Do you play tabletop Magic at your local game store (LGS)? Perhaps you prefer the convenience of Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) or Magic: The Gathering Arena on your computer. Or maybe you like playing on your phone or tablet with the Android version. Let me know how you play and what your preferred platform is!

I used to play MTGO on Linux through Wine, but it stopped working. Trying it in a VM was too laggy. So I finally bought a cheap Windows machine primarily to run MTGA and MTGO smoothly. Personally, the convenience of digital clients has won me over, but I have fond memories of Friday Night Magic at my LGS, specially a $1 entry format we played with crappy decks and store credit prizes because I liked the nostalgia of it being similar to when I started playing instead of the competitiveness of the typical standard format, where it seems like all the decks are similar netdeck copies.

  • @Morgikan@lemm.ee5•8 months ago

    For me I play MTGA. Honestly, I'm not into competitive play and just like the social aspect and having fun. Arena isn't the best for the social aspect as its more just speed matches, but maybe they'll release a chat system with that at some point. There is a large number of players, so finding matches is easy enough, and although the cards are completely worthless in Arena (you can't trade them) they also don't have a real world cost to them. I'm terrible at pricing, but I would figure I have around $500-$600 worth of cards in Arena. Again, they are totally worhtless and non-transferrable (which would be an issue if they decided to discontinue the platform), but I haven't spent any money on them either.

  • Mike@mtgzone.comM3•8 months ago

    I only play Arena right now, and pretty much just draft and Historic. I would love to get back into real world paper drafting at my LGS but we have two young kids which makes it difficult. Once they're older I will be looking to get back into FNM and drafting in person again.

    I really do like Arena but I worry the effect it has on the paper game. I also think Historic is the most fun format right now, and has the most diverse sets of decks so I'm thankful wotc makes it free for us to play it.

  • @Evu@mtgzone.com2•8 months ago

    I'm playing Arena most days. Haven't spent any actual money on it and don't plan to. I'm using Lutris on Linux; I can't say that setup or maintenance have been painless, but it's working for me for now. I used to play MTGO years ago and would eventually like to get back to that because it's the best platform for Pauper.

    Pre-pandemic I used to do both FNM drafts and kitchen table Magic with friends, and I would love to resume both of those, but I really don't think it's prudent yet, from a public health perspective.