As said mtga price for draft is a barrier to free to play.
Also a really important subject that I didn't saw in previous comments is :
Will MTGA stay around more than 2-4 years !?!?
I believe that Hs for blizzard is what paper MtG is for Wizard. And that mtga is like the other digital mtg game and will be upgraded every few years (which mean reinvesting in new collection)
I don't have the time/energy to keep up with daily quests in two games. I already have Faeria as a card game that I can fall back on when I'm fed up with the Hearthstone meta. So if I want to play MtG:A seriously, I'd have to drop Hearthstone and so far, I don't see compelling reasons to do so.
The MtG:A economy doesn't look very attractive, with the whole setup of having a premium currency but the amounts you buy never align well with the amounts you spend. While Hearthstone is expensive, at least it's not manipulative like that. Also, if I understood correctly, there is no equivalent of Wild mode, so when sets rotate, you'd be stuck with useless cards.
I used to play paper Magic in the mid-90's, when it was still pretty new (Revised and 4th Edition) and while I had a lot of fun with that, a big part of the fun was in playing with friends. Also we all had small budgets, so no-one had an advantage by out-spending the other players, which could be a problem for me in the online game. I don't mind spending some money on a game, but for example in Hearthstone I buy one pre-order a year and sometimes a bundle, so say 75 euros/year. There are people who spend that kind of money per month and my fear is that would give them a competitive edge more than it does in Hearthstone.
I've played HS for 3-4 years and while it was fun for a good 2-3 years, then things just starting to get to me as they introduced more and more RNG effect with the cards. One RNG effect can literally decide the winner. Watching the pro scene is almost like watching people rolling dice. The skill factor matters so little that basically whoever has a better hand, draw and RNG WILL win. While I have to say that the top pro players are all very good but there won't be these little plays here and there that can distinguish who's the better player because card draw, RNG factor and simplicity of the game itself.
Other stuff I don't like about HS is the amount of useless cards, especially legendaries/Epics. There are just so many badly designed cards that had no chance to make it to any decks which resulted in ladder/tourney seeing a few handful of decks that are viable competitively.
Now I've just played MTGA for a week and I don't really know what the meta is yet. But at least from the gameplay perspective, I already like what i'm seeing so far. The fact you can react to your opponent using instant or creature abilities already feels like a godsend. The game also has way more complexity than HS(to me it's a good thing). Skill matters much more since there are so many options available.
My complains for MTGA so far though are No Friend List, Mana problem and at times these planeswalker cards feel OP.
Other stuff I don't like about HS is the amount of useless cards, especially legendaries/Epics. There are just so many badly designed cards that had no chance to make it to any decks which resulted in ladder/tourney seeing a few handful of decks that are viable competitively.
Now I've just played MTGA
Are you serious? MTGA is full of FILLER
Also, every card game need useless cards or format like Arena and the packs opening will be too broken.
I just started playing yesterday after never playing a game of Magic in my life, so i'm still learning. I have some questions about crafting and decks and stuff if someone knowledgeable wants to PM me and answer some questions and help me sort out what I should do.
It's a fun game. I like the aesthetic more than hearthstone. I was doing really well until I started playing people who weren't also using the free decks they give you, now I'm getting my ass handed to me consistently, but im also probably still bad from being new.
I also don't understand the UI complaints. While you're playing a game I find the UI very smooth. It can be a tiny bit clunky when it comes to instants and effects, but that is part of the complexity of the game that can be ironed out over time. The UI in the menu and deck builder does feel a little clunky and weird at times.
I find MTG as a game much more enjoyable than hearthstone. That said, MTGA is so stingy and greedy it makes hearthstone looks generous (when it isn't at all in reality).
It's a shame, because MTGA could've had the potential to storm the market, but the short sighted vision of the suits won't make it happen.
except Magic has been around for 25 years, so i think they know what they are doing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rejoice, for even in death, you have become children of Thanos.
I find MTG as a game much more enjoyable than hearthstone. That said, MTGA is so stingy and greedy it makes hearthstone looks generous (when it isn't at all in reality).
It's a shame, because MTGA could've had the potential to storm the market, but the short sighted vision of the suits won't make it happen.
except Magic has been around for 25 years, so i think they know what they are doing.
In terms of the physical card game that isn't always true. Ever watched one of the Black Lotus videos on youtube? The whiplash from the back and forth between whether very rare cards should be printed in mass for player use vs not reprinting them for collectors' value and pocket change is astounding.
Being an old game doesn't mean you are without your problems. It just means they have attempted to better refine what their game is trying to accomplish. Although, as I just mentioned it seems the company still doesn't know whether to target collectors or to target players when producing / reproducing sets.
I quite like MTG:A and I'm gonna be playing it as a casual-i-dont-care-about-rank side game to HS, the rewards for just playing are decent imo, and prebuilt decks, as far as I can see, make sense...running into that Rat Colony deck for the first time felt pretty obnoxious tho :D
From the free decks I got as quest rewards, I think I like the Red-White the most :)
You do realise that Magic the Gathering: Arena is the online version of the game? Look it up.
Anyway, I have tried the game and I can see the appeal. I don't think I would say I would change from Hearthstone to Magic. However there are some things that I like in the game.
Gaining gold or a free card for each win you have. This to me is a great way to get appeal because if you start winning games, you are rewarded each time you get a win. Then if you win 5-15 game each week, you get a card pack. And then on top of that, each day you can playa game and you will get a new set, which really helps newer players. Now I know that in Hearthstone you can get quests and gold for each time you get three wins, but to me this game makes you feel you rewarded just by making an effort, which is great for newer players.
Also I just like the idea of combining colours/classes... whatever it's called to create decks with different synergy. Now I know that's not possible in Hearthstone for oblivious reasons, but I do like that idea of that when it comes to making a deck.
However I have seen some problems, like people using certain decks which can snowball really quickly, as well as know that get some of that card would take some time as you can't just use 'dust' to get the cards you want.
Still, I have enjoyed play the game and honestly after playing that for a few hours, I think this may be a nice challenger for Hearthstone. To be fair, I would like see Blizzard try and do something to make the game exciting again because when I was playing Hearthstone for the first time I really enjoyed playing the game. And there have been times when new content has made it enjoyable. But to be honest, I think with this game now available online, I really think Blizzard needs to do something to get attention of its current players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Entry for this week's Card Design Competition - Season 8.16:
Played MTG back in the 90s. Dropped more money than I care to admit. Picked up the beta and I'm a bit overwhelmed. Some of those cards read like a book. The game has changed so much. For me, there isn't enough hours in a day to play all these CCGs. At the moment I have more money and time invested in HS. I'll be passing on MTG this time around.
I've started playing MTGA, and for all the complaining people do about paywalls in HS, goddamn it's aggressive in MTGA. I prefer the sealed format, and unless you're willing to shell out money, the process to consistently play it is ridiculous:
Complete daily quests for gold - netting between 1000 and 1500 a day if you're a little lucky and playing a lot
Play quick draft to earn gems. Repeat as needed.
Use gems to buy into sealed. If you win 6 games, play more sealed
Eventually build up enough of a collection to field a high tier deck an spend gold on competitive constructed
Use that high tier deck to earn gold a little faster to speed up step 1
I get that modes like Draft and Sealed provide you with 14-card packs, which is supposed to be considered a benefit, but to me that's an excuse to upcharge users on the play experience. I'd be much happier with it if there was some "quick sealed" format that costs somewhere between 0 and 1000 gold, and which net you few or none of the cards you got from the 14 card packs.
Despite all of that frustration, I'm pretty bored of Hearthstone, so I'm logging in to complete my daily quests in casual and waiting until the next expansion before I really get back into playing HS consistently again.
I am reminder after just 20 games why I hate MTG so much. At 70% of my games end because I cant get more than 3 lands. The random generator is so horrid it can never compete with HS where there is no landscrew.
I actually prefer HS for the reason that my past has been full of blizzard games and I like the Rng of HS along with the styleof how the game is made. Also MTG is too complex for me even though it is interesting
So i've tried out MTGA from when the open Beta opened, but have rather given up on it, because of a few core problems with MTG.
MTG is exceptionally enjoyable... when everything goes well. Most of the times when i've queued up against another person, the experience have around 5 out of 6 times ended up being determined by mana screwing, me having a better deck than my opponent, or my opponent having a better deck than me. The later problems also exist in Hearthstone, but the problem is, that unlike in Hearthstone, you can't build a fully optimised constructed deck with mostly commons and uncommons(or rares as they're known in MTG).
The few games where both players get an equal amount of mana, and have about the same quality of decks are super enjoyable however, and if every game was like it, i would probaly be playing MTG a lot more.
Drafted in MTGA is extremely enjoyable aswell i agree. I feel like Arena in Hearthstone has gone downhill over the past year or so, because of the lack of... excitement. You rarely get that awesome feeling of going 5-7 wins with a terrible deck, while having played against amazing decks, nor do you get the excitement of having a deck that you just already knows will dominate more or less every single match.
This is a problem that i've actually had with Blizzard games for some time now. It seems like it has been in the best of intentions of Blizzard to make sure that everyone is on an even playing field. Like in World of Warcraft, where they've made Arena and Battlegrounds scaled, so you don't just dominate lower geared people... But a big part of a lot of games, is the feeling that you can just dominate your opponent. It feels AWESOME to queue up against a lower geared person, and just kill them within seconds. It feels awesome to know that your deckbuilding in arena has made your deck better than your opponent's, to get the opportunity to just DEMOLISH your opponent. Imo, it feels good when you can smash your opponent, because you've invested more time into the game than your opponent, although it rarely feels good, if it has been because they've spent more money on it.
I feel like Hearthstone could do themselves a big favor, by putting more reactivity into the game, alongside more benefits in spending TIME into the deck, compared to money.
Have an excelent optimization, run very well in any machine is not a total potato crap, HS does a very good job too.
The interface is clean and so far I don't have any connection problems, HS this issue happen sometimes.
This is by far the best free experience, you get full playable decks every day, the ammount of free card in a week is far more generous than HS.
I prefer HS especially in the weeks of a new expansion but MTGA is far more fun when HS become stale like now with 100% meta decks and looks like anyone else have the balls or the brain to try something new.
As said mtga price for draft is a barrier to free to play.
Also a really important subject that I didn't saw in previous comments is :
Will MTGA stay around more than 2-4 years !?!?
I believe that Hs for blizzard is what paper MtG is for Wizard. And that mtga is like the other digital mtg game and will be upgraded every few years (which mean reinvesting in new collection)
I don't have the time/energy to keep up with daily quests in two games. I already have Faeria as a card game that I can fall back on when I'm fed up with the Hearthstone meta. So if I want to play MtG:A seriously, I'd have to drop Hearthstone and so far, I don't see compelling reasons to do so.
The MtG:A economy doesn't look very attractive, with the whole setup of having a premium currency but the amounts you buy never align well with the amounts you spend. While Hearthstone is expensive, at least it's not manipulative like that. Also, if I understood correctly, there is no equivalent of Wild mode, so when sets rotate, you'd be stuck with useless cards.
I used to play paper Magic in the mid-90's, when it was still pretty new (Revised and 4th Edition) and while I had a lot of fun with that, a big part of the fun was in playing with friends. Also we all had small budgets, so no-one had an advantage by out-spending the other players, which could be a problem for me in the online game. I don't mind spending some money on a game, but for example in Hearthstone I buy one pre-order a year and sometimes a bundle, so say 75 euros/year. There are people who spend that kind of money per month and my fear is that would give them a competitive edge more than it does in Hearthstone.
I've played HS for 3-4 years and while it was fun for a good 2-3 years, then things just starting to get to me as they introduced more and more RNG effect with the cards. One RNG effect can literally decide the winner. Watching the pro scene is almost like watching people rolling dice. The skill factor matters so little that basically whoever has a better hand, draw and RNG WILL win. While I have to say that the top pro players are all very good but there won't be these little plays here and there that can distinguish who's the better player because card draw, RNG factor and simplicity of the game itself.
Other stuff I don't like about HS is the amount of useless cards, especially legendaries/Epics. There are just so many badly designed cards that had no chance to make it to any decks which resulted in ladder/tourney seeing a few handful of decks that are viable competitively.
Now I've just played MTGA for a week and I don't really know what the meta is yet. But at least from the gameplay perspective, I already like what i'm seeing so far. The fact you can react to your opponent using instant or creature abilities already feels like a godsend. The game also has way more complexity than HS(to me it's a good thing). Skill matters much more since there are so many options available.
My complains for MTGA so far though are No Friend List, Mana problem and at times these planeswalker cards feel OP.
Are you serious?
MTGA is full of FILLER
Also, every card game need useless cards or format like Arena and the packs opening will be too broken.
You are complaining with wrong points
Leper Gnome
the poll is so unaccurate, you should ask that question on a neutral card games site.
I just started playing yesterday after never playing a game of Magic in my life, so i'm still learning. I have some questions about crafting and decks and stuff if someone knowledgeable wants to PM me and answer some questions and help me sort out what I should do.
It's a fun game. I like the aesthetic more than hearthstone. I was doing really well until I started playing people who weren't also using the free decks they give you, now I'm getting my ass handed to me consistently, but im also probably still bad from being new.
I also don't understand the UI complaints. While you're playing a game I find the UI very smooth. It can be a tiny bit clunky when it comes to instants and effects, but that is part of the complexity of the game that can be ironed out over time. The UI in the menu and deck builder does feel a little clunky and weird at times.
MTGA, just because this option:
except Magic has been around for 25 years, so i think they know what they are doing.
Rejoice, for even in death, you have become children of Thanos.
In terms of the physical card game that isn't always true. Ever watched one of the Black Lotus videos on youtube? The whiplash from the back and forth between whether very rare cards should be printed in mass for player use vs not reprinting them for collectors' value and pocket change is astounding.
Being an old game doesn't mean you are without your problems. It just means they have attempted to better refine what their game is trying to accomplish. Although, as I just mentioned it seems the company still doesn't know whether to target collectors or to target players when producing / reproducing sets.
I quite like MTG:A and I'm gonna be playing it as a casual-i-dont-care-about-rank side game to HS, the rewards for just playing are decent imo, and prebuilt decks, as far as I can see, make sense...running into that Rat Colony deck for the first time felt pretty obnoxious tho :D
From the free decks I got as quest rewards, I think I like the Red-White the most :)
You can't stop the signal.
You do realise that Magic the Gathering: Arena is the online version of the game? Look it up.
Anyway, I have tried the game and I can see the appeal. I don't think I would say I would change from Hearthstone to Magic. However there are some things that I like in the game.
Gaining gold or a free card for each win you have. This to me is a great way to get appeal because if you start winning games, you are rewarded each time you get a win. Then if you win 5-15 game each week, you get a card pack. And then on top of that, each day you can play a game and you will get a new set, which really helps newer players. Now I know that in Hearthstone you can get quests and gold for each time you get three wins, but to me this game makes you feel you rewarded just by making an effort, which is great for newer players.
Also I just like the idea of combining colours/classes... whatever it's called to create decks with different synergy. Now I know that's not possible in Hearthstone for oblivious reasons, but I do like that idea of that when it comes to making a deck.
However I have seen some problems, like people using certain decks which can snowball really quickly, as well as know that get some of that card would take some time as you can't just use 'dust' to get the cards you want.
Still, I have enjoyed play the game and honestly after playing that for a few hours, I think this may be a nice challenger for Hearthstone. To be fair, I would like see Blizzard try and do something to make the game exciting again because when I was playing Hearthstone for the first time I really enjoyed playing the game. And there have been times when new content has made it enjoyable. But to be honest, I think with this game now available online, I really think Blizzard needs to do something to get attention of its current players.
My Entry for this week's Card Design Competition - Season 8.16:
I dumped MtG when they pulled dual lands, reprinted Legends and destroyed the economy built on the game's success. That was a long time ago.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Played MTG back in the 90s. Dropped more money than I care to admit. Picked up the beta and I'm a bit overwhelmed. Some of those cards read like a book. The game has changed so much. For me, there isn't enough hours in a day to play all these CCGs. At the moment I have more money and time invested in HS. I'll be passing on MTG this time around.
I've started playing MTGA, and for all the complaining people do about paywalls in HS, goddamn it's aggressive in MTGA. I prefer the sealed format, and unless you're willing to shell out money, the process to consistently play it is ridiculous:
I get that modes like Draft and Sealed provide you with 14-card packs, which is supposed to be considered a benefit, but to me that's an excuse to upcharge users on the play experience. I'd be much happier with it if there was some "quick sealed" format that costs somewhere between 0 and 1000 gold, and which net you few or none of the cards you got from the 14 card packs.
Despite all of that frustration, I'm pretty bored of Hearthstone, so I'm logging in to complete my daily quests in casual and waiting until the next expansion before I really get back into playing HS consistently again.
I am reminder after just 20 games why I hate MTG so much. At 70% of my games end because I cant get more than 3 lands. The random generator is so horrid it can never compete with HS where there is no landscrew.
I actually prefer HS for the reason that my past has been full of blizzard games and I like the Rng of HS along with the styleof how the game is made. Also MTG is too complex for me even though it is interesting
Just your average off-metamancer here.
Also a member of the real casual play network https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/222850-new-third-game-mode-real-casual-play-network
HS: I don't have the time nor desire to get into another CCG.
Also:
-Manascrews seem like no fun at all, and they happen pretty frequently! At least mana crystals are consistant and don't fill up your hand!
-There are so many keywords and interactions, it seems very troublesome and frustrating to learn.
-The interface of HS is a lot cleaner than the one of MTGA.
If an opportunity to play some RL MTG comes along, I am very open to trying it!
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
So i've tried out MTGA from when the open Beta opened, but have rather given up on it, because of a few core problems with MTG.
MTG is exceptionally enjoyable... when everything goes well. Most of the times when i've queued up against another person, the experience have around 5 out of 6 times ended up being determined by mana screwing, me having a better deck than my opponent, or my opponent having a better deck than me. The later problems also exist in Hearthstone, but the problem is, that unlike in Hearthstone, you can't build a fully optimised constructed deck with mostly commons and uncommons(or rares as they're known in MTG).
The few games where both players get an equal amount of mana, and have about the same quality of decks are super enjoyable however, and if every game was like it, i would probaly be playing MTG a lot more.
Drafted in MTGA is extremely enjoyable aswell i agree. I feel like Arena in Hearthstone has gone downhill over the past year or so, because of the lack of... excitement. You rarely get that awesome feeling of going 5-7 wins with a terrible deck, while having played against amazing decks, nor do you get the excitement of having a deck that you just already knows will dominate more or less every single match.
This is a problem that i've actually had with Blizzard games for some time now. It seems like it has been in the best of intentions of Blizzard to make sure that everyone is on an even playing field. Like in World of Warcraft, where they've made Arena and Battlegrounds scaled, so you don't just dominate lower geared people... But a big part of a lot of games, is the feeling that you can just dominate your opponent. It feels AWESOME to queue up against a lower geared person, and just kill them within seconds. It feels awesome to know that your deckbuilding in arena has made your deck better than your opponent's, to get the opportunity to just DEMOLISH your opponent. Imo, it feels good when you can smash your opponent, because you've invested more time into the game than your opponent, although it rarely feels good, if it has been because they've spent more money on it.
I feel like Hearthstone could do themselves a big favor, by putting more reactivity into the game, alongside more benefits in spending TIME into the deck, compared to money.
I want a new title, but Flux won't let me have one,
I tried mtga in closed beta, had fun. But in this state I'm not rich enough to have fun.
Ready for action
MTGA is doing everything right for now.
Have an excelent optimization, run very well in any machine is not a total potato crap, HS does a very good job too.
The interface is clean and so far I don't have any connection problems, HS this issue happen sometimes.
This is by far the best free experience, you get full playable decks every day, the ammount of free card in a week is far more generous than HS.
I prefer HS especially in the weeks of a new expansion but MTGA is far more fun when HS become stale like now with 100% meta decks and looks like anyone else have the balls or the brain to try something new.