Magic: The Gathering can be an intimidating game, especially when it comes to the Limited format. Today we take a look at MTG: Arena Drafts, both Ranked and Traditional. We’ll go over the entry fees, match structure, and rewards before offering some tips for each of them.
What is MTG: Arena Draft?
In a real life draft each player opens a pack of 14-cards, picks one card from it, and then passes the pack to their left. Everyone keeps doing this until all packs are exhausted. In general, the quality of picks goes down over time as all of the better cards get drafted early on. Part of the fun is not knowing if you’re going for the same color decks as those around you. You do this with three packs for a total of 60 selections.
Currently the game does not support drafting with real players. Rather, the game simulates a drafting experience using bots. Therefore it’s possible to learn how the bots tend to draft with each of the sets to put together a better overall deck.
Once that’s done, you can make the deck to your liking. You should make sure to get it down to 40 cards as is standard in Magic.
Ranked Draft
Entry Fee: 5000 Gold or 750 Gems
Match Structure: Best-of-one
Ends After: 7 Wins or 3 Losses
Rewards: In addition to any cards you’ve drafted, you’ll earn the following based on how many times you win.
- 0 Wins – 50 Gems, 1 Pack (20% chance of bonus pack)
- 1 Win – 100 Gems, 1 Pack (22% chance of bonus pack)
- 2 Wins – 200 Gems, 1 Pack (24% chance of bonus pack)
- 3 Wins – 300 Gems, 1 Pack (26% chance of bonus pack)
- 4 Wins – 450 Gems, 1 Pack (30% chance of bonus pack)
- 5 Wins – 650 Gems, 1 Pack (35% chance of bonus pack)
- 6 Wins – 850 Gems, 1 Pack (40% chance of bonus pack)
- 7 Wins – 950 Gems, 2 Packs
Tips
- Aside from some very time limited events, Ranked Drafts are one of the only ways to get Gems by only spending Gold.
- As a result, Ranked Draft is one of the worst returns on Gold investment. You can earn gems, but you’ll get overall worse cards than if you had just opened packs and gotten Wildcards.
- To go infinite, that is to earn enough Gems back to keep playing forever, you’d need to win 75% of your matches. Almost impossible to do!
- It’s more than okay to draft the cards you need for Constructed from time to time! You get plenty of cards that won’t be used.
- Stick to two main colors unless you really know what you’re doing.
- As per usual in most draft type games, board presence and removal are at a premium.
Traditional Draft
Entry Fee: 1500 Gems
Match Structure: Best-of-three
Ends After: 5 Wins or 2 Losses
Rewards: In addition to any cards you’ve drafted, you’ll earn the following based on how many times you win.
- 0 Wins – 1 Pack
- 1 Win – 2 Packs
- 2 Wins – 800 Gems, 3 Packs
- 3 Wins – 1500 Gems, 4 Packs
- 4 Wins – 1800 Gems, 5 Packs
- 5 Wins – 2100 Gems, 6 Packs
Tips
- To go infinite, that is to earn enough Gems back to keep playing forever, you’d need to win 74% of your matches. Almost impossible to do!
- It’s more than okay to draft the cards you need for Constructed from time to time! You get plenty of cards that won’t be used.
- Keep in mind that since this is Traditional Draft and matches are a best-of-three so you want to also prepare a sideboard!
- Stick to two main colors unless you really know what you’re doing.
- As per usual in most draft type games, board presence and removal are at a premium.
- Try to remember as much of your opponent’s deck as possible so you can possibly counter it in games two and three!
That’s all we’ve got for now! Stay tuned as we’ll be updating this post with links to other MTG: Arena events including the upcoming schedule for all of these so you can plan ahead!
