MTG Arena Wildcards: How to Get Them and The Best Ways to Use Them

Last updated on October 8, 2025

Feywild Trickster | Illustration by Iris Compiet

Are you new to MTG Arena? Do you ask yourself “what the heck are these wildcards I keep getting?” Are you building your first deck and want to know the best way to use these wildcards?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions then you’re in luck! I tackle everything related to Arena's wildcards. I explain what wildcards are and how you can get them, to strategies on the best ways to use them, as well as a step-by-step walkthrough on how to redeem them.

We’ve got quite a bit of ground to cover, so buckle up and try to hang on!

What are MTG Arena Wildcards?

Wildcards in MTG Arena are digital objects you can trade in or “craft” for any available card of the same rarity. This means that you can trade in a rare wildcard for any available rare card, an uncommon wildcard for any available uncommon card, etc.

As you can see above, these beautifully designed wildcards come in common, uncommon, rare, and mythic. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

If you’re familiar with them, wildcards are to MTG Arena what Arcane Dust is to Hearthstone. If that means nothing to you, then read on to find out more!

How Many Wildcards Do I Have?

You can check your number of wildcards with the lotus icon to the left of your gold. Hover over it or tap it to see the number of wild cards you have for each rarity.

If you click the lotus icon or tapped it on mobile, you can see a little more detail. Arena's vault fills up when you collect more than a playset of non-rares, and their suggested way to use wildcards is in the deck builder.

Now let’s get to the important part: how you can get your hands on them. If you think “Psh, easy! All I’ll have to do is spend a little gold or gems and I’ll be set!”, well, think twice again.

How Do I Get Wildcards If I'm New to MTGA?

In a nutshell, if you are new to MTGA, claim as many Arena codes as you can so you can open packs, build them into your decks to complete the daily quests, then go for Jump In! and Quick Drafts to start adding cards to your collection. Add Arena Tutor to easily track when you have four of a card in your collection. Save your unopened packs for late in the Mastery season, that way when you open all your packs you're more likely to reach duplicate protection (for rares and mythics) and earn wildcards because you have four of that common or uncommon.

How to Get Wildcards in MTG Arena

Wildfire Howl | Illustration by Manuel Castañón

How do I get wildcards in MTG Arena, you ask? The best way to get wildcards is to open packs. And yes, technically you can spend your hard-earned gold buying those, but why buy packs when you can get them for free?

Earning and Opening Packs in MTGA

Getting Packs

Around every fifth match-win, you’ll have amassed enough XP to snag a free pack as a reward. You can take a look at our Mastery article for more info on level progress and level mastery. After a while, you win a pack for nearly every other level up.

Another way to earn free packs is by winning events and drafts. This will earn you both XP and packs, which makes it a double whammy. It adds up quickly if you play consistently.

Another option is to check out our promo codes article for a list of all the latest codes for your viewing pleasure, and how to redeem those MTGA codes, make sure you don't miss those.

Opening Packs and Getting Wildcards

So, why are you trying to get all these packs, exactly? To put it simply, every time you open a pack there’s a chance that one (or more) of the cards will be a wildcard. They basically act as a substitute for a card from that pack in the equivalent rarity.

Every wildcard rarity has a specific chance attached to it of how often it will appear in packs. Kind of like a drop rate, except instead of killing a monster in a video game and picking up loot, you open a digital pack of cards in a simulated card game. The more packs you open, the faster you run through those chances, and the quicker you get wildcards!

Here’s a breakdown of how often you can expect to see wildcards in the packs you open along with the percent chance that you’ll see the associated rarity:

By this logic, you can puzzle out how many wildcards you can expect when you open a pack if you keep track of every time you get one. Or, if you’re opening a bunch of packs, how many wildcards you’ll probably get by opening all of them.

How many rare wildcards from 45 packs in MTG Arena, I hear you ask? Well, let’s do the math. Don’t worry, it’s pretty simple. Since rare wildcards are expected to drop once every 30 packs opened, you’ll probably end up getting just the one with one mythic, nine uncommon, and 15 common wildcards. If you’re incredibly unlucky, though, don’t worry! There’s a system in place to help you.

Called the “pity timer”, every time you don’t get a wildcard of any rarity when opening a pack, the drop rates for that rarity will increase. Once you get a wildcard of the increased drop rate’s rarity, the drop rates go back to normal. This keeps probability—which can be a fickle, fickle thing—from keeping those coveted rare and mythic wildcards out of your hands because of a silly little thing like bad luck.

Advancing the Wildcard Wheel of Progression

OK, so opening lots of packs will inevitably get you wildcards. But what if I told you that opening packs itself also gets you closer to earning wildcards through the wildcard Track? “The what?”, you ask. These beautiful things right here:

Every time you open a pack, a bar on each track will light up until you’ve got six lit bars. At that point, you’ll get a wildcard of the associated rarity from the completed track and it'll reset to zero.

The smaller of the two tracks gives you uncommon wildcards every time it’s completed, while the bigger of the two Tracks alternates between giving you rare and mythic wildcards. You’ll get four rare wildcards the first four times you complete the Track and then it’ll switch and give you one mythic wildcard before restarting and cycling through again.

As a side note, MTG Arena draft packs do not count for wildcards. You won’t get wildcards in the packs and opening them doesn’t count towards the wildcard Track. The same goes for other Limited formats like Sealed.

Opening the “Vault”

There’s also the Vault to talk about. This one is also pretty simple: once you’ve collected four copies of a common or uncommon card, each extra one that you get will go into the Vault.

The Vault will open once you’ve gathered enough card duplicates and give you a reward in the form of three uncommon, two rare, and one mythic wildcard.

Buy A Wildcard Bundle

The Arena store-bought option is there to help players who need wildcards specifically and don't want to open an equivalent number of packs.

The two individual Wildcard Bundles are four rare wildcards for $9.99 and four mythic wildcards for $19.99. These are pretty expensive, especially for wildcards.

If WotC is serious about giving players a workaround to getting our hands on more wildcards, they surely can come up with something better than this. I mean, at the very least, it could cost less and actually be good at what it's supposed to do.

The Best Way to Get More Wildcards

Unassuming Sage | Illustration by Michele Giorgi

Basically, the best way to get wildcards is to just open packs. Here’s what we’ve gone over so far:

• Every pack you open (whether you buy them or collect them for free) has a chance to contain any rarity wildcard
• Packs you open moves the wildcard track toward a wildcard and takes six packs per round.
• All card duplicates after four copies go towards your Vault progress which gives you wildcards once full

Unfortunately, there isn’t really a fastest way to get rare wildcards in MTG Arena, short of getting as many packs as possible to open.

Crafting: How to Redeem Wildcards in MTG Arena

Let’s say you have a bunch of wildcards saved up and you want to build a deck to play in MTGA. You’ve done a bunch of research and found the deck you want. This Orzhov Midrange deck, for instance:

Source

Method 1: Craft in Bulk

Whatever deck you’ve settled on, here’s how to redeem wildcards if you look to craft in bulk:

1. Open your “Decks” tab and then hit the white plus icon to start a new deck.

2. Before you do anything, go to the ‘Advanced Filters' button.

3. Check the “Not Collected” checkbox to ensure that cards you don’t have (and may want to craft using your wildcards) will appear and then select “OK.”

4. Select the format you want to build your deck for.

5. Add cards to your deck as you normally would until you've completed building your deck. Cards in white are owned, cards in red that are faded need to be crafted.

6. Select “Craft All” at the bottom of the decklist.

7. A pop-up appears to show how many wildcards of each rarity it will take to craft your deck. Choose “Finish Deck” to craft all the cards and complete your deck, or “Cancel” if you’ve changed your mind.

Method 2: Craft Individual Cards in the Deck Builder

Here’s how to use wildcards in MTG Arena one by one if you look to craft individual cards that you don't own any copies of:

1. Open your “Decks” tab and then hit the white plus icon to start a new deck.

2. Toggle the “Craft” switch at the top right of the main deck building screen.

3. Find the card you want to craft using the Search bar at the top left and then select it.

4. A pop-up will appear. Select how many of these cards you want to craft using the diamond icons directly below the card and then hit “Craft.”

Method 3: Craft Individual Cards in Your Collection

This option will work without having the ‘Craft' or ‘Not Collected' filters activated:

1. Open your “Decks” tab and then go to the “Collection” button at the bottom left of the screen.

2. Find the card you want to craft using the Search bar at the top left and then select it. If you don't already own at least one copy of the card you want to craft, choose “Craft” at the top right of the main deck building screen before you search for the card.

3. A pop-up will appear. Select how many of this card you want to craft using the diamond icons directly below the card and then select “Craft.”

It’s important to note that you can’t craft beyond the number of wildcards you have available to you in each rarity, so make sure to choose wisely when deciding on what deck or cards to craft. Conveniently, this segues nicely into the next topic to talk about: how to get the most value out of your wildcards.

Can You Trade Up / Exchange Wildcards?

No, you cannot currently trade up any common or uncommon wildcards in exchange for rare or mythic wildcards. Many players have wondered if this would be a positive solution to the poor MTGA economy, but it seems as if that won't ever happen. In an economy discussion on March 17, 2022, the MTGA developers stated that they had no plans to include this in the game.

10 Tips on How to Use Your Wildcards in MTGA for Max Value

Let's say you’ve unlocked Arena's free Starter decks, opened a few packs, and seen a couple of wildcards go by. You might ask yourself, what should I spend my wildcards on? It might be tempting to get a couple of new rares for that favorite preconstructed deck that you like so much.

Our advice is to stop that urge and don’t fall for that trap. As useful as pre-constructed decks are when you start out, they’re not worth upgrading a ton. There are better decks out there that will stand their ground much better on Constructed MTGA modes.

It pays to save up your wildcards until you know a good investment to use them on, like a top Standard deck. Here are 10 pointers to help you get the most out of your wildcards:

1. Don’t just trade-in for random cards: It might be tempting, but it doesn’t help your decks or progress. They might have some cool art or seem like a fun card, but if you can’t properly use it then it’s a waste of your wildcard.
2. Use commons and uncommons to improve your pre-cons and get deck building experience: The common and uncommon wildcards are the most abundant and the easiest to get, so try to tinker around with those to get some experience in deck building and crafting cards.
3. Save up rare and mythic wildcards: Almost all Standard decks require a high number of rares and mythics to craft, so saving wildcards up until you’re able to invest in one of those decks and get it in one go is well worth the wait.
4. Craft just one card for a Brawl deck. Play that Brawl deck to get experience with the card before you craft a full playset for other Constructed decks.
5. Suppress the urge to craft four of a single card. Even if it your favorite card in the world, sometimes the one deck you'd play it in best supports two or three copies, not four.
6. Prioritize rare and mythic (dual) lands: Any MTG deck gets a lot better when your land-base is good, and nothing helps that more than high-rarity dual lands, like shock lands or fetch lands. You can use them in all your decks, and they’ll last throughout the Standard period.
7. Don’t invest in cards right after rotation: We know it’s tempting to get that crushing deck that jumps to the top of the meta right after Standard rotates, but chances are that the format is still adjusting and it won’t last. Wait until things have settled down a bit before trading in your wildcards.
8. If trading individual cards, trade-in for cards that can go in multiple decks: This is similar to the reason for rare and mythic dual lands. Go for cards that show up in a multitude of decks so that you can switch if you’re not happy with your choice. This way you won’t have wasted the wildcard and can still use the card you traded it for.
9. Research the meta before committing to a deck: Arena Tutor has metagame data so you can see what's winning. There are plenty of sites to help you make your choice of a good deck. These provide some data on which decks and cards are seeing play: MTGGoldfish.com, MTGArena.Pro, and MTGDecks.net.
10. Don’t invest in cards that will rotate out soon: You won’t be able to use cards in the current Standard or the two-year rotating Alchemy that will be illegal when the Fall set releases. It could be a bit of a waste for the coveted rare and mythic wildcards. It’s better to bide your time and wait until the new meta has settled.

With these pointers in mind, you’re well on your way to successfully navigating to great card and deck choices using your wildcards with little to no regrets. Which is exactly where you want to be, we imagine.

In the end, it’s all about having fun. If you get great kicks out of building goofy decks, then by all means throw all these pointers to the wind and have a blast! If you’re more about competitive play, then these guidelines will definitely be of service.

Can You Trade With Other Players in MTGA?

No there's no way to trade with other players on Magic Arena. Wildcards were created to mimic the tabletop version of trading. MTGA doesn’t have an option to trade with other players. This is a big one that separates Arena from MTG Online and MTGA from IRL play which do offer trades. Wildcards are MTGA's way of making sure that you can still collect the cards that you need.

The entire MTG Arena business model and economy is predicated on the wildcard system detailed in this article, so don't hold out hope for Wizards to “implement trading” or “allow trading” some day. It's not going to happen.

Wildcards in Historic

Rona, Disciple of Gix | Illustration by Tommy Arnold

Historic is a non-rotating format where you build decks and play using cards in your collection from all sets currently available on Magic: The Gathering Arena as well as curated cards from across Magic's history. Timeless is the format that harnesses all cards on Arena, with no bans or rebalancing and just a few restricted cards, so any card you craft always has a format it can be played in.

The trade-in for MTG Arena Historic wildcards is the same as any rare-equivalent card, 1:1. This applies to cards that have rotated out of Standard, as well as any introduced Historic Anthology cards or Arena Anthologies.

How Do Wildcards Work with Different Prints and Card Styles?

You only need to get one of any print, art or card style to count for an individual card. So your wildcard stretches farther than it used to. For years, MTGA ate up wild cards if you wanted a specific art for a card you already had four of with the default treatment, now you can collect any printing of a card and it counts for one copy of any style you have of that card.

WotC internally calls it the “Thalia problem”, so with this example, you might have two of the Dark Ascension art, one of the Innistrad: Crimson Vow, and if you wanted the Multiverse Legends one, you'd only need to craft one new rare wildcard to allow four of that style to grace your decks. Definitely a quality of life improvement.

What Does “Wildcard Value” mean?

Where WotC says wildcard value, rest assured that it means the most marked up value possible for the gem-equivalent of the wildcards. In the case of the decklists you find occasionally under the Decks tab of the store, the gem value is quite inflated. I once saw a “27,100 wildcard value” on a deck originally priced at 14,000 gems. When I dug into the decklist, that gem count came from a rate of at least 40 gems per mythic, 20 gems per rare, 10 gems per uncommon, and about 5 gems per common. If you ask me, that's too much value assigned to uncommons and commons.

MTGA Bugs With Wildcards

When it comes to digital gaming, one thing that we always have to contend with is bugs and glitches. Some can actually turn out to be funny or entertaining, while others are just headaches to deal with. Luckily, the wildcard system has stayed pretty bug-free, but we did find one potential issue that you might run into.

Wildcard Trade-in Bug

A few players have had issues with the trade-in of wildcards not working. The animation would play when trading in wildcards, but the new card wouldn’t be added to their library. Thankfully, the wildcard also didn't disappear into the void. Small victories. The fix for this bug is easy, all you have to do is restart the client and try again and you should be golden.

If you do happen to run into any trouble when dealing with wildcards—or any other bug for that matter—you should report it to Wizards’ support site.

Wildcard Wind Down

Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter | Illustration by Anna Steinbauer

With that, we’ve given you all that we can on the topic of wildcards. Hopefully, the info was helpful to you and you’ve got a better sense of how to go about collecting and using these cards. If you want to see more ways to get new cards in MTGA.

Don’t forget to check out the blog for all our articles and our AI-assisted MTGA Tracker, Arena Tutor. Follow Draftsim on Facebook for occasional posts when Arena spits out free gold or gems.

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