MTGA
Magic: The Gathering Arena
Example
MTGA is great for practice, but nothing beats playing MTG at the ol' LGS
Related Slang
MTG | Magic: The Gathering |
CCG | Collectible card game |
TCG | Trading card game |
LGS | Local game store |
Topdeck | To draw from your deck |
Bomb | A really good card |
Bounce | Return a card to a player's hand |
Brew | Create an original deck |
Card advantage | Possessing more cards than another player |
ETB | Enters the battlefield |
Mulligan | To replace cards in your starting hand |
Magic: The Gathering players use MTGA as shorthand for Magic: The Gathering Arena, which is the game's F2P online version. MTGA was released in 2018 and is available for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
Just like the paper version of MTG, MTGA allows players to construct decks comprised of fantastic creatures and spells and battle opposing players. However, unlike in the paper version of MTG, MTGA players cannot buy or trade for specific cards. Instead, they must buy booster packs (and hope they open the cards they need) or redeem equivalent wildcards, which are earned over time.
MTGA also differs from paper Magic in other respects. For example, MTGA's Alchemy and Historic formats include digital-only and digitally-rebalanced cards, which don't exist IRL.