MTG Arena Wildcards: How to Get Them and the Best Cards to Craft

Wondering how to get MTG Arena wildcards? Don’t know what to craft in MTG Arena? You want to craft a card in MTG Arena but you worry you’ll regret it later? You came to the right place! Below we’ll review the best way to maximize what you get with your MTG Arena wildcards.

What Are Wildcards in MTG Arena?

Let’s start with the basics. A wildcard is a unique card that can be traded for another card of the same rarity type. There are four rarity types and each has its own color: common (silver), uncommon (blue), rare (gold), and mythic (red).

How To Get Wildcards in MTG Arena?

Wildcards mostly come from MTG Arena booster packs and the drop rate of which you get varies (see below). Each booster pack has 8 cards: 5 Commons, 2 Uncommons, and 1 Mythic/Rare. Any of these cards have the chance of being a wildcard. Note that you can also get wildcards from the Vault, but that’s another story and to which we’ve dedicated an entire article to.

As you open booster packs you have radials that fill up and track the amount of packs you open. The more packs you open, the more they fill up, until they’re full and you get an extra wildcard. The wildcard will automatically be redeemed and the radial will be reset.

To check your wildcards tracker progress, click the “Packs” tab and in the top right corner you will have two radials. A small radial for tracking the next Uncommon wildcard drop and a bigger one for Rare and Mythic wildcard drop progress. The radial for Uncommon wildcards will initially be half full.

So for every 6 booster packs that you open you will get an additional Uncommon wildcard. For every 6 booster packs you also get an additional Rare wildcard. This will repeat 4 times then the Rare wildcard in the radial will change to a Mythic wildcard. When it’s full a Mythic wildcard will drop and the progress reset and it will revert back to a Rare wildcard. This process will keep repeating.

5 Rules on Crafting in MTG Arena

First we’ll take a look at how you should approach crafting. Then we’ll feature Top 3 safest cards to craft in Arena for of the three major archetypes.

Figuring what to craft in MTG Arena really depends on what are your goals and what you’re working with. That’s why we’ll presume that you:

• Don’t have too much MTG Arena wildcards
• Want to craft cards that you can play in multiple decks
• Want to craft cards that will see a lot of play
• Aren’t a hundred percent sure which decklist you want to play

1. Play first, craft later.

You start your first game on MTG Arena and a big Giganotosaurus destroys you. You immediately spend your rare wildcards to craft four scary dinosaurs for yourself. Upon next few games you realize that mean Ravenous Chupacabra is ready to deal with it and there’s also Murder and Conclave Tribunal.  When their Llanowar Elves get in the way of your dino, you want to rather play something else. But, whoops – your wildcards are gone.

So don’t try to spend all of your MTG Arena wildcards immediately. Instead focus on building fun decks with what you have or try some of the sample decks you got.

2. Decide what type of deck you want to play.

In Magic the Gathering, there are 4 major type of decks:

• Aggro  – aggressive deck with plenty of cheap creatures, wants to finish the game as quickly as possible
• Control – slow deck, trying to eliminate every threat and only then win, usually zero or very few creatures
• Midrange – adaptive deck, plays slower than aggro and faster as control, it plays plenty of value creatures
• Combo – deck that wins in an unusual way for example with Thousand-Year Storm and bunch of cheap spells like Opt and Shock

As combo isn’t as present, we’d recommend some of the first three. When you pick one, you can craft cards with that in mind.

Let’s say you’ll choose aggro archetype. You’ll be able to play multiple good aggro decks instead of bad to medium aggro and control deck.

3. Don’t forget about lands.

When players think about what to craft in MTG Arena, they’ll often think about big flashy spells like Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God. The truth is, you won’t be casting Nicol Bolas on turn five without rare lands. You’ll need your Steam Vents and Temple of Deceit.

Three color decks require more rare lands than two color ones. So it’s really smart to focus on a two color deck first and then branch into the third color. Because of this, new players often try to build a good mono color deck, such as mono red aggro or mono blue flyers. You won’t have to spend any rare wildcards on lands. But remember, two color decks are often more powerful.

General rule is, the faster your deck wants to be, greater priority should rare lands be. If you’re planing to play Pheonix of The Ash and Questing Beast, you’ll really want that Stomping Grounds in your deck.

4. Check new player decks.

You start the game with 5 pre-made decks. For the next 5 days you get a quest for a booster and a quest for a new player deck. When you finish with those quests, then you’ll get a special one for five more decks.

It’s really for the best if you wait until you unlock all of these before you start crafting cards. Decks come with some rare lands and some pretty powerful cards. They can also give you a feel of what you’d like to play, so you won’t waste your wildcards. If you don’t want to wait, at least check all of the decks here. This way you won’t be crafting unnecessarily.

If you don’t know you can also redeem code “PlayIkoria” (case sensitive). Just go to Store in MTG Arena, and click on Redeem Code. You’ll get three Ikoria boosters for free! You can find more codes in our Arena Codes article.

5. All that is gold does glitter.

There are four rarities among the MTG cards – mythic rare, rare, uncommon and common – from the most to least rare. But in MTG Arena the most valuable resource isn’t a mythic rare wildcard, but a rare one.

That’s because most of the mythic cards have expensive mana cost and you sometimes need just one or two in a deck. Rares on the other hand are the cornerstones of a deck. On top of that you’ll need playsets of rare lands.

So be careful when spending rare wildcards. You’ll be getting more of them than mythic ones, but the demand for them is even higher.

Aggro Top 3 Crafts

Do you just want to turn creatures sideways and get some quick wins in Arena? If so, you won’t regret crafting the following aggro cards:

3. Fervent Champion

This card is only good in mono red decks, but – oh, boy is it good there. Even if you aren’t playing any other knights, you’re playing four Fervent Champions. They can pump one another! As if hasty first striker wasn’t good enough for one mana.

His second ability might seem irrelevant, but it actually comes up quite often with the first card on our list. Spoiler alert: it’s Embercleave.

Be warned – don’t craft this if you don’t want to play mono red decks. On the other side, the mono red decks can be cheap and good way to grind wins in MTG Arena. That’s because they are both consistent and fast. If your opponent isn’t ready and stumbles just a little bit, you’ll get a quick win.

Number of copies you usually want: 4

2. Bonecrusher Giant

Throne of Eldraine brought us plenty of powerful Adventure cards. Bonecrusher Giant is one of those. Giant would see some play even without its Stomp part. But just having an extra Shock stapled on it, makes it a powerhouse for any deck deck plays red.

It would truly be a disservice to this card, if we said it’s only good in aggressive decks. Of course, there’s where it shines the most, but it is played in variety of different decks, such as Temur Reclamation and Grull Midrange.

Besides all that, it won’t rotate out of Standard until September 2021. As such Bonecrusher Giant is one of the safest cards to craft on Arena – it will certainly remain a staple in red decks.

Number of copies you usually want: 4

1. Embercleave

Not many good equipment cards were printed in recent years. Embercleave is certainly the exception that proves the rule. It’s an insanely strong card. It’s basically a two card combo with any creature.

Embercleave makes any combat a nightmare for your opponent. It’s especially effective on Anax, Hardened by the Forge, since it adds two devotion to red, buffing Anax’s power.

The Embercleavce is not played only in mono red, but in pretty much all aggressive red decks, so it’s a great card to spent your mythic wildcards on. As long as attacking is viable in Standard – and it pretty much always is – Embercleave will remain a staple.

Number of copies you usually want: 3-4

Midrange Top 3 Crafts

Top three crafts for the fans of value and grindy games in Arena are:

3. Brazen Borrower

Same things that we said about Bonecrusher Giant holds true here as well. As it turns out, once you combine two cards into one, you get a real powerful Magic card.

The great thing about Brazen Borrower is that it comes up in all three major archetypes. In both aggressive tempo decks (such as Simic Flash) and in more controlling blue decks, even in Temur Reclamation. Of course it also has a home in variety of blue midrange decks.

It’s great to just bounce an opponent’s expensive play and it also quickly pressures opposing planeswalkers. Since it’s so widely played it’s one of the best cards you can craft in MTG Arena.

Number of copies you usually want: 2-3

2. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

Turns out blue-green is the best color combination for midrange decks in Standard. Ydroid Krasis and Uro are the two main reasons for that.

Uro ramps you, draws you cards and gains you some life to help against aggressive decks. Another thing that aggressive deck hate besides opponents gaining life is a big 6/6 creature on the battlefield. You can expect a lot of concessions against mono red once you escape this titan.

So if you like playing green-blue, Uro is certainly a good card to craft on Arena.

Number of copies you usually want: 4

1. Nissa, Who Shakes the World

Number of copies you usually want: 3-4

This Nissa has certainly shaken up Standard, when she was printed in War of the Spark. She has been a staple ever since. At one point the decks were just ramping as quickly as possible with cards like Arboreal Grazer and Growth Spiral, to get Nissa in play as quickly as possible, as that would most likely win the game very quickly.

Nissa provides tons of mana for cards like Hydroid Krasis or Mass Manipulation. She also attacks both players and planeswalkers with never-ending army of lands. It often feels like the game is lost when opponent untaps with Nissa and rightfully so. She is just too powerful.

If you want to play green decks in the future, Nissa is probably a single best card you can spend your rare MTG Arena wildcards on.

Control Top 3 Crafts

Kill this, counter that, draw some cards. Sounds nice? If so, you won’t regret crafting these cards.

3. Dream Trawler

Every control deck needs a win condition. Dream Trawler is the perfect card for that role.

It does everything! It draws you cards, it protects itself, it gains you life and it finishes the game quickly.

Control archetype was completely revitalized since Theros Beyond Death. Some credit goes to the Trawler, best finisher for control decks in a long, long time.

Number of copies you usually want: 2

2. Elspeth Conquers Death

Elspeth Conquers Death will conquer your opponents as well, since it’s a very good Magic card. First chapter takes the biggest threat away. Second is a bit lackluster, but it comes a bit handy every now and then. The third chapter is where you really pull ahead, giving you a creature or a planeswalker back – and with a counter to boost.

This card proved itself to be an important piece of any white controlling deck. Even some midrange decks play it, so it’s safe to say that you won’t regret crafting it. Besides, it also has a beautiful animation on Arena when it enters the battlefield.

Number of copies you usually want: 2-3

1. Teferi, Time Reveler

Since its appearance in War of the Spark, Teferi was a poster child for control decks. This won’t be changing any time soon.

Even his passive ability is far more relevant than you might think at first sight. It completely shuts down some strategies. If a deck is relaying on Wilderness Reclamation, it just won’t work while Teferi is in play.

His first ability is also surprisingly powerful. You can cast discard spells like Thought Erasure in you opponent’s draw step when they already drew their card. Even if the card they’re holding is an instant, they can’t cast it because of Teferi’s passive.

If you like to play control this is the single best card to craft. You might feel that you are shoe horned into playing blue-white, and that’s somewhat true. On the other hand you can probably splash red for cards like Deafening Clarion.

Number of copies you usually want: 4

What to Craft in MTG Arena? TL;DR

1. Unlock 10 additional starter decks.
2. Decide on which archetype you want to play.
3. Start with one or two color deck.
4. Craft the best cards for your archetype and colors.
5. Have fun. 🙂

If you don’t agree with our suggestions and just want to have fun with your favorite cards, that’s awesome too. If you enjoy particular type of card very much, just go for it and craft it.

If you want more information about the current set, you can find out which cards to craft from Ikoria here.

Conclusion

We hope we helped you a bit with deciding what to craft in MTG Arena. If you fell like we missed a card we should totally talk about, fell free to leave us a comment.  That’s what Magic is all about. If you want to start playing paper Magic, check out our article about best buys for beginner and learn how to get some Sample Decks for free.

If you want more info about MTG Arena check the official site.

Last but not least, check our Instagram. You’ll get info about our newest articles, tips and of course – Magic the Gathering memes. 🙂 Have fun crafting cards on Arena and may you always draw the perfect starting hand.