Magic The Gathering Card Game

Magic: the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 Review

I first got started playing Magic cards in the summer of 2006 while working at a small gaming store in western Massachusetts. At first I had no idea how my seemingly well-balanced customers could justify spending hundreds of dollars on cardboard pictures of dragons. A year later, as I gleefully tore open a fresh box of the newest expansion set, my wallet a hundred dollars lighter, I realized I was hooked, maybe for life.

This is why Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 is a title I can’t easily recommend. On the one hand, it’s a very well-polished version of the classic card game, an excellent jumping-on point for both new players looking to give Magic a try and former players thinking of revisiting their card gaming past. However, I’ve known many an unsuspecting soul fall prey to the ridiculously addicting game, and I can’t help but compare its relatively cheap cost ($9.99 on Steam) to the street corner drug dealer who offers that first hit for free. Sweet as it is the first time, you might not be able to stop yourself from coming back for more.

If you’ve never played, the basic rules of Magic are quite simple. Both players (AKA “Planeswalkers”) have a standard sized deck of sixty cards or more and start the game with twenty life points and a seven card hand, drawing a new card at the beginning of every turn. The most common way to win the game is to reduce your opponent’s life to zero, a feat accomplished by casting a variety of spells and creature cards to assist you in battle. Perhaps the most important cards, though, are land, which allow you to pay for your spells. You can only play one land card a turn, meaning that seven-cost Dragon in your hand won’t be hitting the board for many more turns. This is likely the most interesting facet of Magic: choosing whether to play a deck and attempt to overwhelm the opponent early with a slew of smaller spells and creatures or whether you set up early defenses in hope of resolving a giant game-ending card somewhere down the line. Though DOTP 2012 doesn’t let you truly build your own decks (lest it compete with the wildly profitable Magic Online client), the ability to play with and customize the various decks offered is an enjoyable alternative. At the start of the game you’ll have just two decks available to you, but as you progress through the campaign mode, you’ll slowly unlock the decks of the Planeswalkers you defeat, eventually earning a full suite of ten to choose from. This time around the decks seem a lot more focused, with some very interesting interactions. For instance, Garruk’s deck is your standard mono-green beatdown, packed full of giant creatures but offering no way to directly kill off any problems your opponent might drop onto the table. Meanwhile, Tezzeret’s blue-white-black artifact deck is full of interesting mechanical pieces, creatures who are a bit on the small side but make up for it with the help of cards that lower their casting cost or boost their power and toughness. Every player is sure to find a favorite, and as encouragement, each match you win with a certain deck unlocks more cards to be used. Unlike the last game, which in an asinine design decision only allowed you to add cards to your deck, players can now thankfully remove cards as well, keeping the deck to the trim 60-card count—-the professional standard.

Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 Review | Bone ...

When I first went to play this game I hadn’t a clue about the series. I do remember when I was in school there was an afterschool club where people went to paint their Warhammer characters and have battles, but, in the corner there was a small group of people who would be playing a card game. At first I had only heard about Yu-Gi Oh! and I had watched it a few times on the television and the idea of the card game was quite exciting. A friend of mine described Magic the Gathering as sophisticated, challenging and much more difficult card game of the recent generations of trading card games.

The game starts with a short cinematic opening, which sets the opening story to the game, but what I found annoying was the lack of other in-game cinematic as I found myself duelling and duelling more and more wanting to know what happens when you beat a character. For those new to the game there is a tutorial to the game and as you go on there are more mini-tutorials that outline different card types e.g. ones that have the trample attribute which deals damage to all cards on the opponents field or the deathtouch ability which when this creature attacks it kills the opponents creature outright sending it to the graveyard.

The artwork will have you amazed as you will stop the countdown clock which you can do when you need to stop and think of a strategy when the time calls for it. I have spent the good guts of most battles just stopping the clock to have a look at my cards artwork but of course most time is spent looking at the cards abilities which are very important in the game. The same artwork is brought into the loading screens where it will show you a senario and a short breakdown about the character it depicts.

The gameplay in my eyes is fantastic with “Stop Timer” and “Continue” buttons strategically placed for when you need to stop the timer for time to think up a strategy or to use an “Instant” card which can change things up on the playing field. The game is played in turns and each turn consists of a Main phase where you can play “Land” cards and “Creature” cards there are also artifacts and other types you can use as well. When you start there are only two decks to choose from but as you play on you unlock new decks and each deck you can unlock 16 cards for that deck. In the Campaign there are puzzles which are like tutorials in themselves and then you have Rival battles where you battle characters fromt the game and you also have two comrades dueling with you.

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