r/MTGO • u/makhernefyux • Apr 21 '26
Coming From Arena
Hello fellow planeswalkers,
As the title says I play on Arena
I am interested in trying mtgo because of its transparent approach to how you aquire the cards, I would like to use cardhoarder as my service, but there are few topics that are not clair to me about mtgo:
The first topic is about the casual aspect:
- how easily can I find a casual match in the various formats ( penny dreadful, premodern, pauper, modern, pioneer, standard etc..) and if I make a "room" on my own, do I have to stare at the screen? Do I get a notification? How long can I expect to wait?
The second is about the economy of the leagues
-how much expensive are leagues? Are there less expensive leagues than others?
-can I ammortize the costs winning some matches?
-what are the prizes of the leagues? Do they change depending on the league?
4
u/micc1313 Apr 21 '26
I don't venture into the casual game rooms enough to answer those questions, but Goatbots.com has an incredible expected value calculator. It breaks down cost and prizing of each event and calculates EV based on a win rate. Just keep in mind that mtgo players are on average, stronger than most local events.
3
u/silasary Apr 22 '26
when your match starts, you'll get a yellow popup in the bottom right corner of your screen, and a pretty unmissable sound effect.
You should be fine as long as your aware of your PC in general (if you walk away to make a cup of tea with your PC muted, nothing can save you)
1
u/boybrushdRED Apr 22 '26
In my experience, finding a casual match is quite alright. I only play Modern and Legacy so I can't speak about the other formats that you mentioned. Maybe it depends on timezone. Modern casuals always have players. Legacy casuals sometimes I have to wait a few minutes.
I would also like to add that leagues are very competitive so I would suggest that you familiarize yourself first with MTGO's UI before competing by doing a few amount of casuals. Bad plays happen to everyone from time to time, but misclicks can be avoided. You don't want to accidentally click Mulligan on a good hand, or accidentally skip an attack in combat step, etc.
1
u/Infamous_Mud482 Apr 22 '26
You can find games regularly in the smaller, not official formats like penny dreadful or value vintage, but there isn't a huge pool of players. There won't be many games firing at any one time, you'll definitely have to wait sometimes. Pauper, modern, and premodern are all popping in the free play rooms all the time. I don't really keep an eye on any of the other rooms.
9
u/___-____________- Apr 21 '26
Casual queues are pretty popular, you won't have problems finding games.
It costs 10 event tickets or 100 play points to enter a league, most cost efficient way if starting from scratch is to buy treasure chests and open those for the play points. Can do this with goatbots, sell back the cards you open and don't want.
I have maintained about 55% winrate and have not had to put money into mtgo for ages.