Hello there friends,
If you're anything like me, at some point you played a collectible card game called Magic The Gathering. You saw some twisted art, a complicated system that took a few lumps and bumps to learn, and once you get the swing of it, the game takes off almost as fast as the money leaving your pocket for the next booster pack.
So when I hear that someone released Another Magic The Gathering game, my heart cringed as I remember the horrible Battlemage game for the original Playstation. Aside from the single release from Micropose back in the 90s, there has not been a Magic video game that has not felt like a bastardized child of the game I know and love (Who's collection is 70,000+ cards strong since 3rd edition).
But now comes a gleaming light, Magic The Gathering: Duel of the Plainswalkers. The game runs smooth, works with a lot of cards I came to love as the game evolved, and has a number of decks that start off with a good foundation for newcomers. It's relatively easy to get into, works in surprising detail for all the rules that can overwhelm a new player are brought into simple the understand phases. The visuals are a nice take and the pace is casual enough for you to get by calmly thinking your next move.
I was falling in love with the game all over again...
So what happened?
Part of the heart and soul of Magic is making your own decks. Yes, there are a lot of deck-lists out there, and that's fine for those of you who need the absolute best min-maxed deck according to someone's research and genius (Or even tournament results). But there are a great number of us who look at the cards available and think 'How can I make a deck out of this?'. Those people who enjoy building custom decks and seeing how they fair are the foundation of the game.
Duels of the Plainswalkers however, has a limited editing system for the pre-built decks it has, and you are only really adding cards. To those of you who dont know how this is significant, let me explain:
The rules of magic say your deck has to of a minimum card limit (60 cards). Good decks are built with some consistancy, tending to favour only 60 cards and no more, because they want to increase their chances of drawing the cards they may need later on. The more you add to a deck, the harder and harder it is to draw a decent hand. This is particularly bad if you need a particular spell soon, you may need to draw through more cards to get it.
And to be frank: The cards that were chosen to be in this game aren't far broken, in fact they are all pretty standard cards. Even the best players and deck builders arnt making 2nd turn kill decks, so why limit us to playing pre-made decks which we can only make worse?
One of the key reasons people play Magic as a product is to deck-build, so why would you decide that custom deck building should be at the bottom of your development?
This is one of those games that I mourn for. There was so much promise, so much effort and some true possibilities of greatness (Especially for an arcade title). So why would the development team bite themselves like this is beyond my understanding.
- MacabreDerek
I'm Not That Big On Magic
I've never really understood it/understood why it's so popular. Poke'mon Trading Cards and Yu-Gi-Oh I liked far more. In fact, I still boot up my old Poke'mon Trading Card game every once in a while...
Captain Raccoon to the rescue!
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You can give your thanks to WotC
Well, first off, as far as North America is concerned, Magic pretty much began it all when it came down to the CCG formula. You would not have YuGiOh or the Pokemon cardgame as you know them now without Magic being the foundation. You're talking about a game that was already 2-3 years in development when Pokemon came to Gameboy.
First off, the base of the game was solid enough to warrant a fan base for 16 years and still going strong. It was not bound by conventional wisdom or another property license to rush it through the printers. It was a labour of love being printed in a garage that took off, and found the basis for most CCGs you'll find today.
Second, you have to understand that Magic took a simple formula, and did everything it could to come up with several methods of archiving victory. Unlike Pokemon at it's conception as a CCG, Magic was already finding compedative ground using all kinds of methods of play, be it a discard/megrim deck, burn, white winnie, agro, beat down, elves, slivers, goblins, counters, lockdown/stasis, poison tokens, etc. There was just so much even at the beginning that you could make decks and run into all sorts of players taking diffrent approaches to the game.
Third, they developed the community around the game, and constantly brought out revisions and new 'blocks' of cards to expand on new ideas. The community was loud and strong, always looking for new ideas, new applications of old cards, new cards to try and exploit, and an over-flow of discussion and contacts that really brought people together. If you can make a fanbase for a game, you done good. If you make a community around your game, you as a developer are set, if you only listen very carfully and take into consideration the feedback you receive.
Pokemon's depth at the time involved little more than draw mechanics and creature type (Still remember old Beedrill rush). WotC where given a short deadline to create a CCG to capitalize on the hugely successful franchise, but where not given enough time to truely playtest it and so it really became a rush production.
YuGiOh was so flawed in it's inception that you could actually make a first-turn kill deck by buying 3 Yugi starter decks (Last Will/Cannon Soldier) to which they had to put a complete revision on Last Will's wording because of this, and put so many cards on a restricted/banned list for tournaments it was ridiculous...
Anyway, yes I played all three, and the Starwars and Battletech CCGs. It's almost sad that the magic behind such CCGs seems all but gone now.
Probably why I died a little inside when I played Duels of Plainswalkers lol.
Oh well
I played the demo and pretty much came to the same conclusion. Overall, the game is done well. But a 17 card sidebar isn't the same as normal deck customization. It just doesn't cut it.
It's a shame, because the game is pretty good otherwise. I'm not sure if they had a touch of insanity, or if this is some kind of programming shortcut where they don't have to anticipate unexpected combos or rule usage. Either way...sigh.
MTG = meh
I've had on-again-off-again relationships with Magic: The Gathering in the past. I used to love building and playing, but then my funds weren't nearly enough to buy boosters and expansions to keep up with other players - so I stopped. Then I got a whole bunch of commons and uncommons from a friend who won a box of boosters in a tournament and didn't want them. So I started again, then stopped.
I've always loved the artwork and thoroughly enjoy the joke sets and my sliver deck, but honestly, I could never see me playing a video game where you play cards (well, except Uno)
Bees. My God.
Hmm
Yeah, it's pretty much impossible to keep up. Even if you assemble a good deck, some new expansion will come out and throw you off. Or if you're hardcore it can go the other way, where you need out of print cards to compete well. Oy.
In retrospect, I wonder if they intentionally dumb down the deck creation in the video game versions so as not to make the physical card game inferior. If you could freely customize, it would be an amazing bargain for $10, and you wouldn't even need to buy cards anymore.
You have to stop and consider the cards avalible
One thing I find with the card list available is they are mostly basic 9th-10th edition stuff, cards that are a foundation to build upon rather than any one broken concept (Anyone remember Ravager decks?)
This could never replace the game we all know and love, they can never be able to continue in any other format without falling to the way-side, so with such a truly limited card-base, deck customization should be relatively balanced.
Again, they tore out the heart and soul that is Magic.
Who knows
Who knows, maybe they'll release boosters or expansions as DLC later on, if the game picks up.
Bees. My God.
I understand dumbing down deck building..
It's done to keep everything on par so there aren't really any super decks in the game.
My beef with that is it makes the game nearly 100% luck though because if you draw one or two cards you can win any game most of the time, some of the high end cards are disgusting...
The last are the fags that quit just before you beat them and rob you of a win.
Interesting thing is:
You have a Elf deck that if you look over it, is hands down the best deck in the game. If you want your best over-all chance to beat most of the decks avalible from the pre-construct, it's the one you choose.
As far as 'Rage Quitters' go, you're running into them in every game you play of every day you play in every way you play. They are a phenomena of online gaming, a by-product of the anonymity and distance between players, and an understanding that the only gaming experience it's ruining is yours.
This is why you only play
This is why you only play your friends online.
I've never gotten the appeal to play strangers online. I tried it once about 4 years ago, and I've never had the desire to again (for the above reasons). It's the LEAST fun way to enjoy a game. Playing FRIENDS online... now that's another story.
New Rules/Old Rules?
Hey,
Long time player of MTG. I was just wondering if the game utilized the new rules. If you hadn't heard, just recently they revamped a lot of the game. The main rule change was no mana burn. I personally hate these new changes, but what are you going to do? I believe Hasbro feels the game is to complicated and wants to "Yugioh" it up for new players. Oh well, just my opinion.
Psychotaku