MTG is pay to win (or at least has a very high table stakes) because most of the skill comes in deckbuilding not in play. There aren't enough play decisions in the game to gain a large piloting edge consistently. When most of the skill is deckbuilding you basically need access to the whole pool of cards in order to play the best deck for the current metagame (this changes a lot online). For example, bant shift was a really good deck for GP denver, it was a very bad deck within a week after GP denver as people were prepared for it and played decks that had good matchups vs it.

I think you can only make a case for the game being pay to win.

"Once you've spent a bit of money on some cards" means I can be the greatest player of all time, but if I haven't paid for the cards, I can't win. They don't just give you these cards for being good. You can't find them scattered around the environment. You have to buy them, somehow.

What is pay to win in your mind? The phrase generally means "no matter how good you are, if you are unable to buy a certain set of cards you can't truly compete in the meta". There are more or less expensive decks, but typically the cheapest of the best decks in any format cost $50+

Edit- This is for constructed formats. Obviously sealed is more of a pure skill, low cost format.

What you're saying is akin to saying Golf is pay to win because you can't play without clubs.

Yes, you need cards to play, but in my mind pay to win means the amount you've spent outweighs your skill at the game. There are plenty of games like that, and I'd argue Magic isn't one. You can do really well in Magic with a cheap deck and I have seen plenty of people lose hard after buying the most expensive popular deck that they didn't know how to play.

Sure, a highly skilled player can beat a less skilled player regardless of deck, but at similar skill levels, the player with the better cards is going to win. If cards couldn't give you an advantage, they'd all be the same price.

You can say the exact same thing about any sports equipment. But I don't think this is how most people define "pay-to-win."

There is a higher entry price than most other games of skill, yes.

However, "pay to win" is generally understood to mean that there are significant marginal returns to spending thousands of dollars past the entry price paid by the typical player. This isn't really true of Magic: the Gathering.

I've never seen a game where, assuming everyone had unlimited funds and was able to buy anything, that skill didn't then come into play to decide who was the best player.

"Pay-to-win" is one of those weasel phrases that doesn't really mean anything specifically.

What is a game that represents "pay-to-win" in your mind? I think the definition you're using might be "generally understood" but it also might be generally understood that "pay-to-win" means "high[1] cost of entry"

[1]-high cost is relative to each person. could be 10 bucks, could be $1,000

""Pay-to-win" is one of those weasel phrases that doesn't really mean anything specifically."

I can't answer your question because I tend to stay far away from "collectible" games.

But, if 13-year-old you scrapes together your lunch money and buys a "Magic: The Gathering Spellslinger Starter Kit Core Set 2020" (https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Gathering-Spellslinger-Starter-...), are they going to be routinely beaten by someone who spends $100 on booster packs? Assuming roughly similar skill levels, that is?

Magic can be money-positive for decent players (ignoring opportunity cost). I don't mean pros - if you're just good enough to win prizes at local tournaments and you keep abreast of card prices the hobby can more or less finance itself.

I'm just going to keep spamming this: Can someone name a "Pay-to-win" game for me? A game where money, and not skill, is what wins you the game? I think the greater point I'm going for here is that if magic isn't pay-to-win, then there's no such thing as a pay-to-win game.

Yes, there are lots of freemium mobile games which satisfy the "pay-to-win" definition I gave in a way that Magic: the Gathering does not. (Clash of Clans and Clash Royale are two very popular examples that I'm aware of.)

The two examples you gave don't prove your point. If you want to play those games at a high level, you need a good account with access to the good game pieces. Technically, you can acquire those pieces entirely for free by investing lots of time into the games (something that's entirely impossible with paper M:tG). This is literally the same as saying "to play high level Magic you need to have a good deck, but that's just the cost of playing the game".

If Magic =/= pay-to-win then neither do those 2 specific examples you just gave.

I don't believe there is a competitive (read: >2 players) game that is "pay-to-win" if you feel that magic isn't pay-to-win

At least the last time I checked, most Clash Royale and Clash of Clans players don't play with the best game pieces, because too much grinding or money is required for it to be worthwhile. In contrast, a much larger fraction of M:tG players (though still small in absolute terms) play with all the game pieces they want, and are only idea- and skill-limited.

Yes, in some sense the difference between M:tG's "~$50-500 for the best game pieces, or to enter major Limited tourneys where everyone is forced to start from scratch, for a year; only skill matters from there" and Clash Royale's "~$5000, or an amount of time and attention worth >$5000, for the best game pieces, otherwise you're strictly behind someone with higher-level versions of your pieces" is only one of degree. But again, a far larger fraction of M:tG games involve both players playing with what they consider the best pieces. I don't believe I'm the only one who sees this as amounting in practice to a difference in kind.

Yu-Gi-Oh is pay to win. The continuous power-creep ensures it.

Krark-Clan Ironorks was not an expensive deck(comparatively) prior to its dominance of the modern format. If you're good enough at deck building building relatively cheap decks that bust the meta is do-able.