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 Greetings, Planeswalker! Magic the Gathering: Arena is the newest digital implementation of the venerable and popular collectable card game. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, it’s casual, it’s totally playable without grinding yourself into a paste. Most importantly, it’s MAGIC with very few caveats. Let’s start with the links, and not make folks scroll like crazy to find where I hid them: Helpful links Arena download site: https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena Trad Games thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3979741 Daily MTG: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles Discord: https://discord.gg/zg6fDFU Deck overlay/collection tracker: https://mtgarena.pro/ Card database: https://scryfall.com/ Deck ideas and meta info: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/ Less-proven/currently brewing deck ideas: https://twitter.com/ArenaDecklists Competitive reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/ Currently active promo codes: https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-promo-codes/ Submit a ticket (for reimbursement after something you paid for breaks): https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new  Welcome to the good one. Many of the common complaints about other CCGs go back to limitations those games placed on themselves due to technology at the time. The upside is you get to play on your opponent’s turn. Spend some time getting used to the phases of each turn. Google “priority” in MTG terms, and get used to the idea of the stack and how triggers work (and resolve). Combat works very differently in Magic than in many other digital CCGs. Most people here will tell you it’s better. Functionally it makes games a bit slower, but also a LOT less snowbally.  Welcome back! Many people used the Arena launch as an on-ramp back into a game they found too time- or cash-consuming. The good news is Arena is, in fact, MUCH less time- and cash- consuming. You give up the ability to “cash out” your physical collection, so the game is 0% investment. It's NOT a CCG. It's a video game. There's no market to play or groundfloors to get in on. But for most people, $20-30 each set will go a long way toward making this a full Magic experience. Now go check the price of a Scalding Tarn. Let’s get started! What can I do? Magic is split broadly into two formats: constructed and limited. Constructed is decks you bring with you (standard, Brawl, pauper), limited is decks you build as part of the event (booster draft, sealed). Every constructed event has its own rules about deck construction. Both constructed and limited offer Best of One (Bo1) and Best of Three (Bo3) modes. In general, Bo1 offers faster, more varied, and more random play. Bo1 is how most digital games are played, and is best for when you want to jam games for an indeterminate amount of time. It’s more random, so DO NOT GET SALTY about Bo1. Bo3 offers longer, more strategic matches. Bo3 is how paper Magic is played in tournaments, so many familiar players prefer it. It takes more time and meta knowledge than Bo1, but it’s still very much Magic, so DO NOT GET SALTY about Bo3. There is a limited ladder and a constructed ladder. Bo1 and Bo3 share a ladder, but will not queue into each other (obviously). What is the ladder? Ladder is similar to most other games. You win and go up, you lose and go down. The rank tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Mythic) have floors, so you can’t drop from Gold to Silver, but you can drop from Gold 1 to Gold 2. If you are having trouble in the unranked queue, jumping into ranked might be a great idea. Ranked will pair you with other people who are just starting out (or who are just coming back from a long break). The rewards for ladder are intentionally VERY flat. The difference between Plat and Mythic is several hundred games played and only a few packs in rewards. This is the game’s way of telling you, “Plat 4 is fine, chill out and play what and when you want.” Let me yell this from the rafters: If you are playing a reasonably competitive deck reasonably well, your rank prior to Mythic is a function of your time played more than your skill. R E LA X How does the economy work? There are a handful of currencies in Arena. Gold is the hand-out currency, and it is most-commonly earned by completing your daily quests. You can spend gold on packs (1000 gold = one pack) or on events (5,000 gold for entry into one booster draft being the most popular, some tournament-structured events have gold buy-ins). Gems are the in-app-purchase currency. You will most likely acquire them via paying money into the game. They also are granted as a reward for doing well in certain events. The most reliable way to convert gold into gems by using gold to enter Ranked Draft mode. Experience is earned by completing quests, participating in events, cashing in codes, and winning games (up to a 15-game-per-week cap, rotating on Sunday morning, EST). Experience earns you free packs in the Mastery system. Orbs are earned along the Mastery system, as well, and are used for unlocking the cosmetic versions of cards. What is the Mastery system? The Mastery system is Arena’s answer to season passes. On the free path, you earn a pack of the newest set every other level, plus some cosmetic Orbs. Paying the gem-equivalent of $20 gets you the season pass, which has larger and more varied rewards, plus a few other cosmetic trinkets. How do I craft cards? Opening packs earns you Wild Cards. You collect Wild Cards of every rarity (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythic), which you spend in the collection manager to acquire individual cards. You earn an uncommon and a rare wild card every six packs you open, and a mythic every fifth time around the circle. You can also open a Wild Card IN the pack (as in your rare for pack is a rare wild card). A rare wildcard is the best thing you can open. There is duplicate protection in place on rare and mythic cards. You WILL NOT open a rare or mythic card of which you already own a playset (4 copies). The game simply rerolls that card in the background for you. Common and uncommon cards do not have duplicate protection. Every common and uncommon you open past your 4th goes a small percentage toward unlocking your Vault. When the Vault hits 100% you get a little treasure chest in your top bar; clicking it gives you a small handful of Wild Cards. You start building toward your next vault immediately, whether you click the chest immediately or not. In practice, don’t worry too much about the Vault, it’ll just happen on its own about once per set and the rewards are relatively small. How do I build a collection? How you build your collection will depend on your goals and how you want to play. If you love to play constructed, spend your gold on packs. Packs lead to Wild Cards, which are what you use to craft your stuff. 5,000 gold is five swings at opening a card you need, plus moves you nearly all the way around to unlocking a rare Wild Card. If you love to draft, spend your gold on drafts. You will earn wild cards more slowly this way, but you need them less because you primarily want to draft. 5,000 will give you any rares you draft, but only the packs you open as rewards will go toward your Wild Card wheel. Craft cards you want to play in decks you expect to be fun. If you want to craft a card you currently own zero copies of, click over to the search interface and click on the toggle for cards not yet in your collection. They'll show up dark in the UI to show you don't have any, but you can craft them from here. FAQ I’m brand new ... First off, I'll repeat this link from above. Every set has its own promo code for some free packs, and they'll occasionally put out codes for other freebies. After you finish the new-player stuff, go try every code on this page: https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-promo-codes/ OK, done. I'm brand new, what deck should I build? This is far and away the most-asked question, and also the hardest one to answer in an OP. Intro decks are going to change nearly every set, and “what deck is good?” is going to change a lot more often than that. So here’s a link: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper This contains the best information for what decks and cards are good at any given moment. It has recent tournament results, broad strokes at the current meta, and playable budget decks. Look for cards that fit both into some of the budget lists and the current meta, and start there. If you just want to play games to win, there’s almost always a common/uncommon heavy aggro deck that focuses on a handful of rares and a basic-heavy manabase. Seek it out. Feel free to ask the thread. We'd rather steer you in the right direction than have you spend all your new-player Wild Cards on a deck that is not going to be fun. I want to spend some money, what’s the best way to do it? Finish the New Player Experience completely to unlock the starter decks and cards, then buy the intro bundle. Its contents will probably change from set to set, but it’s always going to be the best value starting out. Can I go infinite like on MTGO? Probably not, it’s much harder in Arena. Are they going to put in old sets? Yes! The long-term plan is for Pioneer to be playable on Arena (see "What is Explorer?" section below). This means some large chunks of cards need to be dropped into the game. The plan was originally to rush Pioneer onto Arena, but the rising popularity of Historic and the success of the release of pre-launch sets seems to have shifted priorities behind the scenes. Right now, we seem to be alternating between dumping large sets of non-Pioneer cards into Historic (via Jumpstarts and other supplemental products) and releasing "Remastered" sets for blocks that were published into Pioneer before Arena launched. Explorer is here. Pioneer is coming. The timeline for that full transition is measured in years, not months. What is Alchemy? In early 2022, Wizards launched a new Arena-only format (a "Live" format, in WotC terms) named Alchemy. The format is parallel to Standard, sharing rotations and largely sharing cardpools, however Alchemy includes digital-only cards: specifically cards in Standard that have been adjusted for power level and cards introduced specifically for Alchemy. As Historic is also a Live format, all powerlevel changes to Standard cards also carry over to Historic. We haven't seen a rotation yet to determine if those cards will come "un-nerfed" when they rotate Standard/Alchemy. What is rotation? Every year in the fall, Magic releases a new set. And with the fall set’s release, we rotate all the sets from 2 years ago out of Standard. So with the release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt in Fall 2021, standard will include the following sets: Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, Strixhaven, D&D: AFR, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, as well as any Premier sets that release before Fall 2022. What is Historic? Historic is the non-rotating "legacy-ish" format of Arena. It comprises every card available on Arena, starting with the game's open beta launch. Historic will eventually include the complete card list of Pioneer, but also has had larger releases of cards specifically for Historic that mostly have comprised cards not legal in Pioneer. The overall idea is, "If you can play it on Arena, you can play it in Historic." Historic, of course, maintains its own banlist, along with a "Suspended" list. Suspended cards are on time out as the team decides whether to remove them permanently from the format (potentially resulting in wild card refunds) or let them back in once the format has gotten more powerful. Cards have actually returned from suspension: Field of the Dead returned (and was eventually banned), Burning-Tree Emissary was unsuspended and has been unproblematic. What is Explorer? Explorer is the non-rotating "Pioneer-ish" format on Arena. It comprises all Pioneer-legal cards currently implemented in Arena. The plan is to introduce all the relevant cards for Pioneer over a few years, then eventually retire the name Explorer and just call it Pioneer, aligning it with paper and MTGO. Explorer is a paper-aligning format. Alchemy changes are not live, and its banlist will largely match Pioneer until the Explorer-to-Pioneer transition is possible. Explorers lead to Pioneers, get it? What is the most efficient way to break into Historic as a newer player? kalel posted:there were historic cards released in special "historic anthology" sets which you could buy in bundles, but there were also events called "jumpstart" which introduced new cards into arena. those cards could only be acquired by playing the jumpstart event (basically you choose two precons with one or two rares each and combine them into a deck, the contents of which were added to your collection) or by spending WC's. (one fucky thing is that the second jumpstart added some modern horizons 1 and 2 cards but these aren't searchable in the collection search interface, you need to manually type set:mh1 or set:mh2 into the search bar to see these) What's the deal with packs? If you came from paper, you're familiar with 15-card boosters. Arena introduces 8-card boosters as well, and they perform different functions. When you buy a pack with gold or earn it through a reward you get an 8-card pack. This has duplicate protection and advances your Wild Card wheels. You can open Wild Cards in these packs. The 15-card packs still exist, but only as part of limited. There is no duplicate protection and opening them does not advance your Wild Card wheels. If you draft (or open in a Sealed pool) a rare or mythic you already have four copies of, you'll play the event with that card and be given some gems to compensate. Where do I submit a reimbursement request? Just had a draft stall and fail on P1P12. (Or similar game-breaking bugs.) https://mtgarena-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new What is everybody talking about? Often, players will refer to their deck’s colors by the officially sanctioned WotC names. The Guilds (introduced in Ravnica block): White + Blue = Azorius Blue + Black = Dimir Black + Red = Rakdos Red + Green = Gruul Green + White = Selesnya White + Black = Orzhov Blue + Red = Izzet Black + Green = Golgari Red + White = Boros Green + Blue = Simic The shards (introduced in Shards of Alara block, representing a color and the two colors it’s touching on the color wheel): Red + green + black = Jund White + green + blue = Bant Black + red + blue = Grixis Green + white + red = Naya Blue + white + black = Esper The wedges (introduced in Khans of Tarkir, representing a color and the two colors it is NOT touching on the color wheel): Blue + red + white = Jeskai Red + white + black = Mardu Black + green + blue = Sultai Green + blue + red = Temur White + black + green = Abzan Four- and five-color have some informal names but nothing yet set in stone. Huxley fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Aug 6, 2022 |
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Sep 3, 2019 15:01
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Ground floor! Also just did my last omni-draft. 2 out of 3 losses had T1 duress. Sad times. 1 out of 6 wins had T1 duress, but they missed.
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Sep 3, 2019 15:08
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My last Quic k Draft loving sucked. Only game I won involved getting 2x Act of Treason in my opening hand and was able to use that to put some heavy damage on my opponent. Other than that I got loving smoked.
SalTheBard fucked around with this message at 18:24 on May 15, 2020 |
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Sep 3, 2019 15:22
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hello my favorite constructed streamer is Jim Davis and my favorite draft streamer is Numot and my favorite planeswalker streamer is Kaya
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Sep 3, 2019 16:28
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Horse: "I'm just a horse, I cannot give you any further assistance"
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Sep 3, 2019 16:53
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Funkdreamer posted:Horse: "I'm just a horse, I cannot give you any further assistance" 
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Sep 3, 2019 16:54
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The best worst part of this game is counting all your lands for an X spell without mousing over your lands so your opponent doesn't get to know that you're counting all your lands.
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Sep 3, 2019 16:55
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resistentialism posted:The best worst part of this game is counting all your lands for an X spell without mousing over your lands so your opponent doesn't get to know that you're counting all your lands. You can just like, use your eyeballs
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Sep 3, 2019 16:57
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Sometimes I get paranoid about mousing over the opponent's library or my graveyard and I'm like, what if they would have missed my plan except for that tell
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Sep 3, 2019 17:00
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The worst part is trying to remember how many differently-named lands you have left in your deck so you know how many you can sacrifice.
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Sep 3, 2019 17:01
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To continue the theme my last omnidraft was miserable, just a pile of crap with nothing good, 0-3. It was a real downer because I ran probably a good 10 drafts and my worst record prior was 4-3.
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Sep 3, 2019 17:03
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resistentialism posted:The best worst part of this game is counting all your lands for an X spell without mousing over your lands so your opponent doesn't get to know that you're counting all your lands. I wish there was a "Tap leftovers for X" feature
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Sep 3, 2019 17:03
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untapped.gg has a deck tracker app you can use to see what's still in your deck
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Sep 3, 2019 17:03
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resistentialism posted:The best worst part of this game is counting all your lands for an X spell without mousing over your lands so your opponent doesn't get to know that you're counting all your lands. Lone Goat posted:untapped.gg has a deck tracker app you can use to see what's still in your deck It also has a thing that says how many lands you have on the board so you don't have to count em up
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Sep 3, 2019 17:09
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How have I never thought of this
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Sep 3, 2019 17:14
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Doltos posted:How have I never thought of this 
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Sep 3, 2019 17:20
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zoux posted:It also has a thing that says how many lands you have on the board so you don't have to count em up HOLY poo poo
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Sep 3, 2019 17:32
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It's time to take Curious Obsession and Tempest Djinn out for their last rodeo.
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Sep 3, 2019 17:41
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I'm going to jam Ferocidon into every deck possible for the next three weeks.
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Sep 3, 2019 18:06
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Huxley posted:I'm going to jam Ferocidon into every deck possible for the next three weeks. Mono-blue Ferocidon is peak meta-buster. Trust me.
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Sep 3, 2019 18:15
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Cynic Jester posted:Mono-blue Ferocidon is peak meta-buster. Trust me. 
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Sep 3, 2019 18:19
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It wouldn't be peak meta-buster if everyone was running it. 
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Sep 3, 2019 18:40
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I'm back playing boros star of extinction decks in the casual queue, it's good.
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Sep 3, 2019 19:31
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Ya'll ready for... food tokens?
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Sep 3, 2019 20:12
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This is clearly the fault of whoever wanted to run the Horse Tribal deck.
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Sep 3, 2019 20:30
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Horses gotta eat, I don't make the rules I guess food tokens are gonna be the new treasures
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Sep 3, 2019 20:34
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3cc to take control of an opponent's creature in exchange for giving them food (assuming food is an artifact) seems pretty good?
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Sep 3, 2019 20:49
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Oko looks strong. Whatever food tokens do can help, the +1 can be used on your own 1/1 tokens to beef them up for aggro and can remove major threats your opponent has, and the -5 can help you too. I wonder if we'll get more permanents that will have a negative impact on your side of the field that would make the ult more useful.
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Sep 3, 2019 21:22
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I guess there's food in a lot of fairy tales? But the ones I can think of all seem pretty specific in their uses to justify making it a mechanic.
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Sep 3, 2019 22:15
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https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1168992065994334208 for reference, the non-showcase border vs this showcase border from a few weeks back 
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Sep 3, 2019 22:30
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I feel like it's going to be pretty jarring to go from the a theme around the ultimate battle between the planeswalkers and nicol bolas to a theme around generating food tokens to pump your fairytale minions. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Just quite a contrast.
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Sep 3, 2019 23:26
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"I went 0-3 five drafts in a row? It must be the work of..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUrkEOa1rR8
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Sep 3, 2019 23:29
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Rhaegar posted:I feel like it's going to be pretty jarring to go from the a theme around the ultimate battle between the planeswalkers and nicol bolas to a theme around generating food tokens to pump your fairytale minions. No you're right this is more jarring, but Wizards doesn't seem to get transitions.
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Sep 3, 2019 23:33
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flatluigi posted:https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1168992065994334208 That is a really busy card. I wonder how it works because I'm kinda confused on how I'm supposed to read it
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Sep 3, 2019 23:44
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I'm playing Esper Control. Opponent plays turn 3 Unmoored Ego and chooses Teferi... ... ... Timebender and concedes immediately.
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Sep 3, 2019 23:45
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Played against a dude in draft with, rare chandra, uncommon chandra, drakuseth, omnath, risen reef, and what seems like all elementals, congrats on your draft.
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Sep 3, 2019 23:46
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Veib posted:I'm playing Esper Control. Opponent plays turn 3 Unmoored Ego and chooses Teferi... I've definitely picked the wrong Nicol Bolas before This drove me up the wall in HS but it's worse in MTG, when your salty opponent ragequits out of the game and leaves you to sit there for three minutes until all the ropes have roped
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Sep 3, 2019 23:46
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Kashuno posted:That is a really busy card. I wonder how it works because I'm kinda confused on how I'm supposed to read it the non-promo version will likely have reminder text explaining what the heck is happening here
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Sep 3, 2019 23:49
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Kashuno posted:That is a really busy card. I wonder how it works because I'm kinda confused on how I'm supposed to read it Yeah, what is that Welcome Home mechanic? Oh, it’s just an activated ability they’re calling welcome home. Is that any different than a standard ability?
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Sep 3, 2019 23:50
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sephiRoth IRA posted:Yeah, what is that Welcome Home mechanic? seems like it's not an ability called "welcome home" but a sorcery called "welcome home"
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Sep 3, 2019 23:52
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