Jumpstart

MTG Arena (and also paper Magic) has a new format called Jumpstart, which I've been tooling around with.

As played in MTGA, you pay either like 2500 gold or 400 gems (which, I think, is about two or three bucks) and you'll get a selection of themed packs. You slap two of them together and you have a deck.

Thankfully, it looks as if you just get the cards for your collection, which include some very cool and unusual basic land art.

As a format... I'm not exactly sure I love it. You don't get to choose from all the different types of packs, so if you're gunning for anything in particular, you're a bit S.O.L.

The first deck I put together was a Card-Drawing blue set (with a very cool Island art that is basically an island made out of stacked books with waterfalls) and Minions, which is all about sacrificing your minions. And I've got to say, I was either unlucky in my opponents or both were really underpowered or possibly not synergistic at all with one another. I did eventually manage to squeeze out two wins, getting my rewards.

I then tossed in a bit more to play a new deck, though I was disappointed that once I had chosen Green Dinosaurs for my first set, I only had Blue and Black options, after having just done those colors. So I picked Vampires and this deck seemed to work a lot better, as I got my two wins in just three games, I believe.

Each time you buy in, your first two wins will get you a new rare card, so for example, I got two Carnifex Demons, which seem like they might fit well into my mono black deck.

Not sure I want to dump more of my gems into this instead of just regular packs, but it's an interesting twist to the format, and probably not a bad option for new players to get a sense of building decks around a theme.