If you can assemble a reasonable approximation of a tier 1 deck with $5, it's not really too expensive. Sure, getting everything will be expensive, but you should be able to to always be at least competitive for no money.

Only pricy thing looks to be draft

It's a Free To Play game where you can spend hundreds of dollars per expansion and not get all the content. By definition it's too expensive. I understand that the general public has been lobotomized into defending this business model because "lol it's a card game", but it's still too expensive. People are just willing to way overpay for the product so they can get away with it.

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On a side note, there is no definition by which a game like this can be more expensive than Hearthstone by which I would not consider it to be too expensive.

Finally logged in after the update and openned 16 M19 packs and... Got nothing but crap.
It's hard to get excited about a new set when your missing most of the cards and don't have draft or singleton or a casual mode just to try stuff out.

Yes, I do. But I’d at least consider doing it. I got burned by the lack of cross-platform accounts last time, buying full sets on both iPad and Xbox - so it’s basically my main issue right now. The latter was purely so I could do some competitive play, and that really sucked, because I put money into their game and got probably on the order of a $/minute of play level of cost. (No complaint on the iPad costs at all).

To be honest, this game does most of what I’d want it to, and it seems to do it well. I don’t mind paying for things like that, never have, even when they are expensive. I just don’t want to put a couple hundred dollars into an account only to discover later that the account I actually want wasn’t funded by that money. So right now, I’m waiting until I know.

At the minute my observations for what they are worth is you can have a reasonable experience for free but you will have to accept playing a certain type of deck if you want a reasonable payback re time spent grinding for free by playing that certain type of deck. Aggro clearly of a particular colour. No prizes for guessing which.

For those who know the game of Magic the same issue with mana exists here and despite the wildcard ethos do you really want to spend them on rare untapped duel lands. I am on the fence that the 5 dollar or so initial outlay would allow you to build a Tier 1 deck. It may have the roots of one. But it will take time and luck to get the deck you want to play. Unless of course you spend about the same amount of money a paper deck might cost but at this stage and for obvious reasons you cannot buy wildcards directly.

I think too the free constructed is the only mode you could have any real chance for decent results. Limited type events like sealed play I believe will only ever be available with gems. At least free BO3 is coming!

I believe for Arena to have a start of the same appeal Magic Duels did is to have a genuine versus friend play mode. Despite the content creators creating a good vibe the players need a mode that allows them to participate collectively during play rather than watching or talking about it on twitch. SD

I'm 19-4 on a $5 deck playing the competitive constructed mode. It's certainly possible to get a decent deck together with only $5. Do I have a few gaps and a few placeholders? Of course, but nothing that prevents from pummeling the people I'm getting matched against. Assuming I'm just not playing against other top players, that's certainly possible, but I'm still getting rares and packs doing this, so the deck slowly improves as time goes on and so if I run into a top deck, hopefully my deck will have less holes by that point.

Agreed the mana base is still a bit wonky (running Meandering River is never ideal), but if you stay away from tricolor decks, the lack of the good rare dual lands aren't backbreaking.

Whether or not you can be competitive in the game for free is not the sole determining factor of whether this game is a good value, either for your time or money. The F2P model, just in general, is anti-consumer. This particular game's model....... let me just say that any video game has seriously screwed up its progression when people are starting to seriously consider farming on multiple accounts instead of sticking to a main when the game goes into open beta.

It's posts like the above that are going to make me laugh if/when lawmakers eventually start regulating card packs loot-boxes in video games. F2P is one of the few models that is objectively *NOT* good for the consumer, which is what makes it so funny that they can get consumers to defend it anyways. The cardboard crack is real (well I guess not anymore lol).

I’m also with DJ on the Mac release making it a cert I will play. If it remains PC only at release and assuming no clarity on a single DCI coded account that is cross platform compatible I am not sure I want to rerun a beta Mark II. I will still play paper casually and the odd Magic Duels match to scratch the itch. SD

So you're not really mad at Arena, you're just mad at the entire F2P genre?

Just mad.

The autotapping of mana is **** awful in this game.