[dirtyaura]

To me Hearthstone didn't feel grindy at all compared to almost any other top IAP game available in App Store. I think Hearthstone hit a pretty good balance for freemium IAP model, I never felt that I had to pay to be able to play, unlike in most of the other freemium IAP games.

I agree that classing causes a bit too predicable deck strategies, MtG felt more balanced on this aspect.

What Hearthstone got right was the flow: they had to remove instants and introduce secrets and taunts, but with that they achieved an excellent flow for a turn-based card game.

[matchu]

I suspect that MtG's big advantage here is having a ton more cards. Hearthstone's meta is pretty straightforward because there are only a handful of cards to work with right now, but the upcoming Naxxramus mini-expansion should make things more interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing what'll happen when they finally produce a full expansion.

[_raoulcousins]

How do you define straightforward? Magic has a lot of cards, but formats restrict* the pool of cards that can be used, and within each format's legal cards, the majority of them are unplayable.

*(in the colloquial sense of the word restrict, except in vintage (and trivially in commander/EDH/Australian Highlander/Chromandercore), where cards are restricted in the magic sense of the words restrict)

[zequel]

From what I understand though is magic still ton of cards compared to HS, HS has ~ 320, isn't that much smaller than Magic, even with restrictions? I think the meta will be a lot more interesting once they expand the pool, HS is still a very young game.