Game-A-Week Episode 16: Magic the Gathering Arena

[10:31 PM]

Now this is going to be a short one, because I think we're all familiar with Magic: The Gathering.

[10:37 PM]

If not, its arguably the world's most popular card game. Unlike other card games which constantly introduce power creep....

[10:40 PM]

(Pokemon TCG meta card in 1999)

[10:41 PM]

(Pokemon TCG meta card in 2020)

[10:41 PM]

(Strongest four star monster in Yu-Gi-Oh in the year 2000)

[10:44 PM]

(Not even the strongest four star or lower monster in Yu-Gi-Oh, in 2010, yet still stronger than almost every OG monster that requires tribute in order to summon)

[10:44 PM]

cough There's a couple examples of that.

[10:47 PM]

No, in Magic, there's none of that. With the way the game is set up, any card you owned from 20 years ago, will still be just as effective today as it was back then.

[10:48 PM]

Which, has not compelled me to purchase more cards. I've got my deck and I plan on running with it for the rest of my life. And I only ever play with my friends so no whistle blower is gonna say I can't play because only the most recent set is legal or whatever.

[10:50 PM]

Now, onto MTG Arena. I won't be reviewing the card game itself because that's not what we're here for, just this "game", that its based on.

[10:53 PM]

But, for what its worth, Magic the Gathering is a solid 9/10. In my opinion, its the best card game, like, ever. It handles resource management really well, each card belongs to a defined color-coded play-style. And you can mix and match that to your heart's content. There's no card limit, just a minimum of 60 cards per deck so feel free to go wild. Its simple, yet complex. Its a difficult balance but, it manages to strike it.

[10:53 PM]

Anyway, so MTG Arena, is just that game but digitized.

[10:54 PM]

Which is why this is going to be a short Game-A-Week.

[10:54 PM]

I'm not reviewing the actual game since Magic is already a very defined game, just the medium in which it is being presented.

[10:56 PM]

And, I'm sure you're all going to gasp at this plot twist but it doesn't do much for me.

[10:58 PM]

I have a deck. I have cards. I have friends to play the game with. I don't really need a digitized version of this game.

[10:58 PM]

The only thing it does for me is online matchmaking giving me the ability to play with people online.

[10:59 PM]

Buuuuuut, the issue is, I don't have my deck in this version of the game so I found myself not caring.

[11:00 PM]

Not even a single card, if you can believe it.

[11:00 PM]

I don't want to play with some rando cards, I want to play with MY cards.

[11:02 PM]

The reason I play Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links is because I have no idea where any of my cards are from my childhood so I'd have to buy new cards anyway. (And not to mention, all of my old cards are outclassed now). So picking up a digitized version of THAT card game worked for me because I was basically a new player. Same with the Pokemon TCG. I mean, I haven't done it yet, but I WANT to get into that again because the artwork on the new cards looks amazing. And all of my old cards are who knows where so I'm starting fresh again (And even when I did collect these, I didn't keep track of any energy cards because they were boring so I woudln't be able to play with my old collection anyway. Not to mention, my best card was Blaziken EX which btw, already power crept my previous best card: 100HP Blastoise, would get eaten alive by the Snorlax pictured above.)

[11:02 PM]

But I'm not starting fresh in Magic, so Arena doesn't do it for me.

[11:08 PM]

And also, this game somehow managed to have an even worse tutorial than TemTem.

[11:09 PM]

TemTem's tutorial took me 6 hours to finish. MTG Arena's tutorial? TOOK ME 6 DAYS.

[11:09 PM]

Yeah, it took me almost the entirety of the week to play. I had one day to play the game for reals.

[11:11 PM]

Arena's tutorial is five games long. That'll take you about an hour. But then... There's a tutorial after the tutorial. The tutorial only taught you the basics. NOW you have to play five games against the A.I. with all five colors of cards in order to learn each of their playstyles.

[11:12 PM]

That's a total of 30 games MINIMUM. More if you fail any of them.

[11:14 PM]

Also, the tutorial isn't even well thought out. One of the tutorial NPCs was all like, "You think that angel can stop me?" the turn after I had already sacrificed my angel. I still passed the tutorial anyway btw.

[11:15 PM]

Listen, I'm all for in-depth tutorials that tell me everything there is to know about a game....

[11:15 PM]

But by god, if your tutorial is longer than one hour, you've done something wrong.

[11:16 PM]

There is one thing that Arena managed to do for me.

[11:16 PM]

Because all the damage calculation is done by the computer, it finally showed me what First Strike does,

[11:17 PM]

Which, I went YEARS not knowing what this thing did.

[11:17 PM]

I thought if you had First Strike and you have high enough attack to kill the monster you're fighting, you take no damage.

[11:18 PM]

As it turns out, it doesn't matter how high your attack is.

[11:18 PM]

First Strike means you don't take ANY combat damage. You can only be taken out with indirect damage like spells and passive effects.

[11:19 PM]

It sounds like bullshit but apparently, that's what First Strike actually does. HOW IS THIS NOT OP?!

[11:24 PM]

The last thing I want to touch on is how you obtain cards. This is done by purchasing virtual booster packs with either in-game gold or real money. I didn't get any particularly exciting pulls and I most certainly did not pull any cards from my own personal deck. There were actually Godzilla cards (Godzilla himself was a 7/3, with trample holy shit). But those were exclusive to real money purchases which made me pretty sad. If I had pulled any of those, then maybe I'd have a reason to keep playing this game.

[11:25 PM]

Guys, I'm not joking, this is 100% real.

[11:28 PM]

I give Magic: The Gathering Arena a 5/10. While, I'm aware that this is less an objective stance and more of a subjective one, I have no need for it. I already play magic and still have working cards and friends to play it with. Unlike Yu-Gi-Oh, I do not need a digitized version of this card game in order to play it. I would recommend this only to beginners that do not own any cards but would like to get into the game. Maybe if it did something cool like actually getting to see your monsters summoned onto the battlefield like most Yu-Gi-Oh games do instead of just static cards sitting on the field, then it'd be worth it. But its just the card game except digital and that does nothing for a veteran like me. Well, it DOES have some voice acting for Chandra and she DOES have some pretty funny lines but that's not enough.

[11:29 PM]

When you're about to send someone to the shadow realm but you can't help but respect them for their choice of username.