[MTG] Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013

Superbeard wrote:

Also on a completely unrelated note, I find it very irritating that I can't use basic text formatting like properly quoting a post. Is that because I'm new?

Yes. Keep on posting, and it will come.

So what's the multiplayer like on this one? (someone please say Async!)

Outlandish wrote:

Okay, what the heck happened to balance in the years since I quit m:tg? A 4/5 critter for 3 green mana, with no drawbacks, and it's not even rare!? Still, thanks to a poor AI decision I crunched it, but that thing should have won the game by itself. On a positive note, I was 19th in the world (single player ipad) at one point, so nice to play it before everyone wakes up!

Power inflation. Got to give people a reason to keep buying cards, so every expansion gets just a liiiiiiittle more powerful.

Also, damn you Apple people. Steam version doesn't unlock for another four hours, at which time I'll be at work.

Quote: hbi2k
"Power inflation. Got to give people a reason to keep buying cards, so every expansion gets just a liiiiiiittle more powerful."

And then the developers realize that it's gotten just a bit *too* powerful, and you get a set like Ravnica

Outlandish wrote:

Okay, what the heck happened to balance in the years since I quit m:tg? A 4/5 critter for 3 green mana, with no drawbacks, and it's not even rare!? Still, thanks to a poor AI decision I crunched it, but that thing should have won the game by itself. On a positive note, I was 19th in the world (single player ipad) at one point, so nice to play it before everyone wakes up!

I haven't fired up the game yet, but how powerful a vanilla 4/5 is will depend heavily on the playing environment. If it's a block with a lot of kill/bounce creature cards, that 4/5 becomes a lot less useful. But yeah, power creep is an issue. So long as the power creeps upward for all colors equally, though, it's less of a concern. (That never happens, sadly. Magic's designers have consistently been in love with blue and black for years because that's where the neatest interactions and powers are centered.)

I bought this for Steam, did I dun goof?

I downloaded an ipad version but it's in spanish and honestly the translation is not very good, sounds silly.

I played the iPad version for a bit. It's mostly well-done, although the interface feels a bit fiddly. It has a weird habit of selecting cards for me to view when I haven't touched anything. It leaves me feeling both like I don't have enough control and that I'm having to manage too much stuff.

I'm slowly but surely making my way through the various settings and such that need to be turned off to make the game more robust (like safe-targeting, because you might sometimes actually want to zap one of your own creatures).

Not a bad port, overall.

OK, I feel a little silly, but this is the first time I've pre-ordered a game via steam. Now that the game is available I wanted to kick of the download while I was at work so I could play it when I got home. But I only see "Magic 2013 Pre-order" in my games list with no option to download the game, so I'm a little confused?

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, I confirmed that it is in fact available to play now via steam.
EDIT2: Went back 2h later, restarted steam and it's available. Sorry to waste your time. Sucks that a restart was required though.

Superbeard wrote:

EDIT2: Went back 2h later, restarted steam and it's available. Sorry to waste your time. Sucks that a restart was required though.

Was actually about to suggest that, it's a common issue.

Spent an hour last night customizing the two decks that were completely unlocked when I first fired up the game before getting called into work for an emergency. Now all I want is today's shift to end so I can finally test drive them!

Superbeard wrote:

Spent an hour last night customizing the two decks that were completely unlocked when I first fired up the game before getting called into work for an emergency. Now all I want is today's shift to end so I can finally test drive them!

White and green were fully unlocked for me, was it the same for you?

Quote Jeff-66
"White and green were fully unlocked for me, was it the same for you?"

Yeah, probably has something to do with owning ver. 2012 I suppose.

Edit, I really like the idea of that lifegain deck, but after giving the two decks a test drive I'll probably go through the campaign with the other locked decks.

Superbeard wrote:

Quote Jeff-66
"White and green were fully unlocked for me, was it the same for you?"

Yeah, probably has something to do with owning ver. 2012 I suppose.

Edit, I really like the idea of that lifegain deck, but after giving the two decks a test drive I'll probably go through the campaign with the other locked decks.

One deck got unlocked when you preordered. One deck gets unlocked ( even now ) if you own 2012.

I believe the white deck was the preorder bonus since most people only start with green and blue. Getting the entire green unlocked without having to play was probably the bonus for owning 2012.

Superbeard wrote:

Yeah, probably has something to do with owning ver. 2012 I suppose.

I was wondering if everyone got the same color decks unlocked, or if they maybe randomized it.

Was able to get a couple games in before work this morning. Thoughts:

1.) First and foremost: yup, still Magic. Still fun if you're looking for more of that. Still won't change anyone's minds if that's not what they're looking for.

2.) Not sure why having full decks unlocked from the get-go is considered some kind of bonus or reward, considering that the way you unlock more cards is by playing the game, which is presumably what you're there to do in the first place. For my purposes, it's almost like having two decks taken out of the game, since my first instinct when I see "30/30 cards unlocked" is to say, "Whelp, that one's done. No need to play with that any more 'cause there's no more to unlock." So to combat that, I decided that I'll start out playing with the standard version of the fully-unlocked deck, then swap in one or two "extra" cards after each match, win or lose, until I've got the deck the way I want it. Basically simulating the unlocking mechanic even with the cards already unlocked.

3.) I love the new green "make one of your creatures fight one of the opponent's creatures" effect. Gives me one more option to take out annoying fliers if I haven't drawn a Spider.

4.) Heard a couple of people express disappointment that there's no option for asynchronous multiplayer. While I think it would be nice as an option, I sort of don't think it would work very well because that's just plain not how Magic is designed. How obnoxious would it be to log in, cast a spell, then not be able to do anything else until the other person checks in because the game has to give them the opportunity to play an instant in response? I mean, I guess if there are people who play PBEM Dungeons and Dragons then anything's possible, but that doesn't sound like a great way to play the game to me.

That said, I think there's definitely an opening in the market for an online CCG game in the style of Magic, but designed from the ground up around asynchronous multiplayer. IIRC there's a Facebook game sort of like that; I forget what it was called, I heard about it on the GWJCC a year or two ago and tried it for a while, but it fell into that free-to-play trap where you reach a point where the game is very clearly designed to not be fun any more unless you're putting money into it, which I'd be willing to do, except that there's a much-too-direct correlation between how much money you've spent and how powerful you are. Pay-to-win, in other words. I don't mind putting some money into the system in exchange for a fun game that I'm enjoying, but the metagame of "how little money can I spend and still be effective?" isn't fun for me.

I'm not a game designer so I don't know what the solution is, but I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else knows of a game that's tried to tackle the problem and how successful they were.

hbi2k wrote:

3.) I love the new green "make one of your creatures fight one of the opponent's creatures" effect. Gives me one more option to take out annoying fliers if I haven't drawn a Spider.

Lure. One of my favorite effects in the game. Brutal if you combine it with something like, oh say, Darksteel Colossus. I make use of a similar effect from Duelling Grounds in a deck I call Stoic Vigilance. It's one of my personal favorites, a ton of fun to play and really hard to beat once it gets set up (and still super annoying and dangerous if it doesn't get the lockdown).

I'm tempted to get 2013, but I didn't play much of 2012 so I'm on the fence. Also, bravo WotC for adding manual land tapping and then having all mono-colored decks in the game. /slowclap

While Lure is great to be sure, being able to specifically target one blocker for your attacker is a real boon especially when it's so cheap. Not to mention that you can orchestrate it so that non-indestructible / non-regenerating creatures can survive. But of course you probably already knew that.

Quote ahrezmendi:
"...having all mono-colored decks in the game"

I haven't had a chance to look: are they really ALL mono-coloured because that would be facepalmingly hilarious.

Superbeard wrote:

While Lure is great to be sure, being able to specifically target one blocker for your attacker is a real boon especially when it's so cheap. Not to mention that you can orchestrate it so that non-indestructible / non-regenerating creatures can survive. But of course you probably already knew that.

Quote ahrezmendi:
"...having all mono-colored decks in the game"

I haven't had a chance to look: are they really ALL mono-coloured because that would be facepalmingly hilarious.

Here is the full set of decks, including unlocks, straight from Wizards. Count it - 1 multi-color deck, and it's only 2 colors.

I meant the more general Lure style ability, it's just Lure (the card) was the only link I could find quickly off-hand. IIRC there's an equipment which gives the same effect, and an Aura. There are also a number of creatures (as has been pointed out), which you can then give Deathtouch or something else to make it nasty.

Oh yeah, Lure is great. Trust me, I was one of those dorks who thought his Venom/Lure/Regeneration deck was the height of ingenuity back in the day. (-:

I believe Prey Upon is the card hbi2k was talking about.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Here is the full set of decks, including unlocks, straight from Wizards. Count it - 1 multi-color deck, and it's only 2 colors.

While that is silly, they might be planning more multicolor decks in expansions. How'd 2012 fare in that respect?

Cragmyre wrote:

I believe Prey Upon is the card hbi2k was talking about.

Ah, that's a bit different, but still cool. Particularly cool if you combine it with Gisela, or simpler a Furnace of Rath. Hmm, I may have my next deck idea...

Demyx wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

Here is the full set of decks, including unlocks, straight from Wizards. Count it - 1 multi-color deck, and it's only 2 colors.

While that is silly, they might be planning more multicolor decks in expansions. How'd 2012 fare in that respect?

It got quite a few as DLC as I recall. Still, this is the top billed feature of 2013, and the most requested feature by players, so pretty poor form to release it with only 1 deck that can actually use it.

EDIT: Oh man, I think I may have to buy the PC version just for the promo card. Serra Avatar + Lifegain + Brion Stoutarm.

Quote Demyx:
"While that is silly, they might be planning more multicolor decks in expansions. How'd 2012 fare in that respect?"

The core game had 3 or 4 dual-colour decks, and one tri-colour deck. Not sure what the DLC / expansion decks had.

Other observations:

The menu UI is still absolutely terrible and console-ized. Did nobody bother to tell them that it was totally !@#$ed last time so they could fix it?

The loading is terrible when you first boot the game, but much better once you're actually in. Thus is Newton's Law of Conservation of Load Times maintained.

Playing the campaign. No clue why anyone testing this thought the "encounters" we're fun or strategic in anyway... I've tried beating Double Trouble for 3 hours now?? Having to beat a deck consisting of one color and 16 over powered cheap cards of the same type is crazy

TheGameguru wrote:

Playing the campaign. No clue why anyone testing this thought the "encounters" we're fun or strategic in anyway... I've tried beating Double Trouble for 3 hours now?? Having to beat a deck consisting of one color and 16 over powered cheap cards of the same type is crazy

I haven't tried that one yet, though I did the one with the birds. Once I figured out what was going on, I switched to the blue deck and was able to beat it. I think the point of those was to build/use a deck that could counter the encounter the best. Though I still prefer puzzles

I'm having a huge problem with I think the first green encounter? I'm trying to beat it with the blue Crosswinds deck so I can keep unlocking cards with it but I'm not sure it's going to work.

It's the one where she plays 1/1 creature, 2/2 creature, 3/3 creature, 4/3 creature, Overrun. It's really irritating because it feels like YOU need to just be lucky enough to draw the exact thing to counter that. I really don't like playing an opponent who always has the best possible card combo and never gets land screwed or suboptimal cards.

Demyx wrote:

I'm having a huge problem with I think the first green encounter? I'm trying to beat it with the blue Crosswinds deck so I can keep unlocking cards with it but I'm not sure it's going to work.

It's the one where she plays 1/1 creature, 2/2 creature, 3/3 creature, 4/3 creature, Overrun. It's really irritating because it feels like YOU need to just be lucky enough to draw the exact thing to counter that. I really don't like playing an opponent who always has the best possible card combo and never gets land screwed or suboptimal cards.

Well, if you are playing blue, and you know when overrun is coming, you can hold onto a counter. But you will have to figure out how to deal with the creatures on the table. :\

Demyx wrote:

I'm having a huge problem with I think the first green encounter? I'm trying to beat it with the blue Crosswinds deck so I can keep unlocking cards with it but I'm not sure it's going to work.

It's the one where she plays 1/1 creature, 2/2 creature, 3/3 creature, 4/3 creature, Overrun. It's really irritating because it feels like YOU need to just be lucky enough to draw the exact thing to counter that. I really don't like playing an opponent who always has the best possible card combo and never gets land screwed or suboptimal cards.

Well, if you are playing blue, and you know when overrun is coming, you can hold onto a counter. But you will have to figure out how to deal with the creatures on the table. :\

Cragmyre wrote:

Well, if you are playing blue, and you know when overrun is coming, you can hold onto a counter. But you will have to figure out how to deal with the creatures on the table. :

The blue deck at this point only has one counter that can take out overrun (cancel) so it's a crapshoot whether I actually draw it.

Kraken Hatchlings, Fog Bank and Dispel help with creatures but again, a crapshoot.

I have to get those exact things and enough lands to play them, so I feel like I'm just waiting for the perfect combination to come up. I nearly got it when I had three Krakens out and a Cancel but only could draw two lands in five turns (whereas I'm normally land-flooded with this deck).

I'm not sure how much I could actually edit the deck to help with this problem. I should check to see if I can remove less-helpful things and if I can add more copies of Cancel.

Demyx wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

Here is the full set of decks, including unlocks, straight from Wizards. Count it - 1 multi-color deck, and it's only 2 colors.

While that is silly, they might be planning more multicolor decks in expansions. How'd 2012 fare in that respect?

I'm actually quite glad to hear that. My favorite form of MTG is single color theme decks. I'm obviously not a hardcore player, so I prefer to keep it somewhat simple. I thought they went a bit overboard in 2012 with all the multi-colored decks, as well as artifact decks, and those uber-powered decks.