How I dearly wanted us to get along.īeing the ur-CCG, Magic Arena is quite a bit more complex than more contemporary digital shufflers like Hearthstone. It's still a lot more generous than Valve's Artifact, which had the same basic model of buying packs while forcing an up-front payment and sported no real means of earning new cards. Of course, you can always shell out for more, and there's the usual free-to-play assortment of colourful trinkets to dress up your cards, avatars and pets. Arena then immediately tosses you five decks for keepsies and sets you loose into the world.

Once downloaded, you'll instantly be dropped into a series of tutorials that show you the ropes (Without Carl Weathers' wizardly input, sadly).

Spend some time brushing up with AI foes or strangers online, and work out a battle plan for the next time you face dastardly Kevin in the local geek shop. Plus, it seems like newer card packs in the real world will come with codes to redeem in the digital arena. You've got Apollo Creed there, I'll let you have this one.Īrena is, basically, the decades-old card game but on your PC, meaning your carefully honed skillset (or lack thereof) should transfer nicely from one to the other. Oh, we're doing the 80s thing again? Fine, Magic. Magic: The Gathering Arena, an entirely online way to play the ancient card game, has left beta and is free to download in its final(ish) form right now. Thankfully there's a new way to play without making a mess. I'll stick with flooding our own flat with tiny plastic people, thank you very much. In one, they had enough dud cards to make a beautiful tree collage right up the side of the living room wall. I've never been in the home of a Magic player where old cards weren't spilling from every drawer, scattered on every floor. I've always been a little terrified of Magic: The Gathering.

Magic the gathering free to play