Getting Started with Digital Magic

Posted on April 8, 2020

In the past few weeks, our worlds have changed dramatically. COVID-19 has ravaged the globe and uprooted any sense of normalcy we've had for our entire lives. Jobs have by and large shifted to working from home, going to the grocery store is suddenly dangerous, and more. For us in the world of Magic: the Gathering, we've lost one of the most important aspects of the game to this crisis: the Gathering itself.

How do we play Magic now in this time of need? Many of us can't play paper Magic now as social distancing becomes the norm. Our local game stores are closing down and we really can't even get out to visit friends and play with one another. Some of us are lucky enough to have someone who we live with that plays, but others are much less fortunate. For those who still want to play paper games, many have taken to the likes of Discord for group video chats to make games work. Images of jerry rigged setups and makeshift layouts have littered my Twitter feed over the last few weeks as players try and find ways to make it work.

For many still, the situation has proved difficult to play properly with friends in a meaningful way. This has led to the rise in digital Magic with a resurgence and growth in numbers both on MTG Arena and Magic Online. Yet while many have flocked to the platforms, many still don't quite know where to begin with them. Today, I'm going to walk you through some of the aspects of both platforms and explain to you how you can get involved and play the greatest game in the world in these trying times.

MTG Arena

Wizards of the Coast's newest foray into a true digital Magic experience is MTG Arena and it's by far the easiest digital version of the game to jump into. Simply download the client, make an account, and you'll be all set to go! The game will take you through a tutorial with the AI player Sparky before giving you a starter set of cards to get your foot in the door and get you playing. Most of these cards are quite basic and won't get you super far against a player base that has super strong decks - even at the lowest rung of the ranked ladder.

That's okay though! As it happens, Arena provides you with coins and experience which can translate to drafts, booster packs, and random single cards to help you improve your card pool. Soon enough you'll be playing with the big leagues. It can take time to do this, however, as there are caps to how much you can earn in a single day.

If you've got some extra cash you can instead buy some gems - and in turn packs - from the store to get you what you need. This isn't too bad if you already have a solid budget for what you'd normally spend at a shop. For example, if you would normally go to your LGS and draft, consider buying some gems on Arena instead. Even better, instead of spending $12-15 on a paper draft, a best-of-one draft experience on Arena is just $5 - or 750 gems. Traditional best-of-three drafts cost 1500 gems to join, but $10 gets you 1600, so still plenty cheap by comparison. In addition, you can earn more gems just by playing, thereby keeping you going with minimal investment.

Once you've gotten a decent collection together, you can begin to form the basis for the deck you'd like to build. Early on, without a solid investment right out of the gate, you probably still don't quite have enough to build what you want, but no worries! You might have noticed as you open packs and go through the game that you've collected these things known as wildcards.

Wildcards allow you to redeem them for whatever cards you want of their respective rarities. Need to round out your list with a few rares? Just right click the cards you want to redeem wildcards for or else click the "Craft All" button in the lower right-hand corner of your deck-building window. Some of the higher tier lists might be a bit difficult to complete, but it's not hard to build something like Mono-Red Aggro to get started on your journey to Mythic.

But MTG Arena isn't all just Standard and Limited as many players may believe. Over the last few months, Wizards has been making an effort to bring formats such as Brawl and Historic to the forefront. Brawl is now free to play for everyone at any time of day, and it's never been easier to jump in. Just pick a legendary creature or planeswalker and build a sweet 60-card singleton deck around them. I've personally been playing tons with Ashiok, Nightmare Muse myself!

Then there's Historic, which has been getting new toys for a while. In fact, we just recently got the Historic Anthology 2 to bring a ton of powerful cards into the format and create all new archetypes. It's a wide open format with new decks being discovered all the time. I personally have been excited to try the format's version of Maverick, my favorite Legacy deck, now that cards like Knight of the Reliquary, Thalia, and Terravore have entered the mix. Even better, Wizards has allowed players to play the format in Ranked, allowing you to make your way to Mythic by playing a non-Standard format.

Thankfully, Wizards is always providing more and more ways to play the game. New special events are being held all the time, such as the Arena Cube Sealed - which provides a unique Limited experience with cards from throughout the Historic card pool. By clicking the button beside "Arena Play Modes," you can reveal even more ways to play when you click the "Play" button, including Constructed tournaments - or "Events" - and best-of-three gameplay which is referred to as "Traditional" on Arena.

MTG Arena has also been providing players with a Friday Night Magic at home experience. This has so far included things like free events to test out the new Challenger Decks and an event that allowed you free access to the entire Standard card pool. This Friday, an event is being hosted for Historic Brawl which should be a grand time. You can find more details here.

Last but not least, Wizards has been working with CFB Events to bring the experience of MagicFests and Grand Prixs to your home in the best way possible. Qualifiers are held throughout the week, which can all be found here. Those who place well qualify for a championship event at the end of the week, which is effectively a Grand Prix. That means it's a two day event with 14 rounds and cut to Top 8 with big prizes and qualifications for the Players Tour. Players who place well in these also qualify for a season finals event, the first of which will be held this weekend!

As Wizards of the Coast continues to provide MTG Arena with all kinds of new features, like friend lists and the upcoming Mac and mobile versions, it's definitely a great bang for your buck. Check it out and dive on into some Magic!

Magic Online

While MTG Arena is very much the new hotness, the truest online Magic: the Gathering experience is found through Magic Online. Not only can you play formats like Standard and Limited, but you can also play Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper (and not just Standard or Historic Pauper like on Arena either), Commander, Momir Basic, Vanguard, and so many more. There's event plenty of player run formats like Penny Dreadful and Tribal Wars - which was an older format Magic Online used to offer.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a small series of articles titled "Reaching Beyond Pauper" as a way to kind of guide players to use the budgetary aspects of the Pauper format to build up to other more expensive formats. In parts two through four ("Going Digital," "Upgrading Decks," and "A New Level") I go over how to start from a basic account and work your way up in the client. A lot of the information is still as relevant as ever, but in the last year and a half, a lot has changed.

So what does a Magic Online account provide? You get 40 of each basic land, 2 of each Standard legal common, 2 of each Standard legal uncommon, 2 avatars to customize your in-game appearance, and 20 new player points. These new player points allow you to join the New Player Gauntlet under the "Limited" tab which gives you a random Modern deck to take for a spin and get a taste of the format. If you want a better overview for the client - as it is often daunting for many a new user to try and learn - bot chains MTGO Traders and Cardhoarder both have in-depth guides to help. They're ever so slightly outdated, but for the most part all the relevant info is still all here.

Before we can learn to utilize all that the client has to offer, though, we need to make an account. Just download the app, which you can find here, make an account in-client, and you'll have all the basics. To be able to trade, chat and more, go into the Store tab and buy the Upgrade Kit. Normally it costs $9.99 to upgrade, but due to the ongoing crisis the price has been temporarily decreased to $4.99. This makes starting to play on Magic Online easier than ever, and it genuinely has shown.

When it was first announced that MTG Arena was going to be the way we were going to see Magic played going forward with the huge drop at The Game Awards in 2018, the Magic Online economy tanked. Players sold out, jumping ship for what they felt was going to be the better competitive solution. The mentality that Arena would one day kill Magic Online didn't help matters either. Prices tanked and multiple bot chains had to stop buying collections and Event Tickets (which are effectively an in-game currency).

Now, though, prices have rebounded and the aforementioned chains are buying more strongly than ever. In fact, prices have jumped so much that it's affected entire formats. Not only have a number of Commander staples such as Sol Ring spiked hard, but there's so few cards now worth 0.01 tickets or less that Penny Dreadful had to change how the format works temporarily. Starting with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, the format is going to use cards worth two cents or less to compensate for the rise in prices across the board.

Their site is packed with information on the format, what to expect with the upcoming rotation, and more. In fact, Penny Dreadful is one of the best ways to get started online. Decks are obviously ridiculously cheap and can get you playing competitive events with prizes without paying any money beyond the initial buy-in to start your Magic Online account. Cardhoarder offers 4 tix worth of bot credits for free to new players - an upgrade from the normal 2 tix in the past due to the current state of the world. This means you can build a few decks for Penny Dreadful right out of the gate.

I can't go too deeply into what decks are going to be available since the format is changing in just a few short weeks, but I can give you a glimpse at some of the sweet decks that were played this season. Check these out:

Mono-Black Devotion | Penny Dreadful | -diamonddust-, Penny Dreadful Saturdays

Instants (2)
2 Drag to the Underworld

Sorceries (4)
2 Epic Downfall
2 Reanimate

Enchantments (4)
4 Underworld Dreams

Artifacts (4)
4 Witch's Oven

Lands (24)
22 Swamp
2 Witch's Cottage

Remember how people were hoping Mono-Black Devotion would see its glorious return to Standard with the reprint of Gray Merchant of Asphodel? Well, that didn't really pan out, but the deck has seen some life proving to be quite successful in Penny Dreadful! A number of the cards are quite Standard legal, but there's some surprising old favorites like Gatekeeper of Malakir, Vampire Nighthawk, and even Reanimate showing up. Nothing says love quite like casting one of those to bring back a Gary that you just sacrificed to a Witch's Oven!

Like some good old fashioned White Weenies? Check out this one!

Mono-White Tokens | Penny Dreadful | rfunay, Penny Dreadful Sundays

Sorceries (4)
4 Battle Screech

Enchantments (8)
4 Glorious Anthem
4 Omen of the Sun

Lands (22)
18 Plains
4 Secluded Steppe

Seriously, there's nothing like casting some Glorious Anthems to brighten your day. You can even play genuine classics like the Odyssey block favorite Madness! Check out this list of old-school cool:

Simic Madness | Penny Dreadful | illevate, March 2020 League

Sorceries (4)
4 Roar of the Wurm

This is just a small taste of the kinds of sweet playable decks that you were able to jam during the Theros Beyond Death season of the format! Some others included Gates, Izzet Tempo, Jund Sacrifice, Mono-Red Aggro, and Mono-Blue Tempo, and more. Events are held regularly through the site Gatherling.com where you can find a number of free-to-play events that pay out real prizes in the form of credits to different bots who chose to sponsor these events. They don't just offer events for Penny Dreadful, but also Tribal Wars, Peasant, and of course my favorite: Pauper.

This leads me to my next point in that Pauper is one of the next most affordable formats you can jump into as well. Per MTGGoldfish's metagame snapshot page, the most expensive deck in the format is Skred Faeries (aka Izzet Delver) which comes in at a whole 69 tickets. That's significantly cheaper than your average Modern, Legacy, or even Standard deck when it comes to Magic Online. Some of the format's decks competitive decks can be built for way less than that, though, with prices being just a small step up from Penny Dreadful.

Mono-White Heroic | Pauper | Terminus0, Pauper Challenge

Lands (17)
15 Plains
2 Secluded Steppe

Check out this Heroic list. As is, it costs just shy of 17 tix on Cardhoarder - and that's if you're not paying with cash. If you can trim the Cho-Manno's Blessings in the 75 here - which cost 3.12 tix each - and use budget replacements, your deck suddenly becomes more like 8.5 tix in cost. That's quite the drop! You could say something similar about the Mono-Black Control archetype as well.

Mono-Black Control | Pauper | wdf, Tropical Pauper Saturdays

Enchantments (2)
2 Oubliette

This list costs just over 5 tix! Mono-Black Control used to be one of the format's most expensive decks online due to somewhat high price points for cards like Cuombajj Witches and Chittering Rats. Both saw huge promo printings in the last few years which brought the prices crashing down. The ideal version of the deck is closer to 20 tix thanks to the high prices on cards like Thorn of the Black Rose and Pestilence, but you can still build strong competitive versions for next to nothing.

If you want to go off the beaten path a bit, you can even try some Golgari Aristocrats:

Golgari Aristocrats | Pauper | _mathieu_, Tropical Pauper Saturdays

Instants (3)
3 Tragic Slip

Sorceries (4)
1 Essence Harvest
3 Winding Way

Enchantments (2)
2 Rancor

Lands (17)
7 Swamp
8 Forest
2 Jungle Hollow

This deck goes just over 4 tix but has versions that are closer to 3! It's not the kind of list that will win you the Pauper Challenges or Players Tour Qualifiers that Magic Online holds, but you can play it to great effect in the free Gatherling events, Magic Online leagues, and even just good old friendly play to keep you playing Magic on a budget.

Should you want to go in harder and drop some actual cash, then not to worry! Pauper has plenty of decks like Tron, Delver, Boros Monarch and Bully, Elves, Bogles, Mono-Green Stompy, Burn, and more! And beyond that, you can easily put together some decks for bigger formats so long as you're willing to drop the money for them.

Sites like Cardhoarder and MTGO Traders both allow you to buy directly from them and have them deliver the cards right to your account. If you want to swap your unusable paper cards for online versions, MTGO Traders has a physical store called Cape Fear Games which allows you to buylist for credit to MTGO Traders, allowing you to buy what you need. If you're fine just borrowing cards, Cardhoarder has a pretty sweet loan program that's worth checking out. ManaTraders also has one and are by far the longest in the game.

Finally, it should be mentioned that like MTG Arena, Magic Online has also been stepping up their response to the global crisis by giving players more ways to play. They managed to work in a number of additional Players Tour Qualifier events, with some happening every single day now! In addition, there are special rotating events that have run, such as Vintage Cube, Modern Horizons drafts, and Modern Cube. As with Arena, I'd only expect more to arrive in the coming weeks, so get on board and start playing.

No matter how you choose to play, be it via webcam, MTG Arena, Magic Online, or heck even Shandalar (which you can download and play by following the instructions here), there's always tons of ways to both have fun and be competitive. While the world is in turmoil, the Gathering will remain, even if not quite the way we would prefer it. Soon enough, though, we'll have plenty more opportunities to play paper Magic once more. I look forward to attending another prerelease, MagicFest, SCG Open, and more when the dust settles. But until then we must do what we can, and thankfully there's still so many ways to play the greatest game of all time.

Kendra Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

Twitch: twitch.tv/themaverickgirl

YouTube: Kendra Smith

TAGS articles, advice, constructed, magic online, online, mtgo, decklist, guide, arena, mtg arena, kendra smith, 04082020