How does mtgo work

Several Player Avatars — Choose an avatar to represent yourself in the game. Additional avatars featuring many of your favorite characters can be earned or obtained via trades with other players note trading requires upgrading to a full Magic Online account.

Hundreds of cards to jump-start your collection! Round out your collection with even more cards! Home Scene. Azorius Control. Decklist Stats Sample Hand. Sort by: Overview Color Cost Rarity.

Sorcery 4 2 Wrath of God 2 Oust. Artifact 2 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Feast and Famine. Enchantment 3 3 Shark Typhoon. Deal Another Hand. Dimir Mill. Sorcery 7 3 Scheming Symmetry 4 Glimpse the Unthinkable. Artifact 4 4 Mesmeric Orb. Multi colored 4 4 Glimpse the Unthinkable. Eldrazi Tron. Sorcery 2 2 All Is Dust. Instant 2 2 Spatial Contortion. Gruul Titanshift. Instant 6 2 Summoner's Pact 4 Lightning Bolt.

Red 8 4 Anger of the Gods 4 Lightning Bolt. Multi colored 1 1 Radha, Heart of Keld. Uncommon 5 3 Relic of Progenitus 2 Damping Sphere. Izzet Storm. Multi colored 8 4 Goblin Electromancer 4 Manamorphose.

As a result, the client has a much more stripped back look compared to Magic Arena you won't find flashy animations, for example , but you gain a ton more options, play experiences, and functionality as a result. Unfortunately, since Magic Online isn't the most intuitive game although it really isn't nearly as bad as some people make it out to be , there is a bit of a learning curve when you first start playing.

Today, our goal is to help speed you up along that curve, covering everything you need to know about getting started on Magic Online , from downloading the client, to the various things you can do within the client, to acquiring cards and importing decks, to playing games along with some tips and tricks to make gameplay as fast and easy as possible , to winning and, if you choose, selling prizes.

Since we are covering a lot of ground, today's video is pretty long, but there are timestamps that will allow you to jump to the parts that are more relevant to you in the description as well as a pinned comment.

I tried to cover everything I could think of that a new player would need to know, but if you have a question, don't be afraid to ask in the comments.

I'll do my best to help. Anyway, let's get to the video, and then after the video, we'll have some links to additional information along with some of the websites we discuss in the video. Once you select your deck, click the big button marked PLAY on the bottom left of the screen and Magic Online will automatically match you with a worthy opponent.

This screen is a tad busy for my tastes. Be careful: if your timer goes all the way down to zero, you lose the match no matter what else has happened! It mostly acts as a way of keeping someone from making you wait around for fifteen minutes while they run down to the store for a can of soda. Play at your normal speed for now and you should be fine. If you take a mulligan, MTGO will automatically set up your free scry once you find a hand to keep. Like most things in Magic Online, right click on the card to open up a menu of choices.

Once you find a hand you can keep, it shows up in the window at the bottom of your screen. Want your hand to look bigger? You can click on the top bar and adjust it just like the size of a browser window.

Want to play your land for the turn? If you have a creature in play that is capable of attacking, a red zone will open up in the center of the screen at the beginning of your attack phase. Just click on the creature s you want to attack with, and it will be nudged forward to indicate an attack. After attackers have been declared, your triggered abilities if any will automatically be placed on the stack. If a spell or ability has a target, a removal spell, say, or the Separatist Voidmage below Magic Online will prompt you to place it onto the stack by selecting a target.

Taste it! Dead on board? Had enough? Whatever your reasons, right-clicking on the battlefield opens up a menu that allows you to concede the game. Want to watch a replay of your game?

Priority and Keyboard Shortcuts. If your preferred learning style is a little more holistic, however, some of these terms might unfamiliar. The first thing to know about phases is Magic is a game of priority. When can you give yourself priority? Check out those little white tabs on that little bar above your hand. Those are your stops.

Why not just turn on all your stops just in case? It gets old fast, believe me. They let you do what you need to do in all but the most complex situations. You also gain priority whenever your opponent passes it to you. This allows you to respond to a spell they put on the stack with a card or ability of your own.

Online, you have to keep hitting OK whenever you want to pass priority. Because passing priority is such a drag, Magic Online has built-in function keys that you can use to speed things along. Here they are:. This is the same as clicking the OK button. Done with your turn? F4 is your friend. Incredibly useful for saving time, not so great if you want to bluff a counterspell.

Are you playing Monastery Mentor? Does your deck have a thousand identical Prowess triggers waiting to hit the stack? Did you press F6 or F8 by accident? Press F3 to disable their functionality. Need an example of why this might be necessary? If you just play the Bolt without holding CTRL, it will automatically pass priority to your opponent without giving you a chance to respond.

Other Useful Keyboard Shortcuts. This one is especially useful if you tap your mana incorrectly. Zooming in on a card allows you to see everything. M shortcuts this process. Got all that? Other Magic Online Settings and Tricks.

You also might want to turn on auto save for your draft logs. Sometimes, you will encounter an MTGO bug so severe that it will cost you in terms of prizes or entry fees. Other times, the client may disconnect you in the middle of a draft without notice, causing you to miss a crucial pick or three.

If you encounter one of these bugs and you feel like it made a material difference in terms of how a game or tournament played out, you can file for reimbursement on the Wizards of the Coast website. The link is here , and I recommend keeping it handy. Note that you will need your event number , which can be found under the game history tab. Legacy, Vintage, Commander, and Planechase, but there are a couple of online-only formats that are worth discussing further:.

Pauper is an eternal format where you can only play with cards that have been released at common in an MTGO-legal set. Freeform is the Magic Online version of casual Magic.

Want to play with four copies of Black Lotus in your card Battle of Wits deck? Go nuts! Freeform Vanguard is a casual format where players can start each game with one or more vanguards in effect. Vanguards are like Commanders with passive abilities that modify the game and cannot be destroyed. Each one encourages a slightly different style of deckbuilding and has a unique power.

Vanguards also double as avatars. You know that little Birds of Paradise with our life total on it while we were playing our constructed game? This is what he does:. Neat, right? The idea is that both players begin with the Momir Vig avatar and a deck that is usually just 60 basic lands. You then battle it out with random creatures from throughout the history of Magic.

This combines the Momir Vig avatar with the Jhoria of the Ghitu random spells and the Stonehewer Giant avatar random equipment for maximum wackiness. Legacy Cube Draft is available every time there is a window between when a set is released in paper form and when it makes its way online.

Although these Drafts are likely to offer you the worst value proposition of the two event types, they are a perfectly fine way to use your New Player Points if you just like Drafting, or simply don't want to pay for a Standard deck. The upside is that they don't require any additional investment. Drafts are usually done in 8 person pods. But New to Magic Online Drafts are done in pods of 4. Every Magic Online account comes with free cards , which includes 40 of each basic land Forest, Island, Mountain, Plains, Swamp , 2 of each Common from the five most recent sets currently Kaladesh , Aether Revolt , Amonkhet , Hour of Devastation , and Ixalan , and several other Uncommons, and Rares.

However, it is possible to build a deck out of these cards, and begin playing right away. The bots offering free cards to players include:. Although these free resources don't offer much value, they offer a good way to pick up new cards not otherwise included with your account.

Magic Online can technically cost nothing to play beyond the initial investment. Using the cards that come with the account as well as the Boosters, Event Tickets and Bot Credit earned and playing freeform i.

However, one of the best parts of Magic is playing established formats. Pauper is a format where only commons are legal. It has its own banned and restricted list , and is quickly becoming a popular format on MTGO with the introduction of Pauper Leagues.

In a nutshell, each turn consists of creating a token copy of a randomly generated creature card equal to the converted mana cost spent that turn. Each game is totally unpredictable as a result, and by its definition is something that can only be played online. The Momir Vig avatar costs about 11 tickets, and the basic lands are included in with your account.

Both Pauper and Momir Basic can be quite intricate to play. Given the low cost of these formats, you could very likely play either format using the Event Tickets and Bot Credit you got with your account and not spend anything else since they are available to play for no entry fee.

For those looking to play competitively and have the opportunity to win prizes in events, there are also pay-to-play events and leagues available for these formats. Penny Dreadful is an incredibly budget format meant to be played solely on Magic Online. In Penny Dreadful, any card that costs 0. The format includes many powerful cards, such as Aetherling, Animate Dead, and Mother of Runes, and it self-regulates.

If a deck becomes too dominant, it will eventually increase slightly in price, and become illegal to play. The general rule for the other formats is the same as it is in paper Magic: the older the format is, the more expensive it will be to buy in.

Cards in older formats are more likely to retain their value since, generally, only new bannings or restrictions significantly affect their pricing. Of course, metagame shifts can also affect things, but that tends to be for individual cards or decks rather than entire formats.

Further, set rotations for formats like Standard typically temper overall format cost. There are exceptions to this general rule. For example, some cards may have had limited printings online or are playable in many formats. Either being true can drive up the value of individual cards immensely compared to cards that have been reprinted many times or are only popular in a single format.

This can even apply to recently released cards still legal in Standard. The best advice that can be given is to always check prices of decks before buying into a format - especially if there is a particular style of deck you prefer.

Even Pauper can have some expensive decks, and even Vintage can have some surprisingly comparatively cheap decks.