Magic: The Gathering Arena/Events

Magic: The Gathering Arena/Events

 

Changelog

 

Events

 

How to play

 

Preconstructed decks

 

Exclusive cards

 

Promotional codes

 

Tracker Apps

 

Tooltips

 

Events are competitive Magic: The Gathering Arena formats with an entry fee in gold and some exclusives to gems. These formats end after an amount of wins or losses with a reward based on results.

Regular events

Jump In!

In the style of Jumpstart you'll select two themed packets of Standard-legal cards and play a combined deck with added basic lands. Play as many games as you wish, resign when you're done.

Entry fee: 1,000 gold or 200 gems

Rewards: First win awards an uncommon individual card reward (ICR), with a 5% upgrade chance to rare or mythic rare.

Constructed Event

Best-of-one matches; run ends after seven wins or three losses.

Entry fees used to be 500 gold or 95 gems, paid out in gold and cards. With the return to the Pro Tour and the Streets of New Capenna update, the Constructed queues were rearranged to pay out in gems and booster packs, and also to bring it into the Arena Qualifier system.

Costs are now 2,500 gold or 375 gems, payouts at:

• No wins — 25 gems
• One win — 50 gems
• Two wins — 75 gems and one pack
• Three wins — 200 gems and one pack
• Four wins — 300 gems and one pack
• Five wins — 400 gems and two packs
• Six wins — 450 gems and two packs
• Seven wins — 500 gems and three packs, 1 Play-In point

Traditional Constructed

Entry fee: 5,000 gold or 750 gems. Best-of-three matches with sideboarding; run ends after five matches. Entry fees used to be 1,000 gold or 190 gems, paid out in gold and cards. With the return to the Pro Tour and the Streets of New Capenna update, the Constructed queues were rearranged to pay out in gems and booster packs, and also bring it into the Arena Qualifier system. Costs are now 5,000 gold or 750 gems,

Rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — 50 gems and one pack
• One win — 100 gems and one pack
• Two wins — 150 gems and two packs
• Three wins — 600 gems and two packs
• Four wins — 800 gems and two packs
• Five wins — 1,000 gems and three packs, 4 Play-In points

Standard Metagame Challenge

Entry fee: 2,000 Gold or 400 Gems. A casual but high-stakes event that opens for a weekend every set cycle. Best-of-three matches with sideboarding; run ends after seven wins or one loss. Rewards packs of the latest set.

Rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — 500 gold
• One win — 1000 gold
• Two wins — 1500 gold and one pack
• Three wins — 2000 gold and three packs
• Four wins — 2500 gold and five packs
• Five wins — 3000 gold and ten packs
• Six wins — 4000 gold and twenty packs
• Seven wins — 5000 gold and thirty packs

Ranked Draft

Quick Draft

Limited rank seasonal rewards

Entry fee: 5,000 gold or 750 gems. Best-of-one matches; run ends after seven wins or three losses. Events alternate through previous Draft formats and the current format every fortnight. Match results affect Limited rank.

Players pick cards from three Draft packs (of 14 cards each) over 14 rounds each. All drafted cards are added to the player's collection. Players then proceed to construct a deck with a minimum of 40 cards using their drafted cards. Deck construction and drafting times aren't limited, and players draft with seven robot drafters whose picks are influenced by MTGO data. After the Draft match window closes, players get rewards according to their win record. Draft has its own ranking system.

Rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — 50 gems and one pack (20% chance of two instead)
• One win — 100 gems and one pack (22% chance of two instead)
• Two wins — 200 gems and one pack (24% chance of two instead)
• Three wins — 300 gems and one pack (26% chance of two instead)
• Four wins — 450 gems and one pack (30% chance of two instead)
• Five wins — 650 gems and one pack (35% chance of two instead)
• Six wins — 850 gems and one pack (40% chance of two instead)
• Seven wins — 950 gems and two packs [NOTE: 70%-100% effective win rate required]

A similar game mode in Magic Online is called Friendly Single-Game Draft League.

Premier Draft

Entry fee: 10,000 gold or 1,500 gems. Best-of-one matches; run ends after seven wins or three losses. One queue runs with the latest draft format; a second queue with a previous format or a remastered format could also be run. Match results affect Limited rank. This queue runs with human drafters.

Rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — 50 gems and one pack
• One win — 100 gems and one pack
• Two wins — 250 gems and two packs
• Three wins — 1000 gems and two packs
• Four wins — 1400 gems and three packs
• Five wins — 1600 gems and four packs
• Six wins — 1800 gems and five packs
• Seven wins — 2200 gems and six packs [NOTE: 78%-100% effective win rate required]

For Innistrad Double Feature, a queue with payouts of 0-100-300-600-1000-1500-2000-2500 was tested; however, the minorly higher ceiling at two, six and seven wins was not seen favorably compared to the 400 gem dropoff at three and four wins. It had not been revisited since.

Sealed Deck

Entry fee: 2.000 gems. Best-of-one matches; run ends after seven wins or three losses. Events run during the first month of a new set; it returns irregularly with any format. All sealed pool cards are added to the player's collection. Players then proceed to construct a deck with a minimum of 40 cards using their sealed pool. Deck construction times aren't limited. After the match window closes, players get rewards according to their win record.

Rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — 200 gems and 3 booster packs
• One win — 400 gems and 3 booster packs
• Two wins — 600 gems and 3 booster packs
• Three wins — 1200 gems and 3 booster packs
• Four wins — 1400 gems and 3 booster packs
• Five wins — 1600 gems and 3 booster packs
• Six wins — 2000 gems and 3 booster packs
• Seven wins — 2200 gems and 3 booster packs [NOTE: 70%-100% effective win rate required]

Traditional Sealed

For the February 2021 Arena Open using Kaldheim Sealed, a Traditional Sealed queue was opened to practice. Run ends after four wins or two losses. Entry fee and gameplay rules as in Best-of-One Sealed.

• No wins — 200 gems and 1 booster pack
• One win — 500 gems and 2 booster packs
• Two wins — 1200 gems and 3 booster packs
• Three wins — 1800 gems and 4 booster packs
• Four wins — 2200 gems and 5 booster packs

Traditional Draft

Entry fee: 10,000 gold or 1,500 gems. Best-of-three matches with sideboarding; run ends after five wins or two losses. The latest-released draft set is always available. Kaladesh Remastered was the first nonstandard release set to have a Traditional offering.

Rewards based on total wins used to be:

• No wins — One pack
• One win — Two packs
• Two wins — 800 gems and three packs
• Three wins — 1,500 gems and four packs
• Four wins — 1,800 gems and five packs
• Five wins — 2,100 gems and six packs

With human drafting in the Ikoria update, the play structure was changed closer to that of MTGO Draft leagues - all players can play three matches, but only two or three wins pay out. Gold payment was opened at 10,000 gold a run.

• No wins - One pack
• One win - One pack
• Two wins - 1,000 gems and four packs
• Three wins - 3,000 gems and six packs

With the return to the Pro Tour and the Streets of New Capenna update, the Traditional queue were rearranged to be less top-heavy, and also bring it into the Arena Qualifier system.

• No wins - 100 gems and one pack
• One win - 250 gems and one pack
• Two wins - 1,000 gems and three packs
• Three wins - 2,500 gems and six packs, two play-in points

Cube Draft

Entry fee: 600 gems or 4000 gold. Event is phantom. Initially only best-of-one; in December 2020, a Traditional queue was also opened for the same price. Three card pools ("Arena Cube", "Artisan's Cube", "Chromatic Cube") have been curated so far; events return some weeks before each new quarterly expansion. All card rewards are from non-Standard sets.

Best-of-one rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — Two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• One win — 500 gold and two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• Two wins — 1,000 gold and two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• Three wins — 2,000 gold and two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• Four wins — 3,000 gold and two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• Five wins — 4,000 gold and one uncommon or higher card, and two rare or higher cards
• Six wins — 5,000 gold and one uncommon or higher card, and two rare or higher cards
• Seven wins — 6,000 gold and one uncommon or higher card, and two rare or higher cards

Best-of-three rewards based on total wins are:

• No wins — Two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• One win — Two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• Two wins — 4,000 gold and two uncommon or higher cards, and one rare or higher card
• Three wins — 6,000 gold and one uncommon or higher card, and two rare or higher cards

Limited-time events

FNM at Home/Midweek Magic

In lieu of true FNM events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Arena had weekly Friday events with variable formats, that were the successor to Feldon's Workshop. There were no entry fees and gave out two rare Standard ICRs, alongside a cosmetics code that could be redeemed from a local game store. While initially opening at midnight Friday PST, the event opening time shifted earlier recognizing that PST was effectively the last time zone to reach Friday, so it shifted to start 7pm Thursday evening PST.

By July 2021, in-store play began opening up in many American states, which meant that regular FNM could go forward. The event was kept, but changed to a Tuesday to Thursday event and renamed Midweek Magic. Prizes remained the same.

Jumpstart

Introduction of Jumpstart on MTG Arena. Pick two themed packets and play.

• Available: July 16 – August 16, 2020 and June 4 - July 8, 2021 (Original); August 24-October 14 2021 (Jumpstart: Historic Horizons)
• Entry Fee: 2,000 gold or 400 Gems
• Event Record: Play as much as you like!
• Rewards:
  • 1st Win: 1 Jumpstart rare individual card reward (ICR)
  • 2nd Win: 1 Jumpstart rare ICR

A similar event named Jump In! was debuted on 14th October, with Standard-legal packets. It was made permanent after the Crimson Vow update.

• Available: October 14th - November 11th, 2021; permanent afterwards
• Entry Fee: 1,000 gold or 200 Gems
• Event Record: Play as much as you like!
• Rewards: 1 uncommon ICR, 5% upgrade to rare or mythic

Arena Decathlon

A holiday season ten-event competition in ten formats where players vie for, among other prizes, a complete single-card set of an upcoming release. Started in December 2021, returned in January 2023.

Yargle Day!

In celebration of the memetic Yargle, Glutton of Urborg, each September 3rd a free-to-play event with preconstructed decks is opened for 24 hours. The prizes, as the date puts it at the tail end of a set cycle, are 900 and 300 experience, as befitting the 9/3. In all years, an emblem was provided that let Frog spells cost less.

In 2019 the event was "Yargle Pauper" (only Yargle is above common in rarity), and in 2020 it was Brawl with four non-Yargle Commanders. In 2022 and 2023, a second emblem was given with "Whenever a Frog enters the battlefield under your control, you may sacrifice a creature. If you do, draw a card and that Frog gains all of the abilities of the sacrificed creature.".

Draft Challenge

Entry fee: 15,000 Gold or 3,000 Gems. Best-of-three matches with sideboarding; run ends after six wins or two losses. The first Challenge was with Kaladesh Remastered in November 2020; the last one run was with Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, which roughly coincided with the introduction of Play-In Points, the shift to majority-Limited Arena Opens and more Sealed deck Qualifier Weekends. Rewards based on total wins were:

• No wins — No rewards
• One win — 2,000 Gold and 3 Kaladesh Remastered booster packs
• Two wins — 4,000 Gold and 6 packs
• Three wins — 7,500 Gold and 12 packs
• Four wins — 10,000 Gold and 20 packs
• Five wins — 15,000 Gold and 30 packs
• Six wins — 20,000 Gold and 40 packs

After feedback from Limited players, the prize payout was altered for the second Challenge in May 2021 with Strixhaven: School of Mages, giving out in Player Draft Tokens rather than gold.

• No wins — No rewards
• One win — 1 Player Draft token
• Two wins — 1 Player Draft token and 3 Strixhaven: School of Mages booster packs
• Three wins — 2 Player Draft tokens and 6 packs
• Four wins — 3 Player Draft tokens and 10 packs
• Five wins — 3 Player Draft tokens and 15 packs
• Six wins — 4 Player Draft tokens and 20 packs

Brewer's Delight

Entry fee: 250 gold or 50 gems. Best-of-three matches. Rewards are cards selected by designers to help build fun, non-meta decks.

Singleton

Entry fee: 250 gold or 50 gems. Run ends after seven wins or three losses. The deck can only contain up to one copy of any card, excluding the basic lands and cards like Rat Colony, which allow the player to include any number of copies.

Pauper

Free-to-play mode. Best-of-one matches; run ends after five wins or two losses. Constructed format limited to only common cards.

Momir's Madness

Entry fee: 250 gold or 50 gems. Best-of-one matches; run ends after five wins or two losses. Format uses Momir rules with a 60-card deck with 12 of each basic land, except with 20 life and a card pool limited to the current Standard format.

Feldon's Workshop

Free-to-play event with preconstructed decks, no limit to matches. First win grants either 500 gold, 500 experience points, or a rare individual card reward. Format of play varies largely, from sample limited decks, recognized formats like Brawl or Artisan, unusual formats such as "Mastermind" or "No-limit", or Historic Anthology showcases.

Retired as of 15th July 2020, replaced by FNM At Home and Midweek Magic

Eldraine Courtside Brawl

Event Dates: September 4–9, 2019. Entry Fee: None. Event Format: Preconstructed Brawl (One-on-One, Best-of-One). Rewards:

• 1 Win: 4x (playset) of Heraldic Banner and 1,000 XP
• 2 Wins: 4x of Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 3 Wins: 4x of Faerie Vandal
• 4 Wins: 4x of Savvy Hunter
• 5 Wins: 4x of Inspiring Veteran
• 6 Wins: 4x of Order of Midnight

Launch Celebration

Two events: "Play Any Deck" and "Win Any Card". Play Any Deck Event Dates: 9/26 - 10/1/2019

• No Entry Fee
• Access to 4 Copies of every card in standard
• Play up to 12 Best-of-one games or 2 losses
• No prizes

Win Every Card Event Dates: 10/5-10/7/2019

• No Entry Fee
• Access to 4 Copies of every card in standard
• Play up to 12 Best-of-one games or 2 losses

Win Every Card Prizes:

• 12 Wins: 1 Copy of every card in Standard + 1 Sealed Event Token + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 11 Wins: 1 Copy of every card in Throne of Eldraine + 1 Sealed Event Token + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 9–10 Wins: 1 Sealed Event Token + 5 Throne of Eldraine Rare ICRs + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 8 Wins: 5Throne of Eldraine rare ICRs + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 6–7 Wins: 4Throne of Eldraine rare ICRs + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 4–5 Wins: 3Throne of Eldraine rare ICRs + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 2–3 Wins: 2Throne of Eldraine rare ICRs + Golden Egg Sleeve
• 0–1 Wins: 1Throne of Eldraine rare Individual Card Reward (ICR) + Golden Egg Sleeve

Historic Shakeup

A Historic event with a changing banned card list, you'll have to stay on your toes and think fast to find the right deck each week. The first run was three weeks of new banlists starting March 12th 2021. A Midweek Magic brought back the format October 12th. Events were free-to-play with two rare non-Standard individual card rewards each week.

Mirror, Mirror

A short event from July 3 to July 6, featuring rebalanced versions of the twelve cards banned prior to Strixhaven and the Mystical Archive. Effectively a Best-of-one, Historic All Access event with a single win bonus of 500 gold and no entry fee.

Slow Start

In January 2022, the Midweek Magic: Slow Start event debuted. As the name suggests, this limited-time Alchemy event slowed down the start of each game using a "Slow Down" emblem. That emblem effectively means that if you’re playing first, your first land enters the battlefield tapped. This variant returned in August 2023.

Totally Normal Event

Murders at Karlov Manor coincided with a series of puzzles across various media. Arena also had some riddles, but most were simple text puzzles. After enough codes were entered, a Brawl event was opened for a week in March 2024. It had five card styles as prizes and eleven Brawl decks.

The event had a series of curiosities that suggested a deeper puzzle: out-of-place capitalization, color imbalance amongst deck choices, mismatched cosmetics in exactly one deck (Galazeth Prismari), and a cue to enter a code. Attempting to use "2005" (the release date of Ravnica: City of Guilds, as mentioned in the description) was met with a Red Herring reward. No confirmation as to whether this collection of clues means anything has been released, nor has there been much media attention on anyone having solved this puzzle.

Remix Draft

Introduced in April 2024, Remix Drafts are events featuring Draft Boosters combining themes and from across MTG Arena in a new context. It is functionally a cube draft, but with Premier or Traditional draft structure rather than the gold-only rewards of Arena Cubes.

• Remix Draft: Artifacts (April 2024)

Arena Direct

In June 2024 the Arena Direct was introduced, an event series that allows players to compete in games of digital Magic for physical rewards that will be shipped to them after the event series is over. It was the successor to the Festival In A Box event, which was during the 30th Anniversary celebrations and used 9-pack Chaos Sealed to win a mix of Premier set draft boosters and a Mystery Booster box. The first Direct used Modern Horizons 3 Sealed rewarded a Play Booster box.

Entry fee: 5,000 Gems

• 6 wins: Physical reward
• 5 wins: 5,000 gems
• 4 wins: 2,000 gems
• 0-3 wins: Nothing

Exclusive event prizes

In Magic: The Gathering Arena, some cards and card styles have only been awarded as event prizes and promotions.

The cards are:

• Duress (M19 card frame with Urza Saga artwork): Prize for one win in the Singleton Weekend event (Feb 14–18, 2019)
• Ghalta, Primal Hunger (Ixalan Store Championship participation promo): Prize for five wins in the Singleton Weekend event (Feb 14–18, 2019)
• Llanowar Elves (Full art promo): Prize for one win in the Holiday Pauper event (Dec 24, 2018, to Jan 4, 2019)
• Firemind's Research (Alt art promo by Robbie Trevino): Prize for five wins in the Holiday Pauper event (Dec 24, 2018, to Jan 4, 2019)
• Teferi, Hero of Dominaria (Guilds of Ravnica: Mythic Edition): Reward for participating in the MTG Arena Closed Beta
• Ral, Izzet Viceroy (Guilds of Ravnica: Mythic Edition): Reward for participating in the MTG Arena Closed Beta
• Vraska, Golgari Queen (Guilds of Ravnica: Mythic Edition): Reward for participating in the MTG Arena Closed Beta

The card styles are:

• Skewer the Critics: Prize for one win in the Treasure Constructed event (March 29–31, 2019)
• Chemister's Insight: Prize for five wins in the Treasure Constructed event (March 29–31, 2019)
• Liliana, Dreadhorde General: Preorder War of the Spark packs
• Wizard's Lightning: Prize for reaching gold rank in Limited or Constructed during RNA Season 2
• Vraska's Contempt: Prize for reaching platinum rank in Limited or Constructed during RNA Season 2
• Pteramander: Prize for reaching gold rank in Limited or Constructed during WAR Season 1
• Incubation Druid: Prize for reaching platinum rank in Limited or Constructed during WAR Season 1
• Rally of Wings: Prize for reaching gold rank in Limited or Constructed during WAR Season 2
• Risk Factor: Prize for reaching platinum rank in Limited or Constructed during WAR Season 2

Ranked season

Each month's season qualifies the top 250 Mythic-ranked competitors for a future qualifier event.

Prank events

April Fools 2019 Googly Eyes

• The April Fools' Day prank for April 1, 2019, was the addition of googly eyes to all of the deckboxes in the Decks screen. The select/deselect animations caused the eyes to jiggle and created the look of a smiling box. For 2022, these googly eyes returned and were also placed on everyone's avatars.
• A new format known as "New Historic" was introduced for the 2021 event, which removed the 4-card limit, dropped the minimum deck size to 40 cards and had no ban list. The prize was 100 Experience on the first win.
• Additionally for the 2022 event, a phantom event for "Mixed-up Sealed" was opened, which had six random boosters opened as a sealed pool. It cost 100 gold and went up to three 100 gold for prizes.
• For 2023 there were card backs with wear and tear, and a 90's LGS-themed playing battlefield. The worn card "sleeve" was later made available for purchase.
• In 2024, there was a sealed event using Golden Packs, meaning a sealed pool of all rares and mythics. Additionally, all players received a playset of One With Nothing and had the option of buying a googly-eyed rock companion called "Dwayne".