Efficient Way to Get Cards?

[KotaBuns]

I've never been competitive at this game, and like to play for fun but this game seems to only give incentive to be sweaty meta gaming. The matchmaking, if it's a thing, sure doesn't feel like it, and frankly winning competitive matches or having expendable income seem to be the only real ways to get cards. So I'm stuck in this cool loop where I can't afford cards, and I can't win matches consistently due to not having cards to make an actual deck, so what does this game have for people without expendable income?

[Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn]

Daily quests don't require winning, which means you can get 500-750 gold per day even if you lose.

Daily wins rewards are a different thing - they require winning, but the biggest reward is for the first win (250g, then 100g, 100g, 100g, card, 50g, card, 50g, card, 50g, card, 25g, etc.). Winning may be difficult, but even a bad player should be able to win a game from time to time. This game (just like most card games) is random enough to occasionally let bad players win just by pure luck (or lack of luck for the opponent).

To get out of the gold rank, you need to win at least 33,(3)% matches. If you haven't reached platinum yet, most of your opponents will be far from being competitive, because otherwise they would have a win rate close to 50% and become promoted to platinum.

If you want a fair match collection-wise, try playing the Starter Deck Duels event, where only Starter Decks are available, meaning all players have access to the same decks and cards.

If you want a matchmaking based on your deck strength, then Brawl format does it - with a terrible deck, you should be facing mostly players with terrible decks. But I consider this format to be slow, meaning it probably won't be an efficient way of winning.

The most efficient way of collecting cards is to play limited formats (draft and sealed). In these formats, players' collections don't matter - players are building decks from random cards. By winning 75% of matches, you will get enough gems to play again instantly (and also get a bunch of card packs). Although this format doesn't require collection, it requires a lot of skill.

Also, drafting is a way of converting your gold into diamonds, which lets you buy the season pass, which gives your collection a huge boost.

[Darkclaw3050]

The game is very generous for F2P...Just doing the daily quests you don't need to win a single game to easily earn enough coins for 5 packs or a booster draft every week. If you do get some wins you get even more packs. Wildcards let you get specific cards for free, so you can pretty quickly make a competitive deck if you focus on one at a time.

There are also modes like the starter deck duel and drafts that level the playing field, no amount of money will give the opponent a better deck.

Brawl is also not a bad place to begin since you can only use 1 of each card, so you don't need 4 copies of something to be competitive.

[KotaBuns]

Originally posted by Darkclaw3050:

The game is very generous for F2P...Just doing the daily quests you don't need to win a single game to easily earn enough coins for 5 packs or a booster draft every week. If you do get some wins you get even more packs. Wildcards let you get specific cards for free, so you can pretty quickly make a competitive deck if you focus on one at a time.

There are also modes like the starter deck duel and drafts that level the playing field, no amount of money will give the opponent a better deck.

Brawl is also not a bad place to begin since you can only use 1 of each card, so you don't need 4 copies of something to be competitive.

I was a little flustered admittedly when I posted, and I'll give some credit to your points, but saying this game, or frankly any other F2P, is generous is laughable. This game was set up as a money grab, can't really paint it much different than that. That said, I will slog through this cursed grind non-consensually, as WotC has deemed necessary for us poor folk.

Thank you for your time.

[Skorge]

Originally posted by KotaBuns:

Originally posted by Darkclaw3050:

The game is very generous for F2P...Just doing the daily quests you don't need to win a single game to easily earn enough coins for 5 packs or a booster draft every week. If you do get some wins you get even more packs. Wildcards let you get specific cards for free, so you can pretty quickly make a competitive deck if you focus on one at a time.

There are also modes like the starter deck duel and drafts that level the playing field, no amount of money will give the opponent a better deck.

Brawl is also not a bad place to begin since you can only use 1 of each card, so you don't need 4 copies of something to be competitive.

I was a little flustered admittedly when I posted, and I'll give some credit to your points, but saying this game, or frankly any other F2P, is generous is laughable. This game was set up as a money grab, can't really paint it much different than that. That said, I will slog through this cursed grind non-consensually, as WotC has deemed necessary for us poor folk.

Thank you for your time.

yea idk what that guy was talking about. the F2P experience feels awful. Even if you do everything right and grind every day, you will only get around 30 packs a month including the battle pass. Its not giving you alot of wild cards. So you can be grinding with the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥ deck for months before you can pick up a meta deck where half of it are rares most of the time.

MTGO atleast had the second hand market so you can trade and pick up singles. Now its completely been eliminated and forced down this terrible wild card system.

[Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn]

Originally posted by KotaBuns:

I was a little flustered admittedly when I posted, and I'll give some credit to your points, but saying this game, or frankly any other F2P, is generous is laughable. This game was set up as a money grab, can't really paint it much different than that. That said, I will slog through this cursed grind non-consensually, as WotC has deemed necessary for us poor folk.

Thank you for your time.

It's a perk of collectible card games. It would be wise to avoid this genre if it's an issue.

When people say this game is generous for a F2P game, they mostly have in mind that by playing regularly, you can build a few top decks after each new expansion (assuming you collected cards from at least 2 previous expansions and you know how to spend wildcards well). For comparison, some F2P games theoretically require 2-30 years to max out a set/army/squad/deck.

[John-Silver]

Originally posted by Skorge:

Originally posted by KotaBuns:

I was a little flustered admittedly when I posted, and I'll give some credit to your points, but saying this game, or frankly any other F2P, is generous is laughable. This game was set up as a money grab, can't really paint it much different than that. That said, I will slog through this cursed grind non-consensually, as WotC has deemed necessary for us poor folk.

Thank you for your time.

yea idk what that guy was talking about. the F2P experience feels awful. Even if you do everything right and grind every day, you will only get around 30 packs a month including the battle pass. Its not giving you alot of wild cards. So you can be grinding with the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥ deck for months before you can pick up a meta deck where half of it are rares most of the time.

MTGO atleast had the second hand market so you can trade and pick up singles. Now its completely been eliminated and forced down this terrible wild card system.

Game is generous, your all just coming really late to the game and have 10+ sets to catch up on, in the sense of just going for the most recent 2 or 3 packs it's generous. I'm sorry that you all weren't around since beta to build your collection as sets release, this is the most overlooked thing in this debate I feel. The game's F2P model is based solely around the new player focusing solely on new packs and completely saying no to historic and old card packs until MUCH later, which in turn also kind of locks them out of alchemy, explorer etc. The F2P player is shoehorned into the standard experience.

[KotaBuns]

Originally posted by John-Silver:

Originally posted by Skorge:

yea idk what that guy was talking about. the F2P experience feels awful. Even if you do everything right and grind every day, you will only get around 30 packs a month including the battle pass. Its not giving you alot of wild cards. So you can be grinding with the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥ deck for months before you can pick up a meta deck where half of it are rares most of the time.

MTGO atleast had the second hand market so you can trade and pick up singles. Now its completely been eliminated and forced down this terrible wild card system.

Game is generous, your all just coming really late to the game and have 10+ sets to catch up on, in the sense of just going for the most recent 2 or 3 packs it's generous. I'm sorry that you all weren't around since beta to build your collection as sets release, this is the most overlooked thing in this debate I feel. The game's F2P model is based solely around the new player focusing solely on new packs and completely saying no to historic and old card packs until MUCH later, which in turn also kind of locks them out of alchemy, explorer etc. The F2P player is shoehorned into the standard experience.

Basing F2P models to make the game unenjoyable to newcomers is the opposite of rational, your point is moot at best friend, but I didn't put this up to spark debate so let's leave it be :)

[John-Silver]

Originally posted by KotaBuns:

Originally posted by John-Silver:

Game is generous, your all just coming really late to the game and have 10+ sets to catch up on, in the sense of just going for the most recent 2 or 3 packs it's generous. I'm sorry that you all weren't around since beta to build your collection as sets release, this is the most overlooked thing in this debate I feel. The game's F2P model is based solely around the new player focusing solely on new packs and completely saying no to historic and old card packs until MUCH later, which in turn also kind of locks them out of alchemy, explorer etc. The F2P player is shoehorned into the standard experience.

Basing F2P models to make the game unenjoyable to newcomers is the opposite of rational, your point is moot at best friend, but I didn't put this up to spark debate so let's leave it be :)

I didn't mean this debate as in thread I meant the debate between if it's free 2 play model is good or not, which it is, you're just shoehorned into standard, you want to play the extended format, but haven't put in the time to get the old packs, it's sucks yes. But this isn't a show of a bad model, this model has allowed people to pay ONCE for a battle pass than never having to pay for it again, not many TCG-based games let you loop the pass like this, or if your smart you can build a collection for coin only if you proceed to be smart with their coin, it just felt better at beta, when their wasn't 10+ packs you couldn't open. This wouldn't be possible if the F2P model didn't work. You're all late to the game, you can't expect the game to give you means to have 40% of 15+ packs within a couple days. I do agree that they need to have 2 separate rewards system, one that reward a pack or two for "standard" legal rotation, and another that has historic cards. I also believe if they made jump-in free, no gold, gem or token cost just let new players choose 2 archtypes to mash together and learn how to play it, than getting to keep those cards at the end for you to use for deckbuilding on your own would help this game so much.

[EvilHare]

Originally posted by KotaBuns:

Originally posted by Darkclaw3050:

The game is very generous for F2P...Just doing the daily quests you don't need to win a single game to easily earn enough coins for 5 packs or a booster draft every week. If you do get some wins you get even more packs. Wildcards let you get specific cards for free, so you can pretty quickly make a competitive deck if you focus on one at a time.

There are also modes like the starter deck duel and drafts that level the playing field, no amount of money will give the opponent a better deck.

Brawl is also not a bad place to begin since you can only use 1 of each card, so you don't need 4 copies of something to be competitive.

I was a little flustered admittedly when I posted, and I'll give some credit to your points, but saying this game, or frankly any other F2P, is generous is laughable. This game was set up as a money grab, can't really paint it much different than that. That said, I will slog through this cursed grind non-consensually, as WotC has deemed necessary for us poor folk.

Thank you for your time.

It sounds like you just want a reason to hate. I been playing Arena since testing phases and it is very generous compared to other digital CCGs. Much so that I go through stages where I collect so many wildcards I can make a meta deck from scratch.


I am sorry it is not going the pace of free you think it should go, but for the majority, the pace of free is better than 80% of the other digital CCGs.

I just wish they would release Netrunner into it's own digital arena. I miss that game more than I do Magic and I have been playing MTG since the beta days of the IRL. Arena is less addicting than the IRL cardcrack!

[nul]

If you love yourself, only aim for 4 wins a day. Yes, you get rewards for up to 15, but your first win gives you more gold than the last 11 do.
It goes as follows:
Win # Reward
1 250 gold + 25 XP
2 100 gold + 25 XP
3 100 gold + 25 XP
4 100 gold + 25 XP
5 ICR + 25 XP
6 50 gold + 25 XP
7 ICR + 25 XP
8 50 gold + 25 XP
9 ICR + 25 XP
10 50 gold + 25 XP
11 ICR
12 25 gold
13 ICR
14 25 gold
15 ICR

ICR being "individual card reward", which is most often an uncommon, with a small chance of being rare, and an even smaller chance of being mythic rare. They're not really worth playing for.
But as you can see, 550 gold in the first four wins, then only 150 for the next 6.

Always refresh 500 gold quests, try to roll for 750.

I've been coping by reminding myself that I don't even have to get 4 wins a day, personally.

Then for getting those wins, play more casual formats if you want to play more casually. Bo1 unranked standard may have the awful hand smoother built into it, but it also has weighted matchmaking. So even if you have low tier cards, as long as you build a well constructed deck out of them, you should still be able to win.
There's also starter deck duels, but I don't find it interesting to play decks I didn't create.

Then I found historic brawl also fun to play at times. Though this is one you have to do a little bit of research for. You'll want a 'mid-tier' commander. High tier is just hellqueue. Then low tier is mostly just "good stuff" decks that spiral out of control if you can't keep up. There's an old spreadsheet with what the weights used to be, but anything Bloomburrow or newer isn't covered by it, and some may be outright wrong, because Wizards patched out the ability to figure out weights. I wish they'd at least tell us the commander tiers.

[EvilHare]

Originally posted by nul:

If you love yourself, only aim for 4 wins a day. Yes, you get rewards for up to 15, but your first win gives you more gold than the last 11 do.
It goes as follows:
Win # Reward
1 250 gold + 25 XP
2 100 gold + 25 XP
3 100 gold + 25 XP
4 100 gold + 25 XP
5 ICR + 25 XP
6 50 gold + 25 XP
7 ICR + 25 XP
8 50 gold + 25 XP
9 ICR + 25 XP
10 50 gold + 25 XP
11 ICR
12 25 gold
13 ICR
14 25 gold
15 ICR

ICR being "individual card reward", which is most often an uncommon, with a small chance of being rare, and an even smaller chance of being mythic rare. They're not really worth playing for.
But as you can see, 550 gold in the first four wins, then only 150 for the next 6.

Always refresh 500 gold quests, try to roll for 750.

I've been coping by reminding myself that I don't even have to get 4 wins a day, personally.

Then for getting those wins, play more casual formats if you want to play more casually. Bo1 unranked standard may have the awful hand smoother built into it, but it also has weighted matchmaking. So even if you have low tier cards, as long as you build a well constructed deck out of them, you should still be able to win.
There's also starter deck duels, but I don't find it interesting to play decks I didn't create.

Then I found historic brawl also fun to play at times. Though this is one you have to do a little bit of research for. You'll want a 'mid-tier' commander. High tier is just hellqueue. Then low tier is mostly just "good stuff" decks that spiral out of control if you can't keep up. There's an old spreadsheet with what the weights used to be, but anything Bloomburrow or newer isn't covered by it, and some may be outright wrong, because Wizards patched out the ability to figure out weights. I wish they'd at least tell us the commander tiers.

I go for the 10 and have no problem doing it, but I do have a collection that started since day 1 of Arena. I think I have paid for Mastery 20 times in my whole 6ish years playing Arena.

[Zlehtnoba]

Magic is a strange game. There are so many ways of playing Magic that what is generous for one player can be quite slow for another one. For example, I can draft for free two times a week, and that seems incredibly generous to me. It's also the best way to build your collection over time, as John Silver alluded to.

On the other hand, if you come to Arena to play Standard, or Historic, you will need to be either extremely patient or spend money on wildcards. The more formats you want to try to be competitive in, the more resources you will need to spend. Again, as an example, when I came back after a three-year pause, I had more than one hundred rare wildcards stashed, but no Standard cards. Now I have three different Standard top decks and a few Brawl fun ones, and 5 rare wildcards (but still over 60 mythic ones). And I just play Constructed to keep me from playing too much Limited.

[Stensson]

interestingly enough, if a new player wants to field a competitive deck then their best bet is to play standard as they have the best chance of pulling a usable rare from standard packs and they're also progressing the golden pack thing

but then they're also only acquiring cards for that specific format which has regular rotations meaning that some cards will be banned and they need to get a bunch of new cards every expansion, basically they're like a hamster in a wheel

so despite explorer and historic being more difficult to get into initially, in the long term your investments will start to pay off as the good rare lands and other rare staples stay the same