MTGNexus

Are there clans and friends and weird formats to play? I tried MTG Arena really early on and was bored out of my skull because it was just goblins vs goblins, winner faces goblins, while you save up a squillion points to try a draft, and that's really not my scene at all. What's the most fun you can have with arena these days as a non-competitive player who never wants to learn to play temur control in their life?

I guess you could play Brawl.

brutal xP

This game is so lonely, maybe I'll try it again when Modo dies and they're forced to add things like social features, or payouts for playing long games or penny formats etc etc etc

Maybe Arena would be worthwhile for casual If Wizards of the Coast had the balls to work around the Reserve List. You know, implement proper EDH / Commander on Arena where players have actual access to Reserve List cards since they aren't bound to Digital like they are on Paper. Now granted it probably would take too long to get proper 4 player EDH / Commander on Arena due to it being a) made in Unity, b) only being a 32-bit application which means that it can't use more than 4 GB of RAM on any machine, c) it's too clunky on all triggered abilities. Just imagine having to wait on 3 other random players. The amount of time it takes to resolve the stack Digitally would've probably already been taken care of with less time in Paper.

I think Paper Magic is too much of a cash cow to completely do away with Local Game Stores (LGSs) entirely for the communities it helps foster as well as the In-Store Play experiences it brings that you won't find on Digital. Arena and MTGO aren't where they need to be right now to completely get rid of Paper Magic. All that could change If Wizards of the Coast hires the right people to get the system in place for players who are still stuck in quarantine due to the ongoing pandemic If this continues to drag on for years to come. The downside is that this would result in a net loss for a lot of players who've already spent thousands of dollars on Paper EDH / Commander and are wanting to cash out before it's already too late.