Welcome to our Beginners’ Tutorial Center

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Dear Magic Online beginner,

MTGO Academy aims to offer a fully interactive Magic tutorial experience to boost your playing skills and understanding of the program to a completely new level. If you are a beginner and have fretted about the best ways to improve your MTGO skills quickly and efficiently, then you will find the answer to your woes here. We also know that even masters have to stay in shape, so we will keep adding content for all levels of play!

If you watch or read our tutorials you will be able to:

  • prevent mistakes most beginners make when starting with Magic Online.
  • quickly learn all the important interface commands and tricks so that you can spend your time playing and trading, not fiddling with technical issues.
  • save a great deal of money because we show you how to get everything cheap, fast, and efficient.

Please find our beginner tutorials below and let us know if you have any questions or ideas for more material. Now go ahead, apprentice, and take your first steps toward mastership!

Back to Basics: Client Overview
In this tutorial, we show you a brief overview of the Magic Online client.

Top Ten MTGO Beginner’s Mistakes
In this article you will learn which mistakes beginners tend to make and how to avoid them.

In the Beginning: Oh, So Many Choices
In this article Plejades describes what you should do after registering your first account. He not only explains what exactly is the best way to use the starter package you received but also how to move forward, what to do with your Event Tickets, and even how to get free cards!

In the Beginning: All About Planeswalker Packs
This tutorial introduces the Planeswalker format, discusses why the cards are gold-bordered, displays all six of the Planeswalker Deck Pack card lists and their unique offerings, touches on some notable themes present in the card pool and finally, discusses the benefits of acquiring more than the Planeswalker Pack that the initial account comes with. Special thanks to the inspiration for this tutorial, Magic Online forum user ZeroDivide.

In the Beginning: Cr@cking the Code
This article will show you how to use the MTGO interface and many shortcuts and tricks that will make navigating the program and the play interface much easier for you.

Beginners’ Tutorials Series: Paper Magic and Magic Online Information
This four part tutorial series looks at paper Magic information applicable to Magic Online, using the MTGO client, important sources of Magic Online information and trading on MTGO. Use the below table to navigate the different sections. (The headers link to the beginning of each tutorial.)

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

Back to Basics: The Chat Interface
Maximize the efficiency of your communicative experience online with this quick and informative tutorial.

Beginners’ Guide: How to Get Free Cards
If you are interested in free swag, then you should not miss this short video. It shows you how you can get hundreds of free cards without much effort!

Beginners’ Guide: How to Build your First Deck
So you have a bunch of cards and want to start playing, but you don’t have a deck? In this video you can learn how to build your deck, save it, and get ready to rumble!

Beginners’ Guide: How to Use the Play Interface to Play a Game
Before you jump into your first game, check out Nate’s tutorial that will explain in fewer then 5 minutes what you need to know to play your first Magic Online game.

Beginners Guide: Where to Trade Cards with Players
Trading is another important aspect of Magic: The Gathering. It will help you to get cards you need for your decks and save money. See here how you can trade in game.

Back to Basics: Buying and Selling
In this tutorial, we show you the optimal use of the Store and Classifieds. Learn to procure more digital ammunition and/or peddle your wares.

Beginners Guide: The Tournament Rooms
If you feel the competitive itch and want to test your deck under tournament conditions you can learn more about MTGO’s tournament structures in this video. ChrisKool explains the different tournament rooms and what you can expect there.

Back to Basics: Deckbuilding
In this tutorial, we show you how to build a deck and all of the little options and features the Magic Online interface gives us.

In the Beginning: MTGO Draft Guide
In this tutorial, we introduce the draft format – you will learn how it works and what you need to know to about the interface.

Back to Basics: Trading
In this tutorial, we show you how to properly search for cards in the trade window, along with the mechanics of the trade feature.

Back to Basics: Personal Preferences
In this tutorial, we show you the personal settings page, where you can edit many things that can impact your Magic Online experience.

Back to Basics: Buying and Selling
In this tutorial, we show you the optimal use of the Store and Classifieds. Learn to procure more digital ammunition and/or peddle your wares.

Back to Basics: The Auction Room!
In this tutorial, we show you how to and when to properly use the auction room to score those rare deals.