I've been playing mtg arena almost strictly for a few days now

Multiplayer Discussion
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I have to say, I don’t know how but somehow that CCG that was the most expensive to play in real life, has birthed a great F2P online game. To give an example

Hearthstone

3 Quests a day - ranging from gold to packs. 2 quests on average can get you a pack a day.

MTGA

3 Quests a day - All gold, 2 quests on average can get you a pack a day

Hearthstone

Daily wins 10g per win, max 100 g cap.

MTGA

Daily wins go from in a regression pattern

1 win - 250 gold
2 win 100 gold
3 win - 100 gold
4 win - 100 gold
5 win - a random card.

In total you can get 800 gold, and 6 random cards from daily wins.

Hearthstone

Weekly win is relegated to tavern brawl, you get a pack

MTGA

Weekly win’s can be earned in any mode not practice, you get 1, 2 and 3 packs at 5, 10, and 15 wins respectively.

Both games have a 5 dollar welcome bundle

MTGA has codes for free packs you can redeem in the store.
Examples

PlayRavnica
Playallegiance
Playwarspark

Those codes are worth 3 packs. There are also coes for stained glass styles.

There is no dusting in MTGA, so hearthstone wins in that avenue. Instead they issue out wildcards for opening up packs which you can use to craft rares immediately at specific ratios. Rare wildcards guaranteed every 7.5 packs, mythic every 30 packs. Don’t forget packs are larger with 9 cards I believe. After you reach level 3) After reaching level 30 you get a bunch of wildcards to spend

Draft here is called arena, 150 gold or 1.99 entry fee. Takes about 6 wins to “go infinite” on average if you are lucky. Meaning you can re play over and over

MTGA has 3 different draft modes. One is gem only but you can earn gems and packs back, one is gems or gold and you earn gold and packs, one is “best of 3” meaning you go against one opponent 3 times and you can sideboard, or put cards in or out of your deck to make the matchup better. These modes usually take 3 or 4 wins to go infinite out of 7.

YOU GET TO KEEP ALL CARDS THAT YOU DRAFTED IN YOUR COLLECTION.

I was wondering why hearthstone was being so generous lately. When you actually look and research into the competition, you almost feel cheated in this game.

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I’ve tried it out too after getting a boros deck from twitch prime. It seemed like such a breath of fresh air. They give you 10 starter decks essentially, and it feels like you actually build a collection in that game day by day with their daily wins in which you can also earn cards. Not a fan of some of the systems in magic like it’s land system, but willing to overlook it as most of my games are pretty fun.

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MTG Arena’s economy is more rewarding and gives you many different options to earn your collection. Plus it gives you starter decks. Though I have been getting salty sometimes at “OP” cards, things even out and I’m at the point where I’ve crafted most of the staples of Mono White and got 7 wins in Constructed Event yesterday. Doubled my entry fee of 500 and got 2 rares and an uncommon.

I pick up Eternal Card Game every so often, and a couple of days ago the 1 in a 1000 happened. I played and got a Ranked Win, which usually gives you a Bronze chest (40-50 Gold and a common). But this one TRIPLE upgraded to a Diamond chest and I got 1840 gold, a pack AND a premium uncommon. Talk about value, I suddenly had 5000 gold from a couple of games, enough for a Draft. I can build up a good collection of commons and uncommons from every set rather casually, even if I stop playing for a while.

Giving individual card rewards goes a long way towards making a player feel like they are making progress building their collection. In Hearthstone 10g/3 wins doesn’t feel very rewarding, and dusting yoyr collection to craft cards does not feel very good. Plus Arena being the only option to grow your collection past the standard rate of saving up 8k gold per expansion is kinda limiting. And only offers latest expansion packs. Basically punishes you for not playing during the 4 months an expansion is the newest set, which is bad for casual, returning, new players.

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My favorite part of Gwent was getting a choice of three when you roll a high rarity card.

I think that alone could be a great improvement to pack opening because it gives pretty much zero value to the whales but greatly increases the value of sub total collections.

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MTGA’s dupe protection also extends to Rares(equivalent of Epics in HS) and you are guaranteed 1 per pack.

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100% Agree

I’m not sure, after having used both a ton, if I agree here. For people who spend a decent amount, yes, the dust system is better. The Wildcard system though is better, I think, for F2P or light spenders because you just accumulate so many Common and Uncommon (more important) cards that you don’t feel bad crafting cards of lower rarity.

Couple things to add:

  • Magic quests are based on PLAYING not winning
  • The 3 packs per week feel better even though you need more cards in Magic for decks (you tend to run 2-3 of a legend/Mythic instead of one). So you just feel better rewarded even if, mathematically, they’re similar (or even in HS’s favor)
  • Earning 1 pack per day for 1-4 wins (Quest gold + 4 win regression) just feels really, really good
  • Earning cards (and gold) through “Brawliseum” (Tradition Constructed, Constructed Event, and Win Regression system) adds an element of excitement for free on “what will you unlock!” Especially if you’re building towards a few decks.

I’ve been very impressed by MtG:A’s economy. I thought I would hate Wildcards but they’re not bad. Rare is the only rarity that feels a bit harsh due to how important dual-lands are right now but come next expansion (July) that demand might go down some as a large portion of dual-lands will rotate (Dominaria).

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Rotation doesn’t happen until October.

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My mistake then =)

Happy on that as I just finished most of the dual-lands, lol

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And there’s a good chance similar post exists in magic forums comparing it to other games with better mechanics as well.

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?
What exactly is your point?

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Exactly. This is why monopoly in a market is a bad thing. Let them compete, we the customer is the one who being pampered in the end.

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hs revenues are down by 37% since last year. thats the ONLY reason the team seems to be active now. its too late though. the old whales left and wont be back. the ones that stayed have all the cards and dust they need. im f2p and have all the top decks and more dust than i know what to do with. streamers started leaving long ago. the game has NO buzz anymore…
the reputation for this game is terrible. no new whales will be showing up and the continuous year to year, month to month decline in revenue is proof.
we just didnt want to be ignored. but thats exactly what we got. this game made hundreds of millions of dollars and look at it lmao…its so limited and optionless and repetitive.
we will see them try more things as all games do before they die. on one hand we are seeing them charge 700 gold for a chapter wing that rewards you with 3 packs. or doubling the number of legends in a set and making most of them unusable garbage so that you get nothing good in packs and must craft what you need. on the other hand, im sure TB will change at some point and we will have multiple or all choices to choose from instead of just one. we may eventually see ladders, clans, clan battles, maybe the ability to ban one class from being matched per deck, etc… but i dont see any of that raising the revenue 37% and thats just to break even with last year.
it was fantastic for a while even as a f2p. i never understood the p2w whining as i can craft anything you can buy. but its been pure hell for a while now and sad to say but the audience left the building…shows over.

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Wanted to join the debate you are having guys!
I do play MTGO as well, it’s good and the only thing I miss is 2 headed Giant mode.
Is MTGO threat to hearthstone? Now I would say YES. Simple things as a daily wins and all the quests they offer are so much rewarding than HS. I got 70% cards from the new expansion in less than a month as a F2P player. Can you achieve same in HS? I doubt that.
But I do love Hearthstone as well, I do buy things with regret knowing that i will get a super bad legendary or cards it self, but that is my choice and I can’t complain about it!
Game has to evolve further, devs have to experiment more. I know that it is easier to sit in comfortable chair and do nothing, but mark my words, things ALWAYS change, new games will come and take over.

Wild mode is broken beyond fixing. Unless you apply new rules and mechanic.
Online tournament should be added. New class have to be added or same class with new hero power (add some colors). Monty free cardto shake meta.

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It’s funny because hearthstone on an actual entertainment basis is on an upswing with this new set, whereas magic has gone way downhill with their new set.

They’ve sort of flipped. Magic introduced their version of hero cards with planeswalkers which are just as boring to play against as the hearthstone hero cards were before they rotated out.

If it wasn’t for the boring games vs red and blue/x removal the game just has so much more strategic depth and deck building options. But as of now it’s such a dull slog vs the horde of slow planeswalker decks.

I much prefer hearthstone right now, but that can always switch next expansion and the ability to have options in terms of card games is a welcome change and hopefully pushes both development teams.

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It’s never too late for a healthy change - they have to try now tho and stop with their overpriced practises.

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They have to give you more rewards in MTGA to make up for the larger card pool required to make a deck. Every deck has to be 60 cards instead of 30, and many of the good decks require 4 of a kind rares or mythics, and full sets of rare lands to be efficient. It takes much longer to make the deck you want in MTGA unless you pay a hefty fee. I’ve played Magic irl for years, and switching to Arena was fun and all for a bit, but believe me when I say that Hearthstone and MTGA are two completely different games that shouldn’t be compared via rewards or even gameplay. Hearthstone has pioneered a game that (although it is more rng) has the ability to create cards out of nothing, choices out of thin air, transform things into unknowns. MTG is very specific in all of it’s interactions and everything is very cut and dry, strict to a formula, but HS is malleable and changes as you play it. There is no reason in trying to explain Hearthstone’s decisions based off of MTGA’s recent success. It’s like comparing Fortnite to CSGO.

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I play it and haven’t sunk one dollar into it as of yet. I received the starter decks and just continued on. Right now I have 16 different decks, the newest actually being an all black deck that has me winning ranked up to mid gold, (the game doesn’t number your ranks, it’s a shield and by color.) Let’s be a bit more specific though. Yes the deck is 60 cards but 25 - 30 of them will normally be land cards. So you have 30 - 35 actual playing cards.

Right now I’ve 15k gold saved so if I wanted to buy additional packs I wouldn’t need to open the wallet. Also we need to clarify that cards do pop out of thin air based upon what the played card’s description says.

As stated these two games play differently, the cards in MTG:A have to be read and understood differently. That game requires a strategic outlook because if you get unlucky in getting enough land cards to play the higher value cards SOL.

The one thing I love the most is the auto squelch feature. I hate the “Well Met” a lot in HS. I don’t need emotes when I play. Just let me win or lose without listening to those stupid things.

Overall, to me MTG:A is more F2P then HS is. You want to play ranked in HS, you will need to buy packs with gold, dust or your wallet. Consider the rate of gold that HS hands out on dailies and wins plus single packs, and just standing back to compare what MTG:A doles out and you would get jealous after awhile.

Please remember this is just my take on both games. They play differently so if you have never played MTG., you will feel overwhelmed at first. I used to buy the actual cards from Revised on till I finally stopped after accumulating 3k+ cards. Right now I’m going through the process of cataloging them for future sales on eBay. It’s tiresome believe me. :grinning:

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If by introduced you mean have continued to have for quite some time now then yes…

The thing War of the Spark brought were static effects on some Planeswalkers but outside of that Planeswalkers have been part of Magic for quite some time now

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  • Agree on Rare lands, they are the biggest sink right now.
  • Rares and Mythics will fully depend on the deck. Many run 2-3x but yes you do need more copies of each card. I will say though earning 10 packs a week (+ a bit) vs. 6 packs a week does feel very different, to me at least
  • A magic deck isn’t really 60 cards. If you play dual-colored it is really more like 45 cards as 15ish will be basic lands which are free. If you play mono-colored it is closer to 40ish cards. Tri-color decks which will be a thing until rotation do tend to need 60ish cards for certain though.

There is thing to compare the two to; however, if your point here is that they play to two very different styles than yes I fully agree. Neither is trying to imitate the other and want to rely on different mechanics and systems. Hearthstone takes full advantage of the digital domain and does a good job of that. Magic takes full advantage of a layered countering system and achieves decent balance through that (of the last three, WAR is probably the worst fo the three but still decently good).

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Does magic has a big player base? If it has, I will consider playing it in the future.