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

People have recently gotten me interested in MTG, I like certain strategy aspects of it and it's fun to play. However, it's being more and more clear to me that it's really just a pay to win game. I am open to having me view changed though if I'm wrong about this - I'd like to be wrong. 

There's really only 3 main things that decide who wins. The cards, luck, and strategy / skills. Now everyone know that some cards are just plain and simple objectively better than others. You want to have good cards in your deck, and those will likely be rare or mythic rare. Look at all the top decks. These are usually very expensive. If you want to play in a serious modern tournament then you'll have to dump an insane amount of money into this. If you want to play legacy then even more screwed. Other than buying all the singles you can rip open packs to try and get some cards you want but this will probably be even more expensive.

So once you have the cards you need luck and just the knowledge of how to play with them. You can fairly easily learn the strategies involved with how play with your expensive deck once you've assembled it. There is a certain amount of depth here but anyone can look up how it's done and practice until their good. So basically the only barrier to playing pro magic is money. If you're not a complete idiot and able to learn a few things all you need is to dump a ton of money into this and become good. CMV.
gpt
There are a few things to note here. Firstly, there will always be better and worse cards. Since people want to play with the best cards, the monetary value of the best cards will rise. Therefore, the best decks will generally be expensive to purchase. Secondly, there will be bad decks. If you enter a tournament with a bad deck you will almost certainly lose, no matter how good you are. So in some sense there is a monetary barrier to competing. 

However, spending money on the best cards in no way guarantees you any level of success. If you could win by just buying the best cards then you wouldn't see the metagame shift over time.  People would identify the "best" deck, buy those cards, and not change anything until a new set is released. Of course, this **never** happens. The metagame shifts constantly as people discover new strategies and tweak decks to adjust to weaknesses. Often, this means shifting towards cards that are not nearly as expensive since nobody has yet identified their niche. 

There is also a **ton** of depth at the pro level. There are at least a dozen websites dedicated entirely to discussing strategy. If you look at who wins tournaments, some names show up over and over despite tournaments having hundreds of entrants. This suggests that the skill cap for MTG is actually quite high and that most players do not play at the same level as the best pros. 

Here is a good example of a play that you might not just pick up by "not being a complete idiot":

Your opponent is playing an aggressive deck. Your deck is a little slower. It is your turn four. Your opponent has one creature in play and you have none. You have a land and Barter In Blood in your hand. Barter In Blood costs 4 and makes each player sacrifice two creatures. 

In order to get full value out of your card you need to not play a creature and get your opponent to play another creature. If you drop a land and pass the turn your opponent will almost certainly know something is up and suspect something like Barter. The correct play then is to *deliberately miss your land drop*. Getting mana screwed at three lands is way more common than not having any plays from 1-4 mana so your opponent might see this as an opportunity to go on the offensive and drop another creature. This gives you the opportunity to make a big play.  

Good players see that. Okay players don't. This is why good players win tournaments and most players don't.