Game review: Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013

Hello there my followers and readers! Today I'll be writing about something kind of new. Something that I've never wrote about. A card game!

Yep, that's right! I'll be reviewing Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013. I know It's kind of weird for me to jump from FPS games and RPG games to card games, but what can I say? If i get a chance to review, I'll do so!

A bit about the game and developers.
MGT:Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is actually a game based on a real life strategy card game called, yes you've guessed it, Magic The Gathering. It was made by Stainless Games but It's being published by Wizards of the Coast. They are the original owner of MTG card game, and of Dungeon and Dragons board game. So yea, they are pretty famous.

About Gameplay. 

MTG: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is a card game in which you have to beat certain campaign enemies to unlock new decks. You can always pay with real money, but I think that beating campaign bosses is always much more fun! Gameplay of this game is pretty simple - pick a card you want and woala, you do it until you lose or win the game. And therefore, I'll talk a bit more about game's features and explain the game a bit more for those who do not know it.

So, MTG is based on 5 colors which are called mana. Blue, Green, Red, Black and White. All of them have their own strengths and weakness. Everyone should pick a mana that would go with their play style the best. My girl, for example, chose blue and white combination because she loves strong creatures and great defense, while i chose green and black because i love numerous, big creatures and dark spells that allow me to re-summon my fallen creatures. So you chose the play style you want!

In MTG:DotP 2013 you can't build your own deck which is good on one hand, and bad on the other. Good - everyone is the same. Bad - it, in my opinion, gets very boring after a while. You can always get more expansions (DLC's) to get more decks as I have, but once again, it still gets kind of boring after a while.

To unlock a deck you first need to beat campaigns. That can be a bit tricky because some bosses are very tough to beat and you need to have a lot of luck in your cards and you gotta think of a good strategy at the same moment. Once you unlock a deck, you need to use it often to be able to unlock all cards in it. Each deck starts with 60 cards, but you can unlock 30 more by beating either campaigns with it, or playing online with friends.

Multiplayer has three different game modes. Two-headed giant, Free for All and Planeschase. In Two-headed giant you team up with your friend (girlfriend in my case) and you battle against other two players or two bots. You and your teammate share an amount of 30 HP in stead of normal 20. The same goes for your opponents. This mode is very fun to play.
Free for all is a game mode in which you go 1 vs 1 with the other player.
Planeschase is a very confusing multiplayer game mode. Even I am still not fully sure how it works. There's a pack of cards in the middle of the table. There are 4 people at one game, everyone for themselves. You pick up one card (Planeswalk) and it may either give you a boost to your current turn, it might take your hp or creatures away, or it will simply do nothing. It's all about luck in the little dice that each of the players has to toss.

MTG has five main phases. Upkeep, in which you untap all creatures and mana that you've used in the earlier turn, main phase in which you cast enchants, powerful spells and summon stealthy rogues or gigantic wolves. After main phase there is a combat phase in which you chose with which creatures do you want to attack your opponent. Your opponent can then chose if he wants to block your creatures or not. If he wants to, he has to point which creature of his will block which creature that you control. After attack-block phase, there is another main phase in which you can also summon any spells or creatures that you weren't able to, or didn't want to in the first main phase. And then there's the end phase, in which you actually do nothing. In all of this phases, you or your opponent can press "stop timer", which will then stop the current phase and allow you to cast any instant spells that you wanted to.

I can't really teach you how to play MTG over a review, but luckily the tutorial in this game is so good that you will learn everything from it.

Graphic and Audio
Now I can't really say much about graphic since its a card game. Everything you see are cards. But visuals on them are beautiful and that's one of a lot of reasons why i just love Magic The Gathering in general. Songs on the other hand, in this game, is great! Some of the audio might get a bit boring, but most of it is just wonderful and I love to listen to it while i play.

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Unique gameplay.
- Beautiful visuals on the cards.
- Very helpful tutorials for those who have yet to learn.
- Various decks to chose from.
- Fun multiplayer gameplay.
- In some games you can see foil cards which add a nice flashing effect to the game.

Cons:
- Some decks can only be gained by buying DLC's.
- Sometimes timer is just too fast, while the other times it's too slow.

Overall grade: 9/10

Extra Info: As a long term Magic the Gathering fan, I suggest you to get this game! If you want to play Magic the gathering, but don't want to spend fortune on Magic Online, or on MTG in real life, then this game is for you. It's very fun and great, and i deeply recommend it!

Wolfie



 Also, there's one great shop which offers a lot of collectable cards and items for Magic The Gathering, and for other things! I really like it and I hope that you'll also check it out!