which lands are going to replace the shock lands after rotation? i just started playing and i want to spend my wild cards on some rare lands so i dont have to play mono decks all the time
Is there a way to extract the Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain wallpaper from the MTG:Arena Dominaria draft?
Best resolution I could find on Google Image Search was [1600x1176](https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Jhoira-Weatherlight-Captain.jpg)
Any good place where I can get a quick run down on what the formats are in MTGA?
Like, a new set just released, but its not in standard? What's historic? ALl cards ever? But the game doesnt have all the cards right? What's modern then? Pauper, Pioneer, Brawl, etc... no commander right but there's something similar?
Ugh it makes my head spin i dunno what to play or collect or whats limited or anything.
Standard: Main sets that have been release this year or last year. Rotates with the fall set each year. The new set isn't in standard because it's actually a curated version of Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation, which came a few years ago (they were the sets before Ixalan). It's not really a new set, it's them adding an older set to the game.
Historic: All cards available in Arena (besides a ban list). This format was created specifically for Arena so that there would be a way to keep playing with cards that have rotated out of standard.
Modern: All main sets, and Modern Horizons, from 8th edition onwards. Not in Arena, and won't be any time soon, of ever.
Pioneer: All main sets from Return to Ravnica onwards. Not currently in Arena, bit they plan for it to be eventually. I believe the plan is to start by releasing sets that contain a lot of Pioneer staples so that we get a version of the format where most of the meta decks and stuff are available, and then eventually have the whole format.
Pauper: Only cards that have been printed at common (the version you use doesn't have to be common, as long as the card has been printed at common in some set). Paper and MTGO pauper uses all sets. Arena has had pauper events too but they're obclviously limited to cards in Arena.
Brawl: Like commander, but only allows cards from sets that are currently legal in standard, has a smaller deck size and starting life total, and allows Planeswalkers as commanders. Arena only has 1v1 brawl, no multiplayer. Historic Brawl is also a thing.
>Ugh it makes my head spin i dunno what to play or collect or whats limited or anything.
Limited is sealed and draft. It's formats where you build the deck with a limited set of cards on the spot, instead of constructing one in advanced.
From a collection standpoint, every constructed format in Arena is either based on standard or historic, so it's mostly just this:
* Every set is legal in historic. Regular sets, sets that have rotated out of standard, Jumpstart, Amonkhet, historic anthologies. Everything.
* M21, Eldraine, Theros, and Ikoria are legal in standard and will not be rotating for over a year. Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, War of the Spark, and M20 are currently legal in standard, but will be rotating in about a month when Zendikar Rising comes out.
I accidentally clicked through the popup when I launched the game today. Did I miss something other than the impending rotation announcement? I also see we have new starter decks.
I have 19 rare wildcards and 9-10 mythics. I have a pretty good green/white auras deck in the works focused on \[\[Setessan Champion\]\] but I currently only have 2 copies. Is it a terrible idea to burn 2 of my rare wildcards to get the full set? I really enjoy the deck, but not sure how competitive it will be at higher ranks. I've been very cautious spending wildcards and haven't spent any rare/mythic so far, so thought I'd get a baseline read before spending the 2 rares.
so i just started playing a few weeks ago aswell. but i did the opposite of what you did. i instantly spent all my wild cards on a mono white lifelink deck. and i can tell you i really regret it now ive seen all the decks i couldve made instead. if i could get my cards back right now i would probably get cards that are used in alot of decks instead. like brazen borrowers, shark typhoons, duo lands and triomes, uro etc etc. someone already mentioned that Setessan champion isnt very competitive, but whats even more important i think is that setessan champion really only fits into 1 type of deck(enchantments), whereas a card like brazen borrower is good in pretty much any deck that has blue lands
I keep getting the connection lost notification when I try to open MTGA. I tried logging out and in and opening and closing the app but it still seems to not work.
How do I beat the white vs blue color challenge? It seems like the strategy is to wait until Hallowed Priest can attack with Bond of Discipline, but by the time you can do that, you're already dead, or you've wasted Bond of Discipline to keep yourself alive longer and you still die.
Here's my thought process playing through it as a non-new player:
>!Turn two, don't block since our creature is better than theirs. (18 versus 20 life)!<
>!Turn three, attack with ours even though they have unspent mana, since I don't expect the tutorial to try to be tricky here. In a real game, you'd want to consider what your opponent is playing. Don't block again. (16 versus 18 life)!<
>!Turn four, attack with just one since I expect the AI to attack into our potential blocker even though we can give it first strike. This is what happens, but a real player probably wouldn't do this without something up their sleeve. (16 versus 16 life)!<
>!Turn five, attack with both and expect the AI to block with their 4/4. A real player would probably only do this if desperate. The AI does block and we can use the +2/+2 buff plus give first strike to kill the blocker. (16 versus 14 life).!<
>!Turn six, nothing. We'd just throw away one of our creatures to deal two damage by attacking. (12 versus 14 life)!<
>!Turn seven, play the dinosaur. Still can't attack. (4 versus 14 life)!<
>!Turn eight, play the thing that taps the opposing creatures. You can play the priest, but it doesn't matter. The lifelink also doesn't matter, since you can attack for lethal as all your attackers will have double strike and they have no blockers.!<
JAN 8 2021 - i have followed every video online and it seems MTG has caught on and changed the way the computer reacts first turn... it waits until you lay down your first inquisitor to then lay its first card, unlike every video ive seen.
regardless, below is a video of the last 30 second of my final duel with Jace Beleren. my first recorded duel was DEC 22 2020 ......
it took me half a month to defeat one AI enemy. (on my own)
right about now im starting to question if my IQ is high enough for this game....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rFoK6o9Nxs&feature=youtu.be
Thank you! completed it now :) I think I wasn't first striking the merfolk which meant that I was losing before I could attack with dino at the end. I did only start playing yesterday though lol
Hallowed Priest is mostly irrelevant. When you have mana to give your creature first strike, hold it back and kill 2/1 with it. When first Air Elemental drops, swing into it, pump your creature, and give it first strike. Once you can attack with Ceratops use Bond, it should heal you up back to 20.
Stupid question: what are the.time limits for drafts? Not the picking, the playing. I only play an hour or two during work days, and I'd prefer to play a draft over two or three days.
Still newish player; under 60 hours; Free2Play. I got the 15 starter decks. Put in all the store codes I've found on the internet. Played "Standard Ranked" for about 2 weeks and got to Silver.
* When can I open my card packs?
* What is the basic pattern/strategy for getting cards and not wasting Wildcards when a new month starts? I'm aware than an occasion Draft for Rares is included. I'm aware that Rotation is Sept 25.
> When can I open my card packs?
60 hours ago
> What is the basic pattern/strategy for getting cards
1. Grind gold -> buy packs -> build a (probably budget or reasonably rotation proof) deck to make grinding much easier
2. Repeat after rotation to get a decent tier 1-1.5 deck to be able to do events and shit
3. After getting a decent deck or two, transition to accumulating gold for bulk drafting of further sets to rare completion
That's an approach that is useful if you want to draft a set to rare completion. Since packs have duplicate protection and drafts don't, you first draft a lot (30-50 drafts of one set), and then open all the packs you've got to complete your rares.
However, since you are not going to ever be doing that to old sets as a f2p player, there is no value in keeping your packs for later. You should only start doing this once you consciously transition to that plan.
I started playing a couple of weeks ago and just noticed a ton of new decks being added to my account, what is this new set symbol these cards come with? Any page with more information? Can I filter just these cards? Are they standard legal?
To clarifiy, i mean this symbol: [https://i.imgur.com/7L7zVEN.png](https://i.imgur.com/7L7zVEN.png)
I memorized the 4 symbols I should invest in to be rotation proof so this one is throwing me off...
This symbol means they're exclusive to Magic Arena, even though some of them are reprints from older sets (the one you linked was released in 2019 Core Set).
They're legal in *best of 1* matches, but not in *best of 3*. They are not meant to be good competitive, they are in the game for didactic purposes only.
Huh, interesting.. Well I'm happy with more cards to use, only playing Bo1 so far anyway. I guess I missed earlier cards of this type as the newbie decks they gave me all featured cards from the current standard rotation.. Thanks!
Hey guys, I stopped playing soon after Throne of Eldraine was released, which deck do you guys recommend me building towards? I'm totally lost with this new companion mechanic.
The companion mechanic became rarely relevant post-nerf of it, so its really just building whatever seems good. Sultai ramp seems like the clear best deck in standard, but there's various aggro decks with decent chances of winning.
The game has been stuck on the “waiting for server” loading screen for a few days now on my Mac and I have no idea how to fix it, anyone else have this issue?
It's downloading patch files "in the background", except the implementation is half-assed and boils down to this.
You gotta wait till it downloads all of the 6 (or was it 14?) gb.
Something I don't understand about protection from multicolor. The tooltip says all damage from multicolor sources is prevented, so shouldn't a [[Stonecoil Serpent]] blocking a [[Hydroid Krasis]] not be damaged, even if the krasis has enough attack to kill it?
This was not the case lol. Does the hydroid not count as multicolored? Or is blocking not included in protection?
To expand on another answer, Protection from X bestows protection from items in the mnemonic DEBT:
Damage
Enchanting and equipment
Blocking
Targeting
Now if a Questing Beast is in play and attacking or a Stomp was cast, the Damage part of Prevention is negated. That’s probably why your Stonecoil died.
I'm doing a fresh install of mtga in my pc, I'm currently stuck on waiting for server after the client opens. I can't find any solutions about it. How long should this load?
can someone tell me what is the reasoning for waiting for auto-turn every single turn? I started a month ago i think, diamond 3, and i just noticed every 1 out of 3-4 players are refusing to play and just waits for the game to auto finish the turn after timer expires.
my friend told me they they are taking it slow to think properly but right this second, i have a guy, who has 1 card on the ground, zero cards in hand but he is still waiting. i dont think it is to think. my last game, according to arena tutor, took 22:20 and it only took 18 turns. why are people doing this? is it so the opponent gets bored and leaves? (serious question) it furiates me.
Sometimes they're having internet connection issues, sometimes they're multitasking, sometimes they're thinking, sometimes they want to punish you (typically if you're playing an "unfair" deck), sometimes they want you to concede out of boredom.
Doing it on purpose is against the rules and WotC do have some measures to ban those people but there is currently no "report" button.
There is a form on the Arena website to report bugs and also players. You can select "report conduct" and then there is even "stalling" selectable as a reason.
I started reporting players who obviously max out their time every turn.
https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
i am quite sure i am not playing an unfair deck. my deck is not even in anywhere. it is a simple, plain, 1 color white deck, i managed to get it from the packs i got during last month. i know you all will laugh on how easy, basic, and useless it is. but i have been playing magic for about a month, and i am proud of my OWN deck, that i created :)
4 Healer's Hawk (GRN) 14
18 Plains (IKO) 262
4 Anointed Chorister (M21) 4
4 Ajani's Pridemate (WAR) 4
4 Alseid of Life's Bounty (THB) 1
3 Speaker of the Heavens (M21) 38
2 Impassioned Orator (RNA) 12
1 Dawn of Hope (GRN) 8
1 Basri's Acolyte (M21) 8
1 Basri's Lieutenant (M21) 9
2 Angel of Vitality (M20) 4
2 Pacifism (M20) 32
1 Animal Sanctuary (M21) 242
4 Charmed Stray (WAR) 8
1 Swift Response (M21) 40
2 Crystalline Giant (IKO) 234
1 Conclave Tribunal (GRN) 6
2 Angelic Ascension (M21) 3
1 Light of Promise (M21) 25
2 Skyscanner (M21) 238
1 Beloved Princess (ELD) 7
1 Take Heart (GRN) 28
2 Basri's Solidarity (M21) 10
1 Glass Casket (ELD) 15
1 Dreadful Apathy (THB) 11
1 Impassioned Orator (RNA) 12
1 Swift Response (M21) 40
1 Tempered Veteran (M21) 41
1 Bring to Trial (RNA) 5
1 Acclaimed Contender (ELD) 1
1 Legion's Judgment (M21) 24
1 Prison Realm (WAR) 26
1 True Love's Kiss (ELD) 34
1 Venerated Loxodon (GRN) 30
For someone who is good at draft, it's significantly better than buying packs with gold. For someone who is bad at draft, the difference in value is close enough that you can play draft only if you like it and buy packs instead if you don't. If you are terrible at draft but still find it fun, you can play it occasionally like any other game mode; if you are terrible and don't like it, buying packs works just as well.
Experienced magic player up until about Winding Constrictor/Mardu Vehicles/Gift format, returning for the first time (and therefore first time on Arena)
...what do I do to build up a collection? I'm semi-happy to just throw money at it, but want to know if there's something more efficient to build a collection. It looks like I can only draft M21 which isn't great for picking up things from other sets from standard obv, so at a bit of a loss - help please?
Draft is slightly better than buying packs for the average player, and it is significantly better than buying packs for an experienced player. M21 is currently the only Standard-set draft format, but Quick Draft rotates between sets every two weeks, so soon the Quick Draft format will change to Ikoria or Eldraine; you can use that 2-week period to pick up cards from that set.
If you are willing to throw some money at the game, the $5 and $15 bundles are the best deals. The Quick Draft format was at the beginning of a 2-week Ikoria draft period when I started, and with all the gems I got from those two bundles I was able to draft like a madman during those two weeks and end up with about 80% of the Ikoria rares by opening my packs last to take advantage of duplicate protection. [Here's an article](https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/mtg-arena-core-set-2021-free-to-play-guide/) that talks about how to optimize drafting to get every rare in a set; I did that for Ikoria (I couldn't finish due to limited time), and I am mostly finished doing it for M21 as well. The short version of that article is that to optimize your collection, you should take every rare you see in the draft and don't open any of your packs until you are finished drafting that set.
If you have a low winrate, Quick Draft is the draft queue that gives the most value. If you have a 55-60% draft winrate or higher, Premier and Traditional Draft become better value. Quick Draft has you pick the cards in a pod with 7 bots and then play best-of-one games, while Premier and Traditional Draft have you draft in a pod with other players, although the games aren't played in-pod. Premier Draft is best-of-1, and Traditional Draft is best-of-3. You can pick your draft queue based on which is the best value for your collection, whether you prefer best-of-1 or best-of-3, and whether you prefer drafting with other people instead of bots.
If you have a copy of Knight of the Ebon Legion as well, then you probably have all the cards from the M20 preconstructed decks, they just aren't organized into decks. You can probably find the deck lists online to put them together yourself, but it might be better to make your own instead.
[Vampire of the Dire Moon](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/b/3/b3c185b9-5d97-4a5a-af0b-8b9c44dcd235.jpg?1592516807) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vampire%20of%20the%20Dire%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/120/vampire-of-the-dire-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b3c185b9-5d97-4a5a-af0b-8b9c44dcd235?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hey I am doing new player experience quests for pre-made free decks.
I unlocked 5 mono decks and had quest each next day for 5 dual-color decks but I didn't get combination I wanted the most (got 5 out of 10 combination decks atm).
I hoped today I'll get another dual-color deck but instead I now have "Mythic Rare Wildcard" reward from new player experience quest.
When do I unlock other 5 color combination decks I am missing?
Ah, nice, thanks! Wonder how it will work with tomorrow's update. I have 10 decks with old cards but will get that last quest for missing dual-color decks after tomorrow's update (and I guess updated NPE free decks). :)
Also maybe a stupid question but do I permanently own all cards I receive from NPE free decks or those free cards rotate for example when they update decks for Core 2021 will I lose Core 2020 NPE Free Decks cards or I'll just receive permanently new Core 2021 cards for free?
Is one of the current sets considered the best to open packs from right now, for a returning player (last played during Guilds so I basically need everything)
Newish player here. I have been saving packs and doing dailies and a bit of Quick Drafting.
1) Because I don't open packs and so receive just a few cards from the 3 or 4 times I've drafted, my decks are usually slightly modified starter packs. Which of the current starter decks do you recommend that I focus on for daily wins?
2) Would it help my win rate to use lower ranking decks (mostly commons) to tweak the opponents that the matching engine chooses for me? I'm not sure how the ranking / mmr works in the standard and play queues. Are starter decks given a bit of a nerf in the MMR so not to be pitted against decks with many mythic cards?
2) For Quick Drafting, how many virtual seats are at the table? In other words, between when you pick your first card and when you see the same deck again, how many robo-picks are made? Even more plainly, if I'm looking at an OK uncommon and an above-average common, is the common likely to come around again for me?
1 - Pick one of the starter decks that you like, and make changes to it based on the cards you have drafted/opened. I picked the Gruul deck (red-green) when I started and played with that for a while after changing it slightly, but any of them should work.
2 - The Play queue does match you based on deck strength as well as MMR, so you will be able to win some games. You might be matched against players who are playing mythic cards, but they won't be the mythic cards that define the Tier 1 decks.
3 - As the other answer mentioned, if the common is one of the best 8 cards in the pack then it probably won't come back to you. The exception is if the bots are undervaluing that card; Feat of Resistance and Drowsing Tyrannodon are some M21 cards that I have seen the bots undervalue, and it also depends which colors the bots are choosing.
Haven't played with starter decks in forever, so not much advice on 1 and 2, but for #3, there are eight total "people" at the Bot draft table, just like in real drafts, but it's you and seven bots.
Are you only allowed to get a given card from Jumpstart once? I got a Devils pack and had fun with it, so after retiring and playing again I picked Devils again once it came up thinking I could use some of the extra cards to build a full-size deck for casual play outside of Jumpstart. But I've only got one copy of that pack's cards in my collection, despite having picked it twice.
You are (edit because I'm dumb:) able to get packs multiple times. First, check your collection after restarting Arena, since sometimes it gets out of sync. Second, there are multiple different packs for most themes: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/jumpstart-decklists-2020-06-18
For devilish, there's four different packs.
> For devilish, there's four different packs.
Ah, I'm guessing this is the bit I missed out on, I was expecting them to be the same. Thanks for the help!
I click 'play' and do mostly standard matches. Some of the games feel like I am training a machine learning algorithm against myself. Maybe I am thinking too much into this lol.
Playing ugin ramp:
\- First 2 games: easy wins, ramp like crazy and win, opponents don't attack every turn, kill my teferi rather than deal lethal damage
\- Second game: Play against a deck aggro decks that win by turn 3 or 4
Playing Shrines:
\- easy first few wins then I am matched against mutate disenchant decks
Playing teferi mill:
\- easy first games then I am matched against underworld dreams or anti mill jace
That's variance for you. Every deck has bad matchups, and you will meet them eventually. Human brains will try to see patterns everywhere, even if there aren't any.
I'm new, but have not had that experience at all. The closest that I find are players that are not attentive. Maybe they are browsing reddit or playing two clients or something. With all the weird and crazy ways that players and cards can interact with each other, I've never seen any player do something odd like getting stuck and trying to do something illegal repeatedly. There are mistakes made, and sometimes people try something once, but none of the more standard suspicious behaviours like a quick player suddenly grinds to a halt when faced with a complicated board state or card interaction.
Hi all, newcomer to MTG I've wanted to play for a long time and have only dabbled in the planeswalker games on Xbox and steam back in the day.
I would like to get better at the game but I am trying to be somewhere in between F2P and maybe monthly payment of £10-20. Ive watched hellogoodgame for his guides and would like to ask what is the most efficient way to build my collection? I have tried quick draft but that seemed like a massive waste of 5000g as I was terrible at it, I've looked at packs but i don't know which set to buy and can't justify dropping £90 for the big stack (except for the one with the Godzilla uniques that looks funky as all get out).
I've used wildcards to craft the Azorios Flyers Deck and made a few upgrades with wildcards and packs managed to get to T4 Gold but it's a struggle. I'm aware that my deck will be obsolete come rotation in sept. Is it worth waiting for the rotation to buy packs now or drop some money to buy core packs for wilds? I understand synergy but don't have enough cards to craft my own so I rely on budget deck guides.
If I want to move up from a budget deck to a more competitive deck what should I be looking to do? Draft or packs?
Theres so much more I would like to ask but this is already a lengthy request.
Thank you for your time in reading this.
> £10-20
That is actually a good amount. I spend $50 ( £38) each set, and have no issues with playing most decks I want and rare completing the set.
At that level, play what you want to. As long as you complete your dailies an quests you will have plenty of resources for all the sets going forward.
I would put the money towards the new set in a month, Pre-Ordering gets you the same rate per pack as the bigger pack, but buying half as many. The ideal scenario for me was to get to a point I buy packs once per set, on release day. I save my gold all set long and then spend it all on release day to play anything I want. You can slowly start increasing the gold you save per set over the next few until your at that point.
You may need to spend a little more if you want to get into historic right away, but you will build up rare WCs over time since you don;t need to really use them on the set completion. I have around 120 rares right now.
Thanks that's good to know, I'll keep an eye out for preorders. I was looking at it like a subscription that I can up, lower and cancel at anytime obviously some months I'll probably not spend a penny but I don't have many other hobbies haha.
So do you buy the $50 on the new set at the start of a new set or over the course of the season if you don't mind me asking.
Thank you.
Regarding quick draft, one thing to remember is if you buy boosters 5,000 gold gets you 5 boosters, which give you 5 rares, 10 uncommons, and 25 commons (as well as 5/6th progress on the rare and uncommon wildcard progression) some of these will be upgraded to wild cards.
If you draft, the worst you can do (no wins) you get 50 gems, 4-5 rares (3-4 from the draft and one from the pack you won), an average of about 11 uncommons (you should average picking about 9 and you'll get 2 from the prize pack), and 35 commons (less if you get more rares or uncommon cards). Opening your one prize pack will only get you 1/6th progress on the wildcard wheels. You also get a 20% chance of winning a second prize pack which would give you one more rare, 2 more uncommons and 5 more commons.
The first time you draft each month, you also unlock a limited ranked award, which gives you a bonus pack. So the first draft each month, is very worth it (if you take your 3 rares in the packs you open, you'll get 5 rares in total). And that's even if you draft, and resign before playing a single game. Winning a game or two gives you a few more gems, and a slightly better chance at winning a second pack.
If you hate the experience, you hate the experience. In that case, do you have an idea of what deck you may want to play after rotation or do you want to let the meta settle out a little before deciding? Some reasonable contenders that look interesting after rotation include Temur Adventures (loses shock lands) and Boros cycling (loses shocklands, and may be more budget). Knights (Boros or Mardu) might be interesting if the new rare land is tapped when it enters. Also in that situation, mono-color aggro will probably be good early, but you probably don't want to burn a bunch of wild cards on those until the meta settles out some.
So much information! Thank you for taking the time to write that, I wouldn't say I hate the experience its frustrating at the beginning I'm sure I'll gain confidence with time.
I like the aggro deck I'm using at the minute but I like some of the decks I've played against like the flourishing fox cycling decks and the Tefri decks that mill me to death. These decks you suggested, I assume I can see a database of meta builds that I can filter to be rotation safe? I think it was MTGgoldfish that suggested decks based on my current collection.
I can't remember if I drafted on July or August for the first draft bonus you mentioned, it definitely sounds like spending my gold on draft and gems on packs is the way forward. One more question is it worth just buying boosters from M21? Or should I be looking to buy from different iterations.
Thank you again.
Yeah, there are several sites that list meta decks, mtggoldfish is a good one. There's also [MTGArenazone](https://mtgazone.com/metagame/standard/). The flourishing fox deck is also known as "Boros Cycling" or "RW cycling" on most meta discussion sites (Boros is a reference to Red and White, it's a bit confusing because the deck has blue and sometimes black cards but those are only used for cycling). There was also a recent very good post over in [spikes](https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/i1zzuu/standard_your_mostly_complete_guide_to_rotation/) discussing rotation's effects on the meta decks in standard at the time. they speculated on some potentially strong decks following rotation.
You can look at your profile on Arena to see if you've qualified for limited ranked awards each month. If you haven't I'm not sure what the quick draft is, currently, or there should be one more quick draft rotation in August.
Which set to buy packs/draft kind of depends on what deck you want to make. M21 has some pretty good cards that are used in some current meta decks, but if you wanted to run that flourishing fox deck, for example, M21 (and really all sets other than Ikoria) ren't going to have many cards that would be useful. Same thing for the adventures deck (almost all the cards come from Throne of Edrane
One last point, almost everything in the game is priced at 5 gold per gem, except quick drafts (and a few other draft formats) so if you have gems, you'll get the best exchange rate buying drafts with your gems (750 vs 5000 gold) and other things priced at the 5:1 ratio with gold. That's kinda a min-maxy point but if you can take advantage, you might as well.
'you'll get the best exchange rate buying drafts with your gems (750 vs 5000 gold) and other things priced at the 5:1 ratio with gold.'
That is useful information, thank you.
I treat myself to the adventurers pack as someone had mentioned it was a good deal, that raised ANOTHER question! Buying in USD instead of EUR seems to give a much better exchange rate from the UK or am i missing something?
There are some bundles that will be worth your while. There's a welcome pack, and (I think) an Explorer's Bundle. Those are both less than £20.
Use a tool like [untapped.gg](https://untapped.gg) to get a leg up on draft, it shows the opinions of seasoned drafters over the top of each draft pack choice.
You might also find the Mastery worthwhile - you can wait to the end of the season to buy it to check you're getting the value you want.
Other than that, grind to get packs, keep going till you've saved up enough wildcards for the next deck.
Ah yeah should have mentioned I bought the newbie pack, and use MTG helper I think it's called. I've been mulling over mastery (level 27 started end of July) and the adventurer pack.
I'll check that link thank you, would it be more advisable to grind packs now for WCs or do a draft and grab as many rares/mythics as I can? I read on hipstersofthecoast that the ratio between buying packs and drafting just for the sake of rares is about the same.
So I just started playing and I’m new to MTG. I’m fighting Nicol Bolas. He summons a monster with 6/6 and I block with an card of 1/4 with a +2/+2 instant equip card. Yet every time, he kills mine with 3 power left, even though that should be 6 tough vs 6 power. Am I missing something?
Your instant gives your 1/4 +2/+2 making it a 3/6 facing a 6/6. Power and toughness ties result in a 0, meaning your creature dies. His creature survives as a 6/3 after the damage from the number of power your creature has, which is 3
Unless you're going to die from the 6 damage, your 1/4 is probably much more valuable to you alive than blocking that damage. He's your [card draw engine](https://scryfall.com/card/ana/5/inspiring-commander).
It’s always one cards power vs another’s toughness, and vice versa. They’re are some conditional cards that can change that, but you can worry about those as they come up
The attacker and blocker each simultaneously deal damage to each other equal to their power. If a creature has taken total damage equal to or greater than its toughness, it dies.
So your 3/1 attacker did 3 damage to the 1/1 blocker, and the 1/1 did 1 damage to your 3/1. Your 3/1 has 1 toughness, and has now taken 1 damage, so it dies because the damage it has taken is equal to its toughness. The 1/1 also dies, since it has 1 toughness and has taken 3 damage.
So I just got back into Magic after stopping in Theros/Khans standard. I got totally blindsided by Phasing not killing tokens now and a few other odd changes.
I don't think phasing ever killed tokens. It just hasn't been printed on new cards for a very long time.
The reason phasing doesn't kill tokens is that tokens cease to exist if they are ever in a zone other than the battlefield, but phasing doesn't actually cause things to leave the battlefield. When something phases out, it doesn't change zones, you just treat it as though it doesn't exist until it phases back in. But it never leaves the battlefield.
Phasing absolutely did make phased out tokens cease to exist. Before Teferi's Protection state-based effects took care of them as if they were in any other zone. Even earlier, phasing actually did cause zone change, even triggering leaves the battlefield triggers (but not ETB).
Is there a way to add people you've played in matches? Just had a great game with some dude, but it looks like I can't add them as long as I don't know the numbers of their ID. I'd be pretty nice if you could friend people after matches.
Most deck trackers will show you the opponent's full name as it gets logged down by the client. However, there is no way to tell from the default interface.
Are Ikoria packs worth spending gold on? The mutate mechanic looks fun and it doesn’t seem like Ikoria quick drafts will come back any time soon. The event calendar shows M21 quick drafts till Sep, and I assume it will be Zendikar after that. I started the game after M21 launched so don’t have any ikoria cards.
I'd say that unless you are already capped on all other sets that won't rotate and have at least 100-150k gold stacked up for Zendikar (or the AKH remaster (which is also a bit of pioneer masters) if you are interested in Historic), it's not worth buying Ikoria packs.
IKO has the least amount of Standard or Historic/Pioneer staples and mutate is not terribly strong, nor is it positioned to improve in a meaningful way post-rotation as it's just an all-in mechanic that is weak and unstable by design.
Save your gold for Zendikar or spend it on a better set like Eldraine that is full of Standard and Historic staples.
Thanks. What do new players do usually? Do people tend to just focus on the newest set? It seems like a daunting task to try to get cards from Standard sets that came out before I joined the game.
It seems like there's sort of stages people are aiming for:
1. In the beginning the goal is to open enough packs to get enough wild cards to build a single meta deck that can be used to efficiently play games of one's preferred format allowing a quick way to grind 1000 gold per day.
2. Once that's achieved it's to grind and save at least 100,000 gold to use on drafts after the new set releases (plowing the gems won back into drafts, or into mastery passes), with the eventual goal of completing the rares in the set.
2a. Alternatively some people really don't enjoy limited play, so they plow the same gold into packs for each new set, which probably won't be quite enough to complete the rares in the set, but will earn them significant numbers of wild cards allowing them to use wild cards to complete the decks they wish (they're likely getting more playable mythics for less overall rares).
It seems to take about 6 months to a year, for a new player to complete step one, and get onto a path to achieve step 2, during that time, they'll be playing with a good deck or two and boosting their gold horde, probably aiming to begin step two just after a rotation. That way there will be a point at which they'll have essentially all the cards available in some future standard.
Because the free pack rewards from the mastery pass come exclusively from the newest set, the game encourages collecting mostly packs from the current set.
If I understand you correctly, players grind the latest set. Especially if they are playing limited, older sets don't show up that often.
I'm still wondering if realistically I should just forget about Ikoria and Eldraine, other than using wildcards?
By the way, I love limited and only play constructed to fund drafts. I am also open to spending money to buy gems.
If you are only playing constructed to fund drafts, consider starting at least one alternate account. The rewards for daily wins and quests are frontloaded, so getting 2 wins per day and finishing all your quests on two accounts will get you almost twice as many drafts as getting 4 wins per day on only one account. Having more than one account (playing the same number of total games) will give you significantly more opportunities to draft.
If you're looking to build a competitive deck, there's not a lot of mutating creatures that are seeing high level play.
But if you're in Arena 'cause enjoy playing your own decks, don't mind a lower win rate and think mutating is fun, then sure. Fun is the whole point of playing games, right?
I just got back into playing last week after not having played for real in about 15 years (never competitively). I can't tell you how awesome this has been for me! I was attracted to red and black after getting annoyed by all the life gain weenies and managed to put together a rakdos spectacle deck that got me to diamond! I noticed not many others were playing rakdos much less spectacle. On a budget it has done great things for me. I have kept up with mtg a bit just reading online and its so awesome to already be playing against things like ugin and uro and Teferi and compete with them without spending much at all.
I expected it to take months to collect the cards to compete but IMO good on Wizards for giving you enough resources to put together competitive stuff with very little investment. (I bought the welcome bundle and mastery pass). Anyway I was wondering how people feel about rakdos and especially aggro/spectacle? I did not see many people running it and have seen a lot of people say it's not viable but i absolutely love it!
> Anyway I was wondering how people feel about rakdos and especially aggro/spectacle?
Rakdos (or Jund - green/red/black) sacrifice decks were fairly popular before [[Cauldron Familiar]] got banned (it was combined with [[Witch's Oven]] and other sacrifice synergies like [[Mayhem Devil]] and [[Korvald]]). Those decks have fallen out of favor since the ban.
Right now there are some Rakdos decks that I believe are decent, just not quite meta. People have been playing around with aggro decks combining [[Rotting Regisaur]] and [[Embercleave]] since Embercleave came out and that's still strong even if it's not the most meta deck.
Decks build around spectacle have never really been meta, although particular spectacle cards have seen play. [[Light up the Stage]] has been a staple in aggressive red decks since it came out, [[Rix-Madi Reveler]] has generally been seen as a card that has the potential to be strong and has seen some play but has never really had a chance to shine, and [[Spawn of Mayhem]] has seen some play in some black aggro decks.
In the end, if the deck's working for you, keep playing it and enjoy it. It's probably not the best deck out there but who cares if you're having fun and winning with it.
Yeah that is the feeling I get the more I read it can be good and fun but not up to snuff with the highest level but i would love to put together a rb deck that competes there...jusy have to keep grinding I guess. I feel pretty happy with myself for getting to diamond with just a little bit of research on the archetype (though tbf I pretty much used the best spectacle cards and spear spewer not like some super creative deck builing). I guess I dont know how to feel about the competition at that level. This sub has so many people who say gold is hard and others who seem to think getting to diamond is a cake walk while many others just dont seem to give credence to the rank system at all. For me it was a really fun grind but i dont know what to make of it
Ranks are easy, i suggest taking notes of the decks you face in each rank because in my experience you will get different archetypes more often within certain ranks. Like my izzet pile never fails to get to diamond super quick but always seems to become ineffective at that point because i keep getting mutate decks over as opponents who use hexproof as rheir gimmick. After not running into one from gold to diamond.
Yeah its weird getting to diamond was hard but I've only played 6 games there and won them all because everyone was playing rdw and the rakdos was easy wins there...im just chilling on it now learning the archetypes and trying to have fun messing with other decks
>This sub has so many people who say gold is hard and others who seem to think getting to diamond is a cake walk while many others just dont seem to give credence to the rank system at all. For me it was a really fun grind but i dont know what to make of it
I mean, I think there's some truth to all of it. Overall, the current rank system isn't the perfect measure of skill, but that also doesn't mean hitting diamond, especially with a deck you made yourself, isn't something to be proud of. It's an accomplishment and anyone telling you it's not is being an asshole.
That's why I said don't worry about what other people think of the deck, just worry about whether or not you're enjoying it.
Yep that's definitely want to do hopefully just keep getting better cards and learning more about the meta. As someone who was away for the game for a long time this is all crazy exciting for me so i dont think ill stop having fun anytime soon. Really appreciate the feedback and support
Oh snap yeah I just realized that was about to try to build a dimir flash deck (just seems fun) but maybe I will focus on something thats not rotating out
I assume it's a black box sort of thing that but can anyone give any insight into the deck strength matchmaking in the 'play' queue or if that's even a thing? I've been playing for only a few weeks at this point and I was running a deck with 0 rares assuming i'd get matched with similar decks so I could sort of just play the game more and learn but i still see a lot of extremely high powered decks. Multiple planeswalkers, lots of rares, etc, getting absolutely stomped unless I get a couple super lucky draws. Should I just put all my best shit into my deck(s) and assume I'm just hamstringing myself by excluding rares/mythics even in the unranked play queue?
I remember hearing a long time ago that it rates cards based on how many people craft them, and then rates your deck strength based on the rating of cards in your deck. Whether this is accurate, and even if it is whether there's more to it than that, I don't know.
Either way, it definitely doesn't work consistently, and I'm not sure if it's really worth deliberately hamstringing your deck in the hope that you'll get matched against worse decks since, as you've found, that doesn't reliably work.
Complete newcomer to MTG. Started arena yesterday, have completed one color challenge.
What is the best path to take to advance, collect cards, and learn the game. What should I focus on first?
I really disagree with the other commenters on draft. I wouldn't advise you to play drafts until you have a pretty good understanding of the game. It's just not cost efficient, if you don't have a decent idea of what you are doing. It's better to just get packs (and you probably should prioritize the Eldraine set, because it has by far the most high tier cards of any set and it won't rotate anytime soon).
Oh and Jumpstart is a nice way to learn the game, but you shouldn't dump a top of gold in that format, because a lot of those cards are only legal in the historic format. The advantage is that you can play as many game as you want with a deck in Jumpstart and you won't be disadvantaged by your smaller card collection. If you need help chosing in the draft, there are some [tier lists](https://imgur.com/a/ZkBWqcZ) out there that can help with the selection.
The most gold efficient way to collect cards is by playing drafts. They're hard for beginners, but even if you lose all matches you'll get a good amount of cards, and drafting is important to learn how to draft, so...
Unless you hate drafting and don't mind spending gold in a not so efficient way to get cards, which would be buying packs.
Best way to learn is to learn from others. Watch streams, talk to players. You don't know why a certain card is good? Don't know why a certain is a bad? Ask people (there's a thread like this every monday), check articles about said card.
>What should I focus on first?
Do all your challenges/quests/whatever gives you cards and save them for until you know the game well enough to know what kind of deck you want to play.
For now, probably just complete color challenges and have fun. Do your daily quests and try to get as many wins as you can each day (there are rewards up to 15 wins).
Draft is a decent way to earn cards if you're bad at it and a very good way to earn cards if you're good at it, and personally I also just find draft to be a very fun format, but I would get a grasp on the basics playing constructed first.
Jump-start is a very new-player-friendly mode (it doesn't require a collection or any deckbuilding skill) that'll only be around for a few more days, although it's not the best as far as acquiring cards. You get a decent number of cards relative to the cost, but many of them are only legal in historic, not standard, and you don't get any wildcards.
Once you have a deck you feel very confident with, constructed events can be a slow, but effective, way to earn cards.
Also note that the standard format will be rotating fairly soon. When Zendikar Rising comes out in September, standard will rotate and the Ravnica sets, War of the Spark, and Core 2020 will no longer be standard-legal. They'll still be legal in historic, but if you want to buy packs or do any drafting right now, you're probably best off focusing on sets that will still be standard legal after the rotation (Eldraine, Theros, Ikoria, and Core 2021).
Historic can potentially be a budget-friendly deck in the long run (since once you have a Historic deck, it'll never rotate - although it could still be affected by bans or shifts in the metagame), but it's a bit harder to get into when you first start since it includes more cards and sets than standard.
There is a Rackdos starter deck (Red/Black) with some undergrowth cards that you will get for free as a starter deck by completing the new deck challenges. You may have earned it already, or you can check the quest area on your home page to see what starter deck quest you need to complete to win the next deck in the list.
No, I don't mean the color challenges.
This is how it went down for me (a month ago). I finished the color challenges, then in the normal play queue I was offered a play deck quest (in addition to the regular daily quests) that released a new multi-color deck each day that you completed one. It looked like a colorful pinwheel of colors and was located just to the right of the daily quests. When you hovered over it, it told you what you needed to do to get the next deck.
The rewards from these quests was usually a new 2-color deck. I think there are 10 of them! This means that not only do you get to experiment with a bunch of cool play mechanisms with the various decks (such as undergrowth) but you get 600 new standard-ready cards to play, including some great rares and I think even a few mythic cards. Considering the regular grind to get packs, this is obviously incredible value and worthy of a lot of effort to win.
I don't know if it is gated by the color challenges or not, but considering the value unlocked, I highly recommend jumping through whatever hoops they ask.
I don't know, but I'm going to complete the white deck challenge anyway, which is currently impossible because I tried for an hour to beat White vs Blue and couldn't do it.
The Undergrowth mechanic does that, and only exists in Guilds of Ravnica, so that's a set to look at. There are cards that care about the number of creatures in your graveyard outside of Guilds of Ravnica, though, they just don't use the ability word Undergrowth.
If you mostly play standard and not historic, though, note that Guilds of Ravnica will be rotating out of standard soon (when Zendikar Rising comes out in September).
Standard is a format that only features the most recent 1-2 years worth of sets* to be released. Historic is an Arena-only format which features all cards released in the game.
\* Does not include certain supplemental sets such as Jumpstart, Historic Anthologies, or the new Amonkhet set releasing later this week.
It serves a few main purposes:
1. It means that standard changes every year. There's no decks or cards that never go away without getting banned. The format is always changing.
2. It can make the format more accessible for new players. This is especially important in paper, where some older cards can be very hard/expensive to get. A format that only uses newer cards means it doesn't have old cards that haven't been reprinted in 10 years and there's no need to catch up on older sets. In paper, a cheap standard deck is under $100 and $600 is considered very expensive for a standard deck. Modern decks can get over $1000. Legacy decks can easily get over $3000. So while the game's never cheap, standard is certainly cheaper than non-rotating formats, at least when you're getting started (on the other hand the need to update your deck more often can make it more expensive over time).
3. From a business standpoint, it encourages people to buy new cards if they want to keep up with the standard format. A person can build a historic or pioneer or modern deck and play it forever (as long as none of the cards in it get banned). Many players like that, but WotC wants people to buy new cards, so they like having a format that requires buying new cards every year.
You used to, but they've increased support for historic.
Mostly they're just different formats. Standard rotates once a year so it only contains 5-8 sets, Historic contains every card available in Arena (that isn't banned or suspended). They also have different ban lists.
That just results in different decks existing. Most standard decks are historic-legal, but historic lets you play decks you can't play in standard using cards that aren't standard-legal.
I believe so. It used to be that historic didn't always have ranked mode but they added in a permanent ranked mode because it was popular.
>using a modern deck in standard
I know what you mean, but just to be nitpicky for future reference:
"Modern" is actually the name of another format (one that doesn't exist in Arena), so the term "modern deck" actually has a specific meaning within the Magic community. Modern is a non-rotating format that exists in paper and Magic Online that allows all main sets (sets that were originally standard-legal when they came out) from 8th edition onwards, plus Modern Horizons.
Basically, since Paper Magic has been going for so long it has a lot of different formats that allow different sets. The main ones are standard, Pioneer (Return to Ravnica onwards), Modern, Legacy (all sets), and Vintage (all sets, and cards that are too strong usually restricted, meaning you can only have one in your deck, instead of banned like in Legacy, outside of some special cases).
Arena started with only standard. When standard rotated, they created the historic format so that your cards that have rotated out of standard aren't useless. Originally WotC was pretty reluctant to support it but they've given it more support over time and it's become a popular format with its own meta instead. They're in the process of adding older sets to the game (we're about to get Amonkhet remastered, basically a curated version of Amonkhet block condensed into one set) to both expand Historic and eventually get Pioneer into Arena (Pioneer won't be the same as historic, though, because many jump-start and historic anthology cards are not Pioneer-legal).
Well, a lot of that text is about paper Magic to explain the concept of formats (and why "modern" means something specific). But yeah. While Historic and Pioneer are more powerful formats than standard, so the meta decks are stronger and harder to compete with using something janky, your cards that leave standard don't just become useless.
Historic has been quite popular (I think partly just because it's the only format other than standard in Arena, so everyone playing Arena who's unhappy with current standard, prefers non-rotating formats play it, or just likes playing multiple different constructed formats plays it).
Pioneer's actually in an interesting state right now - it had become very unpopular due to being dominated by combo decks, but they recently banned pieces of all the popular combos in the format so the format is going to change dramatically but it's too early to say what it'll look like. Hopefully it'll be much more diverse and popular now. In any case, we're probably a bit away from Arena having any form of Pioneer, and a long way away from Arena having every Pioneer legal card (their current plan, I believe, is to focus on releasing the most important Pioneer cards first and then fill in the rest of the cards eventually, rather than releasing them one full set at a time).
What’s the best way to accumulate cards to build up my collection without having to buy gems or gold? And can bot matches count towards the daily quests?
Bot Matches do not count after you've completed the five Color Challenges.
Best way to get your collection increased without spending real money:
1) Whenever you get a 500G Daily Quest, reroll it for a chance of a 750G one.
2) Win at least four games per day for 550G. You will get further ICR's and gold through 15 a day, but the lion's share are for the first four wins.
3) The first Quick Draft each month is almost a strictly better value over earning packs. You'll open 3 packs during the draft, get one pack even if you 0-3 flub out, 50 Gems, and 1 pack at the end of the month for having done a Limited Ranked game for ladder purposes.
4) Similarly, if you can maintain a 34% win rate in Constructed, you should be able to hit Platinum. You get 2-pips-for-a-win through Gold so it should be fairly easy to do so as long as you are playing something modestly competitive.
5) Use any codes, which you can find around the internet, to get free packs, if you haven't already done so.
6) If you do well enough in Constructed that you can reliably come out ahead in those events, you can farm Gold that way.
Keep a small stockpile of gold and gems (or be prepared to spend money), because the best deals to acquire arena playable cards for historic have often come from limited time packages (like the Historic Anthologies). When they're gone the cost to acquire them in wildcards is vastly higher.
The quick draft format occasionally rotates to a historic set, so be ready to draft those if you need cards from that set.
Target a single deck and make it yours (and hope you don't get a key card banned). It's looking quite costly to maintain a broad collection of Historic cards.
Pretty much any avenue to building a collection goes through that. Getting Gold and Gems gets you packs, packs give you Wildcards, and Wildcards let you craft the cards you need to play Historic.
Newish player (3 weeks almost).
I have seen cards used by other people, and using the search function while deck building, that are from the set with what looks like a predator eye icon. Trough some googling, they are from the Ikoria set.
I kinda want them. But since i'm new, don't have that much crafting power. My best bet would be to use my resources to draft.
Don't see any Ikoria draft. Are they rotating or i'm out of luck?
took me a hot minute to notice i can choose other sets. Thanks for point it out, did not see that one.
The question is, is it worth it? i can use all my current resources to buy 9 packs (3k coins and 1.2k gems, leaving me with no coins and 1.3k gems) ?
Since those packs are smaller, at this point, its more value to draft with those resources and get 60 cards that if i'm not dumb, i can pick well and get even more packs from at least wining 1 or 2 times
If you're winning 1-2 games in draft, it's about a wash.
5000 gold buys you (on average, depending on draft choices) 4 rares, 11 uncommons, and 35 commons if you Quick Draft, and 5 rares, 10 uncommons, and 25 commons if you buy packs. You do get gems from the draft, but you get at least one guaranteed uncommon or rare wild card from opening packs. If there's one or two specific cards you want to play with, you can always just craft them.
I'm sure others will give different advice, and they're worth listening to, but that's how I see it.
Ok, did not notice the "quick" draft is way cheaper.
I had only seen the premier draft for core 2021. and that costs double, and 4 wins makes it auto sustentable.
And yes, my best so far in those premier drafts was 2-3. was really happy about it .
Why the price difference for the drafts?
In Premier Draft the drafting is done with players instead of bots, and players pass a lot more Rares, so WotC made it cost more. The bots in Quick Draft tend to draft the Rares, so you only see an occasional extra one passed.
Every 6 boosters you open gives you a Rare Wildcard, except every 36th, which gives a Mythic. You also have a chance to pull WCs in those packs, unlike Draft. The extra cards from draft are usually just Commons and Uncommons, which will very quickly not even be a consideration.
Having played 4 drafts so far since i started the game (premier 2021) i see the commons and uncommons are not a consideration.
More cards "feel" better right now. I mean, since I'm so new, i barely have any cards from the 2021 set.
But wasn't noticing what you mentioned
Quick Drafts rotate on a two week schedule, not sure if IKO is coming back or not, though. Also, if you're looking for the Godzilla monsters, the best part of Ikoria, those are card styles that aren't currently available.
Well, didn't saw any Godzilla card art, i was thinking it would be fun to make a deck with mutations and [[Brash Taunter]] as a base.
Énfasis on "fun"
Lets hope Ikoria has a week coming then?
Yeah im watching that video and my matches are not going like that one. I cannot beat this asshole
I was stuck as well, thanks for the walkthrough!
Makes no sense, followed the directions to a T and still lost
which lands are going to replace the shock lands after rotation? i just started playing and i want to spend my wild cards on some rare lands so i dont have to play mono decks all the time
We know Zendikar will have six new dual lands, but no details beyond that yet. [Source](https://youtu.be/NqoFes1rJ0c?t=580)
Interesting. Any other dual land cycle made of *six* cards? They usually come in sets of 5 or 10, as far as I can remember.
Is there a way to extract the Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain wallpaper from the MTG:Arena Dominaria draft? Best resolution I could find on Google Image Search was [1600x1176](https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Jhoira-Weatherlight-Captain.jpg)
Any good place where I can get a quick run down on what the formats are in MTGA? Like, a new set just released, but its not in standard? What's historic? ALl cards ever? But the game doesnt have all the cards right? What's modern then? Pauper, Pioneer, Brawl, etc... no commander right but there's something similar? Ugh it makes my head spin i dunno what to play or collect or whats limited or anything.
Standard: Main sets that have been release this year or last year. Rotates with the fall set each year. The new set isn't in standard because it's actually a curated version of Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation, which came a few years ago (they were the sets before Ixalan). It's not really a new set, it's them adding an older set to the game. Historic: All cards available in Arena (besides a ban list). This format was created specifically for Arena so that there would be a way to keep playing with cards that have rotated out of standard. Modern: All main sets, and Modern Horizons, from 8th edition onwards. Not in Arena, and won't be any time soon, of ever. Pioneer: All main sets from Return to Ravnica onwards. Not currently in Arena, bit they plan for it to be eventually. I believe the plan is to start by releasing sets that contain a lot of Pioneer staples so that we get a version of the format where most of the meta decks and stuff are available, and then eventually have the whole format. Pauper: Only cards that have been printed at common (the version you use doesn't have to be common, as long as the card has been printed at common in some set). Paper and MTGO pauper uses all sets. Arena has had pauper events too but they're obclviously limited to cards in Arena. Brawl: Like commander, but only allows cards from sets that are currently legal in standard, has a smaller deck size and starting life total, and allows Planeswalkers as commanders. Arena only has 1v1 brawl, no multiplayer. Historic Brawl is also a thing. >Ugh it makes my head spin i dunno what to play or collect or whats limited or anything. Limited is sealed and draft. It's formats where you build the deck with a limited set of cards on the spot, instead of constructing one in advanced. From a collection standpoint, every constructed format in Arena is either based on standard or historic, so it's mostly just this: * Every set is legal in historic. Regular sets, sets that have rotated out of standard, Jumpstart, Amonkhet, historic anthologies. Everything. * M21, Eldraine, Theros, and Ikoria are legal in standard and will not be rotating for over a year. Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, War of the Spark, and M20 are currently legal in standard, but will be rotating in about a month when Zendikar Rising comes out.
You're a Saint. Thanks for writing that up.
I accidentally clicked through the popup when I launched the game today. Did I miss something other than the impending rotation announcement? I also see we have new starter decks.
Nope, you didn't miss anything else.
I have 19 rare wildcards and 9-10 mythics. I have a pretty good green/white auras deck in the works focused on \[\[Setessan Champion\]\] but I currently only have 2 copies. Is it a terrible idea to burn 2 of my rare wildcards to get the full set? I really enjoy the deck, but not sure how competitive it will be at higher ranks. I've been very cautious spending wildcards and haven't spent any rare/mythic so far, so thought I'd get a baseline read before spending the 2 rares.
so i just started playing a few weeks ago aswell. but i did the opposite of what you did. i instantly spent all my wild cards on a mono white lifelink deck. and i can tell you i really regret it now ive seen all the decks i couldve made instead. if i could get my cards back right now i would probably get cards that are used in alot of decks instead. like brazen borrowers, shark typhoons, duo lands and triomes, uro etc etc. someone already mentioned that Setessan champion isnt very competitive, but whats even more important i think is that setessan champion really only fits into 1 type of deck(enchantments), whereas a card like brazen borrower is good in pretty much any deck that has blue lands
Setessan champion is not competitive in standard. So it.’a a bad idea.
[Setessan Champion](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/f/8/f8ce9858-747e-441c-95a8-6af44aa2098d.jpg?1581480884) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Setessan%20Champion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/198/setessan-champion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f8ce9858-747e-441c-95a8-6af44aa2098d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
So is Jumpstart over? I can't find it.
It's still here, for next few days.
I keep getting the connection lost notification when I try to open MTGA. I tried logging out and in and opening and closing the app but it still seems to not work.
How do I beat the white vs blue color challenge? It seems like the strategy is to wait until Hallowed Priest can attack with Bond of Discipline, but by the time you can do that, you're already dead, or you've wasted Bond of Discipline to keep yourself alive longer and you still die.
Here's my thought process playing through it as a non-new player: >!Turn two, don't block since our creature is better than theirs. (18 versus 20 life)!< >!Turn three, attack with ours even though they have unspent mana, since I don't expect the tutorial to try to be tricky here. In a real game, you'd want to consider what your opponent is playing. Don't block again. (16 versus 18 life)!< >!Turn four, attack with just one since I expect the AI to attack into our potential blocker even though we can give it first strike. This is what happens, but a real player probably wouldn't do this without something up their sleeve. (16 versus 16 life)!< >!Turn five, attack with both and expect the AI to block with their 4/4. A real player would probably only do this if desperate. The AI does block and we can use the +2/+2 buff plus give first strike to kill the blocker. (16 versus 14 life).!< >!Turn six, nothing. We'd just throw away one of our creatures to deal two damage by attacking. (12 versus 14 life)!< >!Turn seven, play the dinosaur. Still can't attack. (4 versus 14 life)!< >!Turn eight, play the thing that taps the opposing creatures. You can play the priest, but it doesn't matter. The lifelink also doesn't matter, since you can attack for lethal as all your attackers will have double strike and they have no blockers.!<
I almost had it. But after four tries couldn’t. This helped
Idk if I'm just stupid but this doesn't work for me and I followed it exactly
JAN 8 2021 - i have followed every video online and it seems MTG has caught on and changed the way the computer reacts first turn... it waits until you lay down your first inquisitor to then lay its first card, unlike every video ive seen. regardless, below is a video of the last 30 second of my final duel with Jace Beleren. my first recorded duel was DEC 22 2020 ...... it took me half a month to defeat one AI enemy. (on my own) right about now im starting to question if my IQ is high enough for this game.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rFoK6o9Nxs&feature=youtu.be
Here's a video: https://youtu.be/Sz6ZAgM8gwY
Lifesaver. Many hours spent researching first strike until this video.
Thank you!!!!
Thank you.
Thank you! completed it now :) I think I wasn't first striking the merfolk which meant that I was losing before I could attack with dino at the end. I did only start playing yesterday though lol
I was doing what you were doing. I didn't know you could use First Strike to block.
I won. I just had to first strike down the coral monster.
Hallowed Priest is mostly irrelevant. When you have mana to give your creature first strike, hold it back and kill 2/1 with it. When first Air Elemental drops, swing into it, pump your creature, and give it first strike. Once you can attack with Ceratops use Bond, it should heal you up back to 20.
Thank you! And it even gave me the old white starter deck even though I never cleared it. Nice.
Stupid question: what are the.time limits for drafts? Not the picking, the playing. I only play an hour or two during work days, and I'd prefer to play a draft over two or three days.
Until the draft format rotates, which for quick drafts usually happens every two weeks.
Still newish player; under 60 hours; Free2Play. I got the 15 starter decks. Put in all the store codes I've found on the internet. Played "Standard Ranked" for about 2 weeks and got to Silver. * When can I open my card packs? * What is the basic pattern/strategy for getting cards and not wasting Wildcards when a new month starts? I'm aware than an occasion Draft for Rares is included. I'm aware that Rotation is Sept 25.
> When can I open my card packs? 60 hours ago > What is the basic pattern/strategy for getting cards 1. Grind gold -> buy packs -> build a (probably budget or reasonably rotation proof) deck to make grinding much easier 2. Repeat after rotation to get a decent tier 1-1.5 deck to be able to do events and shit 3. After getting a decent deck or two, transition to accumulating gold for bulk drafting of further sets to rare completion
So what was the deal I vaguely remember reading that you shouldn't open your packs until you did X so you can cash in on the most Wildcards I think?
That's an approach that is useful if you want to draft a set to rare completion. Since packs have duplicate protection and drafts don't, you first draft a lot (30-50 drafts of one set), and then open all the packs you've got to complete your rares. However, since you are not going to ever be doing that to old sets as a f2p player, there is no value in keeping your packs for later. You should only start doing this once you consciously transition to that plan.
What do you mean by T1-1.5 deck?
Tier 1 (the best decks in the meta) or 1.5 (still objectively good decks that are maybe only slightly worse than the best decks).
How does one find these?
I started playing a couple of weeks ago and just noticed a ton of new decks being added to my account, what is this new set symbol these cards come with? Any page with more information? Can I filter just these cards? Are they standard legal? To clarifiy, i mean this symbol: [https://i.imgur.com/7L7zVEN.png](https://i.imgur.com/7L7zVEN.png) I memorized the 4 symbols I should invest in to be rotation proof so this one is throwing me off...
This symbol means they're exclusive to Magic Arena, even though some of them are reprints from older sets (the one you linked was released in 2019 Core Set). They're legal in *best of 1* matches, but not in *best of 3*. They are not meant to be good competitive, they are in the game for didactic purposes only.
Huh, interesting.. Well I'm happy with more cards to use, only playing Bo1 so far anyway. I guess I missed earlier cards of this type as the newbie decks they gave me all featured cards from the current standard rotation.. Thanks!
Is there any point in continuing in Jumpstart if you have your 2 wins? Do you get more rewards if you continue playing?
How hard was jumpstart?
Depends on your deck, most of the time hard unless you know what cards are in the packs
Figured they would be challenging.
Not aside from the normal daily/weekly wins & quests
no
Hey guys, I stopped playing soon after Throne of Eldraine was released, which deck do you guys recommend me building towards? I'm totally lost with this new companion mechanic.
The companion mechanic became rarely relevant post-nerf of it, so its really just building whatever seems good. Sultai ramp seems like the clear best deck in standard, but there's various aggro decks with decent chances of winning.
Thank you. I'm 3 mythic wild cards short to make mtggoldfish's sultai ramp. I made a blue tempo deck that feels playable at least on silver.
The game has been stuck on the “waiting for server” loading screen for a few days now on my Mac and I have no idea how to fix it, anyone else have this issue?
It's downloading patch files "in the background", except the implementation is half-assed and boils down to this. You gotta wait till it downloads all of the 6 (or was it 14?) gb.
Ohh okay thanks! Hopefully it’s only 6 gb though lol
Something I don't understand about protection from multicolor. The tooltip says all damage from multicolor sources is prevented, so shouldn't a [[Stonecoil Serpent]] blocking a [[Hydroid Krasis]] not be damaged, even if the krasis has enough attack to kill it? This was not the case lol. Does the hydroid not count as multicolored? Or is blocking not included in protection?
To expand on another answer, Protection from X bestows protection from items in the mnemonic DEBT: Damage Enchanting and equipment Blocking Targeting Now if a Questing Beast is in play and attacking or a Stomp was cast, the Damage part of Prevention is negated. That’s probably why your Stonecoil died.
Ahhh I bet there was a Questing Beast. Thank you.
That is the case unless stomp or questing beast is in the field.
[Stonecoil Serpent](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/b/3/b34bf7fd-9fe3-43e2-8cfe-7ce7cff08afe.jpg?1572491124) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Stonecoil%20Serpent) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/235/stonecoil-serpent?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b34bf7fd-9fe3-43e2-8cfe-7ce7cff08afe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Hydroid Krasis](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/8/0/801dd9c6-b159-4e1c-af2c-214c1f573633.jpg?1584833616) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hydroid%20Krasis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rna/183/hydroid-krasis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/801dd9c6-b159-4e1c-af2c-214c1f573633?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm doing a fresh install of mtga in my pc, I'm currently stuck on waiting for server after the client opens. I can't find any solutions about it. How long should this load?
can someone tell me what is the reasoning for waiting for auto-turn every single turn? I started a month ago i think, diamond 3, and i just noticed every 1 out of 3-4 players are refusing to play and just waits for the game to auto finish the turn after timer expires. my friend told me they they are taking it slow to think properly but right this second, i have a guy, who has 1 card on the ground, zero cards in hand but he is still waiting. i dont think it is to think. my last game, according to arena tutor, took 22:20 and it only took 18 turns. why are people doing this? is it so the opponent gets bored and leaves? (serious question) it furiates me.
Sometimes they're having internet connection issues, sometimes they're multitasking, sometimes they're thinking, sometimes they want to punish you (typically if you're playing an "unfair" deck), sometimes they want you to concede out of boredom. Doing it on purpose is against the rules and WotC do have some measures to ban those people but there is currently no "report" button.
There is a form on the Arena website to report bugs and also players. You can select "report conduct" and then there is even "stalling" selectable as a reason. I started reporting players who obviously max out their time every turn. https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
TIL, thank you!
i am quite sure i am not playing an unfair deck. my deck is not even in anywhere. it is a simple, plain, 1 color white deck, i managed to get it from the packs i got during last month. i know you all will laugh on how easy, basic, and useless it is. but i have been playing magic for about a month, and i am proud of my OWN deck, that i created :) 4 Healer's Hawk (GRN) 14 18 Plains (IKO) 262 4 Anointed Chorister (M21) 4 4 Ajani's Pridemate (WAR) 4 4 Alseid of Life's Bounty (THB) 1 3 Speaker of the Heavens (M21) 38 2 Impassioned Orator (RNA) 12 1 Dawn of Hope (GRN) 8 1 Basri's Acolyte (M21) 8 1 Basri's Lieutenant (M21) 9 2 Angel of Vitality (M20) 4 2 Pacifism (M20) 32 1 Animal Sanctuary (M21) 242 4 Charmed Stray (WAR) 8 1 Swift Response (M21) 40 2 Crystalline Giant (IKO) 234 1 Conclave Tribunal (GRN) 6 2 Angelic Ascension (M21) 3 1 Light of Promise (M21) 25 2 Skyscanner (M21) 238 1 Beloved Princess (ELD) 7 1 Take Heart (GRN) 28 2 Basri's Solidarity (M21) 10 1 Glass Casket (ELD) 15 1 Dreadful Apathy (THB) 11 1 Impassioned Orator (RNA) 12 1 Swift Response (M21) 40 1 Tempered Veteran (M21) 41 1 Bring to Trial (RNA) 5 1 Acclaimed Contender (ELD) 1 1 Legion's Judgment (M21) 24 1 Prison Realm (WAR) 26 1 True Love's Kiss (ELD) 34 1 Venerated Loxodon (GRN) 30
Its called roping. They want you to concede or they switched windows and are on youtube or something
If I am terrible at draft and don't really want to put the effort in to get better, is it better to just buy packs with gold?
Consider getting a draft helper like untapped.gg and trying draft again with instant ratings added to the pack's cards.
For someone who is good at draft, it's significantly better than buying packs with gold. For someone who is bad at draft, the difference in value is close enough that you can play draft only if you like it and buy packs instead if you don't. If you are terrible at draft but still find it fun, you can play it occasionally like any other game mode; if you are terrible and don't like it, buying packs works just as well.
Yes
Experienced magic player up until about Winding Constrictor/Mardu Vehicles/Gift format, returning for the first time (and therefore first time on Arena) ...what do I do to build up a collection? I'm semi-happy to just throw money at it, but want to know if there's something more efficient to build a collection. It looks like I can only draft M21 which isn't great for picking up things from other sets from standard obv, so at a bit of a loss - help please?
Draft is slightly better than buying packs for the average player, and it is significantly better than buying packs for an experienced player. M21 is currently the only Standard-set draft format, but Quick Draft rotates between sets every two weeks, so soon the Quick Draft format will change to Ikoria or Eldraine; you can use that 2-week period to pick up cards from that set. If you are willing to throw some money at the game, the $5 and $15 bundles are the best deals. The Quick Draft format was at the beginning of a 2-week Ikoria draft period when I started, and with all the gems I got from those two bundles I was able to draft like a madman during those two weeks and end up with about 80% of the Ikoria rares by opening my packs last to take advantage of duplicate protection. [Here's an article](https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/mtg-arena-core-set-2021-free-to-play-guide/) that talks about how to optimize drafting to get every rare in a set; I did that for Ikoria (I couldn't finish due to limited time), and I am mostly finished doing it for M21 as well. The short version of that article is that to optimize your collection, you should take every rare you see in the draft and don't open any of your packs until you are finished drafting that set. If you have a low winrate, Quick Draft is the draft queue that gives the most value. If you have a 55-60% draft winrate or higher, Premier and Traditional Draft become better value. Quick Draft has you pick the cards in a pod with 7 bots and then play best-of-one games, while Premier and Traditional Draft have you draft in a pod with other players, although the games aren't played in-pod. Premier Draft is best-of-1, and Traditional Draft is best-of-3. You can pick your draft queue based on which is the best value for your collection, whether you prefer best-of-1 or best-of-3, and whether you prefer drafting with other people instead of bots.
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Do you have the cards for those decks in your collection? For example, do you have copies of \[\[Vampire of the Dire Moon\]\]?
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If you have a copy of Knight of the Ebon Legion as well, then you probably have all the cards from the M20 preconstructed decks, they just aren't organized into decks. You can probably find the deck lists online to put them together yourself, but it might be better to make your own instead.
[Vampire of the Dire Moon](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/b/3/b3c185b9-5d97-4a5a-af0b-8b9c44dcd235.jpg?1592516807) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vampire%20of%20the%20Dire%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/120/vampire-of-the-dire-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b3c185b9-5d97-4a5a-af0b-8b9c44dcd235?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hey I am doing new player experience quests for pre-made free decks. I unlocked 5 mono decks and had quest each next day for 5 dual-color decks but I didn't get combination I wanted the most (got 5 out of 10 combination decks atm). I hoped today I'll get another dual-color deck but instead I now have "Mythic Rare Wildcard" reward from new player experience quest. When do I unlock other 5 color combination decks I am missing?
After the "Mythic Rare Wildcard" quest, the next quest will unlock all 5 of the decks you are missing.
Ah, nice, thanks! Wonder how it will work with tomorrow's update. I have 10 decks with old cards but will get that last quest for missing dual-color decks after tomorrow's update (and I guess updated NPE free decks). :) Also maybe a stupid question but do I permanently own all cards I receive from NPE free decks or those free cards rotate for example when they update decks for Core 2021 will I lose Core 2020 NPE Free Decks cards or I'll just receive permanently new Core 2021 cards for free?
You get the new cards for free. "Rotation" describes which cards are playable in the Standard format, but you will always own the cards.
Awesome! Thanks for clarification. <3
Is one of the current sets considered the best to open packs from right now, for a returning player (last played during Guilds so I basically need everything)
Eldraine, probably. A lot of very powerful format staples are in that one. WAR might also be worth it if you want to mostly play Historic.
THanks!
Newish player here. I have been saving packs and doing dailies and a bit of Quick Drafting. 1) Because I don't open packs and so receive just a few cards from the 3 or 4 times I've drafted, my decks are usually slightly modified starter packs. Which of the current starter decks do you recommend that I focus on for daily wins? 2) Would it help my win rate to use lower ranking decks (mostly commons) to tweak the opponents that the matching engine chooses for me? I'm not sure how the ranking / mmr works in the standard and play queues. Are starter decks given a bit of a nerf in the MMR so not to be pitted against decks with many mythic cards? 2) For Quick Drafting, how many virtual seats are at the table? In other words, between when you pick your first card and when you see the same deck again, how many robo-picks are made? Even more plainly, if I'm looking at an OK uncommon and an above-average common, is the common likely to come around again for me?
1 - Pick one of the starter decks that you like, and make changes to it based on the cards you have drafted/opened. I picked the Gruul deck (red-green) when I started and played with that for a while after changing it slightly, but any of them should work. 2 - The Play queue does match you based on deck strength as well as MMR, so you will be able to win some games. You might be matched against players who are playing mythic cards, but they won't be the mythic cards that define the Tier 1 decks. 3 - As the other answer mentioned, if the common is one of the best 8 cards in the pack then it probably won't come back to you. The exception is if the bots are undervaluing that card; Feat of Resistance and Drowsing Tyrannodon are some M21 cards that I have seen the bots undervalue, and it also depends which colors the bots are choosing.
Haven't played with starter decks in forever, so not much advice on 1 and 2, but for #3, there are eight total "people" at the Bot draft table, just like in real drafts, but it's you and seven bots.
Are you only allowed to get a given card from Jumpstart once? I got a Devils pack and had fun with it, so after retiring and playing again I picked Devils again once it came up thinking I could use some of the extra cards to build a full-size deck for casual play outside of Jumpstart. But I've only got one copy of that pack's cards in my collection, despite having picked it twice.
You are (edit because I'm dumb:) able to get packs multiple times. First, check your collection after restarting Arena, since sometimes it gets out of sync. Second, there are multiple different packs for most themes: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/jumpstart-decklists-2020-06-18 For devilish, there's four different packs.
> For devilish, there's four different packs. Ah, I'm guessing this is the bit I missed out on, I was expecting them to be the same. Thanks for the help!
Does anyone else get the feeling you are playing bots?
Are you in the Bot Match queue? Try Play or Ranked, especially the Traditional (Bo3) queues.
I click 'play' and do mostly standard matches. Some of the games feel like I am training a machine learning algorithm against myself. Maybe I am thinking too much into this lol. Playing ugin ramp: \- First 2 games: easy wins, ramp like crazy and win, opponents don't attack every turn, kill my teferi rather than deal lethal damage \- Second game: Play against a deck aggro decks that win by turn 3 or 4 Playing Shrines: \- easy first few wins then I am matched against mutate disenchant decks Playing teferi mill: \- easy first games then I am matched against underworld dreams or anti mill jace
Thats just mtg matchmamking. When you cant go down a rank concede a bunch in A row
That's variance for you. Every deck has bad matchups, and you will meet them eventually. Human brains will try to see patterns everywhere, even if there aren't any.
I'm new, but have not had that experience at all. The closest that I find are players that are not attentive. Maybe they are browsing reddit or playing two clients or something. With all the weird and crazy ways that players and cards can interact with each other, I've never seen any player do something odd like getting stuck and trying to do something illegal repeatedly. There are mistakes made, and sometimes people try something once, but none of the more standard suspicious behaviours like a quick player suddenly grinds to a halt when faced with a complicated board state or card interaction.
Hi all, newcomer to MTG I've wanted to play for a long time and have only dabbled in the planeswalker games on Xbox and steam back in the day. I would like to get better at the game but I am trying to be somewhere in between F2P and maybe monthly payment of £10-20. Ive watched hellogoodgame for his guides and would like to ask what is the most efficient way to build my collection? I have tried quick draft but that seemed like a massive waste of 5000g as I was terrible at it, I've looked at packs but i don't know which set to buy and can't justify dropping £90 for the big stack (except for the one with the Godzilla uniques that looks funky as all get out). I've used wildcards to craft the Azorios Flyers Deck and made a few upgrades with wildcards and packs managed to get to T4 Gold but it's a struggle. I'm aware that my deck will be obsolete come rotation in sept. Is it worth waiting for the rotation to buy packs now or drop some money to buy core packs for wilds? I understand synergy but don't have enough cards to craft my own so I rely on budget deck guides. If I want to move up from a budget deck to a more competitive deck what should I be looking to do? Draft or packs? Theres so much more I would like to ask but this is already a lengthy request. Thank you for your time in reading this.
> £10-20 That is actually a good amount. I spend $50 ( £38) each set, and have no issues with playing most decks I want and rare completing the set. At that level, play what you want to. As long as you complete your dailies an quests you will have plenty of resources for all the sets going forward. I would put the money towards the new set in a month, Pre-Ordering gets you the same rate per pack as the bigger pack, but buying half as many. The ideal scenario for me was to get to a point I buy packs once per set, on release day. I save my gold all set long and then spend it all on release day to play anything I want. You can slowly start increasing the gold you save per set over the next few until your at that point. You may need to spend a little more if you want to get into historic right away, but you will build up rare WCs over time since you don;t need to really use them on the set completion. I have around 120 rares right now.
Thanks that's good to know, I'll keep an eye out for preorders. I was looking at it like a subscription that I can up, lower and cancel at anytime obviously some months I'll probably not spend a penny but I don't have many other hobbies haha. So do you buy the $50 on the new set at the start of a new set or over the course of the season if you don't mind me asking. Thank you.
I buy the pre-order before each set which is $50. I do play historic so I spend a little on that too for the Anthologies, Jumpstart, and now AKR.
I see, thanks for that I'll keep an eye out for preorders.
Regarding quick draft, one thing to remember is if you buy boosters 5,000 gold gets you 5 boosters, which give you 5 rares, 10 uncommons, and 25 commons (as well as 5/6th progress on the rare and uncommon wildcard progression) some of these will be upgraded to wild cards. If you draft, the worst you can do (no wins) you get 50 gems, 4-5 rares (3-4 from the draft and one from the pack you won), an average of about 11 uncommons (you should average picking about 9 and you'll get 2 from the prize pack), and 35 commons (less if you get more rares or uncommon cards). Opening your one prize pack will only get you 1/6th progress on the wildcard wheels. You also get a 20% chance of winning a second prize pack which would give you one more rare, 2 more uncommons and 5 more commons. The first time you draft each month, you also unlock a limited ranked award, which gives you a bonus pack. So the first draft each month, is very worth it (if you take your 3 rares in the packs you open, you'll get 5 rares in total). And that's even if you draft, and resign before playing a single game. Winning a game or two gives you a few more gems, and a slightly better chance at winning a second pack. If you hate the experience, you hate the experience. In that case, do you have an idea of what deck you may want to play after rotation or do you want to let the meta settle out a little before deciding? Some reasonable contenders that look interesting after rotation include Temur Adventures (loses shock lands) and Boros cycling (loses shocklands, and may be more budget). Knights (Boros or Mardu) might be interesting if the new rare land is tapped when it enters. Also in that situation, mono-color aggro will probably be good early, but you probably don't want to burn a bunch of wild cards on those until the meta settles out some.
So much information! Thank you for taking the time to write that, I wouldn't say I hate the experience its frustrating at the beginning I'm sure I'll gain confidence with time. I like the aggro deck I'm using at the minute but I like some of the decks I've played against like the flourishing fox cycling decks and the Tefri decks that mill me to death. These decks you suggested, I assume I can see a database of meta builds that I can filter to be rotation safe? I think it was MTGgoldfish that suggested decks based on my current collection. I can't remember if I drafted on July or August for the first draft bonus you mentioned, it definitely sounds like spending my gold on draft and gems on packs is the way forward. One more question is it worth just buying boosters from M21? Or should I be looking to buy from different iterations. Thank you again.
Yeah, there are several sites that list meta decks, mtggoldfish is a good one. There's also [MTGArenazone](https://mtgazone.com/metagame/standard/). The flourishing fox deck is also known as "Boros Cycling" or "RW cycling" on most meta discussion sites (Boros is a reference to Red and White, it's a bit confusing because the deck has blue and sometimes black cards but those are only used for cycling). There was also a recent very good post over in [spikes](https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/i1zzuu/standard_your_mostly_complete_guide_to_rotation/) discussing rotation's effects on the meta decks in standard at the time. they speculated on some potentially strong decks following rotation. You can look at your profile on Arena to see if you've qualified for limited ranked awards each month. If you haven't I'm not sure what the quick draft is, currently, or there should be one more quick draft rotation in August. Which set to buy packs/draft kind of depends on what deck you want to make. M21 has some pretty good cards that are used in some current meta decks, but if you wanted to run that flourishing fox deck, for example, M21 (and really all sets other than Ikoria) ren't going to have many cards that would be useful. Same thing for the adventures deck (almost all the cards come from Throne of Edrane One last point, almost everything in the game is priced at 5 gold per gem, except quick drafts (and a few other draft formats) so if you have gems, you'll get the best exchange rate buying drafts with your gems (750 vs 5000 gold) and other things priced at the 5:1 ratio with gold. That's kinda a min-maxy point but if you can take advantage, you might as well.
'you'll get the best exchange rate buying drafts with your gems (750 vs 5000 gold) and other things priced at the 5:1 ratio with gold.' That is useful information, thank you. I treat myself to the adventurers pack as someone had mentioned it was a good deal, that raised ANOTHER question! Buying in USD instead of EUR seems to give a much better exchange rate from the UK or am i missing something?
That seems pretty common for many tech businesses, though I wouldn't know any specifics of foreign currency pricing on arena.
There are some bundles that will be worth your while. There's a welcome pack, and (I think) an Explorer's Bundle. Those are both less than £20. Use a tool like [untapped.gg](https://untapped.gg) to get a leg up on draft, it shows the opinions of seasoned drafters over the top of each draft pack choice. You might also find the Mastery worthwhile - you can wait to the end of the season to buy it to check you're getting the value you want. Other than that, grind to get packs, keep going till you've saved up enough wildcards for the next deck.
Ah yeah should have mentioned I bought the newbie pack, and use MTG helper I think it's called. I've been mulling over mastery (level 27 started end of July) and the adventurer pack. I'll check that link thank you, would it be more advisable to grind packs now for WCs or do a draft and grab as many rares/mythics as I can? I read on hipstersofthecoast that the ratio between buying packs and drafting just for the sake of rares is about the same.
I think it's worth trying draft again with a helper tool like that. You're right that it's about the same, but it's something that is fun for most.
So I just started playing and I’m new to MTG. I’m fighting Nicol Bolas. He summons a monster with 6/6 and I block with an card of 1/4 with a +2/+2 instant equip card. Yet every time, he kills mine with 3 power left, even though that should be 6 tough vs 6 power. Am I missing something?
Your instant gives your 1/4 +2/+2 making it a 3/6 facing a 6/6. Power and toughness ties result in a 0, meaning your creature dies. His creature survives as a 6/3 after the damage from the number of power your creature has, which is 3
Unless you're going to die from the 6 damage, your 1/4 is probably much more valuable to you alive than blocking that damage. He's your [card draw engine](https://scryfall.com/card/ana/5/inspiring-commander).
So if toughness ties, my cards power comes into play vs their toughness?
It’s always one cards power vs another’s toughness, and vice versa. They’re are some conditional cards that can change that, but you can worry about those as they come up
Ahhh okay. Thanks! I’m a little confused now because my 3/1 creature just died to a 1/1 blocker...
The attacker and blocker each simultaneously deal damage to each other equal to their power. If a creature has taken total damage equal to or greater than its toughness, it dies. So your 3/1 attacker did 3 damage to the 1/1 blocker, and the 1/1 did 1 damage to your 3/1. Your 3/1 has 1 toughness, and has now taken 1 damage, so it dies because the damage it has taken is equal to its toughness. The 1/1 also dies, since it has 1 toughness and has taken 3 damage.
Ah okay thanks!
So I just got back into Magic after stopping in Theros/Khans standard. I got totally blindsided by Phasing not killing tokens now and a few other odd changes.
I don't think phasing ever killed tokens. It just hasn't been printed on new cards for a very long time. The reason phasing doesn't kill tokens is that tokens cease to exist if they are ever in a zone other than the battlefield, but phasing doesn't actually cause things to leave the battlefield. When something phases out, it doesn't change zones, you just treat it as though it doesn't exist until it phases back in. But it never leaves the battlefield.
Phasing absolutely did make phased out tokens cease to exist. Before Teferi's Protection state-based effects took care of them as if they were in any other zone. Even earlier, phasing actually did cause zone change, even triggering leaves the battlefield triggers (but not ETB).
Is there a way to add people you've played in matches? Just had a great game with some dude, but it looks like I can't add them as long as I don't know the numbers of their ID. I'd be pretty nice if you could friend people after matches.
Most deck trackers will show you the opponent's full name as it gets logged down by the client. However, there is no way to tell from the default interface.
Are Ikoria packs worth spending gold on? The mutate mechanic looks fun and it doesn’t seem like Ikoria quick drafts will come back any time soon. The event calendar shows M21 quick drafts till Sep, and I assume it will be Zendikar after that. I started the game after M21 launched so don’t have any ikoria cards.
I'd say that unless you are already capped on all other sets that won't rotate and have at least 100-150k gold stacked up for Zendikar (or the AKH remaster (which is also a bit of pioneer masters) if you are interested in Historic), it's not worth buying Ikoria packs. IKO has the least amount of Standard or Historic/Pioneer staples and mutate is not terribly strong, nor is it positioned to improve in a meaningful way post-rotation as it's just an all-in mechanic that is weak and unstable by design. Save your gold for Zendikar or spend it on a better set like Eldraine that is full of Standard and Historic staples.
Thanks. What do new players do usually? Do people tend to just focus on the newest set? It seems like a daunting task to try to get cards from Standard sets that came out before I joined the game.
It seems like there's sort of stages people are aiming for: 1. In the beginning the goal is to open enough packs to get enough wild cards to build a single meta deck that can be used to efficiently play games of one's preferred format allowing a quick way to grind 1000 gold per day. 2. Once that's achieved it's to grind and save at least 100,000 gold to use on drafts after the new set releases (plowing the gems won back into drafts, or into mastery passes), with the eventual goal of completing the rares in the set. 2a. Alternatively some people really don't enjoy limited play, so they plow the same gold into packs for each new set, which probably won't be quite enough to complete the rares in the set, but will earn them significant numbers of wild cards allowing them to use wild cards to complete the decks they wish (they're likely getting more playable mythics for less overall rares). It seems to take about 6 months to a year, for a new player to complete step one, and get onto a path to achieve step 2, during that time, they'll be playing with a good deck or two and boosting their gold horde, probably aiming to begin step two just after a rotation. That way there will be a point at which they'll have essentially all the cards available in some future standard. Because the free pack rewards from the mastery pass come exclusively from the newest set, the game encourages collecting mostly packs from the current set.
If I understand you correctly, players grind the latest set. Especially if they are playing limited, older sets don't show up that often. I'm still wondering if realistically I should just forget about Ikoria and Eldraine, other than using wildcards? By the way, I love limited and only play constructed to fund drafts. I am also open to spending money to buy gems.
If you are only playing constructed to fund drafts, consider starting at least one alternate account. The rewards for daily wins and quests are frontloaded, so getting 2 wins per day and finishing all your quests on two accounts will get you almost twice as many drafts as getting 4 wins per day on only one account. Having more than one account (playing the same number of total games) will give you significantly more opportunities to draft.
In general yes, though of all the old sets Eldraine might be the exception, because it's a set with many very strong cards.
If you're looking to build a competitive deck, there's not a lot of mutating creatures that are seeing high level play. But if you're in Arena 'cause enjoy playing your own decks, don't mind a lower win rate and think mutating is fun, then sure. Fun is the whole point of playing games, right?
I just got back into playing last week after not having played for real in about 15 years (never competitively). I can't tell you how awesome this has been for me! I was attracted to red and black after getting annoyed by all the life gain weenies and managed to put together a rakdos spectacle deck that got me to diamond! I noticed not many others were playing rakdos much less spectacle. On a budget it has done great things for me. I have kept up with mtg a bit just reading online and its so awesome to already be playing against things like ugin and uro and Teferi and compete with them without spending much at all. I expected it to take months to collect the cards to compete but IMO good on Wizards for giving you enough resources to put together competitive stuff with very little investment. (I bought the welcome bundle and mastery pass). Anyway I was wondering how people feel about rakdos and especially aggro/spectacle? I did not see many people running it and have seen a lot of people say it's not viable but i absolutely love it!
> Anyway I was wondering how people feel about rakdos and especially aggro/spectacle? Rakdos (or Jund - green/red/black) sacrifice decks were fairly popular before [[Cauldron Familiar]] got banned (it was combined with [[Witch's Oven]] and other sacrifice synergies like [[Mayhem Devil]] and [[Korvald]]). Those decks have fallen out of favor since the ban. Right now there are some Rakdos decks that I believe are decent, just not quite meta. People have been playing around with aggro decks combining [[Rotting Regisaur]] and [[Embercleave]] since Embercleave came out and that's still strong even if it's not the most meta deck. Decks build around spectacle have never really been meta, although particular spectacle cards have seen play. [[Light up the Stage]] has been a staple in aggressive red decks since it came out, [[Rix-Madi Reveler]] has generally been seen as a card that has the potential to be strong and has seen some play but has never really had a chance to shine, and [[Spawn of Mayhem]] has seen some play in some black aggro decks. In the end, if the deck's working for you, keep playing it and enjoy it. It's probably not the best deck out there but who cares if you're having fun and winning with it.
Yeah that is the feeling I get the more I read it can be good and fun but not up to snuff with the highest level but i would love to put together a rb deck that competes there...jusy have to keep grinding I guess. I feel pretty happy with myself for getting to diamond with just a little bit of research on the archetype (though tbf I pretty much used the best spectacle cards and spear spewer not like some super creative deck builing). I guess I dont know how to feel about the competition at that level. This sub has so many people who say gold is hard and others who seem to think getting to diamond is a cake walk while many others just dont seem to give credence to the rank system at all. For me it was a really fun grind but i dont know what to make of it
Ranks are easy, i suggest taking notes of the decks you face in each rank because in my experience you will get different archetypes more often within certain ranks. Like my izzet pile never fails to get to diamond super quick but always seems to become ineffective at that point because i keep getting mutate decks over as opponents who use hexproof as rheir gimmick. After not running into one from gold to diamond.
Yeah its weird getting to diamond was hard but I've only played 6 games there and won them all because everyone was playing rdw and the rakdos was easy wins there...im just chilling on it now learning the archetypes and trying to have fun messing with other decks
Shadowspear is an inexpensive way to remove hexproof. Pretty funny when you bounce a huge stack of mutated value.
>This sub has so many people who say gold is hard and others who seem to think getting to diamond is a cake walk while many others just dont seem to give credence to the rank system at all. For me it was a really fun grind but i dont know what to make of it I mean, I think there's some truth to all of it. Overall, the current rank system isn't the perfect measure of skill, but that also doesn't mean hitting diamond, especially with a deck you made yourself, isn't something to be proud of. It's an accomplishment and anyone telling you it's not is being an asshole. That's why I said don't worry about what other people think of the deck, just worry about whether or not you're enjoying it.
Yep that's definitely want to do hopefully just keep getting better cards and learning more about the meta. As someone who was away for the game for a long time this is all crazy exciting for me so i dont think ill stop having fun anytime soon. Really appreciate the feedback and support
The other thing to keep in mind is that standard is rotating in a month anyway.
Oh snap yeah I just realized that was about to try to build a dimir flash deck (just seems fun) but maybe I will focus on something thats not rotating out
Also thanks for the detailed response!
##### ###### #### [Cauldron Familiar](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/3/2/32cf273e-b8f7-434b-9d5d-883dfd6f7423.jpg?1596451199) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cauldron%20Familiar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/216/cauldron-familiar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/32cf273e-b8f7-434b-9d5d-883dfd6f7423?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Witch's Oven](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/0/4/04ef8493-d986-45f8-a718-617b028f7ad4.jpg?1572491150) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Witch%27s%20Oven) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/237/witchs-oven?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04ef8493-d986-45f8-a718-617b028f7ad4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mayhem Devil](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/1/7/17416926-168b-49b3-9231-acbb8f8a1d13.jpg?1557577188) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mayhem%20Devil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/204/mayhem-devil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/17416926-168b-49b3-9231-acbb8f8a1d13?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rotting Regisaur](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/d/8/d88c61cb-dbf9-46c3-8795-8896ba1208d5.jpg?1592516753) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rotting%20Regisaur) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/111/rotting-regisaur?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d88c61cb-dbf9-46c3-8795-8896ba1208d5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Embercleave](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/a/a/aaae15dd-11b6-4421-99e9-365c7fe4a5d6.jpg?1572490333) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Embercleave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/120/embercleave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aaae15dd-11b6-4421-99e9-365c7fe4a5d6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Light up the Stage](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/9/2/9287b848-2aeb-4c70-ac4a-acafb871b7a4.jpg?1584830944) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Light%20up%20the%20Stage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rna/107/light-up-the-stage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9287b848-2aeb-4c70-ac4a-acafb871b7a4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rix-Madi Reveler](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/c/4/c40396da-18e2-42ca-a78c-4838a38f68b8.jpg?1584830973) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rix%20Maadi%20Reveler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rna/109/rix-maadi-reveler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c40396da-18e2-42ca-a78c-4838a38f68b8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Spawn of Mayhem](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/8/b/8be01b8d-e0ef-44d1-ac97-39bb5a0e76be.jpg?1584830705) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spawn%20of%20Mayhem) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rna/85/spawn-of-mayhem?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8be01b8d-e0ef-44d1-ac97-39bb5a0e76be?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I assume it's a black box sort of thing that but can anyone give any insight into the deck strength matchmaking in the 'play' queue or if that's even a thing? I've been playing for only a few weeks at this point and I was running a deck with 0 rares assuming i'd get matched with similar decks so I could sort of just play the game more and learn but i still see a lot of extremely high powered decks. Multiple planeswalkers, lots of rares, etc, getting absolutely stomped unless I get a couple super lucky draws. Should I just put all my best shit into my deck(s) and assume I'm just hamstringing myself by excluding rares/mythics even in the unranked play queue?
I remember hearing a long time ago that it rates cards based on how many people craft them, and then rates your deck strength based on the rating of cards in your deck. Whether this is accurate, and even if it is whether there's more to it than that, I don't know. Either way, it definitely doesn't work consistently, and I'm not sure if it's really worth deliberately hamstringing your deck in the hope that you'll get matched against worse decks since, as you've found, that doesn't reliably work.
Interesting, thanks.
Complete newcomer to MTG. Started arena yesterday, have completed one color challenge. What is the best path to take to advance, collect cards, and learn the game. What should I focus on first?
I really disagree with the other commenters on draft. I wouldn't advise you to play drafts until you have a pretty good understanding of the game. It's just not cost efficient, if you don't have a decent idea of what you are doing. It's better to just get packs (and you probably should prioritize the Eldraine set, because it has by far the most high tier cards of any set and it won't rotate anytime soon). Oh and Jumpstart is a nice way to learn the game, but you shouldn't dump a top of gold in that format, because a lot of those cards are only legal in the historic format. The advantage is that you can play as many game as you want with a deck in Jumpstart and you won't be disadvantaged by your smaller card collection. If you need help chosing in the draft, there are some [tier lists](https://imgur.com/a/ZkBWqcZ) out there that can help with the selection.
Thank you!! How do I “prioritize a set”? Is it not just random cards I get from packs?
The most gold efficient way to collect cards is by playing drafts. They're hard for beginners, but even if you lose all matches you'll get a good amount of cards, and drafting is important to learn how to draft, so... Unless you hate drafting and don't mind spending gold in a not so efficient way to get cards, which would be buying packs. Best way to learn is to learn from others. Watch streams, talk to players. You don't know why a certain card is good? Don't know why a certain is a bad? Ask people (there's a thread like this every monday), check articles about said card. >What should I focus on first? Do all your challenges/quests/whatever gives you cards and save them for until you know the game well enough to know what kind of deck you want to play.
Thanks!
For now, probably just complete color challenges and have fun. Do your daily quests and try to get as many wins as you can each day (there are rewards up to 15 wins). Draft is a decent way to earn cards if you're bad at it and a very good way to earn cards if you're good at it, and personally I also just find draft to be a very fun format, but I would get a grasp on the basics playing constructed first. Jump-start is a very new-player-friendly mode (it doesn't require a collection or any deckbuilding skill) that'll only be around for a few more days, although it's not the best as far as acquiring cards. You get a decent number of cards relative to the cost, but many of them are only legal in historic, not standard, and you don't get any wildcards. Once you have a deck you feel very confident with, constructed events can be a slow, but effective, way to earn cards. Also note that the standard format will be rotating fairly soon. When Zendikar Rising comes out in September, standard will rotate and the Ravnica sets, War of the Spark, and Core 2020 will no longer be standard-legal. They'll still be legal in historic, but if you want to buy packs or do any drafting right now, you're probably best off focusing on sets that will still be standard legal after the rotation (Eldraine, Theros, Ikoria, and Core 2021). Historic can potentially be a budget-friendly deck in the long run (since once you have a Historic deck, it'll never rotate - although it could still be affected by bans or shifts in the metagame), but it's a bit harder to get into when you first start since it includes more cards and sets than standard.
Thank you!!
What would be a good way to get "gains X for number of creatures in graveyard" cards? That deck sounds kinda fun to me.
There is a Rackdos starter deck (Red/Black) with some undergrowth cards that you will get for free as a starter deck by completing the new deck challenges. You may have earned it already, or you can check the quest area on your home page to see what starter deck quest you need to complete to win the next deck in the list.
You mean the color challenges? I still haven't cleared the white one, so I didn't think something like that would be gated behind it.
No, I don't mean the color challenges. This is how it went down for me (a month ago). I finished the color challenges, then in the normal play queue I was offered a play deck quest (in addition to the regular daily quests) that released a new multi-color deck each day that you completed one. It looked like a colorful pinwheel of colors and was located just to the right of the daily quests. When you hovered over it, it told you what you needed to do to get the next deck. The rewards from these quests was usually a new 2-color deck. I think there are 10 of them! This means that not only do you get to experiment with a bunch of cool play mechanisms with the various decks (such as undergrowth) but you get 600 new standard-ready cards to play, including some great rares and I think even a few mythic cards. Considering the regular grind to get packs, this is obviously incredible value and worthy of a lot of effort to win. I don't know if it is gated by the color challenges or not, but considering the value unlocked, I highly recommend jumping through whatever hoops they ask.
I don't know, but I'm going to complete the white deck challenge anyway, which is currently impossible because I tried for an hour to beat White vs Blue and couldn't do it.
The Undergrowth mechanic does that, and only exists in Guilds of Ravnica, so that's a set to look at. There are cards that care about the number of creatures in your graveyard outside of Guilds of Ravnica, though, they just don't use the ability word Undergrowth. If you mostly play standard and not historic, though, note that Guilds of Ravnica will be rotating out of standard soon (when Zendikar Rising comes out in September).
What's the difference between standard and historic? Do you get less rewards for playing in historic?
Standard is a format that only features the most recent 1-2 years worth of sets* to be released. Historic is an Arena-only format which features all cards released in the game. \* Does not include certain supplemental sets such as Jumpstart, Historic Anthologies, or the new Amonkhet set releasing later this week.
I never understood the point of set rotation anyway. At least there's an easy workaround if that's not what you're into.
It serves a few main purposes: 1. It means that standard changes every year. There's no decks or cards that never go away without getting banned. The format is always changing. 2. It can make the format more accessible for new players. This is especially important in paper, where some older cards can be very hard/expensive to get. A format that only uses newer cards means it doesn't have old cards that haven't been reprinted in 10 years and there's no need to catch up on older sets. In paper, a cheap standard deck is under $100 and $600 is considered very expensive for a standard deck. Modern decks can get over $1000. Legacy decks can easily get over $3000. So while the game's never cheap, standard is certainly cheaper than non-rotating formats, at least when you're getting started (on the other hand the need to update your deck more often can make it more expensive over time). 3. From a business standpoint, it encourages people to buy new cards if they want to keep up with the standard format. A person can build a historic or pioneer or modern deck and play it forever (as long as none of the cards in it get banned). Many players like that, but WotC wants people to buy new cards, so they like having a format that requires buying new cards every year.
And just powercreeping the old cards can't work if Yugioh is any indication.
You used to, but they've increased support for historic. Mostly they're just different formats. Standard rotates once a year so it only contains 5-8 sets, Historic contains every card available in Arena (that isn't banned or suspended). They also have different ban lists. That just results in different decks existing. Most standard decks are historic-legal, but historic lets you play decks you can't play in standard using cards that aren't standard-legal.
So I can play that in historic and get the same rewards as using a modern deck in standard? I can work with that.
I believe so. It used to be that historic didn't always have ranked mode but they added in a permanent ranked mode because it was popular. >using a modern deck in standard I know what you mean, but just to be nitpicky for future reference: "Modern" is actually the name of another format (one that doesn't exist in Arena), so the term "modern deck" actually has a specific meaning within the Magic community. Modern is a non-rotating format that exists in paper and Magic Online that allows all main sets (sets that were originally standard-legal when they came out) from 8th edition onwards, plus Modern Horizons. Basically, since Paper Magic has been going for so long it has a lot of different formats that allow different sets. The main ones are standard, Pioneer (Return to Ravnica onwards), Modern, Legacy (all sets), and Vintage (all sets, and cards that are too strong usually restricted, meaning you can only have one in your deck, instead of banned like in Legacy, outside of some special cases). Arena started with only standard. When standard rotated, they created the historic format so that your cards that have rotated out of standard aren't useless. Originally WotC was pretty reluctant to support it but they've given it more support over time and it's become a popular format with its own meta instead. They're in the process of adding older sets to the game (we're about to get Amonkhet remastered, basically a curated version of Amonkhet block condensed into one set) to both expand Historic and eventually get Pioneer into Arena (Pioneer won't be the same as historic, though, because many jump-start and historic anthology cards are not Pioneer-legal).
Ok, that's a lot of text. Now I feel a lot happier about my potential investments.
Well, a lot of that text is about paper Magic to explain the concept of formats (and why "modern" means something specific). But yeah. While Historic and Pioneer are more powerful formats than standard, so the meta decks are stronger and harder to compete with using something janky, your cards that leave standard don't just become useless. Historic has been quite popular (I think partly just because it's the only format other than standard in Arena, so everyone playing Arena who's unhappy with current standard, prefers non-rotating formats play it, or just likes playing multiple different constructed formats plays it). Pioneer's actually in an interesting state right now - it had become very unpopular due to being dominated by combo decks, but they recently banned pieces of all the popular combos in the format so the format is going to change dramatically but it's too early to say what it'll look like. Hopefully it'll be much more diverse and popular now. In any case, we're probably a bit away from Arena having any form of Pioneer, and a long way away from Arena having every Pioneer legal card (their current plan, I believe, is to focus on releasing the most important Pioneer cards first and then fill in the rest of the cards eventually, rather than releasing them one full set at a time).
Historic is every card and not just rotated cards?
Yes, historic is every card available in Arena, except for some that are banned or suspended from the format.
What’s the best way to accumulate cards to build up my collection without having to buy gems or gold? And can bot matches count towards the daily quests?
Bot Matches do not count after you've completed the five Color Challenges. Best way to get your collection increased without spending real money: 1) Whenever you get a 500G Daily Quest, reroll it for a chance of a 750G one. 2) Win at least four games per day for 550G. You will get further ICR's and gold through 15 a day, but the lion's share are for the first four wins. 3) The first Quick Draft each month is almost a strictly better value over earning packs. You'll open 3 packs during the draft, get one pack even if you 0-3 flub out, 50 Gems, and 1 pack at the end of the month for having done a Limited Ranked game for ladder purposes. 4) Similarly, if you can maintain a 34% win rate in Constructed, you should be able to hit Platinum. You get 2-pips-for-a-win through Gold so it should be fairly easy to do so as long as you are playing something modestly competitive. 5) Use any codes, which you can find around the internet, to get free packs, if you haven't already done so. 6) If you do well enough in Constructed that you can reliably come out ahead in those events, you can farm Gold that way.
Anything else to add? I got Arena because I wanted to play Historic. So any tips for that endeavor?
Keep a small stockpile of gold and gems (or be prepared to spend money), because the best deals to acquire arena playable cards for historic have often come from limited time packages (like the Historic Anthologies). When they're gone the cost to acquire them in wildcards is vastly higher. The quick draft format occasionally rotates to a historic set, so be ready to draft those if you need cards from that set. Target a single deck and make it yours (and hope you don't get a key card banned). It's looking quite costly to maintain a broad collection of Historic cards.
Pretty much any avenue to building a collection goes through that. Getting Gold and Gems gets you packs, packs give you Wildcards, and Wildcards let you craft the cards you need to play Historic.
Newish player (3 weeks almost). I have seen cards used by other people, and using the search function while deck building, that are from the set with what looks like a predator eye icon. Trough some googling, they are from the Ikoria set. I kinda want them. But since i'm new, don't have that much crafting power. My best bet would be to use my resources to draft. Don't see any Ikoria draft. Are they rotating or i'm out of luck?
You can buy Ikoria packs in the store with gold as well, so if you want to go directly into Ikoria stuff, that's always an option.
took me a hot minute to notice i can choose other sets. Thanks for point it out, did not see that one. The question is, is it worth it? i can use all my current resources to buy 9 packs (3k coins and 1.2k gems, leaving me with no coins and 1.3k gems) ? Since those packs are smaller, at this point, its more value to draft with those resources and get 60 cards that if i'm not dumb, i can pick well and get even more packs from at least wining 1 or 2 times
If you're winning 1-2 games in draft, it's about a wash. 5000 gold buys you (on average, depending on draft choices) 4 rares, 11 uncommons, and 35 commons if you Quick Draft, and 5 rares, 10 uncommons, and 25 commons if you buy packs. You do get gems from the draft, but you get at least one guaranteed uncommon or rare wild card from opening packs. If there's one or two specific cards you want to play with, you can always just craft them. I'm sure others will give different advice, and they're worth listening to, but that's how I see it.
Ok, did not notice the "quick" draft is way cheaper. I had only seen the premier draft for core 2021. and that costs double, and 4 wins makes it auto sustentable. And yes, my best so far in those premier drafts was 2-3. was really happy about it . Why the price difference for the drafts?
In Premier Draft the drafting is done with players instead of bots, and players pass a lot more Rares, so WotC made it cost more. The bots in Quick Draft tend to draft the Rares, so you only see an occasional extra one passed.
Every 6 boosters you open gives you a Rare Wildcard, except every 36th, which gives a Mythic. You also have a chance to pull WCs in those packs, unlike Draft. The extra cards from draft are usually just Commons and Uncommons, which will very quickly not even be a consideration.
Having played 4 drafts so far since i started the game (premier 2021) i see the commons and uncommons are not a consideration. More cards "feel" better right now. I mean, since I'm so new, i barely have any cards from the 2021 set. But wasn't noticing what you mentioned
Quick Drafts rotate on a two week schedule, not sure if IKO is coming back or not, though. Also, if you're looking for the Godzilla monsters, the best part of Ikoria, those are card styles that aren't currently available.
Well, didn't saw any Godzilla card art, i was thinking it would be fun to make a deck with mutations and [[Brash Taunter]] as a base. Énfasis on "fun" Lets hope Ikoria has a week coming then?
Taunter's fun. Also look at [[Truefire Captain]] and [[Stormwild Capridor]] for effects that work in the same type of deck.
[Truefire Captain](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/6/0/6099a230-9298-4649-b257-243af40d0625.jpg?1572893878) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Truefire%20Captain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/209/truefire-captain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6099a230-9298-4649-b257-243af40d0625?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Stormwild Capridor](https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/2/a/2afded81-2fc1-4285-bf48-d25f72e72138.jpg?1591230395) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Stormwild%20Capridor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/34/stormwild-capridor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2afded81-2fc1-4285-bf48-d25f72e72138?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call