In high school I was one of those kids who sat at the big circular cafeteria lunch table with a bunch of my nerd friends, playing as much Magic: The Gathering as we could before the bell rang for third period.

I have very fond memories of building the most ridiculous decks I could to make my friends laugh/hate me: the five-color endless Sliver token generator, the creature-less "burn everything down" red deck, the zombie-cleric resurrection/lifeheal deck that just...wouldn't...die, the "counterspell variety pack" (nobody could play anything), a "ping" deck (where every creature had an ability like "tap to deal direct damage to something"), and even a deck made entirely of non-attacking "wall" cards ?

I fell out of the game after graduating in 2004, eventually selling all my cards off to a friend and moving on with my life. That was a sad day. Haven't bought an MtG card since.

But! Now I don't have to simply reminisce about those days anymore, because Magic: The Gathering Arena has come out for iOS (and Android)! And let me tell you, I am having a lot of fun getting back into the game.

After intervening years of playing games like Legends of Runeterra and Hearthstone, firing up an MtG Arena match doesn't just kickstart some nostalgia in my brain, it also feels comfortably familiar in terms of touchscreen interaction. If you've also played those games, then it's simply a matter of picking up (or refreshing yourself on) the specific rules of MtG.

If you've never played Magic in your life, that's also okay, because the tutorial they have you go through is pretty good at easing you into the game's mechanics and UI. It's also well-voiced and amusingly written, I might add.

While they of course offer ways to spend your money to purchase in-game packs, decks, avatars, and more, the game is totally free to play, and for me so far, it's been pretty fair about unlocking new content simply by playing.

I'm looking forward to having many future matches and building lots of fun decks again. Download the game for yourself and see how you like it!