I have no argument for Apprentice being worse, but j00 imply you found online playing only via the magic of Workstation [Let's face it, I'm not sure how something could get worse than Apprentice]
I have one bit of Magic, a starter set I applied for online and got shortly after forgetting about it. With a really dodgy comic introduction with a dude with a shit eating grin. It did come with a CD-rom with a program that lets you play against some Goblin/Genie dude, with more different cards than what you got with the starter set.