Magic: The Gathering Online and Duels of the Planeswalkers

There's been a discussion about Magic: The Gathering marketing and casual players on one of the forums I visit. One of the topics discussed was Magic Online (I'll use MODO as abbreviation because I'm used to it) and Duels of the Planeswalkers (dotp). It seems that people think that MODO will scare new players or casual players and Duels of the Planeswalkers is aimed at computer/video game players that are new to Magic and does not have much to offer to casual players. I personally think that casual players can play casual and fun games on both MODO and DotP.

I used to play on Magic Online from time to time when there was no one around who would or could play paper Magic with me. My experience with MODO at that time was ok. I'm a person who takes ages to assess a board situation in any digital form and that is why I was afraid I couldn't play on MODO. But I could play a game without a problem and finish it in time since the very first game I played. At that time I wasn't trading or buying much but still it seemed pretty straightforward to me. The complexity of 'operating the game' and 'trading' were one of the most stated reasons why MODO scares people.

As for Duels of the Planeswalkers. I bought all the games (that pretty much sums up my Steam account with the exception of Counterstrike, Total War and SolForge) and played them from the beginning till the end. I went through all the content but never really came back to the game after finishing it. No matter what I do not regret paying 10USD for those games. Anyway DotP was the more problematic software for me for many reasons that were later solved or at least partly.

As a Magic player who plays on MODO and played all the DotP games I can actually speak about this matter but I found out that my take on MODO or DotP is different from many people. Anyway I will write something about both Magic Online and Duels of the Planeswalker games.

Well, first MODO is not a game. Most people call it a game but it is not. It is a client that allows players to play a game of Magic (simulation of). Duels of the Planeswalkers on the other hand is a game. So if there is someone who expects MODO to be a game he will soon find out that it is not true. You pay for everything on MODO. It is just a virtual version of paper Magic. You need to get cards and pay for them if you want a deck to play with and you pay to enter a tournament and you win prizes. If you are not good enough to place well, playing on MODO can cost you a lot of money. In some ways though MODO can be easier and take less time to collect cards. You just need to find the right bots and buy the cards. This can be tiresome sometimes but still way less than IRL. You don't need to buy the real cards online or ask players in person if they have the card or not and then argue about the price. (I still understand that for most people having the paper cards is way more appealing than having a digital copy. For many it does not seem fair to pay high prices for digital cards).
Duels of the Planeswalkers (most of the time) is a game. You buy the game, you play the game. Yes, there is content that you can buy but it is not necessary (unless you want to play more sealed decks in dotp15?). The content sometimes actually is special (thus one cannot unlock it during gameplay) By playing the game you unlock a collection of cards that you can use. So if you are a Magic player who does not have others to play against and want some Magic experience you can try DotP out. If this won't be suffiecient you can try MODO. The new Magic Origins (new Magic game) is going to be free to play though. We will see how much F2P it will be in the end^^

MODO is not for new players. (that is also why it WotC site will redirect anyone who clicks on 'no Magic experience' to the current DotP game) MODO won't teach you how to play Magic so if you don't know the rules enough to play a game of Magic forget about MODO for a while. (see paragraphs above why). But MODO can teach you to play better if you already know how to play. The full enforcement of rules is something priceless. This will help some understand the game better and there is no need to argue with people at your LGS and such. There are many players that don't even know what priority is. But when playing on MODO that is one of the things you discover immediately. Duels of the Planeswalkers though will teach you how to play Magic and won't really make a better player (because it does not enforce the rules fully and sometimes does not do it right). So if you are interested in trying Magic and you don't have a friend who can teach you just try this game (there is actually a demo of Magic that is based on DotP that was for free, might still be around). It has a tutorial (and each player has to go through it in the newer games - for iOS this is for free) which is quite good actually and some challenges that let players find out how certain abilities or rules work (for example First Strike, Deathtouch and Trample). The game will teach the basics and does many things for you. It won't tell you though that in the real game there are many more things going on. For example there is nothing like upkeep or the possibility to stack your own triggers. As far as I remember the first game that allowed tapping lands as you want won't even tell you that you can tap your lands yourself. The game can thus create some misconceptions but there won't be that many of them and you will learn enough to be able to play paper Magic (there is also free mulligan in DotP, that's not how it works in the real game of Magic). I actually met quite some players that started playing paper Magic later after playing DotP for some time. Those players actually had a healthy attitude to Magic. They wanted to explore the game, build new decks and have fun. Such players though will get crushed at tournaments or MODO. Finding out what competitive play is can be very hard for some. This is one of the reasons why people say MODO is not for beginners (the level of competitiveness there is very high). There are many people that just play to win or test their decks to win some other events. Participating in such a tournament can be frustrating for some players (or dotp convertees). Anyway the skill level of players varies quite a lot. If you participate in swiss tournaments the level will be overally lower. BTW there are tournaments organized in DotP as well by certain communities. Still the power level of the decks is nowhere near tier 1 decks of any format but this shows that the community is alive. (I really wonder how people are capable of spending hours and hours on such a game, but they do.) There are similar communities using MODO for their tournaments and such.
EDIT: When talking about MODO with the LGS owner he noted one thing...His first experience with MODO was quite bad. He knew what he could do in the game IRL but did not know how to activate Icy Manipulator when he wanted to because he did not have a stop at 'beginning of combat'. This is one of the things players will need to get used to. If there is something you want to do at a certain point you need to place a stop there otherwise it will just pass that step or phase. And some players don't even know that there is something like Upkeep or Beginning of Combat.

Many people also say that MODO does not look nice graphically and that it hasn't changed since 2008 (the above screenshot is from MODO and DotP15). I agree in a way but on the other hand who cares? Obviously some people do. I use MODO to play Magic and what I need is to be able to recognize the cards and to see when something happens (yes, wotc should solve the card text one day...). For that I don't need any nice shiny animations or cool graphics. DotP has this kind of appeal and it seems that there are many players that actually appreciate that and yes I would expect something cool and nice from a game. It is something one is supposed to enjoy. I guess it wouldn't sell much if it would look like MODO :-). But personally I don't want MODO to look like DotP. I want to play a smooth game and not be distracted by anything else or slowed down by anything else (those animations and such slow the game hell a lot). There are many players who try to compare MODO with Hearthstone. I don't like that comparison much. Even though Hearthstone is somewhere in between DotP and MODO it is still a game. A game aimed at masses even though it has a professional scene (which so far I find really ridiculous - a bot can play and win). It is really nice to look at and play but how much pro players care about how the game looks? Maybe they do, but I highly doubt it (even though I can be terribly mistaken... because the fact that people complain about the look of MODO shocked me)

Is MODO suited for casual players? In my opinion I would say yes (because simply it simulates Magic and Magic can be played casually) even though I can state a 'million' reasons why not (hopefully will be written in the text that follows). If you are a magic player with a paper collection you will find out that on MODO you have to start from the beginning. After you register, pay 12 bucks or so and run MODO you get a starter pack. There are some cards, 5 tickets and new player points and some Planeswalker cards (haven't played that format so I cannot really write about that). But if you want to play let's say Standard you need to get cards for your deck. First you either need to play some drafts to get some cards and packs (so you can trade) or buy the cards right away (if you are not good enough to go 2:1 or 3:0 this might be difficult). When it comes to buying and trading it can be quite confusing to some. It wasn't for me but there were players that came to LGS and asked me how the hell MODO works. There are many bots that sell or buy cards and if you want some help you can check http://mtgowikiprice.com for prices.
BTW If you just want to try out MODO you don't need to pay anything. Just download the client (which can be a bit difficult as always with WotC and their websites) and click on 'Free Trial'. It will let you choose one of five decks to play with against other players trying MODO for free. The chat does not seem to work during that but you have access 'Help'. This is something I would advise people to read (if you haven't looked for something online beforehand). At least read what each shortcut does and use them. Or at least use F2. This will save you a lot of time. You can also set the keys in the settings. BTW DotP also has some shortcuts that come handy and settings that can help (for example setting a stop when priority is passed, I'm not good with playing counterspells in DotP). Unfortunately no F2/F4/F6 and the like.

As a casual player I wouldn't actually mind buying cards for a deck for those 5 tix and play with it. In the Play Lobby under Constructed Open Play there are four different categories - Just Starting Out, Just For Fun, Getting Serious and Tournament Practice. Depending on your deck's power level you can choose one of these categories and host a match. This way you limit the power level a bit. In DotP the card collection is the same for all players (well not always as some people have the expansions and some don't) so the power level of the decks is more or less the same. The sealed pools can differ quite a lot but still it's not like playing crappy draft deck against tier 1 legacy. On MODO you can play against someone with expensive and good cards but under the right category in the most cases you will find games that are actually fun. Or at least that happens to me when I try to play some casual games. It will certainly depend on the format (if the format is not supported by WotC you can save your decklist as Freeform and play that. For example if you and your friend want to play French EDH and the cards you have in your deck are banned in the official EDH). If you want to play casual legacy (or any eternal format with the exception of pauper) it will mean that the power level of opponent's cards can be way higher than yours for example but you need to keep that in mind. Still it can be lots f fun. Some players stated that casual playing is more about a social aspect. In this case playing either 'game' won't be good enough I guess but if there is no other way for your friends to play at one place, you can still use MODO or DotP and have fun (I haven't tried the Invite player in DotP, always played against random opponents, but it supposedly let's you play against someone you want to play).
I have to say that the primary reason why I came back to MODO is that I was fed up with the players at the local tournaments. I just couldn't stand them and that is why I decided to play on MODO so I wouldn't need to listen to them.

In the era of tablets and phones being able to run complex games one would expect the possibility to play MODO on such a device. I wouldn't personally but there are people that actually told me that this is an issue. I personally cannot imagine playing MODO on my cell phone. I need to be somewhere where it is calm and I'm not distracted by many other things. WotC though should make MODO work on iOS (or at least last time I checked few years ago it wasn't compatible). Seriously I sometimes wonder if they test the new sets. Because many times there are bugs that are really HUGE problems. When talking about bugs...DotP is actually even more bugged than MODO. Sometimes it will do something that should not happen at all or just crashes. I played DotP on both computer and iOS and both versions were problematic.

So do Wizards of the Coast want more players playing on MODO? If yes, they really should start to do something about it. Nowadays there are other digital card games that have some kind of player base. In some cases huge (Hearthstone) and in some cases small (SolForge) but well WotC should see that there starts to be a competition. Or maybe they do not care, there will always be few million people playing MODO...

tl;tr: MODO is for those who want to experience the full Magic experience no matter if that is for casual playing or competitive one. Surely most players will be highly competitive. Being good and winning tournaments means that one can play for free. Otherwise it costs a fortune, same way it costs IRL. MODO simulates fully paper magic so it comes with everything from playing different formats casually, competitively, trading (secondary market) or buying product from wotc. It is free to try but otherwise you pay for everything.
DotP is a game that for a small fee (10USD) can allow a player to experience some kind of casual Magic games either against AI or other players from all around the world be it 1-on-1 games or multiplayer. Each DotP has different modes and decks so the variety is actually pretty big (there is Planechase and Archenemy available for example). I honestly like dotp12 the most because of its decks. The earlier games in general have access to more powerful cards or more cards from kinda everywhere than the newer games. The newer games though are more suited for beginning players and allow more 'deckbuilding' experience and the games are more balanced. None of these games though will allow you the real deckbuilding experience (who knows what Magic Origins will be like) but that also avoids the fact that your deck gets wrecked by tier 1 legacy deck. DotP games have expansions and those bring new cards. Those cards are not from core sets usually so they bring more variability.