IMO they should be a sliding scale cost on the older sets and the option to buy the whole set at once rather than by pack. So something like current set (AER) would be as it is now the KLD whole set price is 75% then 50%,25% and then free. So only 4 previous sets cost coin and the rest is given for free. This would also allow them to rotate out the the free sets with little backlash.

For now though I think a new player needs to spend about 40 bucks buying at least 1 complete set of their choice, then they can either spend more if they like it or grind away. You can definitely be competitive with just AER and KLD unlocked.

@Dream Maker: I don't agree that veterans get bored because they unlock everything straight away, there is ZERO enjoyment for me grinding coins, my enjoyment comes from deck building and good ranked battles. I love that I can buy each new set straight away because I have 50k coins waiting to use.

I can see Dream Maker's point, but it depends on how quickly the format gets "solved". I do the same as you Darkshock and just spend the mountains of gold I have on release to get brewing (no enjoyment in the grind). Whereas we had some pretty cool decks in EMN, and a shot in the arm for ideas after the Pro Tour, KLD didn't for me. In fact correct me if I'm wrong, but KLD's PT either consisted of decks we already used (Vehicles) or decks we couldn't even attempt (Aetherworks Marvel, Panharmonicon etc).

AER could very well go the same way for me, but there's far more ideas to toy around with in this expansion coming.

1. This is not a remotely reasonable expectation. You cannot market a game as f2p, have a new player experience so bad that people have to spend money or quit, and then expect people to have the confidence in the game to spend money.

2. Something I want to point out here...... what if people **** hate the decks they can make with Kaladesh? People keep saying "all you need to do is spend money to get the whole Kaladesh set and you are set." Well..... what if Joe-Smo hates aggro and the aggro playstyle?


I'm kind of trying to point out here that there are a metric tons of barriers to joining the game, and there isn't a whole lot of reason to stay unless you are invested for another reason. You can't say to a new player "You are going to spend 40-80 bucks and then you are going to play aggro and then you are never going to get to play with these cool cards over here just ignore them and oh by the way we expect you to log in and play a ton every day or you are going to end up in the same situation later oh and remember to have fun. If you don't like it gtfo you aren't dedicated enough to play this game." That's a surprisingly poor pitch speech. You cannot judge the game by how well YOU did and how you as a dedicated player with motivation to keep going got into the game and stayed there and was able to be competitive. You have to judge it based on what the average person is going to feel like playing this. To be honest I'm a **** dedicated player or used to be and my collection is so bad atm that I am having trouble beating the ai. I'm not spending money on ****.


Edit: I know I seem down on the game but I'm still plugging away so there is something to say there. *sigh* I don't know. I still really want to like it.

First of all a F2P game in not a free game it just means you don't have to buy it to start playing. Everyone knows your life will be hell in most F2P games if you spend no money. F2P model exists because the game developer believes they can make more revenue via micro transactions than from one off sales.

Playing the game for nothing should just give you a feel for how the game works and you then have to make a decision if you like it enough to either waste loads of time grinding and pay no money or use money and save time. You can buy any set you want so if KLD is not your thing then buy others.

It is not feasible to start as a new player now and get all the cards for free, I don't think anyone has the time available to catch up.

I think the point someone made about playing 2HG with your newbie friends is so true. That's how I got into the game, and if not for my friends putting in the time to teach me during 2013.. I'd of never picked up Magic. I actually got dragged kicking and screaming into Duels.. and now I've become the "master" in my little circle. There is SO MUCH MORE enjoyment in the Duels experience playing 2HG, planning, scheming, socializing, coordinating your builds, bouncing lines off of each other, covering each other's asses, breaking the format, etc. It is the best way for new players with shoddy libraries to get into the game.. with a friend/mentor. Without that.. why would someone want to pick up this pile unless they have previous MtG experience?

As far as F2P.. IMO, the really just says Pay2Win. It's certainly that way in everyone's beloved Hearthstone. You're gonna either pay, suffer the beatings to slowly go 100% free, or quit.

Most good free to play card games let you make one really good deck without charging you money and then you are basically forced to pay for variety. It's just wrong to think this game is doing that even remotely right. You can't just make people miserable starting off and expect them to stick around.

One of the other games I play, and play a lot, came out on October 28th and already has double the player numbers this game does. It's main appeal for a lot of people is you get like 50 packs right away, and then it's generous with the daily quests that you feel incentivized to log in every day. The gameplay is also really good (well it used to be the current expansion ..... still good enough), and you get something like 1 legendary every 8 packs. They are doing really well and still on the upswing. That is not the only way to do free to play right, but it's the most immediate contrast to a game I would consider successful (got an average of +2000 more players in the last month) vs a game that is not (Duels ain't getting **** for new players). At some point the reality is that this is a bad f2p model that Duels is using. You can't just make excuses for it forever.

Edit: +2000 means +2000 average. The average number of players on at one time has gone up by roughly 2000. That means the total number of people playing went up by a whole lot more.

Something worthy of note:
The game also has a really bad reputation for glitches and never fixing anything except for once every 3 months at new set release time. Or at least that's a very large number of the negative player reviews I read about it.

It's almost as if you haven't been to NGA before...

Steam and metacritic. I'm aware of the NGA rants on this. But I'm saying it's part of the wider consciousness people see before trying it, not just the people who've played it.

You're not going to see me 'defending' this shoddy product.. but I will tell it like it is. If you love to play Magic, and you know ahead of time what you're getting into in regard to grinding, the need to possibly shell out 40$, then I'd say go for it. If those things aren't acceptable.. then F it, find something else to play.. bc there's plenty of other good titles out there. This is why 2HG ends up being such a big sell IMO.. because going alone on such a voyage, and not knowing if you'll get your 40$ worth of enjoyment out of it are pretty negative scenarios, which would scare off potential customers IMO. As conceited as it sounds.. a lot of time, playing with ME is almost as much of a draw for friends of mine, as the game itself. If I didn't have a friend show me the ropes in Dark Souls.. I'd of never picked up that series either (thanks Devilgood).

@mark777:
You're preaching to the enfranchised crowd here. They have a "different" perspective from new players this gateway product is built towards. They cared the most about the "hold priority bug" (actually a conscious design decision to make the game more straightforward for truly new players) & lack of actual upkeep phase. Do you think true new-to-any-MtG player really understand or care at this introductory stage (they are probably overwhelmed by the other complexities as the rules go)? So likewise, I don't believe the enfranchised crowd really understands a true new-to-any-MtG player's perspective.

Personally, I think all this talk of making XXX cheaper or making individual cards purchasable miss the entire point. Free-to-play may have been a hot idea back in 2014 (or earlier), but as implemented, it is actually preventing Duels from recruiting new players. Duels is suppose to be an introductory gateway product. Why erect ANY barrier (e.g., in-game currency) to let more people get into the game?

The enfranchised crowd may hate the idea that the gold they accumulated is basically worthless. However, Duels isn't really marketed to them. So if you get rid of the in-game currency and make everything available for free immediately (sidenote: account Duels as a cost center instead of profit center), there's still the opportunity for the game to properly serve its marketed role.

I'm gonna have to disagree there Petercal, Duels is not a gateway to anything, the amount of people who have never played MTG before that play Duels as their first experience and then go on to play paper magic of god forbid MTGO, has to be minuscule.

I think the vast majority of Duels players just like the game play in a vacuum and Duels is the only practical way to play the game these days for casual players.

Now everyone will agree that there are a lot of ways Duels could be far better than it currently is, and I probably agree that a F2P model is sub-optimal at best. However it is still the only way to play MTG in a digital format for a casual person. It is also the best digital version of the game in terms of the look and feel of its UI, MTGO is like looking at a 1990s DOS program in comparison.

I could see them switch back to a cost per expansion model and slowly phase out the coins, i.e. stop new coins from being gained and for a while you can use your remaining coins to offset the $ cost, after that it could be like $15 per expansion. I think they would make more money that way and could use that to have bigger updates each time rather than just new cards and bug fixes.

I don't find any enjoyment in the grind either, just saying that once you got everything it's hard to find any incentive for playing more. If you're a player that simply enjoys playing ranked a lot, then the system will likely be great for you, but for me and likely other people it's easy to get bored with just that. I generally spend a few weeks playing trying some deck ideas after unlocking everything, but after some time I just get bored and just end up wishing I could be playing actual magic with a full collection and no rarity restrictions.

That's why I think that at least actual new game modes (personally I'm not a big fan of 2HG) would go a long way in improving the game for veteran players who can't be happy with just laddering over and over.

I agree with that DM, but I think there needs to be a big shift in the revenue model and development style for that to happen. I would love them to create more game modes and rule sets but I don't think the game is big enough in its current state, which can be blamed only on Wizards. I don't mind 2HG but right now it's unplayable outside of friend groups because there is no in game chat!

I don't know about it being a gateway for completely new players, but it got me playing paper Magic again after being out of the loop since the first Mirrodin.

I'm down with adding new game modes for sure (provided they can be correctly programmed).. but I don't get why the ladder gets stale when (at least on Xbox) it's extremely diverse. It is very common to play 10 games and be against 10 different archetypes.. in fact that's actually the norm. Maybe it's not that way on Steam, where things seem to be much more spikey. Granted.. fun is subjective, so.. don't pull that argument on me.. but it's not like its a 3 deck meta anymore.

I think people that burn out tend to only want to play a few archetypes or color combinations. This is seen by all the Izzet fanboys (and girls), and to a lesser degree.. Dimir. At least there's a lot of different decks in those colors..

Agree mega, I wish there was in game chat though to make it more human, on Steam that is a massive miss which maybe is not as bad on XBONE due to a better alternative option from the system. Steam's chat is super annoying to use while playing.

Maybe we should create a useful poll to see how many NGA people got back into other forms of the game after being reminded or introduced to MTG by Duels or DotP

I'm gonna say this again.. and no one has really given me a strong reason why this isn't a thing.. why don't you Skype with your friends on Steam when you 2HG? It's free, and it's not like you're giving out your personal home telephone number, address, social security number, etc. It's a damn Skype number. If you call someone your "friend" then what's the big deal? I seriously don't get it.

Everyone keeps saying, "Duels should have chat functionality on Steam!", but.. that standard isn't held to Xbox. Xbox handles chat on Xbox, not Duels. It's part of the core services on Xbox Live. Also.. the less stuff you put on Stainless' plate, the better. The scrubs can barely handle what's already on their plate.

I started the Magic Duels a month ago and spent average 6 hrs per day in it so far. I discovered paper MtG 15 years ago. I have read about the game theory and netdecking but have very little playing experience.

At first it was very addictive to open a buster one at a time and immediately upgrade my single starter deck (RW auras) both for PvP and PvE grinding. At the end of SOI/EMN sale I bought 7500 gold package and completed SOI/EMN. Now I have a decent GW Humans for 25 rank PvP and BR madness for fast PvE grind. From that stage I do not need more cards so hard as I needed at the start.

Right now I sit on 9600 gold because I was hoping next soon discount. I need ORI for simple cards like Evolving Wilds but I sure will reject to buy old sets for more than 100 gold per pack.

My opinions as newstarter.

I was not upset when my starter only deck have been steamrolled by superfriends deck at rank 5.
At rank 25 I still meet 100-cards deck (always replaced by AI right after mulligan).
I think discount of old sets should be permanent or should never been performed at all.
I think buying singletons will brake Magic Duels.