Hit the Mother Lode | Illustration by Diego Gisbert
Greetings planeswalkers! Playing on Magic: The Gathering Online brings an interesting mix of buying, selling, and even renting cards. There are lots of services and bots that’ll help you build your collection or rent decks to prepare for events, and it can be a journey to find the providers you want to use.
Today we'll review Manatraders, one of the most popular rental services for MTGO players. We’ll go over the site’s features, pricing, and anything else you may want to know in case you’ve been thinking about trying it.
Though this review is indeed sponsored (I was given a Gold subscription to try the program), the opinions given here are wholly my own.
What Is Manatraders?
Manatraders is one of two major card rental services for Magic: The Gathering Online, with the other major one being Cardhoarder. Manatraders also buys and sells Event Tickets, and they offer free aggregated metagame data (and a handy deckbuilder) on their website.
Manatraders is a third-party service that is exclusive to MTGO. If you play exclusively on MTG Arena, you’re unlikely to use Manatraders.
I’m presuming that you’re already a fairly frequent MTGO player, and that you have a handle on the basics of the platform, its ticket-based economy, and how to use buy bots.
Why Should You Buy From or Use Manatraders?
The primary reason to use Manatraders is that you want to rent decks on MTGO rather than buy or own them directly. Let’s go through some hypotheticals where renting is superior to outright buying.
Scenario #1: Can’t Afford a Specific Deck
Let’s say you want to try your hand at some Legacy UB to prepare for an upcoming MTGO tournament, but you don’t have the 710+ tix on hand required to build it. Rather than simply dumping $700 into your MTGO account, you could consider Manatraders’ Gold Plan.
Assuming you just want to play UB in Legacy for a month, you save an impressive $645 worth of tickets!
Scenario #2: You Want to Try Many Decks
You don’t have a specific deck in mind for a format, but rather you want to try several top-tier decks and see which one you like best. Let’s say you’re playing the current Standard and want to try Mono-Red Aggro, UR Prowess, Jeskai Control, Esper Pixie, and Jeskai Oculus. Going by MTGGoldfish price data, each deck has an April 2025 value of about:
- Mono-Red Aggro: 71 tix
- UR Prowess: 279 tix
- Jeskai Control: 206 tix
- Esper Pixie: 119 tix
- Jeskai Oculus: 108 tix
That’s close to 800 tix in total if you want to build everything at once. Even if your budget can handle that, you also have to factor in resale penalties when you’re done with everything, as you generally lose about 10-20% of a card’s value when the bots buy them back. Even at an optimistic estimated loss of 10% value, that’s a cash loss of $78.30, which is less than a month of Manatraders Gold.
Moreover, Manatraders has a particular advantage for trying multiple decks, in that you can freely return cards to restore your tix limit. Let’s say instead of a Gold subscription, you go with a cheaper Base subscription for $15.95 per month. You can safely try Mono-Red, Pixie, and Oculus one at a time, as returning the cards to their bots frees up your rental limit for another deck.
Scenario #3: You Want to Play Many Formats
Even if you have enough tickets on hand to afford an expensive deck like UB Reanimator in Legacy, you might not have enough left for other formats. This is another reason to consider a cheaper plan that can help to fill the gaps in your collection.
Scenario #4: You Want to Buy or Sell Event Tickets
Manatraders isn’t just a rental service, and also offers a safe and secure way to buy Event Tickets online. Their rates for buying as of April 2025 are:
Keep in mind that the official store on MTGO charges $1 per ticket, which means you should only buy from Manatraders in bundles of 100 tix or more. There’s no need to pay extra! As for selling tickets:
Manatraders offers decent rates to active subscribers, which are comparable to other ticket-buying sites like Cardhoarder (their current rate is 0.79 per Event Ticket). If you’re already subscribed to Manatraders, you’re getting a good deal on ticket prices and will likely need fewer tix since rentals can cover your deck needs.
Is Manatraders Safe?
Manatraders is quite reputable; they’ve been offering card rentals for many years and have garnered a lot of praise for their reliability and ease of use. The only complaint I’ve seen comes from nearly a year ago, and it was about Manatraders raising their prices at that time, not security. All you have to do is sign up, select the cards you want on their site, and then hit up one of their bots on MTGO.
If you have any issues, Manatraders has a solid customer support team that you can contact. Look for the interface on the bottom right of your browser on the site, which is usually active and responsive. And definitely review their “Fair Use Policy,” which covers what happens if cards aren’t returned swiftly.
Manatraders: Is It Worth It?
There’s no substitute for experience, so let’s take a tour of the Manatraders site proper and see how everything works. Scrolling down a bit from their homepage, you’ll see their sales pitches for why you should use them, plus the pricing plans:
I’ll discuss these more soon, as choosing the right plan is essential. Manatraders also has format-specific plans and a free trial offer. Scrolling a bit further down, you can see just how convenient Manatraders really is.
All you have to do is click “rent” and that Standard deck you wanted can be yours! But first, you should probably make an account, so click “Register” on the top right of the homepage.
I used my Google account as a login, but that’s only one of many options here. Once you register your account, you’ll be able to access your dashboard, where you can set up your payment plan, rent/return cards, sell tickets, and more. Let’s go through some of the site’s features individually, with a focus on the sidebar.
Wallets
Manatraders has its own wallet system, which incentivizes you to spend more money on the platform via a 10% discount. They also do payouts to players via this system.
Loyalty Program
One great perk about Manatraders is its Loyalty Program, which rewards you for each month you remain subscribed to them. Here’s a more detailed graphic for how the benefits work.
You can see how your benefits accrue over time, so if you have any interest in Manatraders, start now rather than later!
Referral Program
Spreading the word about Manatraders is +EV, in Magic grinder terms! It’s not a huge bonus, but it’s definitely better than nothing, so tell your friends if you end up finding Manatraders useful.
Vacation Mode
One cool Manatraders feature is the vacation mode, which lets you pause your subscription for periods of time when you aren’t playing Magic Online. This is great news for grinders with significant family or job obligations, and one of the site’s best features overall.
Content Creator Program
Manatraders also partners with various content creators who can meet their required metrics, such as 1000+ followers, streaming three times per week, and 40 average viewers. If you’re already in this space, consider applying once you’ve made an account!
Deck Builder
One of the site’s most convenient features is its deckbuilder, which perfectly dovetails into renting whatever you build. You can either type up your list directly, import it from MTGO/Arena, or use their handy sidebar that’s full of every format’s most popular decks.
Verdict: Is Manatraders Worth It?
I’d absolutely say yes, though you’d need to fit this criteria:
- You’re a frequent MTGO player, with enough free time/interest to justify a $35+ subscription service purely for Magic Online.
- You’re playing formats where decks cost a decent amount.
- You either desire competitive flexibility or are simply priced out of the cards you want.
Even with the price increases from months ago, Manatraders could still save aspiring grinders a ton of money.
Which Plan Should I Choose?
If you do decide to use Manatraders, it’s important to choose the right plan.
Main Options
Your primary options are Base, Premium, Gold, and Ultimate. These are listed from cheapest to most expensive and grant you an number of rental tix appropriate for what you paid. Note that there are also card limits for your subscription, which determine how many cards you’re allowed to rent at once. All subscriptions besides Ultimate allow you to rent 100 cards at once, while Ultimate raises that limit to 150 cards. You can also use the coupon code Draftsim during checkout for 25% off after your third month subscribed.
Here’s the player profile I’d recommend for each tier:
- Base: Base is a decent choice if you don’t play Modern. 150 tix covers all Pauper decks, plus many of the cheaper decks in Standard/Pioneer. You’ll have to engage in a lot of returning, and you may find yourself short on options in non-Pauper formats.
- Premium: 400 tix covers just about any Standard/Pioneer deck, and the vast majority of Modern decks as well. Even if your Modern deck costs slightly above the rent limit, you can just buy 1-2 cards on your own and rent the rest. This is listed as their “most popular” plan for good reason and should fit the needs of most users.
- Gold: Gold is what I was gifted to test out Manatraders. 850 tix should more than cover any deck in any format on MTGO or even let you rent multiple decks at once. If you don’t mind the extra $25/month and want to rent a lot of expensive cards, Gold is a strong option.
- Ultimate: Honestly, it’s difficult for me to imagine needing this much rental value! You have to play a lot of Modern, Legacy, and Vintage decks, and you specifically need to rent all these cards at once. Power users should probably just stick to Gold and return decks when they're done with them, as the jump from Gold to Ultimate costs a whopping $45 per month!
Commander Format Subscriptions
Manatraders also offers format subscriptions, which are very efficient but also limited to just one format of your choice. The only format-specific subscription currently available is Commander. While some Duel Commander decks can get a tad pricey (I’ve seen deck prices up to 300 tix), it’s a very narrow option. Most players are better off just paying the extra $14 per month for Premium, though take them up on their offer if you only play Commander.
Free Trial
Manatraders also offers a convenient free trial, in case you wanted to try the program before buying it. 14 tix certainly won’t cover a full deck, but you could freely rent a couple staples or two from them before your next event. This also lets you play around with their site/bots a bit and see how it works directly.
Can You Sell Tix on Manatraders?
Yes! To sell tix on Manatraders:
- Create or log in to your Manatraders account.
- Complete the sell request form.
- Trade with the Event_Tickets_Buyer bot on MTGO.
It usually only takes up to a minute to process the payment, though that can sometimes increase to 10 minutes if there’s a high volume of payments being processed at once.
Manatraders offers better prices to subscribers who want to sell their tickets, especially long-time subscribers.
Wrap Up
Aether Tradewinds | Illustration by Lius Lasahido
I think Manatraders is great and strongly recommend Premium to anyone interested in trying it out! If you really like the program or need more tix available, consider upgrading to Gold. Base is probably a little small for most players; for instance I’d probably just buy my Pauper decks rather than rent them. Regardless of subscription plan, remember to use code Draftsim for 25% off after your third month.
Do you use Manatraders? What has been your experience with their website, or trading with their bot? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.
Until next time, stay safe!
This post is sponsored by Manatraders. We will never work with a brand we don't love and trust, and by supporting them you also support Draftsim.
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