Magic: Online is slowly being bled out by Wizards in favor of their new Hearthstone-like digital client.
That said, the best way to play today is Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice. Free. High level of play. The best cards. There’s almost always a game going.
What/where can I find this? never heard of it and never had much fun/luck with magic online but would love to be able to play online
Install. Log on. Make a deck and join a game or jump into a draft. There's two Dominaria drafts filling up right now. There's no rules engine and it's a bit janky at first, but you can play magic against a real human 24/7 for free.
On cockatrice...? I love doing a cockatrice cube but this is simply not true.
The wholesomeness of Friday Night Magic is highly dependent on what your LGS scene happens to be like though, that part hasn't changed too much.
Magic's player base is bigger and more vibrant than it's ever been, and I think by most metrics Limited (Draft, Sealed) and Casual (e.g. Commander) formats are more fun and accessible than they've ever been before. For older formats like Legacy and Vintage (even Modern to an extent), card availability can present an insurmountable financial obstacle to play, unfortunately.
Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock.
Creatures have steadily grown in power while non-creature spells have fallen in power quite a bit. The designers of the game concluded that making the game more creature-centric lead to more interesting gameplay decisions. Power level overall has been trending downwards if anything.
My modern deck plays entirely creatures, and entirely humans. It has duress, thorn of amethyst, nevermore, and into the roil main, with the option of getting disenchant, rule of law, and electroylze out of the side... as humans. It's effectively made spells obsolete, since the spell you want is probably a creature now.
- increased the cost of blue spells that counter creatures, because new players get sad when their monsters get countered
- started giving evasion abilities to many more creatures, since new players get sad when their monsters get blocked
It also seem like they're pushing for online more they've release a new online client that only deal with current cards and beyond iirc Magic Arena but the card economy there suck for some reason. I only hear this from a twitch streamer Hoogland in term of what happening to Arena. Jeff Hoogland also talk about the tournament is getting bigger but they've never up the prizes.
A while back there were a few very very alt-right like personalities in the magic scene. It got pretty bad when one of them sic his fanbase against a cosplayer and she end up with threats and decided to quit. The cosplayer announced it via twitter or something saying she's selling everything. That dude got banned. Another dude also got banned cause he read Mien Komf (hitler book) and edgelord online.
Advent of twitch have made making side money with video games a thing so yeah. That's what sup with magic scene it went digital.
Prerelease events moved from regional events at huge convention centers, to store-level, in a bid to help stores.
They stop releasing or giving promo cards they only give foil token cards now.
FNM promos are back to being cards, not tokens, and you still get a promo at prerelease, promo cards as prizes or for participation at certain events, a promo for buying a box of the new set from your local shop, etc.
It doesn't seem like they supporting hobbyshop as much.
A number of changes, including prereleases, PPTQs, exclusive products, exclusive promos, all are geared toward getting people into their local game shop since that's the only place to get those things initially.
The game itself is in a bit of an odd spot. Standard (aka type 2) has been very unbalanced in recent years with many cards being banned, and sometimes emergency banned. Many players are opting to play modern rather than standard, since standard has had it's problems. The sets themselves actually look really fun, but since so many ideas have already been explored, the mechanics are getting more unique, and that can lead to odd interactions between cards which makes it harder to balance. I might be a little off since I'm not very active in the scene right now though.
I'm still a huge fan though I don't really have time to play anymore. I do have a cube for drafting that I'll bring out with friends every once in a while though.
It's very, very similar to MTG in terms of mechanics and skill cap, and it is not bound by a paper-compatible limit on mechanics. It's all I play these days.
I've also played Duelyst, which is a hybrid card and board game. I like it, but I wish they would release it for mobile already. I'd usually pick another game if I'm sitting at a PC.
Differences today: FNM is still available, relatively inexpensive, and fun. EDH is now a common format, but I never enjoyed it. League is also a common format: you play three matches per week for four weeks. The first week you start with three booster packs, and then each week afterwards you open another pack, and you can rebuild your deck as much as you like. You're paying something like $20 for cards and you get four weeks of games out of it.
I don't care for constructed play but part of that might be the fact that 2003 and 2017 had problems with standard constructed.
Other than that, my favorite game mode in MTG has always been drafting, and while drafting free to play is probably not possible right now unless you are amazing, you can draft a lot for little money. I have a win rate under 50% and I can play all the drafts I want to for about 20 dollars per month. If I was a better player, it would be even cheaper.
"Paper" Magic is still very popular, with a big 1000+ tournament happening throughout the US (and the world) every weekend.
The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymore. A pack of cards is $3.99 (or $9.99 for special sets). A competitive deck of cards can run $150-350 for the "Standard" format (only cards from the past 1-2 years) or $700-1500+ for "Modern" (most every card from 2003 onward).
The entry fees where I live for constructed formats are around $5 or not much higher, and that's for New York City.
Limited was around $20-25, last I checked, and the bulk of that is the cost of the cards you're purchasing as part of the event.
There's some neat new things. There's the Commander format, which is neat. I've got no idea what semi-pro/pro playing looks like these days, but they've managed to keep it fun and interesting. I've only played a dozen games in the past 2 years with friends decks, but I like where they've gone.
Mana burn is gone!
Magic is still pretty expensive, though.