MAGIC: THE GATHERING ARENA Adds Player Drafts and Gifts Fans One Complimentary Draft
In these times of social distancing, Magic: The Gathering Arena has been growing in popularity as a digital alternative to the popular trading card game (TCG). Now, the digital platform just got better. This Thursday, there will be a new Player Draft mode so you can play drafts with real people and not just bots.
If you don’t know what a draft is, it’s fairly simple. You sit down at a table with 7 other players and each of you has 3 booster packs. Everyone opens one of their packs, takes one card, and then passes the rest to the player next to them. Once all cards from that pack have been picked, you repeat the process for the other two packs you have. You then use these drafted cards to create your deck (you’re usually supplied with Basic Land cards so don’t worry about that). It’s a very fun format of play and definitely warrants trying out.
In MTG Arena, you will be able to now play in either a Best-of-One or Best-of-Three competition with other players while the bot drafts are now limited to only Best-of-One matches. Also, you will only have a limited amount of time to make your picks. This is in order to keep things moving at a reasonable pace and not hold everyone up. The first pick will allow for 75 seconds and it will gradually reduce down to 30 seconds. If you fail to make a pick yourself, the game will pick it for you.
Keep in mind that after you draft, you may be put up against players that weren’t in your draft pod. You’ll be put in a queue of other Player Draft players and be able to play against anyone in the queue.
To celebrate the addition of Player Draft MTG Arena is gifting all players one complementary round. You can pick either Best-of-One or Best-of-Three by April 30 and there will be no entry fee required. This draft will feature the new pack, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, which is really awesome. I know I’ll be doing a draft this month!
Via: Wizards of the Coast