Collecting on Arena

Collector Protector card art

Arena is a great way to enjoy Magic, especially in the pandemic. There's a program called 'untapped.gg' that helps keep track of your records, decks, and collection. Today's post focuses on the last.

There are several ways to collect a set on Arena:

- use the gold you earn from daily wins & challenges to 'buy' digital packs. 

- acquire packs as you pass certain thresholds and 'level up' on the mastery track.

- convert wildcards (earned from opening packs and leveling up on the mastery track) to cards from the set.

- buy a mastery pass ($20 in real money or 3400 gems in the game) to level up on the mastery track much faster and earn more packs for a given set.

How much of a set can you collect using this method? I tried this for the Crimson Vow set, buying a mastery pass and using the other three methods described above, and tracked how much of my collection increased.

Example using Crimson Vow

In Crimson Vow, you can collect 1068 total cards (4 copies of 267 cards).* 

I opened 126 total packs: 120 packs (opening 10 at a time) plus 6 packs from two drafts. Here is how my collection increased by percentage:

7-7-7-7-7-5 (6 packs through two drafts)-5-5-3-4-3-3-2

To explain: the first 10 packs I opened gave me 7% of Crimson Vow (75 cards). The next 10 packs gave me an addition 7%. That trend continued through the first 50 packs, giving me 35% of the set. I then did two drafts, opening six packs and netting me another 5%. I then opened a sequence of 10 more packs, earning 5%, 5%, 3%, 4%, and so on as shown above. As you'd suspect, the percentages started to decrease as I collected more, as I started getting cards above the 4 maximum copies permitted in a collection. Those extra cards are either wasted or converted to wildcards. 

From the above, opening 126 packs gave me 65% (694/1068) of the set. But I acquired a lot of wildcards, and I converted a chunk of them to cards I wanted. The brought up my total. The end result: 126 packs plus wildcard conversion gave me 72.9% (779/1068 cards) of Crimson Vow.

By rarity:

Common: 98% (394/400)

Uncommon: 67% (224/332)

Rare: 50% (128/256)

Mythic: 41% (33/80)

Current Standard

The above example was for Crimson Vow. What about other sets in standard? I've purchased a mastery pass for many, but not all, sets in the current standard. As mentioned, doing so accelerates leveling and pack acquisition. And the results are obvious: in the current seven sets in standard, I have much less of Strixhaven and Kamigawa, the two sets for which I did not buy a mastery pass:

- Zendikar Rising: 87.9% (932/1060)

- Kaldheim: 80.9% (890/1100)

- Strixhaven: 58.4% (643/1100)

- Adventures in the Forgotten Realms: 76.2% (796/1044)

- Midnight Hunt: 75.5% (807/1068)

- Crimson Vow: 72.9% (779/1068)

- Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty: 26.3% (297/1128)

I did not gather statistics on how many packs I bought of each set above, but you can see the general trend: buying a mastery pass gives you 15-20% more of a set.

Concluding Thoughts

It is much cheaper to acquire cards on Arena. Spending $20 and ending up with 75% of a set is something you could never do for physical cards. Or spending nothing and getting 50%+ of a set is equally impressive. It's a great way to explore the game without paying top dollar.

*untapped.gg doesn't count the 10 basic lands. Wizards shows Crimson Vow as having 277 cards for this reason.