Magic 2015 vs Magic Duels vs Magic the Gathering Online

[Spites]

Soooo.... what exactly is the difference here?

[Raziel]

Wow, this board is dead. You probably already found your answer elsewhere by now, but I'll post this for anyone in the future who has the same question.

Magic Online (MTGO for short) is the oldest one, has almost every card available from paper Magic, and has all sorts of modes and events. The downside? You have to pay for practically everything and it ends up being only slightly less expensive than paper Magic. In short, it's for Pros or those looking to be, or just plain people who have money to burn on digital cards and events.

Magic 2015 and Magic Duels are another catagory of games (made by the same developer, as with Magic Duels of the Planeswalkers [1st one] and then Magic 2012-2015) made for newer or more casual players. The cards available are more limited, but generally speaking, everything can be acquired for free after getting the initial game.

I am assuming the Magic Duels you're referring to is the most recent free to play one. Magic 2015 is actually the most like it out of the others (almost like a precursor) since you can build your own decks from scratch out of the cards available. The previous ones all used this system that's kinda hard to explain but easily understandable when you play them, where you unlock different premade decks in the campaign and then unlock cards you can add to only that specific deck when you win with it (yes, this meant some decks that start out weak were really annoying to get over the "hill" before you unlocked better cards to switch out).

Anyways, a lot of people wanted to build their own decks, even though to prebuilt decks had some advantages for newer players. So, they did that in Magic 2015, but then people complained they did it wrong. The problem with premium boosters existing has been fixed, but you still should take great care to select the starter deck you like best before leaving the tutorial, cause you won't unlock enough cards to build a decent deck in other colors until halfway through the campaign (unless you paid for unlocks, but everything can be unlocked for free by playing the campaign, and then winning in multiplayer matches, which I suggest doing after beating the campaign and expansion).

The newest free to play Magic Duels fixes this by giving you a starter set of cards you can build multiple decks out of (from what I know, I'll probably start it soon now that I'm sort of done with Magic 2015). However, since it's free to play, you unlock cards slower (unless you pay of course), but it still seems like you can unlock everything for free and there is not too bad of a paywall as in some other games. Also, it looks like they plan to simply update this game with more unlockable cards every few sets (from paper Magic) instead of releasing a new game every year, which caused many people to complain about not being able to keep cards from previous games. Also, the older games had cool game modes like Archenemy and Planechase from paper Magic that weren't carried over between games. If you're interested in that stuff, it might even be worth checking out the older ones for those specific modes, or if you think you'd prefer the selecting pre built decks style.

Sorry that turned out longer than I expected. TLDR:

Play MTGO if you have cash to burn and want all the things.
Added by me: Play older Magic 2012-2014 games if you like cool variant game modes and/or selecting and modifying pre built decks.
Play Magic 2015 if you like being able to build your own decks, with the knowledge that you have to get halfway through the campaign (or buy unlocks) before you can really experiment with different decks. Also, the game is finished, so the pool of cards is now the same forever (this can be good or bad depending on your point of view), as compared to-
Play Magic Duels if you like building your own decks with a game that is planned to be updated with new cards from new paper Magic sets for who knows how long, and is free to play, but a bit slower with unlocking cards (unless you pay, of course).

Hope this is helpful for people in the future who wonder this. I am leaving this wasteland now for Magic Duels myself soon. This wall of text will remain as my monument. :P XD ^_^V

[GA01]

Thank you for your excellent and informative reply.

[One death guy]

did they implemented 2hg in 2015?

[mana-flux]

Originally posted by wolfwood444 vel Bazi:

did they implemented 2hg in 2015?

No, but 2hg is in Magic Duels. 2015 has 2p Versus and Free for All with 3 or 4 players.