Introduction to Direct Sealed

Direct Sealed is a community-created friendly format for Magic The Gathering Sealed play, only possible with MTGArena.Pro. In this format, two or more players agree to sync their collections down to only the cards everyone owns, and create sealed boosters and build decks with only the included cards, then play Direct Challenge together.

What is Direct Sealed?

Direct Sealed is:

  • Free! You don’t have to spend 5000 gold to play Sealed with friends. In fact, Direct Sealed is the only way you can crack Sealed events with your friends on Arena right now!
  • Fair! Everyone plays only with the cards everyone owns. Pro players who own all the cards can play Sealed with newbies who are just starting out with their Magic collection!
  • Smart! Rare and mythics cards that are statistically bad pulls in Limited formats are excluded from cards to play with. No losses will be decided by poor luck.
  • Friendly! Pick any number of players, choose the right number of boosters and limit down to any sets you want to play! Or scale down the power with Peasant and Pauper formats!
  • Streamer Friendly! Streamers can pick players from their chat and organize events playing Sealed with them. Each player can only see his own pool.

How to play?

In order to play Direct Sealed, all players need to be MTGArena.Pro registered users, then install and configure the tracker application. You can learn how to do this at https://mtgarena.pro/mtga-pro-tracker/ Once you are done, launch Magic Arena once for your collection to be synced in the database. After that, you are ready to play Direct Sealed.

To create a Direct Sealed format, go to Direct Limited lobby at https://mtgarena.pro/direct-limited/ In the lobby you can view already created events by other players or create your own. Once you create an event, you can easily reuse it again and again as many times as you like, with the same properties you have set before.

A Direct Sealed event has the following properties:

  • Name. Pick a friendly name that you and your friends will recognize when they come to the Lobby.
  • Format. Classic format generates original Paper Magic pool of 1 rare/mythic, 3 uncommons and 10 commons per booster. Peasant format converts the rare/mythic slot into uncommon slot. Pauper format converts the rare/mythic and uncommon slots into common slots.
  • Max Players. You can pick between 2 and any amount of players.
  • Boosters. Sealed default booster amount is 6, but you can play with any mount between 4 and 10.
  • Password. Ensure that only your friends can access the event by setting a password.
  • Expansions Allowed. You can limit the pool of cards to only the expansions you want. Play Standard, Block or Arena Modern (when introduced) as you like.

Once you create an event, tell your players to find it and join in. You may start the event at any time, even if the maximum number is not reached yet.

After the event is launched, all players will access their generated pool of cards. Click on Build Deck to visit Deck Builder. In Deck Builder you only have access to cards included in your pool. The field Filter in the deck builder header options contains the name of your limited card pool. You can switch to all cards or back to that pool, but try to keep your deck legal – it’s friendly game, after all.

Basic Cards are not included in your limited pool of cards. You can easily add them from the newly introduced Add Basic Cards button at the bottom of your deck list. You can pick specific card artwork from all available sets in Magic Arena.

Once your deck is ready, copy it in the Clipboard with the Export Deck Button and then Import it in Magic Arena. Call your friends on Discord and let’s have some fun playing Magic!