Magic The Gathering was one of those games that struck me personally. I still remember that day when I bought my first deck corresponding to the fourth edition together with an envelope from the revised one in which I got a Sol Ring. Now that Magic The Gathering Arena came to iOS and Android, I couldn’t resist seeing what the gaming experience is like on mobile devices.
Magic The Gathering Arena, your cards wherever you want
Magic The Gathering Arena is the digital version of the popular trading card game . A proposal that is not new, for a while it was already available for PC and Mac. However, now is when it reaches mobile devices with Android or iOS and that is great news.
If you like the game, you will be able to enjoy it wherever you go. Although the best of all is that it offers cross-platform support. So you can play against any opponent no matter where he is playing.
Of course, before talking about the game and its experience, which is what really matters here. A brief review of its mechanics for those who do not know what Magic The Gathering is really about, a collectible card game that has been proving for many years that they still have a lot to offer.
How to Play Magic The Gathering
Magic The Gathering is a trading card game in which you take on the role of a magician. As such, you’ll have the ability to cast creature spells, sets, enchantments, and even instants or interrupts that you can play at any time.
All this set of cards correspond to five colors (white, green, blue, red and black) and each of them has its own peculiarities that affect the style of play and the possible combinations that you could make in the future as you add more and more cards to your collection.
In order to execute these spells, it is essential to have lands that generate mana of each of the colors. Without them you will not be able to do anything, hence new players start with single color decks and as they gain experience or have so-called double lands, they add new cards to their decks of other colors to form very varied strategies.
This is roughly how Magic is played, but I warn you that without being difficult to learn, it can be complicated as much as you want . And it is that with so many cards it is very easy to draw any type of strategy capable of beating the one that is currently in fashion. So I guess this game will never end, because the combinations are endless.
The digital gaming experience
As a player who for many years has invested time and money in physical cards, having a good adaptation in digital format has been a dream since the internet began to break through a few years ago.
However, getting to Magic The Gathering Arena has not been easy at all. Along the way there have been many proposals that took advantage of the universe created by Richard Garfield, but none came to offer the same sensations as the physical game of cards. Only Shandalar managed to offer veteran players an experience similar to what they could enjoy in those stores specialized in this type of games, in coffee shops or in any park with friends.
When Wizard of the Coast announced Magic The Gathering Arena for PC things seemed like it could change and it did. The game gained greater agility , although it was not the most dynamic trading card title. In that sense Hearthstone has been much more interesting, but you cannot change the rules of the game to adapt it to a digital format. Because if it is done, it is no longer Magic.
Magic The Gathering Arena finally became the proposal that many fans of the game wanted , to be able to play from the tranquility of their home with any player in the world if they wanted. But of course, why not also be available for mobile devices?
Well, it was not something fast, but we can already say that you can now play on your mobile or tablet with Android or iOS and the experience is as expected . With this I am not saying that it is perfect, it is still a slower game than its rivals and the application (at least the iPad one) can surely be polished a little more to be more fluid, but I have been able to play the Magic that I played with cards real from anywhere and I love that.
With a design of cards and a board very well thought out to be comfortable throughout the game, even the longest and most contested, they make you enjoy. Although if you have never played the physical game better, because here there are actions such as blocking that for those who did it can be strange. In the same way, it is a matter of adapting.
Of course, despite the work of those responsible for the interface, playing on some phones with a too small screen is somewhat complicated because the texts are read with greater difficulty. That’s why I ended up uninstalling it from a second-generation iPhone SE.
The Magic The Gathering Arena problem
With all of the above, I have to make it clear that playing Magic The Gathering on mobile is what I had always wanted and I really enjoy playing each game. But no matter how many titles they launch, the problem will always be the same as the physical collectible card game had and has: you need cards.
If you just want to play with a friend or against the machine to reminisce about old times, go ahead because the game is fun. The problem is that if you want to be competitive you will have to go to the register and buy cards. Because the more and better you have, the more advantage you will get in confrontations with other magicians.
And here Wizards of the Coast has introduced a series of missions and other challenges that allow you to get free cards, but you will have to play a lot to be able to rival those who buy packs and packs. That is the problem with this game and the reason why surely many end up abandoning as they did with real cards.
So if you’ve never played Magic The Gathering and it catches your eye, do it because it’s fun and the experience is so close to the real thing that you’ll enjoy it . But if you want to do it with the intention of being as competitive as possible, then either you assume that you will have to invest a lot of money in buying packs or playing it with no greater pretense than enjoying a unique game.