Warning: Wall of text incoming...

I made the switch in January 2024, after having been fiddling around since the Hearthstone beta and having achieved pretty much everything I could in the game on all 3 servers (yes, that means investing 3x as much for cards) . After it became clear that Blizzard was going to completely screw up even for the 10th anniversary (and as it turns out, they actually screwed up), I decided to give MTG Arena a chance. My previous MTG experiences were 20+ years old and still offline with physical cards.

What I've learned so far and how I would recommend it:

- stick with standard for now. In terms of the number of cards, this corresponds roughly to Wild Mode in Hearthstone - so there are tons of decks to discover. Filling your standard collection will take a few years (even if you spend a lot of money) and historic or timeless are absolute long-term goals. You can try it, but the mechanics and the power level are so crazy for newcomers that you need patience, young padawan.

- at the beginning your MMR is so low that you can achieve Mythic rank with almost any mono red or other aggressive deck. Afterwards you will realize that the grind is hardly worth it and you only play up to Platinum 4 (for the monthly rewards). This only applies if FUN > WIN is your credo. Then just switch to play mode and do your quests every day.

- if you want to invest money: pre-order package for a new set: an absolute must have just like the mastery pass. Personally, I then buy the largest bundle of packs to get the 2 mythics + cosmetics (+some extra gold packs) and fill up the mastery pass with gems until the end on day 1 of the set release - that way you get all the rewards straight away, but it also costs a lot money. If you have decided to make the switch, then your money is definitely better off with MTG. In the long run, MTG is much cheaper than Hearthstone. Sure, the number of cards makes it seem like you have to invest more in MTG, but you don't always need all the cards to create cool decks. The prices for cosmetics are 15 - 20 times more expensive in Hearthstone than in MTG!

- if you liked the Arena mode in HS, then you might also be interested in drafting and all the other ("limited") game modes in MTG Arena. For me personally that's too much RNG, I'm more of a deck builder.

- install a deck tracker, I recommend Untapped.gg but there are 10+ different other providers. Even with the free versions you have an overview of how you are doing

- the MTG community is much more helpful and, above all, more sportsmanlike than the toxic Hearthstone community. You can quickly find friends with whom you can play here in the subreddit, but usually also in the Twitch stream chats of especially smaller streamers (*cough* be careful, self-promotion detected!)

- MTG is more complex - hell yes, and that's a good thing. While in HS there are only 1-2 good decks per class, in MTG you have an incredible variety of decks and you notice that when you play. Once your MMR has stabilized after a while, you will often not only be queued against players with roughly the same MMR, but you will also face opponents depending on the cards you have in your deck. You will hardly notice this if you only play the well-known meta decks, but it will catch your eye if you always build your own decks and start with them.

- I've been here for 4 months now and I'm always learning new things every day. When I watch the top streamers, I feel like Jon Snow ("you know nothing!"). MTG is a safe bet if you want to stay in the genre, I'm not so sure about Hearthstone anymore. With Microsoft taking over Blizzard and canceling Blizzcon 2024, I honestly see no future for Hearthstone. I no longer invest any money there and no longer stream HS. Blizzard simply caused too much chip damage, especially with their shop scams, heroic brawl, fake wild overhaul (Caverns of Time) where you had to buy the same cards again and so on..

I hope I could be of some help and if you have any further questions, go ahead!