What Are Gems in MTG Arena? How Much Are They Really Worth?

Last updated on August 30, 2024

If the topic of MTG Arena gems interests you, I imagine you’re probably pretty new to MTGA. Maybe you’re wondering what gems are, or what they’re used for, or how you can get them. Whatever you’re curious about, we’ve got the answer here today!

I covered the topic of gems—in particular how to spend them and how much they’re worth— but today we go all out and give you everything you could ever possibly want to know about gems in MTG Arena.

Gems are pretty simple, at least in terms of what they are. Gems are Arena’s premium currency. You can get them without spending real-world money on them, but you gotta work for it. They pay for special things and are worth more than MTGA’s other currency, gold. We’ll talk about exactly how much more they’re worth in a bit. So, without further ado, let’s just jump right into it.

Gems, gems, gems. That’s not gonna sound like a word anymore when we’re done. Are you ready?

Money Makes MTG Arena Go ‘Round

You don’t need to buy gems to get them. It’s easier, for sure, and sometimes less frustrating, but it’s possible to get them without buying them from MTGA’s Store.

What a Gem is Worth

I’ve broken down how much gems are worth in my Welcome Bundle article (also a good read if you’re new—spoiler alert, it’s worth it), so let’s recap:

Going by gem prices in Arena’s store, we have to average things out. The smallest gem pack comes with 750 of ‘em and costs just shy of $5 USD, while the biggest bundle nets you 20k gems and costs right under $100 USD. The problem is that the small pack means gems are worth $0.0066533333 while the bigger pack breaks down to $0.0049995 per gem. Averaging the two numbers out brings us to the happy middle of $0.0058264167 per gem. I grew to hate this number.

I also stole this number for the Mastery Pass article, another good read if you’re new to Arena.

Gold and Gems

Gold and gems. Again, I touched on comparing their worth in both the Welcome Bundle and Mastery Pass articles, but those were simplified. I also really didn’t wanna do this math. If you read through the Welcome Bundle piece, you might know the tip I’m getting at. Hint: it’s Arena drafts.

What a Gold is Worth

When I did my gold-to-gems-worth comparison, I used packs to find the value of gold. If you don’t spend your gems on packs but on drafts, though, we’ve got a problem, because those two numbers don’t match up. I know, imagine that, right?

We’ve got more to cover in this section, though, so I’m gonna give you the end result and simplify where I can. If you want me to show my work you can hit me up in the comments.

You take the 200 gems or 1,000 gold you could spend on packs, and multiply by 10 to equal the cost of entering a premier or traditional draft, except instead of 200 gems times 10 (2,000 gems) you can enter the draft for 1,500 gems.

Now for the conversion, all three draft types—premier, quick, and traditional—have the same conversion with each gold worth $0.000873962505. Using the conversion from packs in my Mastery Pass article gave us a gold value of $0.00116528334. That's quite a bit less when you spend gold on drafts versus packs.

Cosmetic Conversions

An uncommon occurrence in which the gold is better value than the gems (the 500 gems to 2,500 gold is on rate).

Bonus cosmetic conversions:

• Avatars: $0.00097106945 per gold
• Sleeves: $0.000873962505 per gold

So, sleeves actually value their gold the same based on their gem-to-gold ratio, while avatars are a bit more expensive. I’m not touching any other cosmetics like exquisite sleeves or bundles because that’s just too much. No more math from me today, thank you. Moving on to our other topics.

Acquiring Gems and Gold

What about getting gems vs getting gold? Well, you can get both gold and gems from leveling up if you’ve bought the Mastery Pass (see what I did there?). You get gold from completing daily quests and daily/weekly wins, and you can earn both gold and gems from events. What you get depends on the event. Interestingly, drafts are the only reliable way to convert gold into gems (by paying for the event with gold, as you win gems).

Spending Gems

The preconstructed decks in the Arena Store are discounted based on the cards already in your collection.

Spending your gems vs gold is another interesting debate. Packs can be bought with 200 gems (or 1,000 gold) one at a time, or in bundles of 3, 6, 15, 45, or 90 packs. Arena's bundles can usually be bought with either gold or gems, though sometimes gems are the only option as with Arena's preconstructed decks or Sealed events. For those decks, it is almost like buying singles directly with gems, but Wizards picked the whole list.

Step back into the store from the events and the one-time purchases and wildcards can only be purchased by real currency. Avatars go for 500 gems and card sleeves are 600 gems or 1,200 gems with the same rate for gold (1,000 gold to every 200 gems). Daily deals and companion/pets are also purchasable by gems or gold.

There’s no way to buy individual cards, not with gold or gems or real money, as the only way to get a specific card is with wildcards.

What about spending gold vs gems? Which one is better? Well, that depends on what you want to do with your time in Arena. If you like drafting, then it’s better to spend gold and gems on drafts, as you get packs from that and as long as you’re decent you can usually get what you put into it back by winning. If you don’t really participate in events, you may as well spend your gold and gems on packs or cosmetics (or whatever it is you want to spend them on).

If you want to convert gold into gems, spend gold on drafts. Your rewards are gems and packs, the more you win, the more you get. If you play often enough, it might be worth it to save up your gems to get a Mastery Pass. Other than that, though, how you spend your gold and gems depends entirely on what you want to buy.

How to Get More Gems

Circling back around to how you get gems, there are a couple of different ways. Again, you don’t need to buy gems in Arena’s store to get them, there are ways to earn them for free. The only thing you need to spend is your time.

Earn Gems in the Mastery Pass

If you’ve got the Mastery Pass, you can get up to 800 gems by leveling up. You also get a Draft token at level 15, which will net you at the very least 50 gems. Not a lot but that’s only if you don’t win any games. Any packs you earn fill your Vault and add to your collection.

Gems Through Duplicates

As your collection builds you come across duplicate protection for mythics and rares, which means if you’ve got every mythic/rare in that set when you’d otherwise get one, you get 40 gems for a mythic and 20 gems for a rare.

Gems for Purchase

Finally, you can buy gems in the store. You get more bang for your buck if you get the biggest pack for $99.99.

As far as getting gems for actual free, no time or effort spent, there are codes that can net you packs and XP (along with a bunch of cosmetics), but nothing for gems specifically. The packs and XP can help you earn gems the “normal” ways, though, which is kind of getting you there with no time or effort.

Getting Gems for Free

In the search for greater value in MTG Arena, nothing goes as long a way as free stuff. We at Draftsim tried our hand at providing you with some free gems, so we know the benefits like no other.

There are a few ways to get these little nuggets, but all of them take a little bit of effort on your part. By that, I mean that you need to keep your eyes and ears peeled for deals and giveaways.

In the past, there have been a few other MTG contributors who’ve given away gems.

Over on YouTube, Hello Good Game gave away just under 500,000 gems over the course of his streaming career. Chances to win free gems may still pop-up on his channel, so you might want to keep an eye out for that.

Then there’s MTG Arena itself, which comes up with some cooky deals every now and then in which you can exchange gold or gems for… more gems. There have been a couple up to this point, so the chances that they’ll be doing something like this again in the future are pretty high.

If you follow Draftsim on Twitter, you might find a daily deal alert like this:

We've also given away free gems for Arena Tutor in the past. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

In the past, there were tournaments that give away gems as prizes, but they require you to either win them the event or at least land on the prize-side of it. For example, the Arena Open (pricey to enter) awards gems to winners of at least five BO1 matches or one BO3 match. This obviously isn’t as labor-free as the other options listed above, but it is an option.

Basically, the best way to get your hands on free gems is to keep an eye out for the MTG Arena store, and contributors on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube who give you the chance to catch some shiny stuff for free. Make sure they are free to enter, though, as some require either gold or gems to participate which renders getting your hands on them for free… well, not free.

You now have a few worthwhile paths to follow and know where to lean your eyes and ears to discover free ways to get gems. And who knows, maybe we’ll also dip our hands into giving you some free shinies again in the future.

Gembye

I’ve just about exhausted everything there is to know about gems at this point. Is it still a word to you or does it sound weird yet? Gems, gems, gems. How about now? No? OK, moving on.

Before we wrap this up, I’ve got some stuff to throw at you. As a new player, this guide to MTGA could prove useful. At least I hope it does, that’s what it’s for. Every question you have on Arena should be answered in there, and if not, let us know! We’re always hungry for new topics to cover, and if you’ve got a burning question that we haven’t answered yet, we’d (probably) love to tackle it.

That’s all I’ve got, though. Don't be afraid to stop by the Draftsim Discord, have a good day. All right, see ya round. Bye now. Be safe!