I have played all the various pc versions of Magic the Gathering TCG over the years, and the hugely successful card game is better than ever in the latest version - MTG Arena (Beta).
I must admit I played the Magic card game version for many years and had many good times with the game, so I’m biased.
But is this old game really still good to play? Does it still have what it takes to be compelling and fun? Indeed, it does. The game was so fun I had to uninstall it after a few days of intense play. If I had not, I would not be writing anything.
These days however any pc card game has to be compared to Hearthstone and I feel that MTG Arena is actually better than Hearthstone in some ways while being decidedly worse in others.
Final winning attack in one of the games I played. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you—
If you are a new player to this sort of game, I would choose Hearthstone - it is easy to understand and friendlier in its workings. The intro for new players in Hearthstone is also made for anybody whereas the intro battles in MTG Arena are fairly nerdy.
Also, the inherent issue with mana generation in Magic means that you will have to accept that some of your games fall apart no matter what you do. Some games you will draw mostly mana cards others you don’t get enough mana or the wrong color(s).
Yes, you can and should use strategies in your deck building and playing to help you deal with this in positive ways, but this does not fix the game. It is not like patching a bugged computer program but more like wearing rain clothes all the time, in case it rains. Not an easy thing for at least some new players to understand or enjoy.
Yes, if you played magic before you know this already and have learned to cope. Still games where all you can hope for is that your opponent experiences the same issue or makes a mistake are simply less fun than ones where you have mana and not too much of it.
This is the way it has always been, but if the dear game designers truly want to fix Magic, they need to address the issue! Mana generation is a fun killer, old fashioned and not needed in esports.
It becomes especially evident when compared to Hearthstone’s elegant way of giving players an equal and increasing amount of resources to play cards. You can see how ancient and boring the old mana generation is. Seen over a number of games of magic the mana thing is not terrible, most games are fun to play but mana-issues just happen to often for my linking.
So how is the game better in Hearthstone?
Well, the sheer artistry of the cards is fantastic. Magic has always been great at this, and there is just so much fantastic fantasy art in this game. It is inspiring and impressive. The graphics are more impressive than Hearthstone surely, and many of the touches just looks fantastic.
The daily quest system is also a bit better than Hearthstone in my book. Not a big difference though.
If you have played Magic before, but like me not for a while, MTG Arena is a very nice way to get back into the game. The programming is good and the wait on the servers are near zone - you just get into games straight away. Especially for a Beta version this is very impressive.
The deck creator is in part at least better than Hearthstones. The system for automatically adding mana to your deck is very smooth, you can easily clone decks, and have quite a lot of decks at one, the search filter is smart, and it is flavorful that you can use any illustration in the game as the cover on your “deck box”, and you have an option to choose between two layouts. Well done.
The option to copy deck lists from outside the game could be a nice addition later, but the game really does not have any good social features yet. Hope they will add that later. You can play against a friend but the way they made this feature it does not feel social.
Other good things
Choosing to not show flavor text on cards is a good thing as well. It would take up too much space on screen and would impede the fun and flow of the game.
It is fun when your play or get beaten by some deck which totally blows your mind. Some cards in magic have always been crazy - a lot more so than Hearthstone - and the ways in which you can twist the rules and bend the workings of the game is cool. At the same time it leads to frustration though as you get more games where one of the players had less fun. You can’t have it both ways though, I think.
The actual combat system is better in Hearthstone. It is just more intuitive and fun to attack there than in MTG Arena. Heartstone is more “swipe” and less “drag and drop” - less antiquated if you like.
Once you figure out how to play the game it is a lot of FUN though. Magic just has a lot more depth than Hearthstone, and that is why you will keep coming back.
A fun situation: I killed Black’s 17/4 Enigma Drake which I had first enchanted with Dead Man’s Chest. This resulted in me drawing 17 cards from the top of HIS library, nearly exhausting it, and causing him to forfeit. Just look at all the cards I still have after I played a bunch last turn. Crazy fun :-)
ADDENDUM
I could not stay away from the game for long. Reinstalled it during the holidays, and played a whole lot of magic on the ladder till I hit Platinum 1 rank. The game continues to be improved, and in many ways it has gone beyond Heartstone, but there are still some annoying things like when I play Guild Summit (a 3 mana blue enchantment) I have to manually tap each land even if I only have three mana, and when you draft and get a bunch of new cards at once , I really miss Heartstone’s nice feature which lets you see all the latest cards you have gotten.
/Rune S. Nielsen