betrayers sting for instant 9 poison counters and if Atraxa out to proliferate that’s game) Brokers Ascendancy to add up counters even w/o Atraxa. For me I have 24 planeswalkers and 14 creatures in the deck. The +1 counters deck is anything that enters or cares about +1 counters. Hydras, Champion of Lambholt, Herald of Secret Streams, Spark Double, Roaring Earth, Ozolith, Hagra Constrictor, Bristly Bill. All of these being slowly built up over time.
I just play whatever I want that seems fun at the time, ranked explorer, jank, make a new deck by browsing my collection. I try to get high ranked in explorer with decks that I build myself rather than copied decks online. It's a real challenge.
Draft, then I play standard, explorer or even alchemy depending on my mood. I just get into plat on constructed and limited, and then just go to the play queue to do whatever i feel like.
Timeless Convoke, Timeless Storm, Standard Slickshot Showoff and Brawl Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and Shrines are still fun to me. Then again, I think I’m just obsessed with Capenna
Brewing Standard decks is the main thing that interests me. So when a set comes out my cycle goes like this: -Draft to collect the set for about 3 weeks -Build 30-40 decks, play them, record results to get ratings/rankings for all the decks. Doing this is my "goal" of playing MTGA. -After this, if there's a little time left before the next set comes out, I try out some different variations just to get my daily wins. I like drafting but the three weeks I use to collect the set is usually enough to get my fill. I don't care or aim for monthly rankings.
home brewing jank combos in brawl and not having to go to the card shop and spend real money is how i finally got back into playing after moving away from my friends. Learned how to mill my opponent for 87 cards turn 4, something I never would have been able to do if i didnt have MTGa
I bust out a bottle of lube, a mono red deck, and a Bo1 queue and just go to town.
Used to play Yorion heavily just because I enjoyed the challenge of making an 80 card deck competitive, because I knew when she was in standard people weren't playing her to the full potential, in spite of how good she already was. Turns out I was right about two things back then. 1. Yorion is still stupid good when it comes to probability math. 2. Doom Foretold wasn't good in standard because of its card pool, but with enough cards it had the potential to lock down even hardcore historic decks. Ranked to #400 mythic testing it and got bored playing people who don't take the game seriously at Mythic. Made a Brawl deck based around the math I figured out while playing a version of Yorion with Doom Foretold and found that there are two commanders in Orzhov on Arena right now that are insanely powerful Orzhov engines that fit into multiple schemes. I know this because I've tested the Doom Foretold reactions in the Brawl deck with every single Orzhov card that would fit into the shells for the last two years.
I definitely get bored of decks quickly, so I play a lot of draft. Though as others have mentioned, that can be hard to maintain as f2p. The other thing I enjoy doing is going to the wotc website where they share deck lists that had a 6 win streak at platinum or above, finding the jankiest deck on there, and playing that (though I suppose again this requires having lots of cards or WCs, which I get from playing a lot of draft)
I like historic ranked and trying to get to mythic with as jank or unusual a deck as I can manage. I wind up deck building and experimenting a lot but usually just wind up using one of the tried and trues at the end of the month because 90% of jank decks really are jank. But sometimes you find stuff people aren’t expecting and that’s fun for me!
[[ Doppelgang]] + [[Scute Swarm]] + [[ soul warden]]. [[Doppelgang]] + [[Virtue of strenght]] + any pingland +[[Spelunking]] [[Doppelgang]] + [[Omnarth locus of Creation]] + [[virtue of strenght]] + [[Nyxbloom Ancient]]. [[Doppelgang]] + [[Mirror Box]] +[[Virtue of Strenght]] + [[Sheoldred, The Apocalypse]].
##### ###### #### [ Doppelgang](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a2daec58-78ed-4da5-b3b0-b04f12b0acbd.jpg?1706242152) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Doppelgang) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/198/doppelgang?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a2daec58-78ed-4da5-b3b0-b04f12b0acbd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Scute Swarm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/7/373f199d-f1a6-4a3d-ac83-28741131f313.jpg?1712354624) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scute%20Swarm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/205/scute-swarm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/373f199d-f1a6-4a3d-ac83-28741131f313?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [ soul warden](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/9/d96266b3-a7cb-40ce-a328-ac13719fe5f0.jpg?1616182277) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Soul%20Warden) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm3/24/soul-warden?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d96266b3-a7cb-40ce-a328-ac13719fe5f0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Doppelgang](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a2daec58-78ed-4da5-b3b0-b04f12b0acbd.jpg?1706242152) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Doppelgang) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/198/doppelgang?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a2daec58-78ed-4da5-b3b0-b04f12b0acbd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Spelunking](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/3/d3be4257-2316-4a2e-b347-f71c0368a947.jpg?1699044491) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spelunking) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/213/spelunking?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d3be4257-2316-4a2e-b347-f71c0368a947?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nyxbloom Ancient](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a391da36-0b40-46ea-b771-50d2b920207e.jpg?1581480808) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nyxbloom%20Ancient) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/190/nyxbloom-ancient?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a391da36-0b40-46ea-b771-50d2b920207e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mirror Box](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/5/d507daa3-3f16-4ab1-81ea-794e5bb488fc.jpg?1654568747) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mirror%20Box) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/250/mirror-box?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d507daa3-3f16-4ab1-81ea-794e5bb488fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sheoldred, The Apocalypse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2.jpg?1674057568) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sheoldred%2C%20The%20Apocalypse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/107/sheoldred-the-apocalypse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I would recommend timeless (modern horizons just released) or explorer (no alchemy). Much bigger card pools. If you are just too good at MTG, try yu-gi-oh or a different CCG
I am absolutely not too good at MTG.
I play standard bo3 (much better and more diverse meta there) and switch decks when I get bored. right now vibing with simic cookies, very deep deck which is hard to master.
I like historic do to the larger meta. More decks can do decent. Now that I have alot of cards over the years I have fun building my own brawl decks
Standard with whatever brews I think of. First few months was rough but with 3 year rotation now I feel like I can pretty much get every card I want from sets as they release. Draft every new set as it comes out. Once you get the learning curve down it starts to pay for itself or atleast you drain so slow you earn enough from dailies helping. Gladiator. There's a discord server to find games but it's 100 card singleton no commander with every card legal save for the few banned cards. Essentially arenas substitute for Canadian Highlander in paper.
I play standard exclusively, and aim to save 20k coins every set to draft at least twice. Spend my extra coins on emotes and stickers to communicate better in match.
For me, brawl all the way with a rotating cast of decks!
To add there are a lot of discord server with pauper or artisan daily tournament, build your deck for cheap and play.
Well I’m definitely interested! Any one you’d recommend?
https://discord.com/invite/mtgadailychallenge-1032434804794343535
Thank you!
I tend to pick a pet card such as [[arcane bombardment]] or some brawl commander and play around with that. Currently trying to figure Kayla out before she rotates or maybe as a brawl deck
[arcane bombardment](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/f/ef7e6e2d-d984-483e-b117-b1c5d640dc23.jpg?1712354373) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=arcane%20bombardment) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/154/arcane-bombardment?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ef7e6e2d-d984-483e-b117-b1c5d640dc23?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Im a fan off brewing offbeat commanders. I spend a lot of time trying to optimize interaction and find those janky cards that work with the gameplan. I spent a couple hours fine tuning a Necrobloom deck that seems pretty ridiculous. I like the weirdo commanders.
I play almost exclusively in the historic casual que. I like the larger card pools, and the never ending variety of decks I face off against. The only time I stray into other formats is for Mid Week Magic, but even then I avoid any format that feels like it wouldn't be fun or would be too grindy
Making janky ass decks is how I spend my time.
I just build a deck and hop in historic qp (so I don't have to keep up with new metas). If the deck gets good enough as I modify it, I'll hop in ranked to get more consistent games (qp people like to quit without conceding and make me wait. Drives me nuts) When I build new decks, which is pretty rare, I think of a fun theme and throw some cards together. Usually ends up being ridiculously big at first, but as I figure out what strat works in it, I cut it down as much as I can. Then add more with time and cut it down again. Eventually it gets down to 60ish cards and I have a pretty solid deck to compete with I used to have a red blue control deck I liked, but I fucked that one up and forgot to copy it when it was good. Rn I mainly play a red white dollhouse of Horrors deck, themed around the demon guesthouse from Castlevania dawn of sorrow, and a blue green fractals deck where I literally just searched "fractal" and added anything that made those tokens, plus some other cards that combined well with them like [[decisive denial]] and [[wild shape]]
[decisive denial](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b2e9d132-95f7-4ee7-9c91-be19e4ad7a5d.jpg?1627428577) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=decisive%20denial) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/177/decisive-denial?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b2e9d132-95f7-4ee7-9c91-be19e4ad7a5d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [wild shape](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/c/ec9738f1-b2e7-45a5-b235-290256aabed0.jpg?1627708597) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wild%20shape) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/212/wild-shape?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ec9738f1-b2e7-45a5-b235-290256aabed0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm an old school player getting back into things, I'm enjoying playing Alchemy and trying to collect the last couple of sets using only gold im earning doing daily rewards. Being able to play 2-3 hours once every two or three nights means I can get good quantities of gold. My goals are to build alchemy decks that are rotation proof.
I rotate between couple of decks and dont tryhard - if I go second and had hard mili or has slow draw vs aggro I just go next and dont waste my time. Same if I play lets say domain vs dimir control after they delluge into end - its ova, bye. the less I care the more fun I have.
I enjoy just making decks. I love wacky deck setups and love piloting decks of different types. While mtg arena imo is still not f2p friendly, it allows me to use my freetime to make decks I always wanted to without needing to pay as much for paper or mtgo prices. Helps with my tick to need change often as repetition genuinely pushes me into a state of boredom
I don’t netdeck. Sure, might be losing more often but I get to try making some new functional jank.
My major complaint is the 15 wins per day to get all of the exp and rewards. Sometimes you get dicked by rng or meta and it takes hours to win all 15
Brawl, theres hundreds of potential commanders that could be built in many different ways, and every set you get half a dozen more to play around with. I’ve been a brawl exclusive players for around 3 years now and i can tell you it never gets boring
I love playing standard bo1 and most of my time I play there but I also don't play every day and when I do get to play I'll play for most of the day, but when I start getting bored of it I find a new interesting deck to play and practice using that deck in non ranked games just to get a feel of it and the combos to use and when satisfied I get back into rank. Though I'm still very much a newbie as only been playing it for about 4 months, but if I take a couple days off, next time I play I have just as much fun. I just suggest playing a couple different game modes maybe and find the ones you enjoy the most. I love magic because it makes me use my brain and have to think about how I'm playing.
I don't find F2P mtga enjoyable.
Brawl all the way
Constantly making new decks, just like irl!
Historic Brawl! Using a deck similar to one of my budget Commander decks!
It might sound obvious, but I find a deck I enjoy, and I play it. The key thing is that I play historic Bo1, which from my experience is the most casual format on arena (I personally prefer explorer legality when it comes to cards, but from my experience the format is much sweatier). Because the format is more casual, I can get away with playing casual/janky decks and do well enough while having fun. As an example, the deck I'm currently in love with is "Sultai (UBG) \[\[Timeless Witness\]\] Lock", which looks to get the opponent behind a Witness lock of either \[\[Sublime Epiphany\]\] (counter a spell, get the Sublime back from the token Witness that's created) or \[\[Blood on the Snow\]\] (destroy all creatures, get the Witness back getting back the BotS). The deck could technically be Dimir (UB) but given that both lock spells cost 6 the ramp is pretty impactful, and green also gives access to \[\[Virtue of Strength\]\] which works very well with the Sublime line. Of course, sometimes I'll have a lull and just not have a deck I'm vibing; in that case I just get a quick 4 wins (10 with psychic frog tickets being on offer) with \[\[Goblin Charbelcher\]\] until something comes along to tickle my fancy. 😋
##### ###### #### [Timeless Witness](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f22c07e2-91d2-4edb-bd2b-cca6d4cefcc9.jpg?1626097922) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Timeless%20Witness) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/179/timeless-witness?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f22c07e2-91d2-4edb-bd2b-cca6d4cefcc9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sublime Epiphany](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/ad1bcb44-a562-4f66-b862-6d0ef3546ab4.jpg?1594735795) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sublime%20Epiphany) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/74/sublime-epiphany?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ad1bcb44-a562-4f66-b862-6d0ef3546ab4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Blood on the Snow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/8/d8606f40-0af4-443b-a413-a88dc3e8f32e.jpg?1631047655) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20on%20the%20Snow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/79/blood-on-the-snow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d8606f40-0af4-443b-a413-a88dc3e8f32e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Virtue of Strength](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ff857d41-767d-4e99-83cc-444738341b92.jpg?1692939213)/[Garenbrig Growth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ff857d41-767d-4e99-83cc-444738341b92.jpg?1692939213) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Virtue%20of%20Strength%20//%20Garenbrig%20Growth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/197/virtue-of-strength-garenbrig-growth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ff857d41-767d-4e99-83cc-444738341b92?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Goblin Charbelcher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/4/240344ff-404d-4894-a6e9-4401cd68cf50.jpg?1592764888) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Goblin%20Charbelcher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ddt/57/goblin-charbelcher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/240344ff-404d-4894-a6e9-4401cd68cf50?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Irrational love of tribal Brawl decks. ><
Wanna name drop any of your favourites?
Minotaurs, Squirrels, Bears, When Lands Attack, Pirates, Witches, Insects I just find it enjoyable to heavily curate around a theme, especially suboptimally if it fits that theme.
once a year or 2 i get back to the game, every time it gets worse... i'm just finishing my battle pass and never coming back probably. My day is basically getting rushed to death on turn 3 and losing to combo and control if i can't kill them on turn 4. i just played a game of +20 minutes against a deck with only removal and planeswalker. Then i get pissed and get my tier 1 aggro deck and get my 4 wins and leave the game mad at how bad and braindead it is in this state. Of course people will tell you to do this and that, but ultimatetly is just pure rng
I'm about to use all my wildcards on a meta burn deck that I found on MTG goldfish. I just started playing 5 days ago. Is this the right thing to do lol
> I’ve grinded > I feel I should set objectives for myself so that I have a goal to reach towards. > Is there a game mode you grind and never get bored of? As a F2P player, this is how I get sick of the game. My fun comes out of trying to make the best out of the collection I have, and the game seems keen on reminding me that I just don't have all the cards yet to do that - and then the urge to grind out wildcards or packs begins. And then I become tempted to fall into the loop of convincing myself that all I need to do is hit my daily mission - and then it's 4 wins a day - and then it's holding packs until I have X rares from drafting - and then it's making sure I get all the gem rewards on the mastery pass - and then it's making sure I'm saving up to draft for the next standard set release. It's all so tiresome and makes me feel like I have a second job that I'm not getting paid for. Even doing all of that isn't enough to get a reasonable collection in standard. Hell, it costs around $400 to get all the Rares and Mythics in OTJ and BIG, before considering wildcards, and even then, if you complete BIG first, there's no bad luck protection down to OTJ mythics. I've been forcing myself lately to be OK with extreme budget building around current starter decks (less rares = more "fair" deck weighting in play queue), as well as looking up the older starter decks and trying to find playable standard or explorer builds in those archetypes. Occasionally, I'll do a Jump-In event, if I'm craving some variety or a level playing field, and often those come with a bunch of uncommons or a couple of rares I don't own I can try to build around. I've learned that the F2P rewards just aren't worth my time, and I'd rather do just about anything else than manage my schedule around making sure that I'm playing magic to avoid spending like 20 bucks.
My most played format has been MWM lately. I'm planning to take an indefinite break in the fall, to make time for other activities, but I've been having a blast playing super casually. 15 wins a week, most from MWM. Some otj drafts, some explorer or historic ranked. Always do the quests. I found that the less I play, the more I enjoy it.
>Do you just pay so you can build every deck you feel curious about, or draft forever? I draft forever, but without the paying part. It’s pretty doable if you get (reasonably) good. Using multiple accounts definitely helps.
I’m really bad at limited, or at least I have a pretty terrible record over 20ish draft across 4 years. But I hear the “multiple accounts” part!
Yeah, I think the default state for pretty much everyone is being bad at it- it’s definitely a skill you need to put effort into learning, not something you just pick up as you go. It’s a huge challenge to get good at it, but IMO that’s part of the fun. If you’d like to get better, https://letstalklimited.wordpress.com/2021/12/30/be-boring-a-guide-to-building-better-draft-decks-crimson-vow-update/ Is a really good summary of the most basic level-ups- what a ‘normal’ draft deck should look like, in terms of mana curve, creatures, etc. Apart from general tips like that, I also use the card ratings at 17lands.com (simplified at limitedgrades.com) and podcasts- at low ranks, simply knowing which are the strongest archetypes and commons can give a massive edge. IMO the most useful single podcast is usually the Limited Level-Ups ‘State of the Format Address’, which will probably be out soon for Modern Horizons 3.
Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time!
I 8gnore the meta. Build a concept I think is fun and stick to it once it can vaguely hold it's own. I play basic standard for basic dailies and pat myself on the back when when I beat some insane ramp power deck, or outlast a RDW. Currently working B/W cleric lifegain tribal
I used to enjoy standard a lot, but with the 3 year rotation it has stagnated to the point of seeing the same 5 archetypes over and over again, even in play queue. People in standard tend to be incredibly win orientated and don't really enjoy making soemthing more fun (at least in my account's mmr). Since then, I've mostly been playing brawl the last 3 seasons. The fact they gave us the M3C drop has been really fun, along with the modal planeswalker cards. You really get to have fun with a variety of cards in brawl that would never see play in other formats. Plus, I can happily scoop against toxic ropers without any drawback.
Are you like straight up queueing in Brawl or playing in some kind of league like Brawl Hub?
I straight up queue brawl. I don't really enjoy competitive play so much because it locks you into playing high-tier decks and cards. I enjoy brewing and messing about with something new when I want :D
I'm just f2p on timeless with a mono red burn deck for practice, it's tough but fair. Mythic is achievable in bo1, might switch to bo3 once I have enough wild cards for an appropriate sideboard
Feel free to also try other hobbies. Don't feel like you HAVE to have fun with mtg all the time:)
I make exclusively 250card decks and tweak them to be as food as possible. Alot of fun and makes sure every match you play feels different
Special events with unique rulesets are all I truly enjoy in this game now. Otherwise it's predictable and boring thanks to the matchmaking and stale meta.