By Jake Browne
You’ve finally done it. In a meaningless game of Standard, with a deck you don’t particularly care about, you’ve played your 40th land. Returning to the Arena home screen, a brief animation lets you know you’ve acquired 750 digital currency units, bringing your total to 10,000 gold.
It’s time to draft.
An hour later, you’re left staring at a deck you thought was pretty good and an 0-3 record. You begrudgingly tap the bright orange CLAIM button for your 50 gems plus a pack and think to yourself, “Fuck.”
The oft-maligned Arena economy is not generous to people who want to play for free and with 37 new sets a year to acquire cards from in paper, I don’t blame anyone for trying to grind gold and jam drafts without paying into the system. There are myriad articles explaining Arenamaxxing strategies, but how do we get better at converting once we’re in the drafts we’ve tried so hard to scrounge for?
How do we do that for free? Because jamming infrequent drafts is as effective a way of building up our limited muscles as a once-a-week dog walk is for our IRL ones.
As someone who grew up in the days of Napster and #warez channels on AOL, I’m loath to pay for Software Experiences™, so here’s my practical guide to leveraging your time when you’re not sitting with seven digital avatars and 14 cards.
Watch Streams, But Good Ones
All streamers are not created equal. Some, which I will not be naming names, exist for entertainment purposes only, like medical advice from ChatGPT. These streams are fine for goofs and the dopamine rush of being referred to as “chat.” They do not help us improve.
How do you know if you’re watching an informative stream? First, they break down their picks as a function of the cards in the pack, often discussing why they’re taking a card over other options, which provides important context. We know Card X is good, but in this spot, we want Card Y more. Paul Cheon is a master of this: we see our options, which cards are worth consideration, and we winnow down from there.