Jeremy Bylander

Every TCG is going to have non-games. Non-games are the result of variance which is something TCG's need. Some people feel like Magic's non-games are worse because the variance comes from the mana system, so a MTG non-game is "you don't play you cards." In reality this is no more of a non-game than some Hearthstone card doing something random to kill you out of nowhere, but Magic takes more heat for it because it feels worse. It's basically the same concept as how in Commander you can Doom Blade your opponent's commander and it's fine, but if you counter it they get salty. The result is the same, but the Doom Blade gives you the illusion that you were actually making progress and doing something. It tricks you into thinking your decisions mattered, but really they didn't. Non-games in other TCG's do a better job of giving you this illusion, to tricking you into thinking that they aren't really non-games because you are taking game actions and doing things. But really they are the same as getting mana screwed.