The Weekend Hangover: Magic: The Gathering - Arena

The Weekend Hangover is Too Much Gaming's Monday rumination of the games or game we played over the weekend. Sometimes there is alcohol involved in the hangover we’re nursing, but most other times there’s just too much gaming.

Card games have always been a part of my life. Since grade school I find myself sneaking in Magic: The Gathering decks together with my friends. I got serious with it during in a year, competing at Friday Night Magic and participating on regional tournaments. It was a great phrase in my life.

I've quit the game 2 times so far with no plans of coming back, but the craving is still there, which is being held back by games like Hearthstone and Gwent.

Wizards of the Coast now has Magic: The Gathering Arena and naturally I jumped in curious again, since the Open Bega launch included the latest set of the game: Guilds of Ravnica.

Arena was updated with the physical game, which sparked my interest even more since I get to experienc the meta shifting with the new cards coming in and old ones leaving the standard format.

I played it back in the closed beta days and was already impressed by how the game handles Magic's intricate system of Two main phases, resolving floating spells, and end of turn tactics you'd experience in the real game.

With it as a free to play game - and me treating it as such by not buying packs - it's been rather difficult to allocate my resources to acquire new cards.

The Wild Card system allows you to make any card available based on rarity. A rare wildcard allows the creation of a rare while a common wildcard creates common cards, and so on. But they're limited and can only be acquired through packs.

It's a grind as I see myself earning a pack or two each day, using the pre-constructed decks given to me. Weekly wins earns you more packs but it feels like it will take a few more weeks until I leave the pre constructed deck composition and really have a suitable deck for the evolving meta.

Arena is at a great start despite the grind I put myself into. It reminds me on how the inclusion of RNG elements in a card game is demoralizing, and I would rather make a fast effect and react during an opponent's turn to get board advantage.

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