Getting Started on Arena

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hoser2
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Post by hoser2 » 4 years ago

Since my own memory is not clear, I will point and summarize

Here is an excellent resource I found in a link on the MagicArena forum on Reddit (another resource): Beginner's Guide to Magic Arena.

However, the decks you get for completing the New Player Experience (NPE) have changed. With the release of Core Set 2020, a different set of decks with cards that would not rotate with the release of Throne of Eldrane started to be given out. The above guide refers to the older NPE decks.

After you earn the new NPE decks playing against the Arena bot, you have choices. One choice is whether you want to focus on constructed decks or draft while playing constructed as little as possible. You can pursue either path by spending time or money or some middle ground including both.

The money path:
For constructed, you can buy gems to buy packs to make whatever deck you want. For drafting, you would use the gems to enter drafts.

Spending time:
You can fulfill daily quests and earn win rewards with your new incomplete collection without spending more money. Those rewards show up as "gold." The "gold" can be used to buy packs or enter "ranked" drafts. Buying packs provides cards for constructed decks. In addition, opening packs provides "wildcards" that can be used to craft desired cards of equivalent rarity. The drafts provide "gems" that can be used for further drafts. Playing out the drafts incidentally provides wins and helps fulfill quests.

You can choose a path somewhere between these two simply by spending some money. There is an initial expenditure of $5 that is particularly efficient.

For the constructed player, it is useful to establish a target deck. Mtggoldfish has a listing of the standard meta here. You can evaluate the "cost" of various decks by the number of rares and mythics used. Some people choose a deck based on minimizing the "cost." You could choose to build a less "expensive" deck to use to build your collection and then build more "expensive" decks. Knowing your target deck should guide your choice of which packs to open (maximize chance of opening a desired rares) and how to spend your wildcards.

Drafters and constructed players who choose to spend time will need to fulfill quests and may want to earn wins for fun and efficiency. Ryan Spain at Going Optimal (Twitter, Twitch) has proposed nonsense decks that have cheap cards of given colors to fulfill color quests, for example. Working with the previous generation of starter decks, I chose to make somewhat competitive decks that could steal wins without spending rare or mythic wildcards. I used cards from the starter decks, cards that I drafted (or got in packs from drafting), common and uncommon wildcards to build decks.

How can we make the starter decks more competitive? I will make a thread with the contents of the starter decks and some suggestions. Please help if you are interested. With the release of Throne of Eldrane, the solutions are not known yet.

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hoser2
Posts: 204
Joined: 4 years ago
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Post by hoser2 » 4 years ago

Here is a post by someone who built decks with the starter cards in a new account and made Platinum this season. Should give some ideas for beginners with a competitive bent,

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