MTGA New Player Guide

MTG Arena is an amazing game that allows you to enjoy the fun of Magic the Gathering anywhere you are, on a PC or a mobile phone. There are tons of resources provided by WotC and the community to help players get started playing the game but these resources are not often apparent to players. This guide aims to simplify and put a comprehensive guide to all of these resources directly in front of new players.

Free Packs

Before we go over anything else every new player should know that there are free packs you can get just by entering codes. These are not always apparent and many new players are not even aware they exist. The full list of codes that have been released are below. It's possible some of these may be expired but I'll try and clean them up when I am made aware.

PlayTheros	PlayIkoria	PlayM21	PlayZendikar	TryKaladesh	PlayKaldheim
PlayStrixhaven	PlayDND	PlayMID	PlayVOW	PlayNEO	PlayNeoAlchemy
PlaySNC	PlayAlchemyNewCapenna	PlayHBG	PlayDMU	PlayDMUA	PlayBRO

Codes that start with "Play" are good for 3 packs of the corresponding set, while codes that start with "Try" are good for one pack of the set. WotC stopped giving out these codes with Phyrexia: All Will Be One so you will not find new codes for any sets beyond that. Instead these packs are distributed to players via the in game notice system whenever a new set comes out.

This should net you 52 packs total, enough for almost 9 rare or mythic wildcards. You'll also get a few random rares that may be of some use during deck building.

Economy Basics

Progressing in the games economy boils down to a simple gameplay loop.

1. Play games of Magic to earn resources.
2. Spend those resources on card acquisition.

There are two main resources in the game, Gold and Gems. Gold is the standard currency and you'll earn that just by playing games. Gems are the premium currency and can be purchased with real world money or earned from certain activities, usually in smaller quantities.

Gold

The amount of gold you can earn per day is capped. You'll earn gold from the following:

• Daily Wins
  • You'll earn gold at certain points during the daily wins. Most of this is front loaded so your returns will significantly as you approach the 15 win mark.
• Quests
  • You'' earn either 500 Gold for an easy quest, or 750 Gold for a hard quest.

Gems

The amount of Gems you can earn is not directly capped. Gems are earned by playing events. The events that reward gems are:

• Sealed
• Traditional Sealed
• Quick Draft
• Premier Draft
• Traditional Draft
• Standard Event
• Traditional Standard Event
• Alchemy Event
• Traditional Alchemy Event
• Explorer Event
• Traditional Explorer Event
• Historic Event
• Traditional Historic Event

There are also occasionally other events that reward gems. These are normally competitive events that have very tough competition but very high rewards for those who do win.

The amount of gems you can win in a day is directly tied to your ability to win games in these events.

Two Paths

Previously there was only one optimal path to getting resources in MTG Arena, drafting. You would need to earn enough gold to participate in a "Quick Draft." You would draft cards and depending on your record get a number of packs and gems. You would then either use those gems to play Premier or Traditional draft or simply more Quick Draft. If you didn't enjoy drafting, too bad you had to draft to get the most value.

However WotC has added a feature known as "Golden Packs" that has greatly shifted the economy and made it possible to draft less for people who either are not good at drafting, or do not enjoy it. Golden packs unlock every time you buy 10 of the newest standard set (As well as the latest alchemy and some supplementary sets) from the store. Opening one will reward multiple rares and mythics.

If your good at drafting then drafting will still edge out buying packs, but by a much smaller margin that means you should not feel guilty if you just want to crack packs and build decks. We will cover both these options in more depth later in the guide.

Starting Out

When you first start MTG Arena you won't have much to work with. If your new to Magic in general I recommend following the full New Player Experience and going through the tutorial and onboarding. If your more experienced and want to get into more advanced gameplay you can find an option in the settings to unlock all game modes skipping the tutorial.

Mono-Color Decks

You'll start with access to the Mono-Color decks. There is one deck for each of the five colors in the magic color pie, and each of the decks is legal in Alchemy. You'll find these deck lists very lackluster featuring only 6 rares, and only one deck exchanges a single one of those rares for a mythic.

Two Color Decks

Once you complete the color challenge portion of the New Player Experience you'll unlock the ability to play "Starter Deck Duel" which lets you play games with the 10 two color combinations. You'll unlock each of the two color decks for use elsewhere when you win a game with it. You should try and win one game with each deck to unlock them all.

Jump-In

Once you have completed the Mono and Two color decks it's time to join the "Jump-In" event. This event is designed to provide slightly better card acquisition early on by giving you twice as many rares as buying packs normally would. This benefit drops off later on because of the limited card pool you can collect, but it's excelent early on. As a bonus you'll have been given five free entries to play Jump-In in the form of tokens.

The Jump-In event is a version of JumpStart which has you pick "Half-Decks" of cards each containing 20 cards. They are designed to be put together and played against others. So you'll choose two packs to make up a 40 card deck and play games against others who did the same. This is beneficial because early on your card collection likely will not matchup against players who have been playing even a short time. For this reason haveing an even playing field can be very beneficial.

Make sure to play at least until you use all your tokens. And play each deck for at least 1 win to get the reward.

Fork in the Road

You have now completed all the new player activities. You can continue collecting cards through Jump-In if your still happy with the results. You can play Draft, or simply start playing games in the "Play" queue with your favorite decks to try and earn some gold you can spend on packs.

Jump-In

This format will give decent rewards for some time but you may run into a reduction in effectiveness due to the low card pool. However feel free to use it as a place to get your daily wins once you find a nice deck you enjoy.

Draft

Draft is many peoples favorite format. You'll be on an even footing in terms of cards since everyone is picking their deck during the draft process, but skill can come into play here more then it did in Jump-In because better drafters will end up with better decks. Most people start with Quick Draft for it's lower risk and lower rewards.

Play

The play queue uses deck strength matchmaking to match you up. It tries to find out how powerful your deck is based on how competitive the decks who play your cards normally are. This can be helpful when you have poor cards, but can also be back breaking when your using powerful cards in unoptimized decks. If your running into lots of trouble it might be worth switching to "Ranked" it will still be free with no entry fee but matchmaking will be based on record and win rates and not on deck quality. This is a double edged sword so you may need to switch back and forth to find a good balance.

Alchemy, Explorer, Historic, Brawl, (And More.)

Most new players are going to focus on Standard as it's easy to get into, easy on resources, and has the most support. However Arena has many other formats that you can join up and enjoy. Here is a brief overview of each format.

Alchemy

Alchemy is a Digital Inclusive format that includes some of the cards in standard as well as regular drops of digital only cards that are not possible in paper. It also gets regular drops such as D&D Baulders Gate and Lord of the Rings.

Alchemy is quick moving, always changing, and a perfect fit for those who want a changing format above all else. But you should know that cards can be changed, rebalanced, or made nearly useless at the drop of a hat with no compensation. Expect to spend more resources on alchemy then other formats as it changes and your existing decks work differently or even not at all.

Explorer

Explorer is a proto-format that tracks Pioneer. This means that it does not include all the cards that are legal in Pioneer but only cards that are legal there will be added. Eventually Explorer will become Pioneer on arena, but that reality is a long way away.

Unlike Alchemy and Historic there are no digital only cards or rebalances in Explorer. What gets printed in paper is what shows up here. Explorer tends to be more stable then other formats because it sees most of it's power come in via standard sets, but is less so then Pioneer because it still recieves drops via anthologies and remaster sets.

You should pick explorer if you want to keep the same deck for many years and don't want to play with digital only mechanics.

If you want to get into Explorer the recommended path is to buy the newest standard sets to get golden packs, and then use wildcards to craft older cards.

Historic

Historic is Arena's kitchen sink format. Except for banned cards you can play any card ever released on the client. That means cards older then pioneer legality, digital only cards, and every new release for standard, explorer, and special historic only drops, jumpstart, modern horizons, etc.

The power level in historic is very powerful but well managed. You need to bring a strong deck but there are multiple strong strategies at all ranges of resource requirments and styles. If you bring something well thought out and prepare for the meta you can win no matter your decks design.

Just like Explorer I recommend buying the newest standard packs to get golden pack progress and using wildcards to craft older cards.

Brawl

Brawl started it's life as a 60 card format using many of the same rules as commander. Each player has a commander, a 60 card singleton deck, and every card must match their commanders color identity. You can still play this version of brawl on Arena.

However Historic Brawl is much more popular and is a 100 card version using the Historic card pool. The power level is much greater and the selection of commanders much more diverse.

More

Arena occasionally features more formats such as singleton, Pauper (Only commons), Artisan (Only commons and uncommons), and a variety of other formats. I highly recommend Pauper and Artisan as they are a great way to try out a new format without needing to use any Rare wildcards.