MTG Arena

https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena

Open beta just started for a new online MTG game called "Arena". They followed the Hearthstone format pretty closely, but with MTG rules and all of the current standard card sets.

I played some last night and will be again tonight. The gameplay is very smooth, and the options for draft are payable by either gems, which are purchased for real money, or gold which is earned through quests, just like in Hearthstone. The drafts follow MTG booster draft format, which I have always liked much better than Hearthstone's simpler arena format.

I forgot how much i missed playing this game, and this is the best online version of it to come out since MTG Online, which didnt really have any free to play options or ways to earn cards.

I hope they eventually incorporate some of the multiplayer game formats, like castle, emperor, etc, because that was another thing I was hoping would eventually be in Hearthstone, but I am sure they will never do.

Can't wait to try this.

Is it PC only or will it it have an app version too?

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Originally Posted by Jomama

Is it PC only or will it it have an app version too?

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It is PC only right now. I am pretty sure they don't have plans to do a mobile version, but that could change sometime in the future.

With Hearthstone I started on PC - moved to iPad/tablet - now back to PC because of all the overlays and addons... I think a 9in iPad is the best possible way to play a card game (fast/light/battery lasts all night) but the addons make it my last choice now :(

After playing for only a few days, spending $5 on the starter bundle (which is worth it), and doing a few Ravnica drafts, I was able to build a really good green/black "Golgari" deck:

https://mtgarena.pro/deckbuilder/48b45214e759d73

This deck is insanely good, and should be easy to build since it only has a couple of mythic rares, and a few rares. The rest are mostly uncommons. I got lucky and opened a Golgari Queen and a couple of the rares I needed like the troll and assassins trophy (one of the best removal cards ever made). I crafted the rest using wild cards, which you earn from opening packs.

I highly recommend trying to build this deck.


Edit: I changed a few things in this deck recently to give it more ability to pull cards from the graveyard, which I found very important. I was relying too much on Trolls to win me the game, but they are removal bait.

For a more budget deck that will win a lot, nothing beats mono red aggro:

https://mtgarena.pro/deckbuilder/9a63b07046526fe

If you want to practice drafting, there is a draft simulator you can use here: https://draftsim.com/

It is kinda fun just to play around with it a little bit. Ravnica is tricky to draft, because of the "guild" multi-color cards... there are only certain color combinations that are associated with the guilds. Here is how I would rank the guilds from best to worst, which should help you in drafting:

Dimir - Blk/Blu
Boros - R/W
Selesnya - G/W
Izzet - R/Blu
Golgari - G/Blk

I have been doing competitive GoR drafts using gems. They are Bo3 matches, and you need to win 3 matches to break even, which I do almost every time I play one now. When you draft, you aren't actually passing to other players, but rather "bots" that pick the best rated card and eventually they start taking into account the colors they have already. You can kinda see how this is done on the simulator.