Tips on Using the Deckbuilder Features of MTG Arena
Tips on the Deckbuilder
The deckbuilder in Magic Arena is due for an overhaul, so the information here will have to be updated. We'll go through two common ways of constructing your decks. The first popular way is to copy an established deck (also called netdecking) and possibly to modify it. The second one is to create your own. Both are good options if you're doing it right.
Copying a Deck
As we have discussed in the previous chapter, there are multiple websites where you're able to find interesting ideas and complete decks. On any of those websites you can find buttons that export into the MTGA format. If the off-chance that it's not available, you can use a deck converter tool.
MTG Arena can only accept imported decks with the proper notation, e.g. if you want one copy of Cleansing Nova in the deck it would need this output to be imported in Magic Arena correctly: 1 Cleansing Nova (M19) 9
Once you have copied a deck to your clipboard you need to go to the Decks section of the game and press Import. You will see that the deck likely has a warning triangle saying the deck is incomplete and suggests you may use your wildcards to craft the cards you're missing from the list.
Note two things:
1) If you're copying a deck and you don't have the cards, you may not need to use your wildcards to craft the exact copy. There are many replacements in MTG that you may have for the cards that are suggested.
2) When you import a deck and it has cards that had been printed in multiple versions, e.g. Llanowar Elves and Opt, they will show up as uncrafted. Simply replace them with the ones you have by searching
Building your own deck
If you had decided to build something yourself, you might still want to use offline deckbuilding websites, such as MTGArenaPro, Aetherhub, MTGGoldfish or the Magic Arena Wikia. The main reason is that the in-game builder doesn't allow you to add cards that you don't own yet unless you craft them.
This is a major downside that will hopefully get addressed as the open beta progresses. If you do build or modify your deck in-game you should check out the advice on deckbuilding in the guide to understand the common pitfalls and how to make your decks better.
Let's go over the deckbuilding interface and the useful features:
- The search field in the top left is going to be your most used feature. You can search by name, keyword, type. Widely useful, just do it. If a card doesn't show up in the search either you have filters enabled that prevent it from showing or you had typed it incorrectly.
- The five color symbols and the colorless symbols are clickable. If you select any of them you'll see cards that use that type of mana.
- The next two symbols are the multi-colored spells and wildcard filter (what you can craft). They're mostly useless and usually you want to know they're there just to make sure they're not selected and not messing up your search for the cards.
- The land filter is useful if you want to look at the different lands. We discuss getting alternative art lands after the review as well.
- In the filters you can filter the cards by their converted mana cost (CMC), their sets, rarity and wherever you own the cards or not. As discussed previously, Not Collected and Reset options are widely useful
This brings us straight to the filters on the top right of the same line. Once you click them notice the options of showing uncollected cards and the reset button. If cards are not showing up, hit this reset button and then select the not collected button as well!
Those are going to be the most used features of the deckbuilder based on my experience. Let's go over the rest of the options
Visual view
Sometimes it's easier to view your deck in visual view. Switching to visual view and back is done via the square button to the top of the deck name. (Sidenote: You can change the image on your deckbox by dragging a card onto it.)
You can drag cards around different CMC piles. One day when the deckbuilder is reworked, we should be able to get larger screens to take pictures of the decks.
Getting Fancy Basic Lands
If you're looking to get fancy lands instead of the default ones, import your deck with the proper code. Here is a handy guide to match art to code.
As a finishing touch you might want a thumbnail picture for your deck. Simply drag your favourite card art to the deck picture to the left of the name and it will be your new box cover.
Now that you've gotten a hang of using the deckbuilder we can start discussing how to farm gold and improve your decks further.
updated 2/21/19
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