MTG Arena vs Hearthstone

[caractacus]

I've been playing the new Magic the Gathering Arena and they seem to have copied a lot of what Hearthstone has done. I've found it by far the best digital version of Magic so far and it's now taken over as my go to card game. I'm sure I'll keep playing Hearthstone but at the moment I'm really enjoying this and I think finally Hearthstone has a serious challenger.

[Kronik85]

I've been playing for the past 3 days and it's great fun. However there are a few issues with MTG that are basically core game mechanics. The land system is fucking awful, lots of games lost to either not drawing enough or drawing too much and it's not like it's a deck building issue. Then any Blue archetype makes any one who has ever complained about "fun and interactive" decks on Hearthstone look like an idiot. Finally card quality is based for the most part on rarity, rarer cards in MTG are just more powerful, now I've heard that the match making system does have a deck power level feature but it doesn't feel great as a new player.

So whilst I'm enjoying it, it is giving me an appreciation for everything the HS designers did with the fundamentals of HS.

[caractacus]

I've been playing for the past 3 days and it's great fun. However there are a few issues with MTG that are basically core game mechanics. The land system is fucking awful, lots of games lost to either not drawing enough or drawing too much and it's not like it's a deck building issue. Then any Blue archetype makes any one who has ever complained about "fun and interactive" decks on Hearthstone look like an idiot. Finally card quality is based for the most part on rarity, rarer cards in MTG are just more powerful, now I've heard that the match making system does have a deck power level feature but it doesn't feel great as a new player.

So whilst I'm enjoying it, it is giving me an appreciation for everything the HS designers did with the fundamentals of HS.

Totally agree with everything you put there, I think a lot of the things I see people moan about HS on here they would get a massive shock in MTG. Personally I'm not really bothered by them in HS so they don't bother me in MTG either.

[Kronik85]

Land draw has always been an issue with MTG. Imo because of how interesting lands can be in MTG they should have just been a second deck on the side that you always draw from every round and then mana cost and certain other effects adjusted to account for that. But it's far too complex to houserule properly

I was thinking the exact same thing lol. I understand that it's fundamental because it's how you balance the advantages of running different colours but....ye. It's incredibly flawed and frustrating.

[Kronik85]

It's just that removing the cards from the deck significantly increases the power of draw and scry among other things.

Oh ye, draw associated costs would need to be completely revamped, it's not a trivial thing to fix which is why I guess that it's never been fixed. But fuck me I've never played a game of HS where I've felt this powerless. So I get my opening hand and it's got 1 land, so I mull, new hand comes in 1 land again.....errrr don't think I can mull again but fuck it, mull 1 land! Alright GG.

Such a terrible terrible mechanic.

[endersblade]

I've been playing the new Magic the Gathering Arena and they seem to have copied a lot of what Hearthstone has done. I've found it by far the best digital version of Magic so far and it's now taken over as my go to card game. I'm sure I'll keep playing Hearthstone but at the moment I'm really enjoying this and I think finally Hearthstone has a serious challenger.

Yep that turned me off to it. I was stoked to see a new MTG game, joined the Beta, and the first thing that hit me was, man, this is EXACTLY like fucking Hearthstone. And I HATE Hearthstone. And on top of that it follows the same bullshit the DotPW games followed: Very, very, VERY few sets available. Garbage. I'm not expecting them to add all 15,000+ cards to the game, but FFS at least do all of Modern or something. Give us some fucking SELECTION.

[endersblade]

Land draw has always been an issue with MTG. Imo because of how interesting lands can be in MTG they should have just been a second deck on the side that you always draw from every round and then mana cost and certain other effects adjusted to account for that. But it's far too complex to houserule properly

I have done several iterations of this idea as house rules. Draw one land per turn, play one land from the land deck per turn, make a choice between main deck or land deck draw, all sorts of things. All of them sucked. For different reasons, true, but the primary one being having a deck of purely lands alongside your main deck is not nearly as good or as fun as one would think. Not to mention it completely hoses a massive chunk of the card collection that specifically fetches lands from your deck. The main point of them is not only for mana fixing or ramp, but to thin your deck to allow you to draw into what you need. If your deck is literally nothing BUT what you need, what's the point? You're guaranteed to hit that land drop every single turn, and everything you are drawing you KNOW you will eventually get to play. No dead draws. That's like playing Dark Souls with god mode on. What's the point?

People complaining about the land system in MTG: Then stop playing. You obviously don't understand this game well enough. It's SUPPOSED to be how it is. Everything you are complaining about, THAT is why it is there. If you have been struggling either with getting repeatedly mana flooded or screwed, you need to learn how to properly build a deck. Everyone seems to think that if your deck has X cards, then it MUST have Y lands. Not even close. Some need more, some need less. It entirely depends on the deck itself. If your mana curve cuts out at 3 mana, then making almost half your deck lands is silly. If your curve is 7, it isn't smart to make only a quarter of your deck lands.

That's why I hate games like DotPW and MTG arena. At least the last time I played DotPW, anyway. You have no control over how many lands can go in the deck. And of course they're capped at, what, 30? Which is just frustrating to me. Granted, I don't play standard at all, or go to pre-releases or releases. I guess 30 is the norm in those.

[Notshauna]

Land draw has always been an issue with MTG. Imo because of how interesting lands can be in MTG they should have just been a second deck on the side that you always draw from every round and then mana cost and certain other effects adjusted to account for that. But it's far too complex to houserule properly

Lands add a lot to magic so they can't really be resolved by a theoretical land deck, even if you ignore the balance problems of guaranteed land drops (Aggro VS control land bases, multicolor, and card selection becoming massively better) it still means you can't have lands that actually do something. You couldn't have cards like Celestial Colonnade, Kessig Wolf Run, Tolarian Academy or Ramunap Ruins. Many of the most interesting magic decks ONLY function because of this design decision.

[Notshauna]

I mean, this is pretty dishonest. It's not about understanding or deckbuilding, you simply WILL get mana screwed/flooded from time to time. You absolutely will have "nothing games" no matter who you are.

Granted, this is true in any card game no matter the system. In fact, MOST games are actually totally out of your control in these types of games, you just generally don't know it. MtG's land system just makes it really obvious and uninteractive from turn 1, and it doesn't feel good for anyone.

The keyword there is "repeatedly" the odds of you getting mana screwed or flooded should be very low if your mana base is correctly crafted. The biggest issue is that most people don't do the math and don't know about the tools that help you with this so they run into problems. Magic is the TCG (or CCG) with the LEAST amount of luck involved because there are so many tools to manipulate the odds in the game.

[Twoddle]

Too big of a commitment for me. I might have a look at Artifact when it comes out in a couple of months to see what the fuss is all about but I won't be buying any "packs".

These games also have the problem of being boring to watch.

[Twoddle]

Hare and Tortoise is an example of a card game of pure skill. You use cards to move around the board, there's not even any shuffling or dealing. There is an option of luck with luck cards if you want it.

[xenogear3]

"Land" is a strange concept.

Did Magic start it?

[Deleted]

i dont know if magic can function with a system like hearthstone. From my brief experience i seem to be right.

For me, the main fun in magic comes from building crazy decks, being in competetive or innoative, that are laser focused on something. This can be done in magic because the mechanics there are infinitly more complex. This means however that you "need" a complete deck more then in other card games. And card rarity is not just a meme in magic. I dont think i have that much fun grinding for my "real" deck in magic that i have in heartstone because the deck while its not completed feels really jank. This has, again imo, not that much of an impact in hearthstone because card mechanics are more simplistic

they are pretty generous so far imo

In 3 days playing I already have the Tier 1 standard deck with all the required mythic rares.

I played about 7 sealed events and went 7-1 5-3 7-2 7-2 7-0 6-3 3-3 based off of 1 redeem code for 1 sealed event.

- - - Updated - - -

The keyword there is "repeatedly" the odds of you getting mana screwed or flooded should be very low if your mana base is correctly crafted. The biggest issue is that most people don't do the math and don't know about the tools that help you with this so they run into problems. Magic is the TCG (or CCG) with the LEAST amount of luck involved because there are so many tools to manipulate the odds in the game.

Magic Arena works different anyway

The starting hand you are presented is based on two generated starting hands giving you the better one (I forgot what exactly it said) but it pretty much is supposed to increase the number of keepable starting hands I guess.

[caractacus]

Magic Arena works different anyway

The starting hand you are presented is based on two generated starting hands giving you the better one (I forgot what exactly it said) but it pretty much is supposed to increase the number of keepable starting hands I guess.

Thanks, I didn't know but makes sense as my starting hands are usually better than average and I need to mulligan a lot less than i normally do.

[Lotus Victoria]

Currently loving MTG: Arena. Lot of fun cards, but a lot of repetitive decks. Rushing seems to be the norm.

[Deleted]

Major problem I see is that while you get a lot of gold to get a free pack a day, there seems to be never any quest to give you crystals and the interesting events can only be accessed via crystals.

[Symphonic]

Major problem I see is that while you get a lot of gold to get a free pack a day, there seems to be never any quest to give you crystals and the interesting events can only be accessed via crystals.

This is why games with a premium currency and a regular currency are silly. Hearthstone does it right, one currency, gold, that you use for everything, and can get it by playing free.

[caractacus]

Major problem I see is that while you get a lot of gold to get a free pack a day, there seems to be never any quest to give you crystals and the interesting events can only be accessed via crystals.

I've generally stopped buying packs with gold, I just do drafts, you get to keep all the cards and can earn crystals.

[Ashleyxoxo]

Magic: The Gathering Arena is a port. Hearthstone is a PC/mobile game and its rules and gameplay were made for that. So Hearthstone wins out, easily.

[Deleted]

I will give you an advice.

Don't waste your time and money in things that won't be ''big hits''.

Hearthstone is already extremely popular, with beautiful animations, balanced meta and ofcourse blizzard as the developer (one of the biggest gaming companies).
Ofcourse it has problems ( no tournamets, balance changes take often too long, no achieves) but it's the best thing out there, even with these problems.


They said ''Gwent will kill hearthstone'', ''shadowverse will kill hearthstone'', eternal blah blah. It's always the same bs that I hear, just like with wow and its rivalties
( lineage/lotr/final fantasy/black desert/aion/elder scrolls/warhammer/eve/gw2/tera ) and so many others that this list will never end.

When someone says that ''the new X game will kill the old Y game'' it's guarantee that it will fail.

Ignore the haters and whiners and enjoy blizzard games. Many people will say that I am a fanboy and I support blizzard. I am not, but I enjoy playing games that will always have big popularity and (most of the time) quality.

Blizzard's only failure was d3. Every other game was at the very least decent.

You will see by yourself how artifact and magic will age. Same story every time.