Magic: the Gathering is good?

Magic: the Gathering is good! If you play it online and don't spend any money.

There are three major reasons that Magic: the Gathering sucks.

1. Costs too much. You have to keep buying cards just to play, and you have to spend a lot to get the specific cards that you want. It's not quite pay-to-win because there's definitely diminishing returns on spending larger amounts, but you need to spend some to play at all and spend a bit more to play decently at even a casual level.
2. It's played by nerds. You have to go into nerd shops and spend time with nerds. It sucks. Even the good ones, where they enforce cleanliness standards and kick people out for open racism, misogyny, etc., are still nerd shops full of nerds. Someone will try to talk to you about anime.
3. Magic: the Gathering players are obsessed with Magic: the Gathering. It takes investment, so it makes sense, but if you don't care about tournaments or learning the top-level strategies then you're going to be stuck playing the same small group of people who frequent your local nerd shop.

And none of those apply online. You can spend money, but it's by no means mandatory; I'm having a good time and I haven't spent a cent. There's an extremely limited chat feature that lets you say canned phrases, so you don't have to talk to nerds about nerd shit, but you can also turn it off entirely so you don't even  have to say "hello" or hear them say "good game" when they utterly destroy you on turn three. And there's an entire world of players so there are always people on your level. If you want the top level competition, it's there. If you just want to fuck around with a casual deck, you can do that and win a decent percentage of games - and never play the same opponent with the same deck twice.

I managed a couple of really satisfying wins tonight with my current deck (listed below). This first game, I had a really bad start. I was on the defensive right from the beginning. Even once I got Liesa out I was still very much on the back foot. I went below 0 Life multiple times, only saved by her Lifelink ability. But through stubborn perseverance, I wore my opponent down, whittling away her creatures until she gave up. I'm not even sure I'd have won from this point, although I was certainly in a much healthier position than I'd been up till then.

The second victory was touch and go for a moment; there was one point, assigning blockers, where I had to use up two timer extensions to make sure I didn't fuck it up. After playing defensively early on, and being stuck with no (and eventually one) white mana source for several turns, it took a while before I could do anything other than lose slowly. I got so used to it that I didn't notice, at first, that victory was in my grasp. In fact, it was only after reviewing the table at the end of the match that I realised I hadn't even needed to kill my opponent's last two flyers, because she only had 7 Life left and I could have just attacked with four Angels instead of two and got her anyway. But I probably would have done it this way regardless just because it feels a bit safer. I never like to put all my eggs in one basket.

Anyway, he's my current decklist:

Creatures	Spells	Land
4 x Angelic Quartermaster 2 x Crawling Chorus 4 x Bilious Skulldweller 2 x Blightbelly Rat 2 x Giada, Font of Hope 4 x Inspiring Overseer 2 x Liesa, Forgotten Archangel 2 x Pestilent Syphoner 4 x Spirited Companion	4 x Borrowed Time 2 x Diabolic Intent 4 x Infernal Grasp 2 x Phyrexian Arena	7 Plains 4 Scoured Barrens 4 Shattered Sanctum 7 Swamp

I think the lands and spells are good as they are and I don't plan to make any changes there, but I'm not so sure about the creatures. I don't think those Crawling Choruses are pulling their weight. I do like having something at that one-white cost though. I wish Segovian Angel was legal in Standard because I'd chuck four of those in there in place of the Choruses and Blightbelly Rats, but it isn't. I might get rid of the Rats anyway and replace them with two more Pestilent Syphoners, because I think Flying is more valuable than the extra power and toughness - and Proliferate is essentially meaningless in this deck since I'm not trying to win with poison anyway; the low-cost Toxic creatures are just there to put some pressure on my opponent early on.

Giada's another one who doesn't seem to be pulling her weight. She's great when she works, but for some reason it just doesn't seem to happen much. Despite there only being two copies of both (because they're Legendary and therefore can't have duplicates in play), Liesa gets consistent use but Giada just doesn't. Probably because Liesa is bigger (and therefore harder to kill) and I'm far more likely to search up Liesa with a Diabolic Intent. Even if I've already got Liesa out, I'll generally go for an Angelic Quartermaster over Giada.

What is definitely working though are the Bilious Skulldwellers, Inspiring Overseers, and Spirited Companions. The first is a great threat to have in play; attacking with it forces the opponent to make some hard choices, and holding it back to defend with really disincentivises attacking me with their good creatures. The Overseers and Companions are mostly cannon fodder once they get into play, but they can often be traded well, and that card draw when you play them is a lifesaver.