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Formats and modes available on Arena as of early August 2021:
Constructed
Standard. A rotating group of sets, currently from Throne of Eldraine onwards. Read on set release cadence and rotation in Appendix A or here. Best-of-one and best-of-three matches. Unranked and ranked free play, paid-entry small tournament-like events.
Historic. All full sets existing in Arena (currently from Ixalan onwards) plus Amonkhet Remastered, Kaladesh Remastered, rectified Jumpstart, curated additions called Historic Anthologies, and a few more cards. Best-of-one and best-of-three matches. Unranked and ranked free play, paid-entry small tournament-like events.
Brawl. Standard card pool (ban list could be different), decks of 60 singleton cards, one of which is a Commander. Free unranked queue.
Specialty fun formats as short-timed events.
Limited
Draft.
Player-pod drafting on the most recent set, best-of-one, ranked (“Premier”).
Player-pod drafting on the most recent set, best-of-three, unranked (“Traditional”).
Player-pod drafting on an older set, best-of-one, ranked (“Premier”). First appeared in July 2020, then in October 2020, may become regular.
Player-pod drafting on an older set, best-of-three, unranked (“Traditional”). First appeared for a week for KLR release. Future unclear.
Drafting with bots on a set that changes every two weeks, usually Standard, best-of-one, ranked (“Quick”).
Sealed. Normally available only for the newest set and only for several weeks after the release. Unranked, best-of-one, Gems entry only.
Specialty fun formats as short-timed events, including pre-designed Cube events (both best-of-one and best-of-three since late 2020).
Found in the bottom half of the Play pane, in the Find Match section.
Play queue: one game of unranked Standard or Historic, automatically determined by the deck you chose. It’s the only place where “deck weight” is considered by the matchmaker. Little is known about it; presumably, cards that often appear in winning decks, “weigh” more. Play queue is also the only place where “smooth shuffling” is likely enabled, decreasing the amount of games where you draw too many lands or nonlands in a row.
Bot match: practice match versus Arena AI, Sparky. Sparky randomly plays a very weak mono-colored deck (maybe the starters) and makes idiotic mistakes. But games have no timer, and you can bash Sparky for millions damage with the weirdest combos. Matches do not provide any progress.
Other queues are self-explanatory. Everything called Traditional is best-of-three matches, otherwise — best-of-one.
Found in the top half of the Play pane. Aside from special cases, events require an entry fee and you play till a set number of wins or losses. You can pause between matches (not between games in Traditional — these are best-of-three, once again) until the event ends as a whole. In Draft, you can pause between picks. If an event ends, rewards are given according to your current record. Sign-up for an event ends 2 hours before the actual end.
Standard/Historic Event: 500 Gold or 95 Gems entry fee; play to 7 wins or 3 losses, awards 100–1000 Gold and 3 cards (see here on ICRs). At 5 wins at least one card is Rare or higher, at 6 wins — two. ICRs in Historic events come from Historic sets.
Traditional Event: 1000 Gold or 190 Gems entry fee; play to 5 match wins or 2 match losses, awards 0–2100 Gold and 3 cards. At 3 wins at least one is Rare or higher, at 5 wins — two. Rarity upgrade rates for ICRs are better than in best-of-one events. ICRs in Historic events come from Historic sets.
Quick Draft: 5000 Gold or 750 Gems entry fee; play to 7 wins or 3 losses in best-of-one games. Awards 50–950 Gems and 1–2 store packs of the set. Affects Limited rank and is affected by rank. Draft with bots, play with players who did the same.
Premier Draft: 10000 Gold or 1500 Gems entry fee; play to 7 wins or 3 losses in best-of-one games, awards 50–2200 Gems and 1–6 store packs of the set. Affects Limited rank and is affected by rank. Draft in player pods, play with other Premier draft players (not necessarily from the same pod).
Traditional Draft: 10000 Gold or 1500 Gems entry fee; 3 best-of-three matches in a Swiss system. Awards 1 pack at 0–1 win; 1000 Gems and 4 packs at 2 wins; 3000 Gems and 6 packs at 3 wins. Draft in player pods, play with other Traditional draft players (not necessarily from the same pod).
Hover images on the win progression scale at the bottom of an event page to see rewards for every outcome.
Sealed: 2000 Gems entry fee; ends on 7 wins or 3 losses, awards 200–2200 Gems and 3 store packs of the same set.
Jumpstart: 2000 Gold or 400 Gems entry; you choose a pack out of three randomly presented twice, mash them together and play indefinitely. First two wins award Rare ICRs from Jumpstart. Appeared once so far as a month-long even in July–August 2020.
Standard Metagame Challenge is open on the second weekend after the Arena set release (i.e. coincides with paper set release). 2000 Gold or 400 Gems entry fee; ends on 7 wins or 1 (!) loss, awards 0–5000 Gold and 0–30 packs of the set. High risk, high reward.
Set-based Constructed usually happens on the next weekend after the Metagame Challenge. Only cards of the new set are allowed. 500 Gold or 95 Gems entry fee; ends on 4 wins or 2 losses, awards 0–600 Gold and 3 cards. At 4 wins one card is Rare or higher.
Historic Challenge is open on the ~last weekend of set life. 10000 Gold or 2000 Gems entry fee; ends on 8 wins or 3 losses in best-of-three matches, awards a notable card sleeve, up to 15000 Gold, 4 Historic Rare ICRs before 5 wins, 8–40 Historic packs for 5 wins or more. High risk, high reward.
Arena Open is an attempt at holding competitive events with real money prizes. The first one, Standard, happened in May 2020 (terms and prizes), since then two were played in Historic in early August 2020 and in early December 2020.
Some other events are recurring but not regular; rules and pricing vary. Among those: Pauper, Singleton, Momir, Shakeup (with bans extended to include the most popular cards), Cascade, Omniscience Draft, Treasure Standard or Draft, Historic Brawl, and more. A not-too-well-maintained schedule exists on WotC’s website. For details on event structure and rewards refer to near-omniscient (but also poorly maintained) page on reward distribution & drop rates.
When an event ends, there is a 3 hours window past sign-up deadline to finish playing the event.
There are two separate, but almost identical ranked ladders in Arena: Constructed and Limited, with no regard to format or set.
There are six ranks: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Mythic.
All ranks except Mythic are subdivided into four tiers (4th is the lowest, 1st is the highest). Everyone starts at Bronze 4.
In Constructed, every tier is split into 6 steps. In Limited, Bronze tiers have 4 steps, and tiers at other ranks have 5.
Winning a game moves you one step up, losing moves you one step down.
Except that in Bronze, you don’t move down at all.
Also, in Bronze, Silver, and Gold, you move up two steps for a win.
A Traditional match moves you up or down twice more (regardless of the score).
After just going up a tier, you are protected in some way: you won’t lose the tier if you lose right away, no precise mechanism known.
Within a ranked season you don’t lose ranks, only tiers.
On a season change, everyone drops in rank (the more the higher the rank, but no more than 2 ranks).
Play at least one game in a format in a season to get season rewards for that ladder.
Ranked seasons coincide with months of the year. Season rewards include packs, Gold (at Silver+), a card style (at Gold+), and another card style (at Platinum+). You can check your rank in the Profile tab. To see rewards, click on a rank there. Card styles are predetermined and identical for Constructed and Limited. Other rewards are acquired from both ladders separately.
Mythic rank is special as there are no tiers. Your rank is your position relative to other players. In “lower Mythic” it is conveyed as a percent of your matchmaking rating (MMR) relative to that of lowest “top Mythic” player. In “top Mythic” it’s the position in the global ranking, for 1500 best players. Finishing a ranked season in Mythic top 1200 on either ladder may qualify you for the next step towards competitive Magic with real prizes.
Direct Challenge is a way to play versus a specific player. Click the swords icon in the top right to open the right pane, where you choose:
Type of the match: Challenge (read: casual), Tournament (Standard), Limited Tournament, Historic Tournament.
Deck type: 60 card/40 card or Brawl, card pool is not enforced, i.e. this is the only place where you can play Historic Brawl outside of events.
If the format is 60 cards, best of one or best of three, Brawl is best-of-one only, no sideboards there.
The way to determine who goes first.
Choosing Tournament match enforces: best of three, coin flip determines who goes first, timers are enabled.
Below you have to enter your opponent’s name and the numerical tag, case sensitive, and the opponent needs to do the same. Friends List enables a similar functionality to Direct Challenge, but it’s work in progress yet.
Playing via Direct Challenge or Friends List does not provide any progress.