A Concise MTGO Primer


Pro Tour Dominaria is in the books and red has won the day! As you start sleeving up your Goblin Chainwhirlers and scrapheap scroungers for this week’s FNM, allow me to present you with this (hopefully) short primer on Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO).
MTGO, sometimes called MODO (Magic Online with Digital Objects) is the online version of the game that we all so know and love. It differs from all other endeavors that Wizards of the Coast has embarked upon in terms of digital products offerings for Magic (Shandalar, Magic: Duels, etc.) in one key aspect: it is the only product where you get almost the exact same experience as you would in playing MTG on paper. This includes WotC’s latest offering, MTG: Arena, which while plays the same as MTGO (but with admittedly better graphics) is missing two significant elements of the game: other formats aside from standard and limited and (more importantly at least for me), a working economy. So, in this article, I aim to provide key information for people who may be interested in playing MTGO.
How do I get it?
You can download MTGO from this link.  The software is currently only available for Windows but I have read that there are workarounds for Mac.
What am I getting?
Once you have downloaded the software, you will need to register for an account. The cost of registration is $10 and at the time of this writing, this includes the following:
5 Event tickets
20 New Player Points, and
“over 600 Magic Online cards.”
Let’s unpack these items from the least important to the most important. First, the 600 cards that you get with the account are not worth anything. I think there’s a Shivan Dragon and a Nightmare in it (WOW!), as well as two copies each of every common in current standard sets. You do get enough basics that you’ll ever need for whatever format so there’s that but yeah, let’s move on.
The 5 Event Tickets or simply tix that you get are important because this translates to about $5 that you can spend on whatever you want, including cards, packs, and entrance to events. Granted, $5 really won’t buy you anything significant, but this does mean that the registration only technically cost $5 since you get your $5 back as tix.
The 20 new player points are the most important of the items in the package. These points will allow you to join events that are specially designed for people who are new to the software. These events are either constructed or draft. Since I am assuming that you won’t be buying any cards yet immediately after signing up (you should not), then I recommend using all of your new player points in draft. This will allow you to play five, 4-man, 2-round drafts of the latest set. You won’t get to keep the cards that you draft but honestly, if a store offered to let you open and draft 3 packs for $1 per draft provided you do not keep the cards that you draft, how many of us would try it out a few times just to get some draft practice and see the new cards in action? This is the value that you are getting for the $5 of the registration that you are not getting back through tix. In these new player events, winning will get you some play points, which works like tix in that they can be used to join events but unlike tix cannot be traded for cards.
Where do I go from here?
After you have finished playing the new player draft events, where you go next is up to you. You can start playing actual draft or sealed games that cost the same as they do on paper but offer miles better prizes. You can build a tier one pauper deck for about $60 or a tier one standard deck for less than $250 (both mono red aggro and UW Teferi control are currently at 230+ tix, RB is a about 330 tix) in just a few minutes and start duking it out in constructed leagues. As in paper magic, you are only limited by your interest… and your wallet.
Wait, what if I have had enough?
The nice thing about MTGO is that you do have a means of cashing out if you ever decide that you want to quit. MTGO economy (which will be discussed in more detail in a future post) is so fluid that there are automated buyers available 24/7 that you can trade with to turn all your cards to tix, and there are companies that buy those tix so you can get your cash back. Of course, some loss in value is expected. However, you will never get sharked as the margins of traders on MTGO are very slim. For example, you can currently buy a Teferi from one of them for 27.52 tix. Have one to sell? They will buy it at 26.54 tix. That’s a profit margin of less than 4%!
So, I hope this article has been helpful in sparking your interest at trying out MTGO. If there are specific topics about MTGO that you want me to write about in future entries, please let me know in the comments.
May the shuffler be with you!

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