Totally agree. I would probably attend more MtG draft nights if I was able to get a code card that I could use in MTGO or Magic Duels. It seems rather ludicrous to have to buy paper and turn around and buy digital packs as well. I would almost rather pay a subscription for a magic game if I could have access to standard. I would subscribe, get access to ALL the cards, test out some decks and then unsubscribe when I feel confident in my deck choices and then re-subscribe when a new set is released. It would be cheaper than buying tons of cards all the time both digitally and physically, assuming is was a reasonable subscription price like $15 for a month. Cards are going to rotate out anyway, so why do I want digital cards? I guess I could play modern, but I don't even know if I have time to do all that.
Baz Bangarang And vice versa; if you buy a booster/collection online, you should get a copy shipped to your house. Maybe not for singles, but definitely the same-price things he mentioned. I'm astounded people literally pay the same, for objectively less.
That's happening already, and probably the reason the prices are so high. If you have a FULL set (all regular/all foil), you can redeem (trade) them for an IRL set instead.
I never understood how a company this big parented by Hasbro could allow such a huge potential profit gain to go by. If they really wanted to, MTGO would be amazing. I would even switch to it. I refuse to give money to a paid cockatrice.
Let's be real here, if Yu-Gi-Oh players (not Konami, the company that produces the game, the PLAYERS) can cobble together THREE fully playable simulators for ZERO DOLLARS with this same level of graphics, and far better interfaces, there is absolutely NO REASON that Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro can't do one that's a million times better.
I think it would be a good idea for Wizards of the Coast to do what the Pokemon TCG is doing. Adding an online code to every booster pack so that you can open the real one, then input your code online and open a digital equivalent for online play. It would add a little more value to booster packs, give players more incentive to play online and there would be an actual use for advertisement cards. I'm just brainstorming though, it'll probably never happen.
not sure if your still interested but they are probably going to add it in when the new game comes out (mtg arena) its now only in new zealand tho but they are testing out how it will work
I am looking for photos of families playing MTG and other board games together for an upcoming video. Send a photo of your FAMILY playing MTG, board games, D&D, etc, to tolariancommunitycollege@gmail.com and I may use it in an upcoming video.
+escobarbert Teach him to play MtG instead, the price of Pokemon TCG is not worth its gameplay. I am saying this as a player who quit a few years ago. Granted, you can wait for promo reprints, which do drop the price, but if you want to build the latest decks, it's not great. Then again, if you're going completely casual, then there's no issue I guess.
+Tolarian Community College Regarding the comparison to Duels: I don't imagine playing MTGO with Duels interface. It has long, annoying animations, weird perspective and not-so-convenient deck building. I much prefer the style of current MTGO: more or less clean and not cluttered with unnecessary filler. The thing it needs the most is better responsiveness. I don't say it is flawless otherwise, but I think this simple, ascetic style is actually a good thing. Also: the thing at the end of the video isn't an equation, but an inequality :D And I don't agree with 'always'. Not having to shuffle or do nothing between rounds is very nice. Also: double queuing :D
They should do what things like Yugioh have done in the past (print cards with codes which you can use for video games) or Pokemon, they put those card codes in every pack of their REAL cards!
I love how the music always tips you off to the direction the video is about to take. Gotta love the tuba-and-horn bit before discussing online card costs. I would have liked it if the professor addressed competing products, because they are certainly relevant to the discussion. For example, the previous Duels of the Planeswalkers iterations, Magic Duels, and the way Pokemon does their own digital version (all physical products unlock the same cards online for free, with a free to play model existing alongside it online as well.)
This was amazing. Thank you for presenting it in such a clear manner. Paper Magic is my preference. It makes me sad that it is not more affordable to do both. Just very pleased we have this wonderful game period. Nice to see this reviewed in a critical manner for all the positives as well as the negatives.
Gtatz on 100k subs! I've been subscribed for you for over a year, even before you hit 20k. You are a great content creator, and your content is a model for all other MTG youtubers to look up too. I hope that you keep on creating content and stay interested in the game. Also, 100k Q and A?
While I've been deployed to Afghanistan the last few months, its been hard to scrape together a game in paper with friends here. We do have cards but thanks to odd shift hours between the lot of us, its hard. Magic Online has been awesome for getting to play with some of the Modern decks that I'll be playing when I get home. Without the program (as clunky and laggy as it is), I wouldn't have been able to get the reps in that I have while here. The equation the Professor said cannot be truer: Laggy (granted, the internet we have here isn't the fastest) and clunky Modern play has been WAY better than no Modern. Heck, I've even gotten to play against the Professor on his stream while over here. Back home I stream playing MTGO and the interaction with being able to play and 'hang out' with viewers is awesome. It's actually helped me progress a little bit as a player in that the chat sometimes points out plays/interactions I might have missed otherwise. Getting to play with friends and other people while halfway around the world is invaluable and fun. I just wish that Hasbro/WotC/SOMEONE is able to pump the necessary work into the UI and user experience in the coming years or it will be quickly left in the dust by other online card games.
i think a non-trivial con is the fact that due to the digital nature of the cards and the significant investment that can be put into the game, factors beyond your control can make you completely lose access to those cards whether it be servers going down forever or wizards forcibly closing your account which cannot happen with paper magic, although is rather unlikely
this is happening in pokemon tcg online soon. they're sunsetting it to bring in its replacement called Pokemon TCG Live. most things are transferrable besides the oldest cards. it'd be the equivalent of only allowing modern and more recent cards to transfer in magic but not your legacy or vintage cards. it's F*d up
+Rashid Al-Khayal (Game92Collector) I'm not sure he'd want to, considering there's a grey area around a completely free, unrestricted program that lets you play this game you'd otherwise need to pay for. I can't imagine a program like Cockatrice or XMage is cutting too deeply into WotC's profits like piracy does to other entertainment industries - if you're playing Magic on Cockatrice, you've probably spent a bit of money on the real thing in your time - but it's technically still a grey area.
Better not talk too much about it. Cockatrice got shut down once when it gained immense popularity among the MTG crowd. More attention is the very thing both XMage and Cockatrice don't need.
For a long time I've struggled with the desire to play MTGO, solely because I really like playing Magic and constantly want to improve, but not a lot of people in my area play. I get together with friends semi-regularly during the week to play, which is nice to do, but I want to stretch out and play with more than just my play-group, of whom after a while I can predict what they're going to do. I feel that it loses it's taste after a while, but after seeing the video, I'll have to think on this harder. Another great video Professor. I know I'm late to the party, but I honestly love your work and I am glad you are here to help players like me out and that you're connecting with us this way. You are invaluable sir.
What a fantastic educational video. I want to say "I can't believe" as a form of expression that your videos are insanely awesome, and also very intimate with it's viewers. But the thing is; I can believe! I can believe it due to your profession in real life! You are at hand a Teacher, and this probably helps you to understand how to teach. In that fashion you have the knowledge behind you to put together you lessons for each day. I think this is also why you have so many people subscribing to you! Fantastic work, wonderful execution, very easy to follow while dishing out a lot of information. Thank you again.
I sold my entire collection to play online. It wasn't worth it. My personal experience was that MTGO served its purpose quite well. It cost me roughly half of what paper magic cost and I was able to have twice as many modern decks and was able to play a lot more. The problem for me, was the social aspect to MTGO is pretty much nill and I didn't realize how important that was to me when I sold out my paper collection to play online.
+Raynor Moore I think the best thing to do is play eternal online and more fun formats with paper cards. Modern and Legacy is great online. While EDH is something I prefer playing with real cards.
It was a group decision. Friend and I Couldn't afford to buy into MTGO without selling Paper collections and it was looking like that was the only way we were going to be able to play for 2015. I sure learned a lot. Played a ton, but like I said, I didn't account for the lack of social interaction and that ruined it for me in the end.
+Raynor Moore I'm with you. I played a TON of MTGO back in the v1 and v2 days, and attribute a lot of the fun I had to a chat room I was part of that was active most times of the day (~15-20 users at peak hours). Even in the tournament lobbies, there'd usually be some sort of idle chatter going on in the lobby. The /auction channel, while not exactly the most efficient way to move cards in the pre-bot days, was another reminder that there were actual people logged in to the client and interacting with each other. When v3 gradually moved away from open chat, and v4 more or less killed it entirely, I lost interest almost completely, and only log in for the occasional draft now. I almost wish MTGO had been this lifeless back in 2004, so I wouldn't have wasted so many hours during my college years.
This "misclicks" arguement is somewhat unfair. People don't "missclick". They get impatient and start clicking wildly to get the game up to speed of a papermagic game. So it is not that they missed a clicking, no they clicked too fast when most of the time there was no need to click faster. I'd compare it to missed triggers in paper magic. That's a thing you will never have on magic online. No more dieing to a pact upkeep cost just because you forgot for a second.
+testthewest123 If I click, expecting one result, and due to a lack of clarity with the interface, get a different one, then it is a fair criticism. I've ended up targeting my own creatures with removal, and I attribute this to a non-intuitive, unclear interface. Yes, there is some user error, but if the system is poorly enacted, there is blame enough to go around. On my smart phone, I don't ever intend to open my mail app but accidentally open my youtube app instead. The layout is clear and intuitive.
Tolarian Community College Well, I am not going to defend MTGo as a program - it is really subpar, but the "missclick" arguement I see most often when I watch Magic-Pros play slppyly and then they blame the game. If you can read and have no lag, there most often is no problem. And there are also some benefits, if you compare MTGO to Paper magic, which you perhaps don't mention because they are obvious? - No cheating - no shuffling breaks (especially in this 15-fetch a deck standard a boon) - no way slowplay of the opponent will force a draw - better rules enforcement than live magic - alot easier deckbuilding than papermagic (I have a big paper collection, I know how much work it is to sort cards back from decks you want to scrap, or that you need multiple playsets of cards if you want to play them in multiple decks) - perfect scorekeeping, none of my time needed to note the lifepoints I love Paper magic for it's speed of play, for it's social interaction, but MTGO is not worse in all matters than papermagic.
+testthewest123 It's not just people rushing. The UI does some silly sometimes like rearranging the cards on screen when selecting multiple cards from a library, that leads to clicking the wrong card some times especially if the client is lagging slightly at the time and so the player is in fact clicking the card they want on the screen, but the client rearranges the cards before it processes the clicks.Sometimes clicks are just ignored. I've clicked "OK" to move forward a phase and had the client ignore it more than once, which can be hard to tell apart from the client lagging. In the first if you don't reclick nothing will ever happen and you will time out and lose, in the second reclicking will skip through a phase.But yes, you also can't miss a trigger to tick up your aether vial or cast that rebounded spell or remove the time counter from a suspended spell so one type of error is really just being replaced with another. But when you miss a trigger you can't blame anyone except yourself, but when a piece of software rearranges the cards on screen as you click so you pick the wrong card you do blame something else.
+Tolarian Community College I would have had to have seen that to understand your position, I have been playing MTGO for months now in all formats and haven't run into miss targeting or Interface issues aside from declaring attackers, but testhewest123 is right that just waiting a couple seconds after selecting your option clears up the targeting errors, which should be done anyway as this is a much more common issues with paper magic or Magic Duels.
Prof, let me aknowledge your great service to the community. I've already built two decks that you have shown (burn and pauper dredge) and since burn is impossible to win with at my store, I will build the modern merfolk deck. As always, a pleassure watching your videos. Greetings from Argentina.
Magic Duels is free on steam! You don't have to pay anything in order to make enough in-game currency to buy boosters, and you can trade for singles on the Steam trading system. The downside to Magic Duels is that there you only have the Standard rotation (and Origins, but I'm not sure how long that will last).
The reason between the disparity in the different Magic games is because Duels of the Planeswalkers is outsourced to an actual video game company, while MGO is made by Wizards themselves.
+Tolarian Community College I play the paper version when I can, I have greater collection there and I play MTGO. And although I agree with most of everything you said. There is another thing you didn't list, MTGO is also good for testing your deck concepts and Ideas, before you go out and buy the paper singles for the deck you are working on. It can in the long run save some money. Albeit you're testing for an eternal format ie Legacy/vintage, modern, or even commander ( I don't know about pauper since I don't play it.) but yeah, and in the short run, It may help with standard.
As mentioned towards the end, the convenience is really good for MTGO. I suffer mobility problems, so quite often playing MTGO rather than physically going to the local game store is easier/less physically painful
One thing you can expect to find on Magic Online is a very high level of competition. If you are primarily interested in improving as a player, you can have an amazing amount of learning opportunities, and might eventually even forgive most of the other flaws. If you belong to this group, you are also less likely to care about graphics. On the other hand, if you are a casual player who simply wants to build many decks and play for fun, Magic Online offers an enormous selection of non-competitive singles at ridiculously cheap prices. You can get 95% of cards for under 5 cents apiece. Just two reasons to play online that were not discussed in the video.
I would prefer it, if boosters you buy in your local game store also contain a QR-source on a card, which should allow you to register your bought boosters online.
Also note that the level of competition of the sanctioned paid tournaments is generally higher then that of an average LGS or small meta (of your friends). So it is a valuable tool for testing for upcoming events with higher stakes.
I mainly use magic online for collecting sets and redeeming them for cheaper than buying the paper cards straight up. It's also been handy for checking rules on card interactions sometimes.
I really see what the professor is talking about. In my hometown of St Cloud MN there are tons of places to play cards and local groups at colleges that get together and play. meanwhile in Jacksonville NC where I was stationed for 4 years in the USMC, there was a severe lack of MTG events as well as playgroups. most people down there dont even know what Wizards of the cost is haha. and the only store in the area I found was a hole in the wall business that had like 3 tables worth of playspace and not more then a few patrons.
I highly recommend untap.in, a totally free copy of magic online. It doesn't need even to download, you play it from the browser. It has a poor interface and many problems, but it's basically the same product for free. Anyway, I thank the professor for the constant effort and commitment to contribute to the community with his contribution of really very good quality content. :D Greetings from Argentina
So there wasone little factor that I concluded when deciding if playing magic online was worth it. I recently got back into magic having only played when I wad younger and admittedly did not have much of a grasp on the game. The rigid turn based structure of magic online has actually been helping my with paper magic because I have become more aware of when spells and abilities can be activated and thusly not missing valuable phases. That being said, I totally agree with you that the interface is clunky and not especially beginner friendly, but still good for cementing rules / priorities. I guess that same benefit could be obtained on Magic Duels though. Great video!
I would like to REMARK that Magic Duels was of ABSOLUTE HELP to me when I was a NEWBIE and I had no idea about how to play Magic (I consider it a game that is hard to understand). If you are a newbie, I recommend you to download Magic Duels and play all the battles in the history against the CPU. If you like it, then buy some real paper MTG cards and find some MTG friends in your town or in your nearest store.
In the comparison bit, I find the inclusion of the Erebos cutscene from Duels amusing, considering that CGI itself looks like a product of the 80's or early 90's.
The real question is Magic Online better than Hearthstone,, Hex, or Sol Forge. Is it even near the top? Wizards need to survey the competition and step up to the challenge of becoming a tier one app. If it was not for my love of paper MTG I would never play MTG online. One last note HUGE + NO RESERVE list! This is the future of Vintage and Legacy.
A big (BIG) pro of MTG: online for me is that it lets me test a deck before I actually buy the cards, themselves. If you have a few extra dollars, a deck that would cost 100+ for the paper cards frequently costs $20 or so on mtg online, or even less since once you have the digital card, that card can be put into as many decks that you want. So if you have 4 different decks that all run an Emrakul, you only need to buy one emrakul. I've had many, many decks which I built from scratch that were just ideas, and I didn't really want to spend 100, 200, or 300 on a deck that I though would just be fun but not really competative. Enter, MTGO. I have a digital copy of my 5 favorite decks, and those digital copies cost me $30 for the most expensive one. Also, I just love putting decks together. I've got an entire list of "lunchbreak decks" that I just made while on my lunchbreak. It's really fun to make one and then see it in action without having to actually buy the cards, sleeve them, etc.
I started playing lots of magic Online shortly after my son was born. I was not able to make it to my LGS for my paper magic group. It is pretty convenient to load up a game of 1v1 Commander I can play a game in about 15-20 minutes. Playing paper magic can take twice as long and I just don't have the time to drive to the store and hang out for hours at a time. I have had a bit more time to play some paper magic and I do vastly prefer it, even if my decks aren't as good (especially my lands).
This probably gets asked a lot, but I'd very much like to see an episode of you discussing your book collection. Maybe a few recomendations or memories of favorite books? Its always in the background, but surely some thought went into it. Just curious ^^. All the same, thank you for all that you do.
I agree with you, but I'd mention that pauper is a much more popular format online, and most of all, there are entire formats ONLY possible online (Momir Basic and its variants). I really wish you'd shout out Momir since it's a really fun format.
my brother actually got me into magic because I used to be a hardcore yugioh player and decided to give it a try and it's been 2 years and I haven't stopped playing with friends since, no card shop though...
MTGO is going to be something that I think I'm going to have to use over the next couple of years because I'm going to be traveling a lot for my job over the next couple of years! The equation is rock solid and I want to keep my hand in!
You're a Magic player so, in a certain way, you're a math person :p. I'm just kidding. Greetings, professor. Ps: Hope you can try my Bogles decklist someday.
I'm about to get into Magic Online for a few reasons. 1. Least importantly, I want to be able to draft at my leisure, something I can't do at my game shop, running a draft weekly alternating between Wednesday and Friday evenings. I go to most Friday evening drafts, but can't do Wednesdays. I would like to draft more frequently than once every two weeks. 2. Access to Magic Online's cubes & flashback drafts. I have my own cube and know people with their own, but I don't think it's quite the same experience. 3. I want to play Momir Basic :P 4. Most importantly, I want to play with my fiancé's family. They live in Oregon. I live in England. 5000 miles & 8 hours time difference make it pretty tricky.
I want to point another need that magic online can satisfy. I am a player from Argentina and with you videos pauper format catched my attention but there is no pauper players around and playing magic here is much more difficult in terms of aviability of products and prices. So magic online is a way to play pauper for me, the green tron deck is cheaper too so that is another reason for play online. You people of US are in magic heaven, embrace it. Here we are almost underdogs, haha. I love your videos proffesor, thanks a lot. Sorry for my bad writing, I learned english by miself.
As a programmer, I must say that the graphical limitations and the interface are by far the hardest thing to fix. Due to the massive amount of cards in the database, and the number of rules within magic, there would need to be a complete overhaul of the entire way the program is coded. In addition, with such a massive amount of code, it would require such a time dump and money dump that the short term is completely unfavorable for any company. Without planning to have programs be cross platform and expandable in the first stages of development, it is near impossible to have such overhauls later in the production of the game.
As I was getting into Magic a few months ago, I got some Pokemon cards for my son (6). They strongly encourage online play, every product you by you get a code to have that uploaded to your Pokemon Online account. Buy a paper pre-con, get the same on online to play with. Buy a booster, get one online. I feel MTGO needs this.
I use MTGO for draft practice. I feel a lot better doing something silly in a draft to see if it works or not online, than I do at my LGS. I find it helps me get a better feel for a new draft environment that I can then take to my LGS
I think the one case it can be considered "better" than paper is if you want to get into a format like legacy or vintage. You can play a format you may enjoy, without selling a house to get a competitive.
For me I like MTGO a lot I can burn through some podcasts while enjoying a few games, and it's nice if you're burnt out on social settings. Working in customer service just makes you want to stop socializing for a while. MTGO is great for when you just want to play without being social.
As someone who prides myself on home brews for big event such as games days and pptqs i use magic online as a way of deck testing where i might not have the chance to get to play against other players and it lets me try the deck against the highest levels of players
I play MTGO for the "always available" aspect. I also try to go to FNM draft or modern nights when I can but my work schedule doesn't always allow for that.
I signed up for Magic Online when they announced the Legendary Cube and plan to use it only to play unique formats like cubes and formats that are not possible or prohibitively expensive to play in paper like flashback drafts.
if you have a group of friends that you want to play Magic with online, I recommend you check out Tabletop Simulator the game is $20 on Steam (so of course wait for a sale, I got it for $5) once you have the game, it's free from then on out and you have no limitation to what cards are available
I personally love MTGO. I played the paper version with friends growing up, and my brother and I still occasionally do, but people move away, have kids, and in general, life gets in the way. I have a hard time getting to my LGS, and although they have Friday events, it isn't a place where I could go mid-afternoon or late nights (11 pm-3 am) to find a game. With MTGO, I can find a game at any time I feel like playing. Also, I actually like that the interface is bare-bones; it kind of reminds me of playing on a kitchen table (which is the majority of my experience with paper magic). I do not need, nor indeed want, flashing lights or graphics. Also, although I have played other MTG games online (usually through steam), this is the only version that I have found that includes sets dating back as far as I can remember playing, and not just the most recent few sets. Lastly, I admit that I am biased, because when I first had a hunger to play and couldn't find anyone in my area of TN to play, I went searching for games online, and there weren't other ways to play over a decade ago. Again, I have played the 2015, duels, etc. since, but have always found myself coming back to MTGO, because they were there in the aughts when I first wanted to play, because they didn't have all the unnecessary flashing lights and bells & whistles, and lastly because they had cards from old-school sets that the others did not. P.S. The only negative that I do give any credence is the errors one you mentioned. I have been dropped from a game because of errors roughly a dozen times in 15 years (not a bad average, really), and a few times when playing commander, it will glitch and not show the commander/graveyard/exile panel, or randomly decide to "yield" through my 1st turn. To be fair, however, most of those glitches were in 4 player games for no stakes (friendly pick-up games), so I just asked for a second from my other players, and signed out and reloaded, and the game was fine. In terms of draft events, the team at MTGO was super forgiving and helpful, reimbursing me one time, even though the problem was on my end, and had nothing to do with their client. Given the hundreds, if not thousands, of games that I have played, having less than 1 error per year isn't so bad, especially because it usually only takes a minute and a half to sign back in (at which point the error is resolved), and that the MTGO team is so forgiving and accommodating. P.P.S. You mention that there is no fee, and then complain that they don't have fancy graphics (thankfully, imo); do you think perhaps the two are related? Do you think if they made the mistake of having fancier graphics (which would ruin the kitchen table aesthetic) that they might feel inclined to, or even need to, charge more? Also, I first heard this in relation to cars, but the principle seems to apply elsewhere, and perhaps here as well- the more moving parts and complex the thing is, the more that can go wrong. I have had a few glitches in playing over a decade; I imagine that there would be more, if they added more things that could potentially go wrong. Again, I may be biased because I like the bare-bones graphics, but I have to also assume that adding flashing lights, music, etc. would just mean that more things could go wrong, and would also require more maintenance (possibly increasing the price). P.P.S. I cannot believe I forgot to mention this before, but I love MTGO also because they have numerous play formats. The other versions of PC MTG games didn't have Commander, for instance. I started playing legacy and "freeform" (which I don't think exists anymore), but have since got into Commander, and thankfully, the format exists on MTGO. I have NEVER played standard or modern, and NEVER intend to lower myself to those boring formats, which is the bulk of those other MTG PC games online.
a few thoughts: 1) towards the end of your video you ask the question "is it worth it for you/me" but I'd like you to add ex Magic 2014/15 into the formula. 2) some times you tend to repeat things. I get it, putting extra weight on certain words but you can put weight on a few words or on a message without repeating and also since it's a video, a person can just simply rewind if they felt they didn't remember the formula or whatever the case is. 3) you run a good youtube channel. I enjoy it, thanks!
Magic Online should have code cards like the Pokémon TCG. One code per pack in real life, would promote and make the program way more popular as well as affordable!
You forgot to mention that with MTGO you don't require a warehouse to store all your cards. Filed under the Dewey decimal system of course so you can find that one card your looking for in a new deck idea.
You missed two pros: - you don't have to buy sleeves, counters, deckboxes etc. etc.\ - your cards do not degrade over time (as in scratching, bending etc.)
Sleeves, counters, and boxes are pretty cheap. If you store your cards properly, you should never have to worry about them degrading (at least in your ~85 year lifetime). But an accident could happen, such as flood or fire, that destroys your physical cards. Then again, a digital disaster could happen as well, such as a hacker.
If you're interested in playing MTGO, but you don't want to deal with the extensive costs of maintaining a collection and several decks, try out a program called XMage. The cards are free, the events are free and player-run, you can build any kind of deck and play with it immediately. It has the cons of a clunky interface, but it isn't any worse than MTGO. It's also programmed in Java, so I'm pretty sure it's open to Mac users.
The one thing I like about the interface of MTGO that Duels doens't have, is everything in mtgo is super manual. You have to actually do a lot of the things. Duels tries to auto complete some tasks it thinks I want to do in a certain way when I may not.
I think MTGO is worth it for Pauper, Standard, Modern, Legacy and Limited. The only thing I like more with paper cards is EDH. It feels weird and the whole social group fun that EDH brings feels gone. Edit: To the point of graphics. I don't want MTGO to look like Magic Duels. I really like the simple design. Magic Duels/Planeswalkes just feels so slow when playing it. All those animations and options you have to choose. Everything also feels really huge. I can't think of how a 4-6 player EDH game would look like.
While I do like your review, your con of poor graphics is a MAJOR pro for me. The contrasting example you showed really helped me decide to NOT try Planes Walker. I completely agree with Quatumperception- I like less graphics. As I grow older and see all the new cool games, I learn over and over again that they confuse me; to avoid said confusion I invariably end up having to go slow or am unable to play. Thank you for you review.
I got two accounts. One for trading and other for playing. I've actually only ever spent the $20 for the two accounts but, have made my money back and profit from selling tickets. Free bots are amazing to have and without them I wouldn't be able to do anything on there for free beyond the start up cost. Now I'm able to play in events and build decks all for free and even make some money. I like the looks of V4 but, like the GUI/navigation of V3 better.
I totally agree with you on all points professor! Sadly i only play magic online, since it's way cheaper and i can play more games than irl. However i would love to play irl. The only thing what's holding me down to play the paper game, is that my online cards are useless and i don't have the money to buy online and paper cards... :( Btw i love your videos, keep the good work!
If MTG physical cards had code cards for MTGO just like Pokemon, I would probably stop buying Pokemon cards and jump ship completely to MTG.
Baz Bangarang yeah i don't see why they wouldn't. it would literally double users on MTGO.
Totally agree. I would probably attend more MtG draft nights if I was able to get a code card that I could use in MTGO or Magic Duels. It seems rather ludicrous to have to buy paper and turn around and buy digital packs as well. I would almost rather pay a subscription for a magic game if I could have access to standard. I would subscribe, get access to ALL the cards, test out some decks and then unsubscribe when I feel confident in my deck choices and then re-subscribe when a new set is released. It would be cheaper than buying tons of cards all the time both digitally and physically, assuming is was a reasonable subscription price like $15 for a month. Cards are going to rotate out anyway, so why do I want digital cards? I guess I could play modern, but I don't even know if I have time to do all that.
Baz Bangarang And vice versa; if you buy a booster/collection online, you should get a copy shipped to your house. Maybe not for singles, but definitely the same-price things he mentioned. I'm astounded people literally pay the same, for objectively less.
That's happening already, and probably the reason the prices are so high.
If you have a FULL set (all regular/all foil), you can redeem (trade) them for an IRL set instead.
Baz Bangarang why play pokemon to begin with? It's definitively worse than the video games.
The only reason to use MTGO is that you have no obligation to wear pants while playing.
^^
I thought people didn't wear pants when playing paper magic.
What stuck up local game store do you go to that requires frivolities like pants?!
+WilhelmScreamer That and you can find actual pauper players.
***** It is a deck builder's dream! So much flexibility and at such a low price really lets you be experimental
I never understood how a company this big parented by Hasbro could allow such a huge potential profit gain to go by. If they really wanted to, MTGO would be amazing. I would even switch to it. I refuse to give money to a paid cockatrice.
play Magic Arena, it's totally free and actually quite easy to get cards using ingame currency without spending a single real world cent
@@madninja1993 its a 5 years ago comment, arena didnt even exist at that time hahahaha
@@forkstgmr261 true
Let's be real here, if Yu-Gi-Oh players (not Konami, the company that produces the game, the PLAYERS) can cobble together THREE fully playable simulators for ZERO DOLLARS with this same level of graphics, and far better interfaces, there is absolutely NO REASON that Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro can't do one that's a million times better.
I think it would be a good idea for Wizards of the Coast to do what the Pokemon TCG is doing. Adding an online code to every booster pack so that you can open the real one, then input your code online and open a digital equivalent for online play.
It would add a little more value to booster packs, give players more incentive to play online and there would be an actual use for advertisement cards.
I'm just brainstorming though, it'll probably never happen.
Far Out Brussels Sprout yep......never at this point
Yep, it would make draft nights more enticing for sure.
Every Yu-Gi-Oh cards had codes in the bottom left to input into games.
(I stopped after GX so idk if they still do it)
not sure if your still interested but they are probably going to add it in when the new game comes out (mtg arena)
its now only in new zealand tho but they are testing out how it will work
na they'd lose money 🙃🙃🙃
I am looking for photos of families playing MTG and other board games together for an upcoming video.
Send a photo of your FAMILY playing MTG, board games, D&D, etc, to tolariancommunitycollege@gmail.com and I may use it in an upcoming video.
Excellent video! I just checked out your second channel love it. Any chance of a black shirt with a red tolarian emblem for sale?
+escobarbert Teach him to play MtG instead, the price of Pokemon TCG is not worth its gameplay. I am saying this as a player who quit a few years ago. Granted, you can wait for promo reprints, which do drop the price, but if you want to build the latest decks, it's not great.
Then again, if you're going completely casual, then there's no issue I guess.
Only family ? Or friends too ?
+Tolarian Community College When building a game you always want to have good support for minimum supported graphics.
+Tolarian Community College
Regarding the comparison to Duels: I don't imagine playing MTGO with Duels interface. It has long, annoying animations, weird perspective and not-so-convenient deck building. I much prefer the style of current MTGO: more or less clean and not cluttered with unnecessary filler. The thing it needs the most is better responsiveness. I don't say it is flawless otherwise, but I think this simple, ascetic style is actually a good thing.
Also: the thing at the end of the video isn't an equation, but an inequality :D And I don't agree with 'always'. Not having to shuffle or do nothing between rounds is very nice. Also: double queuing :D
This is how I see MTG Online, is like seeing boobs on the internet, but is better to have them in your hands (Paper Magic)
0.0
I can't get over the fact that they charge $4/pack for virtual cards. What a shameless cash grab.
DrK I am ok with it so long as they dont add a subscription fee
A video I've been hard-pressed to find anywhere that answers my questions about the client adequately. This helps so much! Thanks again, professor!
They should do what things like Yugioh have done in the past (print cards with codes which you can use for video games) or Pokemon, they put those card codes in every pack of their REAL cards!
After getting back into MTG a few months ago, I can't get enough of your channel. Keep up the amazing videos! :)
This is a very, *very* good critical review.
+Atanih23 Thanks!
I love how the music always tips you off to the direction the video is about to take. Gotta love the tuba-and-horn bit before discussing online card costs.
I would have liked it if the professor addressed competing products, because they are certainly relevant to the discussion. For example, the previous Duels of the Planeswalkers iterations, Magic Duels, and the way Pokemon does their own digital version (all physical products unlock the same cards online for free, with a free to play model existing alongside it online as well.)
This was amazing. Thank you for presenting it in such a clear manner. Paper Magic is my preference. It makes me sad that it is not more affordable to do both. Just very pleased we have this wonderful game period. Nice to see this reviewed in a critical manner for all the positives as well as the negatives.
Gtatz on 100k subs! I've been subscribed for you for over a year, even before you hit 20k. You are a great content creator, and your content is a model for all other MTG youtubers to look up too. I hope that you keep on creating content and stay interested in the game.
Also, 100k Q and A?
While I've been deployed to Afghanistan the last few months, its been hard to scrape together a game in paper with friends here. We do have cards but thanks to odd shift hours between the lot of us, its hard. Magic Online has been awesome for getting to play with some of the Modern decks that I'll be playing when I get home. Without the program (as clunky and laggy as it is), I wouldn't have been able to get the reps in that I have while here. The equation the Professor said cannot be truer: Laggy (granted, the internet we have here isn't the fastest) and clunky Modern play has been WAY better than no Modern.
Heck, I've even gotten to play against the Professor on his stream while over here. Back home I stream playing MTGO and the interaction with being able to play and 'hang out' with viewers is awesome. It's actually helped me progress a little bit as a player in that the chat sometimes points out plays/interactions I might have missed otherwise. Getting to play with friends and other people while halfway around the world is invaluable and fun. I just wish that Hasbro/WotC/SOMEONE is able to pump the necessary work into the UI and user experience in the coming years or it will be quickly left in the dust by other online card games.
Magic Shandalar > Magic Online
i think a non-trivial con is the fact that due to the digital nature of the cards and the significant investment that can be put into the game, factors beyond your control can make you completely lose access to those cards whether it be servers going down forever or wizards forcibly closing your account which cannot happen with paper magic, although is rather unlikely
this is happening in pokemon tcg online soon. they're sunsetting it to bring in its replacement called Pokemon TCG Live. most things are transferrable besides the oldest cards. it'd be the equivalent of only allowing modern and more recent cards to transfer in magic but not your legacy or vintage cards. it's F*d up
Hey professor,
Can you please talk about "mtg cockatrice"
I want to know your opinion on it.
+Rashid Al-Khayal (Game92Collector) XMage is better imo
Xmage is better
+Rashid Al-Khayal (Game92Collector) I'm not sure he'd want to, considering there's a grey area around a completely free, unrestricted program that lets you play this game you'd otherwise need to pay for.
I can't imagine a program like Cockatrice or XMage is cutting too deeply into WotC's profits like piracy does to other entertainment industries - if you're playing Magic on Cockatrice, you've probably spent a bit of money on the real thing in your time - but it's technically still a grey area.
Better not talk too much about it. Cockatrice got shut down once when it gained immense popularity among the MTG crowd. More attention is the very thing both XMage and Cockatrice don't need.
+Rashid Al-Khayal (Game92Collector) It's what I use, and it's pretty great.
For a long time I've struggled with the desire to play MTGO, solely because I really like playing Magic and constantly want to improve, but not a lot of people in my area play. I get together with friends semi-regularly during the week to play, which is nice to do, but I want to stretch out and play with more than just my play-group, of whom after a while I can predict what they're going to do. I feel that it loses it's taste after a while, but after seeing the video, I'll have to think on this harder.
Another great video Professor. I know I'm late to the party, but I honestly love your work and I am glad you are here to help players like me out and that you're connecting with us this way. You are invaluable sir.
As i watch this, YOUVE HIT 100,000 SUBSCRIBERS! CONGRATZ DUDE YOU DESERVE IT SO MUCH. You get the silver play button
What a fantastic educational video.
I want to say "I can't believe" as a form of expression that your videos are insanely awesome, and also very intimate with it's viewers.
But the thing is; I can believe! I can believe it due to your profession in real life! You are at hand a Teacher, and this probably helps you to understand how to teach. In that fashion you have the knowledge behind you to put together you lessons for each day.
I think this is also why you have so many people subscribing to you! Fantastic work, wonderful execution, very easy to follow while dishing out a lot of information.
Thank you again.
I sold my entire collection to play online. It wasn't worth it.
My personal experience was that MTGO served its purpose quite well. It cost me roughly half of what paper magic cost and I was able to have twice as many modern decks and was able to play a lot more.
The problem for me, was the social aspect to MTGO is pretty much nill and I didn't realize how important that was to me when I sold out my paper collection to play online.
+Raynor Moore I think the best thing to do is play eternal online and more fun formats with paper cards. Modern and Legacy is great online. While EDH is something I prefer playing with real cards.
It was a group decision. Friend and I Couldn't afford to buy into MTGO without selling Paper collections and it was looking like that was the only way we were going to be able to play for 2015. I sure learned a lot. Played a ton, but like I said, I didn't account for the lack of social interaction and that ruined it for me in the end.
+Raynor Moore I'm with you. I played a TON of MTGO back in the v1 and v2 days, and attribute a lot of the fun I had to a chat room I was part of that was active most times of the day (~15-20 users at peak hours). Even in the tournament lobbies, there'd usually be some sort of idle chatter going on in the lobby.
The /auction channel, while not exactly the most efficient way to move cards in the pre-bot days, was another reminder that there were actual people logged in to the client and interacting with each other.
When v3 gradually moved away from open chat, and v4 more or less killed it entirely, I lost interest almost completely, and only log in for the occasional draft now.
I almost wish MTGO had been this lifeless back in 2004, so I wouldn't have wasted so many hours during my college years.
This "misclicks" arguement is somewhat unfair. People don't "missclick". They get impatient and start clicking wildly to get the game up to speed of a papermagic game. So it is not that they missed a clicking, no they clicked too fast when most of the time there was no need to click faster.
I'd compare it to missed triggers in paper magic. That's a thing you will never have on magic online. No more dieing to a pact upkeep cost just because you forgot for a second.
+testthewest123 If I click, expecting one result, and due to a lack of clarity with the interface, get a different one, then it is a fair criticism. I've ended up targeting my own creatures with removal, and I attribute this to a non-intuitive, unclear interface. Yes, there is some user error, but if the system is poorly enacted, there is blame enough to go around.
On my smart phone, I don't ever intend to open my mail app but accidentally open my youtube app instead. The layout is clear and intuitive.
Tolarian Community College
Well, I am not going to defend MTGo as a program - it is really subpar, but the "missclick" arguement I see most often when I watch Magic-Pros play slppyly and then they blame the game.
If you can read and have no lag, there most often is no problem. And there are also some benefits, if you compare MTGO to Paper magic, which you perhaps don't mention because they are obvious?
- No cheating
- no shuffling breaks (especially in this 15-fetch a deck standard a boon)
- no way slowplay of the opponent will force a draw
- better rules enforcement than live magic
- alot easier deckbuilding than papermagic (I have a big paper collection, I know how much work it is to sort cards back from decks you want to scrap, or that you need multiple playsets of cards if you want to play them in multiple decks)
- perfect scorekeeping, none of my time needed to note the lifepoints
I love Paper magic for it's speed of play, for it's social interaction, but MTGO is not worse in all matters than papermagic.
+testthewest123 It's not just people rushing. The UI does some silly sometimes like rearranging the cards on screen when selecting multiple cards from a library, that leads to clicking the wrong card some times especially if the client is lagging slightly at the time and so the player is in fact clicking the card they want on the screen, but the client rearranges the cards before it processes the clicks.Sometimes clicks are just ignored. I've clicked "OK" to move forward a phase and had the client ignore it more than once, which can be hard to tell apart from the client lagging. In the first if you don't reclick nothing will ever happen and you will time out and lose, in the second reclicking will skip through a phase.But yes, you also can't miss a trigger to tick up your aether vial or cast that rebounded spell or remove the time counter from a suspended spell so one type of error is really just being replaced with another. But when you miss a trigger you can't blame anyone except yourself, but when a piece of software rearranges the cards on screen as you click so you pick the wrong card you do blame something else.
+testthewest123 No shuffling is the #1 thing mtgo has over paper magic. That one thing basically outweighs everything negative :)
+Tolarian Community College I would have had to have seen that to understand your position, I have been playing MTGO for months now in all formats and haven't run into miss targeting or Interface issues aside from declaring attackers, but testhewest123 is right that just waiting a couple seconds after selecting your option clears up the targeting errors, which should be done anyway as this is a much more common issues with paper magic or Magic Duels.
Great video Professor. I yet dream with a game with the depth of Magic online and the graphics of Plainswalker.
Prof, let me aknowledge your great service to the community. I've already built two decks that you have shown (burn and pauper dredge) and since burn is impossible to win with at my store, I will build the modern merfolk deck. As always, a pleassure watching your videos. Greetings from Argentina.
CONGRATS ON 100,000 subs I just logged on and it was at 100,010 congrats you deserve it
Magic Duels is free on steam! You don't have to pay anything in order to make enough in-game currency to buy boosters, and you can trade for singles on the Steam trading system.
The downside to Magic Duels is that there you only have the Standard rotation (and Origins, but I'm not sure how long that will last).
Happy 100,000 subscription Tolarian!!
The reason between the disparity in the different Magic games is because Duels of the Planeswalkers is outsourced to an actual video game company, while MGO is made by Wizards themselves.
+Tolarian Community College I play the paper version when I can, I have greater collection there and I play MTGO. And although I agree with most of everything you said. There is another thing you didn't list, MTGO is also good for testing your deck concepts and Ideas, before you go out and buy the paper singles for the deck you are working on. It can in the long run save some money. Albeit you're testing for an eternal format ie Legacy/vintage, modern, or even commander ( I don't know about pauper since I don't play it.) but yeah, and in the short run, It may help with standard.
congratulations on 100,000 subscribers professor
Searisly, your channel is just amazing.
Thanks for so great content.
As mentioned towards the end, the convenience is really good for MTGO. I suffer mobility problems, so quite often playing MTGO rather than physically going to the local game store is easier/less physically painful
Your videos are actually so informative, excellent!
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I ALWAYS appreciate your unbiased reviews. Great video, Prof.
One thing you can expect to find on Magic Online is a very high level of competition. If you are primarily interested in improving as a player, you can have an amazing amount of learning opportunities, and might eventually even forgive most of the other flaws. If you belong to this group, you are also less likely to care about graphics. On the other hand, if you are a casual player who simply wants to build many decks and play for fun, Magic Online offers an enormous selection of non-competitive singles at ridiculously cheap prices. You can get 95% of cards for under 5 cents apiece. Just two reasons to play online that were not discussed in the video.
Technically you are offering a system of inequalities for each person to solve. C+ Good effort, but please review the text for terminology.
+Robert Weston English major! I was using the language poetically for emphasis of my argument. ;)
holy shit same last name, don't know any other westons
+griffinweston94 There are quite a few. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weston_(surname)
I actually feel this is fairly intuitive, and even the inequality isn't complicated.
FINALLY, my favorite RUclips channel has hit 100k subs!! this freaking rocks!!!
That interface looks the exact same as I played it 10 years ago!!!!
the last version of the client imo looked much better than this current version.
+Drew Peterson Dat Will Smith avatar, man, such memories!
+Drew Peterson Wow sounds like the system needs an overhaul
I would prefer it, if boosters you buy in your local game store also contain a QR-source on a card, which should allow you to register your bought boosters online.
Also note that the level of competition of the sanctioned paid tournaments is generally higher then that of an average LGS or small meta (of your friends). So it is a valuable tool for testing for upcoming events with higher stakes.
I mainly use magic online for collecting sets and redeeming them for cheaper than buying the paper cards straight up. It's also been handy for checking rules on card interactions sometimes.
I really see what the professor is talking about. In my hometown of St Cloud MN there are tons of places to play cards and local groups at colleges that get together and play. meanwhile in Jacksonville NC where I was stationed for 4 years in the USMC, there was a severe lack of MTG events as well as playgroups. most people down there dont even know what Wizards of the cost is haha. and the only store in the area I found was a hole in the wall business that had like 3 tables worth of playspace and not more then a few patrons.
I highly recommend untap.in, a totally free copy of magic online. It doesn't need even to download, you play it from the browser. It has a poor interface and many problems, but it's basically the same product for free.
Anyway, I thank the professor for the constant effort and commitment to contribute to the community with his contribution of really very good quality content. :D
Greetings from Argentina
That equation is exactly what I needed. Thanks again, Professor.
great work on 100k sub's tolarian your videos are always something inlook forward to seeing keep up the good work
The Professor never ceases to impress, I've learned a lot today :3
So there wasone little factor that I concluded when deciding if playing magic online was worth it. I recently got back into magic having only played when I wad younger and admittedly did not have much of a grasp on the game. The rigid turn based structure of magic online has actually been helping my with paper magic because I have become more aware of when spells and abilities can be activated and thusly not missing valuable phases. That being said, I totally agree with you that the interface is clunky and not especially beginner friendly, but still good for cementing rules / priorities. I guess that same benefit could be obtained on Magic Duels though. Great video!
100k subscribers! Good job Professor!
I would like to REMARK that Magic Duels was of ABSOLUTE HELP to me when I was a NEWBIE and I had no idea about how to play Magic (I consider it a game that is hard to understand). If you are a newbie, I recommend you to download Magic Duels and play all the battles in the history against the CPU. If you like it, then buy some real paper MTG cards and find some MTG friends in your town or in your nearest store.
I would like to add that there is one point that makes mtgo amazing that was not touched upon, no cheating.
Great review. Keep it up!
In the comparison bit, I find the inclusion of the Erebos cutscene from Duels amusing, considering that CGI itself looks like a product of the 80's or early 90's.
The real question is Magic Online better than Hearthstone,, Hex, or Sol Forge. Is it even near the top? Wizards need to survey the competition and step up to the challenge of becoming a tier one app. If it was not for my love of paper MTG I would never play MTG online. One last note HUGE + NO RESERVE list! This is the future of Vintage and Legacy.
mythicmtgtech im sure that hrarthstone has atte least 5 times more playera than mtgo
Mtg is a hundred times better than Hearthstone, but Hearthstone is a thousand times better than MtgO
The simplicity and detail of mtgo is why it's better than Duels of the Planeswalkers but you are right that they have to modify it a bit. Great video.
A big (BIG) pro of MTG: online for me is that it lets me test a deck before I actually buy the cards, themselves. If you have a few extra dollars, a deck that would cost 100+ for the paper cards frequently costs $20 or so on mtg online, or even less since once you have the digital card, that card can be put into as many decks that you want. So if you have 4 different decks that all run an Emrakul, you only need to buy one emrakul.
I've had many, many decks which I built from scratch that were just ideas, and I didn't really want to spend 100, 200, or 300 on a deck that I though would just be fun but not really competative. Enter, MTGO. I have a digital copy of my 5 favorite decks, and those digital copies cost me $30 for the most expensive one. Also, I just love putting decks together. I've got an entire list of "lunchbreak decks" that I just made while on my lunchbreak. It's really fun to make one and then see it in action without having to actually buy the cards, sleeve them, etc.
im so glad you finally covered mtgo, its been confusing we all week
I started playing lots of magic Online shortly after my son was born. I was not able to make it to my LGS for my paper magic group. It is pretty convenient to load up a game of 1v1 Commander I can play a game in about 15-20 minutes. Playing paper magic can take twice as long and I just don't have the time to drive to the store and hang out for hours at a time.
I have had a bit more time to play some paper magic and I do vastly prefer it, even if my decks aren't as good (especially my lands).
For those of us with ever-failing eyesight, can we 'Zoom In' on the cards in-play to get a better look at them..?
if youre a casual player and dont want rewards.
cockatrice > MTGO
This probably gets asked a lot, but I'd very much like to see an episode of you discussing your book collection. Maybe a few recomendations or memories of favorite books? Its always in the background, but surely some thought went into it. Just curious ^^. All the same, thank you for all that you do.
I agree with you, but I'd mention that pauper is a much more popular format online, and most of all, there are entire formats ONLY possible online (Momir Basic and its variants). I really wish you'd shout out Momir since it's a really fun format.
my brother actually got me into magic because I used to be a hardcore yugioh player and decided to give it a try and it's been 2 years and I haven't stopped playing with friends since, no card shop though...
Given the improvements lately in Magic Duels (which is true free to play, given the grind alternative), I'd love to see a review of Duels.
MTGO is going to be something that I think I'm going to have to use over the next couple of years because I'm going to be traveling a lot for my job over the next couple of years! The equation is rock solid and I want to keep my hand in!
great video. Hit the nail on the head. I play online only because it's hard to get games outside of FNM.
That's not an equation. It's an inequality :p
I'm just trolling you a little bit. Great videos :)
+Rodrigo Tovilla Hehehe, hey I'm an English major not a Math....person....
You're a Magic player so, in a certain way, you're a math person :p. I'm just kidding.
Greetings, professor.
Ps: Hope you can try my Bogles decklist someday.
while making the comparison between MTGO and DotP, I expected a player piano soundtrack during the MTGO play
I'm about to get into Magic Online for a few reasons.
1. Least importantly, I want to be able to draft at my leisure, something I can't do at my game shop, running a draft weekly alternating between Wednesday and Friday evenings. I go to most Friday evening drafts, but can't do Wednesdays. I would like to draft more frequently than once every two weeks.
2. Access to Magic Online's cubes & flashback drafts. I have my own cube and know people with their own, but I don't think it's quite the same experience.
3. I want to play Momir Basic :P
4. Most importantly, I want to play with my fiancé's family. They live in Oregon. I live in England. 5000 miles & 8 hours time difference make it pretty tricky.
This is the most professional review video I have ever seen.
I want to point another need that magic online can satisfy. I am a player from Argentina and with you videos pauper format catched my attention but there is no pauper players around and playing magic here is much more difficult in terms of aviability of products and prices. So magic online is a way to play pauper for me, the green tron deck is cheaper too so that is another reason for play online.
You people of US are in magic heaven, embrace it. Here we are almost underdogs, haha. I love your videos proffesor, thanks a lot.
Sorry for my bad writing, I learned english by miself.
As a programmer, I must say that the graphical limitations and the interface are by far the hardest thing to fix. Due to the massive amount of cards in the database, and the number of rules within magic, there would need to be a complete overhaul of the entire way the program is coded. In addition, with such a massive amount of code, it would require such a time dump and money dump that the short term is completely unfavorable for any company.
Without planning to have programs be cross platform and expandable in the first stages of development, it is near impossible to have such overhauls later in the production of the game.
Congrats on 100,000 subs!
As I was getting into Magic a few months ago, I got some Pokemon cards for my son (6). They strongly encourage online play, every product you by you get a code to have that uploaded to your Pokemon Online account.
Buy a paper pre-con, get the same on online to play with. Buy a booster, get one online.
I feel MTGO needs this.
I use MTGO for draft practice. I feel a lot better doing something silly in a draft to see if it works or not online, than I do at my LGS. I find it helps me get a better feel for a new draft environment that I can then take to my LGS
Comggrats with the 100k subs !!!
Great video that was so straightforward and informative, many thanks!
Yay! Congrats on 100k!
I think the one case it can be considered "better" than paper is if you want to get into a format like legacy or vintage. You can play a format you may enjoy, without selling a house to get a competitive.
For me I like MTGO a lot I can burn through some podcasts while enjoying a few games, and it's nice if you're burnt out on social settings. Working in customer service just makes you want to stop socializing for a while. MTGO is great for when you just want to play without being social.
As someone who prides myself on home brews for big event such as games days and pptqs i use magic online as a way of deck testing where i might not have the chance to get to play against other players and it lets me try the deck against the highest levels of players
I play MTGO for the "always available" aspect. I also try to go to FNM draft or modern nights when I can but my work schedule doesn't always allow for that.
Always love your vids!
Men, an excelent review for people who is not sure if online magic is a good idea. Thanks!
I signed up for Magic Online when they announced the Legendary Cube and plan to use it only to play unique formats like cubes and formats that are not possible or prohibitively expensive to play in paper like flashback drafts.
wish this was around back in may when i first started playing MtGO. i never played magic before and now im an addict
if you have a group of friends that you want to play Magic with online, I recommend you check out Tabletop Simulator
the game is $20 on Steam (so of course wait for a sale, I got it for $5)
once you have the game, it's free from then on out and you have no limitation to what cards are available
I personally love MTGO. I played the paper version with friends growing up, and my brother and I still occasionally do, but people move away, have kids, and in general, life gets in the way. I have a hard time getting to my LGS, and although they have Friday events, it isn't a place where I could go mid-afternoon or late nights (11 pm-3 am) to find a game. With MTGO, I can find a game at any time I feel like playing. Also, I actually like that the interface is bare-bones; it kind of reminds me of playing on a kitchen table (which is the majority of my experience with paper magic). I do not need, nor indeed want, flashing lights or graphics. Also, although I have played other MTG games online (usually through steam), this is the only version that I have found that includes sets dating back as far as I can remember playing, and not just the most recent few sets. Lastly, I admit that I am biased, because when I first had a hunger to play and couldn't find anyone in my area of TN to play, I went searching for games online, and there weren't other ways to play over a decade ago. Again, I have played the 2015, duels, etc. since, but have always found myself coming back to MTGO, because they were there in the aughts when I first wanted to play, because they didn't have all the unnecessary flashing lights and bells & whistles, and lastly because they had cards from old-school sets that the others did not.
P.S. The only negative that I do give any credence is the errors one you mentioned. I have been dropped from a game because of errors roughly a dozen times in 15 years (not a bad average, really), and a few times when playing commander, it will glitch and not show the commander/graveyard/exile panel, or randomly decide to "yield" through my 1st turn. To be fair, however, most of those glitches were in 4 player games for no stakes (friendly pick-up games), so I just asked for a second from my other players, and signed out and reloaded, and the game was fine. In terms of draft events, the team at MTGO was super forgiving and helpful, reimbursing me one time, even though the problem was on my end, and had nothing to do with their client. Given the hundreds, if not thousands, of games that I have played, having less than 1 error per year isn't so bad, especially because it usually only takes a minute and a half to sign back in (at which point the error is resolved), and that the MTGO team is so forgiving and accommodating.
P.P.S. You mention that there is no fee, and then complain that they don't have fancy graphics (thankfully, imo); do you think perhaps the two are related? Do you think if they made the mistake of having fancier graphics (which would ruin the kitchen table aesthetic) that they might feel inclined to, or even need to, charge more? Also, I first heard this in relation to cars, but the principle seems to apply elsewhere, and perhaps here as well- the more moving parts and complex the thing is, the more that can go wrong. I have had a few glitches in playing over a decade; I imagine that there would be more, if they added more things that could potentially go wrong. Again, I may be biased because I like the bare-bones graphics, but I have to also assume that adding flashing lights, music, etc. would just mean that more things could go wrong, and would also require more maintenance (possibly increasing the price).
P.P.S. I cannot believe I forgot to mention this before, but I love MTGO also because they have numerous play formats. The other versions of PC MTG games didn't have Commander, for instance. I started playing legacy and "freeform" (which I don't think exists anymore), but have since got into Commander, and thankfully, the format exists on MTGO. I have NEVER played standard or modern, and NEVER intend to lower myself to those boring formats, which is the bulk of those other MTG PC games online.
a few thoughts:
1) towards the end of your video you ask the question "is it worth it for you/me" but I'd like you to add ex Magic 2014/15 into the formula.
2) some times you tend to repeat things. I get it, putting extra weight on certain words but you can put weight on a few words or on a message without repeating and also since it's a video, a person can just simply rewind if they felt they didn't remember the formula or whatever the case is.
3) you run a good youtube channel. I enjoy it, thanks!
Magic Online should have code cards like the Pokémon TCG. One code per pack in real life, would promote and make the program way more popular as well as affordable!
You forgot to mention that with MTGO you don't require a warehouse to store all your cards. Filed under the Dewey decimal system of course so you can find that one card your looking for in a new deck idea.
Thanks for the great review!! :)
You missed two pros:
- you don't have to buy sleeves, counters, deckboxes etc. etc.\
- your cards do not degrade over time (as in scratching, bending etc.)
Sleeves, counters, and boxes are pretty cheap. If you store your cards properly, you should never have to worry about them degrading (at least in your ~85 year lifetime). But an accident could happen, such as flood or fire, that destroys your physical cards. Then again, a digital disaster could happen as well, such as a hacker.
Where is you live? You mentioned a thriving a local gaming community.
If you're interested in playing MTGO, but you don't want to deal with the extensive costs of maintaining a collection and several decks, try out a program called XMage. The cards are free, the events are free and player-run, you can build any kind of deck and play with it immediately. It has the cons of a clunky interface, but it isn't any worse than MTGO. It's also programmed in Java, so I'm pretty sure it's open to Mac users.
The one thing I like about the interface of MTGO that Duels doens't have, is everything in mtgo is super manual. You have to actually do a lot of the things. Duels tries to auto complete some tasks it thinks I want to do in a certain way when I may not.
I think MTGO is worth it for Pauper, Standard, Modern, Legacy and Limited.
The only thing I like more with paper cards is EDH. It feels weird and the whole social group fun that EDH brings feels gone.
Edit: To the point of graphics. I don't want MTGO to look like Magic Duels. I really like the simple design. Magic Duels/Planeswalkes just feels so slow when playing it. All those animations and options you have to choose. Everything also feels really huge. I can't think of how a 4-6 player EDH game would look like.
While I do like your review, your con of poor graphics is a MAJOR pro for me. The contrasting example you showed really helped me decide to NOT try Planes Walker. I completely agree with Quatumperception- I like less graphics. As I grow older and see all the new cool games, I learn over and over again that they confuse me; to avoid said confusion I invariably end up having to go slow or am unable to play.
Thank you for you review.
I got two accounts. One for trading and other for playing. I've actually only ever spent the $20 for the two accounts but, have made my money back and profit from selling tickets. Free bots are amazing to have and without them I wouldn't be able to do anything on there for free beyond the start up cost. Now I'm able to play in events and build decks all for free and even make some money. I like the looks of V4 but, like the GUI/navigation of V3 better.
I totally agree with you on all points professor!
Sadly i only play magic online, since it's way cheaper and i can play more games than irl. However i would love to play irl. The only thing what's holding me down to play the paper game, is that my online cards are useless and i don't have the money to buy online and paper cards... :(
Btw i love your videos, keep the good work!