Magic: The Gathering Arena drop rates

Wizards of the Coast publishes the odds for MTG Arena's booster packs on its own site. Every pack has eight cards: five commons, two uncommons and one rare or mythic rare. Wizards gives its rates as "1 in N" figures; the table converts them to percentages.

What the rates mean in practice

The rare card is upgraded to a mythic rare about 1 time in 7 for the most recent sets, and 1 in 8 for many older ones (the page lists every set). Any card can instead be a wildcard, which you can swap for a card of your choice of the same rarity: about 1 pack in 3 for a common wildcard, 1 in 5 for an uncommon and 1 in 30 each for rare and mythic.

Wizards also runs a wildcard track. Every pack adds one point to the rare/mythic track, and every 6 points gives a wildcard reward, four rare wildcards for every mythic. Adding the track to the 1-in-30 chance per pack, a player who opens many packs gets a mythic wildcard about once every 15 packs and a rare wildcard about once every 6, on average. Every 10 packs bought also earns a Golden Pack of six rares or mythics, and duplicate protection replaces a fifth copy of a rare or mythic with a different card.

How it plays

Magic: The Gathering Arena is the free-to-play digital version of Magic: The Gathering, the trading card game. You collect cards, build a deck and play one-on-one matches against friends, other players or the computer, casting spells and summoning creatures across an animated battlefield.

New players start with a tutorial that walks through the different playstyles, from overwhelming an opponent with brute strength to subterfuge, so you can find a strategy that suits you. Wizards lists 15 unlockable starter decks and multiple formats, including Draft and Brawl, and you can play casual matches at your own pace or enter in-game events and tournaments, including Esports qualifiers.

You grow your collection by playing formats and collecting daily rewards, and cosmetics such as avatars, card sleeves and pets let you change how your games look. Your account works across platforms, with cross-platform play.

What it costs

Gems are sold in-app. On the App Store UK they run from 750 for £4.99 to 20,000 for £99.99, which is about 0.67p a gem in the smallest pack and 0.50p in the largest. Wizards' official pages we read don't state a pack's price in gems, so we haven't put a price on a pack.

Booster packs are paid random items in PEGI's terms: you buy them without knowing which cards are inside. MTG Arena is rated PEGI 12 on its store listing and we found no entry for it on pegi.info; games submitted to PEGI since June 2026 with paid random items default to PEGI 16 (see what PEGI's paid random items label means).

Players

The 30-day peak on Steam Charts was 17,205 concurrent players on 3 October 2026. Most players use Wizards' own client or mobile, which Steam doesn't count.

How we checked

Rates come from Wizards' MTG Arena drop-rates page, read on 3 October 2026 (the page shows no date). Gem prices are the App Store UK listing on the same day; Wizards' support FAQ gives the same gem amounts in US dollars. The gameplay description is based on the publisher's Steam store page.

Card art and page images: in-game screenshots published by Wizards of the Coast on the MTG Arena site and MTG Arena news, used under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. This GamesChart page is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC. Further page images: screenshots from Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering Arena Steam store page, cropped to remove the caption banners.