system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Magic: The Gathering is a pay to win game

For those of you that have played TCGs, such as Magic, Yugioh, and Pokemon, you know that most top tier competitive decks are typically stacked with high value/money cards. These expensive decks also tend to pull down more wins than decks that user cheaper and less effective alternatives. 

Perhaps the most profound evidence that MtG is a "pay to win" game is the striking contrast of power levels between cards that do effectively the same thing. For example, Demonic Tutor and Diabolic Tutor. They are both black sorceries that allow you to search your library for any card and add it to your hand. However, Demonic Tutor only costs 2 to cast and is a $30-40 card, compared to Diabolic Tutor, which is 4 to cast and is roughly a $1 card. In decks that utilize black, this card is objectively better than Diabolic Tutor. That is, you will see greater value out of Demonic Tutor 9.5 times out 10 than you will compared to Diabolic Tutor. 

Another example of this is Cancel and Disallow. They both have the same casting cost, but Disallow is objectively better due to it being able to stop triggered and activated abilities (and likewise is worth more than Cancel). Someone who pays extra for Disallow has a far greater advantage in game than a person who can only afford Cancel. 

A last example are lands. Dual lands are worth hundreds of dollars, as they are the same as the "shock" lands. Breeding Pool and Tropical Island offer the same thing, but Tropical Island is objectively better because it comes in untapped with no added cost. Other cards are valuable not because they are objectively better than a cheaper alternative, but because they give great utility for such low cost. Amulet of Vigor is a good example of this. It costs 1 colorless mana and allows things that would otherwise be tapped to enter untapped, allowing you to do extra things that same turn rather than waiting for it to untap. 

For these reasons, it cannot (in my mind) be denied that Magic is increasingly a pay to win game. Skill is a huge factor in how to play the game, a factor I am not discounting in my argument. I have witnesses cheap decks in EDH defeat expensive decks. Money does not always correlate to winning more. However, I will argue that it, on average, increases your chances of winning. For instance, fetch lands allow you to remove an extra land card from your deck and decrease the probability of drawing a land when it is not needed. These money cards don't just buy you greater value, they buy you greater circumstances that can increase your "luck" in drawing the right cards at the right time. 

And again, I recognize that having an expensive deck means nothing if the person piloting it doesn't understand the rules or basic strategy. People with high powered cards can get unlucky and not draw what they need. However, with a card like Demonic Tutor, even a bad player will gain significant value compared to a situation in which they used Diabolic Tutor. So even lacking in-game whit, money cards can partially compensate by providing a high degree of value and utility.
gpt
This greatly depends on format.

In penny dreadful for example, everyone is spending 60 cents no matter what.

In larger formats the meta basically comes down to aping the other player as quickly as possible, and an ape strategy is typically very cheap to play. In the biggest most popular formats most decks are like two ships passing each other in the night. There is barely any counter play, so running insular strategies (like tribal or red deck wins which are usually very cheap) is much better than running cards like mana leak or other expensive instants.

Standard is 100% as you describe, but that's the "tax" you pay for having tournament support etc.