"This wasn't just nostalgia talking. There seems to be something objectively more magical, more infinite-seeming and treasurable about this smaller, more limited version of Magic."

Not that I ever had the chance to play the pre-release version of the game, but the explosion of complexity has made me yearn for exactly this, a "smaller, more limited version"... so much so that I wrote https://twmtg.computerpho.be/ to try and capture it (and also, admittedly, as a bit of a joke/dig)