Great guide! I’m at 94% with zero packs bought for the set due to maybe 20 drafts of this set on this account. I have more rares and mythics than you but not a full set of uncommons. Both approaches work well, but drafting does generate a decent amount of packs (even with my sub 50% win rate this set) and you can always pick up some mythics late in packs to fill gaps. As ever - do whatever is the most fun for you!
I've found prem drafts to be the best option when you're missing a lot of mythics compared to rares. They tend to wheel more often than in quickdrafts.
Seems like Draft is the best value for building your collection, everyone says so, but I'm just getting back into MTG via Arena and I don't feel my card knowledge is quite there to construct a deck especially under time constraints. I've got your Draft Guide from about 8mo ago pulled up though. Gonna watch it and see if I can gain some confidence. Thanks for this video, it'll be very helpful for me heading into Ixalan.
There's a tracker tool that helps you with draft picks, if you're fresh with the sets, it can be a big help. I think it lets you do 10 drafts before they ask that you support their tracker. Forgot what it was called by iirc it was made by channel fireball? Don't quote me on it haha.
How do i get the first batch of gems to do the mastery pass? i only have about 500. How many time would i need to win in draft games to get enough for the mastery pass? Considering i would need to pay with gold for the draft games i guess.
If you spent all your gold on drafts then I think you get to do one a week, and it’d take a while to save up, but if you get lucky occasionally (or are a star drafter) then it shouldn’t be too bad. Don’t forget - as the video says you can buy the pass at the end of the set and it still gives you all the rewards. That’s what i used to do.
Try to catch the days in the month where the store offers 400gems for 1500gold. A mastery pass lasts for 3months and you have three opportunities to find the offers. If you manage to do it, those 1200 gems pay for basically a third of the price of the pass by itself. Now you only need to get a couple 3+win drafts and you have your pass right there. EDIT: The 400gem=1500gold offers might not be monthly, could've sworn they were, but oh well. Then looks like its 800gems every 3months, not 1200.
If you could get 3 wins in a premier draft, you can turn 10k gold into 1k gems each time. For quick drafts it will take longer because the gem rewards are proportionally lower. How long it takes depends entirely on how many games you win in the events.
Draft is a skill that is fairly easy to learn, but does take a little time. The Joy Of Drafting series is a little dated now but does go through the basics of card evaluation. The main issue is that some people do way more drafts than others (and over multiple accounts) so you are more likely to face experienced players. This isn’t so true in the first weekend as a lot of people will hop on to try it out. This is also why quick draft can be easier. Your ‘free’ draft tokens and the MWM phantom events are great places to practice, and you can watch quality streamers play formats you are interested in (like Jim Davis ‘bronze to mythic’ where he explains a lot as he goes, or the more advanced Numot the Nummy). Good luck and have fun!
Wouldn't really say you need to spend money. Doing dailies and getting to 10wins/day for 3months gets you about 110k gold. With mastery pass unlocked and only rare-drafting in quick drafts, even if you go 0-3 each time, you'll easily complete 50%+ of your rare collection (4-5 rares picked up on average in q.drafts = 100rares + about 80 packs from rewards). Which is more than enough to build whatever deck you want.
You don't even need to be good at drafting really. You can unlock a lot just by collecting gold and buying packs if you prefer to play that way, you never really need to spend money, but it definitely speeds up progress if you want to.
I'm a terrible drafter.I manage to get the mastery pass free by doing the daily quests and wining gems on the standart event. 2500 gold to enter and you chose what deck to use.I've been able in every 3 months to get 3400 for the mastery .I have more than 95% of the last 3 sets using this strategy.I guess drafting gets you more rewards but you need more time and more mastery than playing a standart deck on the event.
Si if I’m a new player, and I can get 10k gold a week, I have to do 10 weeks of Premier 1/week, and I’ll get 30 packs from the XP levels, where are the other 70 packs are coming from? Am I missing something?
I just double checked and it seems like they've changed it since Eldraine. For previous sets, the biggest pack bundles offered a specific rare card. Now it looks like they've downgraded it. Luckily it wasn't a massive bonus anyway, so most people probably won't miss it much.
Thanks for the video. I hate drafting, but I use the free tokens to join and just grab as many rares as I can. It would be nice if you could do a video like this with every set release, searching for videos is a pain.
I haven't looked into it too much. Obviously some cards are very powerful, but there are still many cards from older standard sets that are doing really well, so it's hard to say.
If you do well in drafts, as he did, its not hard to collect 100 packs quickly. He basically got 3+ wins in 9/10 of his drafts. Thats extremely good value. He basically got back 2/3 of the value of a new prem draft 9 times = 9000+ gems, which he may spend on packs. If you're like me and you either go 7-0 or 0-3, never inbetween, then prem drafts are horrible value-wise.
You use the rewards from one premier draft to pay for the next one until you decide to stop. I buy somewhere around 50 packs with the gold that I've got when I'm done drafting.
Ive tried drafting for 3 years and the best i got was 3 wins haha. I guess drafting is not for me :( How can yo do 10 premier drafts in a season as f2p?? you only get gold to make 1 a week?
1 set lasts for ~3months. 10wins/day in 90days gets you about ~100k gold at minimum. Thats enough for 10 premium drafts or 20 quickdrafts. [750gold reward is 20% of the time, so the gold math goes as follows: 0.2*90*1450 + 0.8*90*1200 = 26100 + 86400 = 112500]
I've probably spent about $50 on the game in the past 3 years, but I haven't had to spend anything at all for the past two sets because I've always had enough gems from event rewards. I use the reward gems from one event to pay for the next until I start to run out of gems. I save gold for packs because sometimes I don't want to do any more drafting and I like having the wildcards.
I was also wondering that. Jump in gives you 2 Rares guarantied and a 1/10 chance for a third in your card reward. IDK if there is a chance for the deck to contain more than 2 rares. Since this is my first full season that I'll be playing I'll try mixing up some Jump ins to see if they provide more rares than drafts per 1000gold. OFC if you're a good enough drafter you will spend little to no money per draft since you'll be getting your gems back from the reward, so this will net you more rares, but an average player with like 50% game win rate should profit more in terms of rare cards from Jump in events IMO (this is a speculation and I haven't done the actual math behind this).
@@tonyo_zhelev if you are likely to be able to choose new set Jump In packs due to having done these events before then they are a good deal regardless of draft success. I usually use them to do quests
I've got a video scheduled for tomorrow on this in detail. The short answer is it's slightly better than buying packs in some cases: if you're trying to collect any non-specific Standard cards from DMU onwards and you have a small collection. But if you want to collect Ixalan specifically, it's only better if you've done the events before and picked most of the other packs at least once. Drafting is better if you're above average at it, but probably worse if you're not.
I just spend gold on drafts first and foremost cause I never buy packs, I'd rather do more drafts... and I also prioritise quick drafts cause not only am I not confident enough to premier draft but also it just means more drafts
Excellent video! How can you get so much gems to be able to play the entry fee to Premier Drafts and also buy the Mastery Pass? Do you get so much only by going infinite in drafts? You stated that is a F2P account, so my biggest hurdle is getting enough gems. Also, doing the Standard Events (if I already have a good deck) is a good strategy for getting gems? Do you do it yourself or recommend? If so, with gems or gold? Sorry for the bunch of questions, love your content!
Once you get the mastery pass the first time, you'll get some gems back from completing it. That makes future mastery passes effectively just 2,200 gems overall. You also get a premier draft token in the mastery pass, which if you do well with, you can get most of the gems back already. I don't go infinite in drafts, but I can make my gems last a long time by doing pretty well. I don't do any Standard Events at the moment, I might try and see how much I can get from them in the future, but it's hard to get good value from them.
Collection % needs to be at 4x copies because nobody is building Highlander decks.I have attained everything from my first Mastery pass and got very little in way of useable cards mostly junk.The gam is designed around the rares and mythics and Standard being 3 years is a LOT of rares and mythics even if only going for 2x copies of. i have also done drafts and opened packs and again got very little in way of useful cards.Then I look at the ranked rewards and they are really pathetic like 1/2/3 packs some gold is really not worth the effort at all. The rewards could be 10x higher and still not really motivate me.Right now the only thing I see as FUN is playing the free event where everyone uses the same decks so no advantage other than having the knowledge of what decks are better than others but overall it is an even playing field.
Takes forever and the method is boring. I wanna earn cool decks while playing cool decks. Not earn them while playing a mishmesh of garbo WotC decided to throw at me.
You can get the pass by winning gems in events without spending any money. The Pre Order bundle is just a shortcut that some people prefer to save time. Once you have the first mastery pass, it's easier to get future ones.
Great guide!
I’m at 94% with zero packs bought for the set due to maybe 20 drafts of this set on this account. I have more rares and mythics than you but not a full set of uncommons. Both approaches work well, but drafting does generate a decent amount of packs (even with my sub 50% win rate this set) and you can always pick up some mythics late in packs to fill gaps.
As ever - do whatever is the most fun for you!
I've found prem drafts to be the best option when you're missing a lot of mythics compared to rares. They tend to wheel more often than in quickdrafts.
Seems like Draft is the best value for building your collection, everyone says so, but I'm just getting back into MTG via Arena and I don't feel my card knowledge is quite there to construct a deck especially under time constraints. I've got your Draft Guide from about 8mo ago pulled up though. Gonna watch it and see if I can gain some confidence. Thanks for this video, it'll be very helpful for me heading into Ixalan.
There's a tracker tool that helps you with draft picks, if you're fresh with the sets, it can be a big help.
I think it lets you do 10 drafts before they ask that you support their tracker. Forgot what it was called by iirc it was made by channel fireball? Don't quote me on it haha.
As always, excellent video!
Thanks 👍
How do i get the first batch of gems to do the mastery pass? i only have about 500. How many time would i need to win in draft games to get enough for the mastery pass? Considering i would need to pay with gold for the draft games i guess.
If you spent all your gold on drafts then I think you get to do one a week, and it’d take a while to save up, but if you get lucky occasionally (or are a star drafter) then it shouldn’t be too bad.
Don’t forget - as the video says you can buy the pass at the end of the set and it still gives you all the rewards. That’s what i used to do.
Try to catch the days in the month where the store offers 400gems for 1500gold. A mastery pass lasts for 3months and you have three opportunities to find the offers. If you manage to do it, those 1200 gems pay for basically a third of the price of the pass by itself. Now you only need to get a couple 3+win drafts and you have your pass right there.
EDIT: The 400gem=1500gold offers might not be monthly, could've sworn they were, but oh well. Then looks like its 800gems every 3months, not 1200.
@@pointyheadYT yes, i got the last one, it was only a few days ago. But that only brought me to my 500 gems :) Long journey ahead.
@@snackplaylove well, i guess no more jump in events for me. Those i like the best. Time to save that gold for those drafts.
If you could get 3 wins in a premier draft, you can turn 10k gold into 1k gems each time. For quick drafts it will take longer because the gem rewards are proportionally lower. How long it takes depends entirely on how many games you win in the events.
I wish i was as good as you when it comes to playing draft, it's seems like if i do not spend money on this game my account won't progress 😅
Draft is a skill that is fairly easy to learn, but does take a little time. The Joy Of Drafting series is a little dated now but does go through the basics of card evaluation.
The main issue is that some people do way more drafts than others (and over multiple accounts) so you are more likely to face experienced players. This isn’t so true in the first weekend as a lot of people will hop on to try it out. This is also why quick draft can be easier.
Your ‘free’ draft tokens and the MWM phantom events are great places to practice, and you can watch quality streamers play formats you are interested in (like Jim Davis ‘bronze to mythic’ where he explains a lot as he goes, or the more advanced Numot the Nummy). Good luck and have fun!
Wouldn't really say you need to spend money. Doing dailies and getting to 10wins/day for 3months gets you about 110k gold. With mastery pass unlocked and only rare-drafting in quick drafts, even if you go 0-3 each time, you'll easily complete 50%+ of your rare collection (4-5 rares picked up on average in q.drafts = 100rares + about 80 packs from rewards). Which is more than enough to build whatever deck you want.
You don't even need to be good at drafting really. You can unlock a lot just by collecting gold and buying packs if you prefer to play that way, you never really need to spend money, but it definitely speeds up progress if you want to.
I'm a terrible drafter.I manage to get the mastery pass free by doing the daily quests and wining gems on the standart event.
2500 gold to enter and you chose what deck to use.I've been able in every 3 months to get 3400 for the mastery .I have more than 95% of the last 3 sets using this strategy.I guess drafting gets you more rewards but you need more time and more mastery than playing a standart deck on the event.
Si if I’m a new player, and I can get 10k gold a week, I have to do 10 weeks of Premier 1/week, and I’ll get 30 packs from the XP levels, where are the other 70 packs are coming from? Am I missing something?
When I open 100 packs together, they come from the Premier Draft rewards, mastery pass and around 40-50 bought in the store with my gold.
The 45 packs bundle rewards a card STYLE it states. Are you sure it also adds a copy of the card in question to your collection ?
Thanks mate. Wish you luck in your games@@pointyheadYT
I just double checked and it seems like they've changed it since Eldraine. For previous sets, the biggest pack bundles offered a specific rare card. Now it looks like they've downgraded it. Luckily it wasn't a massive bonus anyway, so most people probably won't miss it much.
@@gameschooldadMTG Oh wow. It does look like its just the art. Weird.
I just bought 45 packs, with gold, gives card and card style
Noice !@@vincentjackson3472
Thanks for the video. I hate drafting, but I use the free tokens to join and just grab as many rares as I can. It would be nice if you could do a video like this with every set release, searching for videos is a pain.
No problem, thanks for your comment 👍
what are your thoughts about the power creep in this set?
I haven't looked into it too much. Obviously some cards are very powerful, but there are still many cards from older standard sets that are doing really well, so it's hard to say.
As a new player (new to Arena, not MTG) what is the best way to start generating gems in order to save up enough for my first battle pass?
You can buy some gems for gold in daily deals every 6 weeks, and you can win them in draft and standard events.
How the hell can you do 9-10 premier drafts and open about 100 packs if wizards gives you only about 80k gold during the expansion period?
If you do well in drafts, as he did, its not hard to collect 100 packs quickly. He basically got 3+ wins in 9/10 of his drafts. Thats extremely good value. He basically got back 2/3 of the value of a new prem draft 9 times = 9000+ gems, which he may spend on packs. If you're like me and you either go 7-0 or 0-3, never inbetween, then prem drafts are horrible value-wise.
You use the rewards from one premier draft to pay for the next one until you decide to stop. I buy somewhere around 50 packs with the gold that I've got when I'm done drafting.
Ive tried drafting for 3 years and the best i got was 3 wins haha. I guess drafting is not for me :( How can yo do 10 premier drafts in a season as f2p?? you only get gold to make 1 a week?
1 set lasts for ~3months. 10wins/day in 90days gets you about ~100k gold at minimum. Thats enough for 10 premium drafts or 20 quickdrafts. [750gold reward is 20% of the time, so the gold math goes as follows: 0.2*90*1450 + 0.8*90*1200 = 26100 + 86400 = 112500]
Thank you for explaining it so detailed, i didnt know that.@@pointyheadYT
I've probably spent about $50 on the game in the past 3 years, but I haven't had to spend anything at all for the past two sets because I've always had enough gems from event rewards. I use the reward gems from one event to pay for the next until I start to run out of gems. I save gold for packs because sometimes I don't want to do any more drafting and I like having the wildcards.
Very helpful thankyou
You're welcome!
Great video. Would you bother with the jump in events still?
I was also wondering that. Jump in gives you 2 Rares guarantied and a 1/10 chance for a third in your card reward. IDK if there is a chance for the deck to contain more than 2 rares. Since this is my first full season that I'll be playing I'll try mixing up some Jump ins to see if they provide more rares than drafts per 1000gold. OFC if you're a good enough drafter you will spend little to no money per draft since you'll be getting your gems back from the reward, so this will net you more rares, but an average player with like 50% game win rate should profit more in terms of rare cards from Jump in events IMO (this is a speculation and I haven't done the actual math behind this).
@@tonyo_zhelev if you are likely to be able to choose new set Jump In packs due to having done these events before then they are a good deal regardless of draft success.
I usually use them to do quests
I've got a video scheduled for tomorrow on this in detail. The short answer is it's slightly better than buying packs in some cases: if you're trying to collect any non-specific Standard cards from DMU onwards and you have a small collection. But if you want to collect Ixalan specifically, it's only better if you've done the events before and picked most of the other packs at least once. Drafting is better if you're above average at it, but probably worse if you're not.
I just spend gold on drafts first and foremost cause I never buy packs, I'd rather do more drafts... and I also prioritise quick drafts cause not only am I not confident enough to premier draft but also it just means more drafts
Excellent video! How can you get so much gems to be able to play the entry fee to Premier Drafts and also buy the Mastery Pass? Do you get so much only by going infinite in drafts? You stated that is a F2P account, so my biggest hurdle is getting enough gems. Also, doing the Standard Events (if I already have a good deck) is a good strategy for getting gems? Do you do it yourself or recommend? If so, with gems or gold? Sorry for the bunch of questions, love your content!
Once you get the mastery pass the first time, you'll get some gems back from completing it. That makes future mastery passes effectively just 2,200 gems overall. You also get a premier draft token in the mastery pass, which if you do well with, you can get most of the gems back already. I don't go infinite in drafts, but I can make my gems last a long time by doing pretty well. I don't do any Standard Events at the moment, I might try and see how much I can get from them in the future, but it's hard to get good value from them.
Collection % needs to be at 4x copies because nobody is building Highlander decks.I have attained everything from my first Mastery pass and got very little in way of useable cards mostly junk.The gam is designed around the rares and mythics and Standard being 3 years is a LOT of rares and mythics even if only going for 2x copies of.
i have also done drafts and opened packs and again got very little in way of useful cards.Then I look at the ranked rewards and they are really pathetic like 1/2/3 packs some gold is really not worth the effort at all.
The rewards could be 10x higher and still not really motivate me.Right now the only thing I see as FUN is playing the free event where everyone uses the same decks so no advantage other than having the knowledge of what decks are better than others but overall it is an even playing field.
Sorry! i i want to know about know a Thier 1 Deck!
Any particular deck type?
Drafts are just devastating for me as a new player. Not even quite a chance, so really bad tip
If you don't like drafts you can always just buy packs. It's still true that drafts have a much higher potential value for some people.
I've a few hundred gems. RIP me, I guess.
You can always win more.
Takes forever and the method is boring. I wanna earn cool decks while playing cool decks. Not earn them while playing a mishmesh of garbo WotC decided to throw at me.
iam st
Im sorry as a real f2p player i dont like how he directed me to the pass and a 16 dollar bundle...imo thats not f2p
You can get the pass by winning gems in events without spending any money. The Pre Order bundle is just a shortcut that some people prefer to save time. Once you have the first mastery pass, it's easier to get future ones.