My wife and I just recently got into MTG and decided we want our focus to be paper, but we also like the idea of digital as we learn since it forces us to play by the rules and we can use it to test out things we’re unsure about. We also like the idea of digital for times when we can’t be bothered to break out decks and such. So while we’ll primarily focus on paper we will invest some into digital.
We’re still deciding on which digital platform to really invest our resources into, though. I like MTGO for its “close to paper as possible” philosophy, but I get the impression Arena is golden child of Wizards and likely to have more staying power long term. The ability to play Arena pretty much anywhere, including mobile, is a big benefit as well.
So for the more seasoned players out there that may have focused on one or the other, or even both, what’s your experience been? Why did you lean into one versus the other?
Personally I’m a bigger fan of Arena. It’s not super new player friendly, but of the two, it’s definitely friendly-er, imo, and you can play completely for free. Also, I’m a big fan of the Best-of-1 format being a thing on Arena. Makes playing much less of a time commitment, which is really nice.
The only thing about Arena that bugs me right now is Alchemy, which isn’t something that’s necessarily a problem with everybody, but is pretty hard to get away from, unfortunately.