The open beta has certainly come at a good time. Hearthstone's current meta is rather stale at the moment and it will be some time before Artifact releases. I've seen some streamers play the game as part of ad promotion and I decided to give it a try.

After playing Hearthstone for 4 years, I found this game to be rather refreshing. It's not only interesting to see where Hearthstone got their inspirations for their card game, but it's been fun learning a new card game in general.

It's clear the Magic the Gathering has taken some inspiration from Hearthstone's UI. There's a hero portrait and limited communication in the form of emotes. The presentation is pretty slick for the most part. When you hover over options on the menu or over decks, there's appropriate sound effects that make you think they really put some effort into this game. My only gripe so far is that when you start matchmaking, you can't cancel out of the matchmaking.

The reward structure is quite nice. You get a daily quest and a weekly quest that reset depending on the type of quest. And every 5 wins, you get a random card from the most recent set. In addition to quests, cards can also be earned from Draft Core set which is Magic the Gathering version of Hearthstone's Arena (or is it the other way around?). I only played this game for one day and I found the price tag for Draft Core to be quite expensive. I earned about 2.k gold on my first day and the entry fee for Draft Core is 5,000 gold. Once you get past the entry fee and you get a couple wins, it does seem that you can go on Draft Core runs infinitely as long as you keep winning, which is always a plus.

Anyone else try this game and have some thoughts on it?

I used to play MTG irl several years ago, but fell off of it when the friend I played the most with moved city. I've played MTGA closed beta for a few months, and I plan on keep playing though the open beta and hopefully I'm still interested to continue after the actual release.

Also, draft is what Hearthstone's arena mode basically is. The part where it says Core Set 2019 just means that it's the current core set you draft from. There's a second draft with the latest set if you toggle the advanced play mode on.

The rewards for beginners are actually quite generous. I'm literally getting a free deck every day at the moment. I also just found that there is a constructed arena that you can play for gold. It costs 500 gold for a ticket which you can make a single day easily and you only need about 4 wins to make it worth the price of admission.

Having played MTG for years in both paper and online (Online in the past via their much MUCH less friendly Magic Online client), I am glad to see that this is getting some positive buzz, though I am pretty sure its 'not for me'.

I find the prize/pay-out structure they went with to be incredibly bad. No ability to turn one deck into another, severe limitation on testing out and building your own decks.

MtG is played by so many people, for a lot of money, that they generally figure out the top deck or two quickly. Since your limitation is on rarity, and you have no way to turn cards into your collection back into cash/dust/etc, the "correct" way to play Arena is to build the best deck in the format and play it, and nothing else.

There is room too build other decks, the standard meta (which is the format that Arena is pulling the cards you can use) has room for several decks, typically, across the spectrum. If all you want is to find a favorite deck, and play it a great deal? The game provides for that. It is possible to get 'the best deck in standard' for cheaper then you can acquire it anywher else you can play MtG (except the free-to-play non-official clients). It does also have draft/limited, which is the full experience and as fun as any other digital version I have seen.

However, as a long time player, when I compare it to my other options, it just doesn't fit what I am looking for in a game. I like playing for fun. Kitchen table magic, casual play. I like brewing decks and weird restrictions. I enjoy Magic Online (the other digital version of MtG remember) because the vast vast majority of rares on there cost .05 a ticket (each ticket being a dollar). Yes, it helps that it has, basically, every card ever printed in magic going back to alpha (the first set), but the real boon is that once I spend money, I can transfer that money around and stretch out where it goes for a long time. I can trade my 5 dollar deck in, and get another one, over and over again essentially if I so choose.

If what your looking for is just the limited (Sealed or Draft) then Arena makes some sense, as that costs essentially the same thing it costs on Magic Online. Though your drafting against robots in Arena where as your drafting with other people on MTGO, which can be a meaningful difference for some. If what your looking to do is get into the high-level MtG play with a single deck (or perhaps two if your gonna spend a couple hundred dollars/spend a lot of time with the game), then Arena is absolutely for you. The decks on MTGO cost very close to what they cost in paper. You can get 1 (maybe two) tier one decks for a low/no cost (save time) vs the 500$ price tag that usually comes with the best deck in the format.

If your just looking to play Magic in a digital format? With older cards, or brewing any number of decks you want. If you want to feel like your money is gonna last, if you want to experience formats outside of what Arena can offer (Commander is very popular, but really needs access to every card ever printed to be great say). Then your better off spending the 10 dollars to get a copy of Magic online, biting your lip to get past its interface issues, and go to town.

For what its worth. That 10 bucks gets you 10 tickets, which you can very easily turn into 20 different styles of decks (think of something, you can build it for cheap). As long as your not wanting to play with the best cards ever printed, they are super cheap. And, MTGO has channels/rooms where people gather to play that level of magic. Meaning your going to find an endless supply of people with decks of a similar power-level..meaning you get fun interacting games.

For me, Arena is going to be strictly a place to play some limited (draft/sealed). I'm gonna save the bulk of my playing 'normal' magic for MTGO.

I've been playing it fairly regularly since summer. The client is great and Magic is always whacky, but god damn the amount of games that are decided by land draw makes it hard to endure more than a handful of games at a time.

@bladededge: That's one of the things that has me confused. What is the difference between Magic the Gathering Online and Magic the Gathering Arena? It seems strange to me that they have two games that sound like they do the same thing.

@acura_max: They're different games. MTGO is older, kinda janky and not user-friendly; MTGA is just releasing (obviously) so from a technical perspective it's a lot better, but it doesn't have nearly as many cards (I think it only goes back to the sets from last year?), and the monetization scheme is different. There's also not trading of cards or buying singles of cards in MTGA but there is in MTGO.

@vasta_narada: MTGA follows the standard rotation. As the game went from closed to open beta (on the exact same date as the rotation) all the old cards were pulled out of the game. I can't confirm if they're gonna follow that format forward, but I would be very hesitant of putting any significant amount of money into the game unless you really really love Magic.

This is a dumb question but are there modes of this game that will have a single player gameplay a la Hearthstone? Or is it pure player vs player and you get thrown into matchmaking when you hit play?

@merxworx01: there are no AI matches as far as I know.

That can't possibly be the case for the finished product. There's no way they're going to yank cards that people have paid real life money for. Presumably, they'll do a thing where online ranked play only uses the latest decks, but you can also play "Legacy" for fun.

@gkhan: The best answers I could dig up was "eh, we're gonna do something about it". The most prominent theory is that they're just gonna make a mode where you can play all cards ever released in MTGA.