Shortcut to Mushrooms | Illustration by Jonas De Ro
With all its good and bad elements, at the end of the day, MTG Arena is a video game that does its best to emulate playing MTG online. Like many programs, Arena has a set of commands and keyboard shortcuts that can further enhance your game play experience.
Keyboard shortcuts make playing games and using computers much smoother, allowing you to control elements of the program with the least effort possible so you can focus your time and energy on making the best plays you can. While you may already know a few, I’m sure this list has at least one that you didn’t know.
Are you intrigued to know which one that may be? Let’s dive right into it!
What Is a Keyboard Shortcut?
The Grand Calcutron | Illustration by Sean Murray
Keyboard shortcuts are actions that can affect your game play when you press keys on your computer while playing on Arena. As you may already know, MTGA is a very interactive client with unique ways to set up plays, drag your cards onto the battlefield, and scroll between phases with your mouse. While some are unique in the sense that you can’t perform specific actions without using the keyboard, like undoing a play, others are there merely to hasten your gameplay session. We'll go over each keyboard shortcut and the scenarios they can be applied to.
Cycle Chat
Shortcut: [Tab]
Whether you're in the lobby or playing, you can hit Tab at any time to scroll from left to right on the chat screen, letting you contact any player in your contacts list. While I don’t really use it, it's a neat option for when you want to send a quick message beyond an emote to your opponent or your friends.
Show Phases
Shortcut: [L]
Unlike on MTGO where you can set “stops” on each player's phase to hold priority, MTG Arena only stops if you have an available play in order to make games flow smoothly and quickly. This creates a problem if you want to “bluff” plays, as you won’t be able to represent something unless you hold priority or are in full control. This can be bypassed, however, by activating the phases and manually adding stops in each. That way, you ensure that you hold priority whenever you want. The downside is that you have to do it each phase per player and it vanishes after a turn. However, if this seems tedious, there's an easier way to hold priority or set up stops.
Full Control
Shortcut: [Control]
You can press Ctrl to hold priority for a turn. This will make your hard work much easier if you plan on making complicated plays. However, it may be very annoying as this works on a play-by-play basis, meaning that every single play causes a stop, leading to continuous clicks over time.
Hold Full Control
Shortcut: [Shift] + [Control]
Same as Full Control, with the difference that this lasts forever until you turn it off by pressing the same combination of keys or Ctrl.
Pass Priority
Shortcut: [Space]
Like F2 on MTGO, passing priority means moving to the next phase or hitting ok on the client.
Pass Until Response
Shortcut: [Enter]
You can decide to pass the turn until your opponent makes a play. Do note that this skips your phases; if you do it before combat, you may miss the combat step entirely. The MTGO equivalent is F4.
Pass Turn
Shortcut: [Shift] + [Enter]
If you're familiar with what F6 does in MTGO, this is the MTG Arena equivalent. By pressing these keys, you'll pass the turn regardless of whether you have a play to make.
Undo
Shortcut: [Z]
If you find yourself in the situation of selecting the wrong target or tapping your mana incorrectly, the Z command is handy—as long as your effect hasn’t resolved yet. You can’t undo an action in the middle of resolution.
Float All
Shortcut: [Q] + [Q]
The single most useful ability that MTGO lacks and that MTG Arena has is tapping all your mana at once. Instead of adding mana manually to go with infinite combos and getting infinite mana, for example, you can just press Q twice to add all mana possible. This is very handy, and if you want to go backward, use the Undo (Z) command.
Quick Tap
Shortcut: [Hold Q] + [Click]
I didn’t know this one existed. If you press Q and then tap a land, the command taps all lands of the same name and adds the same mana. If you're playing mono-colored decks or just want to use one type of mana, this saves you some time.
This also works with mana dorks, even complicated ones like Gilded Goose.
Show Collection (Draft)
Shortcut: [Hold Alt]
Have you ever wondered if you already got a rare or mythic during a draft, or if you're missing some cards to fill your collection? By simply holding Alt in the middle of the draft portion, you can see how many copies of the cards you already have in your collection from the ones you can pick.
Using Arena Tutor to Further Improve Your MTG Arena Experience
If you're looking to further enhance your gameplay experience, I highly recommend installing the Arena Tutor Plugin. Here, you can track your match history, win rate, replays, collection, and more!
Like the main Client, the Arena Tutor Plugin has its own keyboard shortcuts that can be further customized from the interface to smooth your experience with it. Just be aware that all the work is only in overlay mode.
Open/Close App
Shortcut: [Alt] + [D]
Inside the client, this command is used to open or close the plugin.
Toggle Draft Window
Shortcut: [Alt] + [F]
While drafting, this will help you to expand or collapse the draft assistant window.
Toggle Lobby Window
Shortcut: [Alt] + [L]
At any time, this helps minimize the Arena Tutor main Lobby Window (Statistics, Current Match History, etc.).
Toggle Tracker Window
Shortcut: [Alt] + [T]
The tracker window helps you keep track of which cards you and your opponent have played throughout the course of a game and match.
Using a Gaming Mouse
Cheeky House-Mouse | Illustration by Uriah Voth
While you can always use your keyboard to improve your experience with the client further, it may take some time for you to react, especially when using both hands or a combination of keys.
If you're timing out and would like to reduce the time spent using keyboard shortcuts even further, I highly suggest using a gaming mouse with multiple buttons that can be assigned to commands and keyboard shortcuts. There’s a wide variety of mice you can use for this. As long as it has the capability to assign at least a couple more commands, you should be good to go.
I personally use the Logitech G502 because its wide variety of buttons are more than enough for Arena’s keyboard shortcuts.
The best part is that you can program different profiles for other activities you may want to use this mouse for. In my case, I can switch from video editing mode to writing to playing Arena or MTGO, where I have drastically improved my actions per minute, allowing me to have plenty of time on my hands when I'm playing compared to my opponents. It's a slight improvement but one that does matter, especially if you want to start taking the game seriously.
- Hero 25K sensor through a software update from G HUB, this upgrade is free to all players: Our most advanced, with 1:1 tracking, 400-plus ips, and 100 - 25,600 max dpi sensitivity plus zero smoothing, filtering, or acceleration
- 11 customizable buttons and onboard memory: Assign custom commands to the buttons and save up to five ready to play profiles directly to the mouse
- Adjustable weight system: Arrange up to five removable 3.6 grams weights inside the mouse for personalized weight and balance tuning
- Programmable RGB Lighting and Lightsync technology: Customize lighting from nearly 16.8 million colors to match your team's colors, sport your own or sync colors with other Logitech G gear
- Mechanical switch button tensioning: Metal spring tensioning system and pivot hinges are built into left and right gaming mouse buttons for a crisp, clean click feel with rapid click feedback
Wrap up
Tidy Conclusion | Illustration by Bastien L. Deharme
As you saw, staying ahead of everyone else, especially in the online environment, often requires more than just strategic prowess—it demands a deep knowledge of the tools at your disposal, and I hope that this guide gave you a better grasp of the ones available.
Did you discover a new keyboard shortcut on Arena? What’s your favorite way to making gaming easier? Let me know in the comments and, as always, if you found this article helpful, consider following us on Twitter/X to stay up to date with the daily articles we publish.
Take care, and we will catch up again in my next one!
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