MTG Arena vs Hearthstone

[Eroginous]

Sorry, but you're solely responsible for choosing the cards in your deck. Solely responsible for making sure you play your deck well. Solely responsible for making the choices that you've given yourself, based on card choice, which is again, 100% on you. I don't see how you can find yourself in a situation where topdecks matter more than a tiny fraction of the time. You're either grossly overblowing the factors rng contributes or experiencing something fixable by just doing a better job building and playing your deck. Like I said before, rng only really matters when you want it to be the reason you lost. This is no less than true in every other situation where you didn't lose. You don't attribute your wins to rng. When your deck functions properly, you don't thank rng. When you make a good play in a situation that can affect major change, you don't say 'thanks rng.' Rng, is quite literally ignored as a factor in anything you do until you lose because of a bad topdeck or draw. So then you have the occasional match where you didn't topdeck 'for the win' and you say it's because of rng, and then want to ignore any and all opportunities to display skill, because gosh darn it, you didn't get the specific card you wanted.

I've won the game with cards I never intended to win the game with... Such as topdecking a barbarian ring. A land card. For the win.

[Mahourai]

Biomega is obviously correct and belaboring the point about skill "solely" affecting the outcome when it plainly does not is ridiculous.

[xenogear3]

I had some fun on MTG.
However, just like hearthstone, the game starts to show its age.
I start to face tier 1 deck at the lowest rank.

"land" is an uninteresting part of the game.
It is unfair that we have to pay for the rare multicolor land.

I also hate the "one card kill all". It creates more stall decks.
Hearthstone requires two cards. Even Deathwing, you have to discard your hand.

As for the economy, Hearthstone was very new player friendly at launch.
MTG has all 5 sets at the launch. It is very expensive.

[Cizr]

I would absolutely dispute this.

I'm still playing in unranked with the decks the game gave me as part of the New Player Experience and hitting about a 50% winrate with them. That's good daily play for exactly zero money put in, plus i'm gaining gold from that that allows me to make constructed decks for ranked if I want.

And I did want, so I made a simple mono-red deck for ranked and it wins consistently at the low tiers so far. This took a bit more time investment to earn the wildcards to make, but not excessively so.

The starter decks in Hearthstone are utter trash that will get you nowhere.

Some of the free decks are very good,like the Merfolk (blue/green) one. You can get to gold with it and maybe even plat.

Also I think you are getting more free boosters compared to HS.

Its not new player unfriendly at all.

[Mahourai]

Some of the free decks are very good,like the Merfolk (blue/green) one. You can get to gold with it and maybe even plat.

Also I think you are getting more free boosters compared to HS.

Its not new player unfriendly at all.

It's the most new player unfriendly game of any of the major cardgames - Hearthstone, Gwent, Shadowverse, Eternal, the Elder Scrolls cardgame are all more generous. Hearthstone is perhaps comparably bad, but the actual time-to-deck in Arena is astonishingly poor if you don't just randomly open cards for the exact deck you want to play.

[Eroginous]

Biomega is obviously correct and belaboring the point about skill "solely" affecting the outcome when it plainly does not is ridiculous.

But it's true. Skill is a large factor when it comes to building and playing your deck. It's not just a pile of cards that randomly gives you a win here or there. That would be the definition of a bad deck. I would strongly urge you and any other magic players to consider what I'm saying here. Think about this from the perspective of a high level player. You've had a hand in designing your deck from list to play test. Unless you were playing a list you didn't pick or some other odd scenario, the outcome of your games should not frequently come down to what you topdeck. It's just not typical. In all but a few games you should either win or lose outright, with some close ones here and there and the occasional topdeck-for-the-win game. It's not a problem to the point where the very foundation of the game needs to be changed to accommodate for players who can't otherwise play because 'land screw all day.'

I'm not saying anyone is suggesting a rules change or that RNG doesn't exist. Or even that RNG can't come along once in awhile to laugh at you. What I am saying is that the outcome of each game is determined solely by you. By what you do with what you are given. If you don't get the thing you need to win the game, and it came down to needing that now or losing, well you have to either admit defeat to a good matchup, better luck next time, or you have to go back to the drawing board and tweak your deck to be more reliable.

Nothing wrong with either scenario. But whining about RNG? Can't really do anything with whining...

It's funny because you try so hard to sound like this smug, superior player, but every time you post in this thread you just betray a gross lack of actual understanding of the game or the concepts being discussed.

I'm trying hard to sound like a smug, superior player? You just responded with this nonsense about how I am carrying myself... which is in and of itself, you trying hard to sound like this smug, superior player, betraying a gross lack of actual understanding of the game or the concepts being discussed, with every post you make. It's honestly not up to me to prove anything to you or fit into your box of what an ideal forum poster is.

I've done nothing here outside of discuss game concepts and my actual understanding of the them. You've done nothing but try to belittle that, as evidenced yet again, by another one of your posts. Thanks for that.

[Mahourai]

What I am saying is that the outcome of each game is determined solely by you.

You mistakenly said "solely" instead of "primarily", that's no reason to make 10 more posts defending your obvious error.

[Eroginous]

I don't know if it was a mistake. The only time I haven't been solely responsible for the outcome of my matches, is when Mindslaver lock was a big thing. /shrug.

[xenogear3]

I have a hard time to justify buying/crafting these "boring" rare land cards.
They rotate out too.

20 rare lands for Four-Color Dreadhorde deck.
That is crazy.

[Th3Scourge]

How are drafts being handles in MTG Arena? Is it just an artificial draft or are other players drafting from the same pool? It seems artificial compared to MTGO

[Mahourai]

How are drafts being handles in MTG Arena? Is it just an artificial draft or are other players drafting from the same pool? It seems artificial compared to MTGO

They're bot drafts like Eternal, not player drafts like MODO.

[Th3Scourge]

They're bot drafts like Eternal, not player drafts like MODO.

Where's the fun in that. I've really enjoyed MTGO drafts because of the format

[Mahourai]

Where's the fun in that. I've really enjoyed MTGO drafts because of the format

Arena is targeted at a casual pick up and play audience (like all the modern digital CCGs). Magic Online's 8-player draft pods necessitate you setting aside a multi-hour block of time to finish your draft out afaik. This isn't the type of thing they want people to get roped into on Arena. This is also why the default mode is Best of One and not a traditional MTG match.

[ldev]

MTG sucks. Imagine if in Hearthstone 15 cards would be coins and wouldn't be classified as spells. Such exciting.

[Eroginous]

MTG sucks. Imagine if in Hearthstone 15 cards would be coins and wouldn't be classified as spells. Such exciting.

You're right. In MTG we pay ~$3 a pack to get 15 cards, among which could be a basic land card or token. We also get a semi guaranteed rarity split in each pack, 11 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare, with the chance of having one of those cards be a mythic rare or a premium foil version of a card (possibly both). Pack runs are printed in such a way that each pack contains enough cards to play what's known as a 'booster draft' or 'sealed draft' format tournament, ensuring some level of basic balance among common and uncommon card dispersion between boxes, so that a tournament is as fair as possible, considering the cards are randomly chosen from a pool and then chosen specifically from a limited selection by each player as they pass packs around the table.

If one were pondering the value of opening MTG cards vs Hearthstone cards, especially paper MTG vs Hearthstone, it becomes clear just how little value there is on the hearthstone side of things. Let's start with one Booster box of MTG cards and the rough equivalent of money spent in HS:

Booster box in MTG, 36 packs for roughly $91 on Amazon (Core set 2019). Could probably find a better price elsewhere and probably a better set to buy too. But for sake of examples, lets consider this example 'average' and round up to $99 to match the closest price point offered by Hearthstone. After opening this box, you would have at a minimum:

36 rare cards
108 uncommon cards
396 common cards
Total 540 cards

With some of them having the chance to be premium foil, and one or more of them being mythic rarity.

In hearthstone, for $99 you would get to open a total of 80 packs, for $99.98. You would open the following:

80 uncommon cards
320 common cards
Total 400 cards

With any of them having the chance at being a higher rarity, up to Epic or Legendary, and also being Premium Golden versions.

At a glance, this might seem slightly unequal. Let me drive that idea home by pointing out that you get nearly the same number of common cards from your MTG haul as you cards in total from Hearthstone. On top of that, you get at least the same number of uncommons and an addtional 36 rares (equal to epics in HS). If you are lucky in HS, you may get epics in half your packs. But in place of uncommons and commons. You might even get a legendary or two (same as mythic rare in mtg), again at the cost of other cards.

Now, consider what happens to either pile of cards after you open them. In Hearthstone, we are given the option to dust any of those we open for a fraction of their crafting value (usually 12% to 25%) so we may acquire the cards we want, but didn't get from packs. This is useful, but limits the value of cards to a fraction of their rarity and prevents them from having more value outside the game. In MTG, you cannot dust your cards, nor craft cards you want (they call that cheating), but you can take the cards you've opened and trade/sell them to acquire the cards you do want. This secondary value exists outside of the game (which is extremely important) and makes it possible for a player to feel secure about investment into MTG. After all, no matter how well you do playing the game, if you want to get out of it, there are ways to liquidate your collection for a monetary return, after you've decided you no longer want to play anymore.

This secondary value puts the game into the players' hands, making it a secure time and monetary investment, with the potential for large ROI. Imagine anyone lucky enough to pull a Power Nine in the first couple months of MTGs release, only to unknowingly cash in on a huge secondary market value potentially worth the price of a home or college education. Obviously, very few cards attain such a high individual secondary value, especially post rotation, but at least that secondary value is still possible, should one decide against continuing to play the game.

I don't know why you think MTG sucks, but I'd hazard a guess it has something to do with the incomplete nature of a game like Arena and the lack of understanding in how deep MTG really is. Hearthstone plays out like this: guaranteed ramp up time with lots of RNG fueled card advantage generated by very benign actions, resulting in explosive victories with combinations of cards/mechanics that otherwise wouldn't even work in MTG. Think Shudderwock and Battlecry. How would you account for every single triggered effect when a permanent comes into play and then randomly assign an order and targets for each effect to happen? It would be a nightmare and precisely why MTG stays far away from randomly chosen anything, whenever possible.

MTG, on the other hand, plays out with variable ramp times (depending on deck), very specific and calculated actions that result in very specific and calculated results, targeting key strategies employed by other players, resulting in very straightforward win conditions that scale with prep - the larger the input the larger the output. For example, I can spend the turns amassing resources to spend a large amount of mana on a spell that has the potential to be lethal no matter what amount of health you have, provided I can match health points to mana points spent on said spell. Hearthstone has a limit of 10 to almost every powerful spell that has a mana cost, preventing a player from doing X damage in a spell, where X equals 1 million damage from 1 million mana spent. You can only ever have at most 10 mana, so it just isn't possible to play out that way.

These inherent limits in HS and the lack of real interaction between players (everything from barriers between devices to lack of interrupts/counters to the way you are literally just waiting for your opponent to finish their turn so you can do something) prevents HS from having the level of complexity and depth of MTG. As I pointed out earlier, it's possible to build decks a number of ways that don't automatically include any land at all, much less 20 rare land or even any rare land. Most of the time, players will opt for these rare lands because they provide support to play additional colors without having to make a heavy card investment into cards that get lands from your deck, which is a strategy Green cards are known for.

Typically, you can build a multi colored deck by doing one or more of the following:

~include basic lands and cards to tutor them (green)
~include non basic land cards that make or filter other mana colors (non green)
~include non land cards that make or filter other mana colors (artifacts)
~include cards that have alternate costs which can be paid without mana or with different colored mana than its color type.

The thing a lot of these 'land bad' players assume is that all decks need to be expensive or land based. Neither is true. Some of the more interesting decks I've built have been on the budget side with very few land or expensive cards. During the Mirrodin Banwave we saw something like 11 cards removed from standard play. Most of which were common or uncommon and obtainable by the poorest of the poor players. The expensive cards in that deck had budget alternatives that could potentially be more game changing if played well. Arcbound Ravagers and Blinkmoth Nexus made the deck really hard to stop even when hating on it specifically, but weren't necessary to win or even top 8 a PTQ. So many different builds of that deck involved what amounted to a $5 deck with a few money cards thrown in. That remains true of every format, no matter how overpowered some of these cards get.

Post ban, Pithing Needle, Tooth and Nail, Cranial Extraction, so many great cards became viable, valuable, and subsequently put into these expensive multi color rare-land heavy decks. I think a lot of the issue is perception by players coming from these decks doing well, and the conclusion being drawn that these decks are required to do well. I had a friend show me the power of rogue decking on a budget, he would consistently win with these decks no one would ever think of. Not because he picked the best cards, but because he made the best use of any card in his deck. He had the knack for mvp plays and winning with garbage hands, watching him play taught me a lot about deck building and seeing other strats.

I took a BG madness deck to regionals when everyone was playing UG madness. Zombie infestation was such a quicker death, especially with a B costing enchantment you could discard to madness for +2/+1 onto the token you just made. Having the option to flood the board with zombies really made the deck shine. I didn't do well, perhaps because my first big tournament, but a 3/3/1 record isn't terrible.

Anywho, I don't think MTG is bad. Arena might be bad. HS has a lot of depth to be established still. Kind of shitty with only two card types still.

[Kathranis]

Kind of shitty with only two card types still.

Technically four card types: minions, spells, weapons, and heroes. Secrets and quests also function pretty uniquely compared to other spells.

[Eroginous]

Technically four card types: minions, spells, weapons, and heroes. Secrets and quests also function pretty uniquely compared to other spells.

Weapon and heroes are both so rare that they don't really count as a card type. They are also class limited, making them even more difficult to classify.

MTG gives every card a type and sub type intentionally, because those things have a specific function in the game. You get:

Land
Spells

Which then break down into:

Land - basic, non basic.

Spells - Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact, Creature, Equipment, Planeswalker, ect (I am forgetting some).

Then there are cards that say 'destory target Enchantment' which are typically available only to white or green, making white and green the colors to counter enchantments. Similarly, Green and red would be the colors to counter artifacts and equipment, and also land (yes, you can build decks that focus on land destruction, giggle). Hearthstone doesn't have mechanics like this. While some classes get some kinds of mechanics, there aren't enough specific card types to have any sort of a meta/counter meta balance. Which is why you see such rampant imbalance. Only real counter to anything here is being faster at building board than opponent or better at leveling it. Which any class can do.

Yay for homogenized strategies! On a more serious note, one of the best parts of a card game is decks building. When I play MTG, I spend a lot of time building decks and playing them, for all formats. When an idea strikes me, I will sit and play with it for hours until I make it viable or it loses novelty. I carry anywhere from 3-6 decks with me to play at events, usually have another dozen in different stages of being built, laying around at home. Each time a set comes out, I spent a lot of time revamping decks to accommodate changes in the meta (every 4 months). I spend time trading, selling, and buying singles, giving the game many avenues for play, even when you aren't actually playing your decks.

When I play hearthstone, I literally have 4 decks I pick from. One of them is a basic deck just for standard (gets lulz every time). The other three are wild decks. I play them til Blizzard hotfixes a card to break its function in whatever absurd combo someone found and won a lot with. If my deck loses enough functionality from a hotfix, I'll dust all the cards and try something else. Outside of that, when new cards come out, I'll craft the ones that help my deck (less than 10 cards usually) and then I'll play for a bit til I get bored.

I don't get any inspiration from this game, not to deck build, not to seek out cards via trade, or even to buy/sell. Blizzard doesn't allow trading, buying or selling, and the scope of the game is so shallow I can't build more than 3 unique decks at a time anyway. Decks are so similar it's difficult to have an original idea, much less get enough viable cards together to play it, without it getting nerfed because this game doesn't handle combo well at all (there aren't any real counters), which is a side effect of having non interactive turn based play. I can't interrupt anything you do, I just have to wait for it to be over and hope you don't use something else to bait my secrets. This removes roughly 50% of the game, because of all the interesting things I could do in response to your actions on your turn, none of them are possible. Except sitting. And waiting to find out if you're dumb enough to fall for a secret or not.

Not intuitive. Not even remotely clever play. Secrets should have been a cycle of cards added during an expansion to give some flavor to each class. Every class should have some sort of interrupt available, baseline. This is how you create play/counter play. I've said this from the beginning. Hearthstone is fun, until you realize combo decks get the nerf hammer EVERY DAMN TIME and the rest of the meta is just fielding obnoxious minions in hopes for an easy win or a concession. Games usually come down to who runs out of threats or answers to threats on the following turn. When they don't, Blizzard usually steps in and nerfs whatever combo wins differently.

And thus, lies the inherent differences between MTG and Hearthstone. MTG is rock < paper < scissors of combo, control, and aggro type decks. There is a balance struck between the 3 main deck types. Combo players are celebrated and encouraged because combo is the one thing that looks different between each meta, fueled by expansion specific cards that rotate. Whereas in Hearthstone, you are allowed to combo in aggro or control decks, but not with anything else. First infinite combo? Yeah, lets limit shudderwock to 20 battlecries. And Alter an uncommon to break the effect. First combo kill? Let's remove Charge from Patches. And nerf Quest effect to 6 cards instead of 5, and also 4/4 minions instead of 5/5.

Because when you combo out you're not supposed to win... You're just supposed to do something big and let your opponent have a chance to respond with a whole turn before you can do anything with it.

Just 2 examples of the best combo decks getting nerfed because combo.

[Nephys]

I wanted the option to play magic online for a long time, the existing versions were far from good or too expensive so that was never an option. For that reason I played hearthstone, and over the years grew to enjoy it, and now I must say that both games are fun, they are different, but I enjoy them both.

Recently I have decided to give up on one of those games, my choice was hearthstone, for the reason that it is extremelly difficult to build a deck. I mean if money is not a problem for you, then both games are the same, but the money I have to spend on games is limited and controlled so I play these games for free, sometimes I might spend a bit, but its mostly just so I can give something back. Considering this Magic is the obvious choice, by the time you are able to craft a Legendary on Hearthstone you can pretty much build an entire top deck on Magic, and without disenchanting a single card, which means that you never have to worry about disenchanting something to craft again, I am sure it happened to all of us and it feels like shit. The only problem with Magic are the lands, but once you have them crafted you never have to craft them again, even when they rotate out you can will most likely be able to use them once they are eddited again so it gets pretty easy and fast to build decks.

Basically the question is: do you have a lot of money to spend on the game? If not, Magic is the game for you.

[jackofwind]

I wanted the option to play magic online for a long time, the existing versions were far from good or too expensive so that was never an option. For that reason I played hearthstone, and over the years grew to enjoy it, and now I must say that both games are fun, they are different, but I enjoy them both.

Recently I have decided to give up on one of those games, my choice was hearthstone, for the reason that it is extremelly difficult to build a deck. I mean if money is not a problem for you, then both games are the same, but the money I have to spend on games is limited and controlled so I play these games for free, sometimes I might spend a bit, but its mostly just so I can give something back. Considering this Magic is the obvious choice, by the time you are able to craft a Legendary on Hearthstone you can pretty much build an entire top deck on Magic, and without disenchanting a single card, which means that you never have to worry about disenchanting something to craft again, I am sure it happened to all of us and it feels like shit. The only problem with Magic are the lands, but once you have them crafted you never have to craft them again, even when they rotate out you can will most likely be able to use them once they are eddited again so it gets pretty easy and fast to build decks.

Basically the question is: do you have a lot of money to spend on the game? If not, Magic is the game for you.

I've never spent a dime on MTGA and have had multiple top-tier competitive decks. There are always inexpensive deck options out there, especially mono red or mono white.

[Clozer]

Magic - every second game i'm mana screwed or my opponent is. Monor Red drawing 6 lands? Freewin. MonoRed drawing 2-4 lands ez loss. A LOT of mana fixing is needed. Also the mulligan rules are so freaky bad. It's crazy.

Hearthstone on the other hand is lacking some kind of depth, but really 90% of magic games are simpler than hearthstone. So after playing mtga for about 7 months i went back to hearhstone. Beeing mana screwd nearly every game feels so extremly bad. I cant handle that.