Live is actually quite playable (if you're a whale)
Putting aside the desktop layout, the wait times, the bugs, the scrimpy rewards and the avatars, Live is actually quite playable if you start it with a collection.
You need to have 4 copies each of most of the Celebrations and Celebrations Classics sets. It'll mean that you get 744 average credits per pack whenever you open a celebrations pack. You need the 125 packs for the 12000 crystals. Which will get you 58 packs of Celebrations (43,000 credits) and the battle pass.
The daily challenge will get you enough crystals for a pack every 5 days. This is a sustainable income stream in itself for our F2P friends.
The quarterly ladder could be richer and the lack of daily ladder discourages binging, however the ranked ladder is devilish. By the mid point of the ladder you are losing as much XP when you lose as you gain when you win, so anybody who climbs that thing gets mega props (and some Khaki pants). I bet there are some people sinking huge time into the game to get the exclusive top level bling.
Game killing bugs have been decreased since launch. It's usually quick enough to get new matches. And the fact that I can watch LDF, FTW or Tricky Gym and then immediately play their deck is great. That's what gets me to play for hours at a time, the new decks.
I've gotten my avatar to the point that she's not entirely cringe worthy (except when I hit the thumbs up button she is the absolute picture of sarcastic nastiness).
The matches have been great. So many people have great meta decks and it's fun to see how I can compete against them.
My greatest hope is that they improve the economy for new players. There's no path to being a whale if you start in Live. With the 400 pack limit you can't even buy your way to the top and at a certain point, grinding gets you nothing,
My favoured solution would be a minimum of 250 credits per pack redeemed. Or just find another way to loosen the purse strings. If they aren't going to charge money directly in game, they must think of the game as a way to advertise the physical products. Maybe more people will buy the packs for the collectibles if they are playing the latest meta decks.