Well, it's not a separate product. That's like trying to insist that a video game for Playstation 4 is totally different then the x box one version. They are basically the same game, you're just playing them on different platforms. To not compare them makes no sense. Especially when they are competing for each other within most people's wallets. You insisting that we NOT compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
You "Don't compare the theatrical version of a film with the director's cut! They are totally different films!" No they aren't. The games are literally identical in some ways, so you to insist that we don't compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
I just don't know how cheap you expect a game to be. I have 2 tier 1 standard decks that in a way I spent nothing on. You see, I spent $ on Arena to draft, which is already a game in it's self. So any cards I open I was able to use in a deck are really just gravy in a way.
I did exactly what Colt47 described, only I didn't have to save up A TON of rare wild cards. I had 10 rare gold wildcards and 3 mythic rare wildcards going into Allegiance. I drafted it a bunch, opened up some cards I liked. Thought "I'd like to build Gruul, this looks like it will be a good deck and I opened a few of the pieces for it already." The deck runs incredibly and I'm shooting up the ranks. I spent $40 on MTG A when allegiance was released, not to crack packs, but to draft. With the cards I opened from the set plus not even ALL of my wildcards, I built a GOOD deck. Sure I had cards from last season that I put in the deck, but I just opened those through drafting/prize pack opening, not spending tons of $.
So I say it's bullcrap that Arena is too expensive to build a deck (for most employed people working even at minimum wage full time.) (it's not even too expensive for kids with like a $20 a month allowance!!!) I've built many decks for less than the cost of building 1 standard deck IN PAPER, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPARABLE. Honestly, how cheap does a deck need to be for you to be happy with Wizards? Do 3 color tier 1 decks need to cost $5 in your opinion to build? I mean building a deck that you can play for free there after, and can use for about 2 years at the cost of $40 is REALLY cheap actually.
You want a different comparison? A video game costs what $67 after tax or something. How many hours of gameplay do you get out of it? How much did you spend on that console in the first place to play the video game? By comparison, MTG Arena is much cheaper than playing video games, going out to the movies, playing paper Magic et.
I guess the real lesson here is "Haters gonna hate."
Also, I have a good number of the new dual lands now just by drafting. I'm almost up to half-way there and the single match draft was just released! I still have 2 more drafts worth of gold saved up from last season. By the time I've drafted through that, I'll have another draft I can play with Gems. If you don't want to spend a bunch of wildcards on land, use your gold for drafting instead of cracking packs. You end up seeing more packs that way.
And yes, you should be saving up your gold/games/wildcards when a new set is coming out.
Well, it's not a separate product. That's like trying to insist that a video game for Playstation 4 is totally different then the x box one version. They are basically the same game, you're just playing them on different platforms. To not compare them makes no sense. Especially when they are competing for each other within most people's wallets. You insisting that we NOT compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
You "Don't compare the theatrical version of a film with the director's cut! They are totally different films!" No they aren't. The games are literally identical in some ways, so you to insist that we don't compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
I just don't know how cheap you expect a game to be. I have 2 tier 1 standard decks that in a way I spent nothing on. You see, I spent $ on Arena to draft, which is already a game in it's self. So any cards I open I was able to use in a deck are really just gravy in a way.
I did exactly what Colt47 described, only I didn't have to save up A TON of rare wild cards. I had 10 rare gold wildcards and 3 mythic rare wildcards going into Allegiance. I drafted it a bunch, opened up some cards I liked. Thought "I'd like to build Gruul, this looks like it will be a good deck and I opened a few of the pieces for it already." The deck runs incredibly and I'm shooting up the ranks. I spent $40 on MTG A when allegiance was released, not to crack packs, but to draft. With the cards I opened from the set plus not even ALL of my wildcards, I built a GOOD deck. Sure I had cards from last season that I put in the deck, but I just opened those through drafting/prize pack opening, not spending tons of $.
So I say it's bullcrap that Arena is too expensive to build a deck (for most employed people working even at minimum wage full time.) (it's not even too expensive for kids with like a $20 a month allowance!!!) I've built many decks for less than the cost of building 1 standard deck IN PAPER, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPARABLE. Honestly, how cheap does a deck need to be for you to be happy with Wizards? Do 3 color tier 1 decks need to cost $5 in your opinion to build? I mean building a deck that you can play for free there after, and can use for about 2 years at the cost of $40 is REALLY cheap actually.
You want a different comparison? A video game costs what $67 after tax or something. How many hours of gameplay do you get out of it? How much did you spend on that console in the first place to play the video game? By comparison, MTG Arena is much cheaper than playing video games, going out to the movies, playing paper Magic et.
I guess the real lesson here is "Haters gonna hate."
Well, it's not a separate product. That's like trying to insist that a video game for Playstation 4 is totally different then the x box one version. They are basically the same game, you're just playing them on different platforms. To not compare them makes no sense. Especially when they are competing for each other within most people's wallets. You insisting that we NOT compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
You "Don't compare the theatrical version of a film with the director's cut! They are totally different films!" No they aren't. The games are literally identical in some ways, so you to insist that we don't compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
I just don't know how cheap you expect a game to be. I have 2 tier 1 standard decks that in a way I spent nothing on. You see, I spent $ on Arena to draft, which is already a game in it's self. So any cards I open I was able to use in a deck are really just gravy in a way.
I did exactly what Colt47 described, only I didn't have to save up A TON of rare wild cards. I had 10 rare gold wildcards and 3 mythic rare wildcards going into Allegiance. I drafted it a bunch, opened up some cards I liked. Thought "I'd like to build Gruul, this looks like it will be a good deck and I opened a few of the pieces for it already." The deck runs incredibly and I'm shooting up the ranks. I spent $40 on MTG A when allegiance was released, not to crack packs, but to draft. With the cards I opened from the set plus not even ALL of my wildcards, I built a GOOD deck. Sure I had cards from last season that I put in the deck, but I just opened those through drafting/prize pack opening, not spending tons of $.
So I say it's bullcrap that Arena is too expensive to build a deck (for most employed people working even at minimum wage full time.) (it's not even too expensive for kids with like a $20 a month allowance!!!) I've built many decks for less than the cost of building 1 standard deck IN PAPER, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPARABLE. Honestly, how cheap does a deck need to be for you to be happy with Wizards? Do 3 color tier 1 decks need to cost $5 in your opinion to build? I mean building a deck that you can play for free there after, and can use for about 2 years at the cost of $40 is REALLY cheap actually.
You want a different comparison? A video game costs what $67 after tax or something. How many hours of gameplay do you get out of it? How much did you spend on that console in the first place to play the video game? By comparison, MTG Arena is much cheaper than playing video games, going out to the movies, playing paper Magic et.
I guess the real lesson here is "Haters gonna hate."
You're a ******* idiot.
As I said... Haters gonna hate.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product. It's not as though wizards develops 2 different sets of cards for Arena vs. standard. They same R&D team designing cards for paper Magic are also designing them for Arena at the same moment. If you can present a good argument as to why we shouldn't compare Arena to paper Magic I'll listen to it. Otherwise, Arena to paper Magic is the MOST comparable thing you can find, except perhaps MTGO.
"Don't compare these two extremely similar things! Made by the exact same people whose games are almost entirely identical!" You say. Why shouldn't we?
Well, it's not a separate product. That's like trying to insist that a video game for Playstation 4 is totally different then the x box one version. They are basically the same game, you're just playing them on different platforms. To not compare them makes no sense. Especially when they are competing for each other within most people's wallets. You insisting that we NOT compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
You "Don't compare the theatrical version of a film with the director's cut! They are totally different films!" No they aren't. The games are literally identical in some ways, so you to insist that we don't compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
I just don't know how cheap you expect a game to be. I have 2 tier 1 standard decks that in a way I spent nothing on. You see, I spent $ on Arena to draft, which is already a game in it's self. So any cards I open I was able to use in a deck are really just gravy in a way.
I did exactly what Colt47 described, only I didn't have to save up A TON of rare wild cards. I had 10 rare gold wildcards and 3 mythic rare wildcards going into Allegiance. I drafted it a bunch, opened up some cards I liked. Thought "I'd like to build Gruul, this looks like it will be a good deck and I opened a few of the pieces for it already." The deck runs incredibly and I'm shooting up the ranks. I spent $40 on MTG A when allegiance was released, not to crack packs, but to draft. With the cards I opened from the set plus not even ALL of my wildcards, I built a GOOD deck. Sure I had cards from last season that I put in the deck, but I just opened those through drafting/prize pack opening, not spending tons of $.
So I say it's bullcrap that Arena is too expensive to build a deck (for most employed people working even at minimum wage full time.) (it's not even too expensive for kids with like a $20 a month allowance!!!) I've built many decks for less than the cost of building 1 standard deck IN PAPER, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPARABLE. Honestly, how cheap does a deck need to be for you to be happy with Wizards? Do 3 color tier 1 decks need to cost $5 in your opinion to build? I mean building a deck that you can play for free there after, and can use for about 2 years at the cost of $40 is REALLY cheap actually.
You want a different comparison? A video game costs what $67 after tax or something. How many hours of gameplay do you get out of it? How much did you spend on that console in the first place to play the video game? By comparison, MTG Arena is much cheaper than playing video games, going out to the movies, playing paper Magic et.
I guess the real lesson here is "Haters gonna hate."
You're a ******* idiot.
As I said... Haters gonna hate.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product. It's not as though wizards develops 2 different sets of cards for Arena vs. standard. They same R&D team designing cards for paper Magic are also designing them for Arena at the same moment. If you can present a good argument as to why we shouldn't compare Arena to paper Magic I'll listen to it. Otherwise, Arena to paper Magic is the MOST comparable thing you can find, except perhaps MTGO.
"Don't compare these two extremely similar things! Made by the exact same people whose games are almost entirely identical!" You say. Why shouldn't we?
Well, it's not a separate product. That's like trying to insist that a video game for Playstation 4 is totally different then the x box one version. They are basically the same game, you're just playing them on different platforms. To not compare them makes no sense. Especially when they are competing for each other within most people's wallets. You insisting that we NOT compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
You "Don't compare the theatrical version of a film with the director's cut! They are totally different films!" No they aren't. The games are literally identical in some ways, so you to insist that we don't compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
I just don't know how cheap you expect a game to be. I have 2 tier 1 standard decks that in a way I spent nothing on. You see, I spent $ on Arena to draft, which is already a game in it's self. So any cards I open I was able to use in a deck are really just gravy in a way.
I did exactly what Colt47 described, only I didn't have to save up A TON of rare wild cards. I had 10 rare gold wildcards and 3 mythic rare wildcards going into Allegiance. I drafted it a bunch, opened up some cards I liked. Thought "I'd like to build Gruul, this looks like it will be a good deck and I opened a few of the pieces for it already." The deck runs incredibly and I'm shooting up the ranks. I spent $40 on MTG A when allegiance was released, not to crack packs, but to draft. With the cards I opened from the set plus not even ALL of my wildcards, I built a GOOD deck. Sure I had cards from last season that I put in the deck, but I just opened those through drafting/prize pack opening, not spending tons of $.
So I say it's bullcrap that Arena is too expensive to build a deck (for most employed people working even at minimum wage full time.) (it's not even too expensive for kids with like a $20 a month allowance!!!) I've built many decks for less than the cost of building 1 standard deck IN PAPER, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPARABLE. Honestly, how cheap does a deck need to be for you to be happy with Wizards? Do 3 color tier 1 decks need to cost $5 in your opinion to build? I mean building a deck that you can play for free there after, and can use for about 2 years at the cost of $40 is REALLY cheap actually.
You want a different comparison? A video game costs what $67 after tax or something. How many hours of gameplay do you get out of it? How much did you spend on that console in the first place to play the video game? By comparison, MTG Arena is much cheaper than playing video games, going out to the movies, playing paper Magic et.
I guess the real lesson here is "Haters gonna hate."
You're a ******* idiot.
As I said... Haters gonna hate.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product. It's not as though wizards develops 2 different sets of cards for Arena vs. standard. They same R&D team designing cards for paper Magic are also designing them for Arena at the same moment. If you can present a good argument as to why we shouldn't compare Arena to paper Magic I'll listen to it. Otherwise, Arena to paper Magic is the MOST comparable thing you can find, except perhaps MTGO.
"Don't compare these two extremely similar things! Made by the exact same people whose games are almost entirely identical!" You say. Why shouldn't we?
*Apu voice* "Haters going to hate."
Like I said. You're an idiot.
Still can't answer my direct questions in which I ask you to support your position eh? Still hating instead of providing support for your statements hm? Ad hominem logical fallacies really help get your point across. What would I know though, I'm such an idiot apparently.
This thread has generated some really meaningful dialogue, but there are a lot of nay-sayers failing to rebuff direct answers or explanations to their questions going on too. (That was occurring even before this most recent exchange.)
While I am one of Wizards biggest detractors normally, there are many praises to be sung for MTG Arena.
Semi-related note: I wonder if many of the complaints from new Magic players stem from not playing with their decks for a long enough amount of time. It's so easy to say "Well, this deck clearly beats my deck because of card X" It's harder to figure out how to play around "card X" and still win. My deck is doing well because of successful piloting/innovation/a modest amount of cards I already own. My current Gruul deck is so much more refined from when I started.
While there are significant unique challenges to playing Arena, they are insignificant compared to the cheapness of the format.
To everyone complaining about the Meta game/"It's too expensive": The point of Magic is to be able to create or at least modify your own deck. Doesn't matter if it's constructed or limited, the only one who can make your deck better is you. You're not going to create a tier one limited deck on your own. You will waste Wild cards because you're not that good at evaluating cards yet. Let me know how bad misspending a wild card you got for free is vs. paying $20+ or more on a single mythic when a new set is released, only to see that mythic plummet in value and become worthless in the current meta.
If you don't like Magic in general, fine, don't play it. Continuously berating MTG Arena doesn't make sense to me. The worst threat I hear from most people is "WELL I'M NOT GOING TO SPEND MONEY ON IT!!!!!" So don't spend money on it then. If you're playing a game for free because you enjoy doing it, why are you complaining about it costing $ when you spend nothing on it. It's unreasonable to expect that you can build the best top competitive level by spending nothing on that activity.
Please name a COMPETITIVE hobby/game which doesn't require spending $ to be in the top tier.
I really haven't had a lot of time to play at all recently, so having access to something where I can just spend half an hour playing stuff has been nice. Haven't spent much money ($5 starter only) but the option is there if I want to try something different.
For now I have drakes built and a steady supply of wildcards for any deck I want to build. It is actually surprising how far a couple extra counterspells can get considering that monored is very burn focused and generally completely shaved their Lava Coils.
I know friends who dumped at least $100 into the game (should be all you need for the foreseeable future). I haven't yet because I spent them on plushies and crafting materials for dollmaking, but the option is enticing for me in the future.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product.
So, since "BestMagicGamer" doesn`t seem to be interested in any constructive discussion, I feel like someone should pick this up.
Of course, MTGA is not a seperate game from paper magic - it can't be totally different from the game it is a digital adaption of, obviously. BUT that's talking about mechanics/gemeplay. A direct comparison of the financial aspect is problematic. In paper magic, you get physical cards with at least some resellability, everything you buy in MTGA is purely for your personal use and holds no objective value. So a comparison to other digital games makes more sense than comparing to a physical card game.
That said, I don't think MTGA is particularly expensive. You can get pretty far without spending ANY money and with relatively little investment, you can easily build 1 or 2 viable competitive decks. Personally I spent less than 50€ so far and I already got more out of it than quite some full price games (have 3 pretty refined decks, a fourth almost finished and a lot of semi-competitive brews).
Of course, it depends on your expectations - if you want to be able to play every existing Tier 1 whenever you feel like it, it will be expensive. But this goes for every collectible game ever, physical or digital.
So there's a reason it's not directly comparable right there. I hadn't really thought of that aspect too much because I mostly just keep my cards/use them for trading. I would say that you can't really get that much $ back for cards these days. Standard is printed so much, and there are so many players that cards don't really go up that much like they did many years ago. Wizards is making it a habit of reprinting new cards pretty frequently, which keeps them from ever going to high up in value.
For me, I'll take the trade for a MUCH cheaper way to play standard Magic then have some cards that just lose value when they rotate.
Also, are our accounts a total loss if we quite playing Magic? Could it be possible to sell an account? I bet there would be people out there willing to buy a nicely stocked Arena account... You could just switch the debit card info. over to a pre-paid Debit card instead of your personal one before selling it.
I don't play any other card game digital or otherwise so I don't know how Arena stacks up against them.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product.
So, since "BestMagicGamer" doesn`t seem to be interested in any constructive discussion, I feel like someone should pick this up.
Of course, MTGA is not a seperate game from paper magic - it can't be totally different from the game it is a digital adaption of, obviously. BUT that's talking about mechanics/gemeplay. A direct comparison of the financial aspect is problematic. In paper magic, you get physical cards with at least some resellability, everything you buy in MTGA is purely for your personal use and holds no objective value. So a comparison to other digital games makes more sense than comparing to a physical card game.
That said, I don't think MTGA is particularly expensive. You can get pretty far without spending ANY money and with relatively little investment, you can easily build 1 or 2 viable competitive decks. Personally I spent less than 50€ so far and I already got more out of it than quite some full price games (have 3 pretty refined decks, a fourth almost finished and a lot of semi-competitive brews).
Of course, it depends on your expectations - if you want to be able to play every existing Tier 1 whenever you feel like it, it will be expensive. But this goes for every collectible game ever, physical or digital.
I'm just not interested in discussing anything with the WOTC boot lickers who cant concede simple facts like "an online digital game is not identical to a physical card game." That said, no, Arena is not cheap and no you cant get far without spending money. Simply trying to update a meta deck to a new one with the new expansion is impossible without spending money. For example, to update a G/B deck to be competitive in the new meta I need at least four to five Mythic rare cards. I can either buy a ton of packs and hope to get them, or use WCs. Mythic Wlidcards are earned at a rate of, what every 20 packs? So I buy 80-100 packs to just update my deck for the new expansion. Super cheap!!
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product.
So, since "BestMagicGamer" doesn`t seem to be interested in any constructive discussion, I feel like someone should pick this up.
Of course, MTGA is not a seperate game from paper magic - it can't be totally different from the game it is a digital adaption of, obviously. BUT that's talking about mechanics/gemeplay. A direct comparison of the financial aspect is problematic. In paper magic, you get physical cards with at least some resellability, everything you buy in MTGA is purely for your personal use and holds no objective value. So a comparison to other digital games makes more sense than comparing to a physical card game.
That said, I don't think MTGA is particularly expensive. You can get pretty far without spending ANY money and with relatively little investment, you can easily build 1 or 2 viable competitive decks. Personally I spent less than 50€ so far and I already got more out of it than quite some full price games (have 3 pretty refined decks, a fourth almost finished and a lot of semi-competitive brews).
Of course, it depends on your expectations - if you want to be able to play every existing Tier 1 whenever you feel like it, it will be expensive. But this goes for every collectible game ever, physical or digital.
I'm just not interested in discussing anything with the WOTC boot lickers who cant concede simple facts like "an online digital game is not identical to a physical card game." That said, no, Arena is not cheap and no you cant get far without spending money. Simply trying to update a meta deck to a new one with the new expansion is impossible without spending money. For example, to update a G/B deck to be competitive in the new meta I need at least four to five Mythic rare cards. I can either buy a ton of packs and hope to get them, or use WCs. Mythic Wlidcards are earned at a rate of, what every 20 packs? So I buy 80-100 packs to just update my deck for the new expansion. Super cheap!!
I think it's as FirstswordofBant says. If you want to play the best top tier deck as soon as the first set is released, it's going to be expensive. Perhaps your solution is to learn to enjoy drafting/sealed more. I find that I naturally open enough rares/mythics through that to get me started on a good deck. However, it does involve a lot of patience when crafting a new deck. If you're good player/deck builder, come close to maximizing your daily rewards, and save/spend your resources wisely, Arena can be pretty cheap.
I'm currently farming gold with my self-built/rogue Gruul Aggro deck on Arena constructed event to good effect. I've spent $65 over all since Arena's open beta (for hours upon hours of drafting, not pack cracking.) I have two top tier deck lists and the ability to create more if I want. While I did save up a bunch of gold/wildcards specifically for this release, anyone can do that. I spent 3 mythic wildcards and about 10 gold wildcards to create my deck. Haven't spent any rare/mythic wildcards in a few days now, though I have changed my deck many times since then. I have 3 drafts worth of gold, 1 draft in gems plus countless commons/uncommon wildcards, plus 1 rare and 1 mythic saved up for a rainy day.
Maybe Arena isn't for you. Many people here seem to do fine with it and find it relatively cheap compared to paper Magic or even other online card games.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product.
So, since "BestMagicGamer" doesn`t seem to be interested in any constructive discussion, I feel like someone should pick this up.
Of course, MTGA is not a seperate game from paper magic - it can't be totally different from the game it is a digital adaption of, obviously. BUT that's talking about mechanics/gemeplay. A direct comparison of the financial aspect is problematic. In paper magic, you get physical cards with at least some resellability, everything you buy in MTGA is purely for your personal use and holds no objective value. So a comparison to other digital games makes more sense than comparing to a physical card game.
That said, I don't think MTGA is particularly expensive. You can get pretty far without spending ANY money and with relatively little investment, you can easily build 1 or 2 viable competitive decks. Personally I spent less than 50€ so far and I already got more out of it than quite some full price games (have 3 pretty refined decks, a fourth almost finished and a lot of semi-competitive brews).
Of course, it depends on your expectations - if you want to be able to play every existing Tier 1 whenever you feel like it, it will be expensive. But this goes for every collectible game ever, physical or digital.
I'm just not interested in discussing anything with the WOTC boot lickers who cant concede simple facts like "an online digital game is not identical to a physical card game." That said, no, Arena is not cheap and no you cant get far without spending money. Simply trying to update a meta deck to a new one with the new expansion is impossible without spending money. For example, to update a G/B deck to be competitive in the new meta I need at least four to five Mythic rare cards. I can either buy a ton of packs and hope to get them, or use WCs. Mythic Wlidcards are earned at a rate of, what every 20 packs? So I buy 80-100 packs to just update my deck for the new expansion. Super cheap!!
I think it's as FirstswordofBant says. If you want to play the best top tier deck as soon as the first set is released, it's going to be expensive. Perhaps your solution is to learn to enjoy drafting/sealed more. I find that I naturally open enough rares/mythics through that to get me started on a good deck. However, it does involve a lot of patience when crafting a new deck. If you're good player/deck builder, come close to maximizing your daily rewards, and save/spend your resources wisely, Arena can be pretty cheap.
I'm currently farming gold with my self-built/rogue Gruul Aggro deck on Arena constructed event to good effect. I've spent $65 over all since Arena's open beta (for hours upon hours of drafting, not pack cracking.) I have two top tier deck lists and the ability to create more if I want. While I did save up a bunch of gold/wildcards specifically for this release, anyone can do that. I spent 3 mythic wildcards and about 10 gold wildcards to create my deck. Haven't spent any rare/mythic wildcards in a few days now, though I have changed my deck many times since then. I have 3 drafts worth of gold, 1 draft in gems plus countless commons/uncommon wildcards, plus 1 rare and 1 mythic saved up for a rainy day.
Maybe Arena isn't for you. Many people here seem to do fine with it and find it relatively cheap compared to paper Magic or even other online card games.
Again, no ones talking to you. Check out the "I want to hug and kiss Wizards of the Coast uwu" thread. Byeeeeee!
I'm just not interested in discussing anything with the WOTC boot lickers who cant concede simple facts like "an online digital game is not identical to a physical card game." That said, no, Arena is not cheap and no you cant get far without spending money. Simply trying to update a meta deck to a new one with the new expansion is impossible without spending money. For example, to update a G/B deck to be competitive in the new meta I need at least four to five Mythic rare cards. I can either buy a ton of packs and hope to get them, or use WCs. Mythic Wlidcards are earned at a rate of, what every 20 packs? So I buy 80-100 packs to just update my deck for the new expansion. Super cheap!!
Except the game IS the same, and that's on purpose. Playing a carnage tyrant in Arena is exactly the same as playing a carnage tyrant in paper, and anyone who thinks Arena should be different solely because it's digital has huge delusions over what Arena was meant to do, and what people clearly wanted.
Is the economy the same? No, of course not. Is the path to making a deck the same? Not really. Wizards is a company, they need to make money, and they can't make money off of making what would be tantamount to an official version of cockatrice that gives you access to every card in the game to do with however you like. So yes, you have to pay for a good deck, like literally every other CCG in existence. You can pay with time, by grinding out limited events and CE coinfarming and getting packs that way; or you can pay with money, turning cash into gems into packs and WCs. Expecting anything else is short-sighted at best and thoughtless at worst.
I could get in depth of your specific example and math out how much money it would take to upgrade NOW, and how much cheaper it would be from upgrading in paper, but since you clearly only made this account to try and bash the game instead of playing it, the work would fall on deaf ears.
Keep playing hearthstone on your phone and leave us in peace if this is all you have.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
I'm just not interested in discussing anything with the WOTC boot lickers who cant concede simple facts like "an online digital game is not identical to a physical card game." That said, no, Arena is not cheap and no you cant get far without spending money. Simply trying to update a meta deck to a new one with the new expansion is impossible without spending money. For example, to update a G/B deck to be competitive in the new meta I need at least four to five Mythic rare cards. I can either buy a ton of packs and hope to get them, or use WCs. Mythic Wlidcards are earned at a rate of, what every 20 packs? So I buy 80-100 packs to just update my deck for the new expansion. Super cheap!!
Except the game IS the same, and that's on purpose. Playing a carnage tyrant in Arena is exactly the same as playing a carnage tyrant in paper, and anyone who thinks Arena should be different solely because it's digital has huge delusions over what Arena was meant to do, and what people clearly wanted.
Is the economy the same? No, of course not. Is the path to making a deck the same? Not really. Wizards is a company, they need to make money, and they can't make money off of making what would be tantamount to an official version of cockatrice that gives you access to every card in the game to do with however you like. So yes, you have to pay for a good deck, like literally every other CCG in existence. You can pay with time, by grinding out limited events and CE coinfarming and getting packs that way; or you can pay with money, turning cash into gems into packs and WCs. Expecting anything else is short-sighted at best and thoughtless at worst.
I could get in depth of your specific example and math out how much money it would take to upgrade NOW, and how much cheaper it would be from upgrading in paper, but since you clearly only made this account to try and bash the game instead of playing it, the work would fall on deaf ears.
Keep playing hearthstone on your phone and leave us in peace if this is all you have.
It's ******* hilarious that you LITERALLY just said "Arena and Paper are exactly the same. Now here's a list of ways they are totally different."
No, they literally didn't. Are you sure Arena just isn't for you? If you hate it so much, why are you spending time on it and trolling people on this forum?
I don't see what ever post you're talking about that I should be on. All I see are people discussing whether they do don't or should/shouldn't spend $ on Arena. Except you do keep trolling people all the way on so... Honestly there are many people posting here who are supportive of Arena. Does it present new problems? Are some of them caused by Wizards? Yes to both.
That doesn't change the fact that Wizards just made this game much cheaper, and more accessible to a wealth of people. Many of whom will play for free, or nearly free.
If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work. Why are YOU still here?
It's not really cheaper. What it does is kind of create this card buying communism where the rarity alone determines how much a card costs to get. This makes it expensive to make a mistake with a purchase and it is completely intentional. They do give more rares per dollar total, but keep in mind they moved to bigger sets to accommodate for this.
I'm aiming for standard plus and buying as much as I can of the sets that are rotating because of the distribution change. Also, while I see them selling older sets, I think they are going to merge some sets into one mega set, like SOI and EMN.
Paper magic I can strait up get the rares on the cheap and build whatever I want.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Well well, look at that, $250 to $280 to buy one deck in paper! Surely I must have spent hundreds of dollars to get this deck because Arena CERTAINLY isn't cheaper right?
Oh wait, I've spent $65 to DRAFT (total expenditures ever on Arena) which ended up getting me enough cards for my deck. Not only that, I have another standard deck that is even more expensive.
Let's compare to paper Magic shall we? $65 dollars will get me about 4.3 paper drafts. with those 4.3 drafts I would have opened 13 packs, but let's be generous and say it's 20 packs because I'm good at drafting and should win some prizes occasionally. Do you truly believe I would have come EVEN CLOSE to building a standard deck by doing that?
"Well don't draft, just by the singles you need in paper!" Okay, so that $65 barely buys me my land base plus one Gruull spellbreaker.
If you can't make a standard deck on Arena for cheaper then paper, you must REALLY make A METRIC TON of mistakes when spending your wildcards. I mean even if you only get half of your wildcard expenditures correct, Arena STILL ends up being cheaper then paper Magic.
So there's my direct proof that Arena is much cheaper in fact. Where's your direct proof that it's more expensive?
Well well, look at that, $250 to $280 to buy one deck in paper! Surely I must have spent hundreds of dollars to get this deck because Arena CERTAINLY isn't cheaper right?
Oh wait, I've spent $65 to DRAFT (total expenditures ever on Arena) which ended up getting me enough cards for my deck. Not only that, I have another standard deck that is even more expensive.
Let's compare to paper Magic shall we? $65 dollars will get me about 4.3 paper drafts. with those 4.3 drafts I would have opened 13 packs, but let's be generous and say it's 20 packs because I'm good at drafting and should win some prizes occasionally. Do you truly believe I would have come EVEN CLOSE to building a standard deck by doing that?
"Well don't draft, just by the singles you need in paper!" Okay, so that $65 barely buys me my land base plus one Gruull spellbreaker.
If you can't make a standard deck on Arena for cheaper then paper, you must REALLY make A METRIC TON of mistakes when spending your wildcards. I mean even if you only get half of your wildcard expenditures correct, Arena STILL ends up being cheaper then paper Magic.
So there's my direct proof that Arena is much cheaper in fact. Where's your direct proof that it's more expensive?
Well, first mistake is not accounting for metagame impacting playable cards in the competitive meta. You get one rare wild card per 5.71 packs, and one mythic wild card per 13.33 packs. Across all five sets, there will only be a certain number of rare and mythics that are playable at a given point.
Let's assume that someone is new and has very little knowledge on the metagame, and they must buy up rares and mythics that match up to form a winning deck. How likely do you think that scenario is?
I think a smart player who has played the game will minimize the losses via cockatrice or a deck building app.
Honestly, I really want to see the data on the bad pull rates and misfire purchases if that data exists.
There are people paying 100 per set to get packs and miss firing. Also, keep in mind you play draft and probably limited, meaning you are one of the lucky ones that built up skill and experience. You can turn the tide with what some people would call complete jank, and know how to play on a level above the throng of freemium one vs one players. That makes a huge difference.
I can build a deck for 60 dollars in black on paper that wins pretty consistently with lower constraints on rares thanks to the secondary market. Everything costs the same on arena.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Let's compare the cost of cracking packs shall we? A single 15 card pack on in paper costs $4.00 plus tax. Let's be generous and say you bought an entire box for $100 after tax in order to bring down the price to about $2.80.
On Arena, you can get 6 packs for 1200 gems. You can buy 1600 gems for $10, however this is THE WORST RATE to buy gems, so we are being stingy instead of generous for Arena's estimation. At that rate, the 6 packs cost $7.5.
So price for single pack on Arena comes out to $1.25 vs. the $2.80 per paper pack if you buy a whole booster box at a time. THAT'S LESS THAN HALF PRICE!!!!!
"Well paper packs have 15 cards in them!" Yes, but they don't contribute to you getting rare wildcards, they don't have duplicate rare protection like Arena, and they contribute to you also getting an uncommon wild card as well. Also in normal packs, you don't have a chance to just open a wildcard. I open rare wildcards maybe a bit less then 1 in 6 packs. That means you get almost 2 rare wild cards for every 6 packs, something you never get with paper Magic.
A draft on Arena can be free, a draft in paper is $12-$15.
OBVIOUSLY ARENA IS CHEAPER! PLEASE PROVIDE ME WITH ACTUAL EVIDENCE IT IS NOT! You can't just say "Well mistakes on wildcards makes it more expensive." That's on YOU, not wizards. ALSO YOU CAN MAKE MISTAKES ON BUYING CARDS IN PAPER! I'VE DONE IT BEFORE, TRUST ME, IT'S A MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE MISTAKE! So saying that the mistakes on wildcards on Arena makes it more expensive just doesn't make any sense. If you make the mistake on Arena, you would have made the mistake in paper too, where the card costs even more.
I say people are nay-saying without actually looking at the math of these things. Still waiting for someone to provide me with ACTUAL evidence as to why Arena is more expensive. I've provided NUMEROUS ways in which it is not. Either put up the evidence or take your unfounded claims elsewhere.
But in paper I'm not buying packs. I buy the singles I need after playtest and am done. I have to spend at least 100 to 150 on packs alone to get most of the cards needed for a deck and that is assuming I bought the lands already.
Also, where are you getting draft is free on arena? You are paying 5k gold or gems for it. Aka, you are paying with time or money, and time is money.
I agree that you can have a much better experience with arena when you spend cards wisely and you will get more out of your decisions, but the base cost to achieve it is roughly the same mathematically. It's the same trick that advertisers used to do by providing rewards for posting advertisements on message boards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
You "Don't compare the theatrical version of a film with the director's cut! They are totally different films!" No they aren't. The games are literally identical in some ways, so you to insist that we don't compare it to paper Magic is what doesn't make any sense.
I just don't know how cheap you expect a game to be. I have 2 tier 1 standard decks that in a way I spent nothing on. You see, I spent $ on Arena to draft, which is already a game in it's self. So any cards I open I was able to use in a deck are really just gravy in a way.
I did exactly what Colt47 described, only I didn't have to save up A TON of rare wild cards. I had 10 rare gold wildcards and 3 mythic rare wildcards going into Allegiance. I drafted it a bunch, opened up some cards I liked. Thought "I'd like to build Gruul, this looks like it will be a good deck and I opened a few of the pieces for it already." The deck runs incredibly and I'm shooting up the ranks. I spent $40 on MTG A when allegiance was released, not to crack packs, but to draft. With the cards I opened from the set plus not even ALL of my wildcards, I built a GOOD deck. Sure I had cards from last season that I put in the deck, but I just opened those through drafting/prize pack opening, not spending tons of $.
So I say it's bullcrap that Arena is too expensive to build a deck (for most employed people working even at minimum wage full time.) (it's not even too expensive for kids with like a $20 a month allowance!!!) I've built many decks for less than the cost of building 1 standard deck IN PAPER, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPARABLE. Honestly, how cheap does a deck need to be for you to be happy with Wizards? Do 3 color tier 1 decks need to cost $5 in your opinion to build? I mean building a deck that you can play for free there after, and can use for about 2 years at the cost of $40 is REALLY cheap actually.
You want a different comparison? A video game costs what $67 after tax or something. How many hours of gameplay do you get out of it? How much did you spend on that console in the first place to play the video game? By comparison, MTG Arena is much cheaper than playing video games, going out to the movies, playing paper Magic et.
I guess the real lesson here is "Haters gonna hate."
And yes, you should be saving up your gold/games/wildcards when a new set is coming out.
You're a ******* idiot.
As I said... Haters gonna hate.
If you want to have an honest discussion about Arena, why can't we compare it to paper Magic? It is not an entirely separate product. It's not as though wizards develops 2 different sets of cards for Arena vs. standard. They same R&D team designing cards for paper Magic are also designing them for Arena at the same moment. If you can present a good argument as to why we shouldn't compare Arena to paper Magic I'll listen to it. Otherwise, Arena to paper Magic is the MOST comparable thing you can find, except perhaps MTGO.
"Don't compare these two extremely similar things! Made by the exact same people whose games are almost entirely identical!" You say. Why shouldn't we?
*Apu voice* "Haters going to hate."
Like I said. You're an idiot.
Still can't answer my direct questions in which I ask you to support your position eh? Still hating instead of providing support for your statements hm? Ad hominem logical fallacies really help get your point across. What would I know though, I'm such an idiot apparently.
This thread has generated some really meaningful dialogue, but there are a lot of nay-sayers failing to rebuff direct answers or explanations to their questions going on too. (That was occurring even before this most recent exchange.)
While I am one of Wizards biggest detractors normally, there are many praises to be sung for MTG Arena.
Semi-related note: I wonder if many of the complaints from new Magic players stem from not playing with their decks for a long enough amount of time. It's so easy to say "Well, this deck clearly beats my deck because of card X" It's harder to figure out how to play around "card X" and still win. My deck is doing well because of successful piloting/innovation/a modest amount of cards I already own. My current Gruul deck is so much more refined from when I started.
While there are significant unique challenges to playing Arena, they are insignificant compared to the cheapness of the format.
To everyone complaining about the Meta game/"It's too expensive": The point of Magic is to be able to create or at least modify your own deck. Doesn't matter if it's constructed or limited, the only one who can make your deck better is you. You're not going to create a tier one limited deck on your own. You will waste Wild cards because you're not that good at evaluating cards yet. Let me know how bad misspending a wild card you got for free is vs. paying $20+ or more on a single mythic when a new set is released, only to see that mythic plummet in value and become worthless in the current meta.
If you don't like Magic in general, fine, don't play it. Continuously berating MTG Arena doesn't make sense to me. The worst threat I hear from most people is "WELL I'M NOT GOING TO SPEND MONEY ON IT!!!!!" So don't spend money on it then. If you're playing a game for free because you enjoy doing it, why are you complaining about it costing $ when you spend nothing on it. It's unreasonable to expect that you can build the best top competitive level by spending nothing on that activity.
Please name a COMPETITIVE hobby/game which doesn't require spending $ to be in the top tier.
For now I have drakes built and a steady supply of wildcards for any deck I want to build. It is actually surprising how far a couple extra counterspells can get considering that monored is very burn focused and generally completely shaved their Lava Coils.
I know friends who dumped at least $100 into the game (should be all you need for the foreseeable future). I haven't yet because I spent them on plushies and crafting materials for dollmaking, but the option is enticing for me in the future.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
So, since "BestMagicGamer" doesn`t seem to be interested in any constructive discussion, I feel like someone should pick this up.
Of course, MTGA is not a seperate game from paper magic - it can't be totally different from the game it is a digital adaption of, obviously. BUT that's talking about mechanics/gemeplay. A direct comparison of the financial aspect is problematic. In paper magic, you get physical cards with at least some resellability, everything you buy in MTGA is purely for your personal use and holds no objective value. So a comparison to other digital games makes more sense than comparing to a physical card game.
That said, I don't think MTGA is particularly expensive. You can get pretty far without spending ANY money and with relatively little investment, you can easily build 1 or 2 viable competitive decks. Personally I spent less than 50€ so far and I already got more out of it than quite some full price games (have 3 pretty refined decks, a fourth almost finished and a lot of semi-competitive brews).
Of course, it depends on your expectations - if you want to be able to play every existing Tier 1 whenever you feel like it, it will be expensive. But this goes for every collectible game ever, physical or digital.
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
For me, I'll take the trade for a MUCH cheaper way to play standard Magic then have some cards that just lose value when they rotate.
Also, are our accounts a total loss if we quite playing Magic? Could it be possible to sell an account? I bet there would be people out there willing to buy a nicely stocked Arena account... You could just switch the debit card info. over to a pre-paid Debit card instead of your personal one before selling it.
I don't play any other card game digital or otherwise so I don't know how Arena stacks up against them.
I'm just not interested in discussing anything with the WOTC boot lickers who cant concede simple facts like "an online digital game is not identical to a physical card game." That said, no, Arena is not cheap and no you cant get far without spending money. Simply trying to update a meta deck to a new one with the new expansion is impossible without spending money. For example, to update a G/B deck to be competitive in the new meta I need at least four to five Mythic rare cards. I can either buy a ton of packs and hope to get them, or use WCs. Mythic Wlidcards are earned at a rate of, what every 20 packs? So I buy 80-100 packs to just update my deck for the new expansion. Super cheap!!
I think it's as FirstswordofBant says. If you want to play the best top tier deck as soon as the first set is released, it's going to be expensive. Perhaps your solution is to learn to enjoy drafting/sealed more. I find that I naturally open enough rares/mythics through that to get me started on a good deck. However, it does involve a lot of patience when crafting a new deck. If you're good player/deck builder, come close to maximizing your daily rewards, and save/spend your resources wisely, Arena can be pretty cheap.
I'm currently farming gold with my self-built/rogue Gruul Aggro deck on Arena constructed event to good effect. I've spent $65 over all since Arena's open beta (for hours upon hours of drafting, not pack cracking.) I have two top tier deck lists and the ability to create more if I want. While I did save up a bunch of gold/wildcards specifically for this release, anyone can do that. I spent 3 mythic wildcards and about 10 gold wildcards to create my deck. Haven't spent any rare/mythic wildcards in a few days now, though I have changed my deck many times since then. I have 3 drafts worth of gold, 1 draft in gems plus countless commons/uncommon wildcards, plus 1 rare and 1 mythic saved up for a rainy day.
Maybe Arena isn't for you. Many people here seem to do fine with it and find it relatively cheap compared to paper Magic or even other online card games.
Again, no ones talking to you. Check out the "I want to hug and kiss Wizards of the Coast uwu" thread. Byeeeeee!
Except the game IS the same, and that's on purpose. Playing a carnage tyrant in Arena is exactly the same as playing a carnage tyrant in paper, and anyone who thinks Arena should be different solely because it's digital has huge delusions over what Arena was meant to do, and what people clearly wanted.
Is the economy the same? No, of course not. Is the path to making a deck the same? Not really. Wizards is a company, they need to make money, and they can't make money off of making what would be tantamount to an official version of cockatrice that gives you access to every card in the game to do with however you like. So yes, you have to pay for a good deck, like literally every other CCG in existence. You can pay with time, by grinding out limited events and CE coinfarming and getting packs that way; or you can pay with money, turning cash into gems into packs and WCs. Expecting anything else is short-sighted at best and thoughtless at worst.
I could get in depth of your specific example and math out how much money it would take to upgrade NOW, and how much cheaper it would be from upgrading in paper, but since you clearly only made this account to try and bash the game instead of playing it, the work would fall on deaf ears.
Keep playing hearthstone on your phone and leave us in peace if this is all you have.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
It's ******* hilarious that you LITERALLY just said "Arena and Paper are exactly the same. Now here's a list of ways they are totally different."
I don't see what ever post you're talking about that I should be on. All I see are people discussing whether they do don't or should/shouldn't spend $ on Arena. Except you do keep trolling people all the way on so... Honestly there are many people posting here who are supportive of Arena. Does it present new problems? Are some of them caused by Wizards? Yes to both.
That doesn't change the fact that Wizards just made this game much cheaper, and more accessible to a wealth of people. Many of whom will play for free, or nearly free.
If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work. Why are YOU still here?
I'm aiming for standard plus and buying as much as I can of the sets that are rotating because of the distribution change. Also, while I see them selling older sets, I think they are going to merge some sets into one mega set, like SOI and EMN.
Paper magic I can strait up get the rares on the cheap and build whatever I want.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Here's my current arena list, plugged into tappedout.net in order to find it's price.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/06-02-19-auq-gruul-aggro/?cb=1549474864
Well well, look at that, $250 to $280 to buy one deck in paper! Surely I must have spent hundreds of dollars to get this deck because Arena CERTAINLY isn't cheaper right?
Oh wait, I've spent $65 to DRAFT (total expenditures ever on Arena) which ended up getting me enough cards for my deck. Not only that, I have another standard deck that is even more expensive.
Let's compare to paper Magic shall we? $65 dollars will get me about 4.3 paper drafts. with those 4.3 drafts I would have opened 13 packs, but let's be generous and say it's 20 packs because I'm good at drafting and should win some prizes occasionally. Do you truly believe I would have come EVEN CLOSE to building a standard deck by doing that?
"Well don't draft, just by the singles you need in paper!" Okay, so that $65 barely buys me my land base plus one Gruull spellbreaker.
If you can't make a standard deck on Arena for cheaper then paper, you must REALLY make A METRIC TON of mistakes when spending your wildcards. I mean even if you only get half of your wildcard expenditures correct, Arena STILL ends up being cheaper then paper Magic.
So there's my direct proof that Arena is much cheaper in fact. Where's your direct proof that it's more expensive?
Well, first mistake is not accounting for metagame impacting playable cards in the competitive meta. You get one rare wild card per 5.71 packs, and one mythic wild card per 13.33 packs. Across all five sets, there will only be a certain number of rare and mythics that are playable at a given point.
Let's assume that someone is new and has very little knowledge on the metagame, and they must buy up rares and mythics that match up to form a winning deck. How likely do you think that scenario is?
I think a smart player who has played the game will minimize the losses via cockatrice or a deck building app.
Honestly, I really want to see the data on the bad pull rates and misfire purchases if that data exists.
There are people paying 100 per set to get packs and miss firing. Also, keep in mind you play draft and probably limited, meaning you are one of the lucky ones that built up skill and experience. You can turn the tide with what some people would call complete jank, and know how to play on a level above the throng of freemium one vs one players. That makes a huge difference.
I can build a deck for 60 dollars in black on paper that wins pretty consistently with lower constraints on rares thanks to the secondary market. Everything costs the same on arena.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
On Arena, you can get 6 packs for 1200 gems. You can buy 1600 gems for $10, however this is THE WORST RATE to buy gems, so we are being stingy instead of generous for Arena's estimation. At that rate, the 6 packs cost $7.5.
So price for single pack on Arena comes out to $1.25 vs. the $2.80 per paper pack if you buy a whole booster box at a time. THAT'S LESS THAN HALF PRICE!!!!!
"Well paper packs have 15 cards in them!" Yes, but they don't contribute to you getting rare wildcards, they don't have duplicate rare protection like Arena, and they contribute to you also getting an uncommon wild card as well. Also in normal packs, you don't have a chance to just open a wildcard. I open rare wildcards maybe a bit less then 1 in 6 packs. That means you get almost 2 rare wild cards for every 6 packs, something you never get with paper Magic.
A draft on Arena can be free, a draft in paper is $12-$15.
OBVIOUSLY ARENA IS CHEAPER! PLEASE PROVIDE ME WITH ACTUAL EVIDENCE IT IS NOT! You can't just say "Well mistakes on wildcards makes it more expensive." That's on YOU, not wizards. ALSO YOU CAN MAKE MISTAKES ON BUYING CARDS IN PAPER! I'VE DONE IT BEFORE, TRUST ME, IT'S A MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE MISTAKE! So saying that the mistakes on wildcards on Arena makes it more expensive just doesn't make any sense. If you make the mistake on Arena, you would have made the mistake in paper too, where the card costs even more.
I say people are nay-saying without actually looking at the math of these things. Still waiting for someone to provide me with ACTUAL evidence as to why Arena is more expensive. I've provided NUMEROUS ways in which it is not. Either put up the evidence or take your unfounded claims elsewhere.
Also, where are you getting draft is free on arena? You are paying 5k gold or gems for it. Aka, you are paying with time or money, and time is money.
I agree that you can have a much better experience with arena when you spend cards wisely and you will get more out of your decisions, but the base cost to achieve it is roughly the same mathematically. It's the same trick that advertisers used to do by providing rewards for posting advertisements on message boards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!