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Last updated: April 17, 2024 Background art: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Key Art by Lie Setiawan

New Player GuiMagic: the Gathering Arenade

You've installed MTG Arena and played through the Tutorial and Color Challenges, and maybe a few games more. You're wondering about the game modes, what are wildcards, what is the mastery pass? You've come to the right place!

This is not a strategy guide, but something to serve as an up-to-date summary on the game modes and different systems that make up the MTG Arena experience. We'll start with how you get cards, then explain the different play formats, and finally the Mastery system, with free codes and a few pointers on where to go next at the end.

Index

Starter Decks

You'll get 5 decks by completing the Color Challenges, one for each of the five colors of Magic. These make up the Arena Base Set. After that you will receive Quests that will reward you with two-color decks on completion, until you have unlocked 10 more decks, one for each two-color combination. What these 10 decks contain changes every year, but you'll gain access to all the future ones after obtaining them once.

You can use these decks to play, or start building your own decks from their contents. To get more cards to expand your experience, you need Wildcards, Card Packs or Individual Card Rewards (ICRs).

Wildcards

Wildcards are cards you can get randomly from packs or the wildcard tracks that can used to craft any card of the same rarity. They're very important for you to be able to build the specific decks you want instead of depending only on luck.

In the packs screen you see two circles with a wildcard in the center. These are the wildcard tracks. Opening one pack progresses both tracks by one, every full circle of 6 giving you an uncommon wildcard from the first track and a rare wildcard from the second track, with every 5th completion of the rare track awarding a mythic rare wildcard instead. Wildcards can also be found randomly in packs, with every 3 packs containing a common, every 5 an uncommon and every 24 a rare and a mythic wildcard on average.

You can click the Craft button or use filters to display cards you don't own in the collection and deckbuilding screens to use wildcards to get cards you have 0 copies of, or just click on a card you already have at least one copy of to open a screen that allows you to craft more. You can also add cards you don't own into a deck (displayed darkened with a red number) and click Complete Deck to bring up a dialog that asks if you want to use a number of wildcards to craft all the cards you need at once.

Card Packs

In general there are three types of card packs in Arena:

Store Packs

Golden Packs

Limited Packs

Following the format of Store Packs there are also:

Individual Card Rewards (ICRs)

A card you receive outside a pack or crafting it with a wildcard is an Individual Card Reward, or ICR. An ICR is a random card of a specified rarity that also has a small chance of upgrading to a card of a higher rarity. You can get them as rewards from competing in Events, from Daily Wins or the Mastery reward track. They are usually restricted to cards legal in both the Standard and Alchemy formats, but may be specifically Historic ICRs which will be cards not legal in those instead.

Duplicate Protection and the Vault

As you can only use a maximum of 4 copies of a card in your constructed decks, you don't want to open too many of the same card from packs. Duplicate protection refers to a system that's in place in Arena which prevents you from getting the same rare or mythic more than four times. If you already have a playset, 4 copies, of a rare card in a certain set, you will always get some other rare instead when opening a 8-card pack of that set. If you have 4 copies of every rare in the set, you will instead get 20 gems whenever you would open a rare. The same applies to mythic rares, except if you have 4 copies of every mythic you will get 40 gems whenever you would open one instead. Duplicate protection for rares and mythics is tracked separately.

If a card can be found as a rare or mythic with the same artwork from two or more different card sets, if you have 4 copies total between the different versions you won't find more copies of the card in packs until you have playsets of every other rare or mythic in the set. Banned rares and mythics will similarly be the last cards you open in a set.

You can open more than 4 copies of any common or uncommon, but instead of gems you will get a certain amount of Vault progress for each extra common or uncommon, 0.1% and 0.3% respectively. When you have 100% saved up, you may open the vault which rewards you with wildcards: 1 mythic, 2 rares and 3 uncommons. The Vault is displayed as a treasure chest in the top right of the interface, hovering over it will display your progress percentage and clicking on it when you have at least 100% Vault progress will open it.

Limited Packs are not duplicate-protected in the sense that you can open rares and mythics you already have 4 copies of, but every extra rare and mythic gets converted to 20 and 40 gems respectively and extra commons and uncommons contribute to your vault progress. This is also how duplicate ICRs work.

Card Styles

Card Styles are cosmetic items that change the look of cards you own, but are not cards themselves. You can buy them in the store or directly from your card collection and acquire as rewards from events for example, but in most cases they do not come with the actual card they are for. However, you only need to obtain a card style once to be able to apply it to all copies of the card that are from the same set as the style or have the same art. You can hide all card styles in the options menu if you only wish to see the regular forms of cards while playing.

Constructed and Limited

In Magic: the Gathering there are several different formats that affect how you play with your cards. In broad strokes there a two different types of formats, Constructed and Limited. Constructed refers to formats where you build your own deck from any cards you have in your collection that are legal in the format, such as Standard, Alchemy, Historic and Brawl. Limited refers to formats where you build a deck not from your collection, but from a new set of randomized booster packs, such as Draft and Sealed. In addition, Preconstructed refers to something where a ready-to-play deck is built for you.

Sideboards, Bo1 and Bo3

A deck's sideboard is a set of up to 15 cards used to swap cards in and out of your main deck between games to adapt to your opponent's strategy when playing Best of 3 matches (first player to 2 wins in 3 games, abbreviated Bo3). Game modes with the Traditional prefix are played as Bo3 matches, while those without are single games, often called Best of 1 or Bo1. A deck played in Bo1 modes can also have a sideboard of up to 7 cards, but it's only useful when someone is playing cards that are able to get you a card "from outside the game", which means from the sideboard in actual gameplay (for example the card Wish). In Limited formats every card in your card pool but not in your deck is considered to be in your sideboard.

Always Available Formats

STARTER DECK DUEL (Preconstructed)

In this free event you can play against other players using just the starter decks. Recommended for beginners!

JUMP IN! (Preconstructed)

If you want to acquire and try out more cards without having to build a new deck, the Jump In! event is your best bet. In the event you select one themed 20-card Jump In! packet from a random selection of three twice, resulting in two packets you combine to make a 40-card deck. Play as many games as you like until you want a new deck, for which you need to resign and pay for the event again. You get to keep all the cards from the packets you pick.

DRAFT (Limited)

In Draft the players sit in a group of 8 (called a pod) and everyone gets three Limited packs. You open the first pack, pick one card and pass the rest of the pack to the player on your left while receiving a pack with one less card from your right. You continue picking cards and passing packs until there are no cards left. Then you open the second pack, pick a card and this time pass it to your right while getting a pack from the player on your left. This is repeated in a similar manner to the first pack until moving on to the third and final pack that will once again be passed to the left until there are no more cards and packs left.

At the end of the third pack you will be left with the cards you picked, your card pool, from which you must build a deck with at least 40 cards (you may add as many Basic Lands as you need from outside the pool). Unlike in most Constructed formats, you may have more than 4 copies of any card in your deck, up to as many as you managed to pick during the draft. Every card in your pool but not in your deck is your sideboard, and you can freely change your deck between matches.

In Quick Draft other players than you in the 8-player pod during drafting are bots with simulated preferences for card picks, not actual human players, so you can take as long as you want for your picks, even quit between picks and return later. However, the games you play with your drafted deck are still against actual people.

Quick Draft and Premier Draft are Bo1 and affect your Limited Rank. The set available for Quick Draft changes every two weeks. Traditional Draft is Bo3 with the latest set, and doesn't affect your rank.

STANDARD (Constructed)

Standard decks are 60 or more cards with an optional sideboard of up to 15 cards, using no more than 4 copies of any one card outside of Basic Lands (unless the card says otherwise, for example you may put any number of copies of Rat Colony in your deck).

Standard is a rotating format, which means not all cards in the game are allowed in Standard decks, specifically only cards released in the nine to twelve latest main card sets + a few smaller subsets paired with them are legal in Standard, amounting to the last two to three years of sets. Standard card sets are released four times a year and rotation happens once a year, when a thirteenth big set would be introduced to the format. This happens every fall, usually in September. When rotation hits, the four oldest card sets will no longer be playable in Standard.

Currently you can use cards released in sets after and including Innistrad: Midnight Hunt in Standard decks. The next Standard rotation will happen with the release of Bloomburrow on July 30, 2024.

You will keep your cards leaving Standard after rotation, but most of them can only be played in other formats. The exception are cards that have another printing in a Standard-legal set: you can keep using old copies of those cards even if the art and set symbol are different! (Example: you can play your Spell Pierce from Ixalan in your Standard decks even after Ixalan has rotated out of Standard because a version of Spell Pierce is also in the Standard-legal Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.)

Currently Standard-legal sets:

Legal until July 30, 2024:

Legal until Q3 2025:

Legal until Q3 2026:

Cards banned in Standard

ALCHEMY (Constructed)

Alchemy is another rotating format that follows a similar deckbuilding rules as Standard, but introduces a few things that take advantage of it being a digital-only format: rebalanced cards and Alchemy card sets. Also, the Arena Base Set never rotates out of Alchemy.

Rebalanced cards are formerly existing cards that have been changed to weaken them or make them stronger. See The Meathook Massacre and its rebalanced version, denoted by the A symbol in front of the name. In Alchemy you will play the rebalanced version of a card if it exists, instead of the standard one. Any copies of the standard version of the card you receive will also come with the rebalanced version.

Alchemy also includes sets of cards that are paired with a Standard set and rotate out of the format at the same time as that set does. Most of them are about 30 new cards each. Alchemy Packs come with Alchemy-exclusive rares and uncommons, and commons from the set they're paired with. Once all Alchemy rares have been collected, they'll be replaced with rares from the paired set. March of the Machine: The Aftermath works the same way, except the new cards are also Standard-legal.

There are also large independent Alchemy sets that aren't Standard-legal: Alchemy Horizons: Baldur's Gate and The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.

Sets rotate out of Alchemy one year earlier than Standard, but rotation still happens once a year in fall. Currently you can use cards released in sets after and including Dominaria United in Alchemy decks. The next Alchemy rotation will happen with the release of Bloomburrow on July 30, 2024.

Currently Alchemy-legal sets:

Always legal:

Legal until July 30, 2024:

Legal until Q3 2025:

As a digital-only format, it's more likely for a rebalanced version of a card to appear instead of a ban when something is too strong.

Cards banned in Alchemy

Rebalanced cards

EXPLORER (Constructed)

Explorer is an eternal format, which means there is no rotation and cards will only be added to the card pool and removed only with bans. It is based on the Pioneer format of the physical card game, and includes every set that was playable in Standard from Return to Ravnica forward that exists on MTG Arena. It does not use the rebalanced or Alchemy set cards.

The card pool gets expanded through Standard set releases and Explorer Anthologies, bundles of 20 or 25 different cards. Sometimes entire sets from the past are also brought into the game, such as Khans of Tarkir. There are also Remastered sets that combine past Standard sets, including Amonkhet Remastered, Kaladesh Remastered and Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered.

Cards banned in Explorer

HISTORIC (Constructed)

Historic is an eternal format where you will be able to use all cards released on Arena in your deck, provided they are not specifically banned from the format or don't have a rebalanced version (see the Alchemy format above), which is playable in Historic instead.

Sometimes cards are suspended instead of fully banned, which means a card is banned for a period of time as the developers monitor whether a card should be fully banned or reintroduced to the format later.

Historic Anthologies, similar to Explorer Anthologies, bring a small selection of cards from Magic's past to Arena to play in Historic. Jumpstart (with some changes from the paper set) and Jumpstart: Historic Horizons add old and brand new cards to the format as well.

In addition, packs of some sets come with one card from a special set called a bonus sheet which is not legal in Standard, Alchemy or Explorer, but is playable in Historic. Here are those sets, with the main set in brackets:

Starting from Murders at Karlov Manor, Special Guests and cards from the List may appear in Limited Packs, totaling 50 cards each set that are not Standard-legal but add to Historic. In Outlaws of Thunder Junction, cards from the Standard-legal The Big Score appear instead of the List.

Cards banned in Historic

Rebalanced cards

TIMELESS (Constructed)

Timeless is another eternal format, which allows you to play all cards released on Arena. Unlike Historic, no cards are banned, but some cards are restricted, which means you can only include one copy of that card in your deck. Timeless also does not use the rebalanced versions of cards for which a physical printing exists. Digital-only cards are still rebalanced as usual.

Cards restricted in Timeless

BRAWL (Constructed)

Brawl uses the same cards as Standard with a separate banlist, but it is also a singleton format, which means you can include only a single copy of any card except for Basic Lands in your deck. You may still have more than one copy of cards like Rat Colony. Decks are 60 cards including one commander, which is any legendary creature or planeswalker in Standard. Other cards in the deck must be colorless or within your commander's color identity, which consists of all colored mana symbols in its casting cost or rules text. For example, if your commander is Raffine, Scheming Seer, you can only include white, blue, black or colorless cards in your deck, but if your commander is Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa, you can include colorless cards and those of any color.

In Brawl players start at 25 life. During the game your commander card sits in a separate area called the command zone, displayed castable near your hand similar to cards in your graveyard or exile that can be cast or activated. You may cast your commander from the command zone at any time for its mana cost + 2 for each time it has been cast from the command zone previously that game. Whenever your commander would change zones (when it's put into the graveyard or exiled etc), you may put it back in the command zone instead. In Brawl you also get one free mulligan without needing to put cards on the bottom of your library, and games are Bo1.

Cards banned in Brawl

There is also Historic Brawl which is the same except with a 100-card deck and you aren't restricted to Standard-legal cards. This is Arena's closest equivalent to the popular Commander format in the physical card game.

Cards banned in Historic Brawl

Limited Time Event Formats

Some game modes are only available for a limited time, most often as Midweek Magic events every Tuesday 2pm to Thursday 2pm PT. There have been several experimental event formats, but here are some of the more common ones that are likely to return relatively often. These are all usually played Bo1.

SEALED (Limited)

In Sealed, instead of picking cards one by one, you just get to open six Limited packs and from their contents build a deck with at least 40 cards, adding Basic Lands as necessary. Just like Draft, if you managed to open more than 4 copies of a card, you are free to use all of them in your Sealed deck. Every card you opened but didn't put in your deck is in your sideboard, and you may freely change your deck between games. Sealed is usually available for every new set for a few weeks.

CUBE DRAFT (Limited)

Cube Draft is similar to a Premier Draft where instead of a normal set you draft from a curated set of cards across all cards in Arena. Packs in Cube Draft don't follow the normal rarity distribution of Limited packs, instead it is possible to open multiple rares in the same pack, for example. However, it is also a so-called Phantom draft where you don't keep the cards you pick.

PAUPER (Constructed)

Similar to most Constructed formats, in Pauper you have a 60-card deck and a sideboard with a maximum of 4 copies of any one card, but the twist is you may only use cards released at the common rarity. Prefixes like Standard or Historic Pauper determine what sets of cards you can use.

ARTISAN (Constructed)

Same as Pauper, except you can also include cards released at uncommon in your deck.

MOMIR (Preconstructed)

In Momir you don't build a deck, instead you're provided with a 60-card deck filled with 12 copies of each Basic Land. Once every turn, you may pay X and discard a card to create a creature token copy of a random creature card with converted mana cost X. There are also variations where your deck includes some other cards than Basic Lands.

Community Formats

By challenging players directly you're not confined to the modes readily available on Arena either! You can play Historic Brawl while there is no event running, make up your own rules or play one of the custom formats popular among a larger number of players and find opponents through online communities.

GLADIATOR (Constructed)

A singleton format where you play a 100-card deck with no duplicate cards, sideboards or commanders and start at 20 life. It is usually played as Bo3 matches and every card on Arena is legal except for its own ban list, and you use the cards in their original form, not rebalanced. You can join the Discord server to find out more!

Cards banned in Gladiator

Ranked Ladder

The Ranked Ladder in MTG Arena operates by monthly seasons with Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Mythic ranks. Each rank is further divided into four tiers, except for Mythic where you get a percentage of up to 99% until you reach the top 1500 which gives you a numbered placement. Constructed Ranked game modes all have the Ranked prefix, while for Limited Quick Draft and Premier Draft affect your rank.

Winning advances you through tiers and losing pushes you back, but you can't fall down a rank once you reach it (when you reach Silver you can't fall back down to Bronze during that season, for example). Constructed and Limited have separate Ranked ladders. At the end of every month you will get a new rank and rewards based on the rank you reached that month in both Constructed and Limited. You must play at least one Ranked game each month to be eligible for rewards.

Here's a table for reference (CS refers to Card Style, which specific cards they are changes every month):

RankSteps to Advance Tier (Constructed/Limited)Steps Up from Win (Bo1/Bo3)Steps Down from Loss (Bo1/Bo3)Season End RewardsTierSeason End New Rank
Bronze6/42/40/01 Pack4Bronze 4
3
2
1Bronze 3
Silver6/52/41/21 Pack
500 Gold		4
3
2Bronze 2
1
Gold6/52/41/22 Packs
1000 Gold
Uncommon CS		4Bronze 1
3Silver 4
2Silver 3
1Silver 2
Platinum6/51/21/23 Packs
1000 Gold
Uncommon CS
Rare CS		4Silver 1
3Gold 4
2
1Gold 3
Diamond6/51/21/24 Packs
1000 Gold
Uncommon CS
Rare CS		4
3Gold 2
2
1Gold 1
Mythic5 Packs
1000 Gold
Uncommon CS
Rare CS

To participate in a Qualifier Weekend event where you can win a spot in high level tournaments, you need to be in the top 250 in either Constructed or Limited at the end of a season or do well in a Qualifier Play-In event. See the official site for competitive Magic for more.

Mastery System

The Mastery System is a rewards system involving winning games and completing quests to gain XP to level up with. If you're familiar with battle passes in other games, this is similar. Levels give you different rewards, such as packs. You can also get Mastery Orbs from leveling up, which can be used on the Mastery Tree to unlock card styles. Your Mastery level resets every time a new card set is released, about every three months, and the rewards change as well. Mastery is typically 80 or 90 levels (depending on the time between card sets) and each level requires 1000 XP. The ways to get Mastery XP are:

You can level up for free to get up to around 30 packs of the latest set and 5 Mastery Orbs, with the option of buying a Mastery Pass for additional rewards such as more packs and card styles, gold, gems, pets, sleeves and a player avatar. The Mastery Pass costs 3400 or 5400 gems, the latter of which gives you 10 000 XP automatically. You can buy the Mastery Pass at any point until a few hours before the next set comes out and still receive all Mastery Pass specific rewards up to your current level.

You're guaranteed to go a little over the maximum Mastery level if you complete all your Daily Quests and Weekly Wins from the release of a set, even without the bonus XP from the more expensive pass option. Missing them can be compensated with the other ways of earning XP to some extent. You can use tools like MTG Arena Zone's Mastery Calculator to estimate your expected final level.

What Now?

Now that you hopefully understand how MTG Arena operates, go play what interests you! In addition you might like to search for guides about optimal ways to collect cards, and start learning strategy for Constructed and Limited from the wealth of articles, podcasts and channels out there (one of my favorites to watch is LegenVD).

You might also want to try third-party deck/collection tracker software that keep records the game doesn't provide by itself and may also include helpful in-game overlays (such as 17Lands or Untapped.gg).

It's also recommended to check official news whenever they come, such as the Announcements every Monday and Patch Notes whenever a new update is out (though they come with a delay), to avoid surprises and confusion. You can also check the online status of the game here and the in-game event calendar here. I will try to keep this guide as up-to-date as possible, so you can use it as reference in the future as well.

Remember to grab the free codes below on your way out!

Free Redeemable Codes

There are several promotional codes that have been given out in paper booster packs or through events and email. Below is a list of every available non-unique code you can redeem in the Store for free! Each code works once per account (you might want to save the XP-granting ones for when you need it to maximize your Mastery).

MTG Arena Zone's Codes List

Bonus Tips

While not the focus of the guide, here is a small list of some confusing game rules that new players might want to know about: