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Before I get into more of the specifics regarding the two, I will point out that Hearthstone has been one of the best and closest to the magic the gathering feeling I've been seeking that's been a free program. For quite a long time, I've been seeking a PC experience that gave me that same feeling that I experienced while playing Magic the Gathering competitively. Out of the many of games that I've experiences, Hearthstone has been the closest to that feeling and has been quite enjoyable.

That said, I feel that Hearthstone, while good, still does not achieve that same level of enjoyment that you will experience while playing MtG. There remains a small hand full of caveats that I find to be problematic for me.

1) A lack of ability to make interactions with the opposing player on their turn or in response to situations, I.E. Instant spells. This gives the game more of a board game feel instead of a card game feel.

2) Lack of card variety and infrequency of updates. Of course, this is something that only time can resolve as MtG has been out a hell of a lot longer and has a much larger variety of cards. However, because of this, you can usually guess as to what deck you'll be playing against when you see a class.

3) Class locked cards and inability to multi-class. While magic may have a similarity with having color specific cards, you're still allowed to create multi-colored decks that allow for more diversity. While I know that the chances of this ever happening are quite slim as WoW itself doesn't allow it and it's based of that, it would allow for players to get more creative and broaden the horizon of deck creation and deck diversity.

4) Not enough means of getting gold. Although Hearthstone does offer you the ability to play the game without ever having to pay, the grind that is required to get the cards necessary for a deck is very painstaking and long. Aside from the one quest you earn each day, that caps at a max of 3 you can hold on to, there's not enough means of acquiring gold. This means you just need to grind away at playing and hope to win. At 10 gold per 3 wins, you're required to win 30 games in order to buy one pack of cards. Even at 30 wins required though, you'll most likely play more games than that to get to your 30 wins. 30+ games if you do really well, 60+ if you have a 50-50 win ration or less.

4) No ability to trade or buy individual cards with gold or money. One of the nicest things about Magic is the ease of being able to trade with other people for cards you may need or purchase cards straight up without having to continue just buying booster packs and hoping to get what you want. While Hearthstone does allow you to purchase cards with dust, the means of getting that dust is equally as painstaking as getting gold. Personally, I find there needs to be an easier means of getting cards, such as buy cards with gold or money or even just allowing players to trade with other players.

Even with all of that said, I feel that there are some redeeming factor of Hearthstone, such as how accessible it is to new players, how you are not required to memorize all the rules as it's all handled automatically or can be told to very quickly and how much charm the game has through it's sound, animations and effects.

So how does Hearthstone compare up against Magic the Gathering? Not even close. While with time Hearthstone can become even better and better, it still has many issues to resolve before it can stand up to the titan of MtG and actually hold some competition. Also, the argument of "12 million active MtG players vs 20 million Hearthstone accounts" is a pretty moot comparison as that's accounts and not active account. I personally know a handful of people who have accounts and stopped playing very quickly after they started so it's quite easy to say that that number is far far lower than 20 million.