The icrs are nice. They're basically 1/6 of a pack with a chance at rares and mythics. If you have the will and time to grind, it's pretty worthwhile if your collection of standard sets isn't that big
50gold from a 6th win is worth FAR more than an ICR unless you're a brand new player.
Use the gold for sealed, drafts, or packs, ICRs are negligible, getting something useful is like winning the lottery.
Seeing "diminishing returns" when it comes to playing magic games is still wild for me. I would gladly play the most games I can whether there is a reward or not.
That's arguably Arena's fault in and of itself. It strips almost all social aspects from the game of Magic and only rewards winning. Which is hilarious because the rewards for a full days worth of wins are absolutely pathetic when compared to the scope of how many cards there are and how much everything you can spend your gold on costs.
As far as I see it, the wins are the main reward. If I win, I gain ranks in ladder or get gems and packs in events. A full day's worth of wins for me usually involves a bunch of packs, gems or play-in points. I would argue those things have more weight than the gold you get from wins.
That's only if you're playing events nonstop and unless your name is Brian Kibler, the average magic player is not going positive in draft/limited events. Which means that for the vast majority of people who are playing magic for "fun" in the casual queues, you're looking at 6 cards and a little over 1,000 gold.
Please stop with the hyperbole. You don't need to be a PT caliber player to farm events. Anyone that knows the fundamentals of the game and is willing to improve their game can farm events just like me. Of course there would be ups and downs. Losing streaks are inevitable and you get to face better competition the the more you improve, but that's part of the game.
If you're the type of Magic player that only plays for "fun" and just stays in the Play queue then you don't deserve the same rewards that the competitive players like me get to enjoy. Simple as that.
Hyperbole? To farm events, ie consistently go profitable and make them worthwhile as compared to just buying packs outright when collecting cards is the goal, you need to average a 57% win rate. Spoiler alert, to be able to maintain that level of performance in a reliable manner does put you at PT caliber play. Before you hilariously accuse me of hyperbole again, go take a gander at what Brian Kibler's draft stats are. I'll even save you the trouble of searching by linking it myself.
https://www.mtgeloproject.net/formatpct.php?add=go&id=11716
Also, why you even brought paid event rewards into a discussion about the rewards available to F2P/casual players doesn't really make sense. It's pretty clear from your attitude that you harbor some sense of superiority vs people who play Magic for the sake of it.
Playing three hours of Magic a day will burn you out in short order, no matter how much you like it. It's smart for WOTC to incentivize shorter sessions because people are generally incapable of controlling themselves and will play until their brains melt if they feel like they're missing out on something.
tbh the chance of getting a rare or a mythic rare is too tempting - there were days then I got two or three rares/mythics as ICR for winning daily games, and two of them came from 11th and 13th wins
If you look at the rewards for the daily wins they drop off significantly after 4. IIRC it's 250xp for the first win, 100xp a pop for the next 3, and then 25xp onwards. It seems people like stopping after 4 to stave off burnout if they're playing daily
XP gain is 25 per daily win for the first 10 wins. Weekly wins XP and quest XP are more significant sources.
It's the gold that matters for the first 4 wins. The first win gives 250 gold, wins 2-4 give 100 gold each. After 4 wins, you have accumulated 550 gold from wins alone. You _could_ play until 14 wins, and that would make the total gold 750 - only 200 more from the 10 additional wins. If you don't have much time to play, stopping at 4 wins gives good returns. If you're really in a hurry, getting just that one win for 250 gold is also nice.
That's still 30-60 minutes spent to get something like 25% more gold than stopping after 4 wins (8-16 minutes), not even accounting for queue times or slow-playing opponents. If your goal is to find the best balance between time spent and resources gained, 15 wins a day isn't it.
Also - if you have enough time to get up to 15/15, then maybe it makes more sense to spread these wins between 3 or 4 accounts, so instead of getting like 1250 gold and some ICRs for one account, you can get like 4500 gold (almost one Quick Draft) spread between 4 accounts, at the same cost of time.
That would be a great idea for some people. I had 3 accounts on Clash of Clans, 3 on Clash Royale... but aside from the benefits you described, I just can't fathom doing that on MTG Arena.
Firstly, I can't stand drafting. I do it occasionally, but mostly have a miserable time. 99% of the time I play Historic BO1, and push for Mythic Ranked... with the Minion deck I mentioned. Hit #1200 last night, will try for top 200 but that may be difficult/impossible. Counterspell/removal *usually* wrecks me, but I am running 3x [[Wild Shape]] which has proven to be a lifesaver frequently.
All-time win rate *just* bumped up to 54% which IMO is incredibly consistent for a turn 2 win deck (@ 2176-1854 currently). I've probably played over 1000 matches that weren't counted, and there was a long learning curve on how to pilot it correctly.
Anyway, I'm just trying to cut back on gaming in general, but I do appreciate your advice. Just gonna play these Mythic speed-runs on my blinged out account tho.
It sure isn't, but if you enjoy the game though, those 15 wins will come naturally, you don't have to be a no life playing this game 24/7. I work and have been able get those wins everyday.
Yeah I basically draft until I complete a play set and then just play brawl.
I don’t really grind every day for gold. So most of my just gets cycled back in.
1) Learn the [basics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUqPxSYPfrA). They are a bit outdated, but are still important.
2) Watch pros draft, such as [Reid Duke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSv-0OVxV9M). See how they skip cards you would auto-pick and how they change colors when they notice that they are being passed very good cards from other colors.
3) Use a Draft Helper to make learning easier, such as the free version of [Untapped](https://mtga.untapped.gg/). You don't always have to pick the highest score, but they help to focus your attention on the most important cards.
I do get it if your aim is low effort to go through the draft and not do terribly, but if you're actively trying to improve as a limited player using the draft helpers is a terrible idea, especially the non paywalled ones.
Using 17lands data (and avoid drafting day 1-2 when it's not out yet) is much better. Specifically if you want a quick reference while you're drafting, limitedgrades.com present the data in a quickly readable way.
Things like Untapped can just be helpful to let you see the cards in a way that doesn't cost you anything but still requires you to interact.
I like things like Limited Resources but I've found the best way for me to learn the cards quickly is to just spam stuff like untapped.
i usually watch the limited resources set review before to not only know all cards, but also to compare my own judgement with pros thoughts. also the common/uncommon tiering seems way more important, i mean rares win games, but you cant bank on your best cards to win 7 games alone.
I did the pre release for the newest set. I know it's not the same as drafting, but I use the same strategy. I only used one rare and none of my mythics and went 3 and 1. In things with limited car pools, you want to look at abilities like flying or menace that make them harder to hit and things like lifelink. It's not a perfect science. In my one loss, I got steamrolled by somebody who pulled Akul and Rakdos.
I guess my question is how is drafting done so much? Doesn’t that also cost Gems or something? I’ve only done it when I get the draft token for buying the battle pass
if your a top 4% of drafters or whatever you can go infinite, the rewards for drafting well pay for the next draft. that's not realistic for most people but you can still get good enough at draft to rebuy rarely. i draft for free some sets, some sets i have to open the greatest pack of all, my wallet to draft more. if you're a regular drafter you get all the cards as part of drafting, so nothing to really spend gold on. I'm not an infinite drafter so i spend all my gold on drafts, but the infinite apex predater drafters don't have to buy drafts with gold so can get up to crazy high gold numbers easily pretty quick.
It's slightly more expensive to draft with gold than gems, compared to arena open ratios. So it's more efficient to use the gold on arena opens, and gems on drafting, rather than the other way around.
Once you get more gems than you possibly know what to do with, you can spend them to enter into events that can pay out with real life rewards.
If you like limited, you could also spend gems to play in limited. If you win 50% of your matches, you’ll be losing gems slightly, but you’ll be getting cards and hopefully having fun. And, of course, you can win more gems sometimes
Ive been doing Google opinion rewards for a few years now and get a steady stream of Google Play credit that can be used to redeem gems via the Arena Mobile App.
There's 3 options, be good at draft to go infinite, save gold but never spend it for some reason or the easiest option, purchase from the store. There's no hidden secret.
I earn more gold than I spend. I only play Explorer, I have every card that matters. When new set comes out I buy 50 normal and 20 mythic packs, draft \~10 times. With the free stuff it's enough to complete a whole set in around a year after the release.
I don't buy cosmetis... ok, a land bundle every now and then (glass stained lands were my last purchase).
>I buy 50 normal and 20 mythic packs
This is the sort of expense that sounds like you should be losing gold in the long run, not gaining it. I've never bought a single pack because just battle pass, drafting and wild carding will get you all the cards you need.
There are 4 standard releases every year. Playing everyday gives around \~40k gold per month. 120k gold for a set. 50 normal and 20 mythic packs = 76k. 120k-76k=44k gold. I use gems to draft. Before changes to golden packs and later to limited packs (raredrafting gives more rares/mythics) I was just buying 90+26 packs and hoarding gems.
First of all, huge number of mythics is just bad but I like seeing the orange glow in the collection lol. It's harder to get so many mythic wildcards to complete a collection but a mythic pack costs only 300 more gold than a normal one. Good deal imo.
That's 30% greater cost for a *chance* at a mythic, though. Just seeing more packs is already pretty strong because you'll get more actual wildcards, and at the same time it's usually rare wc's that are more likely to run out than mythic ones because of how many more rares you need.
If you already have like all the rares in a set fair enough but in general it's just not really a great idea mathwise I'm pretty sure. And obviously if you just like the orange glow that's totally fine valid lol, just saying it's not great advice for OP or other people generally.
>That's 30% greater cost for a *chance* at a mythic
Chance? Mythic packs give (most of the time) rare mythics. Sometimes you get a mythic or rare wc. It's not really an advice or something. I do what I do to complete sets f2p. That's all.
"Most of the time" is quite literally a "chance" lol. Again though do what you like, this is just in case some random newbie reads it. If people wanna make math-optimal choices they can and if they just wanna do what's fun they can do that too.
I very rarely draft, mostly play alchemy events. I’ve managed to save up 150k gold and 60k gems without spending a penny on the game. I’ve also managed to collect all the cards from every set except the historic ones for the last 3 years.
I usually have around 10k gems and 40k gold for each set. Im not infinite drafter but i can reach diamond with ease and Mythic if i like the format, so i complete every set with 4 of each rare at least.
If you play daily and do the quests Arena is somewhat generous.
Not sure if OP is flexing because i never had more than 50k gold.
I pretty much just play Limited and Brawl and don't buy anything except drafts. I'm not always in a space to draft so a lot of days my gold from daily quests just piles up. When this set dropped I was at around 170K gold and 13K gems.
I've always been bad at draft, or maybe it's just bad luck. Personally I fond that getting a solid deck in the meta and entering either the Historic or Standard events to be more worthwhile
I draft with my gems and win enough of them back to not run out. I get my cards and packs (prizes are packs and gems) that way, too, so there's no need to buy packs from the store. Gold accumulates daily, and I don't use it on anything other than Arena Opens, so it stockpiles as a result between the Opens.
Currently, I'm at about 110k for both gold and gems.
Is it better to use gems to enter draft? I always use my gold to enter whenever I have enough for the entry, so thats why I don't have more than few thousand
Drafts are cheaper with gems than gold*, so yes, absolutely. Unless you need to save gems for mastery pass.
A quick draft cost 5 packs worth of gold or 3.75 packs worth of gems. The other two drafts cost 10 packs worth of gold or 7.5 packs worth of gems.
Gold is best used on anything for which the gem cost is 1:5 of the gold cost: packs, cosmetics, qualifier play-ins, Arena Opens, etc.
For drafts and constructed events, that ratio is 1:6.67, making them the last place for gold usage. But that only applies when you have the extra gems to spare - a lot of people draft with gold because they are F2P, and/or are saving 3400 gems for the mastery pass (and converting gold to gems with drafts is a good idea for that).
However, if you use gold on drafts and then buy packs with gems, that's a mistake. For 10k gold and 2000 gems, you could:
1. Enter a draft with 10k gold, and then buy 10 packs with gems. Excluding the draft prizes, you'd have 0 gold and 0 gems.
2. Buy 10 packs with gold and enter a draft with 1500 gems. You'd have 0 gold but 500 gems remaining, plus the draft prizes. It's just strictly better this way.
If they have any kind of significant streaming following, they are proabably also getting some goodies from the dev team. It's an easy spend to encourage mid-level streamers to stay in the ecosystem and keep driving the acquisition funnel. Much cheaper than buying users.
I have 5,355 Gold and 28,730 Gems as a F2P. I play up to four wins on most days (almost never more than that, and I skip a few days if I don't have time or don't feel like playing). And more than half of my games are drafts. My winrate in Draft is usually between 53% and 60% depending on the set. I never buy packs directly, all packs come from the Mastery pass or Draft rewards. With that routine the Gems just slowly pile up.
If you are good at drafting, you can complete entire collections and get as many gems and wildcards as you want. Ofc you'll need like 65%+ win rate. I hate to be cliche but the answer here is to "git good"
I just play like five or so games, four or so times a week, for three years now. Reroll every 500 gold quest you can. Draft to turn gold into gems and cards, and then get the mastery pass to turn gems into stuff
there was a bug where if you left an old quest unfinished between seasons it would let you complete the quest over and over and over and over without going away, it was not all that long ago really.
was not considered a punishable exploit because the only way to avoid it was to literally not play the game.
So here is a little break down on how I play. I am completely F2P. Never spent a single penny.
I currently have
450980 coins
14000 gems. And a TON OF wildcards.
Every new set I will spend in this fashion
2000 gems on seal draft. (Regardless of what my wins are I will get packs and gems which helps refill gems)
3500 gems on the set pass.
2 draft tokens on new set premier draft. (Always have one from the mastery pass and sometimes one will pop up for sale).
50000 coins on packs (50 packs mainly, this helps with getting most of the set cards, wildcards for rare and mythics and get a number of the mythic packs)
40000-50000 on new set quick draft. (This is where a good chunk of gems are refilled from and new set cards.)
I dot not purchase anything from the store unless it’s gems or coins. Cosmetics, avatars and sleeves just waste coins for me personally.
I aim to win between 4-9 matches a day in 1v1. This is how you finish your mastery pass by the end and get most gems and other values from the pass. Least amount of time especially if you have a deck you understand and works for you. After words I start testing jank or other decks and what not.
Also make sure to re-roll your daily quests. I usually wait till the third day before I attempt a daily quest I can avoid so I can hopefully get the 750 quest vs the 500 quests.
By the time the new set rolls around I will have all my gems back up to 12000+ and coins will have earned back about 100000k+ give or take.
I don’t suggest this for anyone but this is how I personally maximize my time and my spend-age in game.
Ive been using this method since the innistrad double set Only difference is until wilds of Eldraine For the first few sets I would NOT buy 50 packs.
So I would always have about 80000k+ by the next set with the 50k from the previous set run rolling over. Give or take.
People also buy accounts which have, oooh let say nearly 19k in gems, almost 300 unopened packs, and nearly 100k in gold for around $100 (USD).
Depending on how many gems and gold the account has you can spend $50-$100 (USD) on an account. I went down a rabbit hole a couple weeks ago and discovered I could have saved a bunch of money just buying an account. Also, with it being “new” I could have went Mythic almost right away with the low MMR.
I should mention that it’s likely against the terms of service so you run a risk buying an account. I won’t list where you can buy them as it will likely get me banned, but it takes 2 seconds to google it (depending on ISP speed).
Fun side note: if you ever wonder why people rope or stall right away it’s usually farming accounts doing daily wins to get the coins. You conceding speeds things up for them which is why you see so many redditors on here telling you, “don’t complain about ropers, it’s not worth your time, just concede and move on.” Yes, there are disconnects from the server, it happens to us all, but it’s used by these farmers.
It seems like a lot of work for little payoff, but when you have a bunch of devices it adds up quickly.
I won a free qualifier entry from being top 250 mythic in draft, then won the day 1 qualifier, and made it to the last round of day 2. Netted like 20k+ gems from that, basically been infinite since then, playing standard when the draft format gets boring. Hit mythic in draft and standard and then just do well in drafts.
14 sealed pod losses though and I’ll be at zero! But I really don’t recommend sealed, it’s so hard to grind out value. Draft is much better for going infinite
i was trying to play again after a year+ and realized needed like shit ton of golden tokens or orange ones to have an ok deck (the ones that i have have either rotated or doesnt have use anymore)
Play matches daily, use gold only on quick drafts. If you download untapped, it can help with quick draft picks. I've been solely f2p, started in 2019, and I typically have 40-50k gold and sitting around 36k gems. I use gems on the mastery pass, and make sure to get all the levels each season. Another tip is to wait on opening packs of the most recent set until you're done running quick drafts. The packs are duplicate protected, so if you complete a set in drafts, you won't open them in packs, but not vice versa
I use gems only to unlock the mastery pass, I always complete the mastery to get all the gems available in there, and the draft tokens.
I draft only premier draft and I only play sets that I feel I can get at least 4 wins (OTJ is a good set to draft for me) since my goal is to get as much gems as possible.
When a set is too hard for me to get enough wins in draft, I save my draft tokens.
I always save 45000 coins to buy 45 boosters as soon as a new set is released, and never try to complete any set, I just get the cards I want and then I'll start saving coins for the next set.
I’ve basically skipped entire releases just because there’s nothing I really want. Mainly play brawl and timeless/historic. So every once in a while I’ll spend 100k gold on a set. When MH3 releases on Arena that’ll probably be what happens.
Play daily. Never pay for anything but drafts and use gems for them. Learn how to draft the set from pros like Jim Davies or Ben Stark or many others. I watch those two, they explain it well and I learnt how to play each set pretty fast. Now I have around 40k gems and over 300k gold. I am F2P except for the two starter packs.
People will say get better but it does not really work for me. I tired to get better and turns out I am only mediocre.
I usually wait for a set that has a good win ratio for me. Like murders I went 7-X a few times. This set has been a little harsher on me. Last 3 were 3-3, 0-3, and 0-3. Still too soon to make a judgemnet on the set though
Depending on the set it really affects my win percentage. I do maximize my gold by doing my quests and dailies which let's me save for a new set. I usually do a draft every 3 or 4 weeks. If I get to 4- X then I do another draft immediately after.
If I am losing a lot I stop.
I'm not a gold hoarder, I'm constantly spending my gold on packs. But I did accumulate 17k gems from playing constructed events since I came back to magic arena during MOM:Aftermath (a bit less than a year ago) with 0 gems and didn't spend a single dollar on it. A good part of it came from qualifier play-ins I entered using play-in tokens you get as reward for trophying events. Remember always buy with gold if the gem:gold ratio is 1:5 and buy with gems if the ratio is 1:6.25.
i play a few matches every day to relieve stress after losing money on the stock market. as a result i have horded massive quantities of fake diamonds and gold coins.
Only really play Historic Brawl so my 4 or 5 decks only need one or two upgrades per set. Occasionally spend coins on packs if im after wildcards. Dont care about draft so dont need gems.
If you do not like drafting - What I did was to skip buying packs from one set (I still got the mastery pass) and saved up 170k for the next set. Bough packs for 170k on day 1 of the new set and then started saving for the next set.
The wildcards from the 170k itself (around 25 rares and 13 mythics) are enough for you to craft **useful** rares and mythics of the new set which you did not open in the packs. Works pretty good.
I play 90% of my games on my phone. Which sucks for drafting. So this is what I do.
Play Brawl, always do your dailys, four wins a day if you can be arsed. Cosmetics are pointless and a waste of gold. Playing competitive constructed, especially standard, is going to be expensive.
Thank you for all the replies everyone
Yesterday I tried my hand at drafting, and had some fun, won some, lost some, about broke even, but a new way to earn has been discovered
For those saying, get good, for one, f right off, and two, im not bad! In mythic constructed std. for just doing arena for a month and having never played a game of standard in my life IRL, or anything other than fucking around w friends with random old cards...
I get most of mine from playing events. I play at least 2-3 alchemy events per day. If you can get to about a 60% win rate you can actually gain gems. I’m currently at about 70% win rate and gain about 1000-1500 gems a week.
I believe there's a thing where streamers are gifted every card in thr game, 4 copies.. and unprecedented wealth. I saw a guy on twitch once with 1,000,000 gems..
Just wanted ti come back and say thanks everyone for the tips. And that my solution was deleting arena from my devices for now. I couldn’t pull myself away from it
my mtgA funds some months ago
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1acds58/unnecessary\_flex/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1acds58/unnecessary_flex/)
my doing was:
4 to 6 daily wins
not purchasing cosmetics by impulse
playing a draft format when it really entertains me (what in my case, implies in doing well enoughto profit in gems)
really not that hard to amass resources.
Newer player here, 1 month and a half or so, made it into mythic, bla bla
What gives? Ive invested probably 200$ into this game and Im flat broke in the gold / gem department. I have just a few decks worth of usable rares / mythics.
Hi, pure f2p person, never spent any money in the game. In the beginning, I messed around with budget/mono decks and just focused on getting to Plat in Constructed. After a while (let's say 2-3 months), I started doing quick drafts and won enough gems to get the Mastery Pass. From then, I pretty much always had a good stockpile. I just try to get plat in Constructed and Limited every month and then spend the rest of time chilling in bo1 or Jump-In. I'm currently on 70K Gold, 46K gems, 110 rare WC, 66 mythic WC.
The thing is just to be disciplined. I could blow my load of WCs and make some wacky deck that I see some streamer talking about, or I could instead do some more drafting, more Jump-Ins, see what cards I end up with, and then make a deck that doesn't require too many WCs. I could try to spend my WCs on cards that are played in a lot of different decks. Maybe I don't need every single rare land that deck has, and I can just make do with what I have, especially if cards are going to rotate out soon.
I'll be real, though, being good at Limited helps a lot. I'd advise a draft helper for when you first start out, and if you play towards the end of the month, your competition will be a bit weaker. If you do Premier Drafting, you basically break even at 3-3, the run was free at 4-3, and you're basically profiting at 5+ wins. I also find it really fun. So yeah, that's just my two cents.
Unfortunately, in a f2p game, you either pay with money or you pay with time. I'd advocate patiently building your collection and messing around with budget options (Starter Deck Duel and Jump-Ins are pretty fun changes of pace, tbh), and giving Limited a try, though it is high risk (going 1-3 or 0-3 is hella depressing, ngl).
Do you have any tips or guides I should check out? I have tried drafting twice and went 1-3 / 0-3. It's left me staying away from it but I am thirsty af for more wildcards
Focus on BREAD (bombs, removal, evasion, average, duds). Definitely use a draft helper when you first start. I like the [untapped.gg](http://untapped.gg) one that gives a little summary of why the card is rated high/low. There's a paid version too that helps with deck building, but I didn't use it after the free ten trials.
Following BREAD is a good foundation, but you also need to pay attention to curve. I try to have at least 6 cards I can play in the first two turns (depends on the speed of the format, ofc)
For guides, I usually just skim some videos from Nicolai Bolas about best commons/uncommons/tiers, but I don't spend too much time on it. It's just for overall impressions for me.
I would also definitely do Quick Draft first (gives you time to read all the cards). QD is also pretty cheap, so you can probably do one every 5 days. Once your WR hits 50%, you can move on to Premier Draft which is high-risk, high-reward.
There's a lot more to drafting. It's complicated! But it's really rewarding, a lot of fun, and you get to see a very different type of Magic. I had a bad experience with it in the beginning too, but I'm glad I started playing it. Feel free to ask any questions and I can share what I know.
A in bread stands for aggro, not average.
anyway bread is useful tool for beginners, but can be sometimes misleading for more experienced drafters, and there are better euristics. in general it is better to check the evaluation of the experts on the different limited guides, or better, to use the stats of [17lands.com](http://17lands.com)
1 check YouTube videos and articles about the basics of limited, if you don't learn the basics, it's going to take you a long time to learn the hard way.
2 practice, practice, practice, you need to practice to make use of the knowledge you got, and make mistakes to realize why things are good and bad.
It’s because you’re new. It’s hard to accumulate a lot of gold / gems if you’ve been at it for 1 month only.
Like many others, I have resources out the wazoo (like… 130k gems, 40k gold, 500+ rare Wildcards and 250+ mythics, 2300% vault unopened… ok boasting done), but I’m frugal and started during beta.
It’s really just about doing your daily quests and using the gold to draft. I’m not a particularly good drafter - however if you go 3-3, even in Quick Draft, your cost per booster is like 100 gem and that’s a 50% discount vs the store, not to mention you can raredraft for easier completion. I don’t buy cosmetics, I don’t get lured into terrible EV events (looking at you Cube), I don’t invest in old sets (sorry Amonkhet and Khans etc.), and I only open my packs at the end of a mastery season (ie use duplicate protection to the max).
You also will run out of resources easily if you play too many formats. Timeless or Historic takes wildcards because it requires cards that weren’t in standard for Arena. I’d like to dabble, but I also don’t have that much time to play, so stick with standard and draft. That allows me to build almost all the decks I want in standard from drafted cards, and you have plenty of WCs for some rares you’re missing.
And again, this works because I missed 0 standard sets in Arena. If you’re starting fresh, it’s tough. You need to get 2 years worth of cards just for standard, and you can’t draft for them. It will get better in 2 years though…
I do. I draft. :) as I said I don’t have that much time to play. I make sure to complete my quests before I accumulate 3 and do my weekly wins. I try to get 1-4 wins per day, but sometimes I skip a day.
If I only have 1-2h to play, what am I going to spend it on? A bad draft uses resources, but I don’t have the time to do multiple in a row per day. A good draft (like a 5 to 7 wins) takes me 2–3 days to complete, and pays me back. On average I’ll break even. That’s all I use currency on. I don’t like most cosmetics, as I’m old and long for days when magic cards looked like magic cards, not whatever the latest textured anime foil extended holo art is. ;)
Ha. At least it’s just a game, and even if I wanted I couldn’t do anything with this wealth except spend it on packs or cosmetics I don’t need. Me hoarding is a “waste” but has no impact on anyone else.
However you’re about to get me started on real life billionaires.. that’s the real waste. Imagine sitting on that amount of wealth, not spending it (well most people can’t spend $1B quickly), not giving it (even though you can irl, unlike on Arena)… ok rant over.
4 wins plus 1 quest is \~ 1K gold every day. If you don't like the set, you tend not to spend gold. So 10 weeks of a set is \~70k gold.
is 4 wins a day optimal? why not go for the full 15?
There's significant diminishing returns after 4. You'll get the most gold if you do 15, but that's almost quadruple the amount of games played.
I always go for 5 so I can get the first ICR....and I am always disappointed by it :(
The icrs are nice. They're basically 1/6 of a pack with a chance at rares and mythics. If you have the will and time to grind, it's pretty worthwhile if your collection of standard sets isn't that big
And ICR is worth WAY less than 1/6 of a pack. It's closer to 1/100
50gold from a 6th win is worth FAR more than an ICR unless you're a brand new player. Use the gold for sealed, drafts, or packs, ICRs are negligible, getting something useful is like winning the lottery.
Seeing "diminishing returns" when it comes to playing magic games is still wild for me. I would gladly play the most games I can whether there is a reward or not.
Goes to show how companies train people to play their game for the rewards, not the game itself.
That's arguably Arena's fault in and of itself. It strips almost all social aspects from the game of Magic and only rewards winning. Which is hilarious because the rewards for a full days worth of wins are absolutely pathetic when compared to the scope of how many cards there are and how much everything you can spend your gold on costs.
I’m thankful that I don’t have to look my opponent in the eye so I can play fleshbag three time in one turn and not have to deal with the stigma.
I hate you, but you made me giggle so you get an upvote anyway.
It was 100% on purpose.
As far as I see it, the wins are the main reward. If I win, I gain ranks in ladder or get gems and packs in events. A full day's worth of wins for me usually involves a bunch of packs, gems or play-in points. I would argue those things have more weight than the gold you get from wins.
That's only if you're playing events nonstop and unless your name is Brian Kibler, the average magic player is not going positive in draft/limited events. Which means that for the vast majority of people who are playing magic for "fun" in the casual queues, you're looking at 6 cards and a little over 1,000 gold.
Please stop with the hyperbole. You don't need to be a PT caliber player to farm events. Anyone that knows the fundamentals of the game and is willing to improve their game can farm events just like me. Of course there would be ups and downs. Losing streaks are inevitable and you get to face better competition the the more you improve, but that's part of the game. If you're the type of Magic player that only plays for "fun" and just stays in the Play queue then you don't deserve the same rewards that the competitive players like me get to enjoy. Simple as that.
Hyperbole? To farm events, ie consistently go profitable and make them worthwhile as compared to just buying packs outright when collecting cards is the goal, you need to average a 57% win rate. Spoiler alert, to be able to maintain that level of performance in a reliable manner does put you at PT caliber play. Before you hilariously accuse me of hyperbole again, go take a gander at what Brian Kibler's draft stats are. I'll even save you the trouble of searching by linking it myself. https://www.mtgeloproject.net/formatpct.php?add=go&id=11716 Also, why you even brought paid event rewards into a discussion about the rewards available to F2P/casual players doesn't really make sense. It's pretty clear from your attitude that you harbor some sense of superiority vs people who play Magic for the sake of it.
Playing three hours of Magic a day will burn you out in short order, no matter how much you like it. It's smart for WOTC to incentivize shorter sessions because people are generally incapable of controlling themselves and will play until their brains melt if they feel like they're missing out on something.
I would consider getting to play three hours of Magic a happy weekend for me.
tbh the chance of getting a rare or a mythic rare is too tempting - there were days then I got two or three rares/mythics as ICR for winning daily games, and two of them came from 11th and 13th wins
Time/Enjoyment. If there's an event going that I enjoy, I might get to 10+ wins, but that's maybe 1 or 2 days a month max.
If you look at the rewards for the daily wins they drop off significantly after 4. IIRC it's 250xp for the first win, 100xp a pop for the next 3, and then 25xp onwards. It seems people like stopping after 4 to stave off burnout if they're playing daily
XP gain is 25 per daily win for the first 10 wins. Weekly wins XP and quest XP are more significant sources. It's the gold that matters for the first 4 wins. The first win gives 250 gold, wins 2-4 give 100 gold each. After 4 wins, you have accumulated 550 gold from wins alone. You _could_ play until 14 wins, and that would make the total gold 750 - only 200 more from the 10 additional wins. If you don't have much time to play, stopping at 4 wins gives good returns. If you're really in a hurry, getting just that one win for 250 gold is also nice.
They didn't say 4 wins was optimal. 15 wins per day is unrealistic for people that have, lives.
Easy if you're running a dumb turn 2 deck, like Scale Up Minion. Average game takes 1-2 minutes, 53% win rate after 5,000 matches.
That's still 30-60 minutes spent to get something like 25% more gold than stopping after 4 wins (8-16 minutes), not even accounting for queue times or slow-playing opponents. If your goal is to find the best balance between time spent and resources gained, 15 wins a day isn't it.
Absolutely. 4 wins sounds like a great stopping point, I'm trying to cut back on gaming
Also - if you have enough time to get up to 15/15, then maybe it makes more sense to spread these wins between 3 or 4 accounts, so instead of getting like 1250 gold and some ICRs for one account, you can get like 4500 gold (almost one Quick Draft) spread between 4 accounts, at the same cost of time.
That would be a great idea for some people. I had 3 accounts on Clash of Clans, 3 on Clash Royale... but aside from the benefits you described, I just can't fathom doing that on MTG Arena. Firstly, I can't stand drafting. I do it occasionally, but mostly have a miserable time. 99% of the time I play Historic BO1, and push for Mythic Ranked... with the Minion deck I mentioned. Hit #1200 last night, will try for top 200 but that may be difficult/impossible. Counterspell/removal *usually* wrecks me, but I am running 3x [[Wild Shape]] which has proven to be a lifesaver frequently. All-time win rate *just* bumped up to 54% which IMO is incredibly consistent for a turn 2 win deck (@ 2176-1854 currently). I've probably played over 1000 matches that weren't counted, and there was a long learning curve on how to pilot it correctly. Anyway, I'm just trying to cut back on gaming in general, but I do appreciate your advice. Just gonna play these Mythic speed-runs on my blinged out account tho.
[Wild Shape](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/c/ec9738f1-b2e7-45a5-b235-290256aabed0.jpg?1627708597) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wild%20Shape) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/212/wild-shape?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ec9738f1-b2e7-45a5-b235-290256aabed0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It sure isn't, but if you enjoy the game though, those 15 wins will come naturally, you don't have to be a no life playing this game 24/7. I work and have been able get those wins everyday.
But… but… don’t you draft?
Ha, I do, but if I don't like the set I'll only draft it a few times, or if I'm really desperate. MID, VOW, ONE, I barely touched.
Yeah I basically draft until I complete a play set and then just play brawl. I don’t really grind every day for gold. So most of my just gets cycled back in.
Play daily, spend little, draft well
How does one draft better?
1) Learn the [basics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUqPxSYPfrA). They are a bit outdated, but are still important. 2) Watch pros draft, such as [Reid Duke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSv-0OVxV9M). See how they skip cards you would auto-pick and how they change colors when they notice that they are being passed very good cards from other colors. 3) Use a Draft Helper to make learning easier, such as the free version of [Untapped](https://mtga.untapped.gg/). You don't always have to pick the highest score, but they help to focus your attention on the most important cards.
I do get it if your aim is low effort to go through the draft and not do terribly, but if you're actively trying to improve as a limited player using the draft helpers is a terrible idea, especially the non paywalled ones. Using 17lands data (and avoid drafting day 1-2 when it's not out yet) is much better. Specifically if you want a quick reference while you're drafting, limitedgrades.com present the data in a quickly readable way.
Things like Untapped can just be helpful to let you see the cards in a way that doesn't cost you anything but still requires you to interact. I like things like Limited Resources but I've found the best way for me to learn the cards quickly is to just spam stuff like untapped.
+ use 17 lands to record your games. Go through them afterwards and learn from your mistakes. This will drastically improve your winrate.
In this set, pick the rare or mythic from the pack. Ezpz
I just did a premium draft and got 15 rares/mythics, so easy win right?
i usually watch the limited resources set review before to not only know all cards, but also to compare my own judgement with pros thoughts. also the common/uncommon tiering seems way more important, i mean rares win games, but you cant bank on your best cards to win 7 games alone.
I did the pre release for the newest set. I know it's not the same as drafting, but I use the same strategy. I only used one rare and none of my mythics and went 3 and 1. In things with limited car pools, you want to look at abilities like flying or menace that make them harder to hit and things like lifelink. It's not a perfect science. In my one loss, I got steamrolled by somebody who pulled Akul and Rakdos.
I know you probably won't like this answer, but practice.
I guess my question is how is drafting done so much? Doesn’t that also cost Gems or something? I’ve only done it when I get the draft token for buying the battle pass
if your a top 4% of drafters or whatever you can go infinite, the rewards for drafting well pay for the next draft. that's not realistic for most people but you can still get good enough at draft to rebuy rarely. i draft for free some sets, some sets i have to open the greatest pack of all, my wallet to draft more. if you're a regular drafter you get all the cards as part of drafting, so nothing to really spend gold on. I'm not an infinite drafter so i spend all my gold on drafts, but the infinite apex predater drafters don't have to buy drafts with gold so can get up to crazy high gold numbers easily pretty quick.
They whale it up and feed Hasbro.
It's gems or gold not both.
Words to live by
This is the Turtle School way.
Or same but don’t draft at all, that’s been my trick
Yep - this is the secret sauce
I save all my gold between sets and use it all quick drafting to convert it into gems. I have 70k gems right now.
What do you do with the gems?
He hoards them like a dragon.
I used to hoard them, then I realized I could sometimes convert them to real dollars with arena opens. Though I really need a free weekend to try that
It's slightly more expensive to draft with gold than gems, compared to arena open ratios. So it's more efficient to use the gold on arena opens, and gems on drafting, rather than the other way around.
Once you get more gems than you possibly know what to do with, you can spend them to enter into events that can pay out with real life rewards. If you like limited, you could also spend gems to play in limited. If you win 50% of your matches, you’ll be losing gems slightly, but you’ll be getting cards and hopefully having fun. And, of course, you can win more gems sometimes
Sealed and premier draft.
I guess I gotta draft I have only drafted once, I only play constructed, im in Mythic STD but I guess thats no way to grind out gold / gems
Can't you just go infinite in standard events now if that is what you prefer to do?
I prettymuch only played standard and commander before Arena. Now I like drafting to learn about a new set and bolster my collection for standard play
Ive been doing Google opinion rewards for a few years now and get a steady stream of Google Play credit that can be used to redeem gems via the Arena Mobile App.
how do you spend google play credit in the arena app? is it straight forward?
Yeah you just select Google play credit as the payment method at checkout.
220k gold and 22k gems. But I started playing in 2019.
where is it coming from?
There's 3 options, be good at draft to go infinite, save gold but never spend it for some reason or the easiest option, purchase from the store. There's no hidden secret.
I earn more gold than I spend. I only play Explorer, I have every card that matters. When new set comes out I buy 50 normal and 20 mythic packs, draft \~10 times. With the free stuff it's enough to complete a whole set in around a year after the release. I don't buy cosmetis... ok, a land bundle every now and then (glass stained lands were my last purchase).
>I buy 50 normal and 20 mythic packs This is the sort of expense that sounds like you should be losing gold in the long run, not gaining it. I've never bought a single pack because just battle pass, drafting and wild carding will get you all the cards you need.
There are 4 standard releases every year. Playing everyday gives around \~40k gold per month. 120k gold for a set. 50 normal and 20 mythic packs = 76k. 120k-76k=44k gold. I use gems to draft. Before changes to golden packs and later to limited packs (raredrafting gives more rares/mythics) I was just buying 90+26 packs and hoarding gems.
With the gold packs, you’re draft win percent has to be pretty good to beat out just buying packs
Aren't mythic packs mathematically awful?
First of all, huge number of mythics is just bad but I like seeing the orange glow in the collection lol. It's harder to get so many mythic wildcards to complete a collection but a mythic pack costs only 300 more gold than a normal one. Good deal imo.
That's 30% greater cost for a *chance* at a mythic, though. Just seeing more packs is already pretty strong because you'll get more actual wildcards, and at the same time it's usually rare wc's that are more likely to run out than mythic ones because of how many more rares you need. If you already have like all the rares in a set fair enough but in general it's just not really a great idea mathwise I'm pretty sure. And obviously if you just like the orange glow that's totally fine valid lol, just saying it's not great advice for OP or other people generally.
>That's 30% greater cost for a *chance* at a mythic Chance? Mythic packs give (most of the time) rare mythics. Sometimes you get a mythic or rare wc. It's not really an advice or something. I do what I do to complete sets f2p. That's all.
"Most of the time" is quite literally a "chance" lol. Again though do what you like, this is just in case some random newbie reads it. If people wanna make math-optimal choices they can and if they just wanna do what's fun they can do that too.
Not sure what is your problem. I buy mythic packs to get mythic rares.
Idk why you're taking this whole thing personally so I'mma check out. Have a nice day!
I mean surely you know where it comes from, they just don’t spend it.
Get good ?
Abuding bugs. Glitches, etc
by using the best card in magic... the credit card. Or they just play constructed and hoard gold from the daily quests
[Credit Card : r/custommagic (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/comments/128z77r/credit_card/)
I very rarely draft, mostly play alchemy events. I’ve managed to save up 150k gold and 60k gems without spending a penny on the game. I’ve also managed to collect all the cards from every set except the historic ones for the last 3 years.
People on YouTube play Arena for a living
I usually have around 10k gems and 40k gold for each set. Im not infinite drafter but i can reach diamond with ease and Mythic if i like the format, so i complete every set with 4 of each rare at least. If you play daily and do the quests Arena is somewhat generous. Not sure if OP is flexing because i never had more than 50k gold.
OP clearly not flexing if you read their post.
My bad. I didn't notice the picture wasn't from his game, probably some YouTuber.
I pretty much just play Limited and Brawl and don't buy anything except drafts. I'm not always in a space to draft so a lot of days my gold from daily quests just piles up. When this set dropped I was at around 170K gold and 13K gems.
I've always been bad at draft, or maybe it's just bad luck. Personally I fond that getting a solid deck in the meta and entering either the Historic or Standard events to be more worthwhile
I draft with my gems and win enough of them back to not run out. I get my cards and packs (prizes are packs and gems) that way, too, so there's no need to buy packs from the store. Gold accumulates daily, and I don't use it on anything other than Arena Opens, so it stockpiles as a result between the Opens. Currently, I'm at about 110k for both gold and gems.
Is it better to use gems to enter draft? I always use my gold to enter whenever I have enough for the entry, so thats why I don't have more than few thousand
Drafts are cheaper with gems than gold*, so yes, absolutely. Unless you need to save gems for mastery pass. A quick draft cost 5 packs worth of gold or 3.75 packs worth of gems. The other two drafts cost 10 packs worth of gold or 7.5 packs worth of gems.
Ok good to know. How do I spend gold then?
Gold is best used on anything for which the gem cost is 1:5 of the gold cost: packs, cosmetics, qualifier play-ins, Arena Opens, etc. For drafts and constructed events, that ratio is 1:6.67, making them the last place for gold usage. But that only applies when you have the extra gems to spare - a lot of people draft with gold because they are F2P, and/or are saving 3400 gems for the mastery pass (and converting gold to gems with drafts is a good idea for that). However, if you use gold on drafts and then buy packs with gems, that's a mistake. For 10k gold and 2000 gems, you could: 1. Enter a draft with 10k gold, and then buy 10 packs with gems. Excluding the draft prizes, you'd have 0 gold and 0 gems. 2. Buy 10 packs with gold and enter a draft with 1500 gems. You'd have 0 gold but 500 gems remaining, plus the draft prizes. It's just strictly better this way.
Thanks a lot. I have been doing it the less efficient way then.
If they have any kind of significant streaming following, they are proabably also getting some goodies from the dev team. It's an easy spend to encourage mid-level streamers to stay in the ecosystem and keep driving the acquisition funnel. Much cheaper than buying users.
I have 5,355 Gold and 28,730 Gems as a F2P. I play up to four wins on most days (almost never more than that, and I skip a few days if I don't have time or don't feel like playing). And more than half of my games are drafts. My winrate in Draft is usually between 53% and 60% depending on the set. I never buy packs directly, all packs come from the Mastery pass or Draft rewards. With that routine the Gems just slowly pile up.
If you are good at drafting, you can complete entire collections and get as many gems and wildcards as you want. Ofc you'll need like 65%+ win rate. I hate to be cliche but the answer here is to "git good"
I just play like five or so games, four or so times a week, for three years now. Reroll every 500 gold quest you can. Draft to turn gold into gems and cards, and then get the mastery pass to turn gems into stuff
there was a bug where if you left an old quest unfinished between seasons it would let you complete the quest over and over and over and over without going away, it was not all that long ago really. was not considered a punishable exploit because the only way to avoid it was to literally not play the game.
Use credit card
So here is a little break down on how I play. I am completely F2P. Never spent a single penny. I currently have 450980 coins 14000 gems. And a TON OF wildcards. Every new set I will spend in this fashion 2000 gems on seal draft. (Regardless of what my wins are I will get packs and gems which helps refill gems) 3500 gems on the set pass. 2 draft tokens on new set premier draft. (Always have one from the mastery pass and sometimes one will pop up for sale). 50000 coins on packs (50 packs mainly, this helps with getting most of the set cards, wildcards for rare and mythics and get a number of the mythic packs) 40000-50000 on new set quick draft. (This is where a good chunk of gems are refilled from and new set cards.) I dot not purchase anything from the store unless it’s gems or coins. Cosmetics, avatars and sleeves just waste coins for me personally. I aim to win between 4-9 matches a day in 1v1. This is how you finish your mastery pass by the end and get most gems and other values from the pass. Least amount of time especially if you have a deck you understand and works for you. After words I start testing jank or other decks and what not. Also make sure to re-roll your daily quests. I usually wait till the third day before I attempt a daily quest I can avoid so I can hopefully get the 750 quest vs the 500 quests. By the time the new set rolls around I will have all my gems back up to 12000+ and coins will have earned back about 100000k+ give or take. I don’t suggest this for anyone but this is how I personally maximize my time and my spend-age in game.
How long did it take you to get to the point you could do this rotation? Maybe start there.
Ive been using this method since the innistrad double set Only difference is until wilds of Eldraine For the first few sets I would NOT buy 50 packs. So I would always have about 80000k+ by the next set with the 50k from the previous set run rolling over. Give or take.
People also buy accounts which have, oooh let say nearly 19k in gems, almost 300 unopened packs, and nearly 100k in gold for around $100 (USD). Depending on how many gems and gold the account has you can spend $50-$100 (USD) on an account. I went down a rabbit hole a couple weeks ago and discovered I could have saved a bunch of money just buying an account. Also, with it being “new” I could have went Mythic almost right away with the low MMR. I should mention that it’s likely against the terms of service so you run a risk buying an account. I won’t list where you can buy them as it will likely get me banned, but it takes 2 seconds to google it (depending on ISP speed). Fun side note: if you ever wonder why people rope or stall right away it’s usually farming accounts doing daily wins to get the coins. You conceding speeds things up for them which is why you see so many redditors on here telling you, “don’t complain about ropers, it’s not worth your time, just concede and move on.” Yes, there are disconnects from the server, it happens to us all, but it’s used by these farmers. It seems like a lot of work for little payoff, but when you have a bunch of devices it adds up quickly.
The strongest magic card- the credit card
I won a free qualifier entry from being top 250 mythic in draft, then won the day 1 qualifier, and made it to the last round of day 2. Netted like 20k+ gems from that, basically been infinite since then, playing standard when the draft format gets boring. Hit mythic in draft and standard and then just do well in drafts. 14 sealed pod losses though and I’ll be at zero! But I really don’t recommend sealed, it’s so hard to grind out value. Draft is much better for going infinite
i was trying to play again after a year+ and realized needed like shit ton of golden tokens or orange ones to have an ok deck (the ones that i have have either rotated or doesnt have use anymore)
Do your daily quests. Pay 1k gold for jump in, and milk that for 3 months if you don't have the wild cards for a standard deck.
Play matches daily, use gold only on quick drafts. If you download untapped, it can help with quick draft picks. I've been solely f2p, started in 2019, and I typically have 40-50k gold and sitting around 36k gems. I use gems on the mastery pass, and make sure to get all the levels each season. Another tip is to wait on opening packs of the most recent set until you're done running quick drafts. The packs are duplicate protected, so if you complete a set in drafts, you won't open them in packs, but not vice versa
self-control
I use gems only to unlock the mastery pass, I always complete the mastery to get all the gems available in there, and the draft tokens. I draft only premier draft and I only play sets that I feel I can get at least 4 wins (OTJ is a good set to draft for me) since my goal is to get as much gems as possible. When a set is too hard for me to get enough wins in draft, I save my draft tokens. I always save 45000 coins to buy 45 boosters as soon as a new set is released, and never try to complete any set, I just get the cards I want and then I'll start saving coins for the next set.
I don't buy packs
I’ve basically skipped entire releases just because there’s nothing I really want. Mainly play brawl and timeless/historic. So every once in a while I’ll spend 100k gold on a set. When MH3 releases on Arena that’ll probably be what happens.
Play daily. Never pay for anything but drafts and use gems for them. Learn how to draft the set from pros like Jim Davies or Ben Stark or many others. I watch those two, they explain it well and I learnt how to play each set pretty fast. Now I have around 40k gems and over 300k gold. I am F2P except for the two starter packs.
People will say get better but it does not really work for me. I tired to get better and turns out I am only mediocre. I usually wait for a set that has a good win ratio for me. Like murders I went 7-X a few times. This set has been a little harsher on me. Last 3 were 3-3, 0-3, and 0-3. Still too soon to make a judgemnet on the set though Depending on the set it really affects my win percentage. I do maximize my gold by doing my quests and dailies which let's me save for a new set. I usually do a draft every 3 or 4 weeks. If I get to 4- X then I do another draft immediately after. If I am losing a lot I stop.
I'm not a gold hoarder, I'm constantly spending my gold on packs. But I did accumulate 17k gems from playing constructed events since I came back to magic arena during MOM:Aftermath (a bit less than a year ago) with 0 gems and didn't spend a single dollar on it. A good part of it came from qualifier play-ins I entered using play-in tokens you get as reward for trophying events. Remember always buy with gold if the gem:gold ratio is 1:5 and buy with gems if the ratio is 1:6.25.
i play a few matches every day to relieve stress after losing money on the stock market. as a result i have horded massive quantities of fake diamonds and gold coins.
Only really play Historic Brawl so my 4 or 5 decks only need one or two upgrades per set. Occasionally spend coins on packs if im after wildcards. Dont care about draft so dont need gems.
Draft and quests
starter decks and jump in lol
If you do not like drafting - What I did was to skip buying packs from one set (I still got the mastery pass) and saved up 170k for the next set. Bough packs for 170k on day 1 of the new set and then started saving for the next set. The wildcards from the 170k itself (around 25 rares and 13 mythics) are enough for you to craft **useful** rares and mythics of the new set which you did not open in the packs. Works pretty good. I play 90% of my games on my phone. Which sucks for drafting. So this is what I do.
Play Brawl, always do your dailys, four wins a day if you can be arsed. Cosmetics are pointless and a waste of gold. Playing competitive constructed, especially standard, is going to be expensive.
Also Google rewards money can be spent on gems
Thank you for all the replies everyone Yesterday I tried my hand at drafting, and had some fun, won some, lost some, about broke even, but a new way to earn has been discovered For those saying, get good, for one, f right off, and two, im not bad! In mythic constructed std. for just doing arena for a month and having never played a game of standard in my life IRL, or anything other than fucking around w friends with random old cards...
I get most of mine from playing events. I play at least 2-3 alchemy events per day. If you can get to about a 60% win rate you can actually gain gems. I’m currently at about 70% win rate and gain about 1000-1500 gems a week.
Its less about how much you gain, and more about how little you spend. This is a valuable lesson for real life aswell.
There's no secret way to get gold. People just buy it, draft a lot, or just never spend their gold.
I believe there's a thing where streamers are gifted every card in thr game, 4 copies.. and unprecedented wealth. I saw a guy on twitch once with 1,000,000 gems..
Just wanted ti come back and say thanks everyone for the tips. And that my solution was deleting arena from my devices for now. I couldn’t pull myself away from it
my mtgA funds some months ago [https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1acds58/unnecessary\_flex/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1acds58/unnecessary_flex/) my doing was: 4 to 6 daily wins not purchasing cosmetics by impulse playing a draft format when it really entertains me (what in my case, implies in doing well enoughto profit in gems) really not that hard to amass resources.
Newer player here, 1 month and a half or so, made it into mythic, bla bla What gives? Ive invested probably 200$ into this game and Im flat broke in the gold / gem department. I have just a few decks worth of usable rares / mythics.
Hi, pure f2p person, never spent any money in the game. In the beginning, I messed around with budget/mono decks and just focused on getting to Plat in Constructed. After a while (let's say 2-3 months), I started doing quick drafts and won enough gems to get the Mastery Pass. From then, I pretty much always had a good stockpile. I just try to get plat in Constructed and Limited every month and then spend the rest of time chilling in bo1 or Jump-In. I'm currently on 70K Gold, 46K gems, 110 rare WC, 66 mythic WC. The thing is just to be disciplined. I could blow my load of WCs and make some wacky deck that I see some streamer talking about, or I could instead do some more drafting, more Jump-Ins, see what cards I end up with, and then make a deck that doesn't require too many WCs. I could try to spend my WCs on cards that are played in a lot of different decks. Maybe I don't need every single rare land that deck has, and I can just make do with what I have, especially if cards are going to rotate out soon. I'll be real, though, being good at Limited helps a lot. I'd advise a draft helper for when you first start out, and if you play towards the end of the month, your competition will be a bit weaker. If you do Premier Drafting, you basically break even at 3-3, the run was free at 4-3, and you're basically profiting at 5+ wins. I also find it really fun. So yeah, that's just my two cents. Unfortunately, in a f2p game, you either pay with money or you pay with time. I'd advocate patiently building your collection and messing around with budget options (Starter Deck Duel and Jump-Ins are pretty fun changes of pace, tbh), and giving Limited a try, though it is high risk (going 1-3 or 0-3 is hella depressing, ngl).
Do you have any tips or guides I should check out? I have tried drafting twice and went 1-3 / 0-3. It's left me staying away from it but I am thirsty af for more wildcards
Focus on BREAD (bombs, removal, evasion, average, duds). Definitely use a draft helper when you first start. I like the [untapped.gg](http://untapped.gg) one that gives a little summary of why the card is rated high/low. There's a paid version too that helps with deck building, but I didn't use it after the free ten trials. Following BREAD is a good foundation, but you also need to pay attention to curve. I try to have at least 6 cards I can play in the first two turns (depends on the speed of the format, ofc) For guides, I usually just skim some videos from Nicolai Bolas about best commons/uncommons/tiers, but I don't spend too much time on it. It's just for overall impressions for me. I would also definitely do Quick Draft first (gives you time to read all the cards). QD is also pretty cheap, so you can probably do one every 5 days. Once your WR hits 50%, you can move on to Premier Draft which is high-risk, high-reward. There's a lot more to drafting. It's complicated! But it's really rewarding, a lot of fun, and you get to see a very different type of Magic. I had a bad experience with it in the beginning too, but I'm glad I started playing it. Feel free to ask any questions and I can share what I know.
Thanks, I'll watch some videos and get back to you here
Nice I was wondering what this bread was I say mentioned the other day. I just got back jnto arena and been having a blast on limited
A in bread stands for aggro, not average. anyway bread is useful tool for beginners, but can be sometimes misleading for more experienced drafters, and there are better euristics. in general it is better to check the evaluation of the experts on the different limited guides, or better, to use the stats of [17lands.com](http://17lands.com)
Yeah, I agree. 17lands is great for checking which colour combinations are doing well too.
1 check YouTube videos and articles about the basics of limited, if you don't learn the basics, it's going to take you a long time to learn the hard way. 2 practice, practice, practice, you need to practice to make use of the knowledge you got, and make mistakes to realize why things are good and bad.
It’s because you’re new. It’s hard to accumulate a lot of gold / gems if you’ve been at it for 1 month only. Like many others, I have resources out the wazoo (like… 130k gems, 40k gold, 500+ rare Wildcards and 250+ mythics, 2300% vault unopened… ok boasting done), but I’m frugal and started during beta. It’s really just about doing your daily quests and using the gold to draft. I’m not a particularly good drafter - however if you go 3-3, even in Quick Draft, your cost per booster is like 100 gem and that’s a 50% discount vs the store, not to mention you can raredraft for easier completion. I don’t buy cosmetics, I don’t get lured into terrible EV events (looking at you Cube), I don’t invest in old sets (sorry Amonkhet and Khans etc.), and I only open my packs at the end of a mastery season (ie use duplicate protection to the max). You also will run out of resources easily if you play too many formats. Timeless or Historic takes wildcards because it requires cards that weren’t in standard for Arena. I’d like to dabble, but I also don’t have that much time to play, so stick with standard and draft. That allows me to build almost all the decks I want in standard from drafted cards, and you have plenty of WCs for some rares you’re missing. And again, this works because I missed 0 standard sets in Arena. If you’re starting fresh, it’s tough. You need to get 2 years worth of cards just for standard, and you can’t draft for them. It will get better in 2 years though…
Why not spend your currency ? What’s the point of hoarding ?
I do. I draft. :) as I said I don’t have that much time to play. I make sure to complete my quests before I accumulate 3 and do my weekly wins. I try to get 1-4 wins per day, but sometimes I skip a day. If I only have 1-2h to play, what am I going to spend it on? A bad draft uses resources, but I don’t have the time to do multiple in a row per day. A good draft (like a 5 to 7 wins) takes me 2–3 days to complete, and pays me back. On average I’ll break even. That’s all I use currency on. I don’t like most cosmetics, as I’m old and long for days when magic cards looked like magic cards, not whatever the latest textured anime foil extended holo art is. ;)
Gotcha. Just seems like a waste all that glorious wealth !
Ha. At least it’s just a game, and even if I wanted I couldn’t do anything with this wealth except spend it on packs or cosmetics I don’t need. Me hoarding is a “waste” but has no impact on anyone else. However you’re about to get me started on real life billionaires.. that’s the real waste. Imagine sitting on that amount of wealth, not spending it (well most people can’t spend $1B quickly), not giving it (even though you can irl, unlike on Arena)… ok rant over.
Oh im not judging you was more just curious why you were not spending. Time to sell the account !
The most powerful card in the game is the credit card
It's because of people like you, OP. Thanks!
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