Magic Duels: Origins

 PC
User Score
6.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 63 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 63
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 63
  3. Negative: 18 out of 63

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  1. OreoAssassin
    Nov 25, 2015
    2
    This game is one of the most frustrating games I've ever experienced when it comes to MTG. 200 coin cap per day, 150 coins per booster, and oh yeah you only get 5-15 for a win against the AI. If you wanna play with your friends you can, but you get 0 progress towards anything. Magic 2015 had a much better system for unlocking boosters, you get one if you win and don't have to waste yourThis game is one of the most frustrating games I've ever experienced when it comes to MTG. 200 coin cap per day, 150 coins per booster, and oh yeah you only get 5-15 for a win against the AI. If you wanna play with your friends you can, but you get 0 progress towards anything. Magic 2015 had a much better system for unlocking boosters, you get one if you win and don't have to waste your time trying to grind and get rewarded for playing against your friends. That isn't even the worst part about it, you only get 6 cards per booster pack. The developer made the game free to play, but it is most definitely a pay to progress title. I would much rather spend 15 dollars on the game and have the mechanics change back to how it was before rather than spend 2 dollars per booster. Yes, 150 coins is 2 dollars. I will never spend money on this game, it isn't worth it seeing how you only have a small chance of getting a good card.… Expand
  2. suneater
    Aug 2, 2015
    1
    By some miracle of ineptitude, Magic Duels somehow manages to be worse than DotP 2015 across the board. In terms of game design, gameplay content, the cash shop, and even down to the card selection, this is by far the worst work by Stainless Games yet. Wizards need to seriously re-evaluate their digital presence and either needs to find a new studio to work on these games or stop makingBy some miracle of ineptitude, Magic Duels somehow manages to be worse than DotP 2015 across the board. In terms of game design, gameplay content, the cash shop, and even down to the card selection, this is by far the worst work by Stainless Games yet. Wizards need to seriously re-evaluate their digital presence and either needs to find a new studio to work on these games or stop making them altogether.

    Gone are the extra game modes, challenges, and even campaign deck construction of previous years. Instead, we have a 20 mission campaign (with unadjustable difficulty) with tutorials sprinkled throughout that can only be played with uneditable decks that get "upgraded" after completing missions. How are they upgraded? It's hard to tell, since most of them are very bad from the start and the game doesn't tell you what changes it makes to your deck. Gideon's deck is the most playable and even that is just dumping your hand and turning everything sideways. I get the feeling that they thought that cramming the challenges of old DotP games into this game's campaign would be a good idea but it really doesn't work. This campaign is (once again!) a terrible introduction to MTG for new players since it ignores deck construction, has a locked difficulty, and has many purposefully unbalanced fights.

    Once you finish the very short singleplayer content, you have the incredibly deep and rewarding online play to look forward to. 2-Headed Giant is back! ...But you can't get coin rewards from it. There's a ladder system and matchmaking system finally! ...But server/game crashes and disconnects will give you no rewards. You can quickly play games through Steam invites with your friends! ...But there's no rewards. Playing MTG is fun and all but its frustrating when everyone is playing with the same trash and new boosters are hard to come by because of the stingy cash shop system. Even if you do decide to sink some cash into this game, you're only getting SIX cards per booster! Physical MTG boosters, while in all honesty are meant to be played in Sealed or Draft and not solely to be cracked for value, at least have 15 cards in them for a MSRP of $4. At the worst conversion rate, you're looking at spending $2 for a six card booster. At $39.99 for 7500 coins, you're spending roughly $0.80 per six card booster... but at this point why not spend your $40 on actual MTG cards (or a new video game)? The worst part about this is that even if you do get the most bang for your buck with the coins, you are still gambling on boosters and aren't guaranteed to unlock every card.

    Opening overpriced boosters might be acceptable if they had anything worth playing inside of them. Origins is the worst core set I have ever played with, full of worse version of old cards that are purposefully designed to be weaker and/or bad. This set has the format design of MM2015 (which was also terrible to actually play with and people just rare drafted it) and the mechanics design of Theros (Renown is an obvious leftover from Theros's crap keywords). Do not waste your money on physical or digital boosters of this product.

    It amazes me why Wizards hates money so much. I understand they want people to dump their money into either physical product or the digital variants available on MTGO, but then why release a barebones mobile game every YEAR then? These games make the MTG brand look bad (because MTGO is poorly advertised) and with every annual release, the DotP series is on the front of everyone's desks. Did reviewers see the improvements to MTGO's UI and layout during its last upgrade? Not really, because MTGO has been out for 13 years. Did reviewers see Stainless drop a complete turd the past two years, with more content stripped from each annual release and with more cash grab attempts built in? Even if reviewers haven't, the playerbase sure has noticed it judging by Steam reviews.

    Wizards needs to wake up and find a new dev to work on these games. Stainless has been dragging their ass since the beginning of the DotP series; releasing cookie-cutter annual rehashes with slightly different cards every year, and with recent years actually removing content. Even with being a free2play CCG, this isn't worth your time because of the cut content, lack of polish, always-online connectivity, and incredibly stingy rewards for online play.    … Expand
  3. FogCityRoller
    Jul 30, 2015
    1
    I was so excited for this on PC because I don't have an Apple phone. What a huge disappointment so far. Where to begin...

    1. Unless I somehow missed it, there is no way to skip the tutorial. This is incredibly annoying for anyone with even a basic knowledge of how MTG is played. You have to play it in order to unlock other parts of the game. It's sooo slow. 2. The cutscenes are a    I was so excited for this on PC because I don't have an Apple phone. What a huge disappointment so far. Where to begin...

    1. Unless I somehow missed it, there is no way to skip the tutorial. This is incredibly annoying for anyone with even a basic knowledge of how MTG is played. You have to play it in order to unlock other parts of the game. It's sooo slow.
    2. The cutscenes are a complete joke, with graphics straight out of the year 2000. I can't believe a company that makes millions of dollars a year like Wizards can't afford to hire better animators.
    3. The interface is incredibly dated. There is no thrill added by implementing a 3D game board. It is completely unnecessary.
    4. Tapping mana is far more tedious and complicated than it needs to be. Why can't we just click on the lands we want to use? Why is a keybind attached to the most basic concept of the game? What the hell were they thinking?
    5. It's pretty obvious they copied the "let's be cheap with cards in boosters" design from Hearthstone. 6 cards, seriously? Did you really have to soak your customers for more money by reducing the number of cards that have been in boosters for two decades?
    6. Bugs everywhere.

    The only positive things I can muster so far about this game is that it's great for teaching people completely new to MTG how to play the game and the lore was pretty cool. I quit MTG long before the Planeswalker cards were ever a thing, so getting some backstory on them was nice. The tutorial is incredibly thorough, but again it should not be mandatory for anyone who has played the game before. I pray to god they fix this dumpster fire before its too late, I can't properly put into words how utterly disappointed I am. :[    … Expand
  4. jcook89
    Aug 14, 2015
    0
    This game could be so goooood I love magic and haven't played in forever. The surest best way to make a terrible free to play game is to make it so you have no choice but to drop cash at the beginning. I get it these take money to make but hear me out. Games that are free to play but that let you make significant progress before you WANT to pay to continue feel fair and enjoyable. GamesThis game could be so goooood I love magic and haven't played in forever. The surest best way to make a terrible free to play game is to make it so you have no choice but to drop cash at the beginning. I get it these take money to make but hear me out. Games that are free to play but that let you make significant progress before you WANT to pay to continue feel fair and enjoyable. Games that will crush you on easy and give you 5 coins if you somehow win making it basically impossible to just chill and play and enjoy and get wrapped up in it. I wanted to like this game sooooo much. SO disappointed greed=epic fail… Expand
  5. kolson2127
    Sep 30, 2015
    4
    so here is where I start with this free to own but if u really want to win at all in this game u have to spend money and in all honesty I would rather just pay the 10 or 15 dollars and buy it out right its tedious to earn the coins and its near impossible to be some of the AI with the "arch type decks" like wtf why should I have to play the decks you design for me when I always end upso here is where I start with this free to own but if u really want to win at all in this game u have to spend money and in all honesty I would rather just pay the 10 or 15 dollars and buy it out right its tedious to earn the coins and its near impossible to be some of the AI with the "arch type decks" like wtf why should I have to play the decks you design for me when I always end up drowning in mana I would never in my entire life put 24 land in a 60 card deck that makes no sense what so ever (unless it was a green mana land ramp deck in that case totally fine) but seriously how am I supposed to do the special quests for these bonus coins if I cant even get a hand to beat an "easy" AI the easy should mean a guarantied win every time to test out decks really. then the packs yeah you can buy the packs with legit money I get it pay to win because i mean in that case i might as well just play the game out right and do the real life thing but yeah i have played since release on and off and have bought just as many packs as my friend at work has (with the in game currency cuz screw spending money on that) and he has all the planeswalkers and i haven't gotten one seems so legit this whole random crap is why i don't buy actual packs in the stores anymore. but on the positive side of the game the actual build your own deck portion where you fully customize your deck is amazing (only if i had more cards though) but i have seen some decks run so flawlessly that i wont play the game for a week or two at a time because by turn 5 i am decked, dead, or cant pull a creator out (makes for a real enjoyable experience when they put u at rank 1 in the pvp scale against a 35+)… Expand
  6. BestNoob
    Feb 18, 2020
    1
    All the Magic (also MTGA) games are just so heavily buged and bad explained and inbalanced its horrible to play.

    I cannot recommend this.

    All the bugs, worse explained card effects etc. just not needed, could be easily improved, but developers do not care about.

    And also the hughe inbalance caused of the new overpowered card expansions ...
  7. Charlemagne
    May 31, 2017
    0
    f2p treadmill... finally uninstalled it. Limited cards, limited in how many cards you can win per day, endless bugs you frequently have to Ctrl+Alt+Del out of. And whatever effort you put in you aren't progressing in the real mtgo, this is just a side game. The interface is also quite annoying.
  8. XiongLee
    Feb 15, 2016
    2
    The game can be fun to a certain point and can teach the mechanics of the game. It's most frustrating when you can't progress further because you're limited to drawing only land cards or monster cards with only 2-3 land cards and then get beat by the AI who tends to draw near perfect hands (even land to creature/spell ratio) every game. Gave up on the game when I got stuck in story mode,The game can be fun to a certain point and can teach the mechanics of the game. It's most frustrating when you can't progress further because you're limited to drawing only land cards or monster cards with only 2-3 land cards and then get beat by the AI who tends to draw near perfect hands (even land to creature/spell ratio) every game. Gave up on the game when I got stuck in story mode, Liliana vs Raven. I was drawing lands with 2-3 creatures and then drawing a bunch of lands with no creatures or drawing creatures with 2-3 lands followed by a bunch of creatures for 15 straight games. Not sure if this was intended but it got annoying fast.… Expand
  9. Lannn
    Jul 31, 2016
    2
    I love MtG. I have loved MtG for years, and I will say this about the 'free' to play Origins - if you really like Magic, and you're familiar with it, give it a whirl until you're tired of it. Then go back to one of the other digital versions of the game. This one really, honestly is not worth putting any money into. The constant online requirements, the sparse rewards for time/moneyI love MtG. I have loved MtG for years, and I will say this about the 'free' to play Origins - if you really like Magic, and you're familiar with it, give it a whirl until you're tired of it. Then go back to one of the other digital versions of the game. This one really, honestly is not worth putting any money into. The constant online requirements, the sparse rewards for time/money invested, the 'pay to win' strategy in full swing, the crashing servers, the lack of rewards for playing with friends... I'd rather buy actual cards for the kind of money I'd need to put down to really enjoy this game, and even then, I don't think the sets and cards on display are actually anything to write home about.

    The main campaign has you playing with set decks, against set decks. To build your own deck, you need to unlock booster packs. There are six cards in a pack. Granted, none of those are going to be land cards, but considering the FIFTEEN cards you usually get in actual, physical booster packs, this feels... sparse. A single booster pack costs 150 in-game currency. You get 5-15 currency for winning 'solo' matches against AI opponents. No matter the supposed difficulty setting you play on, matches can range from fast-paced and easy to prolonged and tedious. There are bonus challenges that can get you somewhere more in the vicinity of 50-80 currency/gold, but they are irregular.

    The problem is, the game encourages you to build a deck based on strategy, but there is basically no way to ensure you actually get cards that are sufficient to any kind of engaging play. Even in the real world, gaming boutiques will often sell individual cards if players really want to build decks around them. Ordinarily I would just be happy to carry on and gradually unlock more and more cards, but the snail's pace is tiresome, and I can't imagine beginners find trying to build a workable deck anything other than impossible. A friend of mine who used to play ages ago and just recently got back into to it had a wealth of trouble that the game's tutorial (which is unskippable, yeesh) was just inadequate for.

    In a good, dynamic Magic game, losing can be as interesting as winning (though, obviously more disappointing). Some tedium is inevitable just because of how the game is set up. Bad luck on the draw could net you endless handfuls of land or no land at all, four cards of a much-needed type could never once fall into your hand, your opponent could hit pay dirt right out of the gate and just sweep victory out from under you. But Magic Duels: Origins manages to be 90% tedium. The game's initial story mode gives you examples of one each of the basic colour decks to play with and upgrade as you go along... but you don't keep them outside of the campaign.

    I fully expected those five decks to be the starter kit, but (and it was tricky to tell, because there's no way to see the content of your deck while you're playing the story) there are definitely cards that were in those decks that did not show up in my inventory. Instead I seemed to unlock the world's most lackluster starter pack, and proceeded to play through in an effort to unlock more cards.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but spending hours grinding for, like, 3% of a deck that can actually get me through a decent number of matches is not fun. 'Oh, that card looks useful!' I say. Too bad there is only one of it, or nothing complimentary to go with it, and any potential benefits of playing digital versus just buying the real deal vanish in a puff of smoke.

    I understand that the game wants to make money. My modest proposal is that they just go about it in a non-dickish way. Sell the game for money. Or sell specific cards, for as much as a booster pack. Let people decide if they want to spend 150 gold on six random cards, or one specific card. Don't try and make your players suffer just so they'll pay to ease the misery, that's liable to chase players away. Especially new ones.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

95
#95 Best PC Game of 2015
98
#98 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. CD-Action
    Nov 15, 2015
    65
    A great way to enter the world of Magic: The Gathering, but due to some simplifications and design choices that’s pretty much all Magic Duels is good for. [11/2015, p.59]
  2. Pelit (Finland)
    Sep 9, 2015
    79
    The lightweight free-to-play version of the Magic the Gathering misses, above all things, a bigger card pool to be interesting. [Sept 2015]
  3. Eurogamer Italy
    Aug 28, 2015
    70
    With Magic Duels: Origins, Wizards of the Coast tries a new beginning for the digital series, managing to build a solid game that will probably satisfy most players’ needs. That said it’s too early to praise unconditionally, as future updates will be vital for the health of the game.
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