I have played the actual card game since the 90s - and its a great game. Its a strategic game where you build a deck where as best as possible you put complimenting cards together to make a strong deck to beat an opponents deck. The catch is the really rare and good cards cost a lot of money to obtain.
The severe problem with this and in many ways the real game - is if you are in it for fun you can end up playing against someone with an incredibly powerful expensive deck of which your puny deck will get trashed. There is absolutely no point playing in this situation. Back in the day I played against someone who played with the black lotus and all the mox. Those cards today are worth literally hundreds of thousands.
So online magic - it would work if they kind of set a power level for decks and allowing people to play with similar powered decks - but they dont. The money angle on this is I guess is to make you want to spend money trying to get the cards to improve your deck(s) - to stand a chance against powerful decks - the difference in this - is online you have an ecard which isnt worth anything - as opposed to the real game where cards are actually worth something (note most are not worth anything but the very few). So when the online game goes pop as they all eventually do you will have nothing to show for it.
An additional problem - is if money is no object - they you can look online for a deck to build - I have actually played enough matches now to play against different players with identical decks - like the bunny deck, so you lose, but not for skill, strategy but just because they spent more money. Sometimes you know you will lose from the first card an opponent plays because some of them are OP and unless you can counter it you know you are doomed from the outset.
The game and function itself is well done tho.
Unfortunately - it is pay to win - in fairness it always has been (ie the physical game). Its still a great game - but the very best games are always players with similar powered decks.

The only benefit of this game is the ease of finding someone to play with and the ability to put together decks for free. However, it's also the reason why the game has all the fun sucked out of it. Being able to put any deck together for free (or cheap) means it attracts people who just want to copy and paste the top meta decks. Being able to be matched with players with little friction means there's no penalty to running the same OP meta deck over and over again. If you're someone who enjoys playing the same top meta deck over and over to chase dopamine, MTGA is the game for you.

In real life, you'd be able to opt in or out of playing against people who just run high powered expensive decks. You can build your own decks and have fun playing against other players with similar power levels. Pulled an interesting card you want to build a deck around? You can play it in real life and have a chance of actually playing your deck. Build it in MTGA, you won't be able to play your deck at all.

Game shuffling is ridiculous. It will be nice and random and then as you win it purposely gives you high or low land quantities. I've played magic for a very long time and the statistical shuffling is rigged and not random. Which is a shame as its a very fun game otherwise. Not worth the agrevation but its their setup so their call. Just not worth your time in the long run.