Build A Collection WITHOUT Drafting! How Much Can You Get From Just Packs? | MTG Arena Economy Guide
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
- Can you build a collection in MTG Arena without drafting at all? For those people who hate draft for whatever reason, how much of a new Standard set can you collect from just playing Constructed and buying packs from the store?
Do you think this is a viable strategy? Let me know in the comments...
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#magicthegathering #mtg #mtgarena #mtgeconomy - Hry
For draft haters, the beauty of not fully completing the set is that in a course of a standard set's life if you're getting the mastery pass you still acquire older standard legal packs hence slowly completing your old sets in the course of now 3 (previously 2) years standard lifespan. This also gives your gold packs something to fill out along the year. This also goes for ICRs.
Great video. I hate draft, and have been buying packs since arena began and you're absolutely right that it use to be a horrible way to go about it but is now totally viable. Love the calculations to put things in perspective. Thanks for making this
You're welcome 👍
Really good timing, thanks for the video - I've just picked up arena after playing like 2 games of magic 20 years ago. I read half a dozen guides saying 'just play draft', and it was utterly miserable. I guess the downside of trying such an established game is that most of the 'beginner guides' are for people who've been playing magic for decades but only just installed arena.
Yeah it does seem like 'play draft' is the main piece of advice that people get, and it's really not for everyone. It's good to know there's a viable alternative.
I enjoy drafting, but stink at it. I have trouble identifying the Bomb cards in the BREAD system.
I learned some new things about how different cards work in different ways, like Bo3, brawl, etc. I never quite realized that, even after playing on Arena for about 8 months.
Thanks for your efforts on these educational videos, GSD.
Drafting is the kind of thing that's jarring at first and you just got to do until you get good at it. When you start being good at it it becomes really enjoyable because you're still "learning" and mastering it.
Basically when you start and have 0 knowledge the drafting experience sucks and the results sucks. When you start understanding how it works it just keeps getting better and better.
That's why Quick Draft is a good place to start learning. All the time you need to pick the cards, smaller entry fee, and less pressure to get high rewards.
I am in the 0 or 1 wins range. I once (and only once) got to 3 wins, but that may have been for luck, not skill.
Looking forward to the next quick draft which will feature WOE.
This is where the Historic format comes in for me. I only play intermittently, usually a few sets at a time and then I stop for a long period, but within the last several years I've been able to use cards I crafted over year prior to sustain the value on climbing when I play.
I'm grinding for historic cards using my old standard 4c elementals with a better mana base and some cheap improvements. It's not meta by any means, but I can get to gold or even plat with some patience. Most of my quests can be done with this deck and I have some brawls to cover other colors and conditions of the quests. With 48 boosters via code for new players you can make a cheap archetype like aggro or even a functional midrange base that you can slowly improve. Control is a little expensive usually, So I don't recomend going for it as a first deck, but as a second one you can get progress fast If you save your wilds.
great video, I looooove drafting but It gives a good overview of the fairness of the game for f2p players
Excellent content per usual! Keep it up man!
Appreciate it!
Thank you for all these insights ;-)
You're welcome 👍
I'm new to Arena and your vids are quite helpful. Thank you🎉🎉
Glad to hear it! 👍
Ngl I've gotten decent at drafting and evaluation of cards BUT it still makes me fairly anxious to fire one up. There was a lot of trial and error along the way and I might have traumatized myself lol
Sad thing is I don't hate drafting, I would actually like to play it a lot more.. but it can be so expensive if your win rate sucks.
same here. I want to improve at it real bad but the cost of entry is too much and thus the stakes are high. I can just grind another format and not care if I win or lose.
Drafting is something that might cause some stress because of fees. But I have to recommend to give them try. Especially when in bronze tier. The rewards are pretty fair imo, the thrill when battling for a break even or even better a 7th win is quite cool.
Watching some daft content on YT always help me get a little confident entering a event.
NumotTheNummy and LSV are my go to drafters usually but there are plenty of good drafters to choose from.
I prefer watching content over grinding daily wins as I seem to become a better player by watching the best players go at it.
Usually I stop drafting when I'm platinum tier and buy packs with the leftover gold as Standard is what I play most while getting a feel for Explorer as that format seems quite fun as well.
My advice is to go traditional draft when you hit Platinum!
Thanks for making another great video and doing the math. Small not is that “hate drafting” is another name for either rare drafting or drafting cards that the other drafters might want even if it’s not in your current colors, so that might be slightly confusing to some.
Thanks for letting me know. I've never actually heard that from anywhere before.
That's also how i read the title. Hate drafting isn't something that applies to Arena drafts really since you don't get paired with the people you drafted with. Only really relevant for tournaments where they make sure each group of 8 plays against others in their group.
Great video, but to be honest, drafting is the next step if you really want to have the best possible experience in this. I used to hate drafting, but I started to give it a chance since Dominaria United, and my experience and win rate has improved a lot. Now I'm able to pay for free each mastery pass, and have a decent collection for Standard and Historic Brawl (my favorite constructed formats). When you just buy packs you easily get annoyed by not getting the rare or mythic you wish, so is frustrating and slow. Additionally, when get in to Limited, you really start to appreciate the power of commons and uncommon cards that have no opportunity in constructed standard. So its a shame having such an a big collection of cards useless in constructed. So I encourage people to try drafting, and slowly geting in to limited, because this will improve your experience in constructed formats. Thanks for the video!!
I really enjoy drafting too, but I know many people don't, even after they've given it a fair try. I know they often hear they still need to draft to collect more, when all they want to do is play Standard.
I don't think drafting instead of buying packs makes you any more likely to get the playable rares you want faster. You get to pick the rares in draft or not, but you don't control which ones get passed to you. Buying packs instead will give more wildcards to the average player to enable them to craft the cards they want.
Drafting is fun for me, but it's good to know how viable the alternative is if someone wants to avoid it.
I'm kind of player that hates draft. And it's not like I make one 0-3 run and just abandoned it. No, I start playing when arena was first release on mobile and since then I play all formats (draft included) and do many 5+ wins streak. The thing is those games are not fun to me and I do then only for collection purpose. My main format are historic brawl and normal brawl, but they don't give you a chance to collect cards. So from my perspective no draft options are great.
@@1radas14 interesting point. I mainly play Historic Brawl, but I haven't try Standard Brawl. How is the format right now? Do you recommend it?
@@jesusarielgonzalez7775 standard brawl have lower entry point as you need less cards but at the same time they are more repetitive. Because you have thinner decks and lesser variety of commanders. That's being said if you like a little more "standardy" plays with greater consistency then standard brawl is pretty good.
Personally want to get better at drafting myself this release. I started playing last November and basically just draft at the beginning of each release for rares and mythics before opening packs. The times I've tried to draft and win I end up going 0-3 or something close to that and give up on it.
I do enjoy the format though especially when the ladder gets super stale.
Entirely agree with not counting the (paid part of) mastery pass in the calculations - that in my view is the biggest 'cost' of being a non-drafter - as you say, it is possible to obtain gems in other ways, but drafting is generally going to be the best free solution there. One additional factor (not worth consideration for calculations, but worth bearing in mind) is the daily wins - four is the 'magic number', but if you have time/inclination, getting more than four does have value. The gold goes down, but the ICRs can provide a surprising boost to the collection that I think people sometimes dismiss too quickly (because they're 'just' uncommons) - getting 6 additional uncommons per day can quite rapidly fill out that part of the collection (and thus accelerate vault progress), but more importantly they can upgrade to rares. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be around 10%, but having done some extended runs of getting 15 dailies, it seems to work out as more or less one per day. If we assume that is confirmation bias and just take the 10% rate, that still means a potential for around 54 additional rares per 90 days. Of course, that requires getting 15 daily wins for the entire period, which is unreasonable for most people - but the point is that even just getting a few more than the four on occasional days is still adding value and acceleraing collection growth. I like to aim for five wins instead of four - doesn't feel like a much harder/more time-intensive target, but keeps the ICRs trickling in and adds a rare on average every ten days, which is not a bad thing.
It's worth noting that, as a 'draft hater', I have recently made the switch to spending a small amount of real money on the game (bought the Adventurer bundle), purely for the value of the mastery pass, because it provides such a boost. With the gem return from the pass, the six-weekly gem deal and the occasional 20 gems from duplicate ICRs, (and the gems I already had left) I calculate this should get me around three mastery passes - £15 for 9 months doesn't feel too bad, but does mean that I have clearly ceased being satisfied with being entirely free to play and not drafting. So, while you certainly can build a large collection free to play, and I have, it does take patience and you do have to accept that you're unlikely to complete sets (but, as you point out, most of us don't need complete sets). Much as I hate to say it, I do still believe that drafting is the most effective way - I just don't like it so choose to accept a 'worse' deal.
Excellent video, sir. Do you happen to have a video that breaks down the potential gains from drafts and mastery pass? Essentially the reciprocal to this video for comparison?
I make a video that covers this kind of thing for each new set, I'll have an updated one for Karlov Manor coming out soon!
Thanks for the video. I don't hate drafting, but I don't love it either. I'm going to draft WOE about 15 times - I have draft tokens saved up. But after this set I'm going to try not drafting and just see how it goes. Looking at the calculations you can still get pretty close, especially if you spend $50 or so, which I probably will. I do like drafting, but as a father of two I don't have as much time to draft!
Yeah I get that, it can be hard to find the time to play the important matches when you know you won't be interrupted! :)
Dad life. I usually only draft on my few hours of uninterrupted gaming time I have in the mornings on my days off.
Being a dad is the only reason I got into this game since I can play mobile.😅
@@METAL__MECHANIC how do you find drafting on mobile? I usually only like to draft on my PC, but it's hard to find the time. I can do it late at night, but I'm usually tired enough that I start making bad decisions, lol.
@nathanchurchill6115 oh I still have a PC and only draft on PC. Just don't get to play on it as much. I tried 1 draft on mobile, not a great experience.
@@METAL__MECHANIC I've drafted once on my tablet and it was...okay. drafting on PC is WAAAAY better. I might start drafting on my PC and then playing those games on my tablet. We'll see.
I mean... I understand why you added wildcards to the tally. They are in fact part of the overall "package" you get from opening packs.
Personally, I don't add them to the tally. This is because I treat wildcards as "in case of emergency only" and only craft what I need.
The day I start using wildcards just to get the % set completion higher is not here yet lol. This means you can expect to have around 190 rare cards, or around 70-75% rare completion, wich is my target number.
Yeah I included the wildcards because they are part of the rewards you naturally get from buying packs. The principles of careful wildcard spending still apply though. I'm not suggesting anyone should use their wildcards to craft missing cards from the set unless they are cards they want and will get good usage out of.
@@gameschooldadMTG Yeah my bad you actually said so in the last part of the video. Just commented too fast :P
The problem with drafting is that sometimes you just want to play a few games to relax and not be ultra focused, do your dailies and if you loose a few it's w.e. In drafting since you risk resources is kinda hard to do that. Otherwise it's just preference both formats are fun. From the calculations you show here just opening packs and playing a few drafts here and there seems pretty viable, if you play consistently you will be able to build quite a few decks if not most after playing for a few sets.
Hmmm~ I saw on Reddit that Golden Packs as of June 2023 have started to give Alchemy cards as well as Standard-legal cards. If that's true, it seems like opening Golden Packs would give less cards to use in Standard than you detailed, as some % of them will be Alchemy specific cards :\ That's a bummer that you can't select to open a "Standard" Golden Pack or "Alchemy" Golden Pack.
It would be interesting to see a link to something official on that. It's true that Golden Packs currently include some LTR cards, which are not Standard-legal, but the original announcement on Golden Packs said they would include 'cards from the most recent set' and 'older standard-legal cards'. If that is still the intention, then it makes sense that the LTR cards are there now and that LTR cards won't be included any more after the Eldraine release, but we shall see.
@@gameschooldadMTG I really hope they will phase out LTR cards from golden packs with Wilds of Eldraine..
@@gameschooldadMTGAhhhh~ Interesting. I really hope that LTR cards won't be included anymore after Eldraine releases, that would make much more sense to me. Thanks for the video ^^ Your channel has varied MTG Arena content and is a calming way to learn about the game :)
How I judge when to stop doing quickdrafts and just start buying packs is through a points system. The rewards you get from quickdrafts I assign a point value, then take the average number of points I earned throughout all drafts and try to keep it above 7points. Any less and you're just better off buying packs.
The process goes as follows:
Assigning "points" based on rewards you get from drafts as follows:
- Each pack/rare/mythic you get from one quickdraft is valued at 1 point.
- Also, each 150gems you get as reward I value at 1point exactly {since it costs 750gems or 5000gold to enter another draft (which is basically the value of 5x bought packs) I divide 750gems with 5 and get 150gems as the amount necessary for 1 full point}
After every draft I rate my gains based on points earned, so for example:
- Going 0-3 (getting the minimum 1pack and 50gems) and picking up the minimum 3 rares during the draft portion is worth: 3 (rares) + 1 (pack) + 0.33 (gems) = 4.33 points
- Going 3-3, picking up 3rares is worth: 3 (rares) + 1 (pack) + 2(gems) = 6 points
- Going 0-3, but managing to pick up 5 rares is worth: 5 (rares) + 1 (pack) + 0.33 (gems) = 6.33 points
- Going 4-3, picking up 3rares is worth: 3 (rares) + 1 (pack) + 3 (gems) = 7 points
So < 4-3, picking up 3 rares > or < 3-3, picking up 4 rares > is where you wanna be at. Anything more is above average results.
IMPORTANT NOTE (on how I came up with the 7 points cutoff): Just outright buying 10 packs (getting the gold pack) is indeed worth around 17.8 points based on my point value, but you have to keep in mind, a lot of the rares you get from the gold pack are either old ones or alchemy rares. So, since you only get around 3 relevant new rares per gold pack on average. Taking into account the wildcards you get and dividing that number (14) by 2, gets you to roughly 7 points per 5000 gold spent on packs.
Interesting analysis
@@JO11190 Yeah, its quite a usefull system. Its basically a way to judge when you're doing "ok" in drafts and when poorly.
Forgot to mention. Rares/mythics that you pick up, but are converted to gems since you have a full set, aren't worth any points.
im would love to know the amount of rare and mythic "wildcard" tokens you get only from opening packs from a set. Not sure if I got how many that was vs how many rares (actual cards) in general you´d get from packs.
I am with a good win rate on quick draft (around 65%) but most of the times I draft very few rares. There was one time that I drafted a total of zero rares. Is it still worth it? If I rare draft, most of the times, I will have bad results.
When should we do a few jump in events? I can't find any information about what's in the new jump in decks
I've collected some info on the packs and will make a video soon, but there's a lot of different Eldraine content to cover at the moment, it's a busy week! The official announcement might come out soon, hopefully. I'd recommend only doing the Jump-Ins if you've done a lot before and you've already picked older packs, because it tends to show you packs you haven't chosen before, otherwise you'll spend time picking packs from the past year that aren't as relevant any more.
ah, I thought they switched to WOE only. @@gameschooldadMTG
ok, new here, don't hate...If I don't mind quick drafts, but I'm not very good, I essentially get 4 packs for 750 gems. If I spend $20 (3400 gems) per paycheck on a draft, and win a bit and get say 6 drafts, plus save my packs and gold, would that be even better? money wise? Since a pack is 200 gems, I'm getting value, and still playing the game for gold & xp mastery. I'm fine with putting a bit of money in for a fun hobby. Just curious what people think.
A pack in the store is 200 gems, but if you win a pack in an event it's not quite the same. A latest pack in the store will also give you a golden pack bonus which makes them about 50% more valuable. You have to adjust for this when working out the value you get in rewards from a draft.
If you got better at drafting, it would be good to do premier draft instead of quick draft for higher rewards.
If you decided you didn't like drafting any more, then you could just spend your gold on packs instead and not lose out too much.
What about the jump in deck builds? For 1000 gold.
They can also be good, but they're only really good for the particular set if you've done a lot of them before due to how the pack selection works. Video on this hopefully ready to upload for tomorrow 👍
Forgive me if this is a nonsense question, my ignorance at how MTGA works knows no bounds, but isn't your calculation thrown off by the "Enchanting Tales" cards that keep showing up in Wilds of Eldraine packs?
Those bonus cards only replace one of the commons in the pack, so you still get the same number of rares. Most sets seem to have something like that added in these days.
How viable is it to collect a full older set? One that doesn't appear in the golden packs anymore?
I did some throne of eldraine drafts but obviously my collection of it is tiny.
I know getting a full old set is basically pointless. I'm just wondering if collecting everything is even viable.
It depends on which formats you are playing or want to play. Collecting older sets is viable if you want to play Explorer/historic. I would not buy packs of older sets,but drafting is fine.
Honestly, in my opinion, it is NOT worth collecting older sets. Only craft what you need from them.
Keep in mind only the top tier cards see play in eternal formats. This also means the draft shaff is useless (because you don't draft older sets anymore) and the standard-level constructed cards are now useless too (because these cards are not playable in standard anymore). This means only a very limited number of cards actually see eternal play and almost everything you'll open will be worthless to you.
I would suggest only drafting an older set a limited number of times, only if you really enjoyed that limited environnement (for fun, essentially), and NOT collecting it. Only craft cards you need from it that actually see play in eternal formats you intend to play with.
The fact that you don't get golden packs and that most of what you open is worthless makes it not worth it.
As mentioned, the funny thing is only maybe 5-10% is playable in eternal formats. Once they leave standard, most of those cards are chaff. Just craft what you need.
please do a draft guide next dad
Do you mean a guide for Eldraine specifically, or a general draft guide?
@@gameschooldadMTG I think it's a good idea to strike the iron while it's hot and focus on wilds of eldraine draft information while it's presently the most in demand set
@@gameschooldadMTG yes wilds of eldraine pls 🙂
sounds a little bit like work :D
Sounds to me like playing a game. If it feels like work, take a break 👍
@@gameschooldadMTG you are right :D
The problem is that I don't want to play the same game for 90 minutes a day, 365 days a year just to be able to play the full content. Just like other games, my urges for Magic come in waves where I'll be super excited to play for a month or two, then get bored and want to put it down for 6 months to 2 years before coming back again. But every time you come back, your old cards are largely worthless, and you either have to pay multiples of an AAA game cost to get back to a few meta decks, or grind boring budget decks for months to get there. It's a lose lose situation for the non-grinder and non-whale, which I'd estimate to be 90% of people who may have a passing interest in MTG. Hearthstone at least has catch up mechanics like free decks and catch up packs to make it easier for new and returning players to get back into the game. With Magic Arena, you either grind daily even if you don't feel like it, spend literal $1000s, or don't have any fun.
I play for maybe 10-20 minutes a day for 5-6 days per week, with the occasional longer session when I have time. Playing that much, I do pretty well with unlocking almost everything for free. If I feel like spending anything, about $15 every 3 months would give a decent boost. Yes the game does pretty heavily incentivise regular play, but it isn't anywhere near as extreme as you suggest. And if you play Explorer/Historic/Brawl, you could take long breaks without your cards rotating out too.
@@gameschooldadMTG how do you get 4 wins in 10-20 minutes a day? Isn't the average game about 10 minutes, even if you are playing a fast deck? And surely the average person can't get higher than a 50% win rate, so you'd have to play 8 games on average, 80 minutes total?
@@alphawolfgaming5368 i don't always get 4 wins in a day, I might get 2 wins, which would be around 950 gold instead of 1150 gold per day. I don't often play slow control decks, so my games are probably 4-8 minutes on average and I get around a 60% win rate. I could get a little more out of the game if I played more, but like you said it just depends on how much time you want to put in.
Great video. Brittish ppl talk so slow lol
So, even if one does everything and gets through the arguably slog of a grind this game is, they still won't hit their target... That's sad.
If the target you're talking about is getting 100% set complete for free, that's a pretty unrealistic expectation.
It should be a realistic expectation. The game is just too stingy F2P.
It should be about trading time for money, not shutting free players out.
Wow… All you have to do is play 3 hours every day for 3 months to earn ~$150 worth of cards. That’s like 50 cents/hour
Might as well stay clocked in at work for an extra 6 minutes every day and just buy the packs 😂
It takes you 3 hours to get 4 wins? 😇
If you honestly want to talk about time investment... Let's say it takes about an hour on average to get 4 wins, but it depends on the type of deck you enjoy playing...
Playing the game isn't a chore, it isn't work. I'm presuming you enjoy doing it and want to do it, so why put any price on that time?
It might cost $150 or more to get this amount of cards, but not everyone has $600 to spend on a game every year, or they would just rather not.
Four wins every day without loss. Yeah, Arena's algorithm will make sure that won't happen.
I didn't say without any losses, and the algorithm isn't designed to make you lose 👍
@@gameschooldadMTG It's pretty obvious the algorithm isn't completely random in opponent selection. I've noticed at least once a week there will be a day where it will be problematic of too much land draw, too little land draw, or opponents have just the right deck to counter what you're playing, or giving one color land and spells of another color in multiple opening hands, etc. It's definitely designed to keep people at a 50/50 win ratio at best.
@@qwaurk985 There's no algorithm in the play queue, only ranked. And yes, it's designed around a 50/50. In ranked youre supposed to get matched with people with similar card quality (rares..). This is a soft matching tho and you often are matched with high power decks anyway.