MTG Arena Best Way To Get Cards

Updated:

19 Nov 2019

Cards can be pretty easy to come by if you know where to look. Just follow these steps and you'll be expanding your collection in no time!

If you’ve been enjoying MTG:A and you’ve found yourself one or two cards away from your dream deck, then you’ve probably also asked yourself “how do I get more cards?!” While MTG:A has several ways for players to build and expand their collection, if you’re new to this game, it can be a bit overwhelming.

Here’s a guide to the best ways you can get cards.

3. Buying Boosters

Who doesn't want to just open Booster packs anyway?

This is the “no duh!” option, but if you need cards from a particular set or just wild cards in general, then this isn’t a bad option to take. The only issue is that it requires 1000 gold or 200 gems, both of which require time to earn unless you want to spend money.

How To Use Boosters:

Get Gold and Gems by completing quests or playing in events

Go to the store, select the set and quantity you want to buy
- If you ever want to know the drop rate or more information about how Arena handles rewards, I recommend visiting this link.
Click purchase, and enjoy your new cards!

If you’re not sure which set you want a pack from, I recommend getting packs from the most recent set since it will be in Standard for the longest

Alternatively, keep an eye on which sets have meta defining cards and grab cards from those sets. For example, at the time of this article’s writing, Oko and many of the new Eldraine cards are currently necessary for plenty of the current meta decks, so I would recommend you grab packs from that set.

If you buy Booster packs like this, you’ll only get 8 cards - 5 Commons, 2 Uncommons and 1 Rare.
- You have a 1:40 chance that the Rare in this pack will be upgraded to a Mythic.
Uncommon and Rare wildcards are guaranteed every 6 packs that you open, and you get a guaranteed Mythic Wildcard for every 30 packs you open.

Don’t forget to redeem codes for free booster packs. There are a few lists of these codes online, but I personally recommend mtg.gamepedia.

2. Draft

Probably the best way to get cards and have fun at the same time.

While booster packs will run you 1000 gold for each booster, entering a draft will cost you 5000 gold or 750 gems. This buys you 3 booster packs with 14 cards, 1 booster pack with 8 cards, and 50 gems. In comparison, while Draft gives you a total of 50 cards minimum, 5000 gold worth of boosters will give you 40 cards.

Once you’ve entered the Draft, you’ll pick cards from the booster packs one at a time and construct a deck out of the cards you’ve picked. After that, you get to play against opponents until you lose 3 games or you win 7 games. Each win gives you better rewards and at 6 wins, you’ve earned enough gems to pay for another draft.

Between purchasing Boosters and Drafting, Draft is better if you are confident you can get at least 2 wins. This will net you 200 gems and the 8 card pack I mentioned earlier. Since buying a pack is 200 gems, you can spend these gems on another booster pack to gain a grand total of 58 cards.

However, if you’re not confident in your drafting abilities and you’re searching for specific cards, then you should buy boosters instead of drafting. Boosters can give Wild Cards and give more progress toward the Wild Card track which can then be traded for whatever card you need.

How To Use Draft:

Pay 5000 Gold or 750 Gems to enter into the Draft.

After you pay, you will be given 14 cards to choose from. My recommendation, if you’re just trying to build a collection, you should pick the Rares or Mythics every time. Rare and Mythic Wild Cards are harder to come by than Commons and Uncommons, so you’d save yourself some time if you chose the Rare cards.

After you pick a card, the screen will give you 13 new cards to choose from, and so on and so forth until you’ve picked 3 booster packs worth of cards. As you go through these picks, remember that you want to build a functional deck by the end of this process. My recommendation is to draft heavy into creatures that are worth about 2-4 mana, and at least 1-2 cards that are “bombs” - cards that are expensive but can swing the game in your favor. This way you will always have a board presence even if your opponent plays heavy removal, and in case the game goes on for too long, you have a late-game plan in your bomb.

1. Play Constructed Events And Complete Quests

These can be a bit more challenging, but the rewards can be worth it!

Arena will give you quests that you can complete, like daily wins or “play 20 creatures.” If you play either Ranked or Casual then you can complete these quests for more gold and experience. Getting more experience will then earn you booster packs.

Special events will also appear from time to time. Make sure you play some of these events since they can give special rewards and can be a fun way to finish daily quests.

How To Use Constructed Events:

Before you queue up, check to see how much gold you get from your quests. If the quest rewards are under 750 gold, then you can click on them and reroll them for a chance to get a 750 gold quest.

Choose a deck that will help you complete your quests and then queue up for either casual or ranked - whichever one strikes your fancy at the time.

Each win of the day will also get you Gold and Exp. Daily win rewards start at 250 Gold and 25 XP. Each win will decrease the amount of Gold you gain up to a maximum of 15 Wins (750 Gold in total and 250 XP).

Daily Win rewards reset at 2 am PST.
- Daily wins can also reward you with individual cards.
Getting XP will unlock more Mastery rewards for you. If you didn’t spend your gems from Draft, you can instead purchase the Mastery Pass for 3400 Gems to unlock more rewards. Be aware, you should only do this if you plan on playing a lot of Arena, otherwise you could have just bought 17 booster packs, or signed up for 4 drafts and bought 2 booster packs.
- I personally recommend getting to about level 53 before you purchase the Mastery pass because you’ll come closer to getting your value back from the gems you spent. At level 53 you’ll have about 10 bonus boosters from the pass, 1200 gems back, 4,000 gold and a bunch of single cards - that’s about 3200 Gems worth of value with some gold as change

Thanks for reading! If you still want to read more about Magic Arena, then here are some articles that may be interesting to you:

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