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Contents hide Magic: The Gathering Arena Ranks Explained Ranking Up Fast: How Ranks Work Constructed and Limited Rewards: Alternate Ways To The Qualifier Play-In Weekend:

Magic: The Gathering: Arena is a way to play the game of Magic in the comfort of your own home or on your phone through its mobile app. There are various formats along with ways to play them, including both a ranked and unranked matchmaking system. Unranked is good for practicing, but most of the time you want to be playing ranked even if you aren’t intending to grind simply for the rewards for acquiring a rank. For those interested in levelling up and potentially entering the world of professional Magic: The Gathering, Arena can be a gateway for those who reach the top rankings. This is how the ranks of Magic: The Gathering Arena work.

Magic: The Gathering Arena Ranks Explained

There are six different ranks you can achieve in Magic: The Gathering: Arena with two separate ranks for Constructed and Limited formats. Constructed formats refer to formats where you have to build a deck with what you have, and include the Standard, Explorer, Alchemy, Historic, and Timeless ladders. Limited refers to the Draft and Sealed formats, of which contribute to your rank. Sealed events are usually only available during a set’s release, whereas Draft is always available. 

The ranks are as follows:

  • Bronze
  • Silver
  • Gold
  • Platinum
  • Diamond
  • Mythic

Each rank except Mythic has four tiers, starting from tier four and ending at tier one. To go from one tier to the next, you need to win six games. Winning a best-of-one match will give you one tick towards the next tier, and winning a best-of-three match will give you two. Losing these games will cause you to lose that many ticks on progress. 

Once you go from one rank to the next (not counting tiers, so Bronze to Silver, Gold to Platinum, etc) you can not rank down to a lower rank, only to the lowest tier within that rank. So if you go on a losing streak in Gold Tier 3, you can only rank down to an empty Gold Tier 4, but not back down to a Silver rank. 

✓ Johnny’s Tip: 

Ranking Up Fast:

Often, aggro decks are played if your only goal is to reach a high rank as fast as possible as these decks either win quickly or lose quickly. Mono-Red decks tend to be best at this due to the little investment needed to craft them and their general ease of play. Although there is nuance in aggro, if you just want to rank up as quickly as possible it is a good choice. It’s often best done in best-of-one as aggro tends to fold to many sideboard options.

In general, you are paired against opponents that have the same rank as you. However, in some lesser-used ladders like best-of-three Alchemy, you may be paired against players with a significantly higher or lower rank than you. If the matchmaking can’t find a proper partner of your rank (such as a Limited ladder where it can’t find an opponent with your same rank and win-loss ratio), you may be paired up or down with a different rank. If this happens, it follows the same rules as any other ranked game, and you don’t gain or lose more progress on your tiers compared to playing against someone with the same rank. 

If you ever want to see what your rank is, you can do so by clicking on the “Profile” tab at the top left corner of the client. It will show your exact rank and tier, along with how many ticks you have for that tier. If you click on the icon for the rank, you can see what the season rewards are as well as how many days are left in the season. Your rank will also appear in the “Play” tab once you open up the tab in the ranked section. Here, you can also choose if you want to play best-of-one or best-of-three games, along with which format you wish to play. Best-of-one games tend to be much faster, but have much more variance whereas best-of-three matches take more time, but you are less likely to run into decks that tend to only work in best-of-one due to the lack of sideboarding. 

How Ranks Work

Your rank at the end of each season determines what rewards you get. A season only lasts for one month before all ranks reset. You will be a lower rank than what you ended on, determined by your peak of the season prior. 

These are the rewards for each rank:

  • Bronze: One Pack of the latest set at the start of the season (all packs follow this rule)
  • Silver: One Pack and 500 Gold
  • Gold: Two Packs, 1,000 Gold, One Card Style (card styles determined at the start of each season and are not random)
  • Platinum: Three Packs, 1,000 Gold, Two Card Styles
  • Diamond: Four Packs, 1,000 Gold, Two Card Styles
  • Mythic: Five Packs, 1,000 Gold, Two Card Styles
✓ Johnny’s Annotation: 

Constructed and Limited Rewards:

Both your Constructed and Limited ranks are separate from each other, so you may end the season with a Mythic Constructed rank and a Gold Limited Rank. You get the rewards for both of these, meaning if this was the case you would get a total of seven packs (two from Gold Limited rank and five from the Constructed Mythic Rank) and 2,000 gold (1,000 from each rank). The one exception is the card style, as there are only two for the season, and repeat styles do not do anything as you can only actually acquire one of them. 

What is the highest rank in MTG Arena?

The real rewards come when you hit Mythic, which is the highest rank in MTG Arena. At Mythic, you no longer have tiers. Instead, you are ranked with every other player who has acquired the Mythic rank. These appear as a percentage, and you see what percentile of Mythic players you are in (such as 98%). However, when you are at the top of the field, the percentage is replaced by a number. This number shows you what ranked number you are compared to the top of the field. 

Magic: The Gathering: Arena uses a Glicko rating system, meaning it’s a system that determines how much your rank goes up or down depending on who you lost to. If you do not care about what rank you end up with at the end of each season, your Mythic ranking won’t matter, as they are all given the same base rewards. As such, it’s not uncommon for players to grind with a competitive deck until they reach Mythic before swapping to more silly decks they may have more fun with now that they do not need to worry about the grind anymore. However, the rank does matter if you have your eyes set on entering the world of top-level Magic: The Gathering. 

The ranks that matter the most are ranks 1200 up to rank 1. If you end the season at a Mythic Rank between 1200 and 251, you are given 20 Play-In Points. These Play-In Points can be redeemed to enter the Qualifier Play-In. The Qualifier Play-In is an event where you need to get a certain amount of wins to gain entry into the Qualifier Weekend (six wins for best-of-one and four wins for best-of-one for the Qualifier Weekend token). The formats for both of these events change with each month. They are sometimes a constructed format like Historic or a Limited format like Murders At Karlov Manor Sealed. The Qualifier Play-In will always happen the weekend before the Qualifier Weekend.

✓ Johnny’s Annotation:

Alternate Ways To The Qualifier Play-In Weekend:

While reaching Mythic Rank 1200 or higher will net you free entry to the Qualifier Play-In Weekend, you can also acquire 20 Play-In Points through other means. Constructed Events will reward you with one Play-In Point for best-of-one events and best-of-three events will give you four. Best-of-three Traditional Drafts will also give you two Play-In Points. Five Play-In Points are included in the pre-order Play Bundles for new sets. Alternatively, you can pay with Gems to enter the Qualifier Play-In Weekend, but Play-In Points are the free way to do so. 

If you end the season at Mythic Rank 250 or higher, you are automatically given entry to the Qualifier Weekend. This is a two-day event where you need to win seven matches on the first day to qualify for day two. If you win seven matches again, you get an invitation to both the Arena Championship and a spot on the Pro Tour. You also earn gems based on how many games you win. 

If you do get into the Arena Championship, you can compete in a $200,000 Prize Pool, with this event happening four times out of the year using various formats found on Magic: The Gathering Arena. The Pro Tour invite earned from the Qualifier Weekend is a paper event that happens at MagicCon events all around the world. Like the Arena Championship, the formats for these fluctuate, and may not use a format found on Arena such as Modern.

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Johnny Garcia

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