If you're a long-time MTG fan, there's a lot to like and a few things to dislike about this game. If you're new to MTG, please note that this game does not give you the whole MTG experience. The reason I say both of the above is that in this particular game you cannot create your own deck. A lot of the fun in MTG for many fans is creating a unique or at least personalized deck. There areIf you're a long-time MTG fan, there's a lot to like and a few things to dislike about this game. If you're new to MTG, please note that this game does not give you the whole MTG experience. The reason I say both of the above is that in this particular game you cannot create your own deck. A lot of the fun in MTG for many fans is creating a unique or at least personalized deck. There are so many cards and so many interesting strategies in MTG that provided one has the cards, one can come up with a vast number of different winning (or losing) strategies. Building your own killer deck feels great, but alas you can't do that here. That aside, what the game does give you as far as decks and gameplay is very nice. And Duels won't bankrupt you the way constantly buying MTG booster packs could, so that's a plus.
In a nutshell, Duels of the Planeswalkers has you use any of a variety of unlockable decks in a series of duels against increasingly difficult opponents (read: their decks get better). There are also a number of puzzle challenges where you are presented with an end-game situation and you have to figure out the correct play in order to win. Furthermore, there are online modes including a co-op campaign and 2-, 3-, or 4-player free-for-all matches, and two-headed giant mode in which two players per side share one increased pool of total life points.
The decks provided by the game run the gamut of what an experienced MTG player might expect. There's the always popular red "burn" deck featuring goblins as cheap fast attackers. There's the white deck (my favorite so far) which goes with a theme of flying creatures and life gaining. The green deck with land acceleration, wurms, and token creatures. The blue deck with counters and spells for all occasions. The black deck with some nasty and annoying creatures that tend to come back from the dead and some discard effects to add to the feeling of desperation. Later on you get multi-color decks; not having unlocked those I can't comment, but multi-color decks tend to be even better at winning.
Each time you win a duel with a deck, you unlock a new card for that deck as well, until you unlock them all. These unlocks are very nice, giving you some primo spells, creatures, and even artifacts. You can replay any campaign duel you've already beaten, so by doing that repeatedly you can work on improving a particular deck. MTG newbies, note that replaying the same opponent can be a totally different experience than before since every game depends on which particular cards get drawn from the deck, thus keeping it interesting.
One critical element of MTG is the timing of plays. Certain spells are only effective if played at the right time. The game gives you the ability to accomplish this by means of a 3-second timer that appears every time you could theoretically play a spell or take some other action. You can pause the timer with the square button.
Other than the lack of ability to build your own deck, I recommend this game to both fans and newbies to MTG. Also purchasable separately are the three add-on packs that give you even more decks to play around with, more puzzle challenges, and more campaign levels (and 3 trophies per add-on).… Expand
Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the PlaneswalkersYour Score0 out of 10User Score
