Howdy, folks!

While I’m off grinding Mono-White Vampires to finish off the deck, collect stats, and get gameplay videos, I decided to write up a longer article on economy/prize/etc. ideas. Many of these ideas have been visited by other people and shown up on the Reddit thread, and if you play other F2P digital CCGs, most of this will sound familiar, but it’s really setting a baseline for what I’ve come to expect form this kind of games.

Edit: I’ve made quite a few changes to this article based on feedback, just thought I’d mention it. 🙂

Cost of Booster Packs

Packs should cost 1000 Gold or 100 Gems, and nominally cost about $1 of real money. I would suggest a discounted Gem price for buying in bulk, so a cost structure something like:

300 Gems for $2.99

1100 Gems for $9.99

2200 Gems for $19.99

4000 Gems for $34.99

7000 Gems for $59.99

Boosters should be the same as real-life boosters with regards to rarity distribution and number, and should have some guaranteed crafting value beyond Vault progression in the form of one or more guaranteed wildcards per pack.

Odds of Wildcard Upgrades

Any common card in a booster should have a 5% chance of being upgraded to a Wildcard.

Any uncommon card in a booster should have a 12.5% chance of being upgraded to a Wildcard.

Any rare or mythic card in a booster should have a 25% chance of being upgraded to a Wildcard.

You see rares and mythics infrequently enough in packs, that a 25% upgrade rate means you’re going to get a copy of any rare you want in around 1 out of every 4 packs (the odds being slightly better because sometimes you’ll “get lucky” with a random rare), and you’ll get a mythic you want in something like 1 out of every 28 packs (again, the odds are actually slightly better than that).

These upgrade odds/distributions are meant to provide a similar upgrade schedule to existing digital CCGs that have dusting systems, while maintaining WotC’s stated goal of not requiring players to “destroy their collections” in order to get cards they want.

Wildcard Exchange

One of the biggest holes I see in the current MTGA economy is a lack of support for “trading up (or down)” Wildcards. I mentioned my ideas for this in a previous article and on the subreddit:

Trade 4 common wildcards for 1 uncommon wildcard.

Trade 4 uncommon wildcards for 1 rare wildcard.

Trade 7 rare wildcards for 1 mythic wildcard.

Trade 1 uncommon wildcard for 2 common wildcards.

Trade 1 rare wildcard for 2 uncommon wildcards.

Trade 1 mythic wildcard for 2 rare wildcards.

This would allow players a little bit more control over their collections without glutting the economy with Common Wildcards that are too easy to turn into rares.

Reprints

Forcing players to keep 8+ copies of commonly reprinted cards like Evolving Wilds is frustrating.

Every card collected for a specific card name beyond the fourth should automatically be converted into Vault progress, and collecting the first copy of a card from a set should simply unlock that version of the card for use in deck building.

The Vault

Speaking of Vault progress, the current rates for Vault progression are as follows:

4% for each booster opened

0.1% for duplicate 5th copy of a Common

0.3% for duplicate 5th copy of an Uncommon

0.5% for duplicate 5th copy of a Rare

1% for duplicate 5th copy of a Mythic

For a realistic rate of progression, this needs to be accelerated, to help guarantee sufficient craft value in every booster. I’m thinking something along the lines of:

4% for each booster opened

0.3% for duplicate 5th copy of a Common

1% for duplicate 5th copy of an Uncommon

4.5% for duplicate 5th copy of a Rare

32% for duplicate 5th copy of a Mythic

Prize Schedule

The first win of the day should win you a booster pack from the latest set.

Any other reward that pays out a pack should cycle though all standard-legal sets.

For ranked constructed play, I suggest an uncommon card plus 300 Gold for the 3rd, 6th and 9th wins of the day, and a common card plus 75 Gold for each other win, with no cap.

For unranked constructed play, I suggest 2 common cards plus 150 Gold for the 3rd, 6th and 9th wins of the day, and a common card plus 75 Gold for each other win, with no cap.

For cards that awarded directly as prizes and do not come in a booster pack, I would suggest that any rare has a 10% chance of getting auto-upgraded to a mythic.

Ranked Ladder Rewards

Most popular existing digital CCGs have monthly “seasons” or “chapters” for ranked ladder play, and I think this would be great for MTGA, as well. On a monthly basis, rewards would be given out for which tier on the ranked ladder you ended up on (as long as you played at least one ranked game that season), and then all players would be knocked down a full tier (thus requiring continued gameplay investment to maintain your tier level).

Here are some suggested monthly reward for ranked play, based on a (theoretical) five-tier system:

Lowest tier gets a pack and 2 Common Wildcards.

Next tier gets a pack and 2 Uncommon Wildcards.

Next tier gets 2 packs, a Rare Wildcard.

Next tier gets 3 packs, a Rare Wildcard an Uncommon Wildcars.

Top tier gets 3 packs and 2 Rare Wildcards.

Daily Quests

First, let’s define some terms:

For a deck to be considered a deck of a given color, it must contain at least 10 cards of that color, excluding sideboard. For example, for a deck to be considered a “White Deck”, it must contain at least 10 White spells in its maindeck.

“Matched Game” means a ranked or casual game where your opponent is selected by the game’s matchmaking system. I contrast this with “Friend Challenge”, which means a game that you challenged (or were challenged by) someone from your friend/contact list directly.

Suggested Daily Quests that would reward a Booster Pack and 700 Gold:

Win 5 matched games with a White deck.

Win 5 matched games with a Blue deck.

Win 5 matched games with a Black deck.

Win 5 matched games with a Red deck.

Win 5 matched games with a Green deck.

Win 7 games.

Win 2 matched games in a row.

Win 5 matched limited games.

Win 5 matched constructed games.

Suggested Daily Quests that would reward four Uncommon cards and 600 Gold:

Cast 10 spells with Converted Mana Cost 6 or higher.

Destroy or exile 40 enemy creatures.

Play 25 White mana sources in matched games.

Play 25 Blue mana sources in matched games.

Play 25 Black mana sources in matched games.

Play 25 Red mana sources in matched games.

Play 25 Green mana sources in matched games.

Deal 200 damage.

Win 2 matched games with a White deck.

Win 2 matched games with a Blue deck.

Win 2 matched games with a Black deck.

Win 2 matched games with a Red deck.

Win 2 matched games with a Green deck.

Deal 100 damage with White cards in matched games.

Deal 100 damage with Blue cards in matched games.

Deal 100 damage with Black cards in matched games.

Deal 100 damage with Red cards in matched games.

Deal 100 damage with Green cards in matched games.

Play 10 creatures with 5 or more power.

Play 50 toughness of creatures.

Cast 40 White or Blue spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Blue or Black spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Black or Red spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Red or Green spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Green or White spells in matched games.

Cast 40 White or Black spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Blue or Red spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Black or Green spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Red or White spells in matched games.

Cast 40 Green or Blue spells in matched games.

Play 10 creatures with flying.

Deal 20 direct spell damage.

Play 50 mana sources.

Draw 20 extra cards.

Something that should be added as a little “something extra” to increase the fun F2P aspect of the game without breaking the economy would be a set of achievements you can unlock with relatively low-value prizes attached consisting of Gold or Wildcards. The idea is that the main reward for these would be getting recognition for the achievement, but with a little extra carrot attached to nudge people into more varied gameplay. These aren’t “per game” achievements, but rather achievements that can cumulatively be unlocked over the lifetime of MTGA.

For example:

Complete the tutorial (assuming they add a tutorial) – 200 Gold

Have 50 {insert creature type here} enter the battlefield under your control – 50 Gold

Control a 25/25 or larger Apocalypse Demon – 75 Gold

Destroy 50 creatures using fight – 50 Gold

Transform 30 creatures (assuming SOI is added for “Arena Modern”) – 100 Gold

Have 100 {insert creature type here} enter the battlefield under your control – 75 Gold

Play all 5 Amonkhet Gods – 75 Gold

Win N Games – 4 Common Wildcards

Win (Larger N) Games – 2 Uncommon Wildcards

Complete a campaign mode (assuming they add campaign modes to the game) – 1 Rare Wildcard

7-0 in draft N Times – 1 Mythic Wildcard

Another nice nudge that could be added would be that whenever you play a deck, you earn some amount of experience for winning or losing, with matched games earning more experience than other games. The experience should be a fixed amount, divided by the number of colors of the deck, and you earn that much experience for each color. You earn levels at different amounts of experience, with rewards for each level depending on the color, including things like:

Gold

Booster packs

Avatar e-motes

Deck art

Avatars

Wildcards

Battlefield decorations

Premium avatars that can only be earned this way

These rewards don’t necessarily get bigger with successively higher levels, but you get something once in a while, with some larger rewards at higher levels. I assume that at some point you’d have some formula for determining the amount of experience required to “level up” and you’d cycle through 10 or so prizes. Either that, or your experience would top out at some point, assuming they add new levels with each set release.

For example (you can earn these prizes for leveling up in each color, so up to 5 times each):

(Start at Level 1 in each color, no Reward)

Level 2 – 100 Gold

Level 3 – 4 Common Wildcards

Level 4 – 1 Booster Pack

Level 5 – 1 Booster Pack

Level 6 – 200 Gold

Level 7 – Avatar Emote appropriate to the color

Level 8 – 100 Gold

Level 9 – Deck art appropriate to the color

Level 10 – Avatar appropriate to the color

Level 11 – 100 Gold

Level 12 – 4 Common Wildcards

Level 13 – 200 Gold

Level 14 – 2 Uncommon Wildcards

Level 15 – 1 Rare Wildcard

Etc.

Other Things to Spend Real Money On

Here are a bunch of things that MTGA could sell as purchases that you can only spend Gems on.

Premium upgrades of cards in your collection.

Premium land upgrades.

Premium avatars.

Premium battlefield decorations.

Also, they could have occasional events that have a high Gem/Gold cost discrepancy (i.e., 1000 Gems to enter, but 25000 Gold) rewarding Gold, Wildcards, Card Backs and “Draft Tickets” (use one to enter a draft for free).

Limited

We haven’t seen how they are planning to cost entry to limited formats, or what the planned reward structure is, but here’s a suggestion:

The cost to enter a limited event should be 1000 Gold per pack plus 1000 Gold, or the Gem “equivalent” (i.e. 4000 Gold or 400 Gems for draft).

For a given draft you play up to 7 games. Once you lose three games, you are eliminated from the draft. At the end of the draft, you are awarded prizes along the following lines:

0 Wins – 4 Uncommon cards + 600 Gold

1 Win – 6 Uncommon cards + 900 Gold

2 Wins – 4 Uncommon cards + 1 booster pack + 1000 Gold

3 Wins – 2 Uncommon cards + 2 booster packs + 1400 Gold

4 Wins – 3 Booster packs + 2100 Gold

5 Wins – 3 Booster packs + a Wildcard + 3400 Gold

6 Wins – 3 Booster packs + 2 Wildcards + 4700 Gold

7 Wins – 3 Booster Packs + 3 Wildcards + 6000 Gold

I feel that Draft should be the most rewarding aspect of play, and that doing well in Drafts should facilitate playing more Drafts. They should also be a good place for people to pick up cards for their Constructed decks, as an alternative to just buying booster packs.

PVE Modes

To bring in more players from other games, and maintain a strong casual/F2P player base, MTGA should probably have some PVE modes of play that pay out modest rewards (maybe with daily or weekly caps) to allow new and/or casual players to grind/farm some gold to help acquire cards outside of serious ranked play.

Anyway, this article is already much longer than I had originally planned, so I’m going to stop here. These are all ideas to help support MTGA as a fun free-to-play game that will attract new players and give currently players something to keep returning to on a regular basis.

I’d like to hear your view on all of the above, so if you have an opinion, go ahead and hit me up here, on Reddit, on Twitter via @DailyArena or on Facebook via the @DailyArenaMTG page.

Peace.

Joseph Eddy is a Father, Husband, Son, Brother, Software Developer, and Gamer. Magic is his favorite hobby, and he’s looking forward to seeing you all on Arena. He streams Magic Arena on a weekly basis (or more), but currently is unable to keep to a set schedule.