How Do I Pick A Different Deck?

[swagen2167]

Title says it all. Every game I play I get the same green and white deck but I see on my decks tab that I actually own tons of decks. How do I pick a different one?

FYI, long time paper magic player since 1994. First time playing online and I'm kind of lost. Any help will be greatly appreciated as well as any tips you might give me regarding all these points and things I'm supposedly winning. Have no idea what to do with any of this stuff including how to get additional cards without having to buy them. After spending a good 30 grand on paper magic, I really don't want to go down that rabbit hole again.

[Zlehtnoba]

This may be trivial, but still, you should note that there is no trading on Arena. Instead, we have the crafting system, wildcards.

There are two main ways to get new cards: opening boosters and playing Limited. Opening boosters advances your wildcards wheel (top right of the boosters screen). A wildcard can be redeemed for a copy of any card of its rarity. Once converted, it cannot be changed any more, you can't dust cards, so think twice before doing so.

We have duplicate protection on Arena: you cannot open a fifth copy of a card unless you have a complete set of four-ofs of that rarity. And you can put a card in any number of decks, so you only ever need four copies of it.

I'm not sure how tutorial goes, it's been a long time. But picking a deck should be easy, just click on it. Go to Home -Play, choose the event or queue you want to play in, and you should see a list of your decks legal in the format on the left. Click on the one you want to play, and that's it.

There's help for beginners you might want to check out, the book icon on top right of the home screen.

[swagen2167]

Okay, I figured out how to pick a deck. You actually have to click play first then above play you see your deck. If you click on it, a list of decks will pop up and then you pick the one you want. I was trying to pick the deck first by going to my decks. It doesn't work that way. Anyway, I'm testing out several decks to see which ones I like the best.

Okay, now as far as getting new cards, I assume that when you say open boosters, these have to be paid for with real money. Correct? If not and there is another way, what is that other way? Do I earn virtual money with my victories (have 2 so far our of 4 games) and can then use that to buy boosters? How exactly does this work? Thanks again for all your help.

[Minmataro]

Originally posted by swagen2167:

Okay, I figured out how to pick a deck. You actually have to click play first then above play you see your deck. If you click on it, a list of decks will pop up and then you pick the one you want. I was trying to pick the deck first by going to my decks. It doesn't work that way. Anyway, I'm testing out several decks to see which ones I like the best.

Okay, now as far as getting new cards, I assume that when you say open boosters, these have to be paid for with real money. Correct? If not and there is another way, what is that other way? Do I earn virtual money with my victories (have 2 so far our of 4 games) and can then use that to buy boosters? How exactly does this work? Thanks again for all your help.

If you do your daily and weekly quests you earn gold. With that gold you can buy boosters , play in a draft and play in Jump in events. You also gain Xp and unlock free packs via the mastery pass (free tier). If u want u can slowly build a collection for free. Use the decks u have, upgrade a color or two that u enjoy and use that deck and evolve it over time. Start playing ranked and earn even more packs and gold.

You can spend money on the premium tier of the mastery pass, buying packs, buying gems to draft and gain cards faster but u dont need to if u dont want too. Oh and cosmetics can be bought with gold too.

this is a good video for free players. https://youtu.be/BkzeuZ9V5vc?si=wruaEy3q99Tn8UC0 no its not mine. i used a similar guide early on myself.

[swagen2167]

Originally posted by Minmataro:

Originally posted by swagen2167:

Okay, I figured out how to pick a deck. You actually have to click play first then above play you see your deck. If you click on it, a list of decks will pop up and then you pick the one you want. I was trying to pick the deck first by going to my decks. It doesn't work that way. Anyway, I'm testing out several decks to see which ones I like the best.

Okay, now as far as getting new cards, I assume that when you say open boosters, these have to be paid for with real money. Correct? If not and there is another way, what is that other way? Do I earn virtual money with my victories (have 2 so far our of 4 games) and can then use that to buy boosters? How exactly does this work? Thanks again for all your help.

If you do your daily and weekly quests you earn gold. With that gold you can buy boosters , play in a draft and play in Jump in events. You also gain Xp and unlock free packs via the mastery pass (free tier). If u want u can slowly build a collection for free. Use the decks u have, upgrade a color or two that u enjoy and use that deck and evolve it over time. Start playing ranked and earn even more packs and gold.

You can spend money on the premium tier of the mastery pass, buying packs, buying gems to draft and gain cards faster but u dont need to if u dont want too. Oh and cosmetics can be bought with gold too.

this is a good video for free players. https://youtu.be/BkzeuZ9V5vc?si=wruaEy3q99Tn8UC0 no its not mine. i used a similar guide early on myself.

Thanks. Quick question. The last match I played, I played a card that said "You may return target non land permanent you control." I didn't really want to and as it said "may" I shouldn't have had to. But I didn't see any option upon resolution of the spell to opt out of the "may" part. It seemed like I only had one choice, to return something.

My question is this. Is that a bug in the system or am I not seeing the mechanic to opt out of the "may" clause.

[Gryfn]

There should be a 'Decline' button. Any mechanic you don't understand, you can test it against the Sparky AI bot.

[SupaFly]

Originally posted by Gryfn:

Think you need to target something first and then you will get the may option. Any mechanic you don't understand, you can test it against the Sparky AI bot.

Poor sparky. Our virtual punching bag.

[Gryfn]

I just tested some cards with 'may return' text in them. I didn't need to target for the cards I tested to get a 'may' option. When the spells/abilities were resolving, I was given a 'Decline' button. Hit that to opt out.

[Gryfn]

Since you're new to MTGA, it's probably a good idea to look through the following, which goes through the Starter Deck Duel event queue.
https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-starter-deck-duel/

[Zlehtnoba]

Originally posted by swagen2167:

Thanks. Quick question. The last match I played, I played a card that said "You may return target non land permanent you control." I didn't really want to and as it said "may" I shouldn't have had to. But I didn't see any option upon resolution of the spell to opt out of the "may" part. It seemed like I only had one choice, to return something.

My question is this. Is that a bug in the system or am I not seeing the mechanic to opt out of the "may" clause.

When you play a spell that has targets, you must choose the targets. In your case, a permanent you own. Then, as the spell resolves, you can choose not to return it.

[swagen2167]

Originally posted by Zlehtnoba:

Originally posted by swagen2167:

Thanks. Quick question. The last match I played, I played a card that said "You may return target non land permanent you control." I didn't really want to and as it said "may" I shouldn't have had to. But I didn't see any option upon resolution of the spell to opt out of the "may" part. It seemed like I only had one choice, to return something.

My question is this. Is that a bug in the system or am I not seeing the mechanic to opt out of the "may" clause.

When you play a spell that has targets, you must choose the targets. In your case, a permanent you own. Then, as the spell resolves, you can choose not to return it.

Thanks. Not used to online mechanics. Playing nothing but paper magic all my life a lot of this stuff is confusing as hell to me. I still don't get this reward system and how to earn enough "points" to buy packs.

FWIW, before selling my collection, I had stopped playing Standard and played nothing but Vintage and Legacy at a local shop. When it closed and there was nowhere to play anymore I decided to sell my collection seeing it was worth a lot of money at the time. No sense hanging onto it and just letting it collect dust. I do miss playing, which is why I decided to try online. As an experience, it's not bad. It's going to take me a while to learn these new game mechanics with these new cards but I'm a fast learner. I used to play TES a lot which is not an easy deck to master. Oh I miss those days. Anyway, thanks for all the help. Really appreciate it.

[swagen2167]

Question: Under the Reward Pack icon, I see a number 3. Does that mean I have 3 packs coming to me? If so, how do I claim them?

[Kurt Angle's Neck]

Read this: link[mtgaassistant.net]

[swagen2167]

Question: I just started going through the menus and I saw "Packs" so I clicked on it. I found tons of packs that I supposedly "own"? Anyway, I opened them all and there were tons of them. I wasn't sure if these were standard eligible or what but then I saw in the last pack I opened "Millstone" which I know can't possibly be standard eligible. So what exactly are these packs for? What format can I use them for? Or are they just to have in my "collection"?

[swagen2167]

Question: I have 3,700 gold. What can I use it for? Or is it pretty much worthless? Everything in the shop that I see says I need gems to buy. I have no gems? Can you convert gold to gems? What do I do with my gold? Sorry for all the questions but this whole system is very new to me. I'm used to just going into the card store or to Ebay with my credit card.

[swagen2167]

Originally posted by Kurt Angle's Neck:

Read this: link[mtgaassistant.net]

Thanks. At that link, I read the following:

Gold
Gold is the primary (there is one other) in-game currency for Arena. With gold, you can purchase booster packs, gain entry to events, and participate in drafts. Gold can be acquired through daily wins, completing quests, and event rewards.

How do i purchase booster packs with Gold? I don't see any option to do so. What am I missing?

** EDIT ** Okay, figured it out but the note on top in the store says can only be used for historic formats. Does that mean I can't use these cards to play standard? If not, how do I go about getting better cards to play standard?