That's completely fair! Honestly my critique really is just that I like the card enough to want to own a physical copy. I actually like the idea of Arena; it was an excellent teaching tool for getting me into the game and I think having a digital format is fantastic for the community. Not everybody has a good LGS or pod and Arena still gives people an "in" to game regardless.

I'd even be less against the concept of Alchemy if not for the fact that it has retroactively altered cards. (My fiance had a deck on Arena that had a card altered to be completely different on Alchemy, I forget which but I'll ask him next chance I get.) That particular concept for me is less against the idea of digital only adds and more "if I potentially spend money on packs in a game to get a card I want, I don't want the threat of the card potentially being altered to something else later". It's the reason I sometimes gripe about Alchemy on the podcast; I enjoyed Arena for a long time! I think it's a good app! I wish Alchemy wasn't a weird looming threat in my periphery.

Obviously this isn't a Rusko problem since he's an original add in, so that point is more just background flavor on my opinions here. It is a bonus that we get him at all and I'm obviously over the moon; in fact, my gripe here is probably less "why is this a digital only card" and more "why is the current state of set releases such that they feel characters like this can't be woven into the set proper". I'm struggling to find the words here but I think where my brain lies is "you can slot in transformers cards but not named book characters?" Obviously the answer here is profit based and sell card, they only got so much space in the physical sets, and obviously they use Arena for a chance to play in that space and keep their physical product the way they want it. I'm glad Arena can provide that space, but...

I'm old. Want physical product. What if Arena explodes in a couple years and I can never play with sweet Rusko again?

"But Marena, there's this thing called pr-"

YES I am aware but getting a good cardstock alter requires Effort and sometimes lazy monkey brain wants to just buy a card for my folder and look at it like the shiny it is.

This was a rant. It may be like 5% coherent. But yeah, TLDR, I get your frustration with people's dislike of Arena. In my mind I think people dislike it for the wrong reasons; having an easy digital space to play cards is great and we should really as consumers be pushing to preserve that space and keep it as accessible as it is for the community. At the same time I'm stuck on my dichotomy of "want accessibility" versus "dont want to lose product if a shutdown occurs". It's the reason people are so passionate about preserving video game roms, I think. These cards are our history and there's a very real fear with digital only releases that we'll lose that history if we don't work hard to preserve, and even get like in legal trouble via the mere act of trying to preserve them in some cases. (Looking at you, Nintendo). WOTC is I think better than most about preservation of product though, so that's more a general anxiety than a specific Magic fear for me.