I’ve been mastering cards in the following format to maximise the speed of mastering:
- Pick a Mythic combination that has some synergy (Thopter Spy Network + Drowner of Hope) or is a combo card itself (Greenwarden of Murasa) and add it into your deck.
If you don’t have the luxury of picking Mythics just split your good Mythics of the same colour over:
Two mastery cycles if you’re targeting gold tier
One mastery cycle if you’re targeting silver tier.
I define a mastery cycle as how long it takes to master a Mythic.
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Throw in one or two useless / less useful Mythics. You want to spread out your good ones so that your decks are at least serviceable.
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Add in rares that have some synergy with the Mythic(s) you already added.
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Add in the most suitable commons and uncommons you have.
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Play the deck in Planeswalker Challenges. Play against:
Chandra if your deck is fast, your creatures have high toughness or if you’re playing with Eldrazi Scions
Nissa / Gideon if your deck can’t stand burn, the trade-off is they have more health to whittle down. Beware their Hangarback Walker.
Liliana if you have decent draw to soak her first ability.
Jace if your deck keeps drawing such that you are near worried about bounce.
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Swap out any cards that are mastered. Try to keep a manageable mix of R/UC+C. Don’t spam all your good rares in the first half of the first mastery cycle or you’ll have a painful time in the second half.
By the end of a mastery cycle you should have earned 160 mastery points for your target colour.
Of course you have to deduct 8 points per slot (in a full mastery cycle) occupied by colourless card(s). But considering two mastery cycles give 320 points, that’s 70 points buffer for Gold Tier for colourless cards which means you can play 8.75 slots of colourless cards over the two mastery cycles. Likewise, the buffer for Silver Tier and one cycle is 60 points which is 7.5 slots.
Alternatively if the going is too tough and you figure you NEED certain cards in the deck to function, you can keep them in the deck and deduct from the buffer above. Just remember that each slot locked is 16 points lost (unless the card isn’t mastered yet then you add that back).
Also subsequent colours you start on will have an additional buffer from the colourless cards mastered in the mastery cycle(s) of the first colour so start with your strongest colour first.
Good planeswalkers for the job
Strong mana gain
Red: Koth (his mana gain is so high that you’ll be blazing through your cards and throwing out whatever you draw into)
Red / White: Ajani (aside from mana gain, his abilities are best against Chandra; all her creatures except Avaricious Dragon fall to Lightning Helix)
Those who can summon tokens with planeswalkers abilities
White: Ally Gideon
Green: Garruk / Kiora
Because if your deck fails you can still try to win with your planeswalker.
(Sarkhan doesn’t really count cause you need to sacrifice a creature for his ability.)
Planeswalkers with alternative win conditions or damage boosters
Red: Chandra
Green: Nissa
Black: Ob Nixilis / Liliana
Blue: Tezzeret
White: Origins Gideon (all your abilities boost your creatures, and vigilance/defender comes in nifty when you’re in a pinch) thanks majincob
Sarkhan comes under here if and only if you’re mastering dragons in that mastery cycle.
And yes, I’m aware I basically named every planeswalker except Jace and Sarkhan. The point is you have options to suit the deck you’re trying to master.
Have fun testing out card interactions and challenging your deckbuilding skills. Best of luck people!