Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has been a constant in the lives of digital card game players since its release in 2014. Over the course of the past four years, Hearthstone has grown to be the most popular digital card game, reaching 70 million registered players in 2017, and growing larger in 2018. However, despite Hearthstone’s popularity, the game has numerous complaints stemming from Hearthstone’s lack of competition.

With no real competition – Gwent, the game based on the Witcher series is peaking at around 200,000 registered ranked players compared to Hearthstone’s 20 million active players – Hearthstone has been free to roam the digital card game wasteland unopposed, despite receiving numerous complaints on the slow release of content, lack of community outreach in between expansions, an economy that disincentives new players, and the gameplay largely focused on randomness.

However, they were unopposed until recently, and were easily getting away with these faults.

In September of 2017, Wizards of the Coast, creators of the physical card game known as Magic: The Gathering, announced their latest project. It was “Magic: The Gathering Arena.” MTG Arena is Wizards of the Coast’s attempt at creating a viable Hearthstone competitor.

MTG has been a game since 1993, creating 25 years of card game history. Amongst physical card games, MTG has one of the largest and most loyal fanbases. DCI, the system in which Magic players register and document official MTG events, hosts an active player base of more than 1 million. And that’s only the registered players.

Hasbro statisticians in 2015 estimated that the MTG playerbase hosts a 1-20 ratio in DCI registered players to casual players, resulting in about 20 million active players. Although the monthly active player base for Hearthstone is undisclosed, it can be assumed at around 70 million registered players, that Hearthstone reaches a similar number to MTG. With MTG Arena currently in closed beta, time will tell whether or not it will reach Hearthstone’s mass, but there are many indicators that can create reasonable predictions.

Like many other MTG players, I got into Hearthstone as it was a viable digital replacement for MTG gameplay. MTG had not seen many successful digital clients that catered to the free-to-play fanbase. Online simulators like Magic: The Gathering Online were visually unengaging and required nearly the same financial investment that the physical card game did. Magic Duels gave a free-to-play model similar to Hearthstone, but due to being visually unimpressive and the fact that it lacked consistent moderation from its developers, Magic Duels fell at the wayside.

MTG Arena is looking to be doing many things right.

One of the strengths of MTG Arena is that its expansions are timed with the content of the physical card game. Magic: The Gathering is a very expensive card game to invest in. However, players of MTG Arena are able to experience the same Magic that would require 100’s to 1000’s of dollars invested in the current standard rotation, for free, thanks to the free-to-play model. Hearthstone players and digital card game players alike are applying for access to the closed beta of MTG Arena, hoping to experience Magic: The Gathering at little financial burden.

The Economics of MTG Arena

One problem that MTG Arena development is currently facing is the backlash on the free-to-play economy. Hearthstone personality, and MTG Arena player, Kacem “Noxious” Khilaji, has given his input on the economy’s current state, responding to the developers comments:

“The math supports it, but the feeling of the user doesn’t. And that’s what matters most.”

Noxious, like many, felt that MTG Arena’s economic model was unrewarding for the player, though in some respects, it was even more generous than Hearthstone’s model. This stems from the seemingly twisted way the economy is set. The currency through which players spend real money on the game, is gems. However, these gems can only be purchased through set quantities. Many times, these quantities will yield an inexact amount of card packs or rewards, leaving the player with an unusable amount of gems, which will force them to buy more in order to use the leftovers.

With Hearthstone’s method of spending, you can directly buy packs or other DLC directly from your money without having to go through a middleman currency designed to force the player to spend more in. Although the economy can distract from it, MTG Arena is a haven for veteran and new Hearthstone players everywhere.

The Future of Digital Card Game Esports

One of Hearthstone’s longest lasting critiques was its style of gameplay in contrast with its marketing and competitive handling. Despite Blizzard’s seeming support for competition and Hearthstone esports, Hearthstone is largely a game based on chance. This is considering even the nature of card games in general. Hearthstone has many cards and mechanics that can outright affect the outcome of the game based on a roll of the dice. Mechanics like Hearthstone’s random discard effects or specific cards like Mind Control Tech, which can randomly take control of a minion on your side of the board, are rampant throughout Hearthstone’s history. These games of chance can create a disheartening experience for players, even with Blizzard’s reassurance that their balance is competitively oriented.

More than just the game mechanics themselves, Blizzard is constantly showing a lack of respect for competitive Hearthstone play. With HCT Seoul approaching, professional Hearthstone players were preparing for their battle for the number one spot. After deck registration, a nerf on the card Tess Greymane came in on June 5th, greatly affecting the players’ decks. After the update, Blizzard announced that players would not be receiving any crafting refunds and that professional players would not be able to resubmit their decklists. It wasn’t until massive community outrage that Blizzard Esports decided to allow the competitors to resubmit, according to PC Gamer.

If Blizzard expects Hearthstone to garner any respect in a competitive light, their current design and management philosophy needs drastic changes.

MTG Arena is a recreation of paper Magic on a digital interface. Magic: The Gathering has the amount of luck attributed to any card game, but is more skill oriented than popular digital card games like Hearthstone. Unlike Hearthstone, MTG Arena is implementing a Best of 3, sideboarding system, that allows players to alter their decks in between matches to adapt their playstyle given their opponents. This implementation gives chance for players that truly understand their matchups, the meta, and the cards, to shine in a competitive environment.

With the way Wizards of the Coast are currently handling MTG Arena, the massive playerbase behind the game and its history, and the nature of Magic: The Gathering itself, I see no reason why MTG Arena won’t take the digital card game world by storm upon its official release.