Wizards of the Coast has made a lot of really weird decisions over the years. Pick whatever point in time you want, they've made weird decisions since then. One in particular is going to forever live rent-free in my mind forever for the sheer "Why?" factor.
Spellslingers was quietly launched in 2022, and by quietly launched I mean just kinda flopped out the door. A door that was then slammed shut behind it and locked. If you've never heard of Spellslingers I am not surprised in the slightest, it got one mention on the main site and then it was never brought up again because WOTC loves to fund side projects and then let them die in obscurity. Pop quiz: Name all the Magic board games without looking it up. We'll both be wrong and miss one.
It literally is Magic: The Hearthstoning. 30 card decks, 2 copy limit. Build around a Spellslinger instead of a hero. Mana crystal every turn instead of needing lands. No instant-speed gameplay.
Why? Who thought they needed this? Did some Hasbro executive command them to release a digital card game and couldn't be convinced that Magic already had TWO digital clients? Did market research convince them there was some silent majority who'd only play a Magic game if it had Hearthstone mechanics? What player on earth would invest in Spellslingers and not Arena?
Because the thing is, this game was only in development after MTG Arena had become a runaway success. The loading screen lists the earliest date as 2020, well into Arena's success and the big ESPORTS push. So... why? Sure, there's space in the digital card game market, but by this point you'd already swallowed up the largest share of it. Is half-hearted support and some discount Dreamworks looking 3D models going to mean you control the first and second place digital card games?
If you slap your blinders on and look only at the gameplay then it's Okay. They splurged for some experienced game design talent (Netrunner vets for instance) who did an okay job of adapting the rules of Magic and fixing some bad play experiences... And then everything else about the game is ass. It don't look good. The F2P experience is an incredibly demoralizing slog and they're good at finding balanced-seeming ways to reward whales for being good cetaceans with poor impulse control.
It's real clear they threw it out with all this gross monetization slapped on it to recoup the development costs, but I just don't understand why you had the costs in the first place. At what point did this seem like a good idea? "An M:tG experience for the mobile-first generation" except ARENA'S MOBILE VERSIONS WERE ALREADY RELEASED WHEN THIS CAME OUT.
Why in the multiverse did this ever see the light of day?