Review: Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers
- Thread starter Susan Arendt
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This is the most annoying feature of the game I've encountered so far. Other then that, Its entertaining enough.Nemorov said:
Hmmm, ok, I will try that. Thanks!Pseudonym2 said:
And Magic was always cool. At least, I thought so. I could just never learn how to play it.
Most people play 4 player everyman for himself. I prefered the "attack right" system as it stops ganking but thats not it the game. Its still fun though. I just want more customisation. To be able to make a deck or at least take some of the original cards out of the deck would be nice two.Necrith said:
Finally not all decks are created equal. The all black deck and the green/black deck seem the most powerful of the ones you can choose.
Susan, welcome to card game geekery. You are lucky you went this route and not the multi-thousand dollar route I took to figure out that these games are insanely fun, addictive, and smell slightly of eggs and cinnamon. Just like crack. 
I really enjoyed the game, and I think this review is pretty much right about most things. However, I would add that the challenges and campaign are seperate from the tutorial; the campaign is only really a challenge because the AI conisistently pulls dick moves on later levels, but the challenges are highly enjoyable. Even if you find them easy, the solutions are complex enough to make you feel satisfied by them.
There is grand melee. I don't think it's limited to online play, but it's definitely there. The only problem is that it takes a couple of tries to get your head around the player selection system for attacking.Necrith said:
I've been playing way too much of this game. Have the red and black decks fully unlocked and am working on the white/red/green deck currently. Which is really painful against the black/green deck that it seems 50% of the people online like to use.
Also, I love that the "ranked" matches have no disincentive for people who quit early outside of the Live rep system (of which I am apparently 50% aggressive and 50% quit early, when I have never quit early and have no idea how you can be negatively aggressive from Magic)
Anyway, my old cards! (Up to 5th edition/Urza Cycle I think here)
Recently between a friend and I, we've acquired the majority of the current 3 sets, but I don't have a picture of those. After dealing with all the counters and whatnot in recent editions, playing online where everything is taken care of is such a breath of fresh air. I don't know how many times I've forgotten to add a counter or use an ability just due to the quantity of them in play. This version on Live highlights all of my abilities nicely so I don't forget... Outside of a few bugs with instant/ability timing where I've not been able to use something(using a Tim as a reaction to a DD spell or another Tim is especially frustrating).
Also, I love that the "ranked" matches have no disincentive for people who quit early outside of the Live rep system (of which I am apparently 50% aggressive and 50% quit early, when I have never quit early and have no idea how you can be negatively aggressive from Magic)
Anyway, my old cards! (Up to 5th edition/Urza Cycle I think here)
Recently between a friend and I, we've acquired the majority of the current 3 sets, but I don't have a picture of those. After dealing with all the counters and whatnot in recent editions, playing online where everything is taken care of is such a breath of fresh air. I don't know how many times I've forgotten to add a counter or use an ability just due to the quantity of them in play. This version on Live highlights all of my abilities nicely so I don't forget... Outside of a few bugs with instant/ability timing where I've not been able to use something(using a Tim as a reaction to a DD spell or another Tim is especially frustrating).
Used to play Magic back in me younger days, mid 90s I'd say, and I spent WAY to much money on them. I don't have the time or the money to do so now a days.
I haven't played Magic that much in the latest five months... Although that's because one member of my social-circle is currently in Japan (lucky bastard).
I do love the game though, even if it has been getting worse and worse lately. I hate to tell anyone inspired by this game but... Now is not a good time to be starting to play Magic. Even if Wizards of the Coast seem to think so.
--Xvito, keeping it excellent.
I do love the game though, even if it has been getting worse and worse lately. I hate to tell anyone inspired by this game but... Now is not a good time to be starting to play Magic. Even if Wizards of the Coast seem to think so.
--Xvito, keeping it excellent.
You know it possible to play MTG without draining your coffers, for one thing you could just buy one of the premaid decks. Or you could one of the spare decks of whoever your play MTG with because I don't know any regular players who don't have more then one deck. Though that last statement belittles the first statement...
Does anyone know whats going on with the Magic:Online game. I randomly tried to play the other day and it says that it's down until the new build. Has it been down for awhile?
MTG Duels is a fun game, i have it myself, but honestly, some of the decks are poor representations of the color, Elspeth's White Wings of Light deck may seem powerful, but it tries too hard to be a health gaining deck, where as white feels more natural being played so that the cards act as one massive and unified being, to call White a card category version of a WoW raid wouldnt be too far off. other decks feel very natural and flow together, such as Garruk Wildspeaker's Green deck (I forget the name). Other decks, such as Agani Goldmane's Green/White/Red deck lack the delicate touch required for building such a deck, as I myself play a red/white/black deck, and getting such a deck to feel both natural and work well is very hard.
other problems are you are not allowed to build your own custom decks, or even purge cards from the premade decks. you are also not allowed to control the number of lands in a given deck, which can become a problem because you may end up with too much land in the deck, or hit a massive pile. 100 cards seems to be the normal cap for cards in a deck, as any more and you have watered down the deck with too many extra cards, i try to keep my decks as close to 60 cards as possible, as that keeps the card concentration higher, giving higher chances of drawing a card.
oh, ya, the black deck when being played competently is a *****, so is the blue one.
other problems are you are not allowed to build your own custom decks, or even purge cards from the premade decks. you are also not allowed to control the number of lands in a given deck, which can become a problem because you may end up with too much land in the deck, or hit a massive pile. 100 cards seems to be the normal cap for cards in a deck, as any more and you have watered down the deck with too many extra cards, i try to keep my decks as close to 60 cards as possible, as that keeps the card concentration higher, giving higher chances of drawing a card.
oh, ya, the black deck when being played competently is a *****, so is the blue one.
Magic 2010 is being released, so it has to be activated on MTGO. it should be back up by sundayDirty Apple said:
I played magic like 10 years ago, when it was 4th and 5th edition. It was an early time when everyone had pretty equal decks, unless you where a hardcore collecter. But after a few expansions came out I began to think that it was getting unbalanced. Every game introduced new cards and awkward arguments about the rules.
I stopped playing because the library of spells was getting too large and it seemed newer released cards where far more powerful then my old school deck.
I still have a ton of 4th and 5th edition cards, a collection of three peoples librarys. I kept a large variety of each color and four of each of the colors strongest monsters, and big
box of land cards just in case someone wanted a half a deck of land and where playing four colors or something. Though no one has played with me in like five years.
I always liked having a white deck with any one of the other colors. Though I rarely played black, my friend always played a black/blue deck and it was a massive *****.
Awesome review as always Susan.
I stopped playing because the library of spells was getting too large and it seemed newer released cards where far more powerful then my old school deck.
I still have a ton of 4th and 5th edition cards, a collection of three peoples librarys. I kept a large variety of each color and four of each of the colors strongest monsters, and big
box of land cards just in case someone wanted a half a deck of land and where playing four colors or something. Though no one has played with me in like five years.
I always liked having a white deck with any one of the other colors. Though I rarely played black, my friend always played a black/blue deck and it was a massive *****.
Awesome review as always Susan.
My Dad bought a family starter pack of Magic cards one Christmas (they may have been actually first edition, I know we've got a handful that were later recalled for being far too hardcore), and I used to love playing - but I never knew anyone else who played apart from my sister. They're all gathering dust in the attic now. I actually had no idea it was this huge geek phenomenon until many years later.
I can see how this would be a fun game, and I actually quite like a campaign where you learn to use the different colours in turn - but even though we didn't spend a lot of money on it, when I played, customisation was key. I used to play not so much to win but to annoy my opponent as much as possible. I had a deck made up almost entirely of blue mind-screw-y cards...
I can see how this would be a fun game, and I actually quite like a campaign where you learn to use the different colours in turn - but even though we didn't spend a lot of money on it, when I played, customisation was key. I used to play not so much to win but to annoy my opponent as much as possible. I had a deck made up almost entirely of blue mind-screw-y cards...
The only encounter with Magic the gathering I've had to this moment is a few TV ad's some years ago, and I passed it off as 'just another yugioh', which to me was 'just another pokemon cards'.
And I loved pokemon cards, and grew fond of yugioh (in secret) for its more tactical play. But that was about a decade ago... and it was simple rule of the playground that you need them to keep friends, and it was amazing how many people instantly like the only guy who has charizard.
I've lost my train of thought now, but the point was I couldn't be bothered buying something which I deemed as popular in USA, but likely nowhere else, and for which buying it would deem me as a strange nerd.
However since this is XBLA I just might buy this out of curiosity, I've been getting self-concious towards buying games which appear childish, nerdy or otherwise not on par with the norm. Maturity for me was moving from gamer geek to closet gamer geek, and I like to keep that façade going.
And I loved pokemon cards, and grew fond of yugioh (in secret) for its more tactical play. But that was about a decade ago... and it was simple rule of the playground that you need them to keep friends, and it was amazing how many people instantly like the only guy who has charizard.
I've lost my train of thought now, but the point was I couldn't be bothered buying something which I deemed as popular in USA, but likely nowhere else, and for which buying it would deem me as a strange nerd.
However since this is XBLA I just might buy this out of curiosity, I've been getting self-concious towards buying games which appear childish, nerdy or otherwise not on par with the norm. Maturity for me was moving from gamer geek to closet gamer geek, and I like to keep that façade going.
Unless I was very lucky and just happened to run into all the cool premade decks I can't really agree with that. Sure they aren't to be worth much in say a tournment but for the purposes of playing among ones friends they seem sufficent, assuming ones friends decks aren't at tournment level.toapat said: