Your Guide to the New Event Structures in MTG Arena

There are a ton of different ways to enjoy Magic: The Gathering Arena, and participating in Events is one way to play that offers a variety of benefits. Between the opportunity to expand your card collection, farm gold and/or gems, and just have fun with a drafted deck, there are plenty of reasons why players love them.

With the release of Streets of New Capenna, there were quite a bit of changes brought to the “Evergreen” Events, including the Traditional Draft Events. I’ll hop into them all in a second, but it’s worth noting from the beginning that some of the numbers you’ll see might be a bit alarming. Certain changes in payouts will have a pretty major effect, especially for casual players.

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Event Reward Changes

While not every event was touched, most events that are constantly in rotation had their rewards redistributed. That means rotating events, such as Pauper, won’t be affected. The free events also don’t have any reward changes since they don’t really have rewards anyway (the only rewards available in these events are the standard daily/weekly rewards that come from playing any games).

Constructed Events

Constructed events, which include Alchemy, Explorer, Historic, and Standard, were changed in a few different ways. These changes start from the beginning with entry fees being higher than before. However, the rewards are also higher as a result. The duration of these events were also changed, with Best-of-One Events lasting until 7 wins or 3 loses and Best-of-Three (Traditional) Events lasting for 5 matches. Here are the new rewards:

Instead of gold or card rewards for these events, players can get packs, Play-In Points, and gems instead. The rewards go with this chart from Wizards of the Coast:

Best-of-One Events	Best-of-Three Events
0 Wins: 25 Gems	0 Wins: 50 Gems and 1 Pack
1 Win: 50 Gems	1 Win: 100 Gems and 1 Pack
2 Wins: 75 Gems and 1 Pack	2 Wins: 150 Gems and 2 Packs
3 Wins: 200 Gems and 1 Pack	3 Wins: 600 Gems and 2 Packs
4 Wins: 300 Gems and 1 Pack	4 Wins: 800 Gems and 2 Packs
5 Wins: 400 Gems and 2 Packs	5 Wins: 1,000 Gems, 3 Packs, and 4 Play-In Points
6 Wins: 450 Gems and 2 Packs
7 Wins: 500 Gems, 3 Packs, and 1 Play-In Point

While gems and straight packs sound like a decent tradeoff, they don’t exactly translate value the same way. Reddit user terytor ran the numbers, and they’re not as pleasant as they sound. According to tertyor’s math, all of the Constructed Events now require higher win percentages in order to make back the cost of entering the events. Here are their numbers:

Event	“Break Even” Win Percent
Old Constructed Best-of-One	56.7%
New Constructed Best-of-One	66.2%
Old Constructed Best-of-Three	53.4%
New Constructed Best-of-Three	64%

This takes into account the Play-In Points that are now rewards as well. However, with these percentages going up, it’s critical to remember that casual players who may have been scraping by to farm coins before won’t be able to get positive value out of these events.

In fact, people are actively warning players away from Constructed Best-of-One Events because of how bad they are for the majority of players. According to one Reddit user, who’s numbers came from CFB and don’t include the value of packs since you pay in currency, you need a 70% winrate to see currency gain in Best-of-One Constructed Events now.

Limited Draft Events

The Traditional Draft Events got the same treatment as the Constructed Events did according to terytor’s math, increasing the win percentage you need in order to even make your money back. However, the changes didn’t have as drastic of an effect on the percentages as they did on Constructed Events (since the numbers were already higher to begin with):

• Old Traditional Draft: 64.2%
• New Traditional Draft: 65.2%

Wizards of the Coast claimed to do this to help with the “top-down heaviness” of the previous reward system, but it didn’t change much for the average player at all. However, Traditional Draft has now become the best event to do in terms of when you’ll start earning value back.

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Play-In Points

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Part of the new rewards includes Play-In Points, which you can collect 20 of and use to enter into Qualifier Weekend Events that give you the chance to play competitively in an Arena tournament. This even includes the potential to go on a Pro Tour if you rise through the ranks.

This is great news for serious MTG Arena players, but it doesn’t do much for the average, casual player. With the lower payouts for lower win rates, these Play-In Points aren’t guaranteed, so getting the rewards from the Qualifier Weekend Events don’t have much sway. The competition will be much fiercer at these events as well, so it’s almost irrelevant for most players.

It is also worthwhile to note that these Play-In Points can be stacked up as much as you like, and they do not expire.