The MTG Arena Color Challenges: What Are They and How Do They Work?

Last updated on November 20, 2025

The Color Challenges are the first card action players see on Arena and build the foundations of the play experience.

If you just downloaded Arena, you need to complete the New Player Experience (NPE) tutorials, and you’ll be all too familiar with the Color Challenge.

If you've played Arena before, maybe on another device or had to reinstall because Arena crashed for whatever reason, skip down to the section on How to Skip the tutorial.

Back to new players, stick with me, I played through all the Color Challenge and scoured the interwebs for the answers to all your questions. So, sit back, relax, and worry not, as we guide you through MTG Arena’s Color Challenge and shed some light on what you can expect.

Unlock Decks in MTG Arena

Unfortunately, even if you “skip the tutorial,” there's no way to unlock all the decks without going through the New Player Experience. So if you want all five mono-colored decks and all 10 dual-colored decks, you have to jump through these hoops. Skipping the tutorial only unlocks Arena's play modes, not the decks.

New Player Experience: The Color Challenges

Colorful Feiyi Sparrow | Illustration by Kee Lo

Arena’s New Player Experience starts off with five bot matches against planeswalkers, each representing one of Magic’s five colors: white, blue, black, red, and green. You then face off against Nicol Bolas, one of the big-bad villains in MTG’s storyline (and mascot of Arena Tutor), and use the skills and cards that you unlock.

You eventually unlock more cards along and Arena's 10 dual-colored starter decks.

You complete the initial guided tour with Sparky, go through a match with each mono-colored deck before rounding off what you’ve learned with a “boss battle” of sorts.

You don’t unlock the five mono-colored decks after the five tutorial matches you face with Sparky’s guidance (even though you still get the completion screen saying that you did). The Color Challenges fill this role, which total 25 games before you’re able to play normally. Unless you skip them, which you can do, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

You can access the Color Challenges by selecting the quest button on the main page.

To start a Color Challenge, select which one you want to do from the list on the right and then start playing. Use the white arrow to expand and collapse panes.

In each Color Challenge, the first four games will see you face off against the “main” planeswalkers of each other color. White is championed by Ajani Goldmane, blue sees you battle with Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess comes at you for black, red is Chandra Nalaar’s battlefield, and Vivien Reid rounds off the gang for green.

For example, if you play through the white Color Challenges, you battle Jace, Liliana, Chandra, and Vivien, but not Ajani. The idea is that you are mentored by the Color Challenge’s “face,” so you’re not battling them in their own color.

Each of the five Color Challenges include five matches, or “challenges.” The first four are bot matches against the other color’s name-dropped planeswalker, while the fifth game puts you in battle against another player. It’s important to note that this queue is like Arena's regular “Play” queue, so you could go up against anything.

Quick note: Whether you win or lose against a real player during each color’s final challenge, you’ll still complete it and receive its rewards.

The last challenge in each color rewards you with a card style along with one uncommon and two common wildcards.

If you lose a bot match at any point, you don’t lose any progress, so that’s a plus. You replay that challenge until you beat your opponent. You’ll also get some advice that will highlight what that particular challenge is trying to teach you, be it a spell, tactic, or mechanic.

Once you complete the 25 matches in the Color Challenges, you unlock all the mono-colored starter decks, but you’re not done yet! The dual-colored starter decks come next, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Before we jump into the mono-colored decklists, let's talk Arena's Alchemy format. Wizards ensured the mono-colored decks you get from the Color Challenges are playble in at least one Arena format. To do this, they created a “base set” of cards that will always be legal in BO1 matches. The MTG Arena Beginner Set can be found on one of the gatherer alternatives Scryfall as a full list of ANB cards.

Ajani’s Challenge

We’ll start from the top, which leaves us to kick things off with white, led by the wise Ajani Goldmane. White is all about angels and lifegain, so this is what most of the cards focus on. Before any upgrades, here’s what your mono-white deck will look like:

Keep the Peace Starting Decklist

Let’s go down the list to check out what you get for each win with white:

• Challenge 1: Bond of Discipline and Leonin Warleader, replacing 2 Shrine Keepers
• Challenge 2: Moorland Inquisitor and Goring Ceratops, replacing 2 Shrine Keepers
• Challenge 3: Fencing Ace and Inspiring Commander, replacing 2 Sanctuary Cats
• Challenge 4: Angel of Vitality, Pacifism, and Angelic Guardian, replacing 3 Knight's Pledges
• Challenge 5: Card style for Impassioned Orator plus one uncommon and two common Wildcards

Keep the Peace Completed Decklist

Jace’s Challenge

Next up is blue, where you’ll follow the mind-mage Jace Beleren into battle. Blue is usually about control, but fliers and card draw are the staples you’ll use here. Here’s what you’ll start off with as you enter these challenges:

Aerial Domination Starting Decklist

Flying over the challenges that blue sets out for you nets you these rewards:

• Challenge 1: Frilled Sea Serpent and Windreader Sphinx, replacing 2 River's Favors
• Challenge 2: Waterkin Shaman and Riddlemaster Sphinx, replacing 2 Zephyr Gulls
• Challenge 3: Glint and Overflowing Insight, replacing 2 Zephyr Gulls
• Challenge 4: Waterknot, Winged Words, and Soulblade Djinn, replacing 3 Armored Whirl Turtles
• Challenge 5: Card style for Cloudkin Seer plus one uncommon and two common Wildcards

Aerial Domination Completed Decklist

Liliana’s Challenge

Third up to the pitch is black, my personal favorite, which is headed by the necromancer Liliana Vess. Black is equal measures life and death, and uses both to their advantage with lifelink, deathtouch, and more. Your starting decklist is like this:

Cold-Blooded Killers Starting Decklist

Use your grave with removal like Compound Fracture to send your opponents there and you get you these upgrades:

• Challenge 1: Savage Gorger and Mardu Outrider, replacing 2 Scathe Zombiess
• Challenge 2: Skeleton Archer and Nightmare, replacing 2 Krovikan Scoundrels
• Challenge 3: Eternal Thirst and Soulhunter Rakshasa, replacing 2 Scathe Zombiess
• Challenge 4: Murder, Bad Deal, and Demon of Loathing, replacing 3 Raise Deads
• Challenge 5: Card style for Skeleton Archer plus one uncommon and two common Wildcards

Cold-Blooded Killers Completed Decklist

Chandra’s Challenge

Getting close to the end and red is our next stop. This lively color is headed by Chandra Nalaar, a pyromancer of no small talent, and embodies “hit ‘em quick and hit ‘em hard” with red instants abound and lots of cheap but effective creatures like goblins. Here’s your starting list:

Goblins Everywhere! Starting Decklist

Once you leave your opponents in the dust as nothing but charred ash, here’s what you get:

• Challenge 1: Goblin Tunneler and Siege Dragon, replacing 2 Raging Goblins
• Challenge 2: Goblin Gang Leader and Ogre Battledriver, replacing 2 Hurloon Minotaurs
• Challenge 3: Molten Ravager and Immortal Phoenix, replacing 2 Hurloon Minotaurs
• Challenge 4: Volcanic Dragon, Inescapable Blaze, and Goblin Trashmaster, replacing 3 Reduce to Ashes’
• Challenge 5: Card style for Burn Bright plus one uncommon and two common Wildcards

Goblins Everywhere! Complete Decklist

Vivien’s Challenge

Last but certainly not least is green at the bottom, headed by the huntress Vivien Reid. This color is all about big creatures to trample your opponent into the dirt. When you start your challenges in green, this is what you head in with:

Large and in Charge Starting Decklist

And once you stampede over your opponents and complete green’s challenges, this is your reward:

• Challenge 1: Sentinel Spider and Rampaging Brontodon, replacing 2 Feral Roars
• Challenge 2: Jungle Delver and Epic Proportions, replacing 2 Treetop Wardens
• Challenge 3: Rabid Bite and Gigantosaurus, replacing 2 Treetop Wardens
• Challenge 4: Wildwood Patrol, Ilysian Caryatid, and World Shaper, replacing 3 Generous Strays
• Challenge 5: Card style for Ilysian Caryatid plus one uncommon and two common Wildcards

Large and in Charge Completed Decklist

The Final Challenge: Dual-Colored Decks

You can export any Arena decks for import into deck builders which provide additional stats, and make potential edits easy.

Now that we’ve gone over the basics, all five Color Challenges are complete, and each mono-colored deck is fully upgraded, it’s time to look at what comes next.

You can now play with more choices, don't be alarmed if your quests are missing. You can earn the dual-colored starter deck by winning Arena's Starter Deck Duel. It’s as simple as that!

After that, any match other than bot matches count towards finishing daily/weekly quests, be it Jump In!, Standard, Alchemy, ranked, an event, Traditional, or Historic!

If you do encounter any bugs, be sure to report it to WotC!

Kicking Color Challenge Butt

So, we’ve gone over what the Color Challenges are and where the pesky dual-colored decks have gone, but what about how to maneuver your way through the challenges, and if you should even bother?

Well, if you’re a new player not just to Arena but to Magic in general, I would highly suggest playing through the entire thing. If you’re new to Arena but know what’s up with Magic—or maybe you’re not new to either and just created a new account for fun—a handful of games just to get the hang of the interface and UI are helpful before you venture into real games. But, honestly, the non-ranked Standard queue is just as good a place to do this (for the most part) so you can probably skip ahead to how to bypass the whole thing.

When it comes to the real-player matches, you don’t need to win to complete them. Just try your best and lose—or concede if you’re in a rush—as you’ll still receive the rewards and the challenge will be marked as complete, win or lose.

You can edit the deck at this point, which means you can experiment with dual-colored decks if you want. If that’s your style, this might be a good jumping off point. Even a few wildcards and packs from daily quests give you the means to construct a better deck. If you're willing to spend a bit of money on bundles without breaking the bank, MTGA’s Welcome Bundle is for you.

How to Skip the MTG Arena Tutorial

All right, now for the part that some of you are probably here for in the first place. How do you skip the Color Challenge? It’s definitely possible.

The upside to this is that “skipping” the Color Challenges isn’t really skipping them, but just unlocking the rest of the game modes on MTG Arena which would otherwise be locked until you finish most of the challenges. You can still complete the Color Challenges after you do this, but you’ll also have all events and game modes available to you in the meantime.

Here’s how to “skip” the Color Challenges and unlock all game modes:

1. Open the “Adjust Options” menu on the top right

2. Go to “Account” at the bottom of the Options menu that appears

3. Select “Unlock Play Modes” at the top of the menu

4. A confirmation pop-up will appear asking you if you’re sure you’d like to skip the tutorial—Select “OK”

How to Replay the MTGA Tutorial

Did you miss something and want to go back? Want to skip the tutorial for now and then play through it later? Or maybe you really like fighting the AI nemeses that MTGA throws at you. Here's how you can go back to the tutorial; it's very simple.

Just go to the “Codex of the Multiverse” book-like button in the upper right of your screen.

You are presented with a bunch of articles and Magic topics, but on the right side of the screen is a giant button that says “Replay Tutorial.” Select that and you're good to go!

The Challenge is Over

Emberheart Challenger (Bloomburrow) | Illustration by Chris Rahn

That’s all there is to it! I hope I cleared everything up here today. If you wonder about anything else or have a comment, question, or concern, drop it in the comments and we’ll let you know what we think!

If you’re new to Arena, we’ve got some resources to toss at you before we’re done here. You might have earned some gold for use on Arena. First up is our Arena Tutor which is a great tracker that’s got our own AI built in to help you draft and play better. We also set up a guide for Arena to help you navigate all the resources we have and make the most of your Arena experience.

We appreciate your support no matter what form it takes. Thank you for reading, and stay safe out there!