Beginner's Guide to

Magic Arena

Introduction

Welcome, Planeswalker, to the Beginner’s Guide to Magic: The Gathering Arena. This guide is intended to help you navigate through the MTG planes and map out the way to achieve the best results and maximum enjoyment. It’s by no means exhaustive but should allow you to reach your goals whether they are to reach a certain rank, build your collection or simply to have fun in MTGA.


Changelog available at the bottom of this page

TL;DR for those who don’t want to read the whole guide and want everything on one page:

  • Use one of your beginner decks to complete the new player quests and unlock all the starter decks in 5-7 days in play or ranked play modes.
  • Redeem the following codes from the store:
      • PlayRavnica (3 GRN boosters)
      • PlayAllegiance (3 RNA boosters)
      • STARTERSTYLES (cosmetics)
      • ShinyGoblinPirate (cosmetics)
      • SparkleDruid (cosmetics)
      • FoilFungus (cosmetics)
      • ParallaxPotion (cosmetics)
      • SuperScry (cosmetics)
  • Modify your deck [Jungle Secrets (Merfolk), Eternal Thirst (Vampires), and Walk the Plank (Pirates) have the highest win rate] and grind those two modes and complete the quests until you have enough to build a viable Constructed Event grinding decks (RDW, Monored Burn, MonoU, White Weenie, Izzet Drakes)
  • Play Constructed Event (CE) ad-infinitum to get gold and Individual Card Rewards (ICRs). Spend the gold on ranked draft until gold rank, then hoard it for streamer draft events and continue with the CE.
  • Rare wildcards are the biggest bottleneck, save them and use only if you’re sure of it. This section also covers what the Vault is.
  • Found some acronyms like ICR, CE or BO3 confusing? Check out the Acronyms and terms in Arena or for MTG in general. Esper, Jeskai, Jund, Golgari confusing? Color combination tables on the wikia will help.
  • Planning to spend money on MTGA? Check out the appropriate section of the guide, especially if you live outside the US.
  • Don't know how to beat Teferi and Control Decks? Monored aggro is kicking your deck around? Hydroid Krasis is now a nightmare? Find out how to win against those types of decks in their respective sections.
  • Want to track your progress?
  • If you have questions regarding the comprehensive rules and need a ruling on a tricky situation, you can ask qualified judges here.
  • If you have specific questions not covered in this guide, go to the weekly Nicol’s Newcomer Monday thread or to the #new_player_questions channel on Discord.
  • Report bugs and players (for stalling/roping) to support

Feedback or found a mistake in the guide? Contact OriginMD on reddit or OriginMD#8577 on Discord.

If you’ve already decided to play the game, simply read on. If you’re completely new to card games, it’s best if you read through the guide thoroughly. If you’re an experienced MTG player it’s recommended you familiarize yourself with the quirks of MTGA such as hotkeys and go straight for the topics that you find interesting from the navigation bar on the left.

If you’d like to know the differences between MTG offerings and MTGA is the right one for you, there’s a concise overview in the Should I play Magic Arena? section.

Changelog

  • 04/04/19 Updated all the codes on the homepage
  • 21/02/19 Update on the full art lands in the deckbuilder section
  • 04/02/19 How to play vs Midrange added
  • 03/02/19 How to play vs Aggro added
  • 02/02/19 MMR is no longer a factor for matchmaking in ranked draft. Updated multiple pages to reflect this. Tournaments page updated as well.
  • 27/01/19 How to play vs Control has been migrated to googlesites. Rules and judge chat added to the homepage
  • 26/01/19 Building a better deck chapter has been added. It deals with the Rock-paper-scissors relationship between archetypes and the MTGA metagame.
  • 21/01/19 Monored burn added as a viable budget deck option, links in the TL;DR updated
  • 20/01/19 Building a good deck section added, mythic tournament info added
  • 19/01/19 Links inserted in each chapter to the next page, limited chapter position in the table of contents, added the deckbuilder chapter
  • 17/01/19 -- Migrated to Google Sites + Minor copy-editing -- Belisaurius
  • 17/01/19 The latest SOTB changes the economy on 17th of January quite a bit, stay guide updated
  • 12/01/19 Added a section on spending money and gems. Must read for those outside the US
  • 11/01/19 Added a link to Momir guide, Attending the pre-release guide, RanicaAllegiance code reference. Changelog added to the end of the document.
  • 08/01/19 Added the RDW, Monoblue and Monowhite deck modifications and comments. Do provide feedback.
  • 07/01/19 Added info on how to contact support and removed bo1 drafts as good EV event from the table. There's an inconsistency between mythic rare droptables in-store (1:30) and the official WOTC FAQ (1:24). I've requested clarification and will update the guide accordingly
  • 06/01/19 TL;DR added to the title page
  • 05/01/19 Fixed an important mistake - the pity timers for the rare wildcards. Check them out if you had looked at the prior guide! Added short notes on breaking into platinum rank in drafts
  • 04/01/19 By popular demand the drafting section has been added. How to play vs Blue Deck (control) section has been added
  • 03/01/19 First version published