Well..

https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/45045

You see, I'm more invested than I should be given that I have hardly played since early december. However, I want Arena to succeed and to be a fun experience. Still hoping for WotC to become a company that I like and not just an evil genius

Good article! I had no idea events aren’t worth it anymore . Thanks!

What value are you assigning to progressing towards wildcards?

What value are you assigning to ICRs?

What are you calculating as an expected win rate?

I didn't make any new calculations. I think it has been established that - because of wildcards - buying boosters was superior to events for collection purposes at reasonable win-rates. Do you question that?

It has to be this because the patch obviously shifts the imbalance further in favor of boosters, so.. whatever I come up with now can't be better than this:

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/whats-the-best-mtg-arena-event-for-expected-value-and-can-you-go-infinite/

He claims that you lose value in a Bo1 Draft with a 50%-winrate if you pay with gold (that event has an awkward discount if you pay with gems). I argue that even a 0-3 player should at least get his gold's worth in collection progress. That's compensation for his time. Blocking out bad players from core content like Limited by penalizing them with bad gold-conversion-rates is not cool. I'd be willing to accept the requirement of 1 win to prevent abuse (resigning at zero games).

Ouf l read that whole article and I still don’t know which Bo1 format I should play

For now, just go with any free mode, probably "Play" over "Ranked Play" because of the matchmaking.

I find myself trying to play Constructed Event to try and win more gold to keep drafting and stuff but then that doesn't earn rank so there's also that split now too.

I don't understand your essay.



That's not true. You can go infinite in events, generate actual gold. Buying boosters uses gold. From that article you linked, you don't need a particularly high win rate to go infinite in the constructed events. That's what I've been doing the past few months: play constructed to generate gold to spend on drafts. What's wrong with that? If anything the only "event" I'm unmotivated to play in is ladder, because 1) I dislike BO1 in constructed and 2) no rewards.

Yes Banedon, we can do that. My latest CE decks are logged at ~60% each, which is just enough. However we both like to draft as per the multiple threads on that. And wouldn't you rather have duplicate protection instead of 20 gems, too?

Also, CE is the least problematic event imo because that's the one game mode you can access for free as well. I want Limited and fun modes available without feeling bad for spending on them instead of boosters.

Well too bad. Draft is expensive and should be expensive because entering draft gives you at least 3 free boosters.

I don't mind 20 gems over duplicate protection. I prefer wildcards of course, or ways to get the exact cards I want. Extra bulk rares and mythics do nothing for me. Since there's no way to turn bulk rares into rares that I actually want, getting 20 gems is fine.

Constructed events aren't free. They cost 500/1000 gold to enter.

I don't think I've spent gold on boosters in forever.

I'd say drafts are gonna be better value until you have most of the commons/uncommons and duplicate rares are still highly unlikely. From there I assume packs will be better to round up the rares.

One thing I'm not sure about, though: What happens when you own all rares and open a pack - is it gonna be a guaranteed mythic or can you still get a rare that will convert into gems?

How are these 3 boosters "free" when you pay 5k gold for them?

You have a point that there can be players who prefer any amount of gems over a random rare card. That's fair, but even then, 20 is nothing, not even close to the value of said Rare if you compare that to the booster cost of 200 gems, which gives 1 Rare, 1/6th of a wildcard and collateral.

Aside from that, you appear to be ok with overpaying while I'm not so it looks hard to find an agreement.

Well yeah, but the fact that you gain 3 packs worth of cards is why draft must be expensive to enter. If you could go infinite in draft the same way you can in constructed events, everyone would be amassing cards at light speed. Think about it: it's 3 packs worth of cards per 9 games (at most). Nothing even comes close.

20 gems for a rare isn't something to complain about. Remember many rares are worthless. If I were just starting out I'd totally prefer to have a constructed-playable common over an unplayable mythic.

As for overpaying: considering I don't spend money on this game, the fact that I'm accumulating cards at a reasonable pace is good enough for me.

You are playing a freemium card game. Didn't you notice the fact that the mode only rewards premium currency to make it harder to go infinite with just gold? The mode is supposed to have a high rake. And from what I can tell a 3-3 record is the "break even" point in Quick Draft according to this link:

http://magicarena.wikia.com/wiki/Quick_Draft

so aside from the miserly rewards it's not *that* much worse than other popular games in the same genre.

The mode *has* to be designed to be a loss over packs for the majority of players, or they wouldn't make a profit off of online gambling.

Drafts cannot use duplicate protection in the drafted packs for several extremely obvious reasons having to do with fundamental game-play mechanics. You can't remove cards from the drafting pool lol. And they can't just make them free wildcards after the fact either, because that would reduce the rake to a reasonable level.

I have never found the events to be the best way to accrue a collection. The exception is when it was pointed out that certain events for 500 gold offered a guaranteed rare/mythic and uncommon even for no wins - going to 4 or 5 wins only ended up betting gold and the loss refunded 100 gold so in brief 400g for a rare /mythic and uncommon and often two rares or even two mythics!! Certainly in some ways better than 1K gold for a pack.

I suspect though there was an artificial filter on the rares / mythics you could earn. Even as a ftp player you hit a level with decent fully built decks (filled out with full sets of rares / uncommons). A full set of mythics is a different prospect for ftp unless you convert via wildcards. It left me therefore just playing for the weekly packs for wins and accruing gold (33K for allegiance currently). As for rank and the competitive path to mythic it basically undermines the enjoyment for the core which is playing a variety of decks not just the usual net deck Tier1 pro tour decks.

I have more fun building for soecific colour quests or specific creature / kill / land based goals and playing in casual BO1. Aside from that the Undercity Tournament but here my deck choice / play skill / luck abandoned me with no match wins. I was hoping that direct challenge would lead to more casual fun matches but I find that most folks want serious competitive matches so this aspect is missing, it’s great to have direct matches but absence of a friends list or lobby removes the opportunity for a better experience in playing IMHO. SD

I had just expected they'd convert extra Rares after the Draft event. To me that's the obvious solution.

However, I have to make some amends. According to FK's studies, Bo1 Draft, which is my primary money sink, is the worst of the bunch. He values the 3 opened packs at 577 gold each, so we spend 5k for cards worth 1.7k + rewards. Since the rewards even at zero wins contain 1.2 boosters, that's another 1.2k of value and 50 gems, which are a quarter pack, so 250 gold. So we roughly lose 1.8k gold on a 0-3 Draft compared to buying boosters.

I argue that even that is bad. Why should one be punished for playing bad limited? No one gets punished for playing bad constructed. Is limited some exclusive high roller content? I doubt that, more like the opposite.

However, even at 3-3 you lose gold compared to buying boosters as per FK's assumptions and that's just a crime. There's no justification at all and the reason I made the effort. Remember there is no difference in how much money they make based on what we spend our ingame-currency on. We spend it on boosters or events. And from a gamer's PoV the latter needs to be better - in every case. If a booster was 2k/400 gems, someone else would complain, but not me. I only care about the relation of those two because that makes me feel bad whenever I spend gold on Draft instead of boosters.

As you should! He makes a good point that buying boosters is better

It is probably worth it to play enough "Ranked Play" to get to silver if you haven't yet. It will give you one extra pack at some point.


If I want to pay constructed without paying WoTC I can use a non-licensed program or print out some proxies. If I want to play draft it is much harder to do something like that. Similarly, if you are playing on a more casual level you can probably spend $50 on an okay standard deck and play it for a year. If you want to play limited every other week, 50 bucks wont last that long.

Rares and mythics are treated differently, so you should 20 gems if that pack had rare and a missing mythic if the pack contained a mythic. Still have a chance of getting a WC instead of cards/gems too.