A little magic

Forge and Magarena are two free java based games that allow you to play Magic the Gathering.

Forge features a range of game modes, including draft, constructed, sealed and it even has it's own quest mode. You can also build your own decks using thousands of cards that have been programmed in. Magarena on the other hand only allows you to choose from selected patterns of which colours to use and features only 450 cards. It does however have very strong AI, something that is lacking in Forge.

Forge

I can't really do a review of the two as they are both projects that are constantly under construction but I can give you an insight into which one you may wish to play. If you wish to create your own deck, play a limited game or even try out the quest mode, Forge has got you covered. Forge's AI can be strong with the right deck but in general is a pushover. It features a huge number of cards but some of these are buggy and some the AI cannot use at all.

Magarena allows you to choose the level of AI opponent you play with and the hardest difficulty is quite skilled. It really doesn't give you a lot of choice other than this though. You can give yourself and opponent more or less life and reject the set of cards you are given but you never get to choose the cards outright. The Magarena interface looks a lot more professional, however I find it harder to view the important details on the cards compared to Forge. For my money at least Magarena has an annoying way of telling you what you can do by colouring the cards green or red which obscures the detail even more.

Magarena

Both games only allow matches against AI and are a great way to play an expensive card game for free.