Magic: The Gathering Arena is a free-to-play digital collectible card game being developed by Wizards of the Coast's internal development studio, Magic Digital Studio. It's the newest digital adaptation of the Magic: The Gathering card game, allowing players to gain cards through booster packs, in-game achievements or microtransaction purchases, and build their own decks. It follows the same rules as the physical card game, where players use decks of cards that include land cards that generate mana, and play cards that consume that mana to summon creatures, cast offensive and defensive spells, or other effects. Players battle other players using a selected deck, with the goal of reducing the opponent's health from twenty to zero before their opponent can do the same to them.
Magic: The Gathering Arena gives new players a library of base cards and pre-made decks from those cards, but as players win matches or complete daily quests, they can earn new booster packs that add cards to their library, and allow players to then customize their decks and improve them. Arena is free-to-play, but it is supported by microtransactions. Players can use real-world currency to buy gems, the in-game currency, which in turn can be spent on booster packs. Gems are also given as rewards for winning draft mode. A booster pack may have a chance of including a Wild Card of a specific rarity. These can be used to craft any card of the same rarity type. Duplicates in booster packs become Wild Cards, that can be used for crafting.
Magic: The Gathering Arena is designed to be a more modern method of playing Magic: The Gathering with other players while using a computer when compared to Magic: The Gathering Online. According to the public FAQ on Wizards of the Coast's website, there is no release date for Magic: The Gathering Arena as of yet.
