The publicity definitely helped the game grow, but at the same time, people who play tournaments rarely deviate from decks based on the ones that the pros are using.
The people who play tournament chess rarely deviate from proven opening sequences as well. As such, publishing move by move accounts of Chess tournaments for documentation and study hinders creativity. See what I did there?
For ranked players, you are absolutely correct. That being said, there is still quite a bit more variety in chess at any level than there is in any given T2 cycle of MTG.
With MTG, even if I went down to my local card shop for Friday Night Magic, there would be enough people there with netdecks to ensure that creative attempts at deck building don't succeed very often.
In a local chess tournament, the level of play isn't even close to being that standardized. Most of the local chess clubs I've been to don't even have more than one or two rated players.
The difference is pretty simple. In MTG, anyone with 200 bucks can buy a world class T2 deck and learn to play it reasonably well in just a few hours. On the other hand, highly standardized play in chess usually only occurs after years of intense study.
There is, however, an easy way to fix MTG's shortcomings. I just play casual/peasant/other unorthodox formats. It makes things more interesting and its cheaper.
The difference is pretty simple. In MTG, anyone with 200 bucks can buy a world class T2 deck and learn to play it reasonably well in just a few hours.
So, I spend my weekends putting on a black uniform and working as a tournament judge at professional-level Magic events. And... maybe you're right that someone could do well at a local FNM this way. But at any sort of serious competitive level (even at the Pro Tour Qualifier level), your assertion just doesn't hold up.
You can see this in tournament results, by the way. Card availability is basically only an issue for casual/FNM play. At any sort of real competitive tournament, the field is made up of players who have access to the cards they want, and the winner is determined by a combination of preparation and skill.
Most importantly, you can see this in results from Limited formats (where players build decks using cards opened on-site from standard booster packs, which are unpredictable enough to constitute a random per-player card pool). Though there are certainly "Limited specialist" players, for the most part you will see similar lists of names among the top finishers in both Limited and Constructed formats, which drives home the point in a frankly undeniable way.
I wasn't really claiming that its easy to win MTG tournaments. I was just illustrating that fairly standardized play begins at a much lower level than it does in chess, because even beginners can buy a world class deck for a small amount of money.
Limited is a great format that I'm glad you mentioned. Anything involving a draft is going to be pretty creative.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that MTG is inferior to chess. I like both games equally well.
I usually reply like that because often I see the attitude that Magic is just a game of spending money on cards -- whoever buys the best cards wins. When in reality, card availability is more of a barrier to entry, and all it does is get you to the point where you're on an even field, card-wise, with actual competitive players. From there it's up to you to have the skill to hang in there.
Beyond the decks/openings analogy though, I'm not sure Magic and chess really compare well.
I think the most interesting distinction is in innovators vs. honers; Gerry Thompson is now out of the game at the professional level, but he was one of the greatest honers who ever played the game. Gerry was not known for coming up with new deck ideas, and in fact the few times he tried it he did horribly. But his ability to analyze the tournament landscape week to week, and make the perfect couple of tweaks to existing deck shells, was unmatched.
