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From new collection to target rank
From new collection to target rank
A dream deck will depend on a variety of factors, but ultimately it’s a deck you enjoy playing with and is feasible for you to construct in a reasonable timeframe. As an extreme example as a free to play player (f2p) with limited time to play the game, the number of viable decks won’t be high, while for someone who’s ready to spend money there is a broader range of immediately viable decks one can build towards.
The usual advice for new and f2p players is to build an aggressive (aggro) deck for grinding due to the following reasons:
- It’s relatively easy to play (pilot) those decks.
- They’re quick and as such can farm gold and other rewards faster.
- They can be built on a budget.
The base from the NPE decks is usually enough to get you started on one of your farming decks. Currently on MTGA the following decks remain the most popular and powerful modifications of starter decks:
- Red Deck Wins (RDW)
- Monored burn
- Mono-blue
- White Weenie
It should be noted that rare wildcards compose a major bottleneck. Decks that require the least amount of them to be playable will be considered as budget in MTGA.
Dual lands that may come into play untapped are rare and for a new f2p player they compose a hurdle. RDW, Mono-blue and White Weenie are perfect in this aspect as they only use one color of mana and can be built to be competitive enough in most constructed modes in MTGA.
Let’s have a look at some typical bo1 modifications of those decks and how one would go about upgrading their deck.
For Red Deck Wins we’ve had tons of variations, here’s the list of the metadeck from mtggoldfish on 08/01/2019
What do we have from NPE deck? The starting decks grant us 3 shocks, 3 lightning strikes, 4 acts of treason and 1 banefire from the list. So how do we prioritize crafting our rares and other elements? This comes down to experience, but here’s how I had approached it when open beta started.
The key to the deck is fast aggressive dealing of damage. My first craft were 3 goblin chainwhirlers as they absolutely destroy some token strategies and are a solid card for any monored list. After that I hadn’t crafted any rares for a very long time. What did I replace the rest of the rares in the main deck with? As we must keep up aggro I was using the budget replacements. Two act of treason, viashino pyromancer, goblin instigator, boggart brute, charging monstrosaur, rekindling phoenix that are provided in the starting pack can be included in your first RDW deck. For the rest of the rares you will want to prioritise runaway steam-kin, experimental frenzy and risk factor. Legion Warboss and other rares should not be a priority.
This is a quickly thrown together list on a minimum budget that was close to what I had crafted at the start of closed beta for the constructed event. Note that some of those cards are used in many other decks such as lightning strike and shock. Remember, that the rares are usually extremely powerful cards in those lists and the power level of a full deck is going to be much higher than without them.
RDW of different varieties occupy a large part of the mythic metagame and remain a popular choice.
Another new deck that has emerged as a budget option is monored burn. The list had been posted on r/spikes and contained detailed information on how it should be played. It is a budget deck in MTGA, but it's not an extremely easy deck to pilot. Note that ideally you want to have anywhere between 9-16 potential damage in your opening hand and need to know when to cast your damage spells, the sequencing will make or break it for you.
The monored burn list requires just 4 rares (you can get away with 2 or 3 risk factors, just replace them with more cheap creatures if you want) and the deck can carry your up the ranks and in CE. Furthermore, as with any powerful and cheap decks it has proliferated and the meta will evolve to counter it.
Let’s say you had wanted to build a mono-blue deck on a starter budget. Keep in mind, that this is a tempo deck, it’s aggro-control and requires a better grasp of MTG concepts. If words like aggro-control confuse you, that’s normal. The gist of the idea is that a tempo deck plays creatures like aggro and messes with the opponent’s gameplan like control. It uses counterspells and combat tricks to do that.
As such it has a higher layer of complexity that RDW and monowhite aggro. It also requires you to know the metagame, what’s played, what are the threats. If you first instinct when you see the tempest djinn is to play it on turn 3, it’s a bad sign. You need to know how to protect your creatures, mess with the opponents plan effectively. If you do, you will be able to get to maximum wins in Constructed Event with the final version of the deck. If you don’t, you’re unlikely to win a lot. It comes down to deep understanding and practice, practice, practice.
Here’s the list on 08/01/2019 from mtggoldfish
The good news are twofold. This deck can function on only 2 crafted rares. You get one Tempest Djinn from the starter deck and you can replace the warkite marauders with some cards from the sideboard, for example 2 copies of Sleep, and exclusion mage for good measure. Your priority crafts are mist-cloaked herald, siren stormtamer, djinn, curious obsession and dive down. You can also play nightveil sprite and surge mare. Those are the core of the deck. Counterspells should be adjusted based on the metagame.
You might also want to check out a quick description and modification of this deck that achieved mythic rank with the deck. R|NA had lead to some minor updates. However the core of the deck remains the same and the composition of the deck only changes based on the meta.
Explaining in detail how to play this deck warrants a separate detailed guide. But if you do decide to go this route this deck can be built on a budget from the starting kit.
Finally, let’s round up with the White Weenie list. It’s one of the easiest to pilot, straightforward and strongest list at the moment. It has fallen somewhat out of favor as a top meta-deck in bo3 tournaments, mainly due to midrange decks being strong against aggro. However, it remains a strong list in RNA that's able to carry you through the ranks on a budget.
Here’s a list from mtggoldfish from 08/01/2019
The first thing you need to decide is wherever you want to have the red in the deck for heroic reinforcements. If you cut it out you don’t need a ton of rares including lands and the deck functions well enough without this. So, what are the priority crafts?
The priority crafts are 3 legion’s landing and 3 venerated loxodons. For mythic rares 4 history of benalia are enough to provide an extremely strong core for the deck. What can the rest of the cards from the list be replaced with? Snubhorn sentry, healer’s hawks, leonin vanguards, rustwing falcons can all see play in the deck. Naturally if you have Ajani he’s also welcome in the deck.
White weenies are a popular deck and had been used to achieve rank 1 in mythic a few times with different modifications. As an example this is a budget list that's tuned to be anti-aggro.
This short overview of the metadecks is not meant to force you to play one of the three. There are multiple viable decklists that may be enjoyable to you personally. MTG is an extremely diverse game with a good metagame right now. If you build correctly you can play any archetype to reach your goal in Arena. Think of those decks above as your possible farming decks on a budget. If you have the time and possibly some money to spend your options of viable decks and the power of those decks increases. If you’re f2p you will feel underpowered at first but after a month of farming (calculation in farming gold section) you should be able to afford one of the full monocolored metadecks.
How do you recognize your dream deck? Watch streamers play, read reddit, visit deckbuilding sites like
https://magicarena.fandom.com/wiki/Decklists
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/custom/arena_standard#paper
Do keep in mind that those decks are not guaranteed to be extremely good! They need a discerning eye to know which ones work and which don’t but they give you an idea of how much variety you can expect from the game.
If you’re not sure what to pick, consult the standard metagame lists. You’ll need to modify them for bo1, but at least they’re proven to be working and there’s nothing wrong with copying a deck that’s good. You just need to have the knowledge of how to play (pilot) the deck, the card interactions, matchups and many other things. If in doubt, try to play without spending the wildcards first and ask for help with budget replacements.
Avoid the Arena Metagame lists and the auto-meta on MTGApro like plague! Those lists won’t help you much, they’re uncurated and will fold to any of the standard metagame lists that had been slightly modified. If you use them, don’t expect to get consistent 7-x wins in constructed.
A special note for the upcoming Ravnica Allegiance and any new set that may come to MTGA: the metagame is bound to change significantly. It’s best to hoard your wildcards, gold and gems unless you’re 100% sure you want some specific deck right now. Wait for a few weeks after the set had been released if you can, and until pro-tour if you want to be sure.
How do you build towards it? After you have finished your grinding deck, use the next section on farming gold to grind out the wildcards.
Any other advice? Yes, if you’re opening packs for your dream deck focus on sets that have
- High power level or cards
- Have rare dual lands
If you consult the list of the most played cards in Standard for example, you will see that the sets that have the most played cards in general are Guild of Ravnica (GRN), Ravnica Allegiance (RNA) and Dominaria. Ixalan (XLN) comes next with the general power level being lower, but still containing the rare dual lands and some powerful cards. Rivals of Ixalan (RIX) and the Core set (M19) are generally low-powered and have some bomb cards you might simply want to craft from the wildcards. So, this is the current priority for sets depending on what your dream deck is:
- GRN/RNA
- DOM
- XLN
- M19/RIX
Keep in mind the diminishing returns of boosters. Recent changes make it much more viable to open packs (and spend money on packs). With the duplicate protection it’s now safer to open and buy packs then ever before in MTGA.
If you already have a farming deck it’s advisable to open packs that are most likely to have the cards you need as outlined above. Going infinite in Constructed event to grind out your collection by getting ICRs is not as attractive overall as previously, mostly due to the increased winrate to get guaranteed rares and decreased chances of ICR upgrades to a higher rarity.
If you’re following the advice in the Farming gold section and grinding daily 4 wins and a quest, you should be able to achieve full completion of rares in a typical set in 215 boosters. You get approximately 168 boosters from playing daily until the next set is released. Do note, that if you’re frugal with rare wildcards you will need way less than the full collection of rares in each set.
Final positive note: once you’ve acquired the rare dual lands you should be able to use them forever. Even if they rotate out of Standard but are reprinted later with the same name you should be able to use the rare lands you had crafted before. And there will be an 'Arena Modern' format for sets that have rotated out where your hoarded cards will see play.
Right now is a good time to start playing MTGA and building the collection, so let’s discuss how to use the deckbuilder.
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