No, it's just a really expensive game with a subscription model. What's the price to pay to get four copies of each card in every standard set? That's your quarterly subscription fee.
It would be pay-to-win if you could do stuff like, pay a fee to take a second card at once during a draft, or tutor a card from your collection during a game, etc...
Right, it's technically just expensive and that's the thing that may leave some players behind, but I bet that at competitive level, players are not missing any card they need.
Similarly with F1 after the cost caps. If you had 135M you could compete with no monetary disadvantage.
That would be a true description of any pay-to-win game — if you just buy everything available to be purchased, then you’re playing on a level-playing field.
But using this description, then the only truly pay-to-win game would be one where the win condition is literally an auction selling a “you win!” token.
I'd go around money advantage being way too significant and the money cap way too high or non-existent. Otherwise every game is kind of pay to win as getting your hands on one more chess book, or getting a better tennis racket gets you an advantage.
While mtg is not cheap, I would say that only older cards get crazy expensive and sometimes are straight out overpowered.
I think it's pay to win in the sense that there are multiple subscription tiers, and if you only pay for basic, you're not winning against the players paying for gold++.
That is exactly what "pay to win" means in the parlance of our times: the more you pay, the better chance you have to win. Tiers vs continuum doesn't matter here. The important part is that players with the same skill must decide how much money to pay the manufacturer to gain advantages over other players. If everyone had to buy the full set every quarter, then it would not be pay to win, it would just be a very expensive subscription game. There are things like sealed deck drafts where everyone agrees to buy in at the same price so that everyone can compete on skill. But there is a reason WotC doesn't allow proxy cards (just printing an unofficial copy of a card or a piece of paper with the name of the card), because they make a ton of money from the pay to win dynamic.
I agree that "tiers vs. continuum" has no bearing on the question of whether or not Magic: The Gathering is pay-to-win. I was merely pointing out that what tedunangst was describing was a continuum, not tiers.
Obviously, I'm not articulating my perspective very persuasively. Here's some additional flavor that might help (probably won't:)
1. In Magic: The Gathering, the most expensive deck is not always (or even ever, really) the best.
2. Is Golf pay-to-win? I can spend more on a set of clubs that have bigger sweet spots & will give me more distance with the same swing than my opponent's set.
3. The term "pay-to-win" comes from free-to-play MMOs.
I think most people that claim MTG is pay-to-win are just frustrated by how expensive it is. I agree. Don't play it!
1. I'd expect that in most pay-to-win video games, the top players are not also the top spenders. Depends on the amount of strategy and skill required.
2. No, because the people writing the rules of Golf aren't the ones that sell you clubs (as far as I know. Maybe there's some devious stuff going on behind the scenes).
3. Correct.
While I don't think "money is the only thing that determines the winner", Magic is absolutely is pay-to-win. It would not be pay-to-win if people could print their own cards (following a set of standards, of course), even though printing costs money.
That (and pauper) are the best ways to play. Or using preconstructed decks.
Trying to be competitive in Modern or Standard or even EDH requires spending at least $500+ per deck unfortunately (Vintage & Legacy even more I'm guessing). Though if you have a group of friends who play casually, it can be fun.
The most fun I had was a company MTG bracket where we opened a new pack once a week. We'd keep the same cards throughout the whole block (3 sets back in the day, so quite a while). Trades were allowed but only between the same rarity. So everyone had to build a deck with (roughly) equal power, and had to think of a relatively original deck using the cards available to them.
There was still some metagaming. Getting ahold of mythics had a greater degree of randomness, and if you had a buddy that was running a separate color deck you could effectively pool cards.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While that's a criticism that can be made of the game, it has nothing to do what's going on here. The card is perfectly available normally; it's simply the card with this particular frame treatment and artwork that there's only one of.
