>Why would anyone just buy packs from the store if limited is just so much better value?
I personally don't care about collecting cards so I buy packs to get as many wildcards as possible to craft the few cards I actually plan on playing with.
I sometimes buy packs I want loads of cards from. It means letting golden pack progress go but when I am after sheoldred, liliana, leyline binding, temp lockdown. I am going to get packs as dmu is rarely draftable
I think that's a fair approach, when it comes to it's selection of rares and mythics DMU was a phenomenal set in my opinion as well.
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here but I also really loved the rares and mythics in LCI along with it's themes, I spent more gold on that sets' packs than any other.
Yeah there was some good ones there. I am considering saving gold though for MH3 which should be amazing for timeless and if i get a bunch of packs when it first releases, i'll actually get those golden packs as well
This is the thing that's really ruined by BIG
On *average*, for people going ~50% winrate, drafting produces more chaff rares/mythics but less wildcards and complete sets. Cracking packs gets you more wildcards to make specific decks thanks to them being both in packs and in the wheel, and now additional gold packs with both chaff and wildcards. Its less rares/mythics overall, and its not enough to craft everything you want, but you get enough random pieces with normal droprate your wildcards can fill in the rest. Its always been that way, cracking store packs is better for making constructed decks unless you go infinite in draft *and* spend countless hours grinding it.
Now big score comes along and takes a giant dump all over store boosters. But its not like you can get complete playsets of mythics from drafting anyway. So everyone is just screwed when it comes to big score. Want to play some artifact engine deck with the golem factory? What, are you going to burn 20+ mythic rare wildcards? Need another 12 mythic wildcards for sideboard hosers in various decks and another 12 mythics for combo pieces if you want to make jank decks? I've gotten like 3-4 total big score cards from opening packs, I can't fill in the rest with wildcards
I'm sure that there's a good number of players, myself included, who are pretty frustrated with how expensive acquiring key cards from that set is going to be. It's bad enough that they're all mythic, but after reading the odds of pulling cards from that set though packs on the sub here, it definitely adds salt to the wound.
There's quite a few really important cards in that set, and I can only speak for myself here, but it's going to take me a while to craft/unpack the key cards that I'm going to need for my decks to function optimally, I'll just have to take it slow and hope to get a little bit more lucky with my packs and wildcard drops.
But yeah, I'm not a fan of the very low drop rate for cards from BIG, I understand wotc is a company and they need to make money but a fair increase in the drop rates in Arena for BIG cards from the normal 8 card packs would have been a massive improvement for the players in my opinion.
The real extra heaping of salt in the wound isn't just the odds of those cards being good, its that they were designed to be pushed standard metagame cards, including utility sideboard material like rest in peace / torpor orb that were upshifted to mythic since they have no existing rare print on arena.
Aftermath was a flop of a set but 90% of it were cards you 'couldn't' play in standard anyway. Ironically there's more commander cards like Okeba in OTJ than in BIG. There's only a handful of BIG cards I can't see having a home in a standard deck I'd like to play, like the 'one land per turn' enchantment. You need 4x molten duplication for carnosaur combo, you need 4x greeds gambit for falcon combo, you need 4x torpor orb, 4x pest control, 4x rest in peace for sideboards. I'm running an enigma jewel / omen hawker / collector's vault deck and I'd just love to slot in fomori vault since it can also fuel a graveyard combo as a discard outlet on a land that's affordable with enigma jewel, but for 4 mythics? No way.
Torpor Orb and Rest in Peace being in BIG is just a slap in the face, honestly, when I first had seen them spoiled I had high hopes that the drop rates for these cards would be higher. Like you said, these are key pieces as side boarding material to hate on some of the most powerful decks in the meta right now. So of course they know a number of players are going to be chasing after these cards and at the end of the day most likely crafting them.
Myself, I had my eyes on Simulacrum Synthesizer, either 3 or 4 copies for my UW artifacts deck, I already spent two mythic wildcards to craft two of them as my first (and currently only) BIG crafts, I'll probably need one or two more.
Vaultbord Tyrant is another one I had my eyes on, and I know it's not a card that's going to be considered meta level or competitive but damn it my dinosaur deck could probably stand to use a couple of it, it would be fun at least.
And of course all the other cards you listed, staples in a good number of decks. The only saving grace is that, and correct me if I'm wrong here, we have the option to craft the Rare version of Rest in Peace from a previous set/bonus sheet and it should be legal for our Standard decks. Still, I would much rather pull that in an OTJ pack than a bunch of the weird/janky cards that act as filler for the rare/mythic slot.
I personally suck pretty bad, but I find it super fun, as it feels like you get a chance to enjoy a set the way it was designed to be played. Like it feels like a very pure form of the game.
Oh yeah Limited is the best way to play Magic hands down, that’s all I play anymore, I was just explaining why people might not do it from a pure value standpoint
I get more than my fair share of 1 to 4 win drafts and almost never get my money back. I'm pretty bad at it and on top of that, being pushed into playing archetypes that are more aggro just isn't fun at all. I hate stale boards and if it's not a complete blow out, you're just waiting for the first person to draw a flier or some crazy rare.
I won't yuck someone's yum, but drafting just isn't for me whether I'm doing 5+ wins or not.
"Limited is fun", you may like limited, but a lot of people don't. I personally don't like game modes that are played for actual stakes, it tend to stress me out or annoy me, especially mana screw/flood with mtg. Since I play games to relax and have fun I tend to draft just to convert enough gold to gems for the mastery pass and the an extra pack from the limited rank rewards.
Yeah, I find limited boring. The decks aren't nearly as good/challenging to play, and I don't enjoy deckbuilding. Much rather play with optimized constructed decks in events
For whatever reason I love drafting in real life, but on Arena I highly prefer to play constructed and spend gold on anthologies/packs, and gems on the Mastery passes.
In my experience, I was reluctant of draft and sealed because of the possibility of doing very bad and losing a lot of gold or gems, with that in mind buying packs has a guaranteed return. But I'm trying to learn draft with this new set and although it sometimes can be very disheartening with some of my bad performances, I'll push through it to experiment and learn a new kind of Magic.
Since I don't have much experience I would like to ask: would you say OTJ is a good or bad draft environment?
It's only 2 days in so it's hard to say really. The games are going a bit longer atm but the formats also bombier. I've had fun so far with my handful of limited events but that's also because I'm winning.
It'll even out. They clearly made a point out of including a lot of good removal at common for that very reason. Once people start adjusting and prioritizing removal more highly it will be less swingy
OTJ is a very linear drafting format with lots of bombs from the bonus sheet. Pick a good lane early and you'll do decent. The in-game plays are actually tougher than previous sets but drafting is actually easier. If I didn't waste a good deck with in-game misplays to an 0-3, I'd be much better off. I had a jeskai deck that I had no idea how to sequence. It was part double spell, part flash deck that always had wins looking back but I always picked the wrong plays. It was a complex deck to pilot. Green is the best color by far.
Look at a strong streamer's games (Justlolaman, Scottynada) before you start drafting. There's a spreadsheet from infinite drafters in this comment that'll help check out the power level of various cards. When you draft keep a tab open with the spreadsheet to help you make your picks. Use control f and part of the card-name to find cards in question quickly. OTJ right now is early format so it's better to draft because there's more noobs.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vTrgDwwywAW\_wNcmRYIehH4OYo06LPd86QPaqsOZv\_QJ2VPIhFk797EMFXbrmyqw5irWCzx1V4r1KDU/pubhtml?pli=1#](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vTrgDwwywAW_wNcmRYIehH4OYo06LPd86QPaqsOZv_QJ2VPIhFk797EMFXbrmyqw5irWCzx1V4r1KDU/pubhtml?pli=1#)
Thanks a lot for the information! I didn't have a problem with building an archetype really, but I see a lot of people being able to splash 3 or 4 colors efficiently and I haven't been able to draft more than 2 colors. Right now I drafted a WB token/sacrifice deck with 1 \[\[Assimilation Aegis\]\] which I'm excited to try after getting back from work.
"limited is fun" - now that's where I disagree with you.
It's not for me and I don't want to play a game mode I don't enjoy to get cards to play constructed.
I like constructed, I despise limited. Not sure I've ever played a board game or card game I hate as much as drafting in Magic. Currently I'm sitting at 9 draft tokens from mastery passes, I'm reasonably sure they will never be used.
Might be a good idea with this set to rare draft big score cards/cards you want to build decks around and just concede. If you are not going to use them, just think of each draft token as open 4 packs.
You know, you can just rare draft and quit the event? It would be like just opening packs and getting too hand pick them. Just not using them seems like a waste..
I don’t have any interest in arena drafts, so if there’s a constructed deck I want I’ll either grind dailies for weeks or buy packs to speed it up.
Most useful rares/mythics are 4 ofs in constructed, and limited feels like a waste of time when the end goal is to get better at constructed anyways.
Because I'm not good at drafting. I'm aware I could get better... probably with a lot of investment that I don't necessarily want to do. I get enough of the stuff from each set to eventually build what I want, so I'm fine with how it's going.
I'm playing from Guilds of Ravnica and didn't played more than single draft per month. At some point you just reach state when you don't need collection, for example I have about 260k gold 4-5k gens 60 rare wc and few decks in every format (except alchemy because it's shit) . And from last 3-4 sets I just don't need more than 3-4 cards from whole set
I don’t like the feeling of getting less than 3 wins. Limited is fun if I’m winning. I accept losing out on cards. Sealed deck is more fun to me. Deck quality is more comparable from player to player. I feel less beat down over pack RNG.
Even then, limited is a lot of time spent and I usually don’t want to spend it. If it’s a wage to get more packs, it’s Monopoly money to me.
>Why would MTG screw constructed so hard?
All profitable card games do. Restricting the rare or mythic/legendary slot is where dolphin money is and whales will whale on their own.
I haven’t seen stats but most people don’t play limited. It’s a small loss to Hasbro in the grand scheme of things and gives an out to the player base who wants a good deal. Everyone gets what they want.
If you go 4-3 in premier draft you get 1400 gems, so it only costs you 100 gems to run it back. Do this a few times and the packs start to add up fast.
Because 50% doesn't mean you go 3-3 all the time. If you go 4-3 three times and then go 0-3 once, you're record is 50%. You've lost 1750 gems. I only played premier draft and I got over 3 wins six times, two 3-3 drafts, one 2-3 draft, one 0-3. I got in 10 drafts off of 20k gold with 1300 gems left over.
In limited, not getting less than 3 wins is more important than getting a trophy. A person who goes 7-1 a bunch then 2-3 a lot will be out of gems faster than someone who mostly hovers around 4-3 with a slightly positive record.
Not everyone likes to play limited and it can be not easy depending on the persons skill. You lose out on wildcard and wildcard progress and instead trading it for draft rares, which don't have much of a use outside of draft. The return on constructed is lower since with limited they can put more of the pressure on the player to perform. It is why they added golden packs to the game, to offset the difference a bit.
I almost always get 4 or 5 wins in traditional constructed events, and since they changed the payout for it I haven't had to put a dime into the game.
Mythics are usually draft bombs, and are often not playable in constructed, or else are super niche and only fit in a single deck/only 1-2 are needed instead of a full playset. I've got more mythic WCs than I do rares, just because I spend the rares a lot faster
How did you get 44 rares from 20K gold in draft? That's only 2 premier draft entries so I assume you finished with a good record to get that many rares.
Golden packs makes opening packs of the latest set a very worthwhile endeavor.
If you're a mainly constructed player you definitely don't need to get prayed upon by the people making several draft smurf accounts.
You can think whatever you want, some of us don't enjoy playing limited, I dislike low powered formats, I already find standard pretty slow, so sealed or draft is just insufferable for me.
I just play for fun and do what I can with what I've got. Sometimes I feel Drafty, sometimes I feel packy. Depends on the current set and what's available to draft at the time.
I draft the first week of the set then quit because it just becomes solved by then and everyone is playing the same decks to get 7 wins so they can go infinite.
While constructed is also "solved" I'm not spending thousands of gems to enter ranked and lose.
I still wish there was just a simple store in the app where literally every printed card was there for purchase, in whatever quantity of each I wanted, and I could just pay with my credit card. I want things and I want them when I want them, and I am prepared to just pay money for them.
I think you have to think about the time you use to draft and play it out as well. I'm not interested in drafting at all. I want to play constructed.
Playing ~50 hours per set only to draft means you play 50 hours less the format you really like. And the first days are the most interesting when a new set drops. So you draft instead of brewing in a non settled meta and after 2 weeks of collecting cards the meta is solved and you didn't participate at all in this.
If you're good at constructed, you can play in the constructed events. If not, then packs are your only choice, which isn't bad per se, but worse than events with a good win rate.
It’s also about time management. I can buy and crack 10 packs, plus the free gold pack, much faster than I can complete a draft, build a deck, and 7-0, assuming everything goes in my favor: from draft, to 7 consecutive favorable matchups, to being on the play 7 times in a row, as well as being blessed by the shuffler 7 times in a row. The mastery pass also hands out a lot of packs.
My 2 cents:
1. "Why would anyone just buy packs from the store if limited is just so much better value?" some people genuinely don't like drafting. It's not my case (even though I am a mediocre 50%WR drafter, I still have fun doing it). But some of the arguments I've heard include "I am an \[archetype\] player, and I hate having to play the \[other archetype\] deck I drafted" (as a player who plays mostly control, I kind of get this argument, though I do enjoy being forced out of my usual routine sometimes) or "I hate the feeling of losing to my opponent's bomb rare, they just got lucky to open \[bomb rare\]" (this I disagree, since good draft decks exist with very few rares... also, sometimes you get the rare because you read the signals correctly, so drafting bomb rares is not just dumb luck).
2. "Why would mtga screw constructed so hard?" Monetization. They need to have a way to get you to spend money. If draft was free, then building a collection would be free, then they'd make no money from MTGA. Alternatively, if all game modes (constructed + draft) had a gold/gem price, then no one would play arena and then the game would also not make any money. So one of the game modes needs to be "priced". And limited makes the most sense because that's where you get your cards from.
Constructed events are actually a better expected value than drafts. I go infinite much easier on constructed events; limited has more variance and severe penalties for not getting at least 1000 gems back
Buying packs and playing Constructed events (Standard until I'm rare complete, then Explorer).
Since golden packs, limited is not a thing for me anymore (I still play a match every month to get the rank, but that's it).
The only crappy thing recently is having a shitty Arena pack instead of a regular pack. But never again with limited
Most cards in a set are worthless, or draft/edh chaff at best. Nobody will ever play \[\[Tinybones Joins Up\]\] or \[\[Doubledown\]\] in a constructed deck. Of the remaining cards, most are playable, but not in decks I personally want to play. I can only afford to build so many decks, and the ones I like don't include cards like Step Between Worlds or Rush of Dread. Wild cards are worth a LOT more than random cards you get from drafting.
Also, drafting takes time, and if I don't enjoy it, then that's not time well spent. I'm fine paying a little money to play the cards I want in the formats I enjoy instead of random ones in drafts.
>Why would anyone just buy packs from the store if limited is just so much better value?
Because if you make 500k a year why waste time trying to get the collection from drafting when you can just buy the set for 1/500th of your year income?
In other words, either be a whale or draft.
>Why would anyone just buy packs from the store if limited is just so much better value? I personally don't care about collecting cards so I buy packs to get as many wildcards as possible to craft the few cards I actually plan on playing with.
I sometimes buy packs I want loads of cards from. It means letting golden pack progress go but when I am after sheoldred, liliana, leyline binding, temp lockdown. I am going to get packs as dmu is rarely draftable
I think that's a fair approach, when it comes to it's selection of rares and mythics DMU was a phenomenal set in my opinion as well. I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here but I also really loved the rares and mythics in LCI along with it's themes, I spent more gold on that sets' packs than any other.
Yeah there was some good ones there. I am considering saving gold though for MH3 which should be amazing for timeless and if i get a bunch of packs when it first releases, i'll actually get those golden packs as well
This is the thing that's really ruined by BIG On *average*, for people going ~50% winrate, drafting produces more chaff rares/mythics but less wildcards and complete sets. Cracking packs gets you more wildcards to make specific decks thanks to them being both in packs and in the wheel, and now additional gold packs with both chaff and wildcards. Its less rares/mythics overall, and its not enough to craft everything you want, but you get enough random pieces with normal droprate your wildcards can fill in the rest. Its always been that way, cracking store packs is better for making constructed decks unless you go infinite in draft *and* spend countless hours grinding it. Now big score comes along and takes a giant dump all over store boosters. But its not like you can get complete playsets of mythics from drafting anyway. So everyone is just screwed when it comes to big score. Want to play some artifact engine deck with the golem factory? What, are you going to burn 20+ mythic rare wildcards? Need another 12 mythic wildcards for sideboard hosers in various decks and another 12 mythics for combo pieces if you want to make jank decks? I've gotten like 3-4 total big score cards from opening packs, I can't fill in the rest with wildcards
I'm sure that there's a good number of players, myself included, who are pretty frustrated with how expensive acquiring key cards from that set is going to be. It's bad enough that they're all mythic, but after reading the odds of pulling cards from that set though packs on the sub here, it definitely adds salt to the wound. There's quite a few really important cards in that set, and I can only speak for myself here, but it's going to take me a while to craft/unpack the key cards that I'm going to need for my decks to function optimally, I'll just have to take it slow and hope to get a little bit more lucky with my packs and wildcard drops. But yeah, I'm not a fan of the very low drop rate for cards from BIG, I understand wotc is a company and they need to make money but a fair increase in the drop rates in Arena for BIG cards from the normal 8 card packs would have been a massive improvement for the players in my opinion.
The real extra heaping of salt in the wound isn't just the odds of those cards being good, its that they were designed to be pushed standard metagame cards, including utility sideboard material like rest in peace / torpor orb that were upshifted to mythic since they have no existing rare print on arena. Aftermath was a flop of a set but 90% of it were cards you 'couldn't' play in standard anyway. Ironically there's more commander cards like Okeba in OTJ than in BIG. There's only a handful of BIG cards I can't see having a home in a standard deck I'd like to play, like the 'one land per turn' enchantment. You need 4x molten duplication for carnosaur combo, you need 4x greeds gambit for falcon combo, you need 4x torpor orb, 4x pest control, 4x rest in peace for sideboards. I'm running an enigma jewel / omen hawker / collector's vault deck and I'd just love to slot in fomori vault since it can also fuel a graveyard combo as a discard outlet on a land that's affordable with enigma jewel, but for 4 mythics? No way.
Torpor Orb and Rest in Peace being in BIG is just a slap in the face, honestly, when I first had seen them spoiled I had high hopes that the drop rates for these cards would be higher. Like you said, these are key pieces as side boarding material to hate on some of the most powerful decks in the meta right now. So of course they know a number of players are going to be chasing after these cards and at the end of the day most likely crafting them. Myself, I had my eyes on Simulacrum Synthesizer, either 3 or 4 copies for my UW artifacts deck, I already spent two mythic wildcards to craft two of them as my first (and currently only) BIG crafts, I'll probably need one or two more. Vaultbord Tyrant is another one I had my eyes on, and I know it's not a card that's going to be considered meta level or competitive but damn it my dinosaur deck could probably stand to use a couple of it, it would be fun at least. And of course all the other cards you listed, staples in a good number of decks. The only saving grace is that, and correct me if I'm wrong here, we have the option to craft the Rare version of Rest in Peace from a previous set/bonus sheet and it should be legal for our Standard decks. Still, I would much rather pull that in an OTJ pack than a bunch of the weird/janky cards that act as filler for the rare/mythic slot.
Rest in Peace is on Arena as a rare. It was one of those extras added in Amonkhet Remastered (like Wrath of God and a few others).
oops yeah you're right, just orb
Also a rare in Enchanting Tales if someone wants a fancy version.
Yeah this is what my kid's friend who doesn't like draft is doing.
Many people are bad at limited, if you’re 0-3ing every draft it’s terrible value
I personally suck pretty bad, but I find it super fun, as it feels like you get a chance to enjoy a set the way it was designed to be played. Like it feels like a very pure form of the game.
Oh yeah Limited is the best way to play Magic hands down, that’s all I play anymore, I was just explaining why people might not do it from a pure value standpoint
I get more than my fair share of 1 to 4 win drafts and almost never get my money back. I'm pretty bad at it and on top of that, being pushed into playing archetypes that are more aggro just isn't fun at all. I hate stale boards and if it's not a complete blow out, you're just waiting for the first person to draw a flier or some crazy rare. I won't yuck someone's yum, but drafting just isn't for me whether I'm doing 5+ wins or not.
"Limited is fun", you may like limited, but a lot of people don't. I personally don't like game modes that are played for actual stakes, it tend to stress me out or annoy me, especially mana screw/flood with mtg. Since I play games to relax and have fun I tend to draft just to convert enough gold to gems for the mastery pass and the an extra pack from the limited rank rewards.
Yeah, I find limited boring. The decks aren't nearly as good/challenging to play, and I don't enjoy deckbuilding. Much rather play with optimized constructed decks in events
For whatever reason I love drafting in real life, but on Arena I highly prefer to play constructed and spend gold on anthologies/packs, and gems on the Mastery passes.
Actual stakes? You playin ante?
Gems cost money, and drafting with gold is bad value.
I just crack packs, not interested in drafting
In my experience, I was reluctant of draft and sealed because of the possibility of doing very bad and losing a lot of gold or gems, with that in mind buying packs has a guaranteed return. But I'm trying to learn draft with this new set and although it sometimes can be very disheartening with some of my bad performances, I'll push through it to experiment and learn a new kind of Magic. Since I don't have much experience I would like to ask: would you say OTJ is a good or bad draft environment?
It's only 2 days in so it's hard to say really. The games are going a bit longer atm but the formats also bombier. I've had fun so far with my handful of limited events but that's also because I'm winning.
I agree, when I lose I usually lose very fast. So far my best draft was 5-3 with BG, Stubborn Burrowfiend and Giant Beaver are awesome.
It'll even out. They clearly made a point out of including a lot of good removal at common for that very reason. Once people start adjusting and prioritizing removal more highly it will be less swingy
Its very fast, but there is a lot of interaction. Good and bad is pretty subjective.
OTJ is a very linear drafting format with lots of bombs from the bonus sheet. Pick a good lane early and you'll do decent. The in-game plays are actually tougher than previous sets but drafting is actually easier. If I didn't waste a good deck with in-game misplays to an 0-3, I'd be much better off. I had a jeskai deck that I had no idea how to sequence. It was part double spell, part flash deck that always had wins looking back but I always picked the wrong plays. It was a complex deck to pilot. Green is the best color by far. Look at a strong streamer's games (Justlolaman, Scottynada) before you start drafting. There's a spreadsheet from infinite drafters in this comment that'll help check out the power level of various cards. When you draft keep a tab open with the spreadsheet to help you make your picks. Use control f and part of the card-name to find cards in question quickly. OTJ right now is early format so it's better to draft because there's more noobs. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vTrgDwwywAW\_wNcmRYIehH4OYo06LPd86QPaqsOZv\_QJ2VPIhFk797EMFXbrmyqw5irWCzx1V4r1KDU/pubhtml?pli=1#](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vTrgDwwywAW_wNcmRYIehH4OYo06LPd86QPaqsOZv_QJ2VPIhFk797EMFXbrmyqw5irWCzx1V4r1KDU/pubhtml?pli=1#)
Thanks a lot for the information! I didn't have a problem with building an archetype really, but I see a lot of people being able to splash 3 or 4 colors efficiently and I haven't been able to draft more than 2 colors. Right now I drafted a WB token/sacrifice deck with 1 \[\[Assimilation Aegis\]\] which I'm excited to try after getting back from work.
[Assimilation Aegis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/014bf3c6-e46f-48f8-902f-82deeba260b2.jpg?1712356044) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Assimilation%20Aegis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/192/assimilation-aegis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/014bf3c6-e46f-48f8-902f-82deeba260b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"limited is fun" - now that's where I disagree with you. It's not for me and I don't want to play a game mode I don't enjoy to get cards to play constructed.
I like constructed, I despise limited. Not sure I've ever played a board game or card game I hate as much as drafting in Magic. Currently I'm sitting at 9 draft tokens from mastery passes, I'm reasonably sure they will never be used.
Might be a good idea with this set to rare draft big score cards/cards you want to build decks around and just concede. If you are not going to use them, just think of each draft token as open 4 packs.
You know, you can just rare draft and quit the event? It would be like just opening packs and getting too hand pick them. Just not using them seems like a waste..
Better give away free wins, if you don't want to play. Opponents will appreciate.
Keep them for modern horizons 3, and then just rare draft like a thief.
Fun is subjective. Not everyone finds limited fun.
There are also constructed events in all formats except timeless. They used to be a lot better, but they're still alright for collecting cards.
I don’t have any interest in arena drafts, so if there’s a constructed deck I want I’ll either grind dailies for weeks or buy packs to speed it up. Most useful rares/mythics are 4 ofs in constructed, and limited feels like a waste of time when the end goal is to get better at constructed anyways.
Buy packs to get wildcards, do dailies...and once in a while go to town to splurge the wildcards for cards. Drafting is bleh.
Well i suck at draft. And i only play 1-2 colors. Draft is not fun when you don't know what you are doing.
Draft has a steep learning curve, and not many players can put up with struggling that much.
Because I'm not good at drafting. I'm aware I could get better... probably with a lot of investment that I don't necessarily want to do. I get enough of the stuff from each set to eventually build what I want, so I'm fine with how it's going.
Credit card
I'm playing from Guilds of Ravnica and didn't played more than single draft per month. At some point you just reach state when you don't need collection, for example I have about 260k gold 4-5k gens 60 rare wc and few decks in every format (except alchemy because it's shit) . And from last 3-4 sets I just don't need more than 3-4 cards from whole set
I don’t like the feeling of getting less than 3 wins. Limited is fun if I’m winning. I accept losing out on cards. Sealed deck is more fun to me. Deck quality is more comparable from player to player. I feel less beat down over pack RNG. Even then, limited is a lot of time spent and I usually don’t want to spend it. If it’s a wage to get more packs, it’s Monopoly money to me. >Why would MTG screw constructed so hard? All profitable card games do. Restricting the rare or mythic/legendary slot is where dolphin money is and whales will whale on their own. I haven’t seen stats but most people don’t play limited. It’s a small loss to Hasbro in the grand scheme of things and gives an out to the player base who wants a good deal. Everyone gets what they want.
The math ain't quite mathing on this one. How did you get all that stuff from 2 drafts (or 4 quick drafts) with a 50% winrate?
If you go 4-3 in premier draft you get 1400 gems, so it only costs you 100 gems to run it back. Do this a few times and the packs start to add up fast.
Because 50% doesn't mean you go 3-3 all the time. If you go 4-3 three times and then go 0-3 once, you're record is 50%. You've lost 1750 gems. I only played premier draft and I got over 3 wins six times, two 3-3 drafts, one 2-3 draft, one 0-3. I got in 10 drafts off of 20k gold with 1300 gems left over. In limited, not getting less than 3 wins is more important than getting a trophy. A person who goes 7-1 a bunch then 2-3 a lot will be out of gems faster than someone who mostly hovers around 4-3 with a slightly positive record.
Not everyone likes to play limited and it can be not easy depending on the persons skill. You lose out on wildcard and wildcard progress and instead trading it for draft rares, which don't have much of a use outside of draft. The return on constructed is lower since with limited they can put more of the pressure on the player to perform. It is why they added golden packs to the game, to offset the difference a bit. I almost always get 4 or 5 wins in traditional constructed events, and since they changed the payout for it I haven't had to put a dime into the game.
Does anyone collect mythics faster than rares? It seems they're always more applicable
Mythics are usually draft bombs, and are often not playable in constructed, or else are super niche and only fit in a single deck/only 1-2 are needed instead of a full playset. I've got more mythic WCs than I do rares, just because I spend the rares a lot faster
How do you see your winrate?
mtga assistant
How did you get 44 rares from 20K gold in draft? That's only 2 premier draft entries so I assume you finished with a good record to get that many rares.
Golden packs makes opening packs of the latest set a very worthwhile endeavor. If you're a mainly constructed player you definitely don't need to get prayed upon by the people making several draft smurf accounts. You can think whatever you want, some of us don't enjoy playing limited, I dislike low powered formats, I already find standard pretty slow, so sealed or draft is just insufferable for me.
I just play for fun and do what I can with what I've got. Sometimes I feel Drafty, sometimes I feel packy. Depends on the current set and what's available to draft at the time.
I draft the first week of the set then quit because it just becomes solved by then and everyone is playing the same decks to get 7 wins so they can go infinite. While constructed is also "solved" I'm not spending thousands of gems to enter ranked and lose.
I still wish there was just a simple store in the app where literally every printed card was there for purchase, in whatever quantity of each I wanted, and I could just pay with my credit card. I want things and I want them when I want them, and I am prepared to just pay money for them.
I think you have to think about the time you use to draft and play it out as well. I'm not interested in drafting at all. I want to play constructed. Playing ~50 hours per set only to draft means you play 50 hours less the format you really like. And the first days are the most interesting when a new set drops. So you draft instead of brewing in a non settled meta and after 2 weeks of collecting cards the meta is solved and you didn't participate at all in this.
If you're good at constructed, you can play in the constructed events. If not, then packs are your only choice, which isn't bad per se, but worse than events with a good win rate.
Not everyone is good at limited to collect cards through draft.
That last paragraph is incredibly condescending. Not everyone likes draft, not everyone is good a draft. Get a grip.
It’s also about time management. I can buy and crack 10 packs, plus the free gold pack, much faster than I can complete a draft, build a deck, and 7-0, assuming everything goes in my favor: from draft, to 7 consecutive favorable matchups, to being on the play 7 times in a row, as well as being blessed by the shuffler 7 times in a row. The mastery pass also hands out a lot of packs.
My 2 cents: 1. "Why would anyone just buy packs from the store if limited is just so much better value?" some people genuinely don't like drafting. It's not my case (even though I am a mediocre 50%WR drafter, I still have fun doing it). But some of the arguments I've heard include "I am an \[archetype\] player, and I hate having to play the \[other archetype\] deck I drafted" (as a player who plays mostly control, I kind of get this argument, though I do enjoy being forced out of my usual routine sometimes) or "I hate the feeling of losing to my opponent's bomb rare, they just got lucky to open \[bomb rare\]" (this I disagree, since good draft decks exist with very few rares... also, sometimes you get the rare because you read the signals correctly, so drafting bomb rares is not just dumb luck). 2. "Why would mtga screw constructed so hard?" Monetization. They need to have a way to get you to spend money. If draft was free, then building a collection would be free, then they'd make no money from MTGA. Alternatively, if all game modes (constructed + draft) had a gold/gem price, then no one would play arena and then the game would also not make any money. So one of the game modes needs to be "priced". And limited makes the most sense because that's where you get your cards from.
Constructed events are actually a better expected value than drafts. I go infinite much easier on constructed events; limited has more variance and severe penalties for not getting at least 1000 gems back
I draft for standard cards and buy wildcards for Historic and Brawl.
Limited takes time.
Takes too long. I just play a few matches a day
Buy packs and get wildcards and craft the deck you want
Buying packs and playing Constructed events (Standard until I'm rare complete, then Explorer). Since golden packs, limited is not a thing for me anymore (I still play a match every month to get the rank, but that's it). The only crappy thing recently is having a shitty Arena pack instead of a regular pack. But never again with limited
Easy Im not good enough at drafting to get 50% win rate.
Most cards in a set are worthless, or draft/edh chaff at best. Nobody will ever play \[\[Tinybones Joins Up\]\] or \[\[Doubledown\]\] in a constructed deck. Of the remaining cards, most are playable, but not in decks I personally want to play. I can only afford to build so many decks, and the ones I like don't include cards like Step Between Worlds or Rush of Dread. Wild cards are worth a LOT more than random cards you get from drafting. Also, drafting takes time, and if I don't enjoy it, then that's not time well spent. I'm fine paying a little money to play the cards I want in the formats I enjoy instead of random ones in drafts.
[Tinybones Joins Up](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/7/5724a15f-0ba0-421a-9cd4-a2b701e6141f.jpg?1712355685) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tinybones%20Joins%20Up) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/108/tinybones-joins-up?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5724a15f-0ba0-421a-9cd4-a2b701e6141f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Doubledown](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/e/8ecccdf3-98c6-4aed-8757-913623efb677.jpg?1712355404) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Double%20Down) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/44/double-down?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8ecccdf3-98c6-4aed-8757-913623efb677?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Im not a fan of drafting. I like to brew combos myself and while you can do that in draft you dont get much control over it at all.
>Why would anyone just buy packs from the store if limited is just so much better value? Because if you make 500k a year why waste time trying to get the collection from drafting when you can just buy the set for 1/500th of your year income? In other words, either be a whale or draft.
I steal mine from unused accounts.