A few impressions from an Artifact player who decided to give another card game a shot

First of all, this is not another topic to show 'how to fix' Artifact - I just want to share my experience as someone with the opposite experience from most: an Artifact player who decided to give MtGA a go. Yes, I know, they're officially different game genres (TCG vs CCG), and maybe I'm not expected to be the target audience for one of them yadda yadda, but it's hard to not compare them.

As a disclaimer, I did play MtG in the past (around 13~15 years ago?) but, other than that, I never came back to any cards games, physical or virtual. I remembered the base mechanics (terrains, tapping cards to attack, Sorcery vs Instant spells) but that's all.

I installed MtGA last weekend, after a friend of mine recommended it, and so far these are my impressions:

• The game length difference is massive: Artifact matches take easily three times as long, and as a consequence they feel much more important (winning or losing). This also means that I can queue a MtGA match in between tasks with no need for planning and, since they feel much less impactful, I don't really mind abandoning in the middle of a match there.

• Most Artifact matches feel much closer and less one sided. It may be because I'm still a bad player with weak decks, or maybe it's due to how MtGA's matchmaking works, but half the time matches are a stomp (for either side), and it's much more common to have comebacks rather than balanced matches. Artifact, on the other hand, usually is always one or two turns away from the other player winning. And this might be caused by...

• Combo decks feel much dirtier in Magic. Maybe the larger amount of cards allow the appearance of nastier combos, but if you don't have tech to deal with key enchantments/artifacts/creatures you're done... and if they don't manage to pull their combo off a shitty mid-range deck wins it one sided. On the other hand, even RG ramp feels competitive when you fail to draft the Selemenes or ToTs, and outmaneuvering is always a possibility (albeit slim) in Artifact.

• Themed decks from MtGA add a lot of fun. In Artifact we hardly never feel like we're playing as a faction or army - each card has its history, but we get no incentive to play legion standard bearers together with bronze legionaries and Legion Commander. In MtGA there are plenty of reasons to play a cleric deck, or a dragon deck, or a dinosaur deck.

• Strategy vs Tactics: In MtGA I felt my local decisions were crucial (which creatures should attack now, when I will use my instant spell etc) while, in Artifact, the strategical aspect of deployments, 'battling' for initiative etc is much more core (specially because there aren't as many tactical decisions to take). With combo decks it might be different in MtGA, though.

• Variety: obviously MtGA has a much greater variety of... everything, from cards to effects to attributes to even 'maps', but these things come with time.

• RNG: honestly, I didn't feel much difference - in fact, since I don't usually play the combo-heavy RG ramp decks, I felt I ended up winning/losing more due to RNG in MtGA, because many decks are build exclusively around combos.

• Art: I'm partial to MtGA visual art, but that's probably due to the extra variety. Artifact's voicelines are AMAZING, though, and if we keep having them with such high quality I can see them feeling more unique than cool cards. On visual effects, the custom summon visuals for Legendaries and certain types (such as dragons) are on par with Artifact's signature card effects. Finally, I love how you can not only know but also hear and see when a creature deals tons of damage in MtGA (with a deep, bass BAMP when you're hit by a 10/10) - I loved doing this in Team Fortress 2 and it's a shame we don't have the same effect in Artifact.

• Rewards: ok, this is the main point for me. MtGA's main screen is half-filled with objectives for me to fullfil, all full of meaningful rewards - cards, decks, boosters, coins... and, with quick matches, is VERY easy to convince me to 'play just another 5 min match' and reach a new objective. I do want my free serotonin after a long day of work, thank you very much.

• Comp: ok, I didn't watch any comp games of MtGA yet, but I feel they end up being much more based on deck building and bluffing than playing the current match.

All in all, the games are different. Artifact matches feel heavier and are almost always a nail-biting end, while MtGA matches are much quicker, light-weighted and casual (despite the intense tactical decisions) - both styles are good for different moments/audiences and I can see myself playing both games. Many "weaknesses" I felt in Artifact would be fixed after a few expansions added more variety, but the very friendly reward system in MtGA is something that Artifact would need to make me play it every day.

Submitted January 30, 2019 at 06:39PM by nullpointer- http://bit.ly/2Wvku6f