Playing MTG Online

[JBGamer2012]

Does anyone know about being able to play Magic The Gathering online?

[Volkai]

There are two good and one mediocre option for playing Magic online. Neither of the good options is titled "Magic Online."

1) The Official Option
Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 20xx

These are released annually, with iterative adjustments to gameplay (original offered only normal gameplay, 2012 added Archenemy an 2-headed Giant, 2013 replaced archenemy with Planechase) and a different set of available decks.

Great UI, easy to learn the controls, available on Steam for PC, XBL, or PSN. Fair warning, multiplayer is platform specific so find out what your friends play on if you want to avoid buying the same game twice.

2) The Comprehensive Option
Magic Workstation

The program itself is shareware so you can use it without buying a license, but it will nag you at startup until you register it.

After installing it you will need to download a card database for it. You might need to torrent that, but a quick search ought to find you a direct download.
You'll also need to download cars art if you want it.

So this option is a bit on the DIY side, but the result is a free or cheap way to play MtG with other people online with total deck construction control and every card ever available to you.

Magic Workstation has the added bonus of serving as a collection management database, so you can use it to track your physical collection as well if you want to do so - but that will take some time and tedium to set up if you do. Still, it's cleaner than pages of notes.




3) The crappy option
Magic Online

Pay real money for booster packs of random digital cards. No way to convert to physical cards unless you have a full play set of a set - and actually I don't know if they even do that anymore. Crap UI, only nominally better than the UI of the free Magic Workstation.

The only reason to ever install Magic Online is if you plan to go pro and want to take part in online tournaments that also cost real money, but do offer real prizes like the physical Pro Tour tourneys.

[Duke Nukem]

Does anyone know about being able to play Magic The Gathering online?

MTGO is a good alternative if you don't have a community in your area to play with, if you don't have the time to go out to a local store to play (in which case, investing in this would be a better alternative than the real thing since you don't have to worry about going out). Also to, MTGO allows you to play with a number of the pros that go to pro-tours and grand-prix's in real life, you can ask them tips on occassion, draft with them among other things, the money to get started is worth it once you have a deck you're comfortable with because when you start winning and getting packs, you can turn in rarer cards for "credit" which you can then enter into draft / seal events or other formatted tournaments. MTGO also gives you the opportunity to compete in tournaments in which you can play in the MTGO Players Champion Tournaments and win real money. Also comparing it to the Duels of the Planeswalkers games it really is better because you're not limited to pre-determined decks. MTGO is basically like any other hobby, you have to decide whether or not to invest in it if you want to get into it like any hobby. I don't invest in it because I'm personally already invested in MTG in real life playing against the pro's in real life. It all depends on what you want to do investment wise, if you don't have the time to play it in real life, or there isn't a local store close by to play with people, then this would probably be a decent investment, at least with the starter kit. Otherwise if you have plenty of a community around you in real life and a store to go to, then stick with the real thing.

The game itself runs smoothly, never had issues with the UI or any other programming issues with it, it's pretty solid for the purpose of which it's used / needed to do.

[Volkai]

Unless your primary interest is tournaments - particularly for money prizes - and you can't make it to physical tournaments (or there aren't enough in your area), you're better off with Duels of the Planeswalkers plus physical card game Magic than you are playing MTGO.

[Sponsored content]