[MTG Arena] What’s a ‘Worthwhile’ Wildcard Investment for Daily Quest Decks?

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In MTG Arena, the fastest way to build your ideal deck is to complete daily quests and earn wildcards.

Among these daily quests, efficiently completing the “win X games per day” quests requires a deck with a reasonably high win rate. Naturally, building such a deck requires even more wildcards.

So,

‘How many wildcards should you spend, and what win rate should you achieve, to make the investment efficient for daily quest completion?’

This article aims to calculate that.

In particular, we’ll focus on rare wildcards, which are notoriously scarce.

Take your time reading through.

Premise: Summarizing the Relationship Between Daily Wins and Gold Earned

The relationship between daily wins and gold earned is as follows:

Quoted from https://magic.wizards.com/ja/mtgarena/drop-rates.

As you can see, the first win yields the most gold, and while wins two through four still provide decent amounts, the rewards drop sharply after that.

Notably, the 550 gold earned at four wins represents 73.333% of the total rewards available at 15 wins (the maximum win count including XP), so if you want to efficiently complete daily wins, four wins is a key threshold.

Additionally, daily quests like “cast X red or blue spells” award 500 or 750 gold per day.

Premise 2: Calculating Required Matches by Win Rate

MTG Standard Decks – Secrets of Strixhaven – Untapped.gg

According to this source, the win rates of major decks generally fall within the 40%–60% range.

Based on this, we’ll calculate:

• Number of matches needed to reach 4 wins (time-efficient approach)
• Number of matches needed to reach 15 wins (full rewards)

for each win rate.

Matches Needed for 4 Wins

The number of matches needed for 4 wins is:

4 / win rate

This can be calculated as follows:

The table below is rounded down to the second decimal place.

If you improve your deck’s win rate from 40% to 50%, you can reduce the required matches by two.

MTG Standard Decks – Secrets of Strixhaven – Untapped.gg

According to this source, major decks take 4–6 minutes per match, so this translates to roughly 8–12 minutes saved.

The issue arises when your win rate is already at 50%.

In this case, to reduce the required matches by even one, you need a 57% win rate deck (equivalent to top-tier decks in the meta), and to reduce it by two matches, you need a 66.666666% win rate, which is extremely high.

This is a level only achievable by decks powerful enough to dominate the entire meta.

Based on this, it’s reasonable to aim for a 50% win rate first, then consider switching to a 57% win rate deck if you want to reduce matches by one; expecting to reduce by two or more is unrealistic.

Matches Needed for 15 Wins

The number of matches needed for 15 wins is:

15 / win rate

This can be calculated as follows:

If you improve your win rate from 40% to 50%, you can reduce the required matches by 7.5.

This corresponds to a time savings of 32–45 minutes in real time.

The diminishing returns after 50% win rate are similar to the 4-win pattern.

If we set the threshold at one match reduction at a time, to reduce the required matches from a 50% win rate, the win rate needs to increase to:

52% → 54% → 56% → 58% → 60% → …

In other words, each 2% increase in win rate reduces the required matches by 1.

Premise 3: Calculating the Gold Needed to Acquire One Rare Wildcard

Rare Wildcard Mechanics

When opening packs, rare wildcards are distributed with the following probabilities:

• Each pack contains one rare or mythic rare card (the rare-to-mythic ratio varies by set, ranging from 7:1 to 8:1).
• When you pull a rare card, there’s a 1/30 chance it becomes a rare wildcard.
• If a wildcard doesn’t appear, the probability of getting one in the next pack increases (the exact increase is not publicly disclosed).
• For every 6 packs opened, you receive rare or mythic rare wildcards at a 4:1 ratio.

Quoted from https://magic.wizards.com/ja/mtgarena/drop-rates.

Based on this…

<1>Packs Needed to Directly Pull a Rare Wildcard

Assuming a conservative rare-to-mythic ratio of 7:1, the probability of pulling a rare from a pack is:

7 / (1+7) *100 = 87.5

So, there’s an 87.5% chance of pulling a rare.

Since a rare has a 1/30 chance of becoming a rare wildcard, the probability of getting a rare wildcard from one pack is:

0.875 / 30 = 0.02916

Therefore, you can expect to get 0.02916 rare wildcards per pack.

<2>Rare Wildcards Earned Through Pack Opening Progress

According to official information, you get 4/5 rare wildcards per 6 packs.

In other words, you get approximately 0.13333 rare wildcards per pack.

<3>Packs Needed to Acquire a Rare Wildcard

<1><2>Since both conditions can occur simultaneously, the expected number of rare wildcards per pack is:

0.02916 + 0.13333 = 0.16249

Taking the reciprocal gives us the number of packs needed for one rare wildcard:

1 / 0.16249 = 6.15422

Rounding up to the second decimal place for a slightly conservative estimate gives us 6.16.

Therefore, you can expect to get one rare wildcard for every 6.16 packs opened.

<4>Gold Needed to Acquire a Rare Wildcard

The gold cost for packs is fixed at 1,000 gold per pack.

Therefore, to acquire one rare wildcard:

6.16 * 1000 = 6160

So, 6160 gold equals one rare wildcard.

How Long Does It Take to Recoup the Wildcards Used to Improve Win Rate?

Now, the main question.

How many wildcards can you use to improve your win rate before it becomes unprofitable?

For simplicity, we’ll compare under the following conditions:

1. Based on daily win rewards, we’ll separate cases aiming for 4 wins per day and 15 wins per day.
2. Win rates are considered in 5% increments: 40% → 45% → 50% → 55% → 60%.
3. Rare wildcard usage is considered in five patterns: 4 → 8 → 12 → 16 → 20 cards.
4. We’ll calculate the daily playtime and number of days needed to recoup the gold spent acquiring rare wildcards.
5. Playtime is calculated conservatively at 6 minutes per match (BO1).
6. Daily quests are assumed to award 500 gold each day and are included in the calculation.

Aiming for 4 Wins Per Day

In the table above, for example, if you use 12 wildcards to improve your win rate from 45% to 50%:

• Gold spent is 73920
• Time needed to achieve 4 wins is 48 minutes per day
• It takes 70.39 days to recoup the investment through daily wins and daily quests

This is the result.

In this example, the recovery period exceeds the interval between new pack releases.

Therefore, if you continue exchanging wildcards at this pace, you’ll constantly be operating at a deficit while updating your deck.

Aiming for 15 Wins Per Day

In the table above, if you use 12 rare wildcards to improve your win rate from 40% to 45%:

• Gold spent is 73920
• Time needed to achieve 15 wins is 199.98 minutes per day
• It takes 59.136 days to recoup the investment through daily wins and daily quests

This is the result.

In this example, the recovery period just barely falls below the interval between new pack releases.

Therefore, while it’s cutting it very close, at this pace, you can continue playing without depleting your resources.

Wildcard Usage Per New Pack Release to Avoid Deficits

(6160 * 10) / 1050 = 58.6666666 > 60

(6160 * 12) / = 59.136 > 60

Therefore, for each new pack release every two months:

If you aim for 4 wins per day, limit rare wildcard usage to 10 cards; if you aim for 15 wins per day, limit wildcard usage to 12 cards. If you stay within these limits, theoretically, you can continue playing without depleting your resources.

Summary

• When aiming for 4 wins per day, after reaching a 50% win rate, exceeding 57% or 66.66666% reduces the required matches by one.
• When aiming for 15 wins per day, after reaching a 50% win rate, each 2% increase reduces the required matches by one.
• 6160 gold equals 1 rare wildcard.
• For wildcard usage per new pack release, you can continue playing without depleting resources if you limit usage to 10 cards for the 4-win pattern or 12 cards for the 15-win pattern.

That’s about it.

I hope this helps.

With that, have a great gamer life!

Thank you for reading to the end!

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