[TillE]

The most popular formats of Magic by far are "kitchen table" (totally casual, play with whatever cards you own), and Commander, a casual multiplayer format where super-powerful decks are generally frowned upon.

Competitive Magic is a tiny tiny fraction of the overall market. It's also totally possible and reasonable to build competitive decks on Arena with a pure F2P account, if you're into that.

[tourmalinetaco]

It’s still P2W, because more money = more power. The goal in those situations is to have fun, not win, so inherently P2W is lessened. However that does not mean it doesn’t exist. It’s still a very real problem that’s only getting worse, regardless of whether you care or not.

[stavros]

I really hate people making the argument that "it's not pay-to-win, because you can win without paying!".

Pay-to-win doesn't mean you only win if you pay. It just gives you an edge if you do, and it's shitty. This is why I used to like DotA 2, to the extent that someone can like DotA 2, because all purchases were purely cosmetic and didn't affect gameplay at all.

[ImprovedSilence]

I kinda disagree. There's clearly a cap, where you can't spend anymore to get any better/more powerful cards. At competitive levels, it really doesn't matter. Every kid that plays hockey needs $500+ in gear, but you wouldn't call hockey pay to win. So what if everyone that plays "competitive" magic needs $500 to build out a deck, that's just the cost, it doesn't escalate wildly from there. There is also the very popular sealed draft that all the local joints run. Yeah its pay to play cuz you gotta buy 3 sealed packs. but in no way is it pay to win.

[tourmalinetaco]

I kinda agree, but I still consider it P2W. It doesn’t matter if that’s the standard “fare”, its an insane and arbitrary barrier to entry. Hockey is a horrible comparison, by the way. Because that $500+ is mostly for gear so you don’t get yourself killed. In Magic, that would be at best comparable to your deck box, binder, sleeves, etc.

For instance, in Modern due to a strong mana base and other expensive staples you can easily reach $500 for a midtier deck. One can argue this is “pay to play”, but there is no logical reason for these costs. It’s cardboard. Typically decade old cardboard. Wizards is playing with what is called “reprint equity” so they never make a set “too” good and “burn through” their backlog too quickly. To me its an excuse to profit off the secondary market.

Legacy is even worse, as the P2W is that at any decent level you are required to have the consistency of Dual Lands and various other strong pieces of mana to be competitive. It’s why decks typically cost a few grand on average. This is due to the Reserved List making it impossible to get such important cards via reprints.

And finally, on the extreme end you have Vintage, where the decks are primarily built around the most expensive and powerful cards in the entire game. Including the Power Nine. Decks here typically cost as much as a car regardless of level.

[Fomite]

Somewhat reductively, that means all games are pay to win, because at the extreme, having enough money to retire, devote yourself to the game, hire tutors, etc. = more power.

[stavros]

As you say, this is so reductive as to be meaningless (it includes all games, so you might as well just say "game"). Pay-to-win means you pay the company to get an edge in the game.

[throwaway675309]

Not really. You could have Scrooge McDuck vault levels of gold and all the training time in the world and you'll probably still get absolutely destroyed by Gary Kasparov in a casual game of chess.

There's always a genetic component that influences your min and max levels at any given skill.

[Fomite]

The assertion was more power, not infinite power.

You might not beat Gary Kasparov, but if you retired, hired a coach, and devoted yourself to chess, you would be better than your counterfactual equivalent who doesn't.

[pclark]

Casual Commander remains my all time favourite game. I miss playing it so much!