Has a swish interface; very impressive implementation of the rules - it is pretty much impossible to do anything that's illegal in paper-Magic tournaments; you never need more than 4 of each electronic card no matter how many decks you have; and so on. Importantly, makes it very easy to meet people to play games with, at any hour of the day or night. Supports both Constructed and Limited tournaments with prizes, and casual play - and of course trading of cards in your electronic collection.
Caused quite a lot of controversy, because the electronic booster packs cost just as much as their cardboard counterparts. "But I'm not getting anything for my money!", came the cry from all over the Net (along with "There's no way people will pay to play that!"). But, um, it's become incredibly popular. After all, the inherent monetary value of a non-physical card in an electronic collection isn't that much less than the inherent value of, um, a rectangle of cardboard with a pretty picture on it...
But, but, physical pieces of card with pictures on are nice to have! -- Senji
They fill boxes and are only representative of concepts. Though they can be handy if you need a bit of insulation, or a toothpick... I think it's a (predictable) shame that they went on the 'sell boosters' idea instead of giving everyone full access. --Vitenka
Admittedly Magic cards are less cool in this regard than B5 cards or LotR? cards (which have actual scenes on them). -- Senji
Has anyone managed to cash in their "collect one of everything electronically and we'll give you the real thing" offer yet? Also, how many things that you can do in RealLife are you unable to do in the online version? (Or, perhaps, unable to do easily) And WhateverHappenedTo? Apprentice? --Vitenka (Apprentice had the advantage of being able to play any game - it just presented a virtual table. But it had the disadvantage of being not very easy to use).
I haven't used the whole set redemption feature, but I know people who have and it seems to be fine for them. Using crap commons as proxies is unfortunately not possible online, as well as using any pre-Invasion cards (they are soon having a promotion where 3 early cards (to be voted on) will be reprinted and each player who logged on during a certain week receives one copy of a random one of the three that may be used in Open constructed play). It is a lot easier to trade for cards you need, play a draft at whatever time of the morning, etc. etc.... If anyone wants to try it out, feel free to use my account next time you visit TheShrubbery. As long as you don't trade away all my cards to a guy named Bob. --Qqzm
Why Bob?
ChrisHowlett is distressingly tempted. Feel free to (per/dis)suade here.
Snapdragon has decided to give the thing a whirl, and grabbed a Core Set thingy last weekend, it looks pretty cool, and he promises to not waste loads of money, and to only join the occassional league. Honest. His user name is Smoke_Wolf, and he intends to find some time to play real soon now.