The Ultimate Guide to Contender Drafts on MTG Arena

Last updated on April 30, 2026

Wild Guess | Illustration by Lucas Graciano

MTG Arena has a plethora of ways we can draft a new set, even considering just the typical offerings: Quick Draft, Premier Draft, Traditional Draft, and Pick-Two Draft. Beginning with Secrets of Strixhaven, the Arena team experimented with a new Draft queue called Contender Draft, which is a high-stakes, competitive option.

Today, we look at this new Contender Draft option and to gauge its expected value. I’ll compare the expected value of each event, considering the number of in-game resources we pay to get into them and the potential rewards, be it in gems, packs, or more.

What Are Contender Drafts on MTG Arena?

Last One Standing | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Contender Drafts have a similar set-up to a Premier Draft on MTG Arena. You draft with seven other human players, and you’ll play Limited games with your drafted deck. The games are best-of-one, and you play until you reach 7 wins or 3 losses, just like Premier.

The main difference is that you’ll pay twice as much to enter this Draft queue, and the rewards are more than double if you manage to reach 5-7 wins.

Unfortunately, you don’t get any rewards if you only manage to win 0-2 games. Contender Draft is a Premier Draft that has the prize structure heavily concentrated on the top.

Who Is Contender Draft For?

Contender Draft is for people who are confident in their draft skills. If you go 5-3, 6-3, or 7-2 regularly in Premier Draft, you might want to take a look at Contender Draft. However, if your win rate is lower and you don’t have that many spare gems on Arena (like most free-to-play players and regular players), then you’d better stay in the Premier queues or the Pick-Two queues.

Contender Draft Entry Fee

The entry fee for Contender Draft is double the amount of gems or gold required to enter a Premier Draft: Contender Draft is 3,000 gems or 20,000 gold, while Premier Draft costs 1,500 gems or 10,000 gold. 3,000 gems is around $20, just to give you an idea if you need to buy gems directly from the MTG Arena store.

Contender Draft Rewards

The prize structure for Contender Draft is slightly different from the one in Premier Draft: One thing that immediately calls our attention is that you get no rewards for 0-2 wins, which is similar to the prize structure MTG Arena uses in its highly competitive events:

• 0 wins: no rewards
• 1 win: no rewards
• 2 wins: no rewards
• 3 wins: 1,400 gems, 3 packs
• 4 wins: 2,800 gems, 6 packs
• 5 wins: 3,200 gems, 8 packs
• 6 wins: 4,200 gems, 10 packs, 4 mythic packs
• 7 wins: 7,200 gems, 12 packs, 10 mythic packs

Considering that it costs 3,000 gems to enter, you should have a good idea of whether you’re getting a good return on your gem investment or not. Four wins gives you a return over your initial investment, while five wins lets you join the next queue.

Are Contender Drafts Ranked?

Yes, Contender Drafts are ranked, and you should be paired with players around your rank for the matches, besides other criteria used in Arena drafts like the number of victories in a run.

Are Contender Drafts Best-of-1? Best-of-3?

Contender Drafts are best-of-1, and the closest comparison on Arena is the best-of-1 Premier Draft. There isn’t a best-of-3 Contender Draft option, or Traditional Draft, as Arena likes to call it.

Are Cards from a Contender Draft Added to Your Collection?

Yes, they are. Like a regular draft, all cards you draft are added to your collection. Aside from the entry fee and the prize structure, it’s equal to a Premier Draft. This isn’t a Phantom Event, which is what Arena calls the Limited events in which you don’t add the cards to your collection (Cube is a great example of a Phantom Event).

Is Contender Draft Worth It?

In Contender Draft, there’s a much higher risk and a much higher reward. This table illustrates how much you pay to enter (3,000 gems or 20,000 gold) and how much you get in “game value” with each win rate. For example, you need to win at least 4 matches to have a net positive in-game value, and at least 5 matches to leave the draft with more gems than you’ve paid up front.

This table provides a quick comparison of the value and the rewards. In the “value” column, I’m considering that each regular pack is worth 100 gems and each mythic pack is worth 130 gems. The entry fee is 3,000, so the net win is just the value subtracted from 3,000. Quick notes here:

• If you win fewer than 3 matches, you don’t get any rewards – Zero, zip, zilch, nada. That’s scary.
• Three wins is okay, but 4 wins gives you almost a new entry into the next draft, and you break even considering the value of the packs.
• From 5 wins on, we’re in business. If you trophy (7 wins) a Contender Draft, that’s the dream, and players who can do that consistently will complete their collections on Arena very fast. And that’s much better when we take into account that the 22 boosters you get will give you a lot of wildcards.

In the end, it all comes down to your win rate. Just take into consideration that players in the Contender Draft queues will be much more competitive. They’ll build better decks and make fewer mistakes, so there’s going to be fiercer competition.

Also of note: In an Arena Premier Draft or Contender Draft, all drafted cards are added to our collection, and it’s hard to really quantify how much value we get in Vault % or drafted rares and mythics. There is added value here, it's just difficult to quantify.

Is Contender Draft Good for New Players?

No, it’s not recommended for new players, and I’d strongly advise against it. It’s a high-risk, high-reward Draft format recommended for veteran, competitive players only. When I draft on MTG Arena and get a 1- or 2-win run, that’s okay, because sometimes we draft an okay-to-bad deck, have bad luck, and our opponents trample us with good bombs and a killer curve. In the case of Contender Drafts, losing 3,000 gems or 20,000 gold is miserable.

Contender Draft vs. Premier Draft

Here’s a quick comparison between the expected value of each Draft queue according to your wins:

Both Premier and Contender Draft give you negative EV at anything below 3 wins. They break even at 4-5 wins, and you get a huge reward at 6-7 wins. In Premier Draft, the rewards aren’t huge, but you can recoup from a bad draft much more quickly, and you’ll get better rewards on average if your win rate is below 6 matches. In Contender Draft, you’ll strike gold at 6 and 7 wins, but failing to reach 3 wins is very bad.

What Sets Have Contender Draft?

For now, the only set that has had Contender Draft is Secrets of Strixhaven, and we don’t have any confirmation on whether it’ll be a regular feature yet. It was only available for a week after the set’s release, so it’s clear that it’s something they’re experimenting with. WotC even lists Contender Draft as a limited-time event on their website.

Contender Draft can be a regular option in future sets if it’s popular among players. Wizards can also extend this to Cube Draft whenever it’s available. Or, there’s also the possibility that Contender Draft fails, so it’s not going to be a regular offer, or it receives changes and updates along the way (mainly in the prize structure).

Wrap Up

Acclaimed Contender | Illustration by David Gaillet

And that’s about it for Contender Draft, guys. I’ll be quite honest, I think Contender Drafts are in a weird spot, considering that casual players probably won’t get into them, and it doesn't have massive appeal for competitive players. I’m usually a 3-3, 4-3, or 5-3 guy in Arena Drafts, so I’m not the target for Contender Drafts.

The fact that popular and competitive Draft streamers like Paul Cheon or Numot the Nummy didn't stream SOS Contender Draft means that maybe there’s not that great of an incentive to enter this queue, or maybe they stream so much MTG that they’ll get the rewards anyway. Popular streamers also want players in the queue so they can fire as many drafts as they can during stream time. If they get into a Contender Draft and the queue doesn’t fire or takes a long time to do so, it’s going to be bad for content creation.

What do you think about Contender Drafts, guys? Did you join one of these competitive queues? Let me know in the comments section below. And for more information on MTG and Limited, check out Draftsim’s YouTube Channel, The Daily Upkeep.

Until next time, stay safe!