Review: MAGIC: THE GATHERING ARENA On iOS Is As Good As It Is Going To Get
The digital card game world is fairly crowded. But the entrance of Magic: The Gathering Arena is somewhat unique because of its already well established player base. While Magic: The Gathering Arena might not be the easiest game for new players to approach, it does a great job of simulating the real game even if it is a little clunkier than other digital card games.
Magic: The Gathering has been around longer than I’ve been alive and there’s no real need to review the game itself. In short, the game is finely tuned, the art is great, the matches are well paced and the deck building is near perfect. Even though we won’t talk about balance and pure gameplay, we will talk about how the game has been translated into its digital format. Everything runs perfectly fine; the game is smooth, bug free from my hours of gameplay and relatively good looking. The biggest thing that might bother new players is the blocking system (which can be an odd concept for any player). Waiting for other players reactions online can make turns feel very long. This is a problem with Magic: The Gathering itself, not the digital format of the game. Even with that said, MTG Arena does the best it could with the blocking and targeting system. I do wish that the stats and the descriptions of the cards were enlarged a bit more. On tablets or PCs, it is easy to read, but on mobile devices, especially smaller ones, it can be extremely difficult to read cards.
The other major thing to discuss about MTG Arena is it’s progression and deck building as a digital format. Like in any card game, the more that you can buy, the more powerful cards will be available to you. MTG Arena deals with that same issue and does what most other card games do, allowing you to do a variety of beginner quests and regularly occurring quests to obtain cards for free. MTG Arena’s beginner quest lines do give players a lot of cards to work with, but the tutorial on how to use them is a little thin while dragging a little bit. The tutorials are also long enough that veteran players have to play a pretty long time before getting into the meat of the game. While these beginner missions give players an extensive look into each of the colors and a lot of cards, there should be a way to skip them and receive those cards for veteran players (or even those that want to learn from by trial and error). Also, because Magic: The Gathering has been around for so long, I think some systems to purchase high-level cards through wins, or through particular quest lines would be an interesting addition, but as for now, it is as balanced as it is going to get.
While Magic: The Gathering Arena adds to the list of digital card games that you might have downloaded on your phone, it does allow for digital players to engage with a community that has been inaccessible to them. It might be a little less flashy and approachable than other card games, but I can’t imagine a better time or way to play Magic: The Gathering.
