MTGO Economy Explained

In this entry, I discuss the economy of MTGO, how it works, why it works, and what this means for players like you and me.

MTGO economy works through tickets (tix), which is the de facto currency of the game. Tix can be bought directly from the MTGO client under the store tab at $1 per tix (plus tax where applicable) or from MTGO retailers like Cardhoarder or Goatbots. However, unlike other online CCGs like Heartstone or MTG Arena, where in-game currency (like gold or gems) cannot be cashed out due to the lack of a trading mechanism, tix can be sold into the secondary market, particularly to MTGO retailers such as the ones previously mentioned. The exchange rate from tix to dollars does change and while some loss in value is expected, this is typically minimal. Thus, any tix that you generate playing MTGO by selling cards or treasure chests to bots can be cashed out into real currency.

This leads to the second aspect of how the economy works, which is trading. We are all familiar with the concept. On MTGO, this concept does not change. You can create binders where you can place cards and tix that you want to trade away. You can then go to the trade tab of the MTGO client and select someone to trade with. Once the trade window is open, you can select which cards or how much tix you want to get from the other party and they will do the same. Once you both click confirm to trade with the items you placed on the trade window, the transaction will be completed. However, what sets MTGO apart from its paper counterpart is the prevalence of bot chains. Bot chains represent large retailers on MTGO. You can lookup the names of bots associated with such retailers on their websites. These bots typically maintain a complete collection of cards across all formats. So, if you want to buy a card at any given time, it is certain that the card is just a few clicks away. At the same time, these bots are always buying cards. So you can sell that nice pull from a booster draft immediately after finising your games. What’s more, the secondary market on MTGO is so competitive that retailers’ sales margins are very thin, especially for high value items. This means that you will always get a fair deal when trading with them. You will never pay significantly more than the market value of any card, and you will never get lowballed while selling a card because you cannot find any other buyer to take it.

So why does the MTGO economy work? That is, what makes it possible for you to buy into the game, and then later on choose to cash out of it? Why do bot chains exist and why are they willing to buy your tix from you for real money? The answer is largely because of what is called set redemption. On MTGO, if you are able to acquire a full set of an expansion (1 copy of each card), you have the option of redeeming that set, which means it will be removed from your online collection and delivered to you as paper cards. Details of set redemption can be found here. The reason why set redemption is critical to the viability of the MTGO economy is because it is what ties the virtual cards that you have to the real world, giving them actual monetary value. As such, large paper MTG card retailers, many of which have online counterparts, use set redemption as a means of acquiring stocks of singles from the latest set. This is a much cheaper way of doing it than opening cases and thus provides the motivation for retailers to buy cards and tix from players.

So, what does all this mean for players like you or me? First, it means that MTGO is not a money sink. The $12 (P600) that you spent for gems in MTG Arena, you will never see again. Pulled a Karn from a draft? Nice, but in Arena, that card is just as valuable as Demonlord Belzenlok since both of them are mythic rares. Pulled Karn from a draft in MTGO? You can sell it for 25 tix, double the price of a draft, and play your next two drafts for free. Want to just cash it out? Sure. Cardhoarder’s minimum is 25 tix and their current exchange rate is $0.97. Second, it means that your cards on MTGO are more liquid than your cards on paper. You will never be in a situation where you have a card you want to sell but you cannot find a buyer at a reasonable price, or the buyer’s meetup is so far away, or you need to ship the card. Buying and selling cards on MTGO could not be easier and as long as you stick to reputable traders, you will never get sharked, lowballed, smacked, etc.

Well, that is the MTGO economy explained. If you have more questions, feel free to ask them in the comments. Hopefully, as a competitive MTG player, this has encouraged you to try MTGO out with confidence in the stability economy and fungibility of its currency.

May the shuffler be with you.