What Are MTG Arena Ranks and How Do They Work? - Draftsim (2024)

Last updated on December 31, 2023

Rally the Ranks | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

The ultimate prize? A mythic rank.

Like many parts of MTGA, the ranking system is not very well-explained or intuitive to grasp without a lot of further research. You might be wondering what it’s used for, how it’s calculated, when it resets, and more.

Our goal is to give you (and us, too!) a better understanding of why WotC created this system and what it’s used for. Let’s get to it and crank it up!

What Are the Ranks in MTG Arena?

Assemble the Legion | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

Ranks in MTG Arena are used for pairing during matchmaking, qualification for special events, and end-of-season rewards.

The ranks are as follows:

• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum
• Diamond
• Mythic

The more you win, the more you move up this ranking “ladder.” Each rank besides Mythic has a tier, starting at tier 4 going up to tier 1, that you progress up as you win.

Which MTG Arena Events Use Ranks?

To help you see your progress as a player, MTGA has created Ranked play. After every match you win or lose in this mode, you’ll either move up or down “The Ladder” based on whether you won or lost, respectively.

What type of games are ranked, you ask? That’s easy to spot as they’ve got a “Ranked” tab with the modes you can play:

This means that there are:

• Ranked BO1 matches for Standard Constructed
• Ranked BO3 matches for Standard Constructed
• Ranked BO1 matches for Historic Constructed
• Ranked BO3 matches for Historic Constructed
• Ranked BO1 matches for Alchemy Constructed
• Ranked BO3 matches for Alchemy Constructed
• Ranked BO1 matches for drafts in the Limited format (format varies, calendar here)
• Ranked BO1 matches for Explorer Constructed
• Ranked BO3 matches for Explorer Constructed
• Ranked BO1 matches for Timeless Constructed
• Ranked BO3 matches for Timeless Constructed

In these formats, your rank determines who your opponents are by matching you with other players that have (approximately) the same rank as you.

What Are All the Rank Symbols/Icons?

First off, if you use our MTGA deck tracker, Arena Tutor, you can just hover over your opponent's rank icon at the end of the match to find out what rank they were:

So you should definitely be doing that so you don't have to check this article anymore!

Otherwise, here are the icons for constructed:

Rank	Tier 4	Tier 3	Tier 2	Tier 1
Bronze
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Diamond
Mythic
Unranked

And the icons for limited:

Rank	Tier 4	Tier 3	Tier 2	Tier 1
Bronze
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Diamond
Mythic
Unranked

MTG Arena Ranked Season Rewards

Depending on your finishing placement at the end of the season, you'll be awarded packs, cosmetics, and gold by MTGA. The higher you finish, the more stuff you get.

Here's what you get for finishing at a particular rank at the end of each month:

And here's a visual view of what you can get:

You get more rewards, though admittedly nothing amazing, as you work your way up the ranking system

I know, this looks kind of paltry compared to the amount of time you're putting in.

Another advantage is that the higher you finish by the end of a season, the higher up you’ll start on the next. Not a bad thing when you remember how much time it took to reach that rank in the first place.

Being in the top tiers of Mythic can also get you invited to the Qualifier Weekend each month if you manage to land in the top 250 players the previous season. That can be a pretty hard task, but don't give up now! If you manage to land in the top 1200 players, but not the top 250, you still get a free entry into a Qualifier Play-In. Winning a Qualifier Play-In is your entry ticket into the Qualifier Weekend, which is just one more step away from the MTG Arena Championship!

How Do MTG Arena Ranks Work?

Teferi's Time Twist | Illustration by Ralph Horsley

Now that you’ve seen where you can acquire your rank, let’s see what it looks like and how it works (you can always check your rank on your Arena Profile). There are two “ladders” for you to climb, so to speak. One for Constructed Ranked (which encompasses BO1 and BO3 play) and one for Limited Ranked.

Each ladder has six ranks: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Mythic, and each rank is broken down into four tiers.

Can You Go Down in Rank on MTG Arena?

No, once you’ve climbed to a new rank (e.g., from Bronze to Silver) you won’t get knocked back down to a lower rank. In the first rank (Bronze), losses don’t lose you any tiers but once you get to the next rank (Silver) you will start to lose tiers if you lose a match.

So once you've made Mythic in MTG Arena, you won't drop out until the end of the season.

Take a look at the table below to see how all of this breaks down for Constructed BO1, Constructed BO3, and Limited play:

Constructed BO1

Constructed BO3

Limited BO1

Don't forget, there's no ranked BO3 play for limited. Unfortunately…

Once you’ve moved all the way up to Mythic, you won’t get any more ranks or tiers. At this point, WotC starts using your MMR to calculate where you fall among all the other players that have also attained Mythic rank.

When and How Does Your MTG Arena Rank Reset?

Endless Ranks of Dead | Illustration by Ryan Yee

Each season is about a month long and rankings reset for everyone approximately at the end of the month. Your rank and tier in the new season are determined by how far you’ve climbed up the ranking ladder in the previous season.

This means that if you play regularly and you play well, you’ll have the advantage in the new season of starting out in a higher ranking and tier.

Your rank does decay at the end of the season. Here’s a breakdown of where you’ll start at the beginning of a new season based on your rank in the previous season:

You can see that the higher you’re ranked in a previous season, the easier it’ll be to reach that same ranking much faster in the new season.

How Are MTG Arena Rankings Calculated?

WotC uses a Glicko rating system. This system was invented as an improvement of the Elo rating system and was originally meant to be used as a rating system for competitive chess. An exchange between Chris Clay and Sam Black on twitter shed some light on how MMR (matchmaking rank) is calculated and is the only indication on the exact system used in MTG Arena at this time:

Glicko is a rather complex system, so we’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. If you’d like a more in-depth read on Glicko you can either check out this pdf (original Glicko system) or this one (Glicko-2 system with slight improvements for more accuracy).

The Glicko rating system uses three factors for its calculations: rating, deviation, and volatility. These factors can be used to calculate your ratings deviation (RD), which measures the accuracy of your rating, with one RD being the same as one standard deviation. They use some pretty complex algebra to get to the correct RD, so won't bore you with the details here. You can check out the previously mentioned PDFs if you want to take a crack at it yourself.

To put it in very simple terms, the formulasshow how to determine your rating at the end of a “previous period of play” (i.e.,the end of a match on MTGA). This can then be used to determine where youshould be at the beginning of a new period (i.e., your next match on MTGA).

Obviously this is an extremely simple way to boil down complicated calculations, but what it means for MTG Arena is that it's there to make sure that you are being paired with the best possible opponent, and to determine who are the best players on the platform.

How Many Hours Does it Take to Get to Mythic?

Collected Company | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel

At a fiery 70% win rate, you still need 50 hours to make Mythic in constructed. That same win rate would get you to Mythic in Limited in “only” 45 hours.

In an article by Frank Karsten (who even wrote the code so you can try your own hand at these calculations) broke down how many hours you need to spend playing MTGA to make it from the start of the ladder all the way up to Mythic for both Constructed and Limited.

Quick note: We’ve combined Constructed BO1 and BO3 as it’s best to switch from BO1 to BO3 at Gold rank tier 4 for the push to Mythic.

With seasons lasting about 30 days, you’d need to play Constructed about two hours a day and Limited about an hour and a half a day to get to Mythic.

With a win rate percentage of 40% to 45%, though, reaching Mythic in both Constructed and Limited isn’t feasible as there literally aren't enough hours in a day for you to reach your goal. The alternative is to shoot for Gold rank instead, which should be reasonable to attain with an average win rate.

What is the Mythic Percentage in MGTA?

Gold-Forged Sentinel | Illustration by James Zapata

So you've played your way to Mythic and have that beautiful logo beside your name, but instead of a numerical rank, you have what looks like a percentage next to the mythic icon.

That percentage is your percentile as a player in Mythic. So if you are Mythic 90%, that means you are better than 90% of other Mythic players who are also not on the leaderboard. The intent is to show you your distance from the leaderboard in terms of a percent.

In that example, you would need to climb through another 10% of mythic players until you crack the “leaderboard,” which would then give you a ranking from 1 to 1,200.

Good Luck On Your Mythic Quest!

Splinter Twin | Illustration by Goran Josic

We’ve finally come to the end of the line.

There are a few interesting articles that wecame across while doing research on the topic that we feel are a nice bonus toshare with you as further reading material:

• Our own guide on how to become a better drafter on Arena (start there and then move on to Ben Stark's class if you really want to get to Mythic)
• Fact checking article for ranked ladder on the Hipsters of the Coast website

One last thing – if you want to get some incredible AI draft advice and track your win rate on your way to mythic (for constructed too!) you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't check out our free app Arena Tutor. It is truly awesome.