A new MTG Arena promotion offers players the chance to have a physical box of Modern Horizons 3 boosters shipped to their door – but only if they have what it takes to triumph in a challenging online tournament event.
Arena Direct is a brand new scheme that will allow MTG fans to win physical cards for competing in online challenges. A counterpart to Arena Opens, where players can win real cash prizes for victory in a similar type of contest, Direct is one of the few examples of Wizards linking the digital and physical versions of its trading card game together.
The predecessor to this giveaway is the Festival in a Box event which ran last year, and gave Arena players the chance to score a wide selection of physical booster packs. While it must have performed well for Wizards to repeat the experiment, some criticized the high sign-up cost – which was the same as this new competition, 5,000 gems.
Arena Direct: Modern Horizons 3 challenges players to rack up six wins without any losses to earn a box of booster packs. As we mentioned, the fee is 5,000 gems – in-game currency worth around $25 USD – and there’s no limit to the number of times you can enter.
The promotion applies across a number of territories throughout Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, and has similar terms and conditions to Arena Opens. Up front we should let you know, you must be 18 years or older to participate.
There are two versions of this event, and the first starts this week. It runs from 8am PT on June 28 until 8am on June 30, with signups ending three hours before the end of the event. There will also be a second event on the second weekend in July.
We probably won’t be competing for this ourselves – we’re not made of gems – but good luck to all who takes the plunge! We will note, though, that we’re all for a greater integration of Magic The Gathering’s physical and digital components.
Whereas Magic competitors like the Pokémon TCG receive praise for putting codes in physical packs that let you also redeem their counterpart on Pokémon TCG Live, Wizards has been pretty limited on the integration front. You get an MTG Arena code if you play in a prerelease, or with some starter deck products, but that’s about it.
If this promo is a sign of things to come, and future MTG sets will let us win physical cards by playing online events, well, that’d be music to our ears.
For more Magic content, check out the MTG release schedule, or our guide to the best MTG Arena decks. And to get all our daily updates, bookmark Wargamer’s MTG news page and follow us on Google News.