One thing I've been very happy to see playing Magic The Gathering Arena is that I see a fair number of different decks amongst my opponents.
Certainly, there are some archetypes that I keep coming across - like Orzhov life-gain mixed with Ajani's Pridemate, or a plethora of Vampire decks. Some of these are clearly slight variations on the 15 constructed decks you'll automatically get for playing (one for each color, and then one themed on each of the Ravnica guilds) so I can't complain that much.
In all honesty, my mono-blue mill deck (which I call "Mind Games") is one I've seen others play, though I think that's less because it's some net-decked copy and more because the cards in it - stuff like Drowned Secrets - is all pretty obvious, and there aren't a ton of options (I've definitely been having a better time since swapping out some Negates and putting in Essence Scatter - the former counters non-creature spells while the latter counters only creature spells, both for 1U).
Still, I feel like things are diverse enough that I can pop in an odd deck and win with it with a bit of luck and some good play.
Right now I'm thinking my Dimir deck feels like it needs more of a thematic hook. I've tended to like Blue/Black in part for just the flavor of it, but also because I like Blue's controll-y elements with Black's aggression and removal. Right now I have a fair number of vampires in it, but stuff like the Bloodied Aerialist or whatever that's called feel kind of off-theme in a deck that's not built around life-gain.
I splurged a little on some gems, but I've been holding them in reserve. I'm thinking I'll grab some more when Zendikar Rising comes out and I can get a whole mess of cards with the new set and try to build something around new mechanics. I'd love to try out some of the Ikoria stuff, but the initial dollars I slapped down I focused more on the Guilds of Ravnica block because that's what I was familiar with (and with the free decks focused on those, it's been easy to build onto them.) And I'm hesitant to just plunk down a fortune to invest so quickly in what is effectively my third collection of Magic cards (I assume my MTGO account is still, like, existent, but I doubt I'll be accessing it any time soon. Meanwhile my cardboard cards are mostly more than 20 years old and probably staying there until my next-of-kin decides to see what they can get for them after I've croaked.
That got dark.
Anywho.
The lack of card-trading and thus specific-card selling is, I imagine, a force that has made most players work with what they've got. I remember how MTGO back in the day was all about trading Contest Passes to bots that would sell cards, and here, instead, you just acquire tokens that can be traded in for certain rarities of cards.
The way this token system appears to work, as far as I can tell, is this:
Each time you open a new pack, you get some progress toward a new uncommon and a new rare card, and every few rares, you get progress toward a mythic rare card. If you already have four copies of a card, you just get a full on token in the pack instead of that card. Also, I think sometimes you just get a token instead of your ordinary rare card per pack, which is pretty cool.
The tokens can then be turned in whenever you want to make a card of that rarity. You can actually build a deck out of cards you have and don't have, and you can then hit a "craft all" button that, if you have the tokens for it, will craft the full deck.
So, actually, it might be easier to get the ultra-rare cards than it was in MTGO, because any rare card is just a rare card, unlike real trading situations, where a Royal Assassin, as awesome as it is, is a lot easier to get than a Black Lotus.
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