I have been playing Paper Magic since 1994, owned and ran a FLGS for 15 years of that time, and have well over 2,000 hours into Arena - having played it since the 2018 open Beta prior to installing it on Steam. Yes I will keep playing this - (obviously) but I do not recommend this hobby or game to anyone. Nope! How could I?
The Good:
It's a digital magic with rules automation built in for all the cards that are in the system. Arena manages game state so you don't have to argue over how rules work. Sometimes in the most obtuse way but hey it's at least quick and unforgiving about how it handles this.
The Bad:
Arena distills Magic the Gathering down to the worst parts and threats it as if those are features. False scarcity, Opponent Griefing, Slow Play, Absurd lock-out strategies, and games that often don't last 3 turns. All while denying us a platform to play digitally with our friends the most successful format of all time: Commander.
They'll charge you $25 for a set of 5 Full Art land skins, because of course they will. They'll lock these away so you can't even buy them most of the time. Instead of some sort of sane pricing structure they use behavioral economics and FOMO to prey on those with low impulse control. Just like any Gacha game. You do not need to engage the cosmetics and frankly shouldn't since you can't without extreme expense bling out a whole deck so what even is the point anyway?
If this still is not enough to ward you off and you are determined to suffer through the 'Video Game' that is MTGA do yourself a favor and spend absolutely no more money on this game than a set release 'mastery pass'. Make sure to buy all resources through Steam so that WotC only gets 70% as much as they would. Grind ICRs and Wilds and Gold until you can make your first "Tier 1" format deck for whatever deckplan you prefer the most (EXCEPT STANDARD since that is a total resource Rug-Pull every couple of months.)
The Ugly:
I encourage you to not give them any money at all if you can swing it. Yes it will feel as if you are completely hobbled for a long while. Play the included Precon decks with other Precon players and master them, play jump-start for 1,000 gold a run and collect some cards that way for fun. Play 'Quick Drafts' with your saved gold. Just don't expect this to feel like Magic across the table with an opponent you respect. The human on the other side of the screen does not respect your time or energy. They're just there to win as fast as possible, in the most toxic way, not to interact. You can't treat this as a full replacement for paper magic.
What a game!
