When I read the title of LSV’s article “Going Infinite“, I had no idea what he meant. I thought it was some combo deck on MTGO. Once I realized what the article was about playing MTGO for free (after an initial investment), I was stoked. This topic is right up my alley since I have been “going infinite” in paper magic over the last year.

I logged into my account (I made one last year but never touched it) and I stared at the screen. Now what? I clicked on the store, “DANG booster packs are four bucks here too!” I click on some other buttons, I was lost. This is where my first tip was born.

Learn the Interface
Before picking a deck or buying cards it’s important to learn how to navigate and use MTGO. The interface includes these options Play, Shop, Draft, Trade and New Player. We are going to skip Play, Draft and New Player options for now- We can revisit those later when you are actually ready to play.

Shop
The shop in MTGO sucks; I ordered tickets with paypal and it took two days of emails with support to get them. You can get tickets at the websites below. If you shop around you maybe able to get tickets for less than a dollar. If all else fails you can use the shop; I’ve heard from other people that their transactions went much smoother than mine did.

If you need cards immediately then you can buy them from these websites:

Cardhoarder this is my first pick for purchasing cards for MTGO, because if you pay cash you get a little discount. After you make a purchase, add the user name “cardhoarder” to your buddy list and message them with the order number. They will prepare a trade for you and you can get the cards you ordered. You can also order cards from MTGO Traders. I recommend that you reference these websites when doing trades or buying cards on MTGO

If you can wait a while for the cards then the best way to get them is to goto the classifieds section, you get there by clicking Trade.

Trade
The section is confusing at first (or maybe I’m just dumb), basically there are three types of post; trade, selling, buying. There are also two types of posters; human and bot. Bots are software accounts that will buy your cards (or sell you cards) at the advertised prices.

All buying and selling is done with tickets, so if you don’t have any go get some before you post a classified ad. Once you have some tickets then post an ad with buy prices that are slightly higher than the bot prices but lower that Cardhoarder. This will save you some cash.

When buying cards, deal with the “nice guys” and avoid the Jerks. There are some guys that will throw in the common and uncommons that you need with the rares that you are buying (trading) from them. I only deal with these guys and I politely say pass to the guys who are not willing to do this. Why reward someone for being a Jerk?

Let people know that you are new and try to network. Getting trade partners will help you gain quick access to cards/ packs if you need them.

What Deck to Play
I will take a page from LSV and recommend that you play standard constructed. Winning a constructed 8 man will yields the best prize support.

I built standard elves when I started on MTGO. The deck was cheap and I knew that a good chunk of the deck would be viable in extended, should I want to play that format. I don’t recommend elves at the moment since there isn’t a good elf deck at the moment.

I recommend RB Blightning (something close to the list that Flores ran, updated with Zen of course). If he can win with this deck then you will win plenty of matches and its cards are viable in both standard and extended; some even in classic/legacy (Lightning Bolt). These cards are also pretty cheap and they fall in the “throw me in on a purchase” category.

The other recommendation (if you can afford a little more) then I would recommend Jund Aggro (See the list on this blog). This deck is really good and relatively cheap with the exception of Maelstrom Pulse and a fetches. Blightning is a great stepping-stone to get to Jund. You might want to start with Blightning and work your way up to Jund.

Beating Face
I hope you got some great deals on cards. Before you get to beat face you should know a couple of things.

There is a timer in MTGO your timer shows how much time you have to play the match. If this timer runs out then you loose the match. This happened to an opponent of mine, who took forever to play and when he was swinging in with lethal damage the clock stopped and I won. One way I help save time is if I don’t have a play during my opponents turn (or if I have no way to respond to anything) then hit F6, this passes the priority for the turn. You need to be careful with this button. I did this with a Burrenton Forge-Tender on the board not realizing that I just neutered the little guy by passing my opportunity to use his ability.

There are no take backs in MTGO, pay attention and be intentional about the moves that you are making. I have already lost a couple of matches due to my hastiness. I recommend that you get some practice in by playing in the casual room (You can access this by clicking the New Player option). Alright, let’s get down to business.

Playing
Navigate to Menu>Play>Tournaments>8-Man Constructed in the bottom right hand corner. From this window will be able to play both 8-Man and 2-Man Constructed tournament.

Constructed 8-Man is single elimination but if you win the first match then you get two M10 Booster Packs (which is equivalent to 8 Tickets), the 8-Man cost six tickets to enter, so winning the first match will net you two tickets. If you win the next match in the 8-Man then you will either win five or three packs (which is a possible 14 ticket gain), depending on the outcome of the match. Constructed 2-Man pays one M10 booster if you win the match. It cost 2 Tickets to play in the 2-Man tournament. The 8-Man has more potential for reward so if you have the time play an 8-Man.

Pauper Magic
Any MTGO starter article would be an epic fail if it didn’t mention this format. It’s a format where you build a 60-card deck of all commons. I just got into Pauper magic so I don’t have a lot of insight. Deck lists are a bit troublesome to find, but a good place to start is Pure MTGO (Do a search for Pauper under “Article Library“). I am currently running Mono-Blue. It’s also worth noting that Pauper is a smaller initial investment than Constructed and also pays in M10 Packs.

Once you win a few matches you can sell you booster for more tickets. An M10 booster is worth 4 tickets and you can sell them in the classified section by posting “Human Selling M10 Booster Pack 4 Tickets” and that is the beginning of going infinite.

I hope that this has been helpful. If you are in MTGO, be sure to say, “Hi” – my handle is “jmedina”. Thanks for reading.