Is MtG:A F2P?

How is F2P in MtG:A at the moment, compared to Hearthstone?

How much cards and stuff can you get without paying, playing from time to time?

And do you think, when times go by, and there will be more expansions... will it be possible to keep up as a new player?

Quote From Vino

How is F2P in MtG:A at the moment, compared to Hearthstone?

 

How much cards and stuff can you get without paying, playing from time to time?

 

And do you think, when times go by, and there will be more expansions... will it be possible to keep up as a new player?

I quit because I could not make any progress. Any quest that requires winning games is impossible at start. The amount of Mythic cards you need for decks is killing. 

It's difficult to evaluate for me; I've never been F2P in Hearthstone, but haven't spent any money on MtG:A.

What I will say is I think constantly trying to keep up with the latest meta decks - especially if you're trying to make them optimal - is unachievable. I still don't have all the Shock Lands or Check Lands, never mind the new Scry Lands, but you can still play a less optimal list of most decks without them.

Similarly, I rarely have a full set of Mythics (unless the Mythic can be used in multiple decks) but I can approximate many good decks with what I have.

At its core, I think if you enjoy MtG this is a fantastic way to be able to play it very cheaply, and a pretty good way to play it for free. I want to say it's probably better than HS F2P just based on trying to compare the daily rewards, but as I said I don't know for sure.

MTGA >>HS. The bad thing with mtga is that:

1) You are forced to play mono red or mono blue (smorc) when you start as you are noob and your collection sucks which the same thing applies to hs.

2) You have to manage your resources efficiently which feels terrible at the beginning but you are punished by not doing so. When you start, you have to hoard your wildcards until you learn the game and the first wildcards (rare and mythics) must be spent on lands and some core spells which in time will unlock you a plethora of decks. As you can undestand though, crafting lands and spells and not a big shiny biffy legendary creature or planeswalker is not fun. Once you pass that hurdle though, your collection will snowball.

Ignore the people that say that hs is friendlier. They are talking out of their ass. They propably logged in for a couple of days and expected to have the same collection they built in hs in years. The claim about mythics (legendaries) is trash too. In reality, the only rarety that you will always lack are the rare wildcards (epics in hs), as lands and must have spells are in this category. At the moment my wildcards count is : 124 common, 153 uncommon, 0 rare and 24 mythic and i have only bought the welcome bundle and the war of the spark offer.

Moreover, If you are a good player you can easily go infinite in one of many modes.

MTG is fine as F2P. I was F2P for 2 months with Mono Red and Mono Black deck. I then made a clear break from HS (no more real money for it.) I was able to climb to Plat with Mono Red (Experimental Frenzy is broken.)

I was able to craft some fun experimental decks from free cards and packs. Now i spend about $200 which has given me enough to craft 4 competitive decks with either drafts or pack purchase. The more you learn how to play magic the better rewards you will get. I have done about 35 drafts now and about 14 of them have generated profits and the rests either break even or return me about 50% of my investment.

Its true you will always lack rare cards above everything else. I also didnt bother to craft anything that would rotate next expansion. Magic is a better place to spend time and resources. HS is a fun game but it can be so tilting due to RNG. Just loosing a game based on the power level of a Death Knight or getting Conjure Giant because you didnt have removal on turn 4. (I have a full collection on HS, however moving forward i will only collect golds and packs for cards.)

Also I have spend $200 on a game that I have played for about 10 hrs a week for about 3 months now. That is less than a nice dinner or beer a day.

MTG arena is f2p and probably only exists in that form BECAUSE heartstone is around, all previous games for MTG were pay to play and mtg online is simply an online version of the real life game and it's very expensive.

Arena is playable and rewarding for a casual player, also the quests are not about winning, simply play X cards of a particular colour to gain gold to buy packs and you get packs from the current set via an xp earnt thing which is about playing (though you get a bit more xp on a win)

Theres also a bunch of promotion codes for it you find online to give you packs and cards.

MTG >>>>>> HS because of many reasons: no RNG, multitude of archetypes, better art, more adult feel etc

On the ftp side, as people above said very well, you can slowly build your collection for free, but it's gonna take a looong time to build really good decks, except the hyper aggro ones, which you use to grind. Anyway, it's a very satisfying game, with more than 20 years of successful history. Really, what are you waiting for??

I did´t dare to start MTG Arena. Had been a Pro player 20 years ago and still have the real collection. So i would not be able to stand casual level long but also won´t pay for something i own. LoL.

Well, MTGA:

- 80% of cards are unplayable packfillers (it is worse than in Hearthstone)

- you need 4x of each good cards in good decks

- you cannot disenchant cards to craft new ones, only chance is by using wildcards (which are quite rare)

- if you have more than 5 copies of a card (you can use max. 4 in any deck) bad luck, you will get some wildcards for miniscule rate

- there are ~3-5 expansions each year with ~235 cards in each expansion

So:

• You cannot use cards to craft another
• There are MUCH more cards than in HS
• You need 4 copies of cards in your deck
• There are more packfiller than in HS

You can play F2P but expect having only 1-2 good decks, while in HS you can craft as F2P basically deck from any class. 

MTGA looks more generous but unfortunately it is not. 

Quote From Siegfrieddo

MTG >>>>>> HS because of many reasons: no RNG, multitude of archetypes, better art, more adult feel etc

On the ftp side, as people above said very well, you can slowly build your collection for free, but it's gonna take a looong time to build really good decks, except the hyper aggro ones, which you use to grind. Anyway, it's a very satisfying game, with more than 20 years of successful history. Really, what are you waiting for??

Literally you're first reason is "NO RNG"? Your leading argument out of the gates, and you're already stumbling...I'm laughing out loud as much as JJJ here.  If you believe that, not only are you a naive fool; but I've got a statue in Booty Bay to sell you.

MTGA is a much better game. New players can get 15 decks after completing the new experience which has a ton of good cards. Cheap decks can win you games and easily complete quests. Draft is a ton of fun and is a great way to build a collection and play without worrying about your opponent’s using their full rare and mythic deck. Until the end of August there are weekly events that give good xp and easy wins with even a bad deck. And finally, rotation is happening in late Sept / early Oct so you don’t need to invest in old cards.

Like any CCG there are tons and tons of cards, many of which aren’t great. And Hearthstone does have a *slightly* better method of dusting cards for new cards. But MTGA improves upon that by throwing cards and packs at you so you can quickly build a collection.

Give it a try and see if you like it. Hearthstone and MTGA can both be fun games, but I’m getting more out of MTGA atm

That's not true that you don't make progress as a starter like @ThaMilkMan said and its 2nd post of the thread which leads people wrong way.

I was a noob at MTG and still I'm a noob. I could only play MTG: Duel of Planeswalkers 20.. games before. I have never played it physically.

I've start MTG:Arena at Closed beta and quit it after i played it 2 or 3 weeks. I have returned it 3-4 days ago and didn't like what I've done with my account so I have opened a new one.

I have completed trainings and completed Account mastery through BOT games which gave me total of 15 decks. Examples of all single colored and double colored decks and I've never opened my packs and never crafted cards with wild cards.

Those 15 starter decks are all you need at start. They teach you game, teach you how to create your decks, help you to win. Yes, You can win with those decks in play mode. I can't say it for ranked mode or traditional mode because those modes are not for noobs.

If you are a noob like me and know that you are a noob, you should know that Traditional mode and ranked mode is not for you. That's simple. You can't compare it with Hearthstone because All of blizzard's games are same - Easy to learn.

All you need to do is as a starters, Learn all the cards with playing your "Starter decks". Don't ever spend neither your gold nor Wildcards. Starter decks are really enough at start.

Btw, I'm continuing to play with my older account too and I have some vampire cards at there. Black/White Vampire decks can be good start for starters if you are interested.



TL,DR; Don't lead people with your false notions. Starter decks are enough to win at start. Just open a new account and complete Account Mastery, You will have 15 starter decks.

Quote From Siegfrieddo

MTG >>>>>> HS because of many reasons: no RNG, multitude of archetypes, better art, more adult feel etc

No RNG?? In a game where you often lose because you just do not draw lands or are drawing too many lands??

Quote From Siegfrieddo

MTG >>>>>> HS because of many reasons: no RNG, multitude of archetypes, better art, more adult feel etc

On the ftp side, as people above said very well, you can slowly build your collection for free, but it's gonna take a looong time to build really good decks, except the hyper aggro ones, which you use to grind. Anyway, it's a very satisfying game, with more than 20 years of successful history. Really, what are you waiting for??

Personally for me, the land system ends up being a lot more frustrating than bad rng in hearthstone. Every now and then I play some more Magic, because I do enjoy the game, but just like Hearthstone it does have its problems

Quote From Sykomyke

Quote From Siegfrieddo

MTG >>>>>> HS because of many reasons: no RNG, multitude of archetypes, better art, more adult feel etc

On the ftp side, as people above said very well, you can slowly build your collection for free, but it's gonna take a looong time to build really good decks, except the hyper aggro ones, which you use to grind. Anyway, it's a very satisfying game, with more than 20 years of successful history. Really, what are you waiting for??

Literally you're first reason is "NO RNG"? Your leading argument out of the gates, and you're already stumbling...I'm laughing out loud as much as JJJ here.  If you believe that, not only are you a naive fool; but I've got a statue in Booty Bay to sell you.

Thanks for the reply, Mr. Politeness! 

I'm the naive fool when you can't even differentiate between Hearthstone's intrinsic RNG foundation (draw a RANDOM x-card, summon a RANDOM 2-cost creature, cast 5 RANDOM spells you've cast this game) and Magic's occasional mana screw/flood? 

Both games have their charms and intrinsic pros and cons. I had my share of HS addiction. Can't even touch it now. MTG on the other hand with its absurdly larger variety of strategies is a whole new world to discover.

Just to explain the sheer number of cards released, in 2020 MTGArena released the following sets:

• Theros Beyond Death (254 cards)
• Ikoria Lair of Behemots (274 cards)
• Core Set 2021 (274 cards)
• Jumpstart (496 cards)
• Amonkhet Remastered (338 cards)
• Zendikar Rising (280 cards)
• Historic Anthology 2 & 3 (54 cards)

With very limited crafting (only from wildcards available in every X boosters) and requirement of having 4 cards in deck, having cards for large variety of decks is nearly impossible. 

I play both MTGA and HS. My thoughts:

• Economy: Not that F2P friendly but still slightly better than HS. Daily quests are easy to fulfill and there also some daily rewards on top. Just don't expect to be able to play every single deck
• RNG: MTGA is neither better nor worse than HS in this regard imo. Both have plenty. The latest RNG nonsense example in MTGA would be Tibalts Trickery, for those who don't know: This is a high-roller RNG which can cheat out late game cards as early in turn Two
• Overall MTGA is much more complex which can be rewarding but also frustrating from time to time

The bottom line is that much of this is subjective, so it is best to try out for yourself

Former HS player and current MTGA player here:

The economy of MTGA is better than HS, but not great. As Almaniarra mentioned, the starter decks get you going just fine. They aren't great, but they are enough. I started about 7 months ago in the middle of the Core 2021 expansion, and only buying a couple of very cheap starter bundles (less than I spent starting HS) I now have 61% of a full collection (4x all cards) for Core 2021, 79% of a full collection of Zendikar Rising (including over half of a full collection of rares and Mythic Rares), and 57% of a full collection of Kaldheim (a little over a month in). For wildcards, I have 109 common, 116 uncommon, 29 rare, and 18 Mythic Rare. I have crafted at least four full non-Smorc meta decks in that time. Mind you, none of those decks have a lot of last year's expansions (e.g. no Adventures-heavy decks), and I don't have all of the power land cards, but I get by just fine. As for Historic, well I suppose like if I were starting HS today for Wild that isn't much fun. But for the events I am able to construct not terrible decks.

As far as RNG, well it's just different than HS. There is always the mana screw/flood problem, but other than that only a few powerful RNG clown-fiesta cards in the meta at any one time. That said, they do exist.

I like the complexity and the variety of events (even the Historic events), but it isn't for everyone.

Like Thraxus, I would say you have to try it to really know how you like it.

Quote From Alfi

Just to explain the sheer number of cards released, in 2020 MTGArena released the following sets:

• Theros Beyond Death (254 cards)
• Ikoria Lair of Behemots (274 cards)
• Core Set 2021 (274 cards)
• Jumpstart (496 cards)
• Amonkhet Remastered (338 cards)
• Zendikar Rising (280 cards)
• Historic Anthology 2 & 3 (54 cards)

With very limited crafting (only from wildcards available in every X boosters) and requirement of having 4 cards in deck, having cards for large variety of decks is nearly impossible. 

 

You forgot Kaladesh Remastered (287 cards I think, I don't play Historic outside of events so not sure).

so 70% of stuff you were mentioning were only Wild (historic) card sets

while the other 2 sets were just perfectly similar to the same 2 expansions of Hearthstone.

so?