In the Beginning: Oh, So Many Choices!

UPDATED: August, 2012

Hello Everyone!

This tutorial is the first of many intended for players new to Magic Online. It will be addressing questions, offering some tips and shortcuts, and sharing general information to take you from MTGO newcomer to veteran! Also make sure to check out our Tutorial page for other great tutorials about MTGO.

Today, we will be discussing what to do with your starting product after you register for a Magic: The Gathering Online account.

New Account Package

So you have your brand new MTGO account, screen name and all. But what’s next? What’s the best way to continue from here to maximize your fun for the lowest cost? Well, allow me to assist you. Today, we will be discussing:

• Where to find your initial card inventory and how to “unlock” it.
• What to do with the contents of this inventory in order to have countless hours of fun without spending a single cent!
• How to be smart about expanding your collection and the places you have to know to accomplish that.
• A lot of other tips, tricks, and strategies I wish someone would have told me when I started out!

I assure you, if you follow this advice you will get the most out of the limited resources available to you here in the beginning.

So let’s have a look at your initial inventory in your collection binder after creating your account. You get to your collection by clicking on: MENU -> CARDS -> COLLECTION (see below)

After you have opened your binder you have to look for your “Starting Pack”. Your Starting Pack includes several items that will allow you to build your first decks and play your first games. When you have found it, right click on it, and choose “Open One of These” to reveal the content.

After you have opened the “Starter Pack” you will have several items in your binder. Let’s have a look at those and talk about the best way to use them.

1.) A Magic 2013 (M13) booster pack

Here comes the first and most important advice. Do NOT open this booster pack! It is your most valuable item right now. Most booster packs are generally worth around four Event Tickets on MTGO. The cards contained in a booster are usually worth MUCH less (unless you are lucky and manage to open something valuable). Unopened packs are easily one of the most valuable commodities on MTGO, as they can be used to enter various tournaments. Because of this, they are in high demand by tournament players. Single cards are on average much cheaper to obtain on Magic Online. By not opening your pack you can easily turn those fifteen random cards into a much larger number of desired ones.

So you might be asking yourself: “Well what should I do with the pack since I’m not opening it?” Answer: sell it for Event Tickets.

Summary:

We will sell this item in the marketplace for Event Tickets and use those tickets to buy individual cards that we want and can use to create a deck. Boosters are usually worth between 3 and 4 tickets depending on the current tournament payouts and tournament preference. We are not going to open it as we are wasting value. Watch this short video on how to trade the pack or how to put up an advertisement on the Classifieds page on MTGO.

2.) MTGO Event Tickets

Event Tickets (or “tix” as most players call them) are the basic currency in MTGO. While they were created to pay for entering events (thus the name), they are used widely as the de facto “money” to make purchases as well. One Event Ticket can be purchased in the Wizards of the Coast store for $1.00 (plus applicable tax). They are also bought and sold among players for roughly that value. The two Event Tickets in your New Player Package can help you begin to accrue cards for your collection if you use them efficiently.

My advice is hold on to them for now. They can be used later to purchase cards when we have a better idea what kind of deck we would like to create and play.

Summary:

We will keep our Event Tickets for now and use them at a later point for additional cards. Tickets are always useful to have as they are the most widely accepted currency on MTGO.

3.) Five Vanguard Avatars

Avatars have two main functions in MTGO. They allow you to play a special format called “Vanguard.” In this format (meaning a specific way to play game based on various criteria), one of the Avatars represents you in game, modifying your starting life total and hand size, as well as adding special abilities that you may use. Additionally, they set your profile picture (the physical icon represented to other players). You can read more on Avatars and what you can do with them here.

Avatars are usually given out as additional prizes for participating in and winning tournaments. They vary in value. Some cannot be traded (such as the basic ones you have in your collection now) and therefore have no value. Others are rare and cost tickets to acquire (such as the Platinum Angel Avatar). Generally speaking, the majority of Avatars are cheap and very easy to come by.

If you want to change your Avatar to alter your in game profile picture go to: MENU -> SETTINGS -> DISPLAY -> SOUNDS and pick the Avatar you like by scrolling to the left or right. When you’ve made your choice just click “CLOSE” and the pic will be used as your “In Game Picture”.

Summary:

Avatars are used to modify a game of Magic with new abilities and provide players with a physical representation as their profile picture. The five basic ones you own right now CANNOT be traded. You will be able to get additional Avatars over time and all others can be bought, sold or traded as normal cards. We will spend more time to going into the details of this when we feel more familiar with playing and know how to build a deck.

4.) A Planeswalker Deck Pack

The Planeswalker Deck Pack contains hundreds of gold-bordered cards that you can use to build your first decks and play them against other beginners in the New Players Room. The cards CANNOT be traded, and they CANNOT be removed from your account after they have been opened. You will not be able to use them later on in tournaments or other events (unless the tournament is a special Planeswalker Constructed format event). However, they give you a generous selection of powerful cards that would otherwise cost a substantial investment, and from these, you can build a variety of decks. (Note that there are different Planeswalker Deck Packs, and each one contains a different selection of cards. Learn more about Planeswalker Packs in our tutorial In the Beginning: All About Planeswalker Packs!)

To obtain the contents of your Planeswalker Deck Pack right click on the pack and choose “Open One of These.” The cards will appear in your collection binder and are easily distinguishable from “regular” cards by their golden border (regular Magic cards have either a white or black border).

To use these cards you first need to build a deck with them. After this, just head to the “New Players Room” to battle other beginners! If you don’t know how to build a deck on MTGO go straight to our How to Build Your First Deck video.

5.) MTGO New Player Tickets

You will receive 4 of those “New Player Tickets” that can only be used for so called Phantom Events that allow you to test tournament play in a low pressure environment with fellow newbies. Each New Player tournament is a 4-player Phantom queue. This means each event will launch as soon as four players join and each player will play two matches, win or lose, but the cards played with will not be added to players’ collections. You cannot trade these tickets with other players or use them for any other purpose.

Summary:

New Player Tickets are used to enter special beginner limited tournaments and cannot be traded. MTGO Academy recommends to use those after you have familiarized yourself with the client and feel you are ready to try out a booster draft or sealed tournament but don’t want to spend “real” tickets yet. “Phantom Event” means you will NOT keep the cards you open in the boosters, but rather use those only during the tournament.

Now you are ready to play in the “New Players Room.” You can get there by clicking on the “NEW PLAYER” button on the “HOME Screen”.

When the “Game Window” appears, you only need to load your deck by clicking on “BROWSE.” Pick the deck you want to play. If you cannot find your deck in the list check the drop down at the top and pick “Net Deck” or “Local Deck” and see if it appears there (You always have the possibility to save your decks locally on your computer, called “Local Deck” or on the Wizards Servers, called “Net Deck”).

If you would like to try one of MTGO Academy’s Planeswalker deck lists (made with cards from the Planeswalker Deck Pack 2012), you can download one of the following lists and try it out in the New Player Room.

(To load a .dek file into Magic Online‘s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

(To load a .dek file into Magic Online‘s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

(To load a .dek file into Magic Online‘s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

(To load a .dek file into Magic Online‘s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

(To load a .dek file into Magic Online‘s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

Once you have started a game, you only have to wait for another player to join you.As soon as another player joins your game click “Start” in the screen that shows up and the game begins.If you are not familiar with the game interface and want to learn how to use it, watch our video “How to Play a Game“.

Summary:

The Planeswalker Deck Pack provides you with many popular cards from different Magic expansions, but can only be used in the “New Players Room.” It is the best way for you to make yourself familiar with the deckbuilding and playing interface and to interact with other beginners. Read the tutorial In the Beginning: All About Planeswalker Packs and make extensive use of the cards before venturing into the wilderness of the “serious” play areas.

5.) Hundreds of Magic 2013 (M13) cards

The last piece of the bundle is a selection of M13 (Magic 2013) cards (the current core set of Magic: The Gathering). These cards can be used to build decks that work outside the “New Player Room.” They can also be traded. This will be the basis of your collection. But before you start trading with other players you should find out what colors and strategies you want to use by practicing in the “New Player Room” with your Planeswalker cards.

There are countless possibilities and different formats you can play once you graduate beyond “New Player” status. An overview of the deckbuilding rules and banned cards for each format available on MTGO can be found on our Deck Construction Rules and Banned and Restricted Lists page.

What should I do with the tickets now?

Once you feel a little more comfortable playing and know what deck(s) you would like to create, it’s time to invest your tickets in more cards! But before you purchase anything, here’s a tip on how to obtain some free cards! There are several dealers online that provide bulk cards at absolutely no cost. To learn how to find these dealers and expand your collection without spending any resources other than time, watch our video How to Get Free Cards. You can also visit MTGO Academy’s own Academy_Quizbot and win 4 free cards for answering a Magic trivia question!

There are several ways to spend tickets, but our recommendation is to buy in bulk for now. That means you offer your tickets for a larger amount of cards that will increase your collection considerably. Bulk is a common slang for cards that are not worth enough to warrant single sale and usually you can get:

100 commons for 1 Event Ticket
25 uncommons for 1 Event Ticket
12 rares for 1 Event Ticket
1 mythic for 1 Event Ticket

Please note that many cards are worth much more then 1 ticket if they are popular and widely used in tournaments. The above is a general rate that really only applies for cards that are not used widely in competitive play. If you want to get a nice bundle of bulk you can visit automated stores called “bots” on MTGO and exchange your tickets for cards. You can also use an Online dealer that offers bulk deals. MTGO Academy offers several wonderful bundle deals in our store, including ever-popular tribal packs and our massive mega pack!! The bots in question are easily found by their ads that often read:” Selling x commons for 1 ticket” or “Selling x rares for 1 ticket”. (By ‘x’ we mean a fixed sum: 10, 20, etc.)

Be careful with bots. The maximum number of cards you can trade in one session is 75. So if a bot offers you for example 200 commons for 1 ticket, he will take the ticket first and give you 75 cards, saving the missing cards as credit. Usually, you can come back and pick the rest in another trading session; however, there is no guarantee that a bot will do this. So be careful, as this credit will be lost. Always make sure that the bot is operated by a trustworthy dealer or player. It can be beneficial to ask other players or friends about their experiences regarding buying and selling cards.

Alas, we are at the end of our journey with this article, but there is much more to explore for those that wich to journey onward! I encourage you to check out our other content in article and video form and let us know in the comments if you have any suggestions or questions about Magic Online and all that goes with it. If you would like to continue learning about the intricacies of Magic Online, I highly suggest that you check our newest tutorial section (with links seen in the table below).

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Pt. 1: Paper Info	Pt. 2: Using MTGO	Pt. 3: MTGO Info	Pt. 4: MTGO Trading
Paper Products	ToS & CoC	Digital Products	Collection Tab
Playing Magic	Introductory Videos	MTGO Events	Trade Interface
Paper Websites	Trading Areas	MTGO Formats	Bots
	Playing Areas		Human Traders
	Help & Support	MTGO Websites	Important Info
	Store & Misc	WotC Pages	Classifieds
		Strategy Sites
		Webstores & Bots

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Lastly, remember this: we were all new to the game at one point. It’s the one thing as fans and players of Magic that we all have in common!

Best wishes,
Marin (Plejades on MTGO)