I've been playing MTG Arena open beta since last week(Thurs) and I am quite impressed with it so far.
Here are the stuff I like:
- The client is fairly smooth, game phases are quick and seamless.
- there are a lot of cards and with 5 colors and artifacts...there are a lot of combinations for rush, mid-range and control decks out there. Each color is also very heavily themed. e.g. White is all about mostly about healing, removals, Blue is about interrupting opponent with counterspells, bouncing stuff back to hand, draw cards, Green is about ramping up and summoning huge creatures. etc.
- You can react to your opponents with instant spells!
- Almost 0 RNG within the cards themselves(probably the biggest reason i stopped playing HS)
- lots of little decisions you can make since most cards have abilities, options and triggers(Part of the reason I quit HS. The cards are too simple and not enough abilities/options to make the game more interesting)
- You can assign blockers
- Surprisingly games are just as quick as HS. Games can last something like 5 mins to 15 mins.
- Free-to-play model so far feels quite generous. I am getting 1 free pre-made deck per day for playing ONE game(doesn't matter if you win or lose). Each pack costs 1000 gold and there is a 500 gold daily quest. There is weekly quest that gives a pack at 5/10/15 wins. Every other win you can get one random card(of any rarity) and gold(25/50/100/250). So they are giving out a lot for you to start up for free.
Thing I don't like
- No friend list - This might become a deal breaker for me if it's not being implemented in the near future.
- You can get royally mana screwed. While this is only happening like say maybe 15-20% of the time in my experience where you just keep drawing lands or not having enough lands to do anything. Either way will cost you to lose the game.
Overall I think MTG arena is in a great place now. If you want to take a break from HS, you should give this game a try.
The problem is that you can play it only using a PC.
HS is good also because you can play almost everywhere.
I hope they will port Magic to android/iphone, it's a great game to play WITH Hearthstone (not as a replacement to me, i'm not salty of nothing and i don't need another game).
Honestly, I agree with most of your points. I have been very impressed with how smooth everything is. I kinda assumed everything would feel clunky with the ability to cast instants or use minion abilities at any time, but everything moves very smoothly.
I've heard that people find the game very un-generous, and even more greedy than Blizzard. I don't have a huge collection yet so I can't really say, but I think it has something to do with the wildcard system and how you can't really disenchant duplicates. I can't speak much to this, but I do agree that it does feel at least a little generous to new players.
The "no friend list" thing seems strange, and I'm sure they'll implement it sooner than later. I've been enjoying the game more than I thought I would. I already bought the welcome bundle haha (I'll try to refrain from buying anything else in the game yet).
I just need a bit more luck with some of my packs haha. The rares I've gotten seem brutal, and the one mythic rare I've gotten is some white/red/green dragon. I've never really liked playing tricolor decks in the past because it makes the deck feel diluted, but maybe I'll try it out.
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Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
Everyone who starts MTGA says that it is generous, that it feels to be in a good place, that the economy is good and all.
And then you have the Closed Beta Tester. They knew that you used to get 10 instead of 5 decks as a questroute (though the duration was far longer). The biggest problem: The colours are kinda randomized. It seems there are about 4 possibilities. Some decks are far weaker (WB) than others (GB), as well as containing premium cards or merely useless stuff.
For you can't dust in MTGA. And about 50% of the cards are fillers, something you probably won't play anymore after aquiring better cards. After all, why play a 3BB Sorcery that kills a creatue and gives 3 life if there is a 2BB instant that exiles a creature or planeswalker and gives 2 life? For most cards, there are simply better alternatives, and getting these can be extremly tedious.
No Friendlist. No friendly challenges to begin with. You need to pay for events, and most events need gems - which can be gained only by either purchasing or getting as reward when playing Quick Draft. And the price structure is geared towards cards, so some events are extremly hard to achieve as a f2p player.
And don't forget, that the amount of cards is vastly greater than in HS. Some decks tend to be oppressive as well, even if you have all these possibilities. And the few events which could offer a reprive require gold to enter.
Now, don't get me wrong. MTGA is still a good game. But it has its problems, and these should not be ignored either.
- Free-to-play model so far feels quite generous. I am getting 1 free pre-made deck per day for playing ONE game(doesn't matter if you win or lose). Each pack costs 1000 gold and there is a 500 gold daily quest. There is weekly quest that gives a pack at 5/10/15 wins. Every other win you can get one random card(of any rarity) and gold(25/50/100/250). So they are giving out a lot for you to start up for free.
To be honest you only get the free decks the first 5 days; used to be 10 decks for the closed beta. Also, decks that are 60+ cards where you can put 4 copies or so of every legendary does not feel generous compared to the amount of cards you get.
Yet my biggest complaint is the lack of decent crafting system; sure there's wildcards but there is no disenchanting. Also, Magic cards rotate out as well and so far we do not know what will happen to the cards we worked hard for.
- Free-to-play model so far feels quite generous. I am getting 1 free pre-made deck per day for playing ONE game(doesn't matter if you win or lose). Each pack costs 1000 gold and there is a 500 gold daily quest. There is weekly quest that gives a pack at 5/10/15 wins. Every other win you can get one random card(of any rarity) and gold(25/50/100/250). So they are giving out a lot for you to start up for free.
To be honest you only get the free decks the first 5 days; used to be 10 decks for the closed beta. Also, decks that are 60+ cards where you can put 4 copies or so of every legendary does not feel generous compared to the amount of cards you get.
Yet my biggest complaint is the lack of decent crafting system; sure there's wildcards but there is no disenchanting. Also, Magic cards rotate out as well and so far we do not know what will happen to the cards we worked hard for.
Compared to what HS gives at the beginning, it feels generous to me. At least with mtga, we get semi-viable decks for the bronze level. I was rocking that given Red Blue burn bounce-back deck and moving up to Bronze Tier 1 beating all these players using planeswalker theme decks.
Yes I agreed though no dust system is a big flaw. It does feel wasteful that you cannot do anything about the extras.
- Almost 0 RNG within the cards themselves(probably the biggest reason i stopped playing HS)
So... you don't like RNG... I would be unfortunate if you ran into my FOUR wands of chaos deck.
WAHAHAHAHAHA
That's why I said "Almost" as I'm sure that are cards like that lol. Is there an actual viable library destruction deck that utilizes this card?? Just curious..
the rng feels much higher then in Hearthstone with less Cardraw and the drawback to Topdeck useless Mana
The RNG i was referring to is card effect RNG like Rag, Syl, Brawl, Knife Juggler...
If you want to talk about RNG in draws, sure that will always exist in all card games which I don't mind. You and your opponent each have roughly 33% chance of draw a land (typically). However in mtga, there are so many ways to draw cards or ways to manipulate the library that can minimize and you actually have more ways to control your draws.
It's a fine hold over until Artifact arrives. Only then can we judge where it's place is in the digital card game realm. Right now it has too much working against it too compete. Yes it is free to play but MTGA is so deep with several expansions already that even in beta you are far behind the curve of what's out there. It's still a fun game though and better than HS. It's being held back by the fact that it's MTG though. Artifact looks to take the heart of MTG interaction and it's beautiful art while mixing it with the simplicity of Hearthstone's mana system and interface. Not to mention that it will only have one set, so it should be much easier to get into. I will stick with MTGA. It doesn't do anything wrong but with Artifact beta coming this month I might forget about it.
With all that said. I hope the devs make hearthstone less shitty in the mean time. Mike Donais did an interview recently and it seems as if they want to introduce class weaknesses again. They even mentioned how druid should have weak single target removal. Sounds great but then you see the stupid shit they print it makes you wonder wtf they are smoking and if they mean any of what they say. As of right now I can't even be bothered to do my 5 wins this month.
druid should be nature. going wide with buffs or going tall with ramp. it should have weak draw and removal.
rogue should be greed. great card draw and removal. Weak to wide minion pressure and aggression.
warrior should be agression. Overpowered early game minions and weapons. Weak against sustain and value.
mage should be squishy but with powerful late game spells. weakness is squishy minions and sustain.
priest should be sustain heavy. weakness should be greedy draw decks that out value their high quality heals.
the next ones are interesting as they should be half and half.
shaman should be part mage and priest. lesser sustain and spells but the combination makes it unique.
paladin should be part warrior and priest. more sustain but lesser aggression means a more aggressive mid to late game than warriors powerful early game.
warlock should be part rogue and mage. greed is more punished by life reducing spells that rival that of a mage.
hunter should be part druid and warrior. minion buffing and synergy but more focused on aggression instead of creating sticky wide druid like boards.
Yeah, about the decks, I guess you could say they are generous in that we get a free new deck each day just for playing (no need to win). But first off, the decks we were given to start with are pretty awful. A mono color deck for each color with maybe 4 uncommons and a single rare. The free decks that you unlock each day, however, are much better with anywhere from 10-15 uncommons, 5-6 rares, and usually one mythic rare (and good mythics too like History of Benalia). As for the economy though, it's not great, but at least for now, I can deal with it. The welcome bundle is very good at $5.
As for the mana issues, yes, that's the biggest problem I've always had and will always have with Magic: when you have a great hand but never draw a single land after the ones you have in your hand, or when you simpy draw land every turn (happens maybe 1 in 20 games). Doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's just so ridiculous and stupid that I want to quit. But, as you said, games are surprisingly quick and honestly, I've had a blast so far.
For now, I'm happy to play each day to see what new deck and cards I will unlock for free, and of course, grind gold for drafts. Really surprising for me is that I actually play to 15 wins every day right now and it usually only takes a bit over and hour. So for now, I'm probably going to stick with this game at least until the next HS expansion comes out (and I'll just play the minimum to complete my daily quests).
Ugh, work computer is terrible and won't let me edit. Just wanted to edit what I typed regarding the time it took to get 15 wins per day. It's closer to 2 hours, but it definitely feels like less as I'm really enjoying the game so far.
How are the instant mechanics implemented so the games don’t take forever?
in the first MtG digital port this aspect made it so your opponent needed to OK most of your actions. The games seriously took triple the time playing a game IRL did. How are they keeping games short as HS while keeping that basic mechanic around?
Hmmm I played Mtg from Beta to Ice Age really. I have much catching up to do.... I've only tried the first few tutorials. I miss my red green Beserk/Ball lightening/fork/bloodlust/channel deck from real life. Nice to see the Elves are still a thing.
How are the instant mechanics implemented so the games don’t take forever?
in the first MtG digital port this aspect made it so your opponent needed to OK most of your actions. The games seriously took triple the time playing a game IRL did. How are they keeping games short as HS while keeping that basic mechanic around?
I've never played previous PC MTG games, but it's more automatic. You can manually "add stops" in each phase, so that you have time to react. Or you can make it so everything goes automatically if you have no way to react (most notably when land is all tapped out, or if you don't have a turn 1 play besides playing a land).
I feel like this automatic feature kind of "tells" the opponent what you may or may not have in your hand haha, but it's not a big deal. If I ever take the game more seriously down the line I may play with full control at all phases, as I imagine most upper ranked people would.
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Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
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I've been playing MTG Arena open beta since last week(Thurs) and I am quite impressed with it so far.
Here are the stuff I like:
- The client is fairly smooth, game phases are quick and seamless.
- there are a lot of cards and with 5 colors and artifacts...there are a lot of combinations for rush, mid-range and control decks out there. Each color is also very heavily themed. e.g. White is all about mostly about healing, removals, Blue is about interrupting opponent with counterspells, bouncing stuff back to hand, draw cards, Green is about ramping up and summoning huge creatures. etc.
- You can react to your opponents with instant spells!
- Almost 0 RNG within the cards themselves(probably the biggest reason i stopped playing HS)
- lots of little decisions you can make since most cards have abilities, options and triggers(Part of the reason I quit HS. The cards are too simple and not enough abilities/options to make the game more interesting)
- You can assign blockers
- Surprisingly games are just as quick as HS. Games can last something like 5 mins to 15 mins.
- Free-to-play model so far feels quite generous. I am getting 1 free pre-made deck per day for playing ONE game(doesn't matter if you win or lose). Each pack costs 1000 gold and there is a 500 gold daily quest. There is weekly quest that gives a pack at 5/10/15 wins. Every other win you can get one random card(of any rarity) and gold(25/50/100/250). So they are giving out a lot for you to start up for free.
Thing I don't like
- No friend list - This might become a deal breaker for me if it's not being implemented in the near future.
- You can get royally mana screwed. While this is only happening like say maybe 15-20% of the time in my experience where you just keep drawing lands or not having enough lands to do anything. Either way will cost you to lose the game.
Overall I think MTG arena is in a great place now. If you want to take a break from HS, you should give this game a try.
The problem is that you can play it only using a PC.
HS is good also because you can play almost everywhere.
I hope they will port Magic to android/iphone, it's a great game to play WITH Hearthstone (not as a replacement to me, i'm not salty of nothing and i don't need another game).
Leper Gnome
Honestly, I agree with most of your points. I have been very impressed with how smooth everything is. I kinda assumed everything would feel clunky with the ability to cast instants or use minion abilities at any time, but everything moves very smoothly.
I've heard that people find the game very un-generous, and even more greedy than Blizzard. I don't have a huge collection yet so I can't really say, but I think it has something to do with the wildcard system and how you can't really disenchant duplicates. I can't speak much to this, but I do agree that it does feel at least a little generous to new players.
The "no friend list" thing seems strange, and I'm sure they'll implement it sooner than later. I've been enjoying the game more than I thought I would. I already bought the welcome bundle haha (I'll try to refrain from buying anything else in the game yet).
I just need a bit more luck with some of my packs haha. The rares I've gotten seem brutal, and the one mythic rare I've gotten is some white/red/green dragon. I've never really liked playing tricolor decks in the past because it makes the deck feel diluted, but maybe I'll try it out.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
Even a beta game has disable emotes feature , no need to mention arrogant hs devs
Heh, it is funny to see how the distinction is.
Everyone who starts MTGA says that it is generous, that it feels to be in a good place, that the economy is good and all.
And then you have the Closed Beta Tester. They knew that you used to get 10 instead of 5 decks as a questroute (though the duration was far longer). The biggest problem: The colours are kinda randomized. It seems there are about 4 possibilities. Some decks are far weaker (WB) than others (GB), as well as containing premium cards or merely useless stuff.
For you can't dust in MTGA. And about 50% of the cards are fillers, something you probably won't play anymore after aquiring better cards. After all, why play a 3BB Sorcery that kills a creatue and gives 3 life if there is a 2BB instant that exiles a creature or planeswalker and gives 2 life? For most cards, there are simply better alternatives, and getting these can be extremly tedious.
No Friendlist. No friendly challenges to begin with. You need to pay for events, and most events need gems - which can be gained only by either purchasing or getting as reward when playing Quick Draft. And the price structure is geared towards cards, so some events are extremly hard to achieve as a f2p player.
And don't forget, that the amount of cards is vastly greater than in HS. Some decks tend to be oppressive as well, even if you have all these possibilities. And the few events which could offer a reprive require gold to enter.
Now, don't get me wrong. MTGA is still a good game. But it has its problems, and these should not be ignored either.
To be honest you only get the free decks the first 5 days; used to be 10 decks for the closed beta.
Also, decks that are 60+ cards where you can put 4 copies or so of every legendary does not feel generous compared to the amount of cards you get.
Yet my biggest complaint is the lack of decent crafting system; sure there's wildcards but there is no disenchanting.
Also, Magic cards rotate out as well and so far we do not know what will happen to the cards we worked hard for.
the rng feels much higher then in Hearthstone with less Cardraw and the drawback to Topdeck useless Mana
It's problem is MTG mechanics, which are designed for real world games, with cards and dice.
Heathstone has never fully embraced being a purely online CCG, but it's atleast part way there.
Compared to what HS gives at the beginning, it feels generous to me. At least with mtga, we get semi-viable decks for the bronze level. I was rocking that given Red Blue burn bounce-back deck and moving up to Bronze Tier 1 beating all these players using planeswalker theme decks.
Yes I agreed though no dust system is a big flaw. It does feel wasteful that you cannot do anything about the extras.
So... you don't like RNG... I would be unfortunate if you ran into my FOUR wands of chaos deck.
WAHAHAHAHAHA
I do not think all this can fit to a small screen and being readable/understandable/enjoyable
--Alfi--
That's why I said "Almost" as I'm sure that are cards like that lol. Is there an actual viable library destruction deck that utilizes this card?? Just curious..
The RNG i was referring to is card effect RNG like Rag, Syl, Brawl, Knife Juggler...
If you want to talk about RNG in draws, sure that will always exist in all card games which I don't mind. You and your opponent each have roughly 33% chance of draw a land (typically). However in mtga, there are so many ways to draw cards or ways to manipulate the library that can minimize and you actually have more ways to control your draws.
It's a fine hold over until Artifact arrives. Only then can we judge where it's place is in the digital card game realm. Right now it has too much working against it too compete. Yes it is free to play but MTGA is so deep with several expansions already that even in beta you are far behind the curve of what's out there. It's still a fun game though and better than HS. It's being held back by the fact that it's MTG though. Artifact looks to take the heart of MTG interaction and it's beautiful art while mixing it with the simplicity of Hearthstone's mana system and interface. Not to mention that it will only have one set, so it should be much easier to get into. I will stick with MTGA. It doesn't do anything wrong but with Artifact beta coming this month I might forget about it.
With all that said. I hope the devs make hearthstone less shitty in the mean time. Mike Donais did an interview recently and it seems as if they want to introduce class weaknesses again. They even mentioned how druid should have weak single target removal. Sounds great but then you see the stupid shit they print it makes you wonder wtf they are smoking and if they mean any of what they say. As of right now I can't even be bothered to do my 5 wins this month.
druid should be nature. going wide with buffs or going tall with ramp. it should have weak draw and removal.
rogue should be greed. great card draw and removal. Weak to wide minion pressure and aggression.
warrior should be agression. Overpowered early game minions and weapons. Weak against sustain and value.
mage should be squishy but with powerful late game spells. weakness is squishy minions and sustain.
priest should be sustain heavy. weakness should be greedy draw decks that out value their high quality heals.
the next ones are interesting as they should be half and half.
shaman should be part mage and priest. lesser sustain and spells but the combination makes it unique.
paladin should be part warrior and priest. more sustain but lesser aggression means a more aggressive mid to late game than warriors powerful early game.
warlock should be part rogue and mage. greed is more punished by life reducing spells that rival that of a mage.
hunter should be part druid and warrior. minion buffing and synergy but more focused on aggression instead of creating sticky wide druid like boards.
Yeah, about the decks, I guess you could say they are generous in that we get a free new deck each day just for playing (no need to win). But first off, the decks we were given to start with are pretty awful. A mono color deck for each color with maybe 4 uncommons and a single rare. The free decks that you unlock each day, however, are much better with anywhere from 10-15 uncommons, 5-6 rares, and usually one mythic rare (and good mythics too like History of Benalia). As for the economy though, it's not great, but at least for now, I can deal with it. The welcome bundle is very good at $5.
As for the mana issues, yes, that's the biggest problem I've always had and will always have with Magic: when you have a great hand but never draw a single land after the ones you have in your hand, or when you simpy draw land every turn (happens maybe 1 in 20 games). Doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's just so ridiculous and stupid that I want to quit. But, as you said, games are surprisingly quick and honestly, I've had a blast so far.
For now, I'm happy to play each day to see what new deck and cards I will unlock for free, and of course, grind gold for drafts. Really surprising for me is that I actually play to 15 wins every day right now and it usually only takes a bit over and hour. So for now, I'm probably going to stick with this game at least until the next HS expansion comes out (and I'll just play the minimum to complete my daily quests).
Ready for action!
Ugh, work computer is terrible and won't let me edit. Just wanted to edit what I typed regarding the time it took to get 15 wins per day. It's closer to 2 hours, but it definitely feels like less as I'm really enjoying the game so far.
Ready for action!
How are the instant mechanics implemented so the games don’t take forever?
in the first MtG digital port this aspect made it so your opponent needed to OK most of your actions. The games seriously took triple the time playing a game IRL did. How are they keeping games short as HS while keeping that basic mechanic around?
Hmmm I played Mtg from Beta to Ice Age really. I have much catching up to do.... I've only tried the first few tutorials. I miss my red green Beserk/Ball lightening/fork/bloodlust/channel deck from real life. Nice to see the Elves are still a thing.
I've never played previous PC MTG games, but it's more automatic. You can manually "add stops" in each phase, so that you have time to react. Or you can make it so everything goes automatically if you have no way to react (most notably when land is all tapped out, or if you don't have a turn 1 play besides playing a land).
I feel like this automatic feature kind of "tells" the opponent what you may or may not have in your hand haha, but it's not a big deal. If I ever take the game more seriously down the line I may play with full control at all phases, as I imagine most upper ranked people would.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74