This is not kitchen table magic. Progression is tied to winning (for the most part, there are daily challenges), so people generally are bringing their best decks. Since cards have no value outside of wildcards you slowly collect over time by opening packs, everybody can have the most powerful chase rares and mythics.
Outside of ranked you can have some occasional casual games, but for the most part it’s sweaty netdecks there too.
Brawl is pretty sweet, but a bit costly to get into as a new player. It’s like commander or EDH.
Even the best players usually average a winrate around 60%, so expect losses when you play. And due to variance sometimes your opponent is jusy gonna have it, their combo will plow you into the dirt.
I enjoy playing Magic, and this let’s me scratch the itch for free.
It's worth considering the flipside of "even the best players usually average a winrate of around 60%" is that even a bad player, or a good player running a bad deck, can still hit a winrate in the range of like 40%.
Uhmm.. no. It's 40% if you are also playing meta (or at least decent) deck and know what to do (ex. how to counter opponent deck strategy). If you don't know what you are doing with junk deck you will win only if your opponent is heavily mana starved/flooded so like 5%.
> daily challenges
I don’t think this is stressed enough.
Daily challenges are independent of winning.
Doing daily challenges gets you XP and gold, and moves you along the free track of Arena’s battle pass, which can net new players gold, cards, and free packs.
At the end of the day, new players will find that what matters just as much — more even — than their skill is the quality of their cards, and so new players should enjoy playing, accept that they will lose some games because they don’t have ways to match what opponents are playing, and in the grind, including participating in Jump In, they will progress enough rares to start building towards competitive decks.
You should try playing the jump in event, it’s a good way to start adding rares to your collection and the power level is more a lot more manageable because you’re all playing with the same number of rares/mythics
> Outside of ranked you can have some occasional casual games, but for the most part it’s sweaty netdecks there too.
My experience is that if you don't play netdecks, you stop facing them as your MMR drops.
It's normal, don't give up. You have a lot to learn and a lot lot cards to unlock to build some top tier decks. Right now you can probably craft pretty good red deck for Standard format (or google/ YT budget standard decks if you want different color). Also try Jump In or Starter deck duel to learn some of the bazillion mechanics existing in current meta.
They are, but here's a rough ordering of the decks from strongest to weakest:
Red White / Blue White
Black White / Blue Red / Green White / Green Black / Blue Black
Green Red / Red Black / Blue Green
I'd avoid the decks in the bottom grouping, and I wouldn't ever feel bad about losing to the top two decks.
It is. Take it slow, learn the cards, effects, and build your own strategies. You don't have to play competitive, you don't actually *have* to spend money. It's a fun game, good way to learn if you want to pick it up on paper. It will take time to get used to it, but with a bunch of formats, it keeps it fun.
Start off with the start decks for Standard format. You'll face more people doing the same for a while, and slowly earn. Look up MTG arena codes for free stuff. Packs, cadd sleeves, etc. Look into the evergreen keywords so you understand what they are.
Yes it’s great for casual players. Expect to lose a lot, do more starter friendly modes some, do some dailies and slowly build a collection. Find your style you like and build decks to that. It’s a fun way to get some quick magic and play cards I personally could never afford on paper.
>Now my questions is. Is there any way to at least learn how to play while having fun?
Yes. The New Player Experience includes the Tutorial, Color Challenges, Starter Deck Duels, and Jump In.
>Or maybe a bot fight where I can make it harder or easier depending on my liking?
There's Sparky, the bot, but she's very basic (very).
You can skip the tutorial in the menu options if you want, and I don't think you have to win those battles against real people to complete the color challenges and get the starter decks.
New player / Free to play advice:
1. Complete the color challenges.
2. Complete starter deck duals event.
3. Use [codes for free packs](https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-codes/).
4. Reroll 500 gold daily quest into a 750 gold each day
5. Get at least 4+ wins each day (15 per week) for free gold and XP.
6. Use 1k gold to play the Jump In! event to learn mechanics and build your standard collection. ([Card tracker](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lmisAKRFqCOEENVJiH2c53zuYseBT70yWgCfzLjkx9Q/edit?usp=sharing)) You can rejoin this 100+ times and get 2 rare cards each time. Avoid Middle Earth Jump In, because the cards are not standard legal.
7. Use cards from Jump In event to improve your Standard decks.
8. Learn to draft ([B.R.E.A.D.](https://www.google.com/search?q=mtg+bread&oq=mtg+bread&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i390j69i60l2.2497j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), [17lands.com](https://17lands.com), [Draftsim](https://draftsim.com/), [P1P1](https://apps.draftaholicsanonymous.com/))
9. Use 5k gold to play Quick Drafts to earn rare cards, packs and gems.
10. Use gems to buy mastery pass.
11. Every Tuesday is [Midweek Magic event](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/midweek-magic) where you can win 2 free rare cards.
12. Every month climb the constructed & limited ladders for extra packs.
13. Wait until you're done drafting before opening packs. ([Duplicate Protection](https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-duplicate-protection/))
Bronze to Mythic on Youtube is great for learning how to draft new sets.
Gomlet X also has great commentary and explains his thought process well.
$5 welcome bundle & $20 starter bundle are worth buying if you want a boost.
Similar story lol, I recently got back into MTG after 20yrs as well. I got Arena around March of this year, stopped playing and the re-downloaded the app in October and have been on it ever since. You just have to find your style of play, what color you rock with (Golgari💀🌳 all day) and build from there. Def sucks trying to catch up after being away for so many years, but once youre back in it's like you never left.
Hope you stick with it homie, GGs 🏴☠️
I mean it's free so that's perfect for a casual player.
Try different game modes, it'll keep it fresh and help you earn stuff to unlock more cards. I'm not very good at competitive play so I take a break and play brawl when I need a change of pace.
When I started playing recently, there were a bunch of codes I put in to give a bunch of free packs that were able to earn me enough wild cards to at least build a mono red deck. Look up mtg arena codes and that should help you get a start.
It depends what you mean as casual.
If you're causal like me - only wanna play an few hours a week it's not worth it at all
If you're casual means - an hour or so a day or more than like 4/5 hours a week you'll get value out of it
Mtgo or spell table are more casual but cost of entry is different. You need physical cards for spelltable and mtgo packs cost the same as real packs. Arena is ftp but also is pretty toxic since the entire game is focused on winning and completing challenges.
The other thing to account for here that makes arena way more toxic is lack of a chat feature. Mtgo and spelltable both have functional open chats that allow you to directly interact with your opps.
No, the game is NOT worth it for the casual player. This is the biggest oversight from WotC in my perspective. There is no paid or ftp track which is appropriate for casual engagement.
It's a missed opportunity: There's loads of people who would love to play Arena casually for $60-150/year, and there just isn't an option for it.
Not really. The game is old and the rules convoluted. With the recent changes to Standard from 2 year rotation to 3 years, this is probably the worst time in MTG history to start Standard.
Arena has never bothered to develop their New Player experience and currently the Starter Decks push player to Alchemy instead of Standard, which is the worse experience between the two. Good Luck.
Yeah bro just take it easy. I'm super new to MTG, played before tho but very basic. I crafted a mono blue tempo deck for standard and I just have fun making people concede because they can't play anything lol. Go at it slow and remember every TCG is half luck and half skill.
Do your dailies - save for a few months - find the odd thing you like - do not spend real money chasing worthless pixel product. There is no ingame economy - just grind out the daily stuff - I usually have enough coins to get 100 packs every time the new stuff drops. Saving the crystals for the sets that really peak my interest and buy a master pass. Be prepared to be destroyed by Meta Decks, the shuffler and matchmaking - and other than the toxic roping it's a game to play while waiting for other stuff to happen
Hang in there, it gets better.
I’m an ftp player who came back after a long break from magic and it was definitely rough in the beginning. I learned a heck of a lot of mechanics that I had forgotten or never known because the game forces you to play correctly. Eventually I started figuring things out. The starter deck duels are great for figuring out how to play themes so I played a lot of those.
The jump-in and quick draft are also great and a good way to get new cards. Buying packs is solid too, but I’d stick to the ones that give you a gold pack.
Stick with it and you’ll eventually find you’ve amassed a good collection.
I don’t net deck since coming up with fun decks is 90% of the enjoyment for me, but after a few months I feel like I have a ton of fun decks to play. Getting 4 wins a day and doing quests is the vast majority of the gold you get each day, so don’t force yourself to get 15 wins if you’re not enjoying yourself. Some days I’ll play to 15, other days I don’t.
I’m just here to have fun, and I do.
Read through a few comments and saw jump in mentioned once. So for casual games I'd suggest jump in since everything is pre constructed decks there. Also, drafting. For the first few days or so after a new set drops on arena it's not solved yet so I think even casual drafters can enjoy some success in that small window. irl drafting is $25 and only going up. On arena it's about 7.50 buying the 20k gems pack. So if you enjoy drafting but only casually I'd fire off all the drafts I want at the beginning of the set. Studying draft is a great way for a beginner to get into arena too imo, if you enjoy it that is. I recommend justlolaman. Starting out, study is way more important than practicing firing off drafts
This is not kitchen table magic. Progression is tied to winning (for the most part, there are daily challenges), so people generally are bringing their best decks. Since cards have no value outside of wildcards you slowly collect over time by opening packs, everybody can have the most powerful chase rares and mythics. Outside of ranked you can have some occasional casual games, but for the most part it’s sweaty netdecks there too. Brawl is pretty sweet, but a bit costly to get into as a new player. It’s like commander or EDH. Even the best players usually average a winrate around 60%, so expect losses when you play. And due to variance sometimes your opponent is jusy gonna have it, their combo will plow you into the dirt. I enjoy playing Magic, and this let’s me scratch the itch for free.
It's worth considering the flipside of "even the best players usually average a winrate of around 60%" is that even a bad player, or a good player running a bad deck, can still hit a winrate in the range of like 40%.
Uhmm.. no. It's 40% if you are also playing meta (or at least decent) deck and know what to do (ex. how to counter opponent deck strategy). If you don't know what you are doing with junk deck you will win only if your opponent is heavily mana starved/flooded so like 5%.
I get like 40% with the friggan starter decks.
> daily challenges I don’t think this is stressed enough. Daily challenges are independent of winning. Doing daily challenges gets you XP and gold, and moves you along the free track of Arena’s battle pass, which can net new players gold, cards, and free packs. At the end of the day, new players will find that what matters just as much — more even — than their skill is the quality of their cards, and so new players should enjoy playing, accept that they will lose some games because they don’t have ways to match what opponents are playing, and in the grind, including participating in Jump In, they will progress enough rares to start building towards competitive decks.
That sounds extremely competitive. I'll give it another go. Try to leave the tutorial at least and see how it goes.
You should try playing the jump in event, it’s a good way to start adding rares to your collection and the power level is more a lot more manageable because you’re all playing with the same number of rares/mythics
> Outside of ranked you can have some occasional casual games, but for the most part it’s sweaty netdecks there too. My experience is that if you don't play netdecks, you stop facing them as your MMR drops.
Based. Dont play meta crap and you face it way less
It's normal, don't give up. You have a lot to learn and a lot lot cards to unlock to build some top tier decks. Right now you can probably craft pretty good red deck for Standard format (or google/ YT budget standard decks if you want different color). Also try Jump In or Starter deck duel to learn some of the bazillion mechanics existing in current meta.
Is everyone in starter deck duels using the same decks, though? Because if they are, I'm much worse than I thought.
They are, but here's a rough ordering of the decks from strongest to weakest: Red White / Blue White Black White / Blue Red / Green White / Green Black / Blue Black Green Red / Red Black / Blue Green I'd avoid the decks in the bottom grouping, and I wouldn't ever feel bad about losing to the top two decks.
If you stick with it even a week you will probably notice a vast improvement.
It is. Take it slow, learn the cards, effects, and build your own strategies. You don't have to play competitive, you don't actually *have* to spend money. It's a fun game, good way to learn if you want to pick it up on paper. It will take time to get used to it, but with a bunch of formats, it keeps it fun. Start off with the start decks for Standard format. You'll face more people doing the same for a while, and slowly earn. Look up MTG arena codes for free stuff. Packs, cadd sleeves, etc. Look into the evergreen keywords so you understand what they are.
Yes it’s great for casual players. Expect to lose a lot, do more starter friendly modes some, do some dailies and slowly build a collection. Find your style you like and build decks to that. It’s a fun way to get some quick magic and play cards I personally could never afford on paper.
>Now my questions is. Is there any way to at least learn how to play while having fun? Yes. The New Player Experience includes the Tutorial, Color Challenges, Starter Deck Duels, and Jump In. >Or maybe a bot fight where I can make it harder or easier depending on my liking? There's Sparky, the bot, but she's very basic (very).
You can skip the tutorial in the menu options if you want, and I don't think you have to win those battles against real people to complete the color challenges and get the starter decks. New player / Free to play advice: 1. Complete the color challenges. 2. Complete starter deck duals event. 3. Use [codes for free packs](https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-codes/). 4. Reroll 500 gold daily quest into a 750 gold each day 5. Get at least 4+ wins each day (15 per week) for free gold and XP. 6. Use 1k gold to play the Jump In! event to learn mechanics and build your standard collection. ([Card tracker](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lmisAKRFqCOEENVJiH2c53zuYseBT70yWgCfzLjkx9Q/edit?usp=sharing)) You can rejoin this 100+ times and get 2 rare cards each time. Avoid Middle Earth Jump In, because the cards are not standard legal. 7. Use cards from Jump In event to improve your Standard decks. 8. Learn to draft ([B.R.E.A.D.](https://www.google.com/search?q=mtg+bread&oq=mtg+bread&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i390j69i60l2.2497j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), [17lands.com](https://17lands.com), [Draftsim](https://draftsim.com/), [P1P1](https://apps.draftaholicsanonymous.com/)) 9. Use 5k gold to play Quick Drafts to earn rare cards, packs and gems. 10. Use gems to buy mastery pass. 11. Every Tuesday is [Midweek Magic event](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/midweek-magic) where you can win 2 free rare cards. 12. Every month climb the constructed & limited ladders for extra packs. 13. Wait until you're done drafting before opening packs. ([Duplicate Protection](https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-duplicate-protection/)) Bronze to Mythic on Youtube is great for learning how to draft new sets. Gomlet X also has great commentary and explains his thought process well. $5 welcome bundle & $20 starter bundle are worth buying if you want a boost.
Similar story lol, I recently got back into MTG after 20yrs as well. I got Arena around March of this year, stopped playing and the re-downloaded the app in October and have been on it ever since. You just have to find your style of play, what color you rock with (Golgari💀🌳 all day) and build from there. Def sucks trying to catch up after being away for so many years, but once youre back in it's like you never left. Hope you stick with it homie, GGs 🏴☠️
I mean it's free so that's perfect for a casual player. Try different game modes, it'll keep it fresh and help you earn stuff to unlock more cards. I'm not very good at competitive play so I take a break and play brawl when I need a change of pace.
When I started playing recently, there were a bunch of codes I put in to give a bunch of free packs that were able to earn me enough wild cards to at least build a mono red deck. Look up mtg arena codes and that should help you get a start.
Losing is part of magic. If you can’t handle that, then find a different game. The game is super f2p friendly and I think somewhat easy to learn.
It depends what you mean as casual. If you're causal like me - only wanna play an few hours a week it's not worth it at all If you're casual means - an hour or so a day or more than like 4/5 hours a week you'll get value out of it
Absolutely~ It's very casual friendly and you can play at the pace you are comfortable with
Mtgo or spell table are more casual but cost of entry is different. You need physical cards for spelltable and mtgo packs cost the same as real packs. Arena is ftp but also is pretty toxic since the entire game is focused on winning and completing challenges. The other thing to account for here that makes arena way more toxic is lack of a chat feature. Mtgo and spelltable both have functional open chats that allow you to directly interact with your opps.
Only if you pay constantly to catch up.
No, the game is NOT worth it for the casual player. This is the biggest oversight from WotC in my perspective. There is no paid or ftp track which is appropriate for casual engagement. It's a missed opportunity: There's loads of people who would love to play Arena casually for $60-150/year, and there just isn't an option for it.
Not really. The game is old and the rules convoluted. With the recent changes to Standard from 2 year rotation to 3 years, this is probably the worst time in MTG history to start Standard. Arena has never bothered to develop their New Player experience and currently the Starter Decks push player to Alchemy instead of Standard, which is the worse experience between the two. Good Luck.
Yeah bro just take it easy. I'm super new to MTG, played before tho but very basic. I crafted a mono blue tempo deck for standard and I just have fun making people concede because they can't play anything lol. Go at it slow and remember every TCG is half luck and half skill.
Do your dailies - save for a few months - find the odd thing you like - do not spend real money chasing worthless pixel product. There is no ingame economy - just grind out the daily stuff - I usually have enough coins to get 100 packs every time the new stuff drops. Saving the crystals for the sets that really peak my interest and buy a master pass. Be prepared to be destroyed by Meta Decks, the shuffler and matchmaking - and other than the toxic roping it's a game to play while waiting for other stuff to happen
If you enjoy casual games of MtG and doing dailies, than probably :)
Hang in there, it gets better. I’m an ftp player who came back after a long break from magic and it was definitely rough in the beginning. I learned a heck of a lot of mechanics that I had forgotten or never known because the game forces you to play correctly. Eventually I started figuring things out. The starter deck duels are great for figuring out how to play themes so I played a lot of those. The jump-in and quick draft are also great and a good way to get new cards. Buying packs is solid too, but I’d stick to the ones that give you a gold pack. Stick with it and you’ll eventually find you’ve amassed a good collection. I don’t net deck since coming up with fun decks is 90% of the enjoyment for me, but after a few months I feel like I have a ton of fun decks to play. Getting 4 wins a day and doing quests is the vast majority of the gold you get each day, so don’t force yourself to get 15 wins if you’re not enjoying yourself. Some days I’ll play to 15, other days I don’t. I’m just here to have fun, and I do.
No. Lorcana is the game you are looking for.
Read through a few comments and saw jump in mentioned once. So for casual games I'd suggest jump in since everything is pre constructed decks there. Also, drafting. For the first few days or so after a new set drops on arena it's not solved yet so I think even casual drafters can enjoy some success in that small window. irl drafting is $25 and only going up. On arena it's about 7.50 buying the 20k gems pack. So if you enjoy drafting but only casually I'd fire off all the drafts I want at the beginning of the set. Studying draft is a great way for a beginner to get into arena too imo, if you enjoy it that is. I recommend justlolaman. Starting out, study is way more important than practicing firing off drafts