Digital vs. Paper Meta
General forum
Posted on May 8, 2022, 9:05 p.m. by Icbrgr
Does anyone know if there is a noticeable difference in a Meta between Digital and Paper tournaments?
I ask the question from a financially motivated perspective. Sure new cards/techs may be printed as time goes on... but also the pricetag to get the latest and greatest can be pretty daunting... although I'm not certain about this but I'm assuming it costs less money to play with digital cards/rent decks on MTGO rather than to get paper cards.
If that's true...
I'm more or less curious if the paper and digital organized play meta match each other or if there is a more noticeable presence of older cards/strategies used in paper play.
psionictemplar says... #3
One thing to keep in mind is that online events often lack certain decks that are hard to perform. And by that I am referring to decks that require a lot of repetitive actions and the like. You would see these decks in paper more since the loops can be shortcut to save time. It usually doesn't make a big difference in the meta, but something to note regardless.
May 8, 2022 11:24 p.m.
Unless you are playing wanting to play something like 4C Money Pile in Modern, rental services will probably be cheaper and let you experiment more easily. You can also rent while saving to buy.
As far as the meta goes, a store's weekly Modern event will have more budget decks, un-updated lists, and pet decks than a major tournament would. But if your store has "Grinders" who actively follow format news, you'll still see the major decks of a format often winning. And the upper half of a major paper tournament will look like MTGO challenge results with a few minor differences. It's more likely to be changes in the flex slots of decks than seeing radically different archetypes.
May 9, 2022 3:59 p.m.
That falls in line very much with what my gut tells me... but truthfully I have never participated in MTGO events ever and I haven't played actual organized play in YEARS and it was only at a handful of LGS around the original zendikar block timeframe... so I'm far from really "in touch" with what's really going on outside of articles and hearing my brother's war stories about what he sees when he goes to play (a lot of living end/cascade decks where he plays).
May 9, 2022 4:19 p.m.
Stardragon says... #6
Also don't forget that if dump money into digital and they decide to discontinue the service you lost all the money you dumped into it (maynot be likely but it can and has happened in the past). while the piece of cardboard you buy from shops and online will always have some worth now matter how little and you can recuperate some of that loss if you need to even if wizards discontinues Magic and shuts down. Just food for thought
wallisface says... #2
Something to note that’s actually completely non-intuitive: Paper decks and decks bought on MTGO will end up costing around the same amount of money. And, buying a deck on MTGA is by a large margin more expensive than both those other options.
This article is a bit old now, but might help with your decision process
May 8, 2022 9:40 p.m.