Last updated on December 31, 2023

Rally the Ranks - Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Rally the Ranks | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

The ultimate prize? A mythic rank.

Like many parts of MTGA, the ranking system is not very well-explained or intuitive to grasp without a lot of further research. You might be wondering what it’s used for, how it’s calculated, when it resets, and more.

Our goal is to give you (and us, too!) a better understanding of why WotC created this system and what it’s used for. Let’s get to it and crank it up!

What Are the Ranks in MTG Arena?

Assemble the Legion - Illustration by Eric Deschamps

Assemble the Legion | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

Ranks in MTG Arena are used for pairing during matchmaking, qualification for special events, and end-of-season rewards.

The ranks are as follows:

  • Bronze
  • Silver
  • Gold
  • Platinum
  • Diamond
  • Mythic

The more you win, the more you move up this ranking “ladder.” Each rank besides Mythic has a tier, starting at tier 4 going up to tier 1, that you progress up as you win.

Which MTG Arena Events Use Ranks?

To help you see your progress as a player, MTGA has created Ranked play. After every match you win or lose in this mode, you’ll either move up or down “The Ladder” based on whether you won or lost, respectively.

What type of games are ranked, you ask? That’s easy to spot as they’ve got a “Ranked” tab with the modes you can play:

This means that there are:

  • Ranked BO1 matches for Standard Constructed
  • Ranked BO3 matches for Standard Constructed
  • Ranked BO1 matches for Historic Constructed
  • Ranked BO3 matches for Historic Constructed
  • Ranked BO1 matches for Alchemy Constructed
  • Ranked BO3 matches for Alchemy Constructed
  • Ranked BO1 matches for drafts in the Limited format (format varies, calendar here)
  • Ranked BO1 matches for Explorer Constructed
  • Ranked BO3 matches for Explorer Constructed
  • Ranked BO1 matches for Timeless Constructed
  • Ranked BO3 matches for Timeless Constructed

In these formats, your rank determines who your opponents are by matching you with other players that have (approximately) the same rank as you.

What Are All the Rank Symbols/Icons?

First off, if you use our MTGA deck tracker, Arena Tutor, you can just hover over your opponent's rank icon at the end of the match to find out what rank they were:

Postgame summary screen in Arena Tutor showing opponent rank

So you should definitely be doing that so you don't have to check this article anymore!

Otherwise, here are the icons for constructed:

RankTier 4Tier 3Tier 2Tier 1
Bronzebronze 4 constructedbronze 3 constructedbronze 2 constructedbronze 1 constructed
Silversilver 4 constructedsilver 3 constructedsilver 2 constructedsilver 1 constructed
Goldgold 4 constructedgold 3 constructedgold 2 constructedgold 1 constructed
Platinumplatinum 4 constructedplatinum 3 constructedplatinum 2 constructedplatinum 1 constructed
Diamonddiamond 4 constructeddiamond 3 constructeddiamond 2 constructeddiamond 1 constructed
Mythicmythic constructed
Unrankedunranked constructed

And the icons for limited:

RankTier 4Tier 3Tier 2Tier 1
Bronzebronze 4 limitedbronze 3 limitedbronze 2 limitedbronze 1 limited
Silversilver 4 limitedsilver 3 limitedsilver 2 limitedsilver 1 limited
Goldgold 4 limitedgold 3 limitedgold 2 limitedgold 1 limited
Platinumplatinum 4 limitedplatinum 3 limitedplatinum 2 limitedplatinum 1 limited
Diamonddiamond 4 limiteddiamond 3 limiteddiamond 2 limiteddiamond 1 limited
Mythicmythic limited
Unrankedunranked limited

MTG Arena Ranked Season Rewards

Depending on your finishing placement at the end of the season, you'll be awarded packs, cosmetics, and gold by MTGA. The higher you finish, the more stuff you get.

Here's what you get for finishing at a particular rank at the end of each month:

Rank at End of SeasonReward
Mythic5 Packs, 1000 Gold, 2 Card Styles
Diamond4 Packs, 1000 Gold, 2 Card Styles
Platinum3 Packs, 1000 Gold, 2 Card Styles
Gold2 Packs, 1000 Gold, 1 Card Style
Silver1 Pack, 500 Gold
Bronze1 Pack

And here's a visual view of what you can get:

Rewards for MTGA Constructed and Limited ranking

You get more rewards, though admittedly nothing amazing, as you work your way up the ranking system

I know, this looks kind of paltry compared to the amount of time you're putting in.

Another advantage is that the higher you finish by the end of a season, the higher up you’ll start on the next. Not a bad thing when you remember how much time it took to reach that rank in the first place.

Being in the top tiers of Mythic can also get you invited to the Qualifier Weekend each month if you manage to land in the top 250 players the previous season. That can be a pretty hard task, but don't give up now! If you manage to land in the top 1200 players, but not the top 250, you still get a free entry into a Qualifier Play-In. Winning a Qualifier Play-In is your entry ticket into the Qualifier Weekend, which is just one more step away from the MTG Arena Championship!

How Do MTG Arena Ranks Work?

Teferi’s Time Twist - Illustration by Ralph Horsley

Teferi's Time Twist | Illustration by Ralph Horsley

Now that you’ve seen where you can acquire your rank, let’s see what it looks like and how it works (you can always check your rank on your Arena Profile). There are two “ladders” for you to climb, so to speak. One for Constructed Ranked (which encompasses BO1 and BO3 play) and one for Limited Ranked.

Each ladder has six ranks: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Mythic, and each rank is broken down into four tiers.

Can You Go Down in Rank on MTG Arena?

No, once you’ve climbed to a new rank (e.g., from Bronze to Silver) you won’t get knocked back down to a lower rank. In the first rank (Bronze), losses don’t lose you any tiers but once you get to the next rank (Silver) you will start to lose tiers if you lose a match.

So once you've made Mythic in MTG Arena, you won't drop out until the end of the season.

Take a look at the table below to see how all of this breaks down for Constructed BO1, Constructed BO3, and Limited play:

Constructed BO1

RankSteps Gained with WinSteps Lost with LossSteps Needed to Advance a Tier
Bronze206
Silver216
Gold216
Platinum116
Diamond116

Constructed BO3

RankSteps Gained with WinSteps Lost with LossSteps Needed to Advance a Tier
Bronze206
Silver226
Gold226
Platinum226
Diamond226

Limited BO1

RankSteps Gained with WinSteps Lost with LossSteps Needed to Advance a Tier
Bronze204
Silver215
Gold215
Platinum115
Diamond115

Don't forget, there's no ranked BO3 play for limited. Unfortunately…

Once you’ve moved all the way up to Mythic, you won’t get any more ranks or tiers. At this point, WotC starts using your MMR to calculate where you fall among all the other players that have also attained Mythic rank.

When and How Does Your MTG Arena Rank Reset?

Endless Ranks of Dead - Illustration by Ryan Yee

Endless Ranks of Dead | Illustration by Ryan Yee

Each season is about a month long and rankings reset for everyone approximately at the end of the month. Your rank and tier in the new season are determined by how far you’ve climbed up the ranking ladder in the previous season.

This means that if you play regularly and you play well, you’ll have the advantage in the new season of starting out in a higher ranking and tier.

Your rank does decay at the end of the season. Here’s a breakdown of where you’ll start at the beginning of a new season based on your rank in the previous season:

Previous RankNew RankPrevious RankNew RankPrevious RankNew Rank
Bronze tier 4 Bronze tier 4 Silver tier 1 Bronze tier 2 Platinum tier 2 Gold tier 4
Bronze tier 3 Bronze tier 4 Gold tier 4 Bronze tier 1 Platinum tier 1 Gold tier 3
Bronze tier 2 Bronze tier 4 Gold tier 3 Silver tier 4 Diamond tier 4 Gold tier 3
Bronze tier 1 Bronze tier 3 Gold tier 2 Silver tier 3 Diamond tier 3 Gold tier 2
Silver tier 4 Bronze tier 3 Gold tier 1 Silver tier 2 Diamond tier 2 Gold tier 2
Silver tier 3 Bronze tier 3 Platinum tier 4 Silver tier 1 Diamond tier 1 Gold tier 1
Silver tier 2 Bronze tier 2 Platinum tier 3 Gold tier 4 Mythic Platinum tier 4

You can see that the higher you’re ranked in a previous season, the easier it’ll be to reach that same ranking much faster in the new season.

How Are MTG Arena Rankings Calculated?

WotC uses a Glicko rating system. This system was invented as an improvement of the Elo rating system and was originally meant to be used as a rating system for competitive chess. An exchange between Chris Clay and Sam Black on twitter shed some light on how MMR (matchmaking rank) is calculated and is the only indication on the exact system used in MTG Arena at this time:

Glicko is a rather complex system, so we’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. If you’d like a more in-depth read on Glicko you can either check out this pdf (original Glicko system) or this one (Glicko-2 system with slight improvements for more accuracy).

The Glicko rating system uses three factors for its calculations: rating, deviation, and volatility. These factors can be used to calculate your ratings deviation (RD), which measures the accuracy of your rating, with one RD being the same as one standard deviation. They use some pretty complex algebra to get to the correct RD, so won't bore you with the details here. You can check out the previously mentioned PDFs if you want to take a crack at it yourself.

To put it in very simple terms, the formulas show how to determine your rating at the end of a “previous period of play” (i.e., the end of a match on MTGA). This can then be used to determine where you should be at the beginning of a new period (i.e., your next match on MTGA).

Obviously this is an extremely simple way to boil down complicated calculations, but what it means for MTG Arena is that it's there to make sure that you are being paired with the best possible opponent, and to determine who are the best players on the platform.

How Many Hours Does it Take to Get to Mythic?

Collected Company - Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel

Collected Company | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel

At a fiery 70% win rate, you still need 50 hours to make Mythic in constructed. That same win rate would get you to Mythic in Limited in “only” 45 hours.

Win Percentage Hours Needed for Constructed Hours Needed for Limited
40% to 45% Infeasible 2114
70% 50 45

In an article by Frank Karsten (who even wrote the code so you can try your own hand at these calculations) broke down how many hours you need to spend playing MTGA to make it from the start of the ladder all the way up to Mythic for both Constructed and Limited.

Quick note: We’ve combined Constructed BO1 and BO3 as it’s best to switch from BO1 to BO3 at Gold rank tier 4 for the push to Mythic.

With seasons lasting about 30 days, you’d need to play Constructed about two hours a day and Limited about an hour and a half a day to get to Mythic.

With a win rate percentage of 40% to 45%, though, reaching Mythic in both Constructed and Limited isn’t feasible as there literally aren't enough hours in a day for you to reach your goal. The alternative is to shoot for Gold rank instead, which should be reasonable to attain with an average win rate.

What is the Mythic Percentage in MGTA?

Gold-Forged Sentinel - Illustration by James Zapata

Gold-Forged Sentinel | Illustration by James Zapata

So you've played your way to Mythic and have that beautiful logo beside your name, but instead of a numerical rank, you have what looks like a percentage next to the mythic icon.

That percentage is your percentile as a player in Mythic. So if you are Mythic 90%, that means you are better than 90% of other Mythic players who are also not on the leaderboard. The intent is to show you your distance from the leaderboard in terms of a percent.

In that example, you would need to climb through another 10% of mythic players until you crack the “leaderboard,” which would then give you a ranking from 1 to 1,200.

Good Luck On Your Mythic Quest!

Splinter Twin - Illustration by Goran Josic

Splinter Twin | Illustration by Goran Josic

We’ve finally come to the end of the line.

There are a few interesting articles that we came across while doing research on the topic that we feel are a nice bonus to share with you as further reading material:

One last thing – if you want to get some incredible AI draft advice and track your win rate on your way to mythic (for constructed too!) you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't check out our free app Arena Tutor. It is truly awesome.

Follow Draftsim for awesome articles and set updates:

20 Comments

  • Avatar
    Aruku64 December 20, 2019 3:48 pm

    Useful article, but I think it should differentiate between the season rank and the MMR.

  • Avatar
    antlr April 30, 2020 9:38 pm

    As of Apr. 30 update for this new season, I ranked up 2 steps at a time in Gold constructed BO1! Either there has been a rank inflation and Gold is now being treated like Silver was previously, or maybe now once you’ve been bumped down at the start of the season there is extra protection of 2 steps up for a win and 1 down for a loss until you achieve the next metal rank again. You might need to update your article!

    • Avatar
      Dan Troha May 1, 2020 9:21 am

      Thanks, fixed!

  • Avatar
    Gills May 28, 2020 3:53 pm

    It seems that this article has Platinum and Diamond tiers reversed. I went through Platinum to get to Diamond, not the other way around.

    • Avatar
      Dan Troha May 28, 2020 5:47 pm

      Whoops, fixed! Thanks for pointing that out.

  • Avatar
    Sazemek June 21, 2020 8:33 am

    <50% Win rate

  • Avatar
    Kasper July 31, 2020 12:53 am

    Is there any way to tell how big a % of the player base ends up in different tiers at the end of a season?

    • Avatar
      Dan Troha July 31, 2020 8:39 am

      This sounds like a great idea for a post. That information is not publicly available, but I bet we could calculate it from Arena Tutor!

  • Avatar
    Anthony August 18, 2020 7:56 pm

    Well I lost 3 games in a row as diamond tier 2 and was placed against a Mythic 84%. So clearly we aren’t matched against players in just our ranks. Win or losing streak.

    • Avatar
      Craig C October 7, 2020 11:53 pm

      It starts with those with the same Ranking and similar MMR and then expands the search out as you wait in the queue if it is having trouble finding someone for your match. Basically after a pre-determined time if it cannot find a Diamond Tier 2 opp
      onent for you with a similar MMR it will then check Diamond Tier 1 and Diamond Tier 3. If it again fails to find someone of a similar MMR it will expand the range again, this time to Mythic XX% and Diamond Tier 4. It continues to do this til you have an opponent of a similar MMR.

  • Avatar
    Eric Jenson September 24, 2020 10:42 am

    I am certain that your percentage in Mythic is NOT your percentage among all players, as pretty much everyone in Mythic has a percentage in the 90s. I assume (though I have no idea how to test this) that the percentage is actually the percentage of the Glicko score compared to the 1500 ranked player.

    • Avatar
      Dan Troha September 24, 2020 11:08 am

      Thanks. Can you explain a little further and/or provide a source for that?

    • Avatar
      Jason Graves November 14, 2020 1:24 pm

      I think it is comparing you to all mythic players that are below the 1500th rank. That would explain why you would go from 99% to 1500.

  • Avatar
    Alan December 9, 2020 3:01 am

    Back some maybe 4 months ago I would easily reach to Mythic. But now, especially after the new edition, it has been tough. I am finally reaching to the 70%, 80%, after I have finally taken decision to have a one color only deck.

    • Avatar
      Dan Troha December 9, 2020 10:35 am

      Glad you’re starting to see some progress! If you are looking for deck ideas, be sure to check out our new deck guides. In fact, there are some tier 1 monocolored decks there for you to use too.

  • Avatar
    Riley December 16, 2020 4:29 am

    I consider myself an intermediate limited player at best (I don’t think I’ve ever made it past platinum 3), and yet I was recently paired with a mythic player (ranked #112) in the second game of a premier draft. The wait/search time to find an opponent was less than a minute. I’m confused as to whether this is a result of that player’s mmr somehow being tolerably close to mine, which seems very unlikely, or if there are other factors taken into account such as draft picks/relative deck strength. It’s been difficult to find any clear information as to what or how much of those kinds of variables come into play in limited matchmaking, and it could be that it’s simply not publicly known. It just seems very unlikely that a player that far above my own rank/tier would be the ideal match when the system didnt seem to be struggling to find an opponent. Is there anything obvious I’ve missed in this or other articles that could explain the disparity? I should mention that while I did win the game it was extremely close, and again, I’ve never been ranked higher than platinum. Is there a way to view one’s own mmr?

  • Avatar
    william trychel February 22, 2021 7:52 am

    well here’s one for the books . was at tier 2 in diamond and lost 23 games straight and went all the way down to tier 4 start point . then went to mythic after about 4hrs of play and only lost 4 games after that . funny thing is that you cant possibly get that many bad draws but wow . when i finally started hits the draws i went up like a rocket so myself i dont know about this system . a side note is 11,863 life in one game a record ?

  • Avatar
    donslaine February 25, 2021 5:48 pm

    I’m confused about the number or rank slots you move up or down in BO3. Sometimes I’m moving down 1 slot when I lose, and sometimes its 2 slots. This is all in Platinum, been stuck there for a while. I’ve even moved up 4 slots in platinum with a win. Can anyone shed some light on this?

  • Avatar
    chris January 21, 2022 4:17 am

    What am I doing that is causing the opponent to go first at a high percent. In two blocks of 100 games it is 72/100 and 69/100 , this was a cpl months ago I kept track with pen and paper and it has not changed , there are continual streaks of 7 games straight where the opponent goes first, I got so used to it that when I go first it seems weird. Also is watching land screws I have determined that the top played decks are smoothed , it really ruins the game on mtg arena. The white deck for instance , for that small deck to not play it’s 4th land on round four , took 26 games. My non tournament very strong deck that for a couple months had no problem moving right up into mythic is now continually snarled and the 12 red removal cards are missing game after game against the white deck etc. It is a manipulation site. (I kept track of some other things that it would take pages to type out , basically found some of the guiding lines of an algorithm) Still not figuring the who goes first thing though and why the site allows people to strobe the cards , I have to quit those games.

    • Avatar
      Dan Troha January 23, 2022 12:14 pm

      Confirmation bias.

      I do agree though that I also get titled when my opponent lights my cards up…

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