Common questions about drafting, coaching, deck building, and how Adria works
Adria MTG is a Magic: The Gathering draft simulator, Commander builder, and Standard metagame tool with AI coaching.
No! You can start drafting immediately without signing up. Your drafts are saved locally in your browser. Create an account if you want to sync drafts across devices, access analytics, or use features like Arena import and metagame tools.
Right now, Adria is free during open beta. See the Pricing page for the current plan, and use BYOK below if you want your own OpenRouter key for coaching.
BYOK lets you use your own OpenRouter API key for AI coaching. This gives you full control over your usage, no rate limits, and ensures your draft data never leaves your session. Keys are encrypted server-side and never sent to your browser. Get a key at openrouter.ai.
In a booster draft, 8 players each open a booster pack, pick one card, and pass the rest to the next player. After everyone picks from the first pack, you open a second pack and pass in the opposite direction. Then a third pack. After 45 total picks, you build a 40-card deck from your pool and play.
Use the BREAD framework as a starting point: prioritize Bombs (game-winning rares), Removal (cards that kill threats), Evasion (flying, unblockable), Aggro (efficient creatures), and Duds (filler cards) in that order. As you gain experience, you'll learn to balance raw card quality with synergy, mana curve, and color commitment.
Signals are messages you send (and receive) about which colors are open. If strong cards in a color keep coming back to you late in the pack, it means the players passing to you aren't drafting that color, so it's "open." Recognizing signals helps you avoid fighting over the same colors as your neighbors.
Your pick grade (A+ to F) reflects how good your pick was in context. The scoring system ranks your card against every other card in the pack, accounting for card quality, color fit, mana curve, and synergy with your pool. Picking the best card in the pack earns a 10/10 (A+); picking the worst earns a 0/10 (F).
The AI coach uses a language model to evaluate picks in the context of your draft. It provides three types of feedback: pick grades (A+ to F), analysis (post-pick explanations), and thinking guides (pre-pick Socratic questions). The coach considers card quality, your existing pool, mana curve, and color commitment when scoring picks.
Yes! The coaching toggle is in the draft screen header. You can draft without coaching and still get a grade at the end based on the scoring algorithm. Coaching is optional and only fires when you have it enabled.
Coaching latency depends on the AI provider's response time. Analysis and thinking guides can take 2–5 seconds during peak load. The app shows a loading indicator while waiting. If coaching fails, you'll see an error message and can retry.
The coach evaluates cards based on general Limited principles (removal, evasion, mana curve, synergy) rather than set-specific meta knowledge. For meta-aware coaching, check the Metagame page, which includes tournament data and an AI meta analyzer.
The Commander builder lets you brew, edit, and import 100-card Commander decks. Search for a commander, set your power level bracket, and either build manually or let the AI brew a full deck for you with proper mana base and category balance.
When you brew a deck, the AI generates a 99-card list tailored to your commander's color identity and strategy. It handles mana base stacking, category balance (creatures, removal, draw, ramp), and respects budget tiers if you set one. You can then edit the result in the full deck editor.
Yes. Cards are validated against the official Commander banned list and your commander's color identity. The editor also tracks the bracket system (power levels 1–5) and flags game-changer cards for higher brackets.
Archetype data is sourced from MTGGoldfish and refreshed daily. The tier list classifies archetypes by meta share: Tier 1 (10%+), Tier 2 (3–10%), Tier 3 (1–3%), and Rogue (under 1%).
The Rogue Lab highlights off-meta deck ideas that might catch opponents off guard. These are AI-generated brew concepts based on underrepresented strategies in the current metagame.
You can draft any Standard-legal set. The set list is loaded dynamically from Scryfall, so new sets appear automatically when they release. Card data (images, text, mechanics) is fetched on-demand and cached.
Yes! Drafts are saved automatically. Anonymous users save drafts locally in their browser; logged-in users save to the database and can resume drafts from any device. You can delete drafts from the set selector screen.
The app has basic mobile support with touch-friendly interactions and responsive layouts. Some features (like card hover zoom) work better on desktop. Full mobile optimization is planned for a future release.
Yes. Your drafts, decks, and account data are stored in a private database, scoped by user ID. API keys are encrypted server-side and never sent to your browser. You can download or delete your data anytime via the Privacy page. See the Privacy Policy for details.
Make sure coaching is enabled (toggle in the draft header). If you see "Coaching unavailable" or error messages, it means the AI provider is rate-limited or down. You can bring your own OpenRouter key to bypass rate limits, or draft without coaching and still get a grade.
If a draft fails to load, click "Back to Set Selector" and try resuming from the draft list. If the draft is corrupted or missing, you'll see an error. You can delete the draft and start a new one. Logged-in users should rarely encounter this; anonymous users may lose drafts if they clear browser storage.
Card images load from Scryfall. If images don't appear, check your network connection. Double-faced cards show the front face by default; hover or tap to see the back. If a card is missing oracle text or mana symbols, it's a data issue - report it as a bug on GitHub.
Please open an issue on GitHub. Include details about what you were doing, what you expected to happen, and what actually happened. Feature requests are welcome too!
