Hello guys, here I am again for another gaming post. These past days I got back into drawing and writing but there is also something new in my mix of activities. Last Thursday, I learned about this game called Magic the Gathering Arena from some Youtube videos. To cut the chase straight, I downloaded it and tried it.

MTG Arena has just released its open beta testing this September which is really not that long ago. The game is okay... but I want to rant a little before I talk about the said game itself.

Magic the gathering is the premiere trading card game, it is the first of its kind. This product of expensive rectangular cardboards had made a new genre of table top games that encourages trading and collecting back during the 90s. The concept of this game made other popular titles like Yugioh, Pokemon and other trading card games that I don't know come into existence.

It is hard to say that we wouldn't be having these other games like Hearth Stones if MTG didn't existed but still MTG was the first one that made it and it was successful.

But even with all these good historical success that Magic the gathering had it still makes me think, why did it took it too long for it to be able to make a platform like Magic Arena?

Pokemon already did it way before Hearthstones came out. And that is not all, for me, Pokemon Trading Card Online is the best among these card games if you sum up both the actual table top game and the online game(cause Hearth Stones is only limited with a PC).

Hearth Stones already boomed and still MTG hasn't made their own dedicated platform. Yugioh on the other hand had been trying all these times before they had successfully made their Duel Links.

Magic the Gathering was the first in the table top version and it is the last when the demand for a computer version was already present.

Don't get me wrong, MTG also tried to multiple times to make an online version of the game but the thing that always makes their online product fail is mostly greed.

MTG online asks a lot of money for you just to be able to play the game. I haven't experienced that said game but I tried playing it along time ago and my PC that time wasn't even capable of playing the game. I know that Wizards of the coast also made some MTG games on steam, I tried one of them and...its shit, I didn't liked it for some reasons that I cannot remember. I think it asks money for the cards? I cannot remember.

Hearth Stones is the same and so is Pokemon. For you to be able to have an edge on the game by having a lot of booster packs, you need to buy with real world money. But even so that such an option of buying is present you can still enjoy the game by using the given free cards, decks and just grinding for free booster packs. All and all, these games have an option to just play for the packs that you need for the game. On the other hand, MTG wasn't like that before and worse, their platform sucks(before MTG Arena).

The Actual Game

So now that my rant is over I can now set that aside and talk more about the actual game. Magic the Gathering Arena is just fair. Its not that good and its also not that bad.

MTG arena now has a smoother server unlike its former games, to be honest here, I find its match finding queue faster than Hearth Stones and Pokemon Trading Card Game Online. Once you click for search for a match AKA play button, it wouldn't take over a minute for it to find you a game. I think that is a big up for MTG.

The art is also good, Mtg Arena sticked to its original serious magical feel and didn't added any goofy details like cartoony fonts or too saturated color schemes for its interface. The platform's appearance is perfect for the cards' art styles and feel.

With all the good things to mention already mentioned I will now proceed on talking about the bad things about this game which I find terrible.

The Rewarding System
The rewarding system sucks. Once a day, you are given some quests so you can have gold to spend and booster packs to open. This kind of rewarding system is good only if its not so limited. I had been playing for a couple of days now and I already experienced how this game gives a lot of scarcity on their rewards.

If you compare how Pokemon handle their rewarding system you will be able to tell right away how Pokemon values both their table top version and their online version by rewarding the players a considerate amount of boosters.

In Pokemon, once you buy a 4 dollar booster pack, you are entitled with a code card which you can use to receive the same booster pack on the online version of the game. Not only that, Pokemon's rewarding system has a daily and a weekly version which will make all the players keep on playing and grinding because of all of these rewards unlike MTG.

Not only MTG doesn't entitle you with any code cards for the online version once you purchase the real cards, their products itself are now more expensive than it used to be. Their boosters used to only cost around 3 dollars for a 15 card pack. And now that Wizards had announced a tremendous roll up in price, we will now be seeing 10 dollars per booster pack soon.

Another last thing that I hate about this game is the help texts. There are some mechanics in the game that says, "sacrifice this: x deals x damage to target or player". I do not know if what I experience is a bug on the game but I have this card that does that effect and whenever I sacrifice a creature, the damage effect isn't implemented, it just resolves and the help texts doesn't help in anyway. Yeah, I personally think its a bug in the game.

In summary, Magic Arena is competent enough for its game if you set aside this bug that I mentioned in terms of gaming experience. What I think that needs to be improved is the rewarding system for the players so that they would keep on coming back.

A digital booster pack in MTG arena costs a dollar per booster and the game itself gives a lot of incentive via their "wild card" system. But I still find it lacking due to the reason that by putting most of the options on purchasing, the "interacting" is lessened specially that chatting in game and playing with friends is still not allowed.

I am hoping that these bad points that I mentioned would be improved in the near future because I love this game. This game is a part of my childhood, I used to play and collect these cards and I was always longing for an easy way to play this game with everyone. I just hope Wizards pull the right strings this time.

All the words in this post are mine

The photos used in this post are "print screened and pasted" from my desktop

Magic the gathering is an intellectual property of Hasbro and Wizards of the coast

Pokemon is owned by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company

And Yugioh is owned by Shueisha and Konami