The first time I touched a Magic card was 1996, and within moments I was entranced.
The idea of building decks (made easier when groups of friends donated a ton of cards to a cube) was something completely foreign to me, like choosing party members in a JRPG had been years before, or picking which Mega Man level to tackle next.
That was the power of Magic, and in the two decades plus since its release, that spark has endured. Magic: Arena is basically a recreation of that strong base, with its own set of monetization problems to boot.
Source: Destructoid Review: Magic: The Gathering Arena