How is it so many of my opponents already have massive amounts of Rare and Mythic cards from the latest expansion? Without the option to dust cards, are people really spending $50+ on each expansion on Arena? I feel like I'm the only person playing who isn't dumping tons of cash into this game. I've bought the welcome bundle, but that's it. But everyone I play seems to have all the shocklands, 4 copies of each Mythic and Rare in their deck and some of the popular decks that include the newest expansion are super expensive with like 38 rares and 14 mythics. Guess I'm just surprised to see so many people spend a lot on this game.
If people didnt waste wildcards, and played since open beta, they could easily with planning get what they needed without spending money. You 'go infinite' in Constructed Best of One, for Gold, and then you buy packs at your leisure with 1000 gold.
I don't like the fact you can't take back a choice by dusting. That is a huge problem for the discovery aspect of the game when it comes to mid tier and lower level players. If someone wastes a wild card on a crap rare (which happens a lot) they have no way to change or reconfigure their decision. On top of which, it encourages people to horde wild cards even if they don't have any idea what to get, and the default filters do hide unobtained cards.
Trust me, I feel the same. I've burnt up way too many Wildcards already on decks that didnt work out.
On the upside, I've learned how to maximize my value on uncommon wild cards and build the most annoying deck concievable around oath sworn vampire and Reassembling Skeleton. Thanks to Judith, it actually has reach now and doesn't just make people cry when they see me in the grinding queue.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I seem to have the worst luck with packs..I redeemed a code for Guilds, and got 3 Hatchery Spider. Then I kid you not, I got 8 Erratic Cyclops in a row from quest packs. It's just not worth buying packs (for me at least) let alone spending money to open Cyclops and Spiders..
I've been playing magic since 1994. What I can tell you is the basic paradigm of the magic player has not changed.
There seems to be this badge of honor that people hold of either how little they spent on magic, or how much. It can go either way.
But in short, the answer is yes "that many people really are spending money on magic"
Alot of the expenditures come in creeping expenses. A few packs here, a few packs there. Gifts for Christmas. Chipping in with friends to draft.
When a new set of magic comes out, the expenditures come in the form of FNM, tournaments, drafts, pre-releases, a few packs for fun, all this not even counting singles.
But there's another reason. Magic cards have this wonderful property of holding relative value. That means that the random planeswalker you opened 3 years ago can be traded for value today for new cards.
In otherwords, at all times, a player's active collection really comprises their entire gross expenditure. Just imagine what that would look like for other games. Everytime you walk around, you're showing 60-90% of the total you have ever spent on that hobby?
We just don't think about expenses that way with other goods. Today I got two tires replaced on my car and an oil change. I paid near ~400 for it.
Can you imagine if I could have a hobby that would reflect every penny I ever spent repairing my car or getting the oil changed for every car I've ever owned? Where the $500 I spent 4 years ago on tire change could be traded for new mythics today.
With magic you can only ever add to the expenditure list. Decks get more impressive not less.
And while people do cash out and quit the game. Those that haven't either take their money and put it back into the game, or they trade again for value.
If they truly quit, you wont see them again. But if they haven't quit, you're basically looking at someone's collection which is a record of everything they ever spent added up.
In other words what you witness is completely self selecting.
There's really no other hobby I can think of that reflects that in such an obvious way.
I have spent on the game and will continue doing so. I am very close to a full set of Guilds of Ravnica from just drafting, opening packs on Sundays and spending gems and gold on packs. Because of this, my Vault opens perilously quickly; I am 70% to my next Vault opening and I opened it just two weeks ago. The key is having as many sets of uncommons and commons in a set as you can, since drafting gets you tons of this stuff, which goes to the Vault.
With the new duplicate protection program, I am finally finishing my sets of shocklands, Arclight Phoenixes and taking the hit by getting copies of Citywide Bust and other chaffy rares as well. It's worth it in the end, since I'll be ready when Arena Eternal arrives next fall. In the meantime, I have a ton of decks to play with too, and a modest amount of wildcards (5 Mythic, 0 Rare (I use these constantly...), 50 Uncommon and 4 Common). I've managed to build mono-red, green Stompy, various Boros builds and I think a Mardu and Thousand Year Storm and Izzet Drakes. That's from playing two or three months.
Try to build my Golgari deck in real life here in Ottawa? YEah $45 CDN for a Carnage Tyrant...pass. I love that I get to play Standard and goofy formats whenever I want. It's a lot of fun and I'm learning about Standard along the way!
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
The endless grind against red decks.
Mana issues deciding half the games.
Wizards completely decimating the rewards for Constructed Event.
Lack of WCs.
Weak Vault progress system.
Broken cards (Wilderness Reclamation, Nexus of Fate)
High cost of event entry.
I think until they decide they want this game to succeed and actually make positive changes to Arena, there's no reason to spend money on this product. I can't envision the last time I had a "fun" match in Arena, but I still have fun whenever I play IRL Magic. It's hard to make Hearthstone look generous, but the stinginess of WOTC seems to know no limits and their inability to view Arena as a different game from IRL Standard is a huge hindrance.
The endless grind against red decks.
Mana issues deciding half the games.
Wizards completely decimating the rewards for Constructed Event.
Lack of WCs.
Weak Vault progress system.
Broken cards (Wilderness Reclamation, Nexus of Fate)
High cost of event entry.
I think until they decide they want this game to succeed and actually make positive changes to Arena, there's no reason to spend money on this product. I can't envision the last time I had a "fun" match in Arena, but I still have fun whenever I play IRL Magic. It's hard to make Hearthstone look generous, but the stinginess of WOTC seems to know no limits and their inability to view Arena as a different game from IRL Standard is a huge hindrance.
Sounds like you just like paper Magic more, which is fine. I don't see how you can bash the rewards though. You can gather hundreds of dollars of cards for free. You can draft for free, I'd say that's a pretty low cost entry for limited.
They have changed the reward system for 5th copies of cards to be much better. Apparently you DO get vault progress from opening limited cards now. That's going to change things quite a bit. That, alongside automatically switching out rares/mythics when you already have 4 and open them in a reward/paid for pack, the card collections are going to grow MUCH faster then before.
I have noticed there is a huge difference in the meta between playing ranked single-game matches vs. pay to play "traditional" 3 game matches.
I have had great success fighting against the mono-red onslaught with my gruul deck. After modifying my list to have a lower mana curve, more cheap creatures, and more low cost removal, they practically can't beat me. I have well above a 50% win rate now against them, where as I was well below 50% before.
I don't even see mono-red decks in the pay to play traditional constructed. I haven't even touched the free to play ranked traditional system yet.
Are you always playing single match games? They do create a different meta. Aggro can win much more easily if they only have to play 1 game. They lose because decks adapt to the plan after sideboarding against them, making them less successful. If you start playing traditional 3 match games, you don't have to worry about the whole "best of 2 hands deal" and you can sideboard efficiently against aggro.
Or just build your single match deck that will beat aggro decks. Then you'll be skyrocketing in the wins. Adapt to the meta, don't blame wizards for that. This looks like it will be one of the healthiest metas in standard for quite a while. Do you not remember the crazy cat lady saheeli rai infinite combo that won on turn 4 in standard? Now that's a deck you don't want to play against. Mono-red is easy to work around if you know how to do it.
As far as the decks I've played against:
B/R aggro with that aristocrat +1/+0 to creatures 3 drop
4-5 color gate deck featuring gate colossus (this deck is very innovative I feel.)
Esper control featuring teferi (I can beat this supposed boogie man of the format, though it's hard. Probably 50% win rate.)
G/B explore midrange is still around.
G/B/U explore midrange is new to the meta.
Occasionally a Nexus of fate deck (I can beat these and mono-red.)
Gruul aggro/midrange which I'm playing
Mono red aggro
U/B Drakes and Niv Mizzet spells matter
Some simic
While mono-red control is prevalent in the single match ranked system, I see it almost no where else! It's just a good deck for the single match system. I'm quite pleased with how varied the meta is. Try varying your games.
I think many people are finding Arena to be quite enjoyable, even in this beta stage. It's fine to like paper Magic more. I just don't think Arena is majorly failing in anyway. They keep making it better, and it's already good.
My only issue is the wildcard system is fairly punishing for new or less educated players who dont know exactly what they are after. I've burned up many a wildcard, and then I look at what it takes to put together an 'optimal' 3 colour manabase, and its 20+ rares right there.
Yeah, if you haven't played much Magic it's hard to understand the importance of untapped dual colored lands. I'm an experienced player and I've wasted some cards. I think people can learn within a few months though when something is worth spending a card on it. The thing that helped me was finishing out my first competitive deck. Once you have a deck you like, you can just start saving all wild cards until the next set drops. Save 'em until after you've drafted that set a bunch, so you have a chance of opening what you need. It may be hard for beginners to understand, but Magic is the most complicated game that I know of, so that's just part of the game.
Always draft rare dual lands you don't have when drafting. Not something I would do in paper all the time, but for Arena it is of the utmost importance.
It's not perfect, but of course what system is perfect to a customer except one that is totally free? Perfect system for customer=failure for company to make $
Actually, the F2P aspect is way ahed of many other CCG online, it is the cheapest way to play magic.
I think I will be spending around 50 USD each new expansion to play sealed (I got more than double the value each expansion GRN and RNA).
Once you have a good deck you can farm events, traditional constructed has a good payout structure. SO there are various ways to maxmize the gold they give you and build a collection fast.
And yes, when old expansions are incorporated people might have to invest a bit to get that many cards, but WotC has to make money.
The only useful aspect of MTGA for me ( I am mostly f2p, i just bought the welcome pack and played since closed beta) is to learn how to draft. I saved 40k gold and some wildcards from grinding preseason so i am patiently waiting for RNA drafts to start, to accumulate some cards to build a couple of decks. I just have to get comfortable with the idea that i won't be able to go further than high plat/low diamond without a full mana base. I don't see myself spending cash on this game, especially in this beta stage. WotC business decisions have been historically weird so...
before i deleted the game i had all cards i needed and i didnt spend anything. you can "grind" what you need, the only thing is, online aint as much fun as the real game. there are just better games out there to play on pc
The new standard meta is now SO EXPENSIVE, I don't see how anyone can keep up with it as a F2P player unless all they want to play is RDW. The amount of Rare and Mythic cards needed in every meta deck is insane - 30-40 Rares, 10-15 Mythics. I know WOTC is really pushing this game to get more players, what with the big moron streamer tournament and all, but I can't see how ANY new players, especially new to Magic completely, would be sticking around to play this. It is so astronomically expensive just to update previous meta decks to the new meta - imagine starting from scratch,
The new standard meta is now SO EXPENSIVE, I don't see how anyone can keep up with it as a F2P player unless all they want to play is RDW. The amount of Rare and Mythic cards needed in every meta deck is insane - 30-40 Rares, 10-15 Mythics. I know WOTC is really pushing this game to get more players, what with the big moron streamer tournament and all, but I can't see how ANY new players, especially new to Magic completely, would be sticking around to play this. It is so astronomically expensive just to update previous meta decks to the new meta - imagine starting from scratch,
Yep, it would be prohibitive imo to start from nothing. You are looking at easily $100+ in packs/gems to even get close.
And the funny part (tinfoil hat time) is this 'new format' of Best of 3 no Sideboard with 2 decks.
Oh you want to have diverse options? Say a UWR Control and a BUG Midrange? Do the math on that! Wizards loves the idea I'm sure, but me? Nah. I'll just give the old 'I cast Lavarunner, Wizard's Lightning, Skewer, Skewer, gg?'.
Or just build your single match deck that will beat aggro decks. Then you'll be skyrocketing in the wins. Adapt to the meta, don't blame wizards for that. This looks like it will be one of the healthiest metas in standard for quite a while. Do you not remember the crazy cat lady saheeli rai infinite combo that won on turn 4 in standard? Now that's a deck you don't want to play against. Mono-red is easy to work around if you know how to do it.
It was even worse during Caw-Blade vs Splinter Twin days. Turn 4 infinite combo after tapping down your land or they are swinging with the bladed squadron hawk and untapping with Mana Leak! Man those were fun and oppressive days.
But you're right about the health of this format. It looks like it will be really solid. With just the starter pack and an additional $20 investment you can build a very good competitive deck. You don't have to build one of the 3 color shockland/dual land decks to be competitive. Look at the Nexusgate deck for example.
I've spent $50 and have my Esper Control list fully fleshed out, and RDW, and most of Nexusgate, and parts of a few other decks. This is fantastically cheaper than paper magic and we now have ranked best of 3, so I don't think I'll ever go back to paper magic as long as Wizards continues to support Arena.
The new standard meta is now SO EXPENSIVE, I don't see how anyone can keep up with it as a F2P player unless all they want to play is RDW. The amount of Rare and Mythic cards needed in every meta deck is insane - 30-40 Rares, 10-15 Mythics. I know WOTC is really pushing this game to get more players, what with the big moron streamer tournament and all, but I can't see how ANY new players, especially new to Magic completely, would be sticking around to play this. It is so astronomically expensive just to update previous meta decks to the new meta - imagine starting from scratch,
Have you not played paper standard Magic before? Decks run $150 to $300, even more depending on the meta. I can understand finding the cost a bit much if you've never played Magic before. Compared to paper however, Arena is much cheaper. Especially given that you can just draft your way into a good chunk of a deck with the money you spend.
I can see it being frustrating to try and build a complete deck if you just log onto Arena for the first time. However, with a bit of time and research into how best to spend your gold/gems, you can make a deck for pretty cheap eventually.
Well, going by how the acquisition of cards work, it looks like wizards now has a means to make all tier 1 competitive decks cost the same amount of money no matter what the meta turns out like. Basically, you can only earn a certain number of rare wild cards per day and the only way to go over that number is to buy packs. This leads to a situation where if someone plays a T1 deck in standard and wants to make it to the top of the ladder for competitive play, they would have to spend the money early to get all the wild cards needed for the deck OR save up a tremendous amount of wild cards for a single season, then wait until the meta pans out.
I've literally swapped to playing "Gates everywhere .dec" because I don't see a point in wasting my time buying relentless numbers of packs for wild cards. If they introduce an eternal format, than I'm going to spend my rare wild cards on things good in that format. Otherwise, spending wild cards wildly on things you think you need for a specific build is a recipe for disaster. The only cards I haven't felt bad about buying are the lands.
Also going to add that MTG A has made the games weaknesses far more apparent. Everytime someone gets land screwed or flooded in this game, or the shuffler decides it's a good idea to stick 10+ lands all on top, you get reminded as to why all the other card games now put resources outside the main deck. Force of Will is still my favorite game to play. MTG is sort of like "I feel like playing cards and this is the only thing in town that I'm able to do" kind of a thing.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The new standard meta is now SO EXPENSIVE, I don't see how anyone can keep up with it as a F2P player unless all they want to play is RDW. The amount of Rare and Mythic cards needed in every meta deck is insane - 30-40 Rares, 10-15 Mythics. I know WOTC is really pushing this game to get more players, what with the big moron streamer tournament and all, but I can't see how ANY new players, especially new to Magic completely, would be sticking around to play this. It is so astronomically expensive just to update previous meta decks to the new meta - imagine starting from scratch,
Have you not played paper standard Magic before? Decks run $150 to $300, even more depending on the meta. I can understand finding the cost a bit much if you've never played Magic before. Compared to paper however, Arena is much cheaper. Especially given that you can just draft your way into a good chunk of a deck with the money you spend.
I can see it being frustrating to try and build a complete deck if you just log onto Arena for the first time. However, with a bit of time and research into how best to spend your gold/gems, you can make a deck for pretty cheap eventually.
This is not paper though. Why can't you people view this as a separate product? The constant comparisons to paper magic is irrelevant. (And the massive cost of paper Magic is not a good defense either. Paper or Arena, the new meta is obscenely expensive either way).
Well, going by how the acquisition of cards work, it looks like wizards now has a means to make all tier 1 competitive decks cost the same amount of money no matter what the meta turns out like. Basically, you can only earn a certain number of rare wild cards per day and the only way to go over that number is to buy packs. This leads to a situation where if someone plays a T1 deck in standard and wants to make it to the top of the ladder for competitive play, they would have to spend the money early to get all the wild cards needed for the deck OR save up a tremendous amount of wild cards for a single season, then wait until the meta pans out.
I've literally swapped to playing "Gates everywhere .dec" because I don't see a point in wasting my time buying relentless numbers of packs for wild cards. If they introduce an eternal format, than I'm going to spend my rare wild cards on things good in that format. Otherwise, spending wild cards wildly on things you think you need for a specific build is a recipe for disaster. The only cards I haven't felt bad about buying are the lands.
Also going to add that MTG A has made the games weaknesses far more apparent. Everytime someone gets land screwed or flooded in this game, or the shuffler decides it's a good idea to stick 10+ lands all on top, you get reminded as to why all the other card games now put resources outside the main deck. Force of Will is still my favorite game to play. MTG is sort of like "I feel like playing cards and this is the only thing in town that I'm able to do" kind of a thing.
Yeah, honestly if anything Arena has made me LESS interested in Magic. I am not buying packs as much as I used to, I don't go to FNM as much as I used to. The flaws in the game are so much more apparent, and I appreciate games like Hearthstone much more now, as Wizards seems to be borderline incompetent in their design both in cards and in a game platform.
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On the upside, I've learned how to maximize my value on uncommon wild cards and build the most annoying deck concievable around oath sworn vampire and Reassembling Skeleton. Thanks to Judith, it actually has reach now and doesn't just make people cry when they see me in the grinding queue.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There seems to be this badge of honor that people hold of either how little they spent on magic, or how much. It can go either way.
But in short, the answer is yes "that many people really are spending money on magic"
Alot of the expenditures come in creeping expenses. A few packs here, a few packs there. Gifts for Christmas. Chipping in with friends to draft.
When a new set of magic comes out, the expenditures come in the form of FNM, tournaments, drafts, pre-releases, a few packs for fun, all this not even counting singles.
But there's another reason. Magic cards have this wonderful property of holding relative value. That means that the random planeswalker you opened 3 years ago can be traded for value today for new cards.
In otherwords, at all times, a player's active collection really comprises their entire gross expenditure. Just imagine what that would look like for other games. Everytime you walk around, you're showing 60-90% of the total you have ever spent on that hobby?
We just don't think about expenses that way with other goods. Today I got two tires replaced on my car and an oil change. I paid near ~400 for it.
Can you imagine if I could have a hobby that would reflect every penny I ever spent repairing my car or getting the oil changed for every car I've ever owned? Where the $500 I spent 4 years ago on tire change could be traded for new mythics today.
With magic you can only ever add to the expenditure list. Decks get more impressive not less.
And while people do cash out and quit the game. Those that haven't either take their money and put it back into the game, or they trade again for value.
If they truly quit, you wont see them again. But if they haven't quit, you're basically looking at someone's collection which is a record of everything they ever spent added up.
In other words what you witness is completely self selecting.
There's really no other hobby I can think of that reflects that in such an obvious way.
With the new duplicate protection program, I am finally finishing my sets of shocklands, Arclight Phoenixes and taking the hit by getting copies of Citywide Bust and other chaffy rares as well. It's worth it in the end, since I'll be ready when Arena Eternal arrives next fall. In the meantime, I have a ton of decks to play with too, and a modest amount of wildcards (5 Mythic, 0 Rare (I use these constantly...), 50 Uncommon and 4 Common). I've managed to build mono-red, green Stompy, various Boros builds and I think a Mardu and Thousand Year Storm and Izzet Drakes. That's from playing two or three months.
Try to build my Golgari deck in real life here in Ottawa? YEah $45 CDN for a Carnage Tyrant...pass. I love that I get to play Standard and goofy formats whenever I want. It's a lot of fun and I'm learning about Standard along the way!
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
...aaand this is why I no longer play IRL.
The endless grind against red decks.
Mana issues deciding half the games.
Wizards completely decimating the rewards for Constructed Event.
Lack of WCs.
Weak Vault progress system.
Broken cards (Wilderness Reclamation, Nexus of Fate)
High cost of event entry.
I think until they decide they want this game to succeed and actually make positive changes to Arena, there's no reason to spend money on this product. I can't envision the last time I had a "fun" match in Arena, but I still have fun whenever I play IRL Magic. It's hard to make Hearthstone look generous, but the stinginess of WOTC seems to know no limits and their inability to view Arena as a different game from IRL Standard is a huge hindrance.
Sounds like you just like paper Magic more, which is fine. I don't see how you can bash the rewards though. You can gather hundreds of dollars of cards for free. You can draft for free, I'd say that's a pretty low cost entry for limited.
They have changed the reward system for 5th copies of cards to be much better. Apparently you DO get vault progress from opening limited cards now. That's going to change things quite a bit. That, alongside automatically switching out rares/mythics when you already have 4 and open them in a reward/paid for pack, the card collections are going to grow MUCH faster then before.
I have noticed there is a huge difference in the meta between playing ranked single-game matches vs. pay to play "traditional" 3 game matches.
I have had great success fighting against the mono-red onslaught with my gruul deck. After modifying my list to have a lower mana curve, more cheap creatures, and more low cost removal, they practically can't beat me. I have well above a 50% win rate now against them, where as I was well below 50% before.
I don't even see mono-red decks in the pay to play traditional constructed. I haven't even touched the free to play ranked traditional system yet.
Are you always playing single match games? They do create a different meta. Aggro can win much more easily if they only have to play 1 game. They lose because decks adapt to the plan after sideboarding against them, making them less successful. If you start playing traditional 3 match games, you don't have to worry about the whole "best of 2 hands deal" and you can sideboard efficiently against aggro.
Or just build your single match deck that will beat aggro decks. Then you'll be skyrocketing in the wins. Adapt to the meta, don't blame wizards for that. This looks like it will be one of the healthiest metas in standard for quite a while. Do you not remember the crazy cat lady saheeli rai infinite combo that won on turn 4 in standard? Now that's a deck you don't want to play against. Mono-red is easy to work around if you know how to do it.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-beta-january-2019-01-14
As far as the decks I've played against:
B/R aggro with that aristocrat +1/+0 to creatures 3 drop
4-5 color gate deck featuring gate colossus (this deck is very innovative I feel.)
Esper control featuring teferi (I can beat this supposed boogie man of the format, though it's hard. Probably 50% win rate.)
G/B explore midrange is still around.
G/B/U explore midrange is new to the meta.
Occasionally a Nexus of fate deck (I can beat these and mono-red.)
Gruul aggro/midrange which I'm playing
Mono red aggro
U/B Drakes and Niv Mizzet spells matter
Some simic
While mono-red control is prevalent in the single match ranked system, I see it almost no where else! It's just a good deck for the single match system. I'm quite pleased with how varied the meta is. Try varying your games.
I think many people are finding Arena to be quite enjoyable, even in this beta stage. It's fine to like paper Magic more. I just don't think Arena is majorly failing in anyway. They keep making it better, and it's already good.
Spirits
Always draft rare dual lands you don't have when drafting. Not something I would do in paper all the time, but for Arena it is of the utmost importance.
It's not perfect, but of course what system is perfect to a customer except one that is totally free? Perfect system for customer=failure for company to make $
I think I will be spending around 50 USD each new expansion to play sealed (I got more than double the value each expansion GRN and RNA).
Once you have a good deck you can farm events, traditional constructed has a good payout structure. SO there are various ways to maxmize the gold they give you and build a collection fast.
And yes, when old expansions are incorporated people might have to invest a bit to get that many cards, but WotC has to make money.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Yep, it would be prohibitive imo to start from nothing. You are looking at easily $100+ in packs/gems to even get close.
And the funny part (tinfoil hat time) is this 'new format' of Best of 3 no Sideboard with 2 decks.
Oh you want to have diverse options? Say a UWR Control and a BUG Midrange? Do the math on that! Wizards loves the idea I'm sure, but me? Nah. I'll just give the old 'I cast Lavarunner, Wizard's Lightning, Skewer, Skewer, gg?'.
Its idiotic.
Spirits
It was even worse during Caw-Blade vs Splinter Twin days. Turn 4 infinite combo after tapping down your land or they are swinging with the bladed squadron hawk and untapping with Mana Leak! Man those were fun and oppressive days.
But you're right about the health of this format. It looks like it will be really solid. With just the starter pack and an additional $20 investment you can build a very good competitive deck. You don't have to build one of the 3 color shockland/dual land decks to be competitive. Look at the Nexusgate deck for example.
I've spent $50 and have my Esper Control list fully fleshed out, and RDW, and most of Nexusgate, and parts of a few other decks. This is fantastically cheaper than paper magic and we now have ranked best of 3, so I don't think I'll ever go back to paper magic as long as Wizards continues to support Arena.
Have you not played paper standard Magic before? Decks run $150 to $300, even more depending on the meta. I can understand finding the cost a bit much if you've never played Magic before. Compared to paper however, Arena is much cheaper. Especially given that you can just draft your way into a good chunk of a deck with the money you spend.
I can see it being frustrating to try and build a complete deck if you just log onto Arena for the first time. However, with a bit of time and research into how best to spend your gold/gems, you can make a deck for pretty cheap eventually.
I've literally swapped to playing "Gates everywhere .dec" because I don't see a point in wasting my time buying relentless numbers of packs for wild cards. If they introduce an eternal format, than I'm going to spend my rare wild cards on things good in that format. Otherwise, spending wild cards wildly on things you think you need for a specific build is a recipe for disaster. The only cards I haven't felt bad about buying are the lands.
Also going to add that MTG A has made the games weaknesses far more apparent. Everytime someone gets land screwed or flooded in this game, or the shuffler decides it's a good idea to stick 10+ lands all on top, you get reminded as to why all the other card games now put resources outside the main deck. Force of Will is still my favorite game to play. MTG is sort of like "I feel like playing cards and this is the only thing in town that I'm able to do" kind of a thing.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
This is not paper though. Why can't you people view this as a separate product? The constant comparisons to paper magic is irrelevant. (And the massive cost of paper Magic is not a good defense either. Paper or Arena, the new meta is obscenely expensive either way).
Yeah, honestly if anything Arena has made me LESS interested in Magic. I am not buying packs as much as I used to, I don't go to FNM as much as I used to. The flaws in the game are so much more apparent, and I appreciate games like Hearthstone much more now, as Wizards seems to be borderline incompetent in their design both in cards and in a game platform.