Hello MTGO

I installed Magic Online III onto Voldemort last week... and I have to admit, despite taking 8 hours to download and install, it is really getting me to think...

PROS:

1. I can play at any spare time that I have, at the comfort of my own home -- no need to pay for gas to drive to Galleria, or to get an MRT ticket to Ortigas.
2. Cards are a lot cheaper in MTGO -- Good staple cards are still expensive (Tarmogoyfs cost around 30 tickets or around 1,300+ PhP), but uncommons and even some of the good rare cards are a lot cheaper than their paper counterparts. Imperious Perfect is just 2 for 1 ticket (~25PhP each). Wilt-Leaf Liege is just 3 tix (~140PhP). Lands are also at 3, sometimes even 2 tix each (~90PhP). You get the point.
   
3. It's a lot easier to find people to play with -- You wanna play Standard? Just create a game, and within seconds, another player will come to join you. You wanna draft? Just get 3 packs and 2 tix, and you're good to go.
4. Rules enforcement -- The biggest difference between MTGO and other free MTG software (ie. MWS). No more debates as to how certain triggers stack up, or how certain card interactions affect the game. Everything just happens, as they should.

CONS:

1. A brand new investment to an empty card pool -- I just tried to draft SHA-SHA-SHA last weekend, so basically my binder just consists of those 45 cards, plus the initial set of cards that I got free from the 9th edition starter kit. My most (and only) "expensive" card at the moment is a Mystic Gate, which I even have a hard time selling at 3 tickets. (Note: 1 ticket = $1)
2. Making a new investment means I have to, at least, partially say goodbye to my paper magic collection. *sob sob*
3. Playing against someone over the Internet is no match to actually seeing your opponent face-to-face. You don't see their violent reactions when they topdeck... or their sad faces when they lose... or their jubilant faces when they win.
4. Magic is a CARD game. But the fact is, in MTGO, you don't actually get to HOLD the cards.

Oh yeah. This is really making me think. Perhaps as a "middle ground", I'll just draft every now and then (maybe once a month) in MTGO. That's something that I never get the chance to do in real life, and it's something that I really had fun doing last weekend.

But I have to admit, I WAS seriously computing the amount I would need to build a decent Standard deck in MTGO last night. And from my computation, a fair investment of 1,500 PhP would get the job done (spent on a GW Aggro or a mono-red deck).

Hmm... should I take the plunge?